Remove ads

Starfleet Design Bureau

Linked contents
Starship Design Bureau Starfleet Design Bureau
Reader mode
Didn't say it earlier, but I'm doubly glad we went with the regular warp core/engineering hull, as well as the advantages of the cargo bay (especially a planetary accessible one) having two Type F shuttles is going to greatly expand the utility of this ship when it lands, the whole planet will still be effectively at its front door without having to take off and land every time a new section needs to be looked at.

Zulaq said:
[X] Cruise Configuration (Efficient Cruise: 6 -> 6.4) [Range: +20%]
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You are 36 minutes early.
 
Tank man said:
It hasn't given us a warp 8 fleet, it has given us a warp 8 class. A class of ships, 18 out of a total fleet of some 100-200 total (warships, because that's what we design), does not make a fleet.

This will be the only other class of warp 8/that neighbourhood ships for nearly a decade after the end of the Klingon War. Two classes of ships don't make a fleet, but they will make a decent part of it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
18 Excaliburs is a fleet, and a quite powerful one at that. It's not a fleet with a large number of ships in it, but that doesn't really matter.

As for the next decade, we have no indication that war is going to break out during that time. And if war does break out, either the Excaliburs we have will be considered enough, or the timeline will get retconned and Starfleet will order more Excaliburs. Or even just more Warp 7 ships.

People are taking it as a given that this ship needs to fill a role in our fleet composition based on... well, nothing. There's no indication in any of the design briefs or fluff that this ship will be expected to perform any kind of military or defense role, and we have no evidence that there's a war brewing.

Again, this is a specialist ship Starfleet is commissioning to fill a specific need. It's not a linchpin of the Federation's defense strategy.
 
Zulaq said:
I think there's something that needs to be cleared up.

Half the mass of a cruiser is still a big ship, especially if we're not producing anything larger than said cruisers. It's really important to note that mass is exponential not linear. A true small ship compared to our 180,000 ton ship would probably be about 18,000-30,000 tons. For example, at the end of the Second World War, the United States was making heavy cruisers about 17,000 tons (200m long by 21m wide, Baltimore Class), while also making destroyers less than 3,500 tons (119m long by 12m wide, Gearing Class), and the US was making ships both larger and smaller than each.

I certainly feel that building a ship in the destroyer range is about right for this design, a specialized ship that might do limited patrols. In any event being half the mass of our cruiser would effectively make it absolutely huge for what we want it to be.

In any case, it's quite clear we have a case of Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The mass is directly computed from volume. I'm not sure what you're trying to say otherwise.
 
People just want sprint sprint sprint and will accept any illogic to get it. This ship will never be an amazing sprinter. Ships are not good at everything, and that's okay. Give it good long range cruise and let it science the hell out of things.

Shard said:
Honestly I was skeptical myself, but the logic of 'If you're not confident in landing the ship on the planet, you're not confident in planting a colony there' was actually fairly persuasive. For me, anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Also you can start with shuttlecraft and orbital surveys, transporters, and then find a landing site and settle in for the long haul. Because a whole PLANET is not getting surveyed from orbit in a week and then you move on.

Skippy said:
The linear nacelles are the most Intrepid-like of all the options here, so that's a potential reason to go with them.

Aesthetic seems to match the fairly "flat" look of the ship.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Keep in mind that the Intrepid rather iconicly raises its nacelles when it goes to warp.

Side note, on the whole tactical sprint debate. One of the Intrepid's major design features is the ability to - in this game's terms - switch from Cruise to Sprint nacelle configuration on the fly. Which is great. BUT that the other major thing about the Intrepid is that it's cruise - optimized, able to sustain high warp for a very long time.

Tank man said:
Didn't say it earlier, but I'm doubly glad we went with the regular warp core/engineering hull, as well as the advantages of the cargo bay (especially a planetary accessible one) having two Type F shuttles is going to greatly expand the utility of this ship when it lands, the whole planet will still be effectively at its front door without having to take off and land every time a new section needs to be looked at.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Agreed. I also like that it gave us a landing-accessible cargo bay.
 
Skippy said:
This isn't necessarily a non-combatant and we should stop ourselves falling into this kind of thinking based on an overly narrow interpretation of the brief. As one of the only two classes of ship we have with a Warp 8 engine, entering service a period of constant border tension and cold war for Starfleet, it would be a greatly missed opportunity to not make this thing an able combatant for her weight class. It in no way prevents us from studying algae in peacetime.

The Kea is a science ship and post-refit will be literally the #2 combatant in Starfleet.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Actually, we shorten it's life span even more since we advance in tech so much. We can't refit the old ships with our new stuff.
 
Trying to make a bunch of ships with a non-combatant mindset got us into an early war. We need to continue to build some sticks as a form of deterrence. Not every ship needs to be warlike but being our second Warp 8 class I want this thing to hit hard and be difficult to take down.

RIP blister deflector. That would have looked really cool with how compact the secondary hull is. Either the blister could continue all the way back in a cylinder to rectangular transition or there could have been a notch to allow access to the loading bay.

For this vote with the warp 7 cap I don't think we really have bad options here. I'm fine with splitting the difference with linear. It isn't completely federation internal and a full biosphere cataloguing and sampling mission sounds like it'd end at a starbase to drop stuff off and resupply. Some improved range could keep this design usable for an extra decade or two and sprint could keep them alive long enough to get home.
 
With the range advantage the warp 8 engine has over the archer style engine (1.7142x - 120ly Excalibur base vs 70ly Kea) this ship is probably going to outrange everything but the Archer and Excalibur as a baseline, so taking the linear configuration means probably exceeding the Archer whilst also maintaining an efficient cruise only equaled by the Excalibur, a greater max warp than anything in the fleet bar the Excalibur and if @TheShadowDeamon post is correct a maximum cruise faster than anything else in the fleet (again bar the Excalibur) and faster than most ships top speed.

Sprint speed is still an important factor here (being a ship on our periphery that's going to run into all sorts of weird shit, and then need to either run away or run faster towards), so I'm going to go for an option that gives us a bit more range on top of extra sprint speed.

Plus, it'll look like the Intrepid-class the most, from my reading, and I do like that spoon ship.

[X] Linear Configuration (Efficient Cruise: 6 -> 6.2, Maximum Warp: 7.6 -> 7.8) [Range: +10%]
 
I like Linear, good cruise speed and range while still being able to sprint decently in an emergency.

[X] Linear Configuration (Efficient Cruise: 6 -> 6.2, Maximum Warp: 7.6 -> 7.8) [Range: +10%]
 
[X] Linear Configuration (Efficient Cruise: 6 -> 6.2, Maximum Warp: 7.6 -> 7.8) [Range: +10%]

[X] Sprint Configuration (Maximum Warp: 7.6 -> 8)
 
Last edited:
[X] Cruise Configuration (Efficient Cruise: 6 -> 6.4) [Range: +20%]
[X] Linear Configuration (Efficient Cruise: 6 -> 6.2, Maximum Warp: 7.6 -> 7.8) [Range: +10%]

I think this is past moratorium. Anyway, for a science vessel spending most of its time either studying something or traveling between distant locations, cruise configuration makes sense. It's not a real warship, it's not meant to fight, and it's not meant to be a rapid response or patrol craft.
 
Last edited:
[X] Linear Configuration (Efficient Cruise: 6 -> 6.2, Maximum Warp: 7.6 -> 7.8) [Range: +10%]
 
SaltyWaffles said:
It's not a real warship, it's not meant to fight, and it's not meant to be a rapid response or patrol craft.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Being meant to and being able to are two different things. At the far corners of our space/just beyond it at which this ship is meant to operate this ship will be getting into fights with the Gorn and Tholians, to say nothing of other more minor powers (or unknown major ones we'll encounter), and will frequently be the only ship in range - as such the ability to sprint is a useful one, either to run away from or to run towards trouble.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top