Fitting sprint nacelles now would probably benefit the ship in the long run, depending on how the next generation nacelles are developed it could be a pretty simple swap out for them (and even if it isn't, they or the next-next generation ones will still be able to be integrated with a proper rebuild).
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Or they traded technologies and insights with some other faction, like the Romulans, which allowed them to reduce the required effort for developing a set of new technologies.
IIRC thats how they got the cloaking tech in the first place.
[X] Sprint Configuration (6.2/7/8.6) [238c/343c/636c]
It was brought up by someone earlier in the thread but it's also possible that there are some time shenanigan's going on since the 2215-2250 time period is being examined for potential interference.
It's not like future people don't mess with the timeline in canon Star Trek either, we've got examples like Future Janeway giving Voyager a bunch of tech that let them speedrun the local Borg.
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
Looking at this table - I think I'd rather go with a regular Type-1 shield over Covariant. One of the primary concerns of this ship's brief is cost.
Emitter Type Size Shield Power/100kt Base Cost Power per Base Cost True Cost/100kt Status Advancement Date Type-1 Small 10 5.0 2.00 3.8 Mature -- Type-1 Standard 15 8.6 1.75 6.4 Mature -- Type-1 Large 20 13.3 1.50 10.0 Mature -- Type-1 Covariant Small 15 7.5 2.00 9.4 Prototype 2235 Type-1 Covariant Standard 20 11.4 1.75 14.3 Prototype 2235 Type-1 Covariant Large 25 16.7 1.50 20.8 Prototype 2235
Shield Generators come in three sizes: small, medium, and large. The smaller the generator the more efficient it is at producing shield power, but the less output it has. Every generator is equally efficient to a generator of the same size, regardless of technological advancement, but more advanced generators have higher outputs.
Larger ships innately have more powerful shields. The larger the ship, the more overall output the shield system has and the more damage it can weather.
But the shield generator becomes less efficient as a ship becomes increasingly large. After 100kt, every extra ton is less efficient at producing shield power, and this effect compounds. Ships under 100kt are perfectly efficient. But a ship at 500kt is only 95% efficient. By the time any ship reaches 4 million tons its shields are only 50% efficient overall, so it is effectively paying double for each point of shield power compared to a much smaller ship. After 4.1M tons ships gain no more advantage to shield strength by becoming more massive, but do still have to pay the cost of the extra mass in generators.
As technology advances, new shield generators are introduced that have higher outputs. In a new technological generation, medium shields have the same output as a last-generation large shield, but retain the better efficiency ratio of their medium size.
The same rules for cost as other technologies apply, with prototype shields costing 25% more and mature shield technology costing 25% less.
Unless we pay a lot of cost for the Large Covariant shields, we can get the same shield strength for cheaper by just going up a size. We're already paying extra for the thruster tech progression, and will be for the rapid fire launchers, which are also just flatly expensive. Meanwhile the Covariant shields aren't even the next step in the longer tech tree, they're a dead-end side grade! Paying extra to get them to Standard quicker just isn't worth it.
Not only that, but it's the reason the Romulans got the D7.
If we can give it a bad enough showing they might never take the Klingons up on the offer, or be much more restrictive with it.
[X] Linear Configuration (6.4/7/8.4)[268c/343c/592c]
[X] Sprint Configuration (6.2/7/8.6) [238c/343c/636c]
While we might suffer slightly in strategic mobility with the slower peak cruise, frankly this ship isn't going to be patrolling. It's going to be based at the nearest Pharos or Major planet and let loose like a hound of war upon the nearest interloper. Standard cruise isn't nearly as important comparatively.
There are two reasons why we beat the Romulan warp three fleet, The first was a better combat doctrine. We fought with a cohesive fleet battle plan that was more than the sum of its parts while the Romulan ships were raiders one and all, but that's nowhere near as important as us setting the terms of any engagement. We had the edge on tactical mobility. If they were strong, we could flee, if they were weak, we could pursue and crush them. Being able to set the terms of an engagement gives you an enormous amount of leeway tactically, enough so that a polity that was outclassed in impulse, defense, and offense can take the fight into your teeth and beat you like a pinata. As such given the Klingons heavily outclass us, well we need that tactical edge badly.
[X] Sprint Configuration (6.2/7/8.6) [238c/343c/636c]
While we might suffer slightly in strategic mobility with the slower peak cruise, frankly this ship isn't going to be patrolling. It's going to be based at the nearest Pharos or Major planet and let loose like a hound of war upon the nearest interloper. Standard cruise isn't nearly as important comparatively.
There are two reasons why we beat the Romulan warp three fleet, The first was a better combat doctrine. We fought with a cohesive fleet battle plan that was more than the sum of its parts while the Romulan ships were raiders one and all, but that's nowhere near as important as us setting the terms of any engagement. We had the edge on tactical mobility. If they were strong, we could flee, if they were weak, we could pursue and crush them. Being able to set the terms of an engagement gives you an enormous amount of leeway tactically, enough so that a polity that was outclassed in impulse, defense, and offense can take the fight into your teeth and beat you like a pinata. As such given the Klingons heavily outclass us, well we need that tactical edge badly.
KlavoHunter
THOU SHALT WORSHIP NO GODS ABOVE ENTERPRISE!
[X] Linear Configuration (6.4/7/8.4) [268c/343c/592c]
I admit, this is because the looks of this bad girl will be amazing this way.
I admit, this is because the looks of this bad girl will be amazing this way.
Chargone
Invisable operator
- Location
- New Zealand
There's room to argue we need the extra shield power of the large covariant shields. Wouldn't take Much to convince me that that was the case, but large standard are very much what I'd go for by default. The other options are harder to argue for.
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On a different note, I think Linear or Sprint configs in this case probably are indeed the best options. While higher efficient cruise of course helps long range Strategic mobility, the Federation in the last decades has done two things that makes this less of an issue.
- Pharos Stations have a major capability of resupplying space craft.
- Archer Class construction/support craft can help supply fuel from their enlarged reserves to anyone who can route a course through the area they are available.
Between these two factors it is likely, especially in war time where more resources are allocated to maximizing space craft effectiveness. That Starfleet will be able to keep these cruisers making more use of their max cruise then otherwise would be possible. Of course it will not work in all circumstance, but it's still should cut down a fair bit on the drawbacks of strategic mobility with in ones own territory that one might otherwise have.
Another question is probably how large the frontier between the Klingon and Federation is. If it were a rather extended frontier then strategic mobility might matter a bit again in case you need to stay close to the border and can't use the Pharos stations as much. But there it is implied they didn't even border each other till recent decades, one would hope/think the total interface area is probably some what limited still.
I suspect as such that the choice in part thus comes down to how effective one wants them to be pre and post war in longer missions and longer stand alone missions beyond immediate supply ability. As well as what kind of profile one might think is better tactically. Admittedly it isn't brought up in the brief, so I'll presume it isn't considered important design wise, but in theory having less exposed parts 'should' have some tactical gains as you'll be harder to critically damage. Though if this isn't modeled it won't actually matter, so this is pretty speculative in that sense.
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On a different note, I wonder if certain parts becoming standard earlier would influence how many ships might get refits with such technologies. Especially if the technology is relatively compatible with the previous tech. The Federation one expects is at least looking at upgrading its Warp 7 fleet in tactical ability as much as it reasonably can.
Though it's kind of hard to say how much weight this consideration should have. Will they look less at upgrades if they can spam out more good Warp 8 ships for instance, or are they ramping up funding to the point where they'll push everything up to as high as it will go as well? As presumably refits are both cheaper, faster and often times can be achieved with less major yards.
- Pharos Stations have a major capability of resupplying space craft.
- Archer Class construction/support craft can help supply fuel from their enlarged reserves to anyone who can route a course through the area they are available.
Between these two factors it is likely, especially in war time where more resources are allocated to maximizing space craft effectiveness. That Starfleet will be able to keep these cruisers making more use of their max cruise then otherwise would be possible. Of course it will not work in all circumstance, but it's still should cut down a fair bit on the drawbacks of strategic mobility with in ones own territory that one might otherwise have.
Another question is probably how large the frontier between the Klingon and Federation is. If it were a rather extended frontier then strategic mobility might matter a bit again in case you need to stay close to the border and can't use the Pharos stations as much. But there it is implied they didn't even border each other till recent decades, one would hope/think the total interface area is probably some what limited still.
I suspect as such that the choice in part thus comes down to how effective one wants them to be pre and post war in longer missions and longer stand alone missions beyond immediate supply ability. As well as what kind of profile one might think is better tactically. Admittedly it isn't brought up in the brief, so I'll presume it isn't considered important design wise, but in theory having less exposed parts 'should' have some tactical gains as you'll be harder to critically damage. Though if this isn't modeled it won't actually matter, so this is pretty speculative in that sense.
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On a different note, I wonder if certain parts becoming standard earlier would influence how many ships might get refits with such technologies. Especially if the technology is relatively compatible with the previous tech. The Federation one expects is at least looking at upgrading its Warp 7 fleet in tactical ability as much as it reasonably can.
Though it's kind of hard to say how much weight this consideration should have. Will they look less at upgrades if they can spam out more good Warp 8 ships for instance, or are they ramping up funding to the point where they'll push everything up to as high as it will go as well? As presumably refits are both cheaper, faster and often times can be achieved with less major yards.
- Location
- Australia
@Sayle sorry for the ping, but we've had a few people now say that the new shields are a side grade and do not push us to the next shield tech level. My vote for shields is going to be based almost entirely on if that is true or not. Would you be able to confirm it either way please?
Thank you
Thank you
CrabMonarchy
Allegedly Dutch
- Location
- the Netherlands, apparently
[X] Linear Configuration (6.4/7/8.4) [268c/343c/592c]
Voting for this purely because I think it'd look weird.
Voting for this purely because I think it'd look weird.
I'm leaning towards either that or Standard sized Covariant Shields. After the first batch of ships (which do eat an extra ~7.75 cost) they should become standard rather than prototype equipment for later batches and thus much cheaper.
Going over the chart I made, once the Covariant's become standard tech the price difference between a Standard Covariant and a Large Regular shield is a difference of 2.5 and becomes even cheaper than the Regular Shields once it matures. This also has the bonus of accelerating the introduction of Covariant Shields and hopefully gets us the Type 2 Shields sooner.
It's basically the same rationale as what was used for justifying the Type 3 Thrusters.
Weapons wise since we've capped out ship maneuverability we only really need Phasers to be able to fire whenever the torpedoes can fire since getting on target is a pretty trivial matter.
The prevailing 1 Rapid Fire and 2 Regular Launchers forward proposal plus however many Regular Launchers can be mounted in the rear with the bare minimum amount of Phasers needed to be able to max Phaser damage on the front and rear arc (either 1 or 2 phaser for each arc depending on how many can fire at once).
That should net us a comparable if not superior level of firepower compared to the Canon Connie which had 3 Banks of their narrow Arc higher damage Phasers plus a single Rapid Fire Launcher.
If only 1 Phaser bank can fire at a time we'll actually do a lot better damage wise compared to the Canon Connie as a much larger chunk of the Canon Connie's damage comes from it's Phasers than from the loadout that I proposed so if only one of it's Phasers can fire at a time it's much worse off.
The question is if the percent increase in total cost is worth the percent increase in defense power. I think the answer is no. Large covariant has slightly more percent shield increase(25% shield power vs 20% total cost increase), but that excludes the defensive value of the hull and ignores that the point of designing a highly mobile ship is that we won't get into a straight attritional damage*durability fight.
[X] Sprint Configuration (6.2/7/8.6) [238c/343c/636c]
[X] Linear Configuration (6.4/7/8.4) [268c/343c/592c]
[X] Linear Configuration (6.4/7/8.4) [268c/343c/592c]