Starfleet Design Bureau

[Tank man]

The test of how Star Trek you are is if you can see the Xenomorph Queen in Aliens as a feral child in dire need of therapy and a universal translator.

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As far as I am aware there has been no hint of sapience in any xenomorphs (canon ones, at least), not even the 'queens'. The Xenogorn actually become sapient in future life stages, even if their earliest are a blatant xenomorph ripoff.

Xenomorphs are an actively predatory equivalent to the tribbles, who's method and requirements of reproduction (parasitism of living sapients by means of rape metaphor, ending with the infant stage bursting out of the metaphorical rape victim in an invariably fatal manner) requires the suffering of sapient life to function.

I cannot think of a single Captain who would see the xenomorph queen as the equivalent of a feral child, outside of bad fanfiction (and I certainly couldn't see Gene Roddenberry or any of his successors holding such a viewpoint).

 

[Cold Dust]

The archer was barely armed.

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If memory serves the Archer-class had nearly the highest armament offered, the only thing higher would be to add a phaser that could only fire if it jettisoned its cargo. And Starfleet learned to love the design and ordered dozens more after the war, despite some early skepticism, because it could haul so much cargo and do such an amazing job at engineering support.

Once we've strengthened our fleet, got a new science cruiser and engineering support cruiser with full warp 8 and some meatier armaments and the latest shield systems, we could do worse than to make an Archer v2, with a full warp 8 drive optimized for cruise and otherwise updated systems (light/medium type 2 shields, hopefully better torpedoes if not dual type 1 fore and aft etc).

Imagine the benefits to an Archer with a warp 8 drive, v4 nacelles, possibly even able to carry an even larger cargo container. There's even a slim chance we could get a larger secondary hull for an extra module, giving the option for further extended range, even superior fabrication or shuttlebays, or perhaps even an enhanced medical facility. The possible benefits of such support that can sustain high speeds are staggering, especially if we couple such a design with armaments that can reliably see off Klingon raiders and Orion pirate ships. The bigger it is, the stronger its shields are too, and our thrusters can ensure such a ship can be relatively agile even if it ends up pretty huge.

According to Sayle we're bigger and stronger than the canon Federation, we can continue that trend. With an even faster ship we can setup our outermost colonies and outposts faster, make them less vulnerable.

 

[Raw90]

My personal feeling is that SNW is the first new Star Trek show I trust at all to handle what they've done with the Gorn. Yes, currently we have the Gorn as "basically irredeemable xenomorphs," but it also feels set up for a reveal or twist, that'll make the tactical officer have to confront her trauma and try to communicate with the Gorn etc. There's a reason they keep coming back to them, and even the Borg ultimately got multiple incredibly empathetic episodes. They've only earned that trust with me by doing all the other episodes well, and all of them in a way that felt like Star Trek. There've been episodes I thought a little simplistic or obvious, but that's all in the finest traditions of Trek. The way that the weaker episodes have been weaker makes me think that the people who are making it watched a whole lot of Star Trek and understood it and loved it. If we were talking about DIS, or, god forbid, this new Section 31 movie/show they're working on, well, I just wouldn't be able to say the same. If these Gorn were in DIS, I would in fact assume that nothing deeper was going to be revealed, and they were just going to be evil monsters forever. Maybe I'll be wrong and SNW will disappoint me terribly on this, but I'm waiting for us to meet an adult Gorn face to face before condemning SNW on the Gorn.

 

[Lohjak]

If memory serves the Archer-class had nearly the highest armament offered, the only thing higher would be to add a phaser that could only fire if it jettisoned its cargo. And Starfleet learned to love the design and ordered dozens more after the war, despite some early skepticism, because it could haul so much cargo and do such an amazing job at engineering support.

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Yes, but we picked the spherical hull, which was specifically noted as having terrible tactical capabilities. This is reflected in the tactical capabilities, which are to pray that you don't run into anything heavier than a single BoP because if there's only one you can probably run away.

Not all our ships need to be frontline combatants, but it's probably a good idea to avoid designing none of them for like thirty years.

 

[Cold Dust]

Yes, but we picked the spherical hull, which was specifically noted as having terrible tactical capabilities. This is reflected in the tactical capabilities, which are to pray that you don't run into anything heavier than a single BoP because if there's only one you can probably run away.

Not all our ships need to be frontline combatants, but it's probably a good idea to avoid designing none of them for like thirty years.

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I'm not sure I agree. Really, the weak parts of our fleet roster are the Cygnus, Selachii, Sagarmatha, Kea and Newton in that order. Because of the way the rules work I'm not sure battle frigates are really viable any more, so I'd discard the Selachii from consideration.

We could use something like a warp 8 Kea-class, upgunned and with the latest systems (I'm thinking something with enhanced range, maybe enhanced workshops, a glut of labs due to being an absolute unit). That supplements and phases out the Keas, and lets us decommission the Sagarmathas (which keep getting recommissioned because we don't have a replacement).

An upgunned warp 8 Newton would also be nice, to finally phase out the Cygnus which is absolutely useless now.

With those 2 hypothetical new designs, we'd have a large bevy of warp 8 ships for better strategic mobility and should cover most of our pressing utility bases.

Once that's sorted, I reckon we've got a niche for a warp 8 v2 Archer-class, provided our next 1, preferably 2 designs are full warp 8 and quite punchy. 30 years seems excessive. We might start running into other problems if we let our logistic support lapse for that long; I'm waiting for over-budget, over-gunned ships to start becoming an issue that bites us tbh.

Edit: Reordered and reworded, and put my argument into paragraphs to make it flow better and actually make sense.

 

[TehChron]

We might start running into other problems if we let our logistic support lapse for that long; I'm waiting for over-budget, over-gunned ships to start becoming an issue that bites us tbh.

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The Archers are straight up good for a century, my guy. And the Pharos will have to be upgraded and refit, not phased out entirely. The failures of the Four Year War weren't in the logistics networks of the Federation, but the ability to leverage them into defensibility

 

[Godwinson]

The Archers are straight up good for a century, my guy.

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Less sung but perhaps more groundbreaking was the Archer-class. Sometimes classified erroneously as a tug by unofficial sources, the Archer class would quietly become the backbone of Starfleet logistics for the next fifty years.

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2225-2275

But following the conclusion of hostilities Starfleet was compelled by necessity to replace its losses, and between 2245 and 2260 another eighteen Archer-class vessels were constructed.

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Regardless of reputation, the Archer ceased to be produced after 2260 and remained in general service until 2310.

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By comparison the Newton-class was shorter lived, heavy attrition during the Four Years War and the increasing obsolescence of its warp drive rendering its limited internal facilities an increasing hindrance to effective deployments. Its role was entirely superseded by ships designed during the New Fleet Program between 2270 and 2280, and the Newtons were gradually decommissioned until the final vessel was broken up for scrap in 2282.

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They continued to serve in ever more marginal roles, but they are superseded as the main logistical backbone ship by a design from the 2270s.

 

[spartaner055]

For those wanting to replace the Archer please consider that their main contentender are civilian cargo vessels which are slower than warp 4.

Their primary disadvantage, in fact, is that not a single vessel carrying one is able to exceed Warp 4.

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So while a faster engineering vessel will be useful, we should rather equip it with an internal cargobay for fast transport instead of a larger cargopod which will only slow it down.

 

[Strunkriidiisk]

I got bored and decided to revisit my pie-in-the-sky 'Warp 8 Selachii' idea. Assume this to be the scribblings of some anonymous engineer with too much time on their hands.

Falcon-class destroyer FRIGATE
Mass: ~70,000 tons (generous estimate, probably smaller)
Warp speeds (assuming catamaran is +0.2 to max cruise/max warp as it seems)
- Warp 6 efficient cruise
- Warp 7.2 maximum cruise
- Warp 8.2 maximum warp
Armament: 2 phasers, 1 rapid torpedo launcher
Defence: light covariant shields
Manoeuvrability: Very High (2 type-2 thrusters, thrust ratio somewhere between 2.9 and 3.4)
Auxiliary: antimatter tanks, dilithium laboratory, shuttlebay.

Approximate cost: 58 to 61, depending on the hull/shield cost rounding.

Behold, a line/patrol destroyer frigate for bullying Birds of Prey, shaking down pirates for their lunch money, and looking for dilithium to feed our industrial maw. Antimatter for range, catamaran nacelles for a high cruise.

 

[Lohjak]

I'm not sure I agree. Really, the weak parts of our fleet roster are the Cygnus, Selachii, Sagarmatha, Kea and Newton in that order. Because of the way the rules work I'm not sure battle frigates are really viable any more, so I'd discard the Selachii from consideration.

We could use something like a warp 8 Kea-class, upgunned and with the latest systems (I'm thinking something with enhanced range, maybe enhanced workshops, a glut of labs due to being an absolute unit). That supplements and phases out the Keas, and lets us decommission the Sagarmathas (which keep getting recommissioned because we don't have a replacement).

An upgunned warp 8 Newton would also be nice, to finally phase out the Cygnus which is absolutely useless now.

With those 2 hypothetical new designs, we'd have a large bevy of warp 8 ships for better strategic mobility and should cover most of our pressing utility bases.

Once that's sorted, I reckon we've got a niche for a warp 8 v2 Archer-class, provided our next 1, preferably 2 designs are full warp 8 and quite punchy. 30 years seems excessive. We might start running into other problems if we let our logistic support lapse for that long; I'm waiting for over-budget, over-gunned ships to start becoming an issue that bites us tbh.

Edit: Reordered and reworded, and put my argument into paragraphs to make it flow better and actually make sense.

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For those wanting to replace the Archer please consider that their main contentender are civilian cargo vessels which are slower than warp 4.



So while a faster engineering vessel will be useful, we should rather equip it with an internal cargobay for fast transport instead of a larger cargopod which will only slow it down.

Click to shrink...

We don't need to replace the Kea or the Archer. They're first and foremost utility-focused ships, not generalists. What we need to replace is the Cygnus, which even after the introduction of the Archers and Newtons remains in service. Literally half the ships Starfleet operates are engineering cruisers, and they're going to need even more to replace losses, conduct repairs and construct fortifications post war. The ideal design is a Warp 8 engineering cruiser with modern weapons and shields (RFL+Covariant) and solid engineering capability for a reasonable price. Basically, we just need a Newton but with all the tech that was introduced right after it was designed.

 

[Cold Dust]

We don't need to replace the Kea or the Archer. They're first and foremost utility-focused ships, not generalists. What we need to replace is the Cygnus, which even after the introduction of the Archers and Newtons remains in service. Literally half the ships Starfleet operates are engineering cruisers, and they're going to need even more to replace losses, conduct repairs and construct fortifications post war. The ideal design is a Warp 8 engineering cruiser with modern weapons and shields (RFL+Covariant) and solid engineering capability for a reasonable price. Basically, we just need a Newton but with all the tech that was introduced right after it was designed.

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I did mention the Cygnus, and said we desperately needed to replace it with something like an up-gunned Newton-class. I am also very concerned that we're still running Sagarmatha-class and our roster is so weak the Kea-class is described as a line cruiser, surely we can do better. After both of those designs are released, assuming nothing else comes along, I then think we should seriously consider an Archer v2, again, assuming nothing else comes up.

Edit: We may be tapped to design the v4 nacelle, or make choices re shields and weapon designs long before then.

But yes, agreed the Newton v2 is more pressing. Apologies if I wasn't super clear, I did edit that thing a couple times.

 

[TheShadowDeamon]

I got bored and decided to revisit my pie-in-the-sky 'Warp 8 Selachii' idea. Assume this to be the scribblings of some anonymous engineer with too much time on their hands.

Falcon-class destroyer FRIGATE
Mass: ~70,000 tons (generous estimate, probably smaller)
Warp speeds (assuming catamaran is +0.2 to max cruise/max warp as it seems)
- Warp 6 efficient cruise
- Warp 7.2 maximum cruise
- Warp 8.2 maximum warp
Armament: 2 phasers, 1 rapid torpedo launcher
Defence: light covariant shields
Manoeuvrability: Very High (2 type-2 thrusters, thrust ratio somewhere between 2.9 and 3.4)
Auxiliary: antimatter tanks, dilithium laboratory, shuttlebay.

Approximate cost: 58 to 61, depending on the hull/shield cost rounding.

Behold, a line/patrol destroyer frigate for bullying Birds of Prey, shaking down pirates for their lunch money, and looking for dilithium to feed our industrial maw. Antimatter for range, catamaran nacelles for a high cruise.

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That is a very nice design, I could easily see Starfleet ordering a lot of them to rapidly boost our fleet and increase patrols.
BTW - where are the drawings coming from? Is it a design program with all the components already existing? I've got a few ship designs of my own I'd like to try to make.

 

[Duzzit]

That is a very nice design, I could easily see Starfleet ordering a lot of them to rapidly boost our fleet and increase patrols.
BTW - where are the drawings coming from? Is it a design program with all the components already existing? I've got a few ship designs of my own I'd like to try to make.

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Mostly just lines and circles in Paint.net, unless they did it a different way. I'm not home but heres a picture of an early test from my end of trying to figure it out.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/417666824197505025/1304916948542427186/image.png?ex=674c28dc&is=674ad75c&hm=22a570faf60576294a0884d35987d8c6217861d36d70aa5d9db99ab024b80692&

 

[TehChron]

2225-2275



They continued to serve in ever more marginal roles, but they are superseded as the main logistical backbone ship by a design from the 2270s.

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2225-2310 for a service life is still pretty great, and even then "superseded by a design in the 2270s" doesn't mean it suddenly stopped pulling it's weight, it means a better design was rolled out into the fleet.

I literally don't see how any of what you quoted contradicts what I said. Unless you're gonna try and insist that since 85 years isn't a full century that completely takes away from the larger point that I made which was "we don't have to worry about Starfleets logistics side suffering anytime soon", hence everything else in that post.

Which would just be meaninglessly pedantic on your end

 

[Godwinson]

2225-2310 for a service life is still pretty great, and even then "superseded by a design in the 2270s" doesn't mean it suddenly stopped pulling it's weight, it means a better design was rolled out into the fleet.

I literally don't see how any of what you quoted contradicts what I said. Unless you're gonna try and insist that since 85 years isn't a full century that completely takes away from the larger point that I made which was "we don't have to worry about Starfleets logistics side suffering anytime soon", hence everything else in that post.

Which would just be meaninglessly pedantic on your end

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Given that your point was very clearly that there wasn't any need to look at designing any logistical ships for a century, that's a remarkably disingenuous response.

 

[Lohjak]

I did mention the Cygnus, and said we desperately needed to replace it with something like an up-gunned Newton-class. I am also very concerned that we're still running Sagarmatha-class and our roster is so weak the Kea-class is described as a line cruiser, surely we can do better. After both of those designs are released, assuming nothing else comes along, I then think we should seriously consider an Archer v2, again, assuming nothing else comes up.

Edit: We may be tapped to design the v4 nacelle, or make choices re shields and weapon designs long before then.

But yes, agreed the Newton v2 is more pressing. Apologies if I wasn't super clear, I did edit that thing a couple times.

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It's in the early hours of the morning for me so I probably just missed something. I'm not really concerned about the refit Keas or Sagarmathas being used as backup line ships, though. Our shield strength scales directly off mass, and hull strength seems to as well, so they're still the most durable ships in our fleet even if their armaments are aging out. Since our primary rival uses huge quantities of very light ships the low damage high coverage weapons on them aren't necessarily an issue either so long as there's a more modern ship available to fight off enemy cruisers.

 

[Cold Dust]

2225-2310 for a service life is still pretty great, and even then "superseded by a design in the 2270s" doesn't mean it suddenly stopped pulling it's weight, it means a better design was rolled out into the fleet.

I literally don't see how any of what you quoted contradicts what I said. Unless you're gonna try and insist that since 85 years isn't a full century that completely takes away from the larger point that I made which was "we don't have to worry about Starfleets logistics side suffering anytime soon", hence everything else in that post.

Which would just be meaninglessly pedantic on your end

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For my part I think logistics is our strong point, and it had slipped my mind that the Archer-class hung around for so long. That being said, just because logistically we're strong, doesn't mean we shouldn't take opportunities to become stronger.

Again I do think firepower and strategic mobility are more pressing and important. A fleet of strong warp 8 ships with far more armaments is very attractive right now, and we need both a w8utility/engineering ship and a w8 science ship with double the weapons we've got now. But, I still think an Archer v2 with a warp 8 drive would be a very potent and worthwhile combo. Look at what the old one achieved!

As for a replacement for the Pharos stations, hmm. I think people are thinking more about military stations. I'm inclined to suggest that if we go for a defensive station, we go medium or small and strengthen our borders, make intruding into our territory unattractive and costly while our new warp 8 fleet takes advantage of our enemies being slowed and bloodied by our hypothetical border defensive posts, and swoops on weakened intruding fleets at a time that suits us. It was a rare freak event for our core worlds to be attacked like that, the next time it happens that is a military-type situation will be what, by the Borg? Any battlestation we make now will be long obsolete by then and useless against their technology. We can however deter intrusion by the Klingons, Gorn and Tholians for the foreseeable future.

 

[Candesce]

our roster is so weak the Kea-class is described as a line cruiser

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The refit Kea class, which mounts a pair of torpedo tubes (giving it forward firepower comparable to the Newton) and has heavier shielding than the Excalibur purely through its mass. The base design was never terrible, it just needed torpedoes.

Though yes, it's Warp 7 and with obsolete phasers, shields, and thrusters, so we need a new design along similar lines.

I'd say the important traits of a "line cruiser" rather than a light cruiser than the Newton is high HP rather than the high agility the Newton displays, so something the size of the Excalibur or a bit bigger with only one thruster (and thus, only average maneuverability) and better coverage to make up for that. Won't be as good a duelist (less capable of getting the torpedo tubes on target), but more capable than the Newton of holding space in the times and places it's not able to use said agility to dodge fire, aka fleet actions.

 

[Ebiris]

I'd say the important traits of a "line cruiser" rather than a light cruiser than the Newton is high HP rather than the high agility the Newton displays, so something the size of the Excalibur or a bit bigger with only one thruster (and thus, only average maneuverability) and better coverage to make up for that. Won't be as good a duelist (less capable of getting the torpedo tubes on target), but more capable than the Newton of holding space in the times and places it's not able to use said agility to dodge fire, aka fleet actions.

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Yeah, I remember when we were designing the Kea I was actually quite optimistic about the synergy it would have with the Selachi, just being a big brick that can hold the centre and fire in every direction while the Selachi would be able to swoop around putting torpedoes where they're needed felt like it would've made for a strong combination.

Unfortunately the Kea's phasers are basically the Imperial Guard flashlight meme, and the Selachi is woefully out of date by the time an actual war starts.

 

[Shard]

It would have been nice to be able to double up on EPS conduits or something and have actually made the Kea into a laser disco ball. Alas, it was not to be.

It doesn't help that the phasers tech advance was shortly after the Kea was launched, too.

 

[Candesce]

It doesn't help that the phasers tech advance was shortly after the Kea was launched, too.

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Eeeh. The Kea project started closer to the invention of the Type II Phaser Mark I than its completion is to the Type II Phaser Mark II.

Given the Mark II is primarily intended to take advantage of the larger Warp 8 cores, and so doesn't have superior total output to the Mark I when on a Warp 7 hull, I wouldn't count that as a mark against the Kea.

That we intentionally picked the cheaper, less-powerful Type II phaser, that was a mark against the Kea.

 

[darkstarling]

As far as I am aware there has been no hint of sapience in any xenomorphs (canon ones, at least), not even the 'queens'. The Xenogorn actually become sapient in future life stages, even if their earliest are a blatant xenomorph ripoff.

Xenomorphs are an actively predatory equivalent to the tribbles, who's method and requirements of reproduction (parasitism of living sapients by means of rape metaphor, ending with the infant stage bursting out of the metaphorical rape victim in an invariably fatal manner) requires the suffering of sapient life to function.

I cannot think of a single Captain who would see the xenomorph queen as the equivalent of a feral child, outside of bad fanfiction (and I certainly couldn't see Gene Roddenberry or any of his successors holding such a viewpoint).

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The xenomorphs are smart enough to use strategy and plan escapes, the queen in Aliens understands a threat through gestures ('I'll torch your eggs if your guards attack me') and protected those eggs even though she could just make more. She could also figure out technology like elevators.

Now, would she have been smart enough to have a conversation with or was she just like a giant chimp? We don't know. We never had a chance to find out. I don't blame Ripley for defending herself, to be clear. Xenomorphs are very dangerous and this one had been fighting humans her whole life before spending years completely alone with no socialization. But.

And they don't need to grow in humans or other intelligent life. Animals work fine too. And I don't care about the metaphor. Or Roddenberry much for that matter. And unless I'm mistaken he came up with the Magog on Andromeda, which are like Xenomorphs but worse, and a main character is one.

 

[TehChron]

Given that your point was very clearly that there wasn't any need to look at designing any logistical ships for a century, that's a remarkably disingenuous response.

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I'm just gonna say that accusing me of being disingenuous when I was replying to a naked fear mongering tactic against posters who wanted to advocate for higher tactical scores is a pretty telling reading of the situation, assuming you are being upfront and not disingenuous yourself in leveling that accusation to begin with.

 

[Strunkriidiisk]

That is a very nice design, I could easily see Starfleet ordering a lot of them to rapidly boost our fleet and increase patrols.
BTW - where are the drawings coming from? Is it a design program with all the components already existing? I've got a few ship designs of my own I'd like to try to make.

Click to shrink...

It's paint.net, and I just pull up several other diagrams (for this one it was the Darwin, Callie, and Kea, plus the Selachii to modify the basic hull from) to copy-paste internal parts from as well as refer to for colouring. Other than that it's just a lot of use of the line and polygon tools.

 

[Captainwolf]

I got bored and decided to revisit my pie-in-the-sky 'Warp 8 Selachii' idea. Assume this to be the scribblings of some anonymous engineer with too much time on their hands.

Falcon-class destroyer FRIGATE
Mass: ~70,000 tons (generous estimate, probably smaller)
Warp speeds (assuming catamaran is +0.2 to max cruise/max warp as it seems)
- Warp 6 efficient cruise
- Warp 7.2 maximum cruise
- Warp 8.2 maximum warp
Armament: 2 phasers, 1 rapid torpedo launcher
Defence: light covariant shields
Manoeuvrability: Very High (2 type-2 thrusters, thrust ratio somewhere between 2.9 and 3.4)
Auxiliary: antimatter tanks, dilithium laboratory, shuttlebay.

Approximate cost: 58 to 61, depending on the hull/shield cost rounding.

Behold, a line/patrol destroyer frigate for bullying Birds of Prey, shaking down pirates for their lunch money, and looking for dilithium to feed our industrial maw. Antimatter for range, catamaran nacelles for a high cruise.

Click to shrink...

Honestly kinda cool, although I will note a few things:
1. the Nacelles feel oversized relative to the rest of the ship.
2. With 1 Type 3 thruster, the design could be up to 90,000 tons while still being very high maneuverability.
3. Why light shields? this is a warship, it should have at least standard shields.