and when the Type 4 nacelle comes out give me a 400kt demigod for our first dedicated flagship explorer, even if we only get six or eight or ten of 'em.
A long-range explorer made in small numbers, like a proto-Galaxy class, isn't a bad idea, provided we have enough other modern ships to flesh out our fleet.
Again, once those holes are plugged, could be useful to put advanced or experimental technologies on an implicitly limited production design, that way we can get new weapons, shields etc a lot faster and the exorbitant cost isn't so much of a hassle, since we know we're only building a few. We
must have a stronger fleet before we do that though, I think.
tldr: We need small/ light escorts to guard our holding to prevent everything from catching on fire and exploding when an enemy force attacks while all our big ships are busy doing exploring tasks or whatever. Having warships around prevents people from thinking that they can jump us and win before our heavy ships get into combat.
I seriously think we need to make a warp 8 version of the Cygnus or Newton, I got put down last couple times I suggested it because we have the Newton, but I'm increasingly convinced it's a good idea.
A fast internal affairs ship (full warp 8, not cheap'n'nasty faux warp 8), armaments similar to the Excalibur-class (maybe a little less for affordability, but if new weapons come up could be good to grab them), good combat abilities (most advanced shields available type 2s best, max agility), preferably a few points of cargo and extended range. It can deliver supplies and personnel where an Archer is overkill, patrol our space for long periods of time, deter pirates and raiders, and can respond faster than our older warp 7 ships. Optional extras; general purpose science lab for the more basic science wedgies, enhanced sensors for scouting, cruise config for maximum range under normal operations.
With such a ship, we can retire the Cygnus-class, and our fleet will be a lot stronger and when we're attacked we can deploy a better, scarier response force a
lot faster.
Edit: A new warp 8 science cruiser once that's done would be good. A larger version than our bio-survey ship with more general science abilities, but without the landing capability or deflector limitations. Maybe we go super-big and plan on a limited production run, like the Sagarmatha? While I argued against torpedoes for the Kea-class to start with, I think we really are entering an era where every cruiser must have 2x fore and 2x aft torpedoes, and the more the better.
Edit sidenote: Is the RFL launcher a straight-up
upgrade from single-fire launchers, or is it a
sidegrade that'll continue to exist in parallel until we get type 2 torpedo launchers?
Edit 2: Just did some backtracking, we chose some features of the warp 8 drive that played extra-nice with the distant v4 nacelles, get a + to max warp factor... Wonder how much of a plus? We might soon be having designs capable of a sprint of warp 8.5 once those nacelles are out, that could def be a nasty surprise for any aggressors if we start fielding that soon.
