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Sayle said:
[ ] 180 Meter, 2 Decks (Mass: 76kt) [Cost: 15]
[ ] 180 Meter, 3 Decks (Mass: 114kt) [Cost: 22.5]
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These two are amongst our best bets, imo. Though I'm leaning a bit more towards the two deck design, since it'd allow for a more classical Kea-form, I'd rather not have us kneecap the ship at 114kt because we could put an inline deflector and make it a saucer with nacelles.

Going for the larger saucer and establishing a pipeline for it also means that when it comes to future designs we could save costs by reusing it.
 
Raw90 said:
Honestly I think a full saucer at Excalibur scale would work alright here, as the ship is likely to have a much larger secondary hull, or at least I'd lean in that direction. I don't see a need for an inline deflector, so I'd lean towards the first two options and even the smaller of the two.
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Let's out SanFran SanFran. Go quad secondary hulls. Turn them into hospital wings. Give the ship a figure 8 layout with the saucer in the center, secondary hulls in a square pattern, then double legs off the secondary hulls to the nacelles to make an infinity sign.
 
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Sayle said:
With that in mind you see three major options. The first is a full saucer of the same diameter as that used in the Excalibur-class: 140 meters. That will provide some space for internal systems while keeping costs stable. Adding more mass to bring the saucer to 180 meters will provide space for another set of modules for internal facilities and improve the available capabilities, but at a premium. Finally, an expansion to a thickness of three decks would open up the possibility of an inline deflector or extra-large cargo bays.
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Going big on this.
This ship will operate closer to, or beyond the frontiers in peacetime. We might want to think in terms of colony support as part of its auxiliary roles from the beginning.

[ ] 180 Meter, 3 Decks (Mass: 114kt) [Cost: 22.5]
 
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Something to note is that the classical Excelsior size (there's been some rejiggering post/during PIC, and iirc the production staff now consider it to be bigger than has commonly been accepted) has its saucer at 184m, so by going for a 180m design we'll be future proofing our infrastructure to some degree.
 
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[JK] 400 meter flat bottom saucer, - 400kton.

The Attenborough proved the idea of a colony dropper. We should build a land able fully functional colony that lands, builds a redundant set of everything ground side, then takes on a skeleton crew to go pick up more colonists and found another colony.
 
Sayle said:
It's a weighty decision, pun not intended. As this only constitutes a few decks of the finished saucer there will be more mass to add later, primarily determining whether the upper decks will be purely crew quarters and miscellaneous functions or if it can likewise mount some useful auxiliary systems
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To clarify, this means that this vote is only going to be for the "rim" or thinnest part of the saucer, and there is going to be a second vote for how chonky the rest of the saucer is?

uju32 said:
The Excalibur is almost entirely a warship; this will have a secondary function(s).
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Why do people keep getting this brainbug? The Excaliburs actually had a respectable amount of science for their size. Not an exceptional amount (although we could have gotten shockingly close to the Kea with a different choice in modules), but still respectable. We wouldn't be using them in the explorer role if they had no secondary function.
 
I'm inclined to the 180m, 3-deck option. I desperately want to build a ship with vertical nacelles and I think that might require inline.
 
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DualFront said:
To clarify, this means that this vote is only going to be for the "rim" or thinnest part of the saucer, and there is going to be a second vote for how chonky the rest of the saucer is?


Why do people keep getting this brainbug? The Excaliburs actually had a respectable amount of science for their size. Not an exceptional amount (although we could have gotten shockingly close to the Kea with a different choice in modules), but still respectable. We wouldn't be using them in the explorer role if they had no secondary function.
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Their primary use as explorers was to show Starfleet how much they needed to change to actually make an exploration ship.
 
Going for a Kea/Connie style secondary hull (~35.714% of saucer mass) means that the secondary hull would be somewhere between 27,140 and 40,720 tonnes (rounded to the nearest ten, more or less) so we'd be looking at total masses of ~103,140 and ~154,720 tonnes for each of the 180m saucers.

Of course, we could be starting to see more well built/substantial secondary hulls but I don't think it'd push these numbers up too too much.

Edit:
Ah, that's what I get for quickly skimming…
"Adding more mass improves the durability of the ship and the surface area its shields can diffuse energy over, so larger sizes have their own advantages, but if you want to spend that extra mass (and expense) on the saucer is a question in and of itself. It's a weighty decision, pun not intended. As this only constitutes a few decks of the finished saucer there will be more mass to add later, primarily determining whether the upper decks will be purely crew quarters and miscellaneous functions or if it can likewise mount some useful auxiliary systems. But that comes next, and for now you need to focus on the core of the saucer section."

Disregard the above calculations, this is only for the core of the saucer.
 
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[X] 180 Meter, 2 Decks (Mass: 76kt) [Cost: 15]

We don't an inline deflector, we can fit a big engineering hull on here.
 
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DualFront said:
To clarify, this means that this vote is only going to be for the "rim" or thinnest part of the saucer, and there is going to be a second vote for how chonky the rest of the saucer is?


Why do people keep getting this brainbug? The Excaliburs actually had a respectable amount of science for their size. Not an exceptional amount (although we could have gotten shockingly close to the Kea with a different choice in modules), but still respectable. We wouldn't be using them in the explorer role if they had no secondary function.
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This is Word of Sayle on how the letter rankings correlate:
Sayle said:
While some factors like crew comfort are unlikely to vary much over time, most of them are a moving target. The S of the Excelsior when it launched is a B today, for example. The A of a refit NX-class is a D today.

D is a disaster in that area. Half the ship wants to fly apart at the seams, sourcing materials for it is difficult or there's zero overlap in existing production, the phasers couldn't tickle a fly, it can barely tell you anything about something until you're right next to it, the crew are in bunks and even the captain lives in a broom closet.

C is below average. It's fiddly and temperamental to maintain or produce, the weapons are serviceable but really shouldn't go up against anything designed to fire back, it can perform science semi-competently but you won't be making any breakthroughs. The officers have decent quarters, everyone else has bunks.

B is middle-of-the-road. Whatever that category is, the ship can pull its weight. It isn't difficult to keep running, it isn't difficult to build. It can take a hit and shoot back. It can do some innovative science if it finds something sufficiently interesting. The crew have rooms to do more than sleep in.

A is high-end. The ship runs like a dream, or it's very easy to produce in bulk. Other powers would probably say it has the armaments of warship. It has systems modern enough to do some cutting-edge science, and plenty of options to choose from. The crew has their own individual rooms.

S is as good as it could possibly be. The ship could sit abandoned in space for fifty years and start running again when you press the power button. Starfleet can pump them out as fast as Naussican can lose at dom-jot. It doesn't have the weapons of a warship, it is a warship and can give anyone else a run for their money. It has a vast array of scientific instruments that can catalogue everything under the sun and probably enough experts enticed to work there to write a thesis or two on their findings while on the job. The crew all have officer-grade rooms with private amenities like sonic showers and personal replicators.

The Sovereign-class would probably be a B-C-S-B-B. Not much more highly scoring than the Renaissance and worse in the ease of production category. But it's a damn good combat ship and that's what she was mainly designed to do. Meanwhile the Galaxy would definitely have an S in comfort and science, but it might rate a D in ease of production or a C in maintenance.
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The Excalibur-class is Science C-, Engineering C+.
They are roughly below average in those capabilities for a heavy cruiser.

We use them because the cupboard is bare; our Sagmartha-class explorers have been decommissioned, and there's nothing else surviveable that we can currently deploy in that role while Starfleet is rebuilding wartime losses.
Not because they are good at it.
 
Yah know what? Im gonna go for expensive and large ship! That way, more Miranda classes are made, while this big guy would be small in numbers, but covering sectors they are place in. Means we should make this a fast big guy as well.

Basically? Making a giant Miranda generalist ship.
 
Tank man said:
Going for a Kea/Connie style secondary hull (~35.714% of saucer mass) means that the secondary hull would be somewhere between 27,140 and 40,720 tonnes (rounded to the nearest ten, more or less) so we'd be looking at total masses of ~103,140 and ~154,720 tonnes for each of the 180m saucers.

Of course, we could be starting to see more well built/substantial secondary hulls but I don't think it'd push these numbers up too too much.

Edit:
Ah, that's what I get for quickly skimming…
"Adding more mass improves the durability of the ship and the surface area its shields can diffuse energy over, so larger sizes have their own advantages, but if you want to spend that extra mass (and expense) on the saucer is a question in and of itself. It's a weighty decision, pun not intended. As this only constitutes a few decks of the finished saucer there will be more mass to add later, primarily determining whether the upper decks will be purely crew quarters and miscellaneous functions or if it can likewise mount some useful auxiliary systems. But that comes next, and for now you need to focus on the core of the saucer section."

Disregard the above calculations, this is only for the core of the saucer.
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@Sayle won't tell you this, but if we vote for more and more decks above and below the saucer we can get to Orb by first principles.
 
Inline deflector + inline engineering hull would allow us to mount super cruise vertical nacelles. I desperately want to see it happen since like this time last year.
 
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