- Location
- USA
Well we still need to have a build with vertical and tri-nacelles for experimental purposes. And the "canon" Federation class was a triple.
Linked contents
- Location
- Canada
As long as we avoid putting it on the top of the ship, because I always thought that looked dumb. I'm fine with it.
Just give it a Galaxy-X style mounting, I guess.
- Location
- Canada
I was never a fan of that style again it always looked stupid to me.
[X] Project Miranda (Midweight Generalist)
Honestly I think we lack a design to act as patrol vessel for our space that isn't centuries outdated. Part of the reason The Klingons only got so deep into our space because we don't have enough hulls to secure it. Imagine what the Romanians with they more advance clocking would do?
Honestly I think we lack a design to act as patrol vessel for our space that isn't centuries outdated. Part of the reason The Klingons only got so deep into our space because we don't have enough hulls to secure it. Imagine what the Romanians with they more advance clocking would do?
[X] Project Miranda (Midweight Generalist)
- Location
- Canada
A patrol boat is a relatively small naval vessel generally designed for coastal defence, border security, or law enforcement.
The Miranda is a generalist ship that does a bit of everything while also being armed sufficiently (hopefully) it would be made to patrol some sectors but its going to be busy with work doing everything else, from science to engineering, which means it has to be generalized, even armed we are likely not going to throw extra guns onto the hull beyond the basics, so it doesn't remove a module to do so.
There are lots of options one could ponder, but I think one could go in to two main branches of thinking, cheap or a bit expensive.
- a bit expensive, push the systems some what, maybe take one or two experimental things to push a design that everyone around will find some what daunting. There are variety of approaches one could do here.
- cheap, decide that you're actually going to compete with the Miranda concept and that you'll do it twice as good 'big'.
For the big Miranda option you'd have to be willing to do some real cost cutting though. You'd let your maneuverability drop a tier or two, weapon load out won't be increased much beyond the Excalibur ( phasers can gain 25% in strike power from size though at no extra cost), use a cheaper shield bracket as bigger ships get more shield from their size so you claw back much of the cost increase from making it bigger and might still have a stronger shield anyway. And then load up with tons of modules, where you have as much mass put in to several categories as a specialist ship could carry, but all in one ship. Over all one would hope to get a ship in the 'A' bracket of cost, 'B' bracket tactical, and 'A' or 'S' for science and engineering.
If you get the cost cutting measures right you might only be a bit more expensive then a normal sized Miranda, but as such far far more capable. The drawback is you'd have to avoid doing anything all to exciting even if some exciting new ideas showed up. So I'm not sure if it's realistic to expect it totally pass like that, or if reality there would be some cost creep.
Though I'm not sure if there is much scope for anything all to big to drop at the moment. The warp drive is to new obviously, the nacelles have already been noted to not be available for this round, armor similar noted to still be under research from the Klingon debris, phasers upgraded with the warp system, so still kind of new. Thrusters are only just reaching mature, so seems early. Shields only just reaching mature, even if they were the most laggy item so might be early for them to. Torpedoes got the rapid type recently, I suppose a new torpedo type could be invented, but the last retrospective on upgrade made no mention of needing to change out torpedo launchers for such.
So the only things I can think of really as particularly realistic are some kind of deflector dish upgrade or a novel nacelle arrangement. Though who knows, the QM might find extra ways to surprise us I guess.
Still, it's something for people to ponder who really want to do a more Miranda like thing. There is absolutely still a way to control the costs of such a ship design that you could get a bigger more capable Miranda at not much more cost then a Miranda. And heck, you could even make it cover much of the Newton functionality if designed right module wise as well, thus fully covering the brief anyway.
Well these are just my thoughts on the cheap branch for a Big Cruiser. Maybe some one else wants to give a throw at what one could to if one wanted to push costs a bit more and experiment with some systems?
Sure, but do we need anything larger than an Excalibur right now? Large ships can either hyper specialize in one non-tactical field like an Archer that doesn't suck at fighting, or they can be great generalists like a Sagarmatha. Presumably we're not trying to build a fighting Archer here, but then large generalists are great as explorers, and I cannot be bothered to be excited about an explorer that has capped cruise speeds with our old nacelles.
Building what are effectively capital ships with gimped cruise just to have them when we don't even anticipate another war for decades just seems like an overreaction to the war we just ended. We need to rebuild our everything, and while this ship wouldn't be bad for that I'm pretty sure an engineering cruiser would be better.
Also where are people getting like, 300-400kt from? The brief mentions the Kea which is only 250kt, and it seems unlikely that we'd be allowed to nearly double the ship size right after a war that killed half our fleet.
Do you know what's safer than being wrapped up in guns and armor and being thrown directly into fleet actions with the intent eating enemy fire
Not being shot at
The solution to people ignoring protections for medical personnel is not to cross train them as armor crews so they can lead armored assaults, it's to make it harder for the enemy to shoot them to begin with
And a medical focus doesn't even address our main peacetime problem currently, which is that we don't have enough engineering and general response ships after a bunch of Newtons died. It stems the bleeding a bit, but it eats up resources that could've gone into more engineering vessels. It's also complete overkill for the anti-piracy duties we need right now. There's something to be said about building for future needs, but we can't just ignore existing needs, and building a giant warship that carries a bunch of science or medical equipment will almost certainly delay our recovery.
I mean yes that what I ment when I said patrol vessel. I was talking about role not the class.
Also I think a popular fan theory that the Miranda was modular to some extent since theoretically you could disconnect the torpedo rack on top and replace it with another modue, like say a sensor array. Which would really emphasise the generalist role asumming the qm is alright with it.
SCIFI-enthusiast
Fractal-Pattern Technological Singularity
- Pronouns
- He/They
[X] Project Federation (Heavy Line Cruiser)
Is voting still happening?
I just got here...
Is voting still happening?
I just got here...
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I imagine they're getting it from that the old mass ranges were dictated by impulse engines that only had 56% of the strength of the new generation of impulse engines. So for same engine numbers you can boost a far large spacecraft. Basically if engine numbers/cost remain some what similar we can now have a far larger ship, so why not build a ship to match this new ability.
It's also kind of a logical choice I think, 20% of the engine power gain was a trade off in putting less power in to system and more in to engines. So if one wants to retrieve that trade off, then in a sense one is going to have to build the larger ship it makes possible.
Of course we'll have to see if the QM gives the option, but the logic itself is reasonable enough I think.
To be fair that is because our warp engine is basically way ahead of time and grossly overpowered. Which is good I guess, as it makes up and then substantially exceeds our choice in nacelle design where we opted to not have a charge time or a risk of potentially uncontrollable feedbacks.
To be even more fair, we're still going vastly faster then the previous generation in warp factor. So much so that the previous generation can't compete at all. And it's not like in time in an upgrade the nacelles can't be replaced. So this is a bit of a relative disadvantage. And it seems kind of silly to not build a ship just because you can't get the full benefit right now, one could say that for any ship design we make now after all. Personally I think there the gains are still huge anyway, why not? We have to build something after all and the old large spacecraft designs are massively inferior and completely obsolete in ever respect.
I think we need something bigger, yeah. It allows for a more overall capable platform that can be used in a variety of roles. And I don't think it needs to be a generalist like an explorer, instead I think we could instead reduce the cost profile so one can afford to make them more and perhaps try to make the Miranda non-competitive with it. Basically a large ship that also covers the Miranda role at reasonably price.
In which case one could have a real winner that got made for a long time.
But it depends on what people want, but I think there are definitely quite valid concepts for big ships.
2245: Project Federation (Shields)
[X] Project Federation (Heavy Line Cruiser)
Having elected to work on a heavy cruiser you hand off Project Miranda to San Francisco. Project Federation is likely to be equal if not exceeding in mass any design you've built to date, and having an explicit mandate that you may elect to exclude scientific facilities beyond the basics means you can have some fun with the mission profile. But before you even get to planning the hull geometry you need to know what you're working with.
The standard hull plating is a given, but the underlying matrix of shield emitters and power conduits demand different considerations from the designer depending on density and energy flux. You exclude a lightweight and hyperefficient system immediately on the basis of the design's tactical requirements, leaving you with two to choose between. First is the standard generator, which will be the most cost-efficient and provide plenty of shield strength. The alternative is a heavy generator that will push the defensive fields to the absolute limit of current technology, providing maximum protection for a reduced overall efficiency. Once the shield specifications have been decided you will be able to accurately assess the expense associated with any particular spaceframe, so it's important you decide now so you can best inform your choices in future.
[ ] Standard Shields
[ ] Heavy Shields
Two Hour Moratorium, Please
Having elected to work on a heavy cruiser you hand off Project Miranda to San Francisco. Project Federation is likely to be equal if not exceeding in mass any design you've built to date, and having an explicit mandate that you may elect to exclude scientific facilities beyond the basics means you can have some fun with the mission profile. But before you even get to planning the hull geometry you need to know what you're working with.
The standard hull plating is a given, but the underlying matrix of shield emitters and power conduits demand different considerations from the designer depending on density and energy flux. You exclude a lightweight and hyperefficient system immediately on the basis of the design's tactical requirements, leaving you with two to choose between. First is the standard generator, which will be the most cost-efficient and provide plenty of shield strength. The alternative is a heavy generator that will push the defensive fields to the absolute limit of current technology, providing maximum protection for a reduced overall efficiency. Once the shield specifications have been decided you will be able to accurately assess the expense associated with any particular spaceframe, so it's important you decide now so you can best inform your choices in future.
[ ] Standard Shields
[ ] Heavy Shields
| Emitter Type | Size | Shield Power/100kt | Cost/100kt | Shield/Cost |
| Type-1 Covariant | Standard | 20 | 11.4 | 1.8 |
| Type-1 Covariant | Heavy | 25 | 16.7 | 1.5 |
Two Hour Moratorium, Please
Commander_Co
Guy joining the fun
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Heavy Shields
Might as well if we're going to turn this thing into a beast of a ship
Might as well if we're going to turn this thing into a beast of a ship
Onionjones
Silicon Dreaming
- Location
- The Snack Zone
Heavy shields seem like an obvious choice
For the Excaliburs we were told that heavy would be refit into newer heavy, so heavy now is also better for future proofing.
And I mean, assuming we end up in the 300kt range it's basically just paying an extra 15 cost for an extra 15 shield, which isn't an incredible deal but since this ship literally exists to be shot at…
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Maybe we can give this ship a hospital and/or diplomacy specialization?
Moratorium
- Location
- Wörms, the half continent
Heavier than anything we've made before is heavier than the Sagarmatha, at 290kt, so we're talking at least a 16 cost differential between the options here for an additional 15 shield. I wouldn't be overly surprised if we're looking at a 22 or so cost differential between the options, which is a lot of cost, frankly.
Yeah, but 15 extra shield might let us double the shields on the Sagarmatha, and let's be honest here this thing is going to be comically expensive anyways.
This ship is going to be out dated soon when we build our big explorer. New phasers, new nacelles, new shields... This thing is a tactical stopgap replacement for our line of battle we need to give a long lasting non-combat role to so it pays off in the long run.
So I says we go heavy and huge and build this thing into a hospital ship that even long after it is tactically outdated is still running loops of the frontier providing core class medical care at least intermittently to our colonies.
So build big, build tough, and don't worry about them having a more limited run as Starfleet will want to ether be building Excaliburs or next gen ships anyway.