Large Covariant is a nonstarter at least until the tech itself goes to Mature status, and even then that particular system choice is...iffy.
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I'd say about four myself, the big rear saucer one, the medium/big engineering hull one and two small in the forward saucer.
In that case taking my prior assumptions it's 1,008 production cost OTL for batch one, we've got 1,310.4 assuming the war scare hasn't increased the percentage construction budget and we could get 12.51 standard covariant Connie's or 13.47 heavy type one Connie's.
NSMS
Probably evil, unfortunately.
- Location
- A rapidly widening tear in the fabric of reality
This is very important, and pushes me towards heavy standard for future refit purposes.
- Location
- west
And then refit them with large covariants when starfleet decides it wants them.
Driven by Apathy
Formerly known as Brain_Caster
To put things into numbers:
In the first tranche, for the price of 10 Constitution Light Covariants, we'd be able to afford 11.3 Constitution Type-1 Standards. If we want stronger shielding, then for the same price we could also afford 9.16 Constitution Standard Covariants, or 9.87 Constitution Type-1 Heavies.
Hmm... yeah, at this point, I think I'm inclined to eliminate the Light Covariant from consideration.
In the first tranche, for the price of 10 Constitution Light Covariants, we'd be able to afford 11.3 Constitution Type-1 Standards. If we want stronger shielding, then for the same price we could also afford 9.16 Constitution Standard Covariants, or 9.87 Constitution Type-1 Heavies.
Hmm... yeah, at this point, I think I'm inclined to eliminate the Light Covariant from consideration.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah, refit packages for all the toys down the line would be very nice, and cheaper than building entire new ships to carry them.
Actually, depending on when the refit goes through (2250s/2260s) it probably means heavy for the successor to the type 1 shield, or even a potential type 2 covariant.
- Location
- west
People just want covariants because they're shiny and new, like the engines.
Well, mostly because before now we didn't know we could only refit like for like shield heaviness wise.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Nah, not worth taking a bigger cost overlay today because 30 years from now it'll pay out. We need fast and effective today. Standard or Light Covariant, depending on if we want to trust in our high agility to come close to cost-matching the canon Connie, or match the canon Connie's shield strength with all the other perks we built in at a 10% cost increase from the canon spaceframe.
Betting on refits is a gamble I'm reluctant to go with.
If I understand correctly, T1 shields are currently cheaper than "baseline" because they're a "mature" technology. While not directly relevant here, I would assume that if we went for Cov here than they would get that status one(ish) design sooner, and at that point they'd be better than T1 on a pure price to performance (I think).
Is that worth the cost now? You decide, I'm deliberately not going to weigh in on that here.
Is that worth the cost now? You decide, I'm deliberately not going to weigh in on that here.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Clawing every possible edge over hostile Klingon ships isn't unreasonable, even if I'm leaning towards the (slightly) more budget-conscious option myself.
Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
The Type 1 heavy is mostly competing with the similar strength and cost standard covariant as a cost saving measure (it is, in fairness, slightly cheaper, edit: and leaves the possibility of refitting to a large Covariant later) but yes, it is definitely the third-place penny-pinching option.
As mentioned, I believe that we both can and should take the large Covariants, but a standard Covariant is definitely my preferred compromise pick, given the practically negligable extra cost in the long run.
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- Location
- California
Thankfully there isn't an evil Shield mafia out there to ruin our perfect canon ship. 🙏😌 #blessed
darkstarling
Brilliantly Crazed
- Location
- Columbus, Ohio
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"WITHOUT STARFLEET NONE OF YOU WOULD EXIST! We don't want to protect you from Klingons and the Borg, we just want to explore and study fucking quasars! But you know what, it's the right thing to do!"
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Same deal, we need strong spaceframes today. I'm willing to invest in so far as advancing our Shield Tech, because that's useful, but Large Type-1 doesn't really pay out until 20-30 years down the line, and by that point, the purpose we built these for will be finished.
At the cost of falling behind in shield tech fleet wide.
Nah.
Penny wise pound foolish.
Time is the one thing you dont really get back.
[X] Type-1 Heavy [36 Shields] --- (Cost 79.25 -> 97.25) --- [Second Tranche: 73.25 -> 91.25]
Why is everyone suddenly splurging in fripperies? We designed this thing to chase down and eliminate enemy warships on a reasonable budget. It needs to be budget conscious because we need a lot of them, immediately. If things stabilize, then next design we can pursue some shiny military technology, but the bird's flown, we can't reasonably get it all now.
Edit: Put the X in my vote.
Why is everyone suddenly splurging in fripperies? We designed this thing to chase down and eliminate enemy warships on a reasonable budget. It needs to be budget conscious because we need a lot of them, immediately. If things stabilize, then next design we can pursue some shiny military technology, but the bird's flown, we can't reasonably get it all now.
Edit: Put the X in my vote.
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Assuming that we get one more ship before the war begins (or maybe more, if this is scary enough to deter the Klingons) then we can take light covariant on a frigate or whatever and then refit this to heavy covariant down the line. Hopefully before the war if we can delay it long enough, but even if we don't get them in time type-1 heavies will have the same performance as standard covariant.
So in theory, decades later we might be able to get a 3 (or 4) rapid launcher + heavy covariant refit. If we don't lose the war the service life on these is gonna be crazy.
So in theory, decades later we might be able to get a 3 (or 4) rapid launcher + heavy covariant refit. If we don't lose the war the service life on these is gonna be crazy.
Standard covariant costs the same (technically slightly more) than type-1 heavy. There's not really a cost argument to be made here. The tradeoff is whether or not we think that getting covariants now is better, or if we want to build in some refit capability.
- Location
- England
People have been justifying the ludicrous costs of the designs (pick the shiny1111!) with the idea of the federation economy being in a better position due to our fidelling... The problem is that better economy or no this thing is shaping up to be either marginally more expensive (0.75 is we chose the standard shields*) but realistically will be REALLY expensive...
*Which isn't gonna happen as the vote base has collectively ignored the brief of most boom for least cash and made a ship that's is most likely gonna cost a least 25-33% MORE than a canon connie...
*Which isn't gonna happen as the vote base has collectively ignored the brief of most boom for least cash and made a ship that's is most likely gonna cost a least 25-33% MORE than a canon connie...
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- Location
- Australia
I'm pretty heavily influenced here by the fact the canon one seemingly had minor updates fairly constantly.
I'm keen on the idea that future builds might be running all rapid fire, plus heavy covariant or type two. Just, drip fed into the design step by step as costs go down because we already have the space allocated.