My interpretation:
One nacelle: Looks like it'll fall over the moment somebody taps the side of the hull.
Two nacelles: The OG, the GOAT. Old dependable.
Three nacelles: Top heavy, awkward looking, like somebody took a normal design and just whacked another nacelle on it. Badly needs a haircut.
Four nacelles: Watched too much Star Wars growing up.
The thing about three nacelles is it's used sparingly for effect, like the super Enterprise in All Good Things, or the never seen on screen Federation Class Dreadnaught from those old TOS tech manual books. This lends it a certain gravitas as something special, and thus I perceive it as having a strong aura. If you started slapping a third nacelle everywhere it would rapidly lose its allure and become tacky.
That was the job it was designed for- a local police patrol boat, basically- and it's one it actually did extremely well at (it had a 97 year service life). It wasn't a particularly powerful ship, it's true, but it wasn't supposed to be. Its potential competitors were actually less capable than it.
the constable was good at its job (being a police patrol car) it wasn't meant to be anything more than what we designed it for and if we wanted to make it more multipurpose it would have costed atleast double in tonnage
It'd be pretty cool to make a peace cruiser for the 24th century, once the Khitomer accords have been signed (if they get signed). Basically a police control unit to the police patrol car that is the constable.
the 24th century equivalent to a constable would be a modified runabout that docks to a cruiser or a station. the cruiser concept could probably use those midified runabouts as patrol and transports from facilities where you simply can't beam prisoners in
The Four Years War begins not as a result of any one incident, but of a slowly building pressure internal to the politics of the Klingon Empire. The disastrous attempt in 2225 to invade the Tholian Assembly under the leadership of Chancellor Kady'ra was the end of central stability in the Empire and resulted in a period known as the Second Interregnum where no Great House was able to solidify their grip on power and claim the Chancellorship. Initially seen as a political opportunity that would soon be resolved, the contest was prolonged after several missteps by House Antaak and ill-judged offensives against their rivals saw the most likely candidate effectively disqualified for military incompetence.
Into this time of instability came the Romulan Star Empire, who as the conflict entered its sixth year saw an opportunity to intervene in the fractious state of Klingon politics to place a candidate into power that was amenable to deeper relations with Romulus. Several shipwrights and tactical advisors were dispatched to the House of Duras and the intelligence network of the Tal Shiar allowed their leader Karhammur to consolidate a decisive advantage. The competition was eventually reduced to only the House of Mogh and House of Duras, with both forces evenly matched.
Then in 2232 construction began on the D7 battlecruiser, a ship that combined Romulan experience with their heavyweight warbirds and more advanced Klingon weapon and power-generation technology. The result was a vessel that combined a powerful plasma torpedo system with a pair of wing-mounted disruptors that were able to carve through the existing D6 and Birds-of-Prey used by Duras' opposition. By sharing the design with aligned houses Karhammur was successful not only in his attempt to be acclaimed Chancellor by much of the Empire but also forged a powerful bloc of Great Houses that supported his policies.
With authority restored the Klingon Empire entered a period of renewed shipbuilding, with the D7 being constructed in the dozens to make up the bulk of House Fleets by mass in 2240. Karhammur was faced with a choice of targets at which to direct the revitalised might of the Great Houses. Compared with the enigmatic Breen, the isolationist Tholians, or the now friendly Romulans? The Federation was ripe for conquest. Instead of a slowly growing power that could potentially match the full might of the Klingon Empire, Karhammur accurately saw a Federation that was overstretched and understrength.
While the core worlds and earlier members were indeed bound together by webs of trade that sustained the majority of Federal industry, this quickly fell by the wayside as one travelled further from the central bubble. Colonies on the far periphery were isolated and practically self-sufficient, and the latest member worlds were often connected by singular trade and logistic routes to the Federation interior. Pharos and K-series stations supported Starfleet deployments even within the borders, acting as required refuelling and resupply stops for a fleet that was too slow and too thinly spread to truly control the vast area that was now occupied by dozens of small settlements. Not for nothing was the 23rd century considered the Golden Age of Orion Piracy, where criminal extortion was common and sometimes the orbits were contested not by criminals and Starfleet but criminals and other criminals.
The Klingon Empire rolled over the border in March of 2240 without warning, not simply extorting the local colonies but outright conquering them. Those that were simply pastoral settlements were looted and left with no uncertainty as to who now ruled them, while those that had access to valuable materials were occupied and the population redistributed towards extractive industry. Starfleet's response was sluggish and disordered. Was this a major raid or the start of an all-out war? Only half a dozen ships were in range and were assembled at the nearest station to form an emergency taskforce as a larger response was organised in the interior.
That emergency taskforce never even got to leave before being attacked. The K-5 station was hit by a full fleet of House D'Ghor vessels, a collection of D6 cruisers and Birds-of-Prey over twenty ships strong. The pair of Newton-class cruisers, trio of Selachii-class frigates, and the Kea-class UFS Corella were overwhelmed immediately. The newly-designed defense satellites out of San Francisco that the Newtons had been assembling were not yet operational but would have made little difference. The Klingons lost a single Bird-of-Prey, destroyed K-5, and eliminated every Federation starship in the sector in a matter of minutes. Over seven hundred personnel were killed.
In the following weeks multiple House Fleets freely marauded through the border colonies while others struck deeper in the Federation interior. Klingon advance forces were soon harassing even decades-old settlements in the vicinity of Regulus and Tau Hydrae. Starfleet did not spend the time idle, and in May of 2240 a major response fleet had been assembled to counter the Klingon push. Fourteen Newton-class cruisers, the now refit Kea-class Macaw and Rosella, eight Selachii-class frigates, the hastily restored from partial decommissioning Sagarmatha-class Fuji and Vesuvius, and the Excalibur-class Curtana, Tizona, and Clarent.
These ships were dispatched to Pharos Seven, located between Nausicaa and Maluria as a safe haven for shipping travelling through that area of space. The fleet arrived in June, reinforcing the cruisers Hamilcar and Saladin. They did not have long to wait, the House of Mur'eq arriving in force in the closing days of that month. In addition to eight D6 cruisers and over a dozen Birds-of-Prey, the fleet was headed by three new D7 battlecruisers.
The battle was a bitter lesson for Starfleet. While most of the roster was fully capable of engaging the Birds-of-Prey on equal or superior terms, the D6 proved even more devastating than anticipated when working in concert. The Sagarmatha explorers were a favoured target due to their mass and quickly crippled, while the lighter Selachii-class was unable to break through the D6's shields in the face of such volume and intensity of fire. Phaser fire from Pharos Seven's main batteries provided welcome support against the lighter Klingon vessels, but the Newtons and Excaliburs quickly proved their worth.
The highest casualties of the battle resulted from the high-lethality exchanges and focused fire of the lighter ships, the Birds-of-Prey and Selachii-class in particular suffering heavy attrition. Meanwhile the heavy forward weapons of the Newton-class were more than capable of disabling or outright destroying smaller ships, and their phasers powerful enough to exploit the weaknesses of any larger vessels struck by a full salvo from the trio of Excalibur-class heavy cruisers.
The newer vessels in particular proved most durable and useful in the fight, but the D7 proved worrisomely effective at longer range with its twin heavy disruptors and plasma torpedoes, ripping through the defenses of the Saladin and Selachii that closed with Klingon lines with impunity. The Newtons took heavy losses for their role in anchoring the static part of the defensive formation, but the steady barrage of focused phaser fire and dual torpedo launches slowly whittled through the Klingon's own cruiser complement. As the battle began to turn against the Klingons the D7s moved into close combat, swinging around to engage the Federation flank. In response the Excaliburs were detached to directly confront them.
The rapid exchange of fire left both sets of heavy cruisers in their element and immediately underlined the massive leap in capability that both designs represented. The Excalibur was more manoeuvrable and its torpedoes gave it a lethal spike in firepower, while the D7 was equipped with stronger shields and more reliable damage output. But while the Excaliburs had been weakened by a quarter-hour of combat, the D7s were largely untouched. Within a minute of engagement the trio of Klingon battlecruisers were wrecked hulks and expanding clouds of debris, but the UFS Clarent had lost antimatter containment and bloomed into a white-blue fireball.
The attack had been repelled with total Klingon losses, but it was very much a pyrrhic victory. Starfleet would be forced to abandon Pharos Seven less than a month later when the House of Duras made a run at the station, scuttling the installation and effectively ceding control of the south-eastern part of Federation space to the Empire. Attempts to relieve far-flung outposts or even just to deploy defensive satellites in the outer colonies resulted in serious losses to the cargo service and the Cygnus-class, and by 2241 such attempts had ceased entirely as the Federation re-evaluated its strategy.
Buoyed by success, the Empire consolidated its grip on the Archanis and Melona sectors and prepared a new set of offensives aimed not at outlying colonies but at the Federation Member Planets themselves.
But this is not your business, and you have already provided all you can for the war effort. Now you need to continue your work and hope that there will be a Federation waiting to put the Darwin to use when it is ready to launch.
The phaser banks now installed aboard the Darwin prototype and providing all-round coverage beneath the bow means you can move on to the torpedo systems. These will provide the main punch for the ship in combat, though exactly how much combat is expected for a vessel with the Darwin's portfolio is an open question. Whatever your feelings may be on that front you have three options of escalating firepower.
The first is to double-down on the forward armament. The ship is more manoeuvrable than expected in its weight-class and a pair of torpedo launchers would make anything of a comparative mass very sorry indeed to find itself beneath the Darwin's main armament. But if you feel that too much vulnerability has been introduced in the aft section then a corresponding pair can likewise be installed to engage targets in the rear arc. Though this would eat into the interior and the available space there.
Lastly the final improvement you could eek out of Starfleet Tactical is trashing the two forward launchers and replacing them with a single rapid launcher capable of a three-photon volley. This is substantially less efficient, but if apex tactical performance is your goal then the extra expense is the only way to get it.
Well shit that opening exchange did not well with the Klingons able to just roll over everything to the point they are about to launch offensives into the Federation Core Worlds.
Fuck. It seems that the Romulans taught the Klingons the Thunderbird strategy of 'fuck numbers, embrace DAKKA'. Now we need something that can either break their smaller ships like how the NX class was in the last war or create another Thunderbird type of big ship to outdo the D7 and pray that whatever eergency production we have can make the handful recquired to make the big fights go in our favor
We also need some sort of armed merchantmen to better harden our supply lines and colonies
Well, the loss of a module slot hurts, but it is absolutely required.
The question in my mind is a choice between the two forward tubes and a rapid launcher. Honestly I think we will get more of them with just two forward launchers because the rapids are all going to be slated for Excaliburs.
The Klingons are like a dozen minor-power economies welded together into a single empire. Often working at cross-purposes, but quite frightening when they aren't.
@Sayle
Random question but what's the future Romulan POV/lessons learned from the Earth-Romulan war way back when the NX class was a thing since judging from the D7 they seemed to have copied or embraced the Starfleet doctrine of creating large battleships designed so that your forced to either let it run amok through the battlefield or like sacrifice all of your smaller ships to kill it like what happened in Charon.
Oh man. It's one thing to know we had a four year war, it's another to read how badly we got rolled there at the beginning. That's way worse than I imagined.
If she can't shoot backwards at warp she is going to die to the first thing she can't outrun. The cost of the module slot is painful, but it was not a cost we could anticipate when we voted to not have a rear phaser.
Meanwhile the heavy forward weapons of the Newton-class were more than capable of disabling or outright destroying smaller ships, and their phasers powerful enough to exploit the weaknesses of any larger vessels struck by a full salvo from the trio of Excalibur-class heavy cruisers.
Between greater covert Romulan support (they are an incredibly prideful people, loosing to us as they did has probably made a non-insignificant number of the state apparatus hate us as much as that one cult hates androids) than historically and the fact the Klingon governmental model supports much more in the way of starship generation/replenishment of losses due to intra-governmental disputes* it's not entirely surprising.
However it is a catalyst that will hopefully see us match their industrial capacity, or at least get close to it and outstrip them with better built ships.
*Plus as Sayle said, each house being basically a small power in and of itself.
Federation Admiralty will likely be sacked if the Federation survives, or quite likely killed in action defending Earth, Vulcan and other member worlds.
Ditto Intelligence for missing the Klingon buildup for a massive attack and the Admiralty not knowing in early critical stages that it was a full on mass assault.
If by some miracle they actually turn things around, history may look at them more favorably.
Only real chance of Federation surviving are if they can roll out enough Excaliburs and escorts for them. Excaliburs have proven they can fight on par with the D7, but are at risk of getting mutual destroyed if their escorts get mulched by D6s and are unable to cover them. Don't know if a Dreadnought is the right call, an anchor would be very helpful but so would more Excaliburs and escorts. Depends on if the Federation moves to Total War footing and economy, which unfortunately is near certain given the Klingons are about to launch assaults into the Federation core worlds. Heavy Escort that can do better vs D6 and D7 could also be something to consider?
