I wouldn't call our current phaser inferior to the canon phaser. The 135 degree arc wasn't the best but it did make some ships have less sad firing arcs. And with 75 degrees we have a much easier time having useful flank arcs for doing slashing attacks or maneuvering duels in a larger engagement. 45 degree phasers mean that you need at least 4, maybe 5 banks for any useful flank arcs and that is a big chunk of change on anything smaller than a cruiser.
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Also, saying that this outcome is Objectively Incorrect because a named ship might be "ugly" rather than, you know, everything else we've accomplished in the game so far is a bit much.
We make a good enough ship here, we see off the Klingons and don't see a conflict with them later. What's worse about that?
- Location
- United States
I quite like the half-saucer aesthetics.
...That's... sort of the opposite of what happened here?
Like what we discovered is that the Half-Saucer is mechanically better for having Very High Manoeuvrability and a tonnage above 180kT, and a lot of people are varying kinds of annoyed about that because they felt it screwed over the canonical Connie saucer too much. Some of this has bled over into arguments that we never wanted more than 180kT worth of ship anyway, and by the way those grapes were definitely sour all along. As I've said before, I think that while a difference exists, based on Sayle's statements it's actually not that big of a difference between the two 140kT hulls, so like, we should not tear our hair out, and choose whatever we want?
But to the extent that a measurable difference exists, the Half-Saucer on the face of it will let us be a bit more relaxed in our choices for secondary hull /shuttle bays/etc. without worrying about dropping our Manoeuvrability rating down. The Half-Saucer is also slightly more space-efficient at mounting multiple impulse thrusters in general; the difference here is not going to be multiple modules worth, but it might be half a module, or a small module. There's also a major difference in terms of aft torpedo placement IIRC but no one wants those anyway so it's moot. The Thin Saucer staying rigorously within 180kT is marginally cheaper, although I personally don't think potentially losing the Engineering score from one or two extra Internals if we have to pick a smaller secondary hull is worth a the slight cost reduction in terms of cost/benefit for the ship. But also it's not inconceivable that when we get to the secondary hull choices, the biggest one is 40kT and it won't matter.
So apologies for the long summary, but I guess what I'm trying to say is... if you want a Half-Saucer, vote for a Half-Saucer. If you want a Thin Saucer, vote for the Thin Saucer. It's really fine.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
It also doesn't help that the Klingons are apparently psychic wizards who can react back in time to developments, like how we had a profile that the War would be on 2260 and then the moment we delayed the Warp 8 engine it gets pushed forward to 2240 because apparently they'll instantly intuit it's going to be delayed coming out and that they have an opening where they can apparently refit their entire fleet to Warp 8 standards and push us back hard.
Like, it'd be one thing if it was mostly only their D7s that they could get that fast as it was the New Stuff, but apparently enough of their fleet will be Warp 8 standard that we can't actually keep them from raiding our heartlands? Is it just some Space Magic going on here or what?
EDIT: Anyway, I'm just a bit cranky here and venting on a few minor irritations, I'm leaning towards Half-Saucer, but we'll see how I feel in an hour or so.
Like, it'd be one thing if it was mostly only their D7s that they could get that fast as it was the New Stuff, but apparently enough of their fleet will be Warp 8 standard that we can't actually keep them from raiding our heartlands? Is it just some Space Magic going on here or what?
EDIT: Anyway, I'm just a bit cranky here and venting on a few minor irritations, I'm leaning towards Half-Saucer, but we'll see how I feel in an hour or so.
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Also the fact that the Klingon was will likely be rough is pretty predictable from a quest standpoint and we kinda did vote to deal with this due to the warp 8 not being reverse compatible. We did so to have a stronger next wave of ships once we got over the rough part.
We made a timeline divergent choice and the timeline changed. Our fleet was not as scary as quickly so the Klingons felt confidant to attack sooner. It's as simple as that.
We made a timeline divergent choice and the timeline changed. Our fleet was not as scary as quickly so the Klingons felt confidant to attack sooner. It's as simple as that.
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Making a choice based on the Temporal agent notes feels like it's metagaming based on information the people we're playing as wouldn't have access to in-universe.
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer
Given how close thin-saucer/half-saucer are, it is clear that what the people truly want is a small Connie, so I propose a thin half-saucer (70k) to represent the best of both worlds and keep the design as economical as possible!!
Art: Saracen-class Gunboat
Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
Hey, I want aft photons! I think that they're actually pretty good in the sort of slashing attacks that a high maneuverability ship does. Dodge on the way in, phaser the target, then fire aft photons on them on the way out. Reasonably mobile ships, especially in numbers can try and deter a forward photon shot by turning to face you even if they can't keep up. But there's no way they can turn around before you can get off an aft photon shot.
I mean they don't intuit that, it's just that presumably the Klingon fleet is refitting in the 2220-2240 range and they notice that we don't seem to have refitted and that our ships aren't so tough compared to theirs. The 2241 war seems to be driven by increasing availability of the D7 which is probably a good 5-6 years ahead of us in production.
Look could we not do this thing where we delegitimize people's decisions as metagaming/not intended by QM/etc?
Alright, fair enough. I'm sorry.
Oh, apologies lmao!
Honestly I suspect the idea that a really large chunk of the Klingon fleet is Warp 8 might not actually be true. Rather it's that with Klingon silent running/early cloaking tech, and generally having the initiative as the attacker, means most of our ships not having Warp 8 makes that much harder to respond to or intercept raids (where the defender is at a disadvantage to begin with). Even if a lot of raiding parties were at Warp 7, stealth lowering our detection time + us being slower than in the OTL could be enough to make the difference.
Like I am actually quite sceptical that the bulk of Klingon Birds of Prey in service right now are all Warp 8, especially with the inherent design compromises you need to make for stealth capabilities. The newer Birds of Prey will be Warp 8, sure, but the Klingons also tend to keep ships in service for ages if they can still fight, because they're trying to run a giant militaristic empire. The forty or fifty year old BoP used to bulk out the fleet, the D6, are they all Warp 8? Are they all worth the expense of refitting?
But we don't know for sure right now - I asked @Sayle - but personally I have my doubts.
This isn't entirely fair. The D6 which should be a pretty mature ship by this point is pretty clearly superior to our largest ships and the rest of our ships in the recent decades haven't been particularly impressive from a tactical standpoint either.
That alone should enough for the Klingons to smell blood in the water and start ramping up on the D7 project to try and turn tactical superiority into tactical dominance since they are an aggressively expansionistic empire.
The fact that it's currently 2227 and we are just getting our first Warp 8 ship designed which given the size will likely take close to a decade whereas the Klingons are likely already in the process of refitting ships with Warp 8 engines means that in the coming decade the Klingons are going to see that they were right to smell blood in the water.
If our Warp 8 engines were compatible with our older ships they'd likely see that even if we might not be as strong as them we would still be too big of a meal to digest and wait till 2260s but because our ships have been shown to be both weaker and slower they are way more confident.
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@Sayle , does the thin saucer play nice with 4 impulse engines?
Assuming it does,
[X] 140 Meter Half-Saucer (140,000 Tons)
This is functionally the same as a half-saucer in terms of combat performance, is the same price, and may provide other advantages.
Edit: I have been advised the half-saucer may mount 4 engines more efficiently. If we need 4 engines to max agility, then this is an essential compromise to enable maximum agility. Combat utility is paramount.
Assuming it does,
[X] 140 Meter Half-Saucer (140,000 Tons)
Edit: I have been advised the half-saucer may mount 4 engines more efficiently. If we need 4 engines to max agility, then this is an essential compromise to enable maximum agility. Combat utility is paramount.
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Hmm. That would make, say, 3x forward tubes and 1x rear tube an option, and might be good enough, if we've got high enough agility on the design. Much easier to achieve than 4x forward torpedoes, though less capable of punishing a D7 that decides to run.
On the other hand, Klingons really like all-forwards armament. We probably don't need as much firepower if we're pursuing.
- Location
- Springfield, Illinois
Another annoyance with the Klingons and the like does the Federation intel community just does not exist or something like that cause I swear we have asked multiple times for information on what the Klingons are doing and the best we have gotten is vague "We can see they have big guns". Which anyone who can look at a Klingon ship can see. Like do we need to design an intelligence ship to get some actional intelligence cause at this point the info given has just been "They have bigger guns and go faster" and nothing else. Is not that helpful when trying to design counters.
Does it even matter if the bulk of their fleet is at warp 7? Even their warp 7 ships outclass ours in a straight fight, let alone with cloaks, and it doesn't take a military genius to notice that our tactical capabilities have stagnated since the Sagarmatha over fifty years ago.
NSMS
Probably evil, unfortunately.
- Location
- A rapidly widening tear in the fabric of reality
This doesn't get us better shield coverage. At best it gets us slightly cheaper coverage, but Sayle's implied that it won't be an actually detectable difference.
- Location
- Classified
If I understand correctly, the big benefit of half is that we can get four impulses for less internal space costs than the saucer.
Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
Honestly my biggest gripe is just
Oh look, the Connie actually can fire more than two phasers at the same time when it has Movie Budget and not TV Show Budget.
A-mazing.
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
Honestly a bit gobsmacked that people are admitting to being confused about what the ship's supposed to be because of the class name. There's a whole update of briefing explaining exactly what Starfleet wants and why, and it's a struggle to understand that the in-quest text supercedes the ship with the same name from canon? Astounding.
Given that the temporal agent notes talk about a high probablity of Accord-hostile actors taking advantage of the situation, I'd just kind of assumed that someone was atemporally fiddling with things on the Klingon end to try and get the Federation destroyed. I think it's pretty neat, honestly, rather than being able to exactly predict how things will go based off of canon.
The big thing for me for aft photons was rereading the original quest and retrospective on the Ambassador. It seems like even with the maneuverability edge, it's difficult for a ship to charge a group without taking torpedo fire on the way in.
This works in a 1 on 1 engagement, but in a melee or a 2 on 2, we aren't going to be able to just stick behind them and pound them. Their friends will try to pull us off them. The tactics for highly mobile ships end up like fighters, it's how the Selachii was operated.
I mean the D7 is currently an early production or developmental vessel. We know the D6 specs, but we don't have actual intel penetration of the Klingon Empire. Which isn't surprising because, you know, Qo'nos is literal years away and they're a different species. Humans have achieved pretty good concealment of ship construction in a world with intercontinental plane flights and everyone being the same species.
We can always implement the fancy prototype shields in this design. We can take every step to pump up this ship past what canon did. We've barely started the design process, people! There's plenty of ways we can make this the most badass Connie possible!