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KarmaA said:
If you can mess with the geometry to allow 3 standard launchers
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... I don't think we can. Not on a 90 kt ship. Usually we cap at 2 forward torpedoes. Even the 180kt Excalibur only had room for three.

More importantly, though, the "fixed costs" I left off the end there are something like ~24 Cost. [59-64] is not nearly as acceptable a price for a bare-minimum frigate, especially since that's very nearly what we're paying for the Darwin.
 
Godwinson said:
The cost rating being C+ and the economy of the Federation being gutted by first the overextension and then the war. The need to have more ships to cover the far-flung spacelanes for anti-piracy patrols means that dedicated warships for fighting peer-power navies get short shrift. 18 C+ Excaliburs is already 4 more than the A+ cost Constitutions in the main timeline, and so quite a bit more total cost.
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We don't have 18 yet. While we have 6 undergoing crash builds atm as Everything Is On Fire, we started this conflict with just 12 and have already lost at least 3 of them. I honestly believe Canon Connies would be fairing even worse right now so the cost savings would be nonexistent.
 
KarmaA said:
If you can mess with the geometry to allow 3 standard launchers that saves around 5 cost and 35 cost for a new Selachii isn't terrible.
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I've harped on all the general reasons behind "light ships currently bad, please stop" enough so I'm gonna limit my reply to this one bit in particular:
  1. Even if you're right, that's not 35 cost, that's 35 marginal cost above the minimum price of "is a warp-capable ship"; the total cost would still be sixty-plus-ish.
  2. We messed with the geometry as hard as we were allowed (and tried to mess harder) and still only got three launcher slots on the 180kt Excalibur- and one of those was in the engineering hull that a new arrowhead wouldn't have at all. There's absolutely no way we're squeezing in even two launchers on a 90kt arrowhead after the fixed space/mass requirements of the deflector, warp core, and nacelles, never mind three.
joe6168 said:
if we had taken the compressor rings and asymmetric stabilizer we could have had an Excalibur with an efficient cruise of almost Warp 7
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Theoretically, yeah assuming we rolled very well. Unfortunately, I'm a card-carrying member of the Cruise Mafia and not even I could justify voting for the compressor rings in the face of
Sayle said:
a charge time of ten to twelve seconds will be needed to make the transition to warp speeds. It also means that any energy surges at warp speeds will induce uncontrolled speed variations or cause system failures.
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that absolutely unacceptable behavior.

Sayle confirmed somewhere that canon did go for the Compressor Rings, and they were a large part of why canon Connie cruised at such a crazy high percentage of its maximum warp.

(This does mean that unlike canon, our ships can go to warp effectively as fast as somebody can hit the button, because they can keep the nacelles hot whenever they're not actively mid-maintenance, and that while at warp our ships are substantially less likely for one system failure to cascade across more systems from EPS grid fluctuations, and substantially more resilient to negative space wedgies and so on. So there are upsides.)
 
landcollector said:
We don't have 18 yet. While we have 6 undergoing crash builds atm as Everything Is On Fire, we started this conflict with just 12 and have already lost at least 3 of them. I honestly believe Canon Connies would be fairing even worse right now so the cost savings would be nonexistent.
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They were talking about the total amount built over lifetime, including after the war. Please pay attention to what people are actually talking about?
 
Godwinson said:
They were talking about the total amount built over lifetime, including after the war. Please pay attention to what people are actually talking about?
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No need to get snippy with me, cool it if you please. Anyway, yes, the Connies are more economical than our Excailburs but they are also much less effective in combat. So, would they actually have drained the Federation economy less? I doubt it.
 
Maybe it would help if we could get to decide the main armament along these lines:

Option A: Minimal Torpedo, Max Phaser
Option B: Max Torpedo, Minimal Phaser
Option C: Equel between both weapons

We will have the option for additional weapons when we need to decide on the modules. That way, we could still have decided on a main armament and add to it later if it makes sense, depending on what background info we get.
 
landcollector said:
No need to get snippy with me, cool it if you please. Anyway, yes, the Connies are more economical than our Excailburs but they are also much less effective in combat. So, would they actually have drained the Federation economy less? I doubt it.
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Again, the point I was responding to was expressing confusion over there not having been even more Excaliburs made, which I will quote again here since you seem insistent on ignoring it in order to misrepresent my post as putting forth an argument it wasn't making.
uju32 said:
That said, Im looking at this performance, looking at the number of Excaliburs that were allegedly built and scratching my head.
The only way I can find a total build of 18 plausible under these conditions would be if they promptly designed a bigger, beefier Warp 8 ship and built like 40 of them post-War.
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thepsyborg said:
Theoretically, yeah assuming we rolled very well. Unfortunately, I'm a card-carrying member of the Cruise Mafia and not even I could justify voting for the compressor rings in the face of
that absolutely unacceptable behavior.
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I mean yeah I tend to agree probably not worth the associated risks, but still fun to think about in a purely 'what if' way.
 
jjffjhjf said:
We haven't lost much infrastructure yet though, that's why the Klingons are going for this big push, they've gotten very little of much worth out of their attacks so far, which is causing them internal issues. As to whether we get the stuff they've taken back? Hard to say for sure, but this seems likely to me, as I don't see Starfleet leaving their people in enemy hands if given the option.
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We've lost two Pharos's and other smaller stations. That's the sort of infrastructure I mean. Scorched earth tactics cause issues when you go back on the offensive.
Endorfinator said:
I mean not really? My understanding is that they basically burned a couple decades of accumulated war loot to build up their D7 fleet and spent a much larger portion of their GDP compared to us. The force we are seeing right now isn't really representative of their sustainable economic output. That's why they're desperate to conquer all these colonies so that their economy doesn't implode at the end of this.
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I don't remember any indication in the war updates that the Klingons are actually overstraining their economy in order to deliver this fleet. Rather the deal is that politically, the Chancellor picked us as a target to solidify his hold over the Great Houses. The hints of what are ultimately going to unhinge the Klingon war effort is that- military failure and political infighting leading to collapse of the Chancellorship, not running out of industry and warships.
 
I'll be kinda surprised if project Darwin doesn't get slashed to fund more tactical focused Starfleet projects. If it does get built, I'd expect it to be a more limited run. Nothing against the design, just a shift in what Starfleet needs.
 
Archduke said:
I'll be kinda surprised if project Darwin doesn't get slashed to fund more tactical focused Starfleet projects. If it does get built, I'd expect it to be a more limited run. Nothing against the design, just a shift in what Starfleet needs.
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Perhaps, but I think the Klingon War will have something of a positive impact on colonisation of the flag planting colonies (and others in that neighbourhood, to get as far away from the Klingons as possible) so we might still end up with the same amount we would have otherwise to cope with the need to new planets for people to settle.
 
OK, this is sounding a little like an unpopular opinion now... but I don't want to pivot to small ships.

Yes, I understand we are struggling to cover our territory, but this is also the age of (space) sail. This is the same problem they had in the same time, with actual pirates. The satellites are working, we just didn't have time to set them up fast enough - and exist for the same reason cannon emplacements did in the actual age of sail.

I want big majestic ships that are even bigger than Canon because we have the thrust to push it. I want massive interesting designs. I want to push bigger not smaller, and I think the cost system rewarding bigger builds is correct.

I think that the Darwin is already tiny. I wouldn't even want something smaller. Ships this small should only exist because specialised crew doing a long term specialised task would be a waste of all the other crew sitting around waiting.

And its perfect for the job. It goes to the planet, lands, performs long term science, leaves. The cost of the ship in savings isn't the goal, it's the efficiency of limited crew and the fact that the space science boys don't want to be waiting for the life science boys for months at a time.

And its the same for patrol ships. They don't get built small to save money, they get built small so it only needs tactical crew, so all the science boys can be on the science ships doing science. The savings are in people, not warp cores.
For every other situation, big multi role ships are absolutely superior. We just don't see this much because we track tactical costs not crew available.
 
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Archduke said:
I'll be kinda surprised if project Darwin doesn't get slashed to fund more tactical focused Starfleet projects. If it does get built, I'd expect it to be a more limited run. Nothing against the design, just a shift in what Starfleet needs.
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The Darwin is already a fairly tactical-focused design. I don't think that Starfleet will want to wait years for the limited upside of a potential alternative versus just building the ships and putting them into patrol roles.
 
I do hope we get to design a new frigate class next, feels like the Selachii is showing its age, that or a replacement explorer as that is also an old design by this point.
 
Tank man said:
Miranda-class time? It's got more volume than the Connie and same weapons fit, and was built in ridiculous numbers, our version would probably be similar (though perhaps with 2x forward RFL).
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I personally dont like the Miranda's design. But yes, something along those lines will be necessary.

Im looking at this entire thing, and Starfleet keeps losing ships, and they were already arguably understrength for the job they were supposed to be doing.
Not to mention that due to the Warp 8 transition, most of the fleet is obsolete.

There needs to be a massive buildout up and down the fleet roster.
Else we'll be doing this again, with the Romulans or the Tholians or someone new.
Godwinson said:
The cost rating being C+ and the economy of the Federation being gutted by first the overextension and then the war. The need to have more ships to cover the far-flung spacelanes for anti-piracy patrols means that dedicated warships for fighting peer-power navies get short shrift. 18 C+ Excaliburs is already 4 more than the A+ cost Constitutions in the main timeline, and so quite a bit more total cost.
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We built 12x Sagmartha-class explorers while on a lower budget; at almost 300,000 tons, they are the biggest starships we've ever built, and they cost way more than the Excaliburs.
I dont think cost is going to be the issue here; the lost colonies are not yet contributing factors to the Federation economy.

A period of existential threat focuses priorities and loosens budgets, and Starfleet's core industry remains untouched.
The geopolitical situation appears to be very different from canon, and the politicians just got a salutory lesson in what being cheap gets you.

Im just not looking at a post-War situation where the Federation has both the Tholians and the Romulans on their borders, Starfleet has lost anywhere from a quarter to half of their fleet of ships, and continue quibbling about costs.
It just doesnt seem like the usual sapient response to this kind of thing.

I mean, the Sagmarthas are obsolete, and the Newtons and Selachiis are absolutely getting murdered.
There's a lot of replacements that have to happen.
 
DeltaV11.2 said:
I don't remember any indication in the war updates that the Klingons are actually overstraining their economy in order to deliver this fleet. [...] The hints of what are ultimately going to unhinge the Klingon war effort is that- military failure and political infighting leading to collapse of the Chancellorship, not running out of industry and warships.
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The thing is, we also know from other posts of Sayle's that the Klingon economy is, uh, not even capitalistic. It's old-style Guilds combined with (non-Roman) classical Empire.

Classical Empires other than Rome inherently have a glass jaw, because your army is also your income - if you don't have the threat of military force hanging over people, they don't pay you taxes. And guilds are mostly known for the economic stagnation they inflict.

The Klingon Empire might be a lot bigger than the Federation, but that doesn't mean much when its foundation is sand.
 
I love reading the history updates, even the ones where Starfleet gets its bell rung.

"In this lull the Klingon fleets began to break apart into more diffuse squadrons and task forces as the individual Houses took stock of their newest acquisitions and began to backtrack into investigating some of the more minor colonies that the lightning advances had passed by."

Sounds like the Klingons are trying to occupy and get resources out of the colonies. I wonder if the border worlds would wind up with some kind of cultural syncretism after years of that? Like maybe they start picking up some Klingon loanwords, or fashion, or get a local taste for foods like Gagh , or a small Klingon / Half-Klingon diaspora.
 
Tank man said:
Miranda-class time? It's got more volume than the Connie and same weapons fit, and was built in ridiculous numbers, our version would probably be similar (though perhaps with 2x forward RFL).
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Fingers crossed, Starfleet shits out a ton of Darwins.
Archduke said:
I'll be kinda surprised if project Darwin doesn't get slashed to fund more tactical focused Starfleet projects. If it does get built, I'd expect it to be a more limited run. Nothing against the design, just a shift in what Starfleet needs.
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Looks like she'll have tons of photorps and the maneuverability to shove them right up an enemy's anatomy; how much more tactical focused does a ship need to be???
 
@Sayle whilst they lacked quite the success of the U-boot wouldn't the surface raiders (in particular the Panzerschiffe) have been a better comparison given our ships lack cloaks? They had their own period of high success (sinking about 800,000 tonnes under their own guns and tying up allied surface ships in the attempt to hunt them down), and then it all came tumbling down.
 
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Void Stalker said:
I do hope we get to design a new frigate class next, feels like the Selachii is showing its age, that or a replacement explorer as that is also an old design by this point.
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The Sagmartha is currently 65 years old.
The Selachii is only 50 yars old

Both those classes are decommissioned by 2045, which means very shortly post-war.
Thats 50 ships(38x Selachiis built, and 12x Sagmarthas.)
They both need replacements.

I dont think we are going to need new frigates though.
Current paradigm suggests that frigates are too small to be survivable in the meta; light cruiser seems to be the new low end.
Nothing new there; sometimes ship classes become obsolete.
 
Candesce said:
The thing is, we also know from other posts of Sayle's that the Klingon economy is, uh, not even capitalistic. It's old-style Guilds combined with (non-Roman) classical Empire.

Classical Empires other than Rome inherently have a glass jaw, because your army is also your income - if you don't have the threat of military force hanging over people, they don't pay you taxes. And guilds are mostly known for the economic stagnation they inflict.

The Klingon Empire might be a lot bigger than the Federation, but that doesn't mean much when its foundation is sand.
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This is how I'm reading the overall situation as well. The Klingon's are winning battles but they are not getting any value out of their victories. Meanwhile the current coalition is already fraying because it's turning into a slog instead of a milk run. Losing so many high end ships to take what they thought might be a soft starbase, that they fail to keep anyway thank you time agent, has made them way too desperate.
 
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