Starfleet Design Bureau

[Bedpotato]

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Man she is such a cutie! Like a Cobra coiled up to strike! @Sayle very nice work!

Now next vote options:

[ ] Two Type-2 Thrusters (33 -> 37.5 Cost) [Medium-High Maneuverability]
To slow, so right out!

[ ] Three Type-2 Thrusters (33 -> 39.75 Cost) [Very High Manoeuvrability]
Nice mounted, cheap and makes Little Connie go fast. Only con is the module loss, so not that bad.

[ ] Four Type-2 Thrusters (33 -> 42 Cost) [Very High Maneuverability]
Not as cheap as the tripple option but the fact that this gives us the module space and adds redundancy in our ships propulsion makes it incredible attractive. Just imagine a Klingon D7 getting a successful strike in on a Connie ripping her aft open only for the now three engined ship to turn on a dime and kill the attacker!

[ ] Two Type-3 Thrusters (33 -> 45.5 Cost) [Very High Manoeuvrability]
Honestly, i think to expensieve but hey convince me otherwise (Also loosing one of them is a death sentence for a ship.)


For the weapons and shield debatte all i say is there is never enough dakka! 2RFT launchers and one standard fore and aft each are must together with strongest shields possible!

 

[thepsyborg]

I'm back on the Type 3 train.

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The brand new prototype thrusters are going to take a lot more than twice as long to produce than the mature Type 2s with factories, tooling, supply chains, and production lines already built, spun up, troubleshot, and experienced. If you're seriously concerned about a single-component bottleneck from the thrusters, you should absolutely be voting for Type 2s. Even four Type 2s would be better than the Type 3s.

Granted, I really don't expect either thruster to specifically become a production bottleneck. But if that's a concern, you're backing exactly the opposite horse your reasoning would actually indicate.

The only time mature tech becomes a production issue is if we keep trying to produce one design with it far into the future, long after the entire rest of the fleet has moved on to better things- and while the triple Type 2 option would have a substantially different aft facing, structurally, the quad Type 2s could be trivially replaced with twin Type 3s in either refit or for future tranches.

 

[KNakamura]

noooooooooooooooo stahp, being underbudget is good, it means we get more ships built, or can afford a more expensive component later. At our currently-established mass and mount possibilities, double Type 3 is flatly inferior in every respect to quad Type 2.

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It is good, but it does not mean you should build a ship that may have problems later. I'd argue that a 2xType-3 and 4xType-2 is pretty equivalent as the trade off is the second is cheaper and more space, but the first is an oncoming technology meaning refits can keep it alive later, should it be desired.

If we're going to make a warship, I'd rather it last longer.

 

[NSMS]

The only correct choice for launchers is 3 RFLs. For maximum dakka and maximum making our budget cry.

 

[darkstarling]

This thing will outfly and outfight God and all their angels.

The Romulans are going to shit themselves and the Klingons might apply to join the Federation a few centuries early.

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We're Starfleet. If we're doing it right we ARE the Angels.

 

[Golgotha]

It is good, but it does not mean you should build a ship that may have problems later. I'd argue that a 2xType-3 and 4xType-2 is pretty equivalent as the trade off is the second is cheaper and more space, but the first is an oncoming technology meaning refits can keep it alive later, should it be desired.

If we're going to make a warship, I'd rather it last longer.

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/Jk
Obviously the answer then is four type two, so that we can refit to four type threes the moment structural integrity fields get an update

 

[7th Hex]

Huh. So shield prices went up dramatically, increasing our total ship price.
But because of the small hull size, our shields are going to cost less than Star fleet expects in their shield budget, therefore we are saving expected cost even though it's more expensive.

I get it. Convoluted, but makes sense.

Also I'm on the "one RFL in engineering and two standard on saucer" boat here.

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It's changed! The prototype shields are now equally expensive, although good enough we can maybe justify them anyway.

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I don't think they have actually? Sayle made a post just above the both of yours saying that the only thing that's changed about the shields is the the bonus on the Covariant.

What I think is tripping people up is that it looks like the shields in the tech informational are giving their total cost, rather than per 100kt like they did in the Archer. If you apply the Archer' shield cost per 100kt numbers and modifiers to to a ship with mass more than 100kt but less than 200kt like this design is, you get the same numbers as in the informational.

 

[Bedpotato]

The only correct choice for launchers is 3 RFLs. For maximum dakka and maximum making our budget cry.

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I mean "If" the prototype rolls work out perfectly or better then expected then yes, the horrified face as a Connie releases the equivalent of 9+ Torps on target would be very funny but the chance that that happens is to low for my taste.

 

[darkstarling]

The brand new prototype thrusters are going to take a lot more than twice as long to produce than the mature Type 2s with factories, tooling, supply chains, and production lines already built, spun up, troubleshot, and experienced. If you're seriously concerned about a single-component bottleneck from the thrusters, you should absolutely be voting for Type 2s. Even four Type 2s would be better than the Type 3s.

Granted, I really don't expect either thruster to specifically become a production bottleneck. But if that's a concern, you're backing exactly the opposite horse your reasoning would actually indicate.

The only time mature tech becomes a production issue is if we keep trying to produce one design with it far into the future, long after the entire rest of the fleet has moved on to better things- and while the triple Type 2 option would have a substantially different aft facing, structurally, the quad Type 2s could be trivially replaced with twin Type 3s in either refit or for future tranches.

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The Type 3 is becoming standardized. We'll be taking advantage of new capacity, not relying on obsolete infrastructure for the backbone of our fleet.

 

[Skippy]

[ ] Four Type-2 Thrusters (33 -> 42 Cost) [Very High Maneuverability]

This saves internal space for marginal extra cost, and even adds a bit of redundancy to our engines.

Seriously, 2.25 cost for a shuttle bay is a hilariously good trade-off.

Sayle has outright stated that the project choices are in large part influenced by what the thread wants to do, and has discussed doing. I may be the most vocal of the "build real explorer later" crowd but I am not the only one, so dismissing that desire as a "meme" and saying that we aren't going to do one is disingenuous.

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This was prompted Sayle to explain that people had simply gotten the brief wrong. Doubling down and maintaining that if we simply refuse to acknowledge this and insist on building a "real explorer" later on, he will change his mind is... a bold strategy.

Where, exactly? Because I've scoured Sayle's recent posts and found absolutely no such statement.

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Please don't die on this hill.

We absolutely are going to make another explorer class at some point. It might not be the next one after this, but so long as the quest continues we'll get around to it eventually (and we can always just take a design brief from Starfleet saying 'Please make a swanky diplomatic ship for impressing people' and YOLO it into a do-everything behemoth if we all combine our powers).

We might never have our classic Constitution class, but we can still build the mother of all Excelsior classes.

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Sure, I have no disagreement with us building the Connie-successor on schedule. That's not really what is being meant here, though.

 

[Mechanis]

[ ] Four Type-2 Thrusters (33 -> 42 Cost) [Very High Maneuverability]

Redundant engine sounds like something that could be useful for survivability and it means we don't have to sacrifice the internal space.

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the problem is cost. with 4 type 2s we may as well go for paired type 3s, for logistical reasons, since we basically would hardly save any money. I think in the end I'll be going for the triple cluster of Type 2s, so I don't have to challenge Finance to an Ushaan match over putting a Rapid launcher in it.

 

[Void Stalker]

[ ] Four Type-2 Thrusters (33 -> 42 Cost) [Very High Maneuverability]
[ ] Two Type-3 Thrusters (33 -> 45.5 Cost) [Very High Manoeuvrability] 43 at standard (2235 is current year reduced by prototype experience)

Of course the big benefit of going with 2 type-3 is if we are still rolling these out when they hit mature (even if it might be an A refit version) at which point it will be cheaper than 4 type 2s. The other bonus is that type 3 will be standard for the next design

[ ] Four Type-2 Thrusters (33 -> 42 Cost) [Very High Maneuverability]

This saves internal space for marginal extra cost, and even adds a bit of redundancy to our engines.

Seriously, 2.25 cost for a shuttle bay is a hilariously good trade-off.

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It does make refits awkward and reduce the length we want to build the design as there will not be discounts from hitting standard and mature for builds after the first set of orders

 

[Golgotha]

I don't actually expect a shuttle bay, given we already have one. But a shuttle bay sized module. It looks like we would get a module anyway, but it would be a small one

 

[Strunkriidiisk]

So I decided to John Madden things a bit to see what the three-impulse situation might look like. Based on the size of the thruster (in yellow) I think at minimum we would still have room for three auxiliary modules - the small one forward of the thruster, the space in the secondary hull, and either one or two in the forward section. That space forward of the neck might have room for a module too, but I'm not sure.

 

[Bedpotato]

the problem is cost. with 4 type 2s we may as well go for paired type 3s, for logistical reasons, since we basically would hardly save any money. I think in the end I'll be going for the triple cluster of Type 2s, so I don't have to challenge Finance to an Ushaan match over putting a Rapid launcher in it.

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No because you disregard the other benefits outright. 1. 4 type twos deliver massive redundancy to the ship as in you can loose two of them and still move medium/high speed! And 2. With four type two's we are still cheaper than the two type threes. And the four engines mean that the thrusters need less maintainance because we never run them on full load!

And a refit postwar to type three thrusters is always a possibility.

 

[QuarkBeast]

[ ] Two Type-3 Thrusters (33 -> 45.5 Cost) [Very High Manoeuvrability]

I'd rather use the future standard engines than stay in the past, these will also become cheaper than the 4xmk2 option in a few years anyway.

 

[DualFront]

[ ] Two Type-3 Thrusters (33 -> 45.5 Cost) [Very High Manoeuvrability]

I'm going to push for the Type-3s here, as ticking them over into Standard and then Mature should even the cost out and helps other ships going forward. Any of the options that give us Very High Maneuverability should be fine though.

 

[Skippy]

The most frustrating part of this quest sometimes is the lack of object permanence.

The entire reason we went for the half-saucer is because it could mount a lot of Type 2s in parallel, letting us move around more stuff and maintain Very High Manoeuvrability, save internal space in the saucer from mounting thrusters, and use the Type-2 rather than the Type-3 thruster to save money without compromising on space.

We've now not gone for a large secondary hull - but at least in fairness this had some tangible upside in terms of warp speed. Now we're contemplating losing a ton of internal space in the back of the ship to save a measly 2.25 Cost, or... going for the Type-3 again because it's shiny and we're underbudget, even though we have a lot of very expensive weapons to add which we would like to be able to spend more on, and our saucer choice means mounting Type-2s cost us nothing in terms of space.

It's surreal. It's like if you deliberately challenged the voters to undercut every single practical advantage of the Half-Saucer.

 

[thepsyborg]

Please don't die on this hill.

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...absolutely nothing in the linked post contradicts (or even loosely addresses) my position, namely that:

1. Yes, this is the same project to virtually the same design brief as the canon Connie and will probably end up doing all, or at least most, of the same missions; canon-Connie-the-imagined-Explorer has not been pushed back to post-war because this is that project, and there's no other guaranteed Explorer project immediately post-war*
   
   but
   
   
2. Sayle's good enough at listening to the thread that it's nonetheless extremely plausible that we'll get an Explorer project (or more likely a science- or diplomatic-vessel project that we can turn into being an Explorer project via long-established precedent of minor bureaucratic malfeasance) substantially sooner than the canon Excelsior-class.

* This is the point that the linked post did address, but I've never actually disagreed with you on this point.

Edit:

It's surreal. It's like if you deliberately challenged the voters to undercut every single practical advantage of the Half-Saucer.

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I feel this on a spiritual level 😅

 

[Golgotha]

The most frustrating part of this quest sometimes is the lack of object permanence.

The entire reason we went for the half-saucer is because it could mount a lot of Type 2s in parallel, letting us move around more stuff and maintain Very High Manoeuvrability, save internal space in the saucer from mounting thrusters, and use the Type-2 rather than the Type-3 thruster to save money without compromising on space.

We've now not gone for a large secondary hull - but at least in fairness this had some tangible upside in terms of warp speed. Now we're contemplating losing a ton of internal space in the back of the ship to save a measly 2.25 Cost, or... going for the Type-3 again because it's shiny and we're underbudget, even though we have a lot of very expensive weapons to add which we would like to be able to spend more on, and our saucer choice means mounting Type-2s cost us nothing in terms of space.

It's surreal. It's like if you deliberately challenged the voters to undercut every single practical advantage of the Half-Saucer.

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Tis why I asked about having 4 type two's. Sayle was pretty awesome in adding them instantly.

The only reason I would ever not pick them is if he says they would lose the type three prototype cost within the first run.
I think without the small hull mass two type three's were previously insufficient to get max maneuverability, which is why it's become an option at all.

 

[Bedpotato]

The most frustrating part of this quest sometimes is the lack of object permanence.

The entire reason we went for the half-saucer is because it could mount a lot of Type 2s in parallel, letting us move around more stuff and maintain Very High Manoeuvrability, save internal space in the saucer from mounting thrusters, and use the Type-2 rather than the Type-3 thruster to save money without compromising on space.

We've now not gone for a large secondary hull - but at least in fairness this had some tangible upside in terms of warp speed. Now we're contemplating losing a ton of internal space in the back of the ship to save a measly 2.25 Cost, or... going for the Type-3 again because it's shiny and we're underbudget, even though we have a lot of very expensive weapons to add which we would like to be able to spend more on, and our saucer choice means mounting Type-2s cost us nothing in terms of space.

It's surreal. It's like if you deliberately challenged the voters to undercut every single practical advantage of the Half-Saucer.

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Hey I am all on board with the type two train! Either FOUR or three not sure which i prefer but no way would i go type three!

 

[Void Stalker]

We've now not gone for a large secondary hull - but at least in fairness this had some tangible upside in terms of warp speed. Now we're contemplating losing a ton of internal space in the back of the ship to save a measly 2.25 Cost, or... going for the Type-3 again because it's shiny and we're underbudget, even though we have a lot of very expensive weapons to add which we would like to be able to spend more on, and our saucer choice means mounting Type-2s cost us nothing in terms of space.

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Or we go 2 current 1 rapid torpedo launcher and let refits after the rapids become standard occur to keep costs down. Meanwhile taking type 3 now means future ships of this class will be cheaper. Or we can go 2 type 2s for still a good manuverability level and really be cheap

 

[Deltamaster]

[ ] Three Type-2 Thrusters (33 -> 39.75 Cost) [Very High Manoeuvrability]
[ ] Two Type-3 Thrusters (33 -> 45.5 Cost) [Very High Manoeuvrability]
[ ] Four Type-2 Thrusters (33 -> 42 Cost) [Very High Maneuverability]

Manoeuvrability is 100% required at max unless you want to get shredded by any bird of prey

 

[darkstarling]

No because you disregard the other benefits outright. 1. 4 type twos deliver massive redundancy to the ship as in you can loose two of them and still move medium/high speed! And 2. With four type two's we are still cheaper than the two type threes. And the four engines mean that the thrusters need less maintainance because we never run them on full load!

And a refit postwar to type three thrusters is always a possibility.

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Twice as much redundancy means twice as much maintenance

 

[Chargone]

I'd say potentially so. We will likely have the Covariant shields as an option for shields, but can remain cheap(er) with regular shields.

I could see, though, someone offering a 'juiced-up' version of our current shields as something of a bridge between the regular and Covariant versions.

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My understanding is that the covariants Are the juiced up version of our current shields.

Issue is that "Banks" isn't used for a pair of Phasers, it's also been used for individual Phasers since we got the Type 2's:

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That reads as each bank having two emitters in them though?