I still emphatically declare that this quest did not need that little complication.
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I still emphatically declare that this quest did not need that little complication.
- Location
- United States
[X] 140 Meter Thin Saucer (140,000 Tons) [Canon: Constitution-class]
Finally, a good argument. No maligning or misinterpreting the opposing position, no rehashing the same tired arguments without any new justification. Just a clean, straightforward presentation of position.
Unfortunately, as a firm proponent of free will, I must cast a skeptical eye on this instance of potential prophetic dreaming.
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(Seriously though, I'm not buying the "half saucer gives us more space" arguments, in any form. Half saucers never have enough space; we choose them for mass savings, not utility. I think a low-mass saucer is the best of both worlds.)
(Edit: I think I would also be all for a hypothetical three-quarter saucer.)
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Chargone
Invisable operator
- Location
- New Zealand
It's a project designated "constitution". The ship class is as yet unnamed, let alone individual ships. Nothing requires that there be an Enterprise in this lot.
Regarding the temporal issues... I don't think people would vote that much differently given the information we have about the Current state of things, but the debate would possibly be a bit less heated.
A project designated constitution, a heavy cruiser and with each of its options specifically compared to the canon Constitution-class. It is highly unlikely that Enterprise won't be amongst these ships, especially given one of the earlier (but still recent) retrospectives mentioned the Constitution-class as an explorer, the first proper federation explorer.
For me the hole we're in is kind of fairly of our own making. We voted for a station with primarily logistical/civilian value. We voted for a relatively poorly armed science ship, to make all our old ships strategically limited, and a engineering/logistics ship. The Selachii was the last ship we designed with competent tactical abilities, and it's old, and not really a big cruiser anyways. To be certain we have benefitted the Federation's growth and development by doing so, but the looming threat of the Klingons has been present in the quest for a while and now it's finally here.
Chargone
Invisable operator
- Location
- New Zealand
The more space thing was very much an edge case "could go either way depending on the specifics" comparison to the other saucer that's the same size. Half saucers Normally (and also in this case) lack space compared to full saucers because they're the full saucer with a chunk cut off, and that holds true here too, we just also have a second, different, smaller, full saucer in the mix as well. It seems to be causing a bit of confusion.
KleverKil'Vanya
Ortillery Operator
Other then this is a Star Trek quest?
The debate wouldn't even exist without the temporal stuff, no one would be quite so willing to butcher the iconic Constitution to this degree without being able to justify it as an 'optimal' response to the future crisis we get OOC knowledge ahead of time.
We know about it IC too, you know, what with Starfleet going "Oh, shit, Klingons. Build us a warship please. Nothing else matters, just teeth and cost."
The half saucer gives us more frontal surface area, and that's where most of the important bits of this ship go.
The retrospectives aren't prescient. Presumably when that was written we were not doing quite so poorly in the tactical department.
Besides, exploring Klingon space is… kind of exploration.
Why do people even want to design a mainline workhorse cruiser? It's possibly the most boring type of ship. It can't be too expensive and it can't specialize, so everything ends up half-baked. It's like the plain white bread of starships.
At the same time without the temporal stuff or "future vision" we get in retrospectives, we would have no warning and so it'd be impossible for us to deviate this much from canon. We couldn't have serious bad stuff happen without being able to read behind the curtains a little, or it'd just be, "OH NO KLINGONS" with like one ship of warning and that'd be real mean.
- Location
- Australia
I sort of agree but we've still been warned by starfleet of a massive Klingon buildup and they are panicked enough to ask for a dedicated warship, knowing that it's currently a four-year war doesn't change the fact that starfleet itself knows that violence is very soon on the horizon
LuxemburgLover69
There are more things between Heaven and Earth...
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[x] 140 Meter Saucer (200,000 Tons)
KleverKil'Vanya
Ortillery Operator
Same question on why people want to build a boring overly specialised combat cruiser who will just sit at star bases for the next 20-30 years being useless at anything but shooting stuff.
It won't be useless. It will have a shuttlebay and central computers, so baseline that's two science and engineering. That's minimum, as in literally no non-automatic modules. It will be the fastest ship in the fleet. Even in peace there are still problems best solved by shooting them like pirates.
And even when at peace with The Empire individual Klingon houses will make themselves problems.
Not to mention the Romulans and other threats.
- Location
- Australia
I mean... Because we want to survive to 20-30 years in the future without having federation space devastated. I think it's a lot easier to spend ten years building warships to later be decommissioned sadly than spend unknown time trying to rebuild destroyed colonies
Honestly I was personally voting for the Half-Saucer simply because I want both zoom and internals, and it is a bit more efficient for mounting four impulse engines. I was definitely not intending to cut out on Internals to make a "pure warship" - if we lose too much Engineering then it becomes strictly worse as a heavy cruiser anyway. Also were one intending to make a "stripped back" design (although there's little reason to do so because the cost savings are marginal) then actually one might as well go for the canon saucer and three engines, as it's marginally cheaper.
In terms of the Temporal Sword of Damocles is... none of the saucer options can possibly fuck up the design enough to actually meaningfully matter for that. Like it is simply not that consequential. We could very plausibly FUBAR the ship if we made hilariously bad decisions on armament, or make it much worse if we like, deliberately didn't pick really useful Internals out of sheer contrarianism, but beyond that, assuming an okay weapons loadout it's quite hard for any other choice we make to do that much damage.
FWIW I asked about this and got the answer that there's not a space difference, just the thruster mounting/contingency on thrusters difference.
Now in fairness, whether that ends up being true in practice when we've actually gotten to the Internals phase... It probably depends on the actual physical number of pixels of the saucer versus half-saucer on the LCARS most of all. Which will depend on how @Sayle chooses to draw them, and also what Internals options get decided on by that point. To have roughly the same useable area area, the half-saucer will need to be a bit fatter. But I think at least the vague intention is similar useable space.
But like, there are enough things that can fudge this in either direction that even though explicitly mechanically speaking, the Half-Saucer is meant to be more space-efficient at including four Type-2s... realistically we could also stick four thrusters on the Connie saucer and like, it's probably not going to have a discrete measurable downside other than meaning we can't include the aft torpedo launcher we were definitely not planning on anyway. Losing/shrinking an Internal slot is possible but not forgone.
Honestly I think voting based on vibes and aesthetics is probably fine here.
In terms of the Temporal Sword of Damocles is... none of the saucer options can possibly fuck up the design enough to actually meaningfully matter for that. Like it is simply not that consequential. We could very plausibly FUBAR the ship if we made hilariously bad decisions on armament, or make it much worse if we like, deliberately didn't pick really useful Internals out of sheer contrarianism, but beyond that, assuming an okay weapons loadout it's quite hard for any other choice we make to do that much damage.
FWIW I asked about this and got the answer that there's not a space difference, just the thruster mounting/contingency on thrusters difference.
Now in fairness, whether that ends up being true in practice when we've actually gotten to the Internals phase... It probably depends on the actual physical number of pixels of the saucer versus half-saucer on the LCARS most of all. Which will depend on how @Sayle chooses to draw them, and also what Internals options get decided on by that point. To have roughly the same useable area area, the half-saucer will need to be a bit fatter. But I think at least the vague intention is similar useable space.
But like, there are enough things that can fudge this in either direction that even though explicitly mechanically speaking, the Half-Saucer is meant to be more space-efficient at including four Type-2s... realistically we could also stick four thrusters on the Connie saucer and like, it's probably not going to have a discrete measurable downside other than meaning we can't include the aft torpedo launcher we were definitely not planning on anyway. Losing/shrinking an Internal slot is possible but not forgone.
Honestly I think voting based on vibes and aesthetics is probably fine here.
I mean I'd like to build a large, heavy explorer in the 300-400kt range. But that's not the ship Starfleet wants, so my fallback is to build a ship that is really good at fighting so it does good in the retrospective.
Also if we get beat up, the Klingons will be more likely to come back. An outcome where they do well in this war is one where we're back here designing warships again because the Klingon Empire is stronger and sees the weaker Federation as a good target.
Also, since our best way to accomplish the cheap part of cheap warship is to use lots of bulky mature tech, refits to the new hotness will probably be able to fit in more small modules as they happen.
A small workshop here, an extra medbay there, will all add up to something capable of doing first responder duties once it doesn't have to be our entire defense fleet.
- Location
- Australia
Same.
I honestly thought with all the logistical improvements we've done that we would be able to afford something that put the Enterprise to shame. Just bigger, better, everything.
And we probably have the ability!
I just absolutely didn't even consider we were making ourselves into a nice fat goose for the Klingons.
Miranda and Akira weapon pods are a thing. We don't have to build a canon Miranda to take some inspiration for solving placement issues. Clearance on a torpedo launcher has to be much lower than clearance for a whole deflector.
Chunky back end is similar to a half saucer (but with larger top most /bottom most decks). Or a tiny non-traditionally shaped inline secondary.
Nacelles bolted directly onto the primary hull. Stick em on the bottom like a Miranda or sideways (please don't put them high on either side of the bridge and completely ruin sight lines).
We've got some real pressure to mitigate design issues and adopting some unusual methods ahead of time could be the solution (for some of things).