KlavoHunter
THOU SHALT WORSHIP NO GODS ABOVE ENTERPRISE!
The Salt Vampires vote against this in the strongest possible terms!
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Godwinson
"Well, I've got nothing."
The "diverted resources" were already going into shipbuilding, all that changed was what types of ships were being built. The QM has made it clear repeatedly that the Federation is genuinely working at maximum effective extractive capacity within its actual hard limits, which are high-grade starships. It's not something where you need to crank up the Suffering Meter on the populace to get more production, it's not a video game where you can slap gold onto a project to make it work faster, it's not soft effete Core Dwellers who need someone to Make Hard Decisions on them.
The throughput limits are the ships we're designing. The science and engineering capabilities of the fleet are what fuels shipbuilding.
"Resources" aren't frictionlessly fungible, and the Federation is already exploiting the sites that they've discovered with the maximum effectiveness possible with their logistical network they have available. You want more ships? You need more resources, which means more Science and Engineering. The whole point of the quest is balancing Expansion (Science), Development (Engineering), and Defense (Tactical) needs, as well as balancing the design roster of the fleet.
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It was bigger than OTL's Connie fleet. Also much more expensive both in aggregate and per ship.
Bigger and smaller, I'd say, more Connie/equivalents (strictly speaking yes, given Kirk's dozen comment but given what SNW shows they're probably putting out a few variants that are different enough to be a separate class but are otherwise really similar/will get Connie-II'ed) and taking both the strictest interpretation from the show and also the QMs version of quest OTL bigger in terms of numbers, but against a more generous interpretation of the show* and future/present materials and statements definitely smaller.
*Gene Roddenberry: "In addition to the twelve starships, there are lesser classes of vessels, capable of operating over much more limited distances." - however in this context it must be remembered that Roddenberry was in the military during the war & and aviator for Pan Am after it. The 12 starships are the Cold War era Midways & super carriers, or Pan Am's 12 clippers from before the war, the largest and most capable but also the most minuet of the types in terms of numbers. And I doubt he'd envision Starfleet as having less ships than the USN, or Pan Am had planes.
*Gene Roddenberry: "In addition to the twelve starships, there are lesser classes of vessels, capable of operating over much more limited distances." - however in this context it must be remembered that Roddenberry was in the military during the war & and aviator for Pan Am after it. The 12 starships are the Cold War era Midways & super carriers, or Pan Am's 12 clippers from before the war, the largest and most capable but also the most minuet of the types in terms of numbers. And I doubt he'd envision Starfleet as having less ships than the USN, or Pan Am had planes.
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I'm aware as the few times I've been quoted by the QM are usually to bemoan Discovery (something I agree with, even if I must maintain neutrality as a the curator of the general trek threads here and in SB). Though outside of the Connie's he doesn't, as per my quote, give any numbers - there could be five hundred classes of lesser ships that are each at least four strong for all it actually says.
I'm just saying, Gene's numbers were probably higher (in overall terms) even if they weren't quite the 7.5k DIS provides. He was reasonably well read and would know that the USN of the time was about 500-900 ships strong (depending on how you counted it), so his statement (absent of him expanding upon it somewhere else) combined with his history probably means that he envisioned Starfleet at around that number of ships rather than 150 or less.
The Cold War USN is only hundreds of ships strong if you include the hundreds of auxiliaries, destroyers and frigates it operated. In terms of capital-weight ships, it's basically just the fleet carriers and the occasional battleship, and maybe some of the larger cruisers if you squint a bit. The Federation as a whole probably approaches USN combatant numbers if you include the various old warships and other smaller vessels that individual planetary defense forces operate, but Starfleet itself is oops all cruisers.
Yeah the actual USN as it existed in 1969 was 279 surface warships and 145 submarines, and these numbers would sink over the next decade hitting a low of 182 warships and 74 submarines. The fleet in the present day is actually even smaller than that, with 293 battle force ships including fleet auxiliaries and amphibs.
Generally speaking when one talks about a navy you include their surface combatants and auxiliaries (which beings the number up to 500, iirc), yes, though the larger number includes amphibs and submarines (which I feel wouldn't entirely be represented, at least the submarines, given how Gene viewed the cloaking device - he would absolutely include amphibious ships, however, owing to their massive humanitarian value).
By itself between surface combatants, auxiliaries and amphibs you get 659 ships in 1966 (when the first season aired).
Now, I'm slightly off on carriers since they found the anti-submarine carriers here too for this time period, but the proper CVA/CVN were about 12.
They call them all cruisers, yes, but a cruiser at its most basic is a ship that's capable of crushing for great distances/times between stations. Victory isn't a cruiser, but Constitution is.
darkstarling
Brilliantly Crazed
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- Columbus, Ohio
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- He/Him
For the consideration of the Sprint Mafia...
*shrug*For the consideration of the Sprint Mafia...
Sure, we don't need to go Max Sprint all the time, but having the capability to Get Places Quick:tm: when we do need to go firewalling the Warp Engines is very handy.
For the consideration of the Sprint Mafia...
It just depends on the ship and the needs of the next 20 years imo. If we make a fat cargo and medical boat next I'd want to push cruise so it can cover as much of the federation as possible. But for our beatstick Excalibur giving it sprint for the maximum tactical advantage was the right call.
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Personally I feel we just have to few ships, then again somehow otl star fleet did have so few yet did all the things. Personally I view it as people behind star trek not realizing space is big, only have a combate ship class of 12 is really really not enough to guard a reasonably sized Federation, especially when those twelve could be off exploring and take months to get back and help if something happens.
So basically author fite, cause once you start trying to logic things it gte screwy fast.
So basically author fite, cause once you start trying to logic things it gte screwy fast.
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Cruise is for when the ship needs to go everywhere but time isn't super duper sensitive.For the consideration of the Sprint Mafia...
Sprint is for You need to get somewhere ASAP in the next 12 hours or else bad things™ happen. Both have their place.
Archer? Cruise.
Darwin/Attenborough? Cruise or happy medium
Excalibur? Sprint, because someone has to chase down War criminals, best be the ship with five torp tubes and a bad attitude.
I respectfully disagree. Cruise allows a ship to cover more distance for patrols, utility functions and all normal movement and get more mean time before refueling.
Sprint is useful for offensive and defensive action, where either you must evade an enemy or chase one down extremely quickly and time is of the absolute essence.
We have a tendency to go for sprint speed, honestly I think cruise speed is the more valuable, with a few edge cases like the Excalibur-class. Hell, we made the Archer-class optimized for sprint despite the fact it's stuck with a warp 7 engine and the Klingons were introducing the warp 8 drive, so it's hardly useful for evasion. Cruise increases a ship's efficiency in all functions (shorter movement delays between delivery, support, science work or any other mission type), makes it easier for ships to stay in position in prolonged warfare and increases their effective range.
The Archer's Nacelle's were designed to boost sprint yes, but ALSO maximum cruise. It got slightly less in terms of efficient cruise, true, but in return it got to where it was going slightly faster and could RUN AWAY when the enemy showed. Perhaps a less efficient use of fuel but we have Pharos for that.
As for our designs we've had the stingray be sprint focused (and frankly it NEEDED that for what we ended ujp using it for as that let it keep pace with the NX and Thunderchildren in warp), but the NX was Cruise, the Thunderchild didn't have an option and the Skate wasn't a choice of cruise vs sprint and instead of defense vs Cruise. That's hardly us picking sprint over cruise.
Next generation at the genesis of the Federation, The Curiouities were a prototype that boosted both. The Cygnets were cruise focused. Then we had the Sagas which boosted both again. Then we get to the Sharks which were less about cruise vs sprint and more about weight vs space. The Kea was the only ship before the Connie that explicitly chose sprint over cruise instead of cruise outright or a happy medium, and that was entirely to try and escape any marauding D6s.
In short we're Hardly choosing sprint over cruise all that often, and when we do there is usually a good reason for it.
I could be wrong, I'm down sick at the moment and feeling rather psychedelic, but this is a tentative list I compiled. If I've miscounted one please tell me.
- Stingray-class Sprint
- NX-Class Cruise
- Curiosity-class Balanced/experimental
- Cygnus-class Cruise
- Sagarmatha Quad/balanced/experimental
- Kea-class Sprint
- Archer-class Sprint
- Excalibur-class Sprint
- Project Darwin Balanced
I think this is pretty strong evidence that we favour sprint speed. It's not necessarily a bad thing, I think the Stingray-class and Excalibur-class absolutely made the objectively optimal decision to do so, but at other times I believe we did not.
This is just information people can be aware of, to perhaps help inform their choices.
With regards to the table you assembled?
I should point out that for Project Halley/Archer-class, we chose the option with higher maximum cruise.
Citation:
We already chose a hull configuration that reduced our speeds by -0.2 Warp, so we chose Catamaran Nacelles to compensate, in the knowledge that we had already deployed a network of Pharos stations to refuel any extra antimatter burned at max cruise. Those decisions arent made in a vacuum.
Worth noting that for Starfleet ships that we are equipping with Extra Antimatter modules, or which are supposed to operate in the area of coverage of our Pharos logistics stations, the calculus is different. Because when you have access to additional antimatter, what becomes more important is not the efficient cruise speed, but the maximum cruise speed.
With military ships and military missions, time is not just money, but lives. And ships. And planets.
Think of it in terms of highway speeds.The most efficient speed for most cars is around 55 mph, and fuel efficiency rapidly drops for cars travelling faster than that. Yet most US drivers tend to average at least 15mph faster, because that cuts travel time by around 25% without fuel consumption becoming prohibitive.
Its also worth remembering that military designs tend to spec for significantly higher base speeds IRL as well, because fuel efficiency is a secondary concern as compared to improving response time.
The US Navy, for example, operates the fastest cargo ships in the world, the Algol-class, which at 33 knots are roughly 2-3x the speed of your regular cargo ships.
And thats not counting the actual warships.
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This is extremely misleading. Discounting the Zheng He and NX (which were so early that interstellar capability was dubious without cruise-optimizing, we have literally only once ever chosen cruise config, on the Cygnus. In contrast- discounting the Stingray, as it wasn't really expected to operate outside the vicinity of Sol- we have chosen Intermediate twice and Sprint three times- the most recent three in a row, in fact.
This is...well, unlike the first half of the sentence it's not an outright falsehood. I even agree, kinda sorta mostly.
- The Excalibur had good reason- excellent, even- because cruise speed was capped anyway.
- The Archer-class went for sprint speed in hopes of being able to flee from D6s, a rationale which while reasonable given our complete and utter lack of information on the capabilities of even old Klingon ships has entirely failed to materialize. It was stated outright that Archers that encounter anything heavier than a BoP basically just die, so in hindsight this can only be considered a mistake. It was a reasonable one, though. Goddamn fuckin' Starfleet Intelligence.
- IIRC the Kea went sprint mostly for emergency-response reasons. This was, is, and remains blindingly idiotic. Because apparently people were incapable of realizing that cruise gives faster response times to anything further away than a handful of light-years >.> This was absolutely, unquestionably, unequivocally a mistake. It was a terrible reason at the time, it was farcically obviously a terrible reason at the time, and nothing we've found out since has done anything to change that.
(EDIT: the Stingray had good reason for going Sprint too, I suppose, I just tend not to count it or the Zheng He or NX at all, since they were designed under so much different rules and for so much slower warp drives and for so different a Starfleet that they're not really comparable. Still, allowing the more generous interpretation, that'd make it three out of four had good reason for sprint at time of voting, sure.)
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That's another issue, we know we have max cruise, but what's the range on it? Is it like 4x the fuel usage, or 1.2x? Is there increased wear and tear/maintenance requirements, or is it purely a fuel usage thing? It's hard to make strategy on assumptions.
:raised eyebrow:
I'd argue the Archer made a good choice at the time given the Kea at 7.6 could easily outrun a D6 and Archers needed to run from them or worse a D7, and the nacelles boosted maximum cruise which means it gets where it is going faster. But the Kea itself? Yeah Cruise would have been a better pick.
Archduke
Don't Take Geology Puns For Granite
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- Texas
The Kea's warp speed allowed them to pick and choose what fights it wanted to take, which was important considering it lacked torpedoes until its refits. If Cruise had won, they'd have the same max speed as the Archer, but without any torpedoes. I think the Kea had more significant problems: their lack of sublight maneuverability, their small range of 70 LY, and their limited tactical capabilities until after their refits.
Frankly, the idea we should start arguing over sprint or cruise for the next ship before even knowing what it's supposed to do seems a waste of time.