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Starfleet Design Bureau

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jjffjhjf said:
I'm not sure why people are concerned about this whole thing? We've already got retrospectives that show the Federation do just fine during and after this. We are being shown early losses, but this isn't like how the whole war goes. So its not like we need to be worried here.
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It's like looking at the world in early 1942 and thinking that the Allies are destined to lose WWII. Yes, the immediate situation is grim and the initial losses are bad, but the war is far from over.

Candesce said:
Yes. Pure cost-per-firepower, we're best off building as big a ship as possible and mounting everything on it.

The problem with that strategy is that it leaves us too few ships to cover all our territory. We have to make lighter, less-efficient combatants just to make sure we're in as many places at once as we need to be.
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I'll note that one of the reasons that our initial battles went so badly is that we didn't have an Excalibur present, or we didn't have very many Excaliburs present. The only way we could have improved the odds that more Excaliburs would have been there is to just have had more of them. And the only way we could have had more Excaliburs is to have made them cheaper.

It's too early in the war to make definitive statements, but I think there's a pretty stark lesson here about the importance of cost.
 
Cold Dust said:
Sayle said non-combat ships wouldn't be produced until after the war, if memory serves. Presumably if this is deemed a scientific vessel, it won't be produced until after hostilities cease.
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That simply does not work given the Darwin will be the second most heavily armed ship in Starfleet and the Newton, which we will be building in job lots to replace losses, is technically an engineering cruiser. (Like the only "combat ships" in service going by Sayle's listing before are the Selachii and the Excalibur.) Realistically I think the Project will just be put on a shelf for whatever reason, but it is actually somewhat unusual when you look at it. Maybe an issue of not wanting to spin up new production lines in a conflict.
 
[X] Two Forward Torpedoes (Cost: 53 -> 57.5)

25% less science is simply too painful an ask for a dedicated science ship which will likely spend most of it's time planet bound.
 
Skippy said:
That simply does not work given the Darwin will be the second most heavily armed ship in Starfleet and the Newton, which we will be building in job lots to replace losses, is technically an engineering cruiser. (Like the only "combat ships" in service going by Sayle's listing before are the Selachii and the Excalibur.) Realistically I think the Project will just be put on a shelf for whatever reason, but it is actually somewhat unusual when you look at it. Maybe an issue of not wanting to spin up new production lines in a conflict.
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Or just like literally construction time? We aren't going to finish the project until 2241-42, and ships take years to build. Maybe a very few will be entering service by 2244-45.

I get you want to make this a war construction ship, but this whole affair feels like an attempt to backdoor it into the quest by every means possible. It makes the quest less fun and it succeeding would feel lame and make imo for a worse quest.
 
Horologer said:
I'll note that one of the reasons that our initial battles went so badly is that we didn't have an Excalibur present, or we didn't have very many Excaliburs present.
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The initial battle was a twenty-on-six surprise beatdown. The two things that might have saved lives and ships are a) those ships having the new Warp 8 Core, and thus the speed to run away (assuming they think to run in time), or b) a heavily-militarized station that the Klingons would need to siege down. If there had been an Excalibur, we'd have lost the Excalibur.

After that, we've got the second battle (at Pharos 7), a ~21 versus 29 where a lot of our losses are in obsolete combat vessels that were only still around because we have consistently under-gunned all of their potential replacements. The rest are in Newtons, for being a light cruiser trying to pull duty as a heavy cruiser and suffering attrition because it isn't a heavy cruiser.

Lastly, we've got lots of losses in skirmishing - probably mostly to Birds of Prey. The Cygnus just isn't up to fighting those off, and the Archer isn't that much better.

If the Keas carried torpedoes baseline, they'd do pretty well as line-of-battle cruisers; there were two refit Keas at Pharos 7. You'll note neither died. If we'd made a combat-capable Archer, or had done a long range cruiser less prone to exploding than the Radiant, maybe we wouldn't have needed our light-cruiser Newtons trying to perform a role they are singularly unfit for.

Edit: This also makes it clear why we just saw a 3v3 Excalibur-D7 deathmatch have an Excalibur casualty when we know they can 1v3 D7s if they're skilled and lucky: the Excaliburs were tanking for most of the Federation fleet, while the D7s were acting as reserves. The Excaliburs probably went into that fight with very low shields.
 
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DeltaV11.2 said:
Or just like literally construction time? We aren't going to finish the project until 2241-42, and ships take years to build. Maybe a very few will be entering service by 2244-45.

I get you want to make this a war construction ship, but this whole affair feels like an attempt to backdoor it into the quest by every means possible. It makes the quest less fun and it succeeding would feel lame and make imo for a worse quest.
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In-character people don't know how long the war will take, though, so taking an in-progress design and somewhat repurposing it to better fit the emergency would make a lot of sense. Like it won't surprise me to have a bunch built with all the science sections just empty, expected to be filled in after the conflict.
 
DeltaV11.2 said:
Or just like literally construction time? We aren't going to finish the project until 2241-42, and ships take years to build. Maybe a very few will be entering service by 2244-45.

I get you want to make this a war construction ship, but this whole affair feels like an attempt to backdoor it into the quest by every means possible. It makes the quest less fun and it succeeding would feel lame and make imo for a worse quest.
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Ship construction times seem to be on the order of a year or two by what we've seen with other projects, although it's hard to be specific. And no, I'm just musing on the timelines, realistically this has no bearing on whether the ship is produced in the war or not. Like originally this line of discussion prompted by someone saying that having it go into production in time would be a retcon when if anything when you look at the dates it's more of one to keep it out - but it's all academic anyway given it's fundamentally a QM decision. It's just interesting to consider the in-universe rationale.

Honestly the level of overwrought some players have gotten about what was a completely arbitrary decision in the first place is IMO a bit silly, and I even include myself in this to a degree, but there we go.
 
Skippy said:
That simply does not work given the Darwin will be the second most heavily armed ship in Starfleet and the Newton, which we will be building in job lots to replace losses, is technically an engineering cruiser. (Like the only "combat ships" in service going by Sayle's listing before are the Selachii and the Excalibur.) Realistically I think the Project will just be put on a shelf for whatever reason, but it is actually somewhat unusual when you look at it. Maybe an issue of not wanting to spin up new production lines in a conflict.
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We were asked to design a bio survey ship. That's what the project is labeled as for the person doing military budgeting.
 
Cold Dust said:
We were asked to design a bio survey ship. That's what the project is labeled as for the person doing military budgeting.
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Okay, but we've designed the number two combatant in Starfleet, like that is just factually the case as it stands unless the vote dramatically shifts. One might as well say the Newton should not be produced during the war because it's a logistical support cruiser. That fundamentally is not how anything actually works in reality so it's not a very good explanation. Something with supply chains/lead times seems more plausible.
 
Skippy said:
Ship construction times seem to be on the order of a year or two by what we've seen with other projects, although it's hard to be specific. And no, I'm just musing on the timelines, realistically this has no bearing on whether the ship is produced in the war or not. Like originally this line of discussion prompted by someone saying that having it go into production in time would be a retcon when if anything when you look at the dates it's more of one to keep it out - but it's all academic anyway given it's fundamentally a QM decision. It's just interesting to consider the in-universe rationale.

Honestly the level of overwrought some players have gotten about what was a completely arbitrary decision in the first place is IMO a bit silly, and I even include myself in this to a degree, but there we go.
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I mean, calling it "interesting to consider the in-universe rationale" while criticizing that potential rationale after having argued for it to be moved up, and in response to someone responding to that argument is uhh, really a stretch. I think it's pretty sensible to think that you're continuing your argument.

People are pushing back because they don't like what to me parses as an attempt to subvert the process, and following that to delegitimize other opinions by claiming to speak for a majority, claiming that critics will not actually like the result, and now(and before) claiming that others are being unreasonable by pushing back, or are emotionally compromised. Like sure I am angry, but I think that's a pretty sensible response to being called overwrought.
 
landcollector said:
However, given the cost mechanics,Cheaper means some combination of less well armed and/or less maneuverable and/or less able to withstand incoming fire.
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Yes, but not all weapons are made equal. Rear phasers and torpedoes are used less often, even though they cost the same. Shields on high-maneuverability ships take less damage, because they just get hit less. Conversely, torpedoes in high-maneuverability ships are more effective, because you can get better firing solutions, and so on.

I mean, we made a lot of costly design decisions on the Excalibur, many in the name of future-proofing or covering all our bases. That effort may pan out at some later date, but the flip side is that it costs more to build, which means we have fewer ships to fight the Klingons with right now.

Candesce said:
The initial battle was a twenty-on-six surprise beatdown. The two things that might have saved lives and ships are a) those ships having the new Warp 8 Core, and thus the speed to run away (assuming they think to run in time), or b) a heavily-militarized station that the Klingons would need to siege down. If there had been an Excalibur, we'd have lost the Excalibur.

After that, we've got the second battle (at Pharos 7), a ~21 versus 29 where a lot of our losses are in obsolete combat vessels that were only still around because we have consistently under-gunned all of their potential replacements. The rest are in Newtons, for being a light cruiser trying to pull duty as a heavy cruiser and suffering attrition because it isn't a heavy cruiser.

Lastly, we've got lots of losses in skirmishing - probably mostly to Birds of Prey. The Cygnus just isn't up to fighting those off, and the Archer isn't that much better.

If the Keas carried torpedoes baseline, they'd do pretty well as line-of-battle cruisers; there were two refit Keas at Pharos 7. You'll note neither died. If we'd made a combat-capable Archer, or had done a long range cruiser less prone to exploding than the Radiant, maybe we wouldn't have needed our light-cruiser Newtons trying to perform a role they are singularly unfit for.
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Sure, K-5 was always going to be a crushing loss: the strategic disposition at the start of the war virtually guaranteed that. If an Excalibur was there, about the most we could hope for was that it would have given the Klingons some pause.

But Pharos 7 would have likely gone better if we'd had more Excaliburs there to take fire for the rest of the fleet. And skirmishing is where the value of more Excaliburs is most clear. A skirmish with an Excalibur– even a slightly less-armed one– is going to have a much different outcome than a skirmish with any of our other ships. A Bird of Prey that runs into an Excalibur is probably not going to skirmish again.
 
Skippy said:
Okay, but we've designed the number two combatant in Starfleet, like that is just factually the case as it stands unless the vote dramatically shifts. One might as well say the Newton should not be produced during the war because it's a logistical support cruiser. That fundamentally is not how anything actually works in reality so it's not a very good explanation. Something with supply chains/lead times seems more plausible.
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But we were not asked to design a combat ship. We were asked to design a bio survey ship. Read the brief again.

Once it's produced, assuming the heavy weapons are valuable Starfleet may ask for more. But right now, we were asked to design a bio survey ship, and that is what it'll say on the brief.
 
DeltaV11.2 said:
I mean, calling it "interesting to consider the in-universe rationale" while criticizing that potential rationale after having argued for it to be moved up, and in response to someone responding to that argument is uhh, really a stretch. I think it's pretty sensible to think that you're continuing your argument.

People are pushing back because they don't like what to me parses as an attempt to subvert the process, and following that to delegitimize other opinions by claiming to speak for a majority, claiming that critics will not actually like the result, and now(and before) claiming that others are being unreasonable by pushing back, or are emotionally compromised. Like sure I am angry, but I think that's a pretty sensible response to being called overwrought.
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I mean, I do disagree with the potential rationale and have made no secret about it at any point, but that hardly disqualifies me from discussing it. If I wanted to continue the argument I would simply continue it. I think we both know I am quite capable of being forceful and direct in my arguments when I wish to be.

And please kindly stop with this "subvert the process". I asked in a completely public forum for the decision to be changed, some players spoke up in support and more against the proposed change, and now it won't be changed. I am just as entitled to my opinions and to express them in the thread as you are.

Cold Dust said:
But we were not asked to design a combat ship. We were asked to design a bio survey ship. Read the brief again.

Once it's produced, assuming the heavy weapons are valuable Starfleet may ask for more. But right now, we were asked to design a bio survey ship, and that is what it'll say on the brief.
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Don't be facetious. This isn't how Starfleet works. By that standard we would not have refitted the Kea and would not be building the Newton during the war. It's simply not a good explanation for the delay.
 
Horologer said:
But Pharos 7 would have likely gone better if we'd had more Excaliburs there to take fire for the rest of the fleet. And skirmishing is where the value of more Excaliburs is most clear. A skirmish with an Excalibur– even a slightly less-armed one– is going to have a much different outcome than a skirmish with any of our other ships. A Bird of Prey that runs into an Excalibur is probably not going to skirmish again.
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Yes, but "slightly less armed" on the Excalibur means that it's much worse at fighting D7, and this is again literally the only ship which can do that without either comical numerical superiority or ramming. Realistically we could've cut, what, the rear phasers, maybe? To save all of four cost?
 
I'm happy with the current state of affairs.

I'm happy with the performance of our recent designs.

I'm happy with the performance of our less-recent designs! Look, all that Science and Engineering focus that we went in on at the cost of firepower, all those lighter vessels that were cheaply rendered immune to casual piracy, all those colonies that got founded, got their biospheres analyzed and their infrastructure built out decades ahead of schedule, all those new minor species that joined the Federation instead of getting wiped out by disasters or enslaved by Klingons or Romulans or whoever and all the members of those species that got a little bit less oppressed when the Federation was sternly disapproving about certain socially discriminatory laws on their books, all those plagues and disasters that got responded to days or weeks faster because we had antimatter generation dozens of lightyears closer and the Cygnuses and Newtons could afford to max-cruise instead of efficient-cruise-

look, I'm seeing a lot of people real salty about "well I guess we fucked up and we were asking for it"-

No! You know what? The Cygnus, the Kea, the Archer, the Pharos? All that build-out-the-frontier, help-our-fucking-people feel-good shit?

IT FUCKING WORKED

It was the right call. It was better than canon. We have made a stronger Federation.

Like, sure, yes, it made the Klingon War inevitable- and it made it happen earlier, and made it more dangerous. Okay, whatever. Do you honestly think more people are going to die in the Four Years' War than would have died to plagues and disasters and Nausicaans and assorted miscellaneous pirates and raiders over the course of the last eight or ten decades, plus would have died in a 2260s Federation-Klingon War scenario? The Klingons not being given to things like cobalt bombs yeah no I'm not forgiving the Romulans anytime soon I very much doubt it!

IT FUCKING WORKED

It was the right call. It was better than canon. We have made a stronger Federation.

Our Excalibur came out a decade earlier and is five steps more expensive than canon Connie (A>A->B+>B>B->C+) and we still ordered MORE OF THEM and sure the "why" is "because the Klingons were saber-rattling and Starfleet was getting nervous" but stop and think about the "how"! We could afford to build and crew significantly more, significantly more expensive ships, significantly earlier! Our economy, our population, our scientific strength, the overall state of the Federation? We are kicking SO. MUCH. ASS.

That whole reckless 4x expansion and build up for lategame schtick that's been getting derided a lot lately?

IT FUCKING WORKED

It was the right call. It was better than canon. We have made a stronger Federation.

The Klingons were never not going to be an issue- but even if the Four Years' War costs more lives than the Federation-Klingon War would have, we're still ahead by decades of saving FAR more lives and livelihoods and worlds and species on the frontier. We're still- give or a take a lot in particular areas, but overall ballpark- a full decade up in tech progression. The snowball is just starting, but already we're dramatically better positioned to take on the Borg, the Cardassians, the Dominion, and so on into the future.

Yeah, the right-now kinda sucks. But you know what?

#WORTH

I am absolutely fucking thrilled with the overall outcome of all our choices up until this point, and with the exception of the Sagarmatha's quad nacelles🧂🧂🧂:p I would make all of them again in a heartbeat.

Edit: 😳thanks <3

Edit2: Oh and I somehow forgot to mention: a whole extra century of the Kzinti NOT EATING PEOPLE.
 
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The rear phasers and aft torpedoes on the Excalibur could probably be omitted, given that 90% of the ship's tactical role is shooting things with its front pointed at them. But that's still only 6.25 Cost of savings on a 91.25 Cost ship. More on the first production run of ships.

Now I'm not sure those numbers tell the full story, and maybe at the margin there's enough of a nonlinear relationship between added marginal cost and the letter ratings that it would have given us a "B" cost rating rather than a "C+". But even then, I can't see it meaning more than a couple extra ships - we weren't robbed of a dozen extra Excaliburs just by that decision.

If we'd seriously skimped on the shields, like with Light Standard Type-1 shields or something, then that would probably have produced a lot more hulls in service, but also seriously impacted survivability. For a ship which was also going to have to be a flagship/big stick which needs to support a larger flotilla of less capable vessels, we did want the Excalibur to be survivable.

Seems broadly correct that we didn't splurge on the Heavy Covariant though.
 
If we are actually going to make a war starship to complement the Excalibur I'd go for 'a modernized Selachii', honestly. Not a lot needs to change, even. You could probable get Very High Maneuverability off a single thruster, and possibly crap 2 Rapid Torpedo Launchers alongside 2 forward phasers, bam, done.

(But then that ship is basically a smaller Excalibur.)
 
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Lohjak said:
Yes, but "slightly less armed" on the Excalibur means that it's much worse at fighting D7, and this is again literally the only ship which can do that without either comical numerical superiority or ramming. Realistically we could've cut, what, the rear phasers, maybe? To save all of four cost?
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I mean, the thread voted to go for maximum maneuverability without losing any space, which cost a lot. Then we decided to go for heavy shields on top of that, which also cost a lot. And then we decided to round that out with a rear phaser and a rear torpedo, which, well, also cost a lot.

The end result of those choices is a formidable ship with one hell of an opening salvo, as a few very unfortunate Klingons have just discovered. It's also a versatile ship that's going to have a long and fruitful service history. But it's not a very cost-efficient ship, and right now it looks like that's causing us a fair bit of pain.
 
Skippy said:
I mean, I do disagree with the potential rationale and have made no secret about it at any point, but that hardly disqualifies me from discussing it. If I wanted to continue the argument I would simply continue it. I think we both know I am quite capable of being forceful and direct in my arguments when I wish to be.

And please kindly stop with this "subvert the process". I asked in a completely public forum for the decision to be changed, some players spoke up in support and more against the proposed change, and now it won't be changed. I am just as entitled to my opinions and to express them in the thread as you are.
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It doesn't in any way disqualify you from discussing it but don't be surprised when people interpret it as continued argument. I know you're capable of being forceful and direct, but I also think you're capable of subtlety(so am I lmao).

I perceive it as subverting the process because you have repeatedly claimed to speak for others, or know what's best for others, or in general preemptively claim a majority or, failing that, claim necessity above voter opinion, or that others are arguing purely out of contrarianism. If you had started with just making your case as yourself and calling for others to support it, I'd perceive this much less negatively.
 
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People liked that it could move a giant shipping container more, and pretty sure the mechanics don't allow a disco death ball which was what people were actually said about.
 
DeltaV11.2 said:
It doesn't in any way disqualify you from discussing it but don't be surprised when people interpret it as continued argument.

I perceive it as subverting the process because you have repeatedly claimed to speak for others, or know what's best for others, or in general preemptively claim a majority or, failing that, claim necessity above voter opinion, or that others are arguing purely out of contrarianism. If you had started with just making your case as yourself and calling for others to support it, I'd perceive this much less negatively.
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Honestly yeah, I agree it was a mistake to phrase my initial post that way. I was honestly pretty surprised that players would be hostile to what I saw as being in their own direct interests. But no doubt the perception that I was speaking for people was a mistake. Honestly I did ask for other people to chip in with opinions, but I had expected this would be in terms of people presenting other proposals for what we could do to aid in the war effort, and so far there was a grand total of one of those throughout this entire discussion.

DragoonPreston said:
And what options did we have for that? The Orb of Building Glory was thoroughly laughed out of the room when we asked for Torps to put on it, and they grudgingly let us put a few Phasors on it. There really was no Option to do make it the Death Orb, a lot of people were quite disapoint by that.
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The Archer had a torpedo launcher front and aft. But yes after we went for the spherical primary hull, it was never going to be very good in a fight. Really the combat-capable version of an Archer is the Newton which is... adequate. But even that does not address the warp core issue.
 
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