Starfleet Design Bureau

[Candesce]

if this maths holds true, then we could make a ship with twice the mass of it and still get high manoeuvrability.

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Mmm. We could.

But what are we getting by building twice as much ship as we need?

It's not twice as expensive, bulk is cheap and we're not doubling the costs of phasers or the warp core, but we're still going to see a more of the smaller ship design built.

 

[Tank man]

Mmm. We could.

But what are we getting by building twice as much ship as we need?

It's not twice as expensive, bulk is cheap and we're not doubling the costs of phasers or the warp core, but we're still going to see a more of the smaller ship design built.

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It depends on the intended role, for a long ranged explorer (hence needing the extra endurance and facilities provided by the volume and mass) that can pull battlecruiser duties I'd say the trade off in absolute number of ships built is worth it.

 

[DeltaV11.2]

Mmm. We could.

But what are we getting by building twice as much ship as we need?

It's not twice as expensive, bulk is cheap and we're not doubling the costs of phasers or the warp core, but we're still going to see a more of the smaller ship design built.

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Higher defense score, ability to mount additional torpedoes, adding enough modules to convince Starfleet to build the things.

 

[Golgotha]

The question is, if comparing two ships with the same maneuverability, does the one with the greater bulk or smaller profile get a higher defense score?

 

[LOLROFL]

The problem is, unless we get a phaser upgrade, a bigger ship only provides more firepower insofar as it carries more torpedo launchers. Tougher, sure, but not shootier.

And a bigger ship is going to have a harder time bringing those torpedoes to bear. unless we spend more of the mass on engines.

There's certainly a degree to which we want tougher, of course; the Klingon Bird-Of-Prey design is good for putting a lot of energy on a target very quickly, especially if they bring a bunch of them. But we've just prototyped new armor and we've got a new shield design to work with.

So I'm more inclined towards high-maneuverability cruiser than anything bigger.

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I don't think a big explorer is out of the question especially if like I suspect we are getting the option for upgraded torpedoes.

Size definitely has a positive influence on ship durability. It's rather telling with how the Cygnus had a superior defense rating (32 vs 30/23) compared to the Newton or Halley/Archer despite us at the time not investing in any kind of experimental defense technologies due to it being a decent sized ship for it's time whereas the Newton and Halley/Archer are on the smaller side nowadays.

Firepower wise based on the fact that a Sagarmatha was able to hammer an ambushed D6 badly enough in the opening salvo using obsolescent weapons to turn a one sided fight into an even one I'd say that even if we were limited to our current weapons tech having a ship that can take a lot of hits to the chin and reply back in kind would be quite useful because even now the Type 1 Photons are quite potent.

Also, given the fact that the Type 1 Covariant shields were a prototype during the Halley/Archer design phase they should be much more affordable for our next design which should keep costs down if we don't have any experimental/prototype options we want to go for.

Also as mentioned by others since we picked Improved Impulse performance for our Warp 8 engines and rolled good on the Type 3 Impulse engines our next design should be quite maneuverable which should make smashing things with torpedoes and maintaining constant phaser fire much easier.

 

[Quickshot0]

How ever the drawback of large craft is less places that can build it and construction costs are substantially longer so its a cumulative reduction in number of hulls you can deploy. So the numbers could tilt quite heavily against it in bad cases. So there is a potential that a not to excessively large craft could be made in far higher numbers.

Of course we don't actually know the true state of the Federation shipyards for such things, so it's hard to properly assess.

 

[Tank man]

Starfleet certainly thought that 12 original run Constitution-class starships was enough in the prime timeline, so arguments over numbers don't entirely sway me.

 

[Skippy]

To some extent it depends if we can get two classes into production before the war starts, or just one.

In terms of the best ship for fighting the war in the near term, then it's got to be a Warp 8 escort we can crank out in large numbers. Frontal torps, frontal phasers, very high manoeuvrability - these are simply the most efficient pure combatants we can build on a cost/benefit level. As much as it was a joke, I think combining that with a small medical/scientific facility would help to add value in peacetime. (A medical bay is obviously also very useful in a war.) The Selachii and Soyuz projects took place whilst we were embroiled in a war already - we may need to work harder to convince the Federation Council if we're starting the project before shots are actually fired.

In terms of the future of Starfleet, obviously it's the new explorer design. A cutting edge flagship that can eat D7s for breakfast, with the range and speed to counterattack deep into Klingon territory. We will want to give it a full set of new technologies - ideally at least one new weapon design. But as cool as this is, and as much as it's the future, if we had to pick one ship to help us fight the war, having two escorts for every explorer might be more efficient. This is certainly borne out by the Skate, Selachii and Sabre classes - there is just nothing better in terms of pure bang for your buck.

Of course if we swap it around and go for the next explorer first, then we have a situation more similar to the Sagamartha and the Selachii, or the original NX and the Skate. We start the war with our new explorer class, and then a pure combat escort enters service basically as the war starts. The cost there is potentially a long lead-up where we have only a handful of quite expensive Warp 8 ships, if the new escort does not come into service quickly enough, putting us at a serious disadvantage in operational tempo. Then again, if we do have just enough time to start building escorts before the shooting starts, then getting the explorer into service first is probably ideal because they will take much longer to build - possibly too long in wartime.

 

[Tank man]

To some extent it depends if we can get two classes into production before the war starts, or just one.

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We could potentially get three into production, assuming something similar to the work done on the Halley/Newton and unnamed (iirc)/unstated long ranged cruiser you'd have our explorer+SanFran's & their warp eight escort, or our warp 8 escort+SanFran's & their explorer.

Assuming I'm not misunderstanding anything.

 

[DeltaV11.2]

How ever the drawback of large craft is less places that can build it and construction costs are substantially longer so its a cumulative reduction in number of hulls you can deploy. So the numbers could tilt quite heavily against it in bad cases. So there is a potential that a not to excessively large craft could be made in far higher numbers.

Of course we don't actually know the true state of the Federation shipyards for such things, so it's hard to properly assess.

Click to shrink...

I don't think facilities size is a big deal in Star Trek. Ships are normally built in space(except in movie canon) and in vacuum facilities. Unlike on earth where the maximum size of a craft is tied to the size of expensive drydocks and channels, it's not difficult to just build a bigger framework to assemble the ship in. There are things like the enclosed spacedock of a Pharos but given a Pharos is 20M tons, I think its doors are big enough to handle some generously sized ships.

 

[Vehrec]

To some extent it depends if we can get two classes into production before the war starts, or just one.

In terms of the best ship for fighting the war in the near term, then it's almost certainly Warp 8 escort we can crank out in large numbers. Frontal torps, frontal phasers, very high manoeuvrability - these are simply the most efficient pure combatants we can build on a cost/benefit level. As much as it was a joke, I think combining that with a small medical/scientific facility would help to add value in peacetime. (A medical bay is obviously also very useful in a war.) The Selachii and Soyuz projects took place whilst we were embroiled in a war already - we may need to work harder to convince the Federation Council if we're starting the project before shots are actually fired.

In terms of the future of Starfleet, obviously it's the new explorer design. A cutting edge flagship that can eat D7s for breakfast, with the range and speed to counterattack deep into Klingon territory. We will want to give it a full set of new technologies - ideally at least one new weapon design. But as cool as this is, and as much as it's the future, if we had to pick one ship to help us fight the war, having two escorts for every explorer might be more efficient. This is certainly borne out by the Skate, Selachii and Sabre classes - there is just nothing better in terms of pure bang for your buck.

Of course if we swap it around and go for the next explorer first, then we have a situation more similar to the Sagamartha and the Selachii, or the original NX and the Skate. We start the war with our new explorer class, and then a pure combat escort enters service basically as the war starts. The cost there is potentially a long lead-up where we have only a handful of quite expensive Warp 8 ships, if the new escort does not come into service quickly enough, putting us at a serious disadvantage in operational tempo. Then again, if we do have just enough time to start building escorts before the shooting starts, then getting the explorer into service first is probably ideal because they will take much longer to build - possibly too long in wartime.

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You also need to consider that we might not get either of those available for designs before the war kicks off. We might have a call for a long-range response cruiser to deal with a growing Federation, a mid-sized 'efficiency cruiser' that is neither escort nor explorer, but fits in the middle like Cygnus or Curriosity, or a 'last ride of the Warp 7 engine' design because the warp 8 drive is taking too long to bake. It's entirely possible that we won't see both of your designs before the 2240s, or even the 2250s.

 

[Candesce]

ability to mount additional torpedoes

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Are we sure our tube numbers are limited by the mass of the ship?

Based on this line from the Halley's development, I think the bigger issue is getting Starfleet to pay for the extra tubes:

Just getting approval for the second launcher was enough of a pain once Tactical got the preliminary plans for the ship and its role. They guard their photon production jealously.

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And I'm not sure they're going to authorize many more just because we've designed a bigger ship.

 

[Fouredged Sword]

I don't think facilities size is a big deal in Star Trek. Ships are normally built in space(except in movie canon) and in vacuum facilities. Unlike on earth where the maximum size of a craft is tied to the size of expensive drydocks and channels, it's not difficult to just build a bigger framework to assemble the ship in. There are things like the enclosed spacedock of a Pharos but given a Pharos is 20M tons, I think its doors are big enough to handle some generously sized ships.

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Assembly isn't the problem. How many fabrication facilities are big enough to fabricate the keel in one piece?

 

[Tank man]

And I'm not sure they're going to authorize many more just because we've designed a bigger ship.

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As that quote shows that's mostly due to a combination of role and design (I.e. highly unlikely to be able to leverage the torpedoes and highly unlikely to be in a situation where two would be justified). A big explorer would have more justification.

 

[LOLROFL]

Talking about a new long range response cruisers is kind of pointless because there should be a brand new design in production now based on what was mentioned in the last part of the Warp 8 Engine update:

The second tender is for a Long-Range Cruiser, which would more nebulously aim to rapidly respond to crises or conduct investigations over far distances. Whether this means focusing on response speed or response efficacy is an open question, with San Francisco proposing a quad-nacelle fast cruiser capable of maintaining high warp by nacelle-cycling. As a more specialist role you would be aiming to produce a smaller number of ships, but there would surely be no shortage of work for the design.

Or, if you are happy with allowing San Francisco a free pass without competition,
...

[ ] Long-Range Cruiser (Competitor: Radiant-class)

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The update clearly shows that SanFran's was going to work on that design whether we chose to submit our own or not so Starfleet's unlikely to be interesting in a new long range response cruiser unless the Radiant turns out to be a massive a trainwreck.

Our most likely designs for the future are probably a Sagarmatha or Selachii replacement as those should now be our oldest active ships.

I am personally in favor of a Sagarmatha replacement first as those have the longest lead time due to their size and as explorers they will generate plenty of value during the pre-war period whereas a Selachii replacement should be small enough to be crash built on the eve of the war where justification for allocating a ton of resources and manpower to make them should be available.

 

[DeltaV11.2]

Are we sure our tube numbers are limited by the mass of the ship?

Based on this line from the Halley's development, I think the bigger issue is getting Starfleet to pay for the extra tubes:

And I'm not sure they're going to authorize many more just because we've designed a bigger ship.

Click to shrink...

They are going to be more willing to install torpedoes on a ship that has much more of an explicit combat role and the design to make it a serious combatant. We gave them a weird orb that was always going to have bad firepower concentration and posed issues for being maneuverable enough to make good use of torpedoes. Unsurprisingly they didn't want to use much torpedo production on it.

There are also space requirements for torpedo launchers. We've run into them on some past designs.

Assembly isn't the problem. How many fabrication facilities are big enough to fabricate the keel?

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Ignoring that Star Trek ships likely don't have a keel-equivalent structural member, the Thunderchild was built with UE tech and structurally was just fine. I think we can build something pretty big with two advances in hull technology.

 

[KlavoHunter]

But as cool as this is, and as much as it's the future, if we had to pick one ship to help us fight the war, having two escorts for every explorer might be more efficient. This is certainly borne out by the Skate, Selachii and Sabre classes - there is just nothing better in terms of pure bang for your buck.

Click to shrink...

However, the Vertical Warp Core doesn't really allow us to make itty bitty proto-Defiants in this era, and nor does the Type-2 Phaser much lend itself towards an all-forward attack profile (The Newton is doing its best nonetheless, of course). Sad, because it would look super cute!

So we still want something on the smaller side, because her phasers still hit just as hard as a Dreadnought's. Gotta have High Maneuverability to dodge a lot of shit, and put the photorps on-target reliably. Ideally, we can push it all the way to Very High Maneuverability anyways, and get the most bang for our buck regarding photon torpedoes, which we may only get a single tube worth of...

 

[luckless21]

If we make a smaller ship, it should be a Dervish clone.

 

[Golgotha]

I think we need the range to strike back at the Klingons, even if we don't actually do so.
If they can raid us without any chance of a meaningful counter strike, even if we destroy their ships with ease there still is no incentive for peace for them, it just means be more careful.

 

[Skippy]

We could potentially get three into production, assuming something similar to the work done on the Halley/Newton and unnamed (iirc)/unstated long ranged cruiser you'd have our explorer+SanFran's & their warp eight escort, or our warp 8 escort+SanFran's & their explorer.

Assuming I'm not misunderstanding anything.

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Oh yeah, good point, I was forgetting San Fran.

I guess I was thinking in terms of "project timelines" more than like, discrete classes. San Francisco may simply build a competitor to our project, rather than a different ship. If San Fran designed the escort and we designed the explorer at the same time though, that might be worth considering...

...although honestly I doubt they'd do as good a job with it as we would. The Selachii and Skate were really brilliant designs.

You also need to consider that we might not get either of those available for designs before the war kicks off. We might have a call for a long-range response cruiser to deal with a growing Federation, a mid-sized 'efficiency cruiser' that is neither escort nor explorer, but fits in the middle like Cygnus or Curriosity, or a 'last ride of the Warp 7 engine' design because the warp 8 drive is taking too long to bake. It's entirely possible that we won't see both of your designs before the 2240s, or even the 2250s.

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Well sure, but I'm talking about the ideal.

Also @Sayle definitely reads the thread, so we can assume what we want to do next has a non-zero influence on what we get to design next. The explorer is definitely on the cards fairly soon because it's been discussed for ages at this point.

However, the Vertical Warp Core doesn't really allow us to make itty bitty proto-Defiants in this era, and nor does the Type-2 Phaser much lend itself towards an all-forward attack profile (The Newton is doing its best nonetheless, of course). Sad, because it would look super cute!

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Not exactly?

Like, the new warp core takes up seven decks, so you're right that we couldn't design a three deck pancake like the Selachii. But a future escort would probably end up being bigger than the Selachii anyway just due to all our ship designs getting a bit bigger. If we went for more of a thicker narrower arrowhead shape, with seven decks in the middle and then tapering out at the edges, we could fit the new core in I think.

Fundamentally "the smallest, fastest most fighty ship we can design with a Warp 8 core" is still going to be really small , really fast and really fighty. Whatever hullform gets us to that is less important.

 

[Firehawk242]

Sometimes I forget just how flat the Selachii was. Girl was shorter than some houses.

 

[TehChron]

Avoid the slugging match. Go for the quick kills against anything big enough to threaten one.

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Yeah, but you're forgetting the critical issue that universally any Klingon war is going to be fought with the Klingon's taking the initiative. Nimbleness is no guarantee against an Alpha Strike because they're going to come in weapons hot by ambush, and getting everything ready to react is by nature going to be a point of vulnerability. Now durability can be proof against that. Klingon Warbirds arent about slugging matches, they're about coming in groups, dropping disruptors and torpedos, and then going for the kill. The enemy always gets a say, and that kind of approach relies overly much on the opponent getting as little of one as possible

By its very nature, Starfleet fights defensively as the Four Years War will be, and that needs to be recognized. We already do with the logistical stuff. We need to also account for doctrine, and Starfleet just doesn't have that kind of mindset to leverage ships that dodge tank. Any such engagement is going to inevitably be a gamble, meaning that any such engagement is going to require the kind of spacedock repair time that the Pharos and Halley's just aren't equipped to speed up.

Slugging matches aren't sexy, but building around them gives the ships enough ablative and non-critical mass that it can be easily replaced in the field. We don't need to do that for every ship, but we do need to build our biggest ships to spend as little time off the front lines as possible.

Having escorts fully capable of dancing circles around their Klingon equivalents is more than ideal, in fact. It's basically the doctrine that the Sagarmatha enabled for a new generation, with new lessons to make it even more effective.

 

[Candesce]

If we want to make a big ship, I'd actually push for that diplomatic cruiser. Those need lots of auxiliary equipment.

And it's a role that can expect to need to suffer an unfortunate amount of fire.

 

[7th Hex]

While I can certainly see the use of a new explorer to replace the Sagarmatha with how old they've gotten, I'd like to throw back into the ring my idea of a combat/cartography focused light cruiser as our first warp 8 design.

We know the Kea have a "budget heavy cruiser" refit coming down the pipe in the near future when they thrown in the extra range and torpedo launcher, leaving their biggest drawback their lack of FTL speed which is going to be shared with most of our fleet anyways so it's not like they're going to be slowing them down. Between the 12 of them and however many of the 12 Sagarmatha are left I think we'll have a good base of offensive heavier combatants for the early war. We also shouldn't forget the Saladin either, while not going to be as useful pushing outward with their slower warp and low range, they are larger and more heavily armed than the Kea, while still being more maneuverable too. They should be quite decent at "holding the line" for critical systems like our Pharos stations as long as we can get them there ahead of time, and we've build 16 of them.

If we're willing to rely on those as our heavier combatants for the opening stages of the war and build a new explorer second, going for a lighter cruiser first would let us put out a greater quantity of new quality ships in the period until then. If we aim for something like 150-200,000 tons we should still be easily able to hit High maneuverability with only a couple of impulse engines thanks to the core boost and the new tech, and a lighter overall hull will reduce the cost of taking prototypes between not having as much to protect and not mounting as much either. We know that we've not new shield tech ready to prototype, and it's been just over 30 years since the Type 2 phasers were introduced and we've been using them in every design since then, so I wouldn't be surprised if we get the option for new ones too. A lighter ship will have to pay a lesser base cost of the shields that will get hit by that 25% increase, and will likely be taking less total number of phasers as well.

In peacetime, the Kea has still got quite a few decades of high quality science left in it from everything we jammed in there, with the main issue being that it's just going to be much slower to meander through space looking for things. If we make a warp 8 design that can take a quick peek while doing some stellar cartography to start filling dead zones in the map, see if there's anything unusual at a first glance and flag it for a later thorough followup, the Kea could instead spend much more of their time going directly from pre-marked weird thing to weird thing instead of having to find them the hard way themselves.

 

[Strunkriidiisk]

Yep. Though I'd probably post the link to the sv overarching discord (if I can), so not as secret really.

Unfortunately I probably won't have enough join-ees to warrant it's existence. But I still resent the destruction of the discord. It's only secret if one allows it to be. And hell, nothing stops people from discussing the quest elsewhere anyway, there's hundreds of discords with a connection to sv, any one of them could build a "cabal" or have one already.

Edit: among other measures, maybe there's a section of the site for posting invites to places, I'd have to check.

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Then I dub thee Section 31, with all the scorn that implies.