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KlavoHunter
THOU SHALT WORSHIP NO GODS ABOVE ENTERPRISE!
While I'm on Team Aft Phaser(No Aft Torp), I will point out that the Canon Connie was able to manhandle D7s with just the 3 forward/port/starboard phasers + double standard photorp tubes, with Medium maneuverability and no aft weapons of its own...
... the D7 is sorta a lemon
... the D7 is sorta a lemon
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Two Ventral Phasers (Cost: 45 -> 53)
[X] Two Ventral Phasers (Cost: 45 -> 53)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Unfortunately, the Klingons are more than willing to burn our house down with them.... the D7 is sorta a lemon
Goes to show just how bad our military potential pre-Excalibur/Canon!Connie was then, doesn't it, hm? Don't laugh at the D7, laugh at our poor decisions instead.... the D7 is sorta a lemon
Chargone
Invisable operator
- Location
- New Zealand
Mostly down to designing the new warp drive in a way that couldn't be refit into existing ships, so we had the sudden "all the older ships are basically obsolete" moment with This generation. Thing is, if we didn't, it wouldn't have avoided that, just pushed it off to whenever we got to the Next generation of warp drive.
Mind you, that same decision is a decent part of why our New ships are as good as they are.
Even if we had gone full Terran empire on the Klingons we'd still be in a pickle frankly. They have a head start like the Romulans did and if we were strong enough to make them step lively now then we'd be sacrificing tomorrow for today. The Warp 8 Engine was the big deal, as it offers more power and potential. Look at how it juiced our Phasers from tickle beams to actual threats. The Four year war was not because our prior ships were insufficient wholly, but because the warp 8 engine was neither back compatible and it came out late. But it's likely a vastly better product than what the Klingons have, given they wanted compatibility and the engine out ASAP. Also, how the Klingon RnD board isn't all that reliable compared to Starfleet's.
The issue is because of that delay and perceived disparity, the Klingons sense weakness and are taking a swing, much like the Kzin did. It's not the ability of the designs in of themselves, it's the Warp eight engine. If we had Selachii, Sagamartha and Newtons with warp 8 engine we'd have been warding them off right now, because our designs could keep up, at least relatively. Thing is now that we have our much better engine up, our ships can out compete thier which means bad things for them,.
KlavoHunter
THOU SHALT WORSHIP NO GODS ABOVE ENTERPRISE!
And now we have ships that casually outmaneuver, completely out-shoot, and narrowly out-Warp the Klingons' best battlecruiser.
The advantage here is so overwhelming, so crushing, that I can't see the Klinks continuing on their canon starship doctrine/design/construction path. The D7 is utterly humiliated in any fight with an Excalibur, or even our postwar science ship, that they're going to be scrambling for something that can fight against our Excaliburs.
I predict that Bird-of-Prey-heavy doctrine that others previously feared, will come to pass... Or the Klinks will find some other decent way of mitigating our overwhelming power.
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- Location
- Australia
We haven't even reached the warp cores true potential.
The big choice that made them incompatible wasn't just a size reduction - that was a nice side effect.
It was for the next generation nacelles to be at maximum power instead of constrained by the core.
Once we have those, then we will have the reward and the power that we paid the price for.
The big choice that made them incompatible wasn't just a size reduction - that was a nice side effect.
It was for the next generation nacelles to be at maximum power instead of constrained by the core.
Once we have those, then we will have the reward and the power that we paid the price for.
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer
[X] Two Ventral Phasers (Cost: 45 -> 53)
Okay, and? The only thing really giving us the edge, rather than Parity At Best, in offensive weaponry is the RFL; standard launchers were showing their age decades ago, and our current Phasers are only as good as 20 year old Disruptor designs.
- Location
- California
I'm really looking to see what we can get out of those engines once we swap from the TOS era nacelles to the TMP era ones.
Chargone
Invisable operator
- Location
- New Zealand
We're getting Some of it already (we have to Try to drop below 7 max cruise and, with a correctly specced ship, hit 8 when sprinting), and it's boosting our impulse engines as well.
"Out-maneuver" means, in effect, they don't actually get to Use those superior weapons, though.
It's actually our impulse drives (plus warp core) and willingness to shove extra torpedo launching capability into the more combat focused ships that are giving us most of our edge. And we always had the better shields, just not by as much as
the kingons previously had the better weapns, or at least, that's my understanding.
Y'know what, fine. You win the argument. I'm not in the mood to get 2v1'd.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/They
Nope. Here's the logic:
1) This isn't a primary combatant; if it's outnumbered (by foes it doesn't grossly outclass anyway) it's just going to warp away, and the aft phaser is useless.
2) This is a maneuverable ship; if it's not outnumbered, it's going to be able to keep its fore armament on target, and the aft phaser is useless.
The aft phaser would only ever make a significant difference in two circumstances:
1) Fleet actions involving very large numbers of ships on both sides, such that despite its maneuvers keeping its prow to its immediate foe, there are just so many foes that its aft phaser randomly happens to bear on a target often enough for its damage to add up.
2) Facing multiple opponents that it could handily outmaneuver, but which it overmatches in toughness and firepower by only a small degree.
Even if this somehow makes it out of the yards in time (which I'm still skeptical of), scenario #1 might happen once or twice in the entire Four Years War, and will never happen again for the lifetime of the ship. Scenario 2 will literally never happen against the Klingons, at least. The Klingons don't have light cruisers; their combat-capable fleet jumps straight from the light frigate Bird of Prey to the D-series, which despite its higher tech and lower mass is best thought of as a straight-up battlecruiser.
This ship- regardless of aft phaser choice- is likely to end up with enough firepower and shield strength to take apart single Birds of Prey despite their modest maneuverability edge, if well-handled. It's highly unlikely to take the fight to multiple BoPs, who could likely pick it apart with good teamwork- it'll run away at warp. So it doesn't need the aft phaser against lone BoPs and can't use it against multiples.
It's seldom if ever going to need its aft phaser against a lone D7, as it (slightly) outmaneuvers them and should have little trouble keeping its fore armament on target. It does have significantly weaker shields than the D7 or its true peers, and might well end up needing to flee one at Warp if the opening exchanges go poorly (rendering its aft phaser useless), and will absolutely be fleeing multiple D7s at Warp (rendering its aft phaser useless).
Now if the Gorns or Tholians or whoever are given to punchy light cruisers or heavy frigates in about this weight class with slightly-inferior overall tech and no more than Medium-High maneuverability (you know, the sort of thing this ship might actually want to fight more than one of solo), or if we're facing a foe that definitively outsprints us in the Warp that we can't flee regardless of aft torpedo, then sure, the aft phaser might come in handy. I still don't think it'll be handy enough often enough to be worth the 4 cost, though. I mean look how far out I had to go to find a circumstance where it would be useful AT ALL!
Eh, their shield tech is quote-unquote "nakedly superior" to ours- they have grossly stronger shields than we do for ships of the same mass. We do generally outmass them by enough it's kind of a wash, though, yes.
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Some slight differences aside, this is basically the Excalibur (and kinda the prime universe Connie).
View: https://x.com/CenturiiC/status/1815409315320402295
Just need to give the US General a red shirt and the soviet one one of those golden Klingon shirts.
Strunkriidiisk
THE LEGEND
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
KlavoHunter
THOU SHALT WORSHIP NO GODS ABOVE ENTERPRISE!
You've been beaten like a D-7 in a dogfight:
For the first bit:
1) I personally wouldn't hold the Darwin warping away from a fight where it would outnumbered to a degree it couldn't match with its's maneuverability, shields, and however much firepower it has, and consider that a less likely scenario for that much of an overmatch to be dedicated against a single ship that's not a primary combatant. I would expect our primary combatants to do the same really, it's not worth throwing away the lives of the crew in a fight that can't be won. Unless they're trying to hold the line as a heroic defense of something even more important obviously, but I expect that if a Federation Darwin manages to end up in that same situation somehow they wouldn't abandon the defense either.
2) When the Darwin is able to consistently maneuver to keep it's forward weapons on a lone target, that aft facing tube isn't going to be any more useful than the phaser. When it isn't that phaser is going to hit just as hard, and will be ready to fire at any time instead of just when it's loaded.
To me, an aft standard tube would be superior on this ship in two general situations, one of which is the fleet actions you're saying a phaser bank would be better for.
That's because in a major fleet battle the Darwin is much more likely to run into the biggest downside of the aft phaser IMO, the fact that we can only shoot one bank at a time. In a big fight like that where there's multiple enemies flying about it's much more likely to run into a situation that has targets the Darwin would like to shoot both fore and aft of it, but the phasers can only go after one despite having multiple in arc. An aft standard tube wouldn't have that issue, allowing the Darwin to fire both fore and aft tubes plus a fore phaser bank at targets all at once. With a number of allied ships engaged as well, the Darwin can also rely on them to help pick off anything that manages to stick on their tail despite it's maneuverability while the standard tube is reloading. The chances of this issue cropping up for phasers gets lower the fewer targets there are flying about in the battle, down to basically impossible to be a problem if the Darwin is dueling a single other ship that darts behind it.
The other is that band of encounters where the Darwin does try to escape to warp immediately, and you want something that can be shot at anything chasing you while FTL. That's a going to be a narrower band for the Darwin though compared to previous science-priority ships. The very good maneuverability and good shielding raises the "floor" of that band significantly where it would still be better to to fight it out rather than restrict yourself to just a single aft tube, if the thread goes for a RF or multiple standard launchers forward that just raises it higher. The reduction in max warp to sprint escapes with would lower the "ceiling" of that encounter band slightly too, above which the Darwin would have better odds trying to wield sub-light maneuverability and heavier forward firepower from tubes+phasers than keep warping away in a race it can't win.
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[X] Two Ventral Phasers (Cost: 45 -> 53)
[X] Two Ventral Phasers (Cost: 45 -> 53)
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
[X] Two Ventral Phasers (Cost: 45 -> 53)
KlavoHunter
THOU SHALT WORSHIP NO GODS ABOVE ENTERPRISE!
It just occurred to me that the Kobayashi Maru test is going to have to be tweaked; Getting jumped by three D7s/K'tingas may not be enough to bring an Excalibur down with a conventional engagement 😈
Edit: Random thought, if the D7 is basically just a refit D6, that means that the K'tinga is the D8.
Edit: Random thought, if the D7 is basically just a refit D6, that means that the K'tinga is the D8.
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