Driven by Apathy
Formerly known as Brain_Caster
I honestly find this much more narratively satisfying than any time agent shenanigans you could possibly have come up with.
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The Excalibur is the Dreadnought of (this part of) the Beta Quadrant!
It incorporates a novel method of propulsion that allows it to greatly outspeed existing starships.
It has a uniform main battery*.
It can fight pre-dreadnoughts at a 2/3 disadvantage and still come out on top.
*Not entirely, but given its the first ship to get a RFL I'll say it's close enough.
It's because it's Starfleet Design Bureau. That invokes a very fixed image personally: saucers, elaborate interiors, and pewpew phasers. If we're going to be Doylist about this, the game should be run to maximize the enjoyment of the person doing the most work. 👀
Horologer
Incertae sedis
- Location
- a risen sea
I fundamentally disagree that a cheaper ship doesn't increase Starfleet's combat ability. Each ship we design has a ceiling for how much damage it can put out. No matter its cost, each ship can only fire two phasers at once, and there's a cap to how many torpedo tubes we can fit aboard each vessel. In turn, this means that amount of damage our fleets can put out is heavily influenced by how many ships there are in that fleet. In the simplest terms, more ships means more firepower.
It's also worth pointing out that one of the issues Starfleet is facing in this war is that it has too much space and not enough ships: strongly suggesting that we just need more ships, full stop.
Unlike the Selachii, this ship would still have room for several useful modules. Even with a minimalist hull form, you'd still have space for cargo bays, shuttles, basic labs. With our tech base, it's basically impossible to design a ship that's just a gunboat: even this exercise in minimalism would have real utility.
This is their quest, their art, they've got their own thoughts and interpretations on Star Trek and how it works/what makes it it. They've also been rather accommodating, perhaps a bit too much as far as design success goes (a third party I sometimes share this with, who produced the first third party fan art I know of, is somewhat annoyed that we've never made a lemon of a starship), and more than willing to change things for the participants, within reason.
Imma be real with you chief, if we ended up with ships that look like guns/blocks like Halo, to give an example of divergence, I (and probably an overwhelming majority of others) would dip.
Endorfinator
Awkwardly Social
- Location
- California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I don't think that's the level of divergence people are asking for. They just want to make smaller ships like the Defiant viable.
The defiant is a ship produced with over a century's worth of technological advancement. Power density levels to support it are not supported right now.
We definitely need a cheaper ship than the Excalibur, especially since we need to replace a lot of exploded tonnage.
What I'm saying is that it shouldn't be a frigate, it should be a cruiser, because if we're mounting a few phasers and a pair of torps on it, while we can't quite save Cost by building a bigger ship with downgraded shields, we're getting very, very close.
And the Newton is demonstrating that shield rating 19 is low enough that we take lots of losses versus Birds of Prey.
One thing this most recent update does is demonstrate that putting rear-facing weapons on our agile light cruisers still has notable worth, though. BoP are fast enough to get behind them anyway, so might as well make sure they regret it.
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Could carriers be viable? Would obviously have to outmass anything we have by a significant margin to carry enough birds of prey like ships to be worth it.
Edit: and if people want to not screw over starfleet style/soul while improving on their stuff, could all those fancy computing systems we love stuffing the hulls to the gills with have some electronic warfare versions developed?
Edit: and if people want to not screw over starfleet style/soul while improving on their stuff, could all those fancy computing systems we love stuffing the hulls to the gills with have some electronic warfare versions developed?
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- Location
- USA
We have cruisers though, the newest designs are the tactical cruiser Excalibur, the failed long range cruiser Radiant and the engineering cruisers Newton and Archer. And with the Engineering ships being a replacement for the Cygnus class which was the oldest in our fleet what we are missing now is a new Explorer or Frigate/Destroyer (Selachii as Frigates are old, not sure if we want to upscale size slightly to whatever the Mirandas where classed as).
And given that we are going to need a lot of ships to provide patrol post war given all the lost hulls I feel like a smaller cheaper ship that we can make a lot of is more useful than a limited production Explorer. So our next design should be our version of the Miranda as opposed to a new explorer.
Well quite the fight going on, though the Klingon sure are gambling heavily with the attack on Andor. The only reason I can see for this is, is that their situation is becoming increasingly tenuous politically and perhaps also strategically.
Politically because things have stagnated but the war won't end, which is hurting their hold over the other Clans most likely. And the Federation isn't giving up because they can't give it a sufficiently large knock out blow, and so as all to often for nations in a defensive war, they doggedly try to hold on as they don't feel like they necessarily will lose. This tends to only be even more true for more Democratic ones that can be surprisingly stubborn about such matters. The end result is dwindling political power.
Strategically, while the Klingon apparently have some what shored up their supply system with escorts, this is not in this case probably a sustainable situation. As the Federation rather obviously will be building many more ships as fast as it can, and especially Excalibur class ships. The big problem with more Excalibur class ships is, is that if they can't manage a major attack... then obviously they'll just start grouping them together more with the extra ships and start convoy raiding in force. At which point it will likely become quite difficult even with D7 escorts to maintain supply lines. If the Excalibur didn't exist, this wouldn't be such a big threat, but Excalibur class ships have excessively long range and are highly capable of extended operations far beyond the normal logistical hubs. If I were the Klingon, I'd definitely think that the ship was designed specifically to ruin them in any long duration war... which perhaps it some what was.
Beyond these two factors, retreating from the war isn't really a choice as it would ruin the leading house Duras political legitimacy and hold on power. Meaning they must attack, but they lack time to setup the logistics for it before the Federation will be back with ever greater numbers of Excaliburs that will like to do nothing better then prevent that. As well as the risks of the war becoming attritional, which could leave the Klingons vulnerable against rival nations around them seeing potential weakness to exploit.
Thus they're gambling everything on a win or lose, get a core world and hopefully use that to spring board attacking the other core worlds. Or basically lose everything as they can not retreat. The Klingon ruling house basically probably disintegrates, the head probably dead and allies abandoning it. Thus leaving the Federation to now be able to pick off the now less organized house based Klingon forces in offensives. Most likely in such a case back to just the border as the Federation probably would not want to give cause for them to unify again by being too threatening. In this case the result would be a Federation victory and the Klingon probably not wanting to go back any time soon, it's not like they'll have less Excalibur and other similarly dangerous ships in future after all. Basically the Federation would probably get marked as more dangerous then they first looked and others will become more preferable targets.
Politically because things have stagnated but the war won't end, which is hurting their hold over the other Clans most likely. And the Federation isn't giving up because they can't give it a sufficiently large knock out blow, and so as all to often for nations in a defensive war, they doggedly try to hold on as they don't feel like they necessarily will lose. This tends to only be even more true for more Democratic ones that can be surprisingly stubborn about such matters. The end result is dwindling political power.
Strategically, while the Klingon apparently have some what shored up their supply system with escorts, this is not in this case probably a sustainable situation. As the Federation rather obviously will be building many more ships as fast as it can, and especially Excalibur class ships. The big problem with more Excalibur class ships is, is that if they can't manage a major attack... then obviously they'll just start grouping them together more with the extra ships and start convoy raiding in force. At which point it will likely become quite difficult even with D7 escorts to maintain supply lines. If the Excalibur didn't exist, this wouldn't be such a big threat, but Excalibur class ships have excessively long range and are highly capable of extended operations far beyond the normal logistical hubs. If I were the Klingon, I'd definitely think that the ship was designed specifically to ruin them in any long duration war... which perhaps it some what was.
Beyond these two factors, retreating from the war isn't really a choice as it would ruin the leading house Duras political legitimacy and hold on power. Meaning they must attack, but they lack time to setup the logistics for it before the Federation will be back with ever greater numbers of Excaliburs that will like to do nothing better then prevent that. As well as the risks of the war becoming attritional, which could leave the Klingons vulnerable against rival nations around them seeing potential weakness to exploit.
Thus they're gambling everything on a win or lose, get a core world and hopefully use that to spring board attacking the other core worlds. Or basically lose everything as they can not retreat. The Klingon ruling house basically probably disintegrates, the head probably dead and allies abandoning it. Thus leaving the Federation to now be able to pick off the now less organized house based Klingon forces in offensives. Most likely in such a case back to just the border as the Federation probably would not want to give cause for them to unify again by being too threatening. In this case the result would be a Federation victory and the Klingon probably not wanting to go back any time soon, it's not like they'll have less Excalibur and other similarly dangerous ships in future after all. Basically the Federation would probably get marked as more dangerous then they first looked and others will become more preferable targets.
I think you mean we had cruisers.
We've lost over a third of our Newtons and Cygnuses, the four Radiants are going to cease to exist as a class, and the Archers are taking casualties from raiding. And we're only half way through the war.
And the Warp 8 core that only the Excalibur has so far is a real big increase in capability.
It can't do what the Thunderchild was great and it's absence is tremendous.
Serve has the "static" anchor on fleet manoeuvre and actions.
The Excalibur is designed to be the spear to pick it's moments to strike choosing it's engagements. We need skirmishers and a shield or our opponents will be able to dictate the fight like the Klingons so far.
Archduke
Don't Take Geology Puns For Granite
- Location
- Texas
I do lean more towards a Light Cruiser over a frigate. More space to do things with it, and more useful outside of combat scenarios.
I do have a name idea for a smaller warship design to complement the Excalibur class. The Carnwennan class, named for King Arthur's Dagger.
I do have a name idea for a smaller warship design to complement the Excalibur class. The Carnwennan class, named for King Arthur's Dagger.
StriderInCosmos
Wanderer in the Worldsea
- Location
- Somewhere in... Terminal Dogma? I think?
There's the other side of that as well; I've largely tuned out of the quest with how 'samey' the designs feel at times (along with IRL reasons). I'd hoped that we'd have the chance to show a truly diverse Starfleet with member species influencing the look and feel of things even from its nasence, unshackled from the worries of television budgets and constraints. But here we are, largely.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Not a time agent, but prime recruitment material to become one. No one knows who the engineer was, and the explosion would have erased any evidence that their body is missing,
I know we didn't go all out on its weapons, but it had a damage rating of 50 in all categories and a defense rating of 200 - twice the combat power of a Sagarmatha and 4 times the defense. That seemed like a lot at the time, and if you jump back to the thread when we created them, people were pretty happy with that rating. It's only now that the Excalibur (which also has 50 single-target damage!) is out there, along with the comparable D7, that it's starting to look fragile.
It's a common trait amongst autocracies, "all we've got to do is kick the door in and the whole edifice will come crumbling down".
They're nearly always on borrowed time, either economically or politically (internal), and need to keep looting everything they pass over to tide their supporters/military as well as keep up the energy of their thrusts (see Nazi Germany looting the civilian sectors of each of their conquests to keep the Wehrmacht with enough supply vehicles, or the Soviet Union looting German and other Eastern European factories to rebuild themselves).
The Klingons have had the unfortunate experience of having to drive thought what's basically less developed backwaters to get anywhere close to our core territory, meaning they've been unable to do what they usually do here.
Once the tide turns the smarter houses are going to loot what they can industrially/scientifically and then that into an advantage for their house during future consolidations (since the whole of the Federation is pissed at them, even if the current chancellor/house gets deposed they're probably going to be bound fairly close so the Federarion doesn't (in their minds) come in and do to them what they did to the Federation).
- Location
- USA
None the less our newest designs are all cruiser class, including the science cruiser we are currently designing. As such I would say going to a different class size for the next design would be a better choice.
And that's a fair point.
Given how receptive Sayle is to player feedback you should probably ask them (ideally in the thread) about the possibility of that. Get other players who feel similarly together and provide a consensus.
I wouldn't mind that, though it'd mostly be Vulcan and Andorian influenced, since we've seen the most design variance/language from them.
What im really opposed to are radical departures, the halo gun blocks I'd talked about.
KlavoHunter
THOU SHALT WORSHIP NO GODS ABOVE ENTERPRISE!
See, ladies and gentlebeings - Our expansion was not a weakness, but a strength!
And now we can conveniently wave the bloody shirts of the colonists who ended up on the wrong side of a mek'leth for more Starfleet funding...
And hopefully a bigger budget.
That would certainly prevent our core worlds from being threatened by anything less than several great Houses all striking at once... But could it be a better move to make a border defense station? A small station that maxes out defenses instead? Just a thought.
Well, the Darwin is probably our second most heavily armed design, I'd imagine that while it's probably a limited production run it'll be a favoured design. Plop itself down on or in orbit of a nice habitable planet, and sees off any Klingon ship trying to plant a flag until we do.
Unless Sayle wishes to redo the design system, which probably does need some adjustment tbh, frigates just aren't viable. You have to pay so much for the warp drive that it's simply more economical to make the ship bigger, enjoy the fruits of stronger shields and extra torpedo tubes, slap on an extra thruster or 2 for better agility and put some modules (warp 8 engineering support cruiser anyone... I haven't been posting obsessively about this, have I... 😇)
It does have plenty of firepower. It's a refueling and servicing station, it's doing its job well. We knew when we designed it it wouldn't be able to defend itself on its own, it relies on an attendant fleet that will be healthier because it's there. If we'd gone for more weapons it wouldn't do its job as effectively, and we'd be moaning about how it isn't as good for servicing and supporting ships. It forced the Klingons to consolidate their fleet and they've suffered enormous losses going through the meat grinder as a result.
But more on topic, it's unfortunate but rather true to history that it takes a near military disaster to get actual reforms passed to strengthen our military.
At least we don't need all of our inner Federation officers suffering from the consequences of industrial development to pass a law providing free meals/milk to children.
We easily could have substituted better tactical capabilities for weaker civilian ones and kept the logistical capabilities. Logistics second probably would have done a good job as well. As is the stations have proved useful, but vulnerable to an opponent that has the mass to defeat Starfleet. The Pharos is a design that favors an offensive strategic posture, where Starfleet is strong enough to prosecute any wars outside its borders.
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- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/They
The Reliant-class from the last thread was...well, still not an outright lemon, but pretty blah. Worth producing a handful of, but it was designed to replace the Miranda and couldn't.
Here, at least, we can agree- if only because you seem to have forgotten the Miranda was actually bigger than the Connie.
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