It'd help if we had Starfleet Intelligence's threat estimates as far as suspected numbers and capabilities goes.
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I wouldn't say our explorers are so expensive as to be extremely rare.
12 Sagarmatha's got built despite getting a D- in both Cost and Infrastructure back in 2175.
For comparison the Kea which had a cost score of A- and an Infrastructure score of C- also got 12 built while the even cheaper Saladin with a Cost score of S and Infrastructure A- only got 16 in the 2210s with a much richer larger Federation which could justify more hulls.
Simply put our explorers are capable enough that breaking the bank to launch a bunch of them is worth it since each one is generally capable Sciencing with our best science ships, can take on the battleships of our rivals, and can compete with dedicated engineering ships in fabrication capabilities.
It should be noted that the D7 showing up in the late 2230s to early 2240s, based on the general timelines hinted at in recent retrospectives, means Klington tech advances are accelerated; in the canon timeline these things didn't start showing up until the late 2250s. That's nearly two whole decades faster. Canon has them as armed with two nacelle mounted disruptor cannons, a forward facing Phaser emitter, and a forward mounted torpedo launcher, though I wouldn't be surprised if it is more heavily armed in this timeline given how vast the disparity in offensive capabilities is implied to be.
darkstarling
Brilliantly Crazed
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So this would argue for a Defiant-esque design philosophy. Make it small and a dedicated warship with the best gear possible.
No, actually.
For us, bulk is cheap. Especially if we stick with Type 2 Impulse; 4x Type 2s give us the same thruster power as 3x Type 3s and cost less than half, the only disadvantage being the higher base mass budget (and not accelerating our most advanced tech). Our rapid-fire torpedoes increase cost by more than they increase firepower.
What it argues for is making a fairly beeg ship with mature techs wherever possible. Which means we get lots of utility, too.
Strunkriidiisk
THE LEGEND
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Unless we're actively in the middle of a war, a pure warship is never going to fly. We need extra capabilities both for the longevity of the spaceframe and to ensure that a goodly number actually get built. And we need size to ensure room for those extra capabilities.
StriderInCosmos
Wanderer in the Worldsea
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I wouldn't mind doing something like the Pyotr Veliky as shown in the Starfleet Museum: a flat profile with an inline engineering hull and nacelles as close to the body as possible. If not for our big ship, then at least for a wartime-tooled cruiser utilizing some of the same parts as our big Connie cruiser.
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We would also need to find enough mounting points for all those impulse engines; I want to say that number would only be available on an arrowhead/delta shape hull, but I could be misremembering.
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The issue is that we're currently voting to sharply narrow our firing angles, so I don't think going down to type 2 engines is wise.
Half saucer would do it, I think. But it would skew us towards frontal firepower which would welcome more powerful torpedoes and engines so I don't think the low tech approach is good there either.
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[X] Focus on Particle Density (75 Degrees Arc, 12->18 Damage)
Well, if we're looking at fan designs then assuming we 'just' go for a heavy cruiser explorer design then May I present Atlan's take on the Federation-class dreadnought?
Article: So yeah, one day I was looking around Deviantart for starships, and it occurred to me that a whole lot of the 3view Starfleet artwork there tends to be of the LULZ MOAR GUNZ, ALL TEH GUNZ variety, without any thoughts given to what Star Trek has usually shown of Starfleet vessels.
Equally it seems Star Trek has radically different ideas about ship nomenclature than we have today...
With that in mind, here are some of my takes on ships of the Federation.
TOS Dreadnought. Okay, this is actually the opposite of the above: the original by Franz Joseph was a good idea: If the Enterprise is a heavy cruiser, then what would a dreadnought look like? The answer is, pretty cool. Unfortunately... It's a starship with exactly as many weapons as a heavy cruiser.
A long lost friend of mine used to play Starfleet Battles, and used to say that Federation capital ships used the tactic of The Great Big Mace To The Face: Relatively light on phasers a Federation ship opens fire with photon torpedoes ASAP to wear an enemies shields down at long range. Once within short range it's phasers could finish the job. No idea if that still works, but the phrase stuck with me.
This is the Federation's Great Big Mace. Four forward facing torpedo tubes, one aft, and nineteen phasers, roughly twice the firepower and all of the speed of a heavy cruiser in a single hull.
I chose an Andorian name for this dreadnought, mainly because the Andorians aren't all that often seen in the series, despite being one of the founding races, and being pretty warlike.
It is, imo, a rather decent take on the design (that as Atlan said, doesn't go 'lulz more guns all teh guns') and the basic armament principles should be applicable here.
Also has a rather nice looking TMP-era take too.
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Well yeah, Explorers are basically the definition of large high-quality designs, and that means they are always going to have higher that average individual costs compared to the rest of the fleet, which Starfleet likely expects.
I'm just saying it's not impossible for us to make a design that blows even those expectations out of the water, and remembering the very capable Century-class we made at the end of last thread, which only got an initial run of 4 ships. And then didn't get another run until after the prototypes had standardized, by then post war if I'm reading it right, despite the great showing it had in that battle.
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That's an ENT episode. TOS enterprise consistently fires torpedoes only from the ventral saucer position and doesn't have aft photons, which is another inconsistency about the Defiant. Really the Defiant should have the refit model but doesn't. It's weird.
So, looking back, we've been offered the option to mount 4x Impulse thrusters three times: the Thunderchild, the Cygnus, and the Kea. Not the Sagarmatha, surprisingly.
If we want to work with multiple cheap drives so we can use cheap mature techs and still have mass budget for utilities, we'll want to make sure to copy the attributes that let those ships do that.
(On that note, Sayle, I've found a copy-paste error. The Cygnus should be 270,000 tons.)
Eh, could just be differences in a later flight. I never took the 'there are only 12 like her' too seriously, and only having 12 Connie-I's doesn't really jive well with anything.
Strunkriidiisk
THE LEGEND
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Honestly I don't like it. It just looks like a Connie that they inexplicably tacked an extra nacelle to, despite the extra/different greebling. It looks unbalanced; we can do better.Well, if we're looking at fan designs then assuming we 'just' go for a heavy cruiser explorer design then May I present Atlan's take on the Federation-class dreadnought?
Article: So yeah, one day I was looking around Deviantart for starships, and it occurred to me that a whole lot of the 3view Starfleet artwork there tends to be of the LULZ MOAR GUNZ, ALL TEH GUNZ variety, without any thoughts given to what Star Trek has usually shown of Starfleet vessels.
Equally it seems Star Trek has radically different ideas about ship nomenclature than we have today...
With that in mind, here are some of my takes on ships of the Federation.
TOS Dreadnought. Okay, this is actually the opposite of the above: the original by Franz Joseph was a good idea: If the Enterprise is a heavy cruiser, then what would a dreadnought look like? The answer is, pretty cool. Unfortunately... It's a starship with exactly as many weapons as a heavy cruiser.
A long lost friend of mine used to play Starfleet Battles, and used to say that Federation capital ships used the tactic of The Great Big Mace To The Face: Relatively light on phasers a Federation ship opens fire with photon torpedoes ASAP to wear an enemies shields down at long range. Once within short range it's phasers could finish the job. No idea if that still works, but the phrase stuck with me.
This is the Federation's Great Big Mace. Four forward facing torpedo tubes, one aft, and nineteen phasers, roughly twice the firepower and all of the speed of a heavy cruiser in a single hull.
I chose an Andorian name for this dreadnought, mainly because the Andorians aren't all that often seen in the series, despite being one of the founding races, and being pretty warlike.
It is, imo, a rather decent take on the design (that as Atlan said, doesn't go 'lulz more guns all teh guns') and the basic armament principles should be applicable here.
Also has a rather nice looking TMP-era take too.
Also from a practicality standpoint it doesn't make a lot of sense to have one of the nacelles not directly accessible for maintenance via the engineering section.
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I'm pretty sure there was ship mass rework at some point because the Sagarmatha which is noted to be 290kt in that post is 448kt in the retrospective.
Also why the Sagamartha Saucer mass went down between the OG saucer and the one the Kea got and then again when we got that option for Project Halley.
Yeah. I'd been looking through the design sequences for those various ships and they're not exactly consistent.
... Especially with the Kea reusing the Sagarmatha's saucer and yet getting the option to mount an additional impulse thruster for some reason, I'm kinda at the point of throwing up my arms and just trying to plan around a mass we think we can get to High maneuverability with just three Type 2s.
... Especially with the Kea reusing the Sagarmatha's saucer and yet getting the option to mount an additional impulse thruster for some reason, I'm kinda at the point of throwing up my arms and just trying to plan around a mass we think we can get to High maneuverability with just three Type 2s.
Probably the same tonnage number change that removed the "100,000 ton Constable" issue that had people talking about how it could be so massive and still have no good long range accommodations going by the retrospective post by cutting it down to 25,000.
It is quite literally a modified version of the Franz Joseph design. Which is probably one of the oldest/most well known non-canon (only because of Roddenberry) designs.
It also appears in TWOK as a diagram (making it canon, to some extent) and as a physical model in PIC* (even if it isn't 'meant to be' the Federation).
When people think of a Federation dreadnought that isn't the Galaxy-X this is it.
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SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
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Someone threadmark this!
And I'd love to make some kind of wild departure from the Constitution of canon. Something like a giant arrowhead with the nacelles at the tips.
@Sayle : would it be possible to do something radically different, like have fewer, but larger phasers in batteries with dedicated reactors to represent something of a major departure from the canon style? Maybe at the cost of science components or increased production expense, or something? Having more than a single kind of energy weapon option (rather than just "more of them or less of them" would be nice.
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Endorfinator
Awkwardly Social
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I want to go all in on the prototypes so that we can follow up with a cheap kickass light cruiser (our miranda equivalent)
Take the same saucer, same engine layout, smaller engineering hull. Sprint configuration and go only mature or standard. Keep the same torpedo layout and maybe less phasers. Should create a much cheaper ship with similar combat performance and complimentary attributes elsewhere.
Take the same saucer, same engine layout, smaller engineering hull. Sprint configuration and go only mature or standard. Keep the same torpedo layout and maybe less phasers. Should create a much cheaper ship with similar combat performance and complimentary attributes elsewhere.
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Strunkriidiisk
THE LEGEND
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Cool. Still looks bad.It is quite literally a modified version of the Franz Joseph design. Which is probably one of the oldest/most well known non-canon (only because of Roddenberry) designs.
It also appears in TWOK as a diagram (making it canon, to some extent) and as a physical model in PIC* (even if it isn't 'meant to be' the Federation).
When people think of a Federation dreadnought that isn't the Galaxy-X this is it.
*
2226: Project Constitution (Hull Plating)
[X] Focus on Particle Density (75 Degrees Arc, 12->18 Damage)
You put in your order for Starfleet Tactical, who will work on finalising their designs over the next months and begin spooling up new production lines for the Mark II phaser. This is not a moment too soon, because you soon have a new project. With the increasing obsolescence of the Sagarmatha there is a dire need for a heavier line combatant capable of flying the flag in an ever-expanding Federation. Increasing tensions and incidents with the Klingons are only the start, with the Tholians becoming increasingly militaristic and provocative when it comes to ships near their claimed space.
Enter the Heavy Cruiser Project. This is a cooperative project with San Francisco, with your teams liaising with each other to increase pace and reduce delivery time. Starfleet has issued a challenging brief for Project Constitution, a heavyweight cruiser capable of going toe-to-toe with the threats of the modern era. The Klingon D6 has long been an awkward measuring stick to match ships like the Newton or Kea against, and with signs of increased resource flows to the Klingon interior there are concerns that there has either been a major uptick in production of an already tactically problematic design or even a new and more dangerous vessel.
The metrics are simple: it needs to take a punch and hit back, the cheaper the better. While Starfleet will never say no to engineering and scientific capability, what it really needs is something to dissuade the eruption of open hostility with neighbouring powers. Increased spending needs to be tactically justifiable, and the more ships the fleetyards can pump out of the resulting heavy cruiser design the better. For that reason the expectation is the ship should mass around two hundred thousand tons, which is what your cost and efficiency metrics are assuming.
But before even the first structural elements are planned you need to decide what you are going to build the ship out of. Electro-Ceramic is a proven hull material that is in use for every ship but the Archer, but that same ship pioneered the use of Duranium Alloy. With the microfracture problem resolved, Project Constitution could now use it to full effect for that extra bit of protection. That saved budget could be used to cover most of a phaser bank or engine assembly, but that saving could be paid for in blood down the line. The choice, as ever, is yours.
[ ] Electro-Ceramic Plating (200kt): 38 Defense. [4.5 Cost]
[ ] Duranium Alloy (200kt): 43 Defense. [6 Cost] [Canon: Constitution-class]
Two Hour Moratorium, Please
You put in your order for Starfleet Tactical, who will work on finalising their designs over the next months and begin spooling up new production lines for the Mark II phaser. This is not a moment too soon, because you soon have a new project. With the increasing obsolescence of the Sagarmatha there is a dire need for a heavier line combatant capable of flying the flag in an ever-expanding Federation. Increasing tensions and incidents with the Klingons are only the start, with the Tholians becoming increasingly militaristic and provocative when it comes to ships near their claimed space.
Enter the Heavy Cruiser Project. This is a cooperative project with San Francisco, with your teams liaising with each other to increase pace and reduce delivery time. Starfleet has issued a challenging brief for Project Constitution, a heavyweight cruiser capable of going toe-to-toe with the threats of the modern era. The Klingon D6 has long been an awkward measuring stick to match ships like the Newton or Kea against, and with signs of increased resource flows to the Klingon interior there are concerns that there has either been a major uptick in production of an already tactically problematic design or even a new and more dangerous vessel.
The metrics are simple: it needs to take a punch and hit back, the cheaper the better. While Starfleet will never say no to engineering and scientific capability, what it really needs is something to dissuade the eruption of open hostility with neighbouring powers. Increased spending needs to be tactically justifiable, and the more ships the fleetyards can pump out of the resulting heavy cruiser design the better. For that reason the expectation is the ship should mass around two hundred thousand tons, which is what your cost and efficiency metrics are assuming.
But before even the first structural elements are planned you need to decide what you are going to build the ship out of. Electro-Ceramic is a proven hull material that is in use for every ship but the Archer, but that same ship pioneered the use of Duranium Alloy. With the microfracture problem resolved, Project Constitution could now use it to full effect for that extra bit of protection. That saved budget could be used to cover most of a phaser bank or engine assembly, but that saving could be paid for in blood down the line. The choice, as ever, is yours.
[ ] Electro-Ceramic Plating (200kt): 38 Defense. [4.5 Cost]
[ ] Duranium Alloy (200kt): 43 Defense. [6 Cost] [Canon: Constitution-class]
Two Hour Moratorium, Please
