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The transporter rooms are 2 decks high, that tells me we are getting around 2 decks.
To quote yourself: "Our phaser firing lines are basically irrelevant since we can't fire more than one or two at a time"
If the firing lines (placement) are irrelevant then that is not a reason to vote for the command style deck. Meanwhile the extra mass explicitly brings benefits to at least the tactical aspects of the ship, phaser power, hull rating and shield power.
If it matches, then effectively I'd consider it a large medium ship really. As that's effectively I believe an above average maneuverability two engine design again. Three impulse engines on that little mass would so far I can tell be unable to use full thrust and so be kind of inefficient cost wise.
Ah well, if that were the case I guess we could ponder once again what large ship Starfleet can introduce, as it would be basically still not have any.
It's probably as you say because Nacelles and such aren't in it yet.
I need to stress though, the mass numbers REALLY don't line up. Assuming similar construction and materials a half saucer hull should be something 70% the mass of a full saucer hull of the same diameter, and we are building a bigger, thicker hull to start with.
By pure measurements I think the Federation's saucer should be double the volume of the Excalibur's. It should be roughly double the mass.
By pure measurements I think the Federation's saucer should be double the volume of the Excalibur's. It should be roughly double the mass.
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Its a 180m wide disc.
The enemy would have to approach in exactly your plane of the ecliptic for it to have more effect than, say, the maneuverability of your ship because of the power of your drives.
Plus, at the fractions of a light second where combat happens, it makes no difference for a phaser/dsruptor in how much of the arc it subtends.
DualFront
Perhaps, this is Hell
I think some people are also extrapolating from previous trends for secondary hull sizes (IE, only getting options that are less than 50% the mass of the saucer) and wondering how any of the current options except Rising Slope are supposed to then reach the mass of the Kea, which they have also taken as the expected size range for this ship.
It is unreasonable to extrapolate that into something which contradicts the very sentence you are extrapolating from. The inverse slope has space for some extra auxiliary systems, not entire modules.
I'm pretty sure the benefit is that if the entire thing is flat, we can simply put the phasers wherever instead of only near flatter parts of the hull. The inverse slope would likely limit dorsal phasers to being in or near the flat area of the dorsal surface, which would be relatively small.
It's going to be eating into deck space no matter what, but this way we can pick where specifically, rather than the very limited surface area of the slope.
Yes, but the ship can freely turn the plane of it's saucer along the center axis of the ship so even if the enemy doesn't attack from the plane of the saucer the saucer will rapidly turn so they are.
Basically anyone attacking from a non-nose to nose axis is going to be shooting at the edge of the saucer or close to it. Anyone shooting nose to nose is going to be shooting at the edge of the saucer but it is also spinning around the center axis of the ship so hitting the edges is harder than shooting from the side.
The only time this wouldn't be the case is in initial shots from ambush, extreme maneuverability mismatch, and in fleet battles if the Federation is prioritizing turning it's edge towards a bigger threat.
Basically the Federation (and any saucer really) can pick one enemy ship and force that ship to shoot at it's edge profile basically no matter what.
This means you are not shooting at a 180 meter round target. You are shooting at a 15x180 meter rectangle. The round target is like ten times easier to hit.
And this isn't touching on that maneuver dodges by moving itself out of it's own profile so a small profiles works multiplicatively with high maneuverability to make you hard to hit.
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SirLagginton
Shadow Cabal Caerbannog Bun-Bun
- Location
- Arrrghhh
[X] Command Configuration (Mass: 140kt) [Cost: 27.5]
The saucer is 180m wide. Anyone who cared to shoot at it would either :
1) Aim along the plane of the ecliptic, where the ship is 180 meters wide instead of two to three decks wide.
2) Dip below or above the plane of the ecliptic and shoot at the dorsal or ventral surface.
Whether or not the ship itself is two decks or three decks thick makes no tactical difference.
Especially since the bulk of the secondary hull and the nacelles will further thicken the target profile.
Not particularly, we know what the inverse slope looks like in action. And we know the wording used in that post can be a too general, to quote Sayle's later post.
As the Archer shows flatness isn't really a requirement for phaser placement, hell even the Excalibur, which puts its phasers into an equivalent area to what would be provided by the sloping of the inverse slope configuration, still gets really good arcs of fire and is only limited by the fact we chose such a minimal phaser fit.
I'm going to cast my vote, because I don't think I have yet.
[X] Command Configuration (Mass: 140kt) [Cost: 27.5]
Personally, I'd be fine if Inverse Slope won, but Command Configuration seems aesthetically interesting, and that "ideal phaser mounting" intrigues me.
[X] Command Configuration (Mass: 140kt) [Cost: 27.5]
Personally, I'd be fine if Inverse Slope won, but Command Configuration seems aesthetically interesting, and that "ideal phaser mounting" intrigues me.
Ok, so I want to further talk about how wonky the numbers are.
So, let's make some generous assumptions.
Let's say that the half saucer is 70% the volume and mass of a saucer of the same size. The Excalibur is cut back 180 degrees, but has a full round near the middle and a slice going straight back, so 70% is a generous estimate.
Now let's also assume that the inverse slope (that the Excalibur uses) has as much volume in the center two decks as the rest of the decks combined. (Ie the cross sectional area of the top and bottom above and below the 2 mid decks is equal to the two mid decks). I feel this is extra generous.
So, we know we have A saucer with no added mass of the same style, just 40 meters wider and 1 mid deck thicker.
So we should be able to calculate the difference in volume in the saucer, and that should roughly match the difference in mass.
So a 180 meter 3 deck inverted slope hull is 170ktons. That gives it a cross section of 25,000 M^2 (rounded down) and a mass per unit cross sectional area (top down) of 6.68 tons per M^2 for thick full saucers. This is an average. There is less per meter towards the edges, more towards the center.
It has 3 midline decks compared to the Excalibur's 2, so if the Excalibur has 4 midline decks worth of volume the thick saucer has 5, so a factor of 1 to .8.
The Excalibur also was a half saucer with, as before, an estimated 70% of the cross sectional area of a saucer of the same size, so a second factor, this one 1 to .7 in favor of the full saucer.
So a full thick saucer of the Excalibur's diameter should have a cross sectional area of 15000 m^2 and a mass/cross sectional area of 6.68 ton/m^2
So a 140 meter thick full saucer should mass 102 Ktons.
But the Excalibur isn't a thick saucer, and isn't a full saucer, so we need to multiply by the factors for the lack of extra deck and not being a full saucer, .7 and .8 respectively.
So really the Excalibur Hull, if built the same was as the Federation inverse slope hull, should mass just 60ktons.
That means that the 2 nacelles and extra base mass needed to build a ship is 80ktons. Let's assume something like 20 Kton for the neck plus other odds and bobs then 30kton per nacelle (with nacelle strut). I don't feel this is unreasonable. Those numbers could be sensible.
Meaning that the Federation's final mass should be 220 for command saucer and 250 for inverted slope saucer once the unknown baseline mass and nacelle mass is added. This is before any secondary hull is added, so assuming a modest secondary hull 250-300 Ktons is a reasonable range of end mass.
Edit
Also aside from mass the Federation Reverse Incline hull should have 2.4ish times the internal volume. The command saucer should have less, but still around 2 times the internal volume of the Excalibur saucer.
So, let's make some generous assumptions.
Let's say that the half saucer is 70% the volume and mass of a saucer of the same size. The Excalibur is cut back 180 degrees, but has a full round near the middle and a slice going straight back, so 70% is a generous estimate.
Now let's also assume that the inverse slope (that the Excalibur uses) has as much volume in the center two decks as the rest of the decks combined. (Ie the cross sectional area of the top and bottom above and below the 2 mid decks is equal to the two mid decks). I feel this is extra generous.
So, we know we have A saucer with no added mass of the same style, just 40 meters wider and 1 mid deck thicker.
So we should be able to calculate the difference in volume in the saucer, and that should roughly match the difference in mass.
So a 180 meter 3 deck inverted slope hull is 170ktons. That gives it a cross section of 25,000 M^2 (rounded down) and a mass per unit cross sectional area (top down) of 6.68 tons per M^2 for thick full saucers. This is an average. There is less per meter towards the edges, more towards the center.
It has 3 midline decks compared to the Excalibur's 2, so if the Excalibur has 4 midline decks worth of volume the thick saucer has 5, so a factor of 1 to .8.
The Excalibur also was a half saucer with, as before, an estimated 70% of the cross sectional area of a saucer of the same size, so a second factor, this one 1 to .7 in favor of the full saucer.
So a full thick saucer of the Excalibur's diameter should have a cross sectional area of 15000 m^2 and a mass/cross sectional area of 6.68 ton/m^2
So a 140 meter thick full saucer should mass 102 Ktons.
But the Excalibur isn't a thick saucer, and isn't a full saucer, so we need to multiply by the factors for the lack of extra deck and not being a full saucer, .7 and .8 respectively.
So really the Excalibur Hull, if built the same was as the Federation inverse slope hull, should mass just 60ktons.
That means that the 2 nacelles and extra base mass needed to build a ship is 80ktons. Let's assume something like 20 Kton for the neck plus other odds and bobs then 30kton per nacelle (with nacelle strut). I don't feel this is unreasonable. Those numbers could be sensible.
Meaning that the Federation's final mass should be 220 for command saucer and 250 for inverted slope saucer once the unknown baseline mass and nacelle mass is added. This is before any secondary hull is added, so assuming a modest secondary hull 250-300 Ktons is a reasonable range of end mass.
Edit
Also aside from mass the Federation Reverse Incline hull should have 2.4ish times the internal volume. The command saucer should have less, but still around 2 times the internal volume of the Excalibur saucer.
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Perhaps if enough of us go around chanting the in quest equivalent of "the discworld isn't stable" (or however that goes) we could get the masses amended (at least for the next part, since we're probably too far into the vote now to retroactively change the votes)?
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The ship being shot at is juking up and down, changing it's angle of attack, and turning to hold you in the plane of it's saucer.
You are aiming at an area, not the longest dimension you can measure. A 180 meter circle is 25,000 m^2. The area of a 180 meter by 7 meter rectangle is 2700 m^2.
The profile is literally 10% the area of the cross section.
Diskworld IS stable though. It's held up by elephants. The problem is there are no elephants in to be found in this math. @Sayle needs to provide some elephants. I hope they come in the form of "80ktons of extra mass during the nacelle step for nacelles and required struts."
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- Location
- France
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- She/They
The enemy isn't the only one with engines. In fact we've often had a maneovrability edge, at least against ships of similar size class. Choosing which side we present is well within our capacities.
[X] Command Configuration (Mass: 140kt) [Cost: 27.5]
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- USA
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I mean, yeah, sure. It's often going to be mutually exclusive with choosing which other maneuvers we want to be doing, but sure, in a vacuum (heh) it's not too hard to be mostly edge-on to a single foe.
But uh. We're designing this for the tactical role of "fleet anchor". We should expect to be in the middle of a swirling furball, our maneuver capacity restricted mostly by ally positioning, giving and potentially taking fire from all or nearly all facings; a slim profile in one specific plane is almost entirely irrelevant here. Not totally! But almost.
To an extent, but as thepsyborg points out if these ships serve as fleet anchors during battle they're not exactly going to be able to manoeuvre that much, and will be taking fire from all directions so the profile saving in one dimension is meaningless on this context.
It would have been better served on a more maneuverable lightning bruiser like the Excalibur, which does actually have the speed/role to get into full frontal engagements more often.
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We were told that future warfare would more likely involve deep-space encounters with single cruisers, were we not? Wouldn't it be wise to prepare for that outcome, give our ships great agility to widen their tactical options? Thrusters aren't hugely expensive, after all, especially if the difference is surviving a battle or not.
KleverKil'Vanya
Ortillery Operator
Ignoring the vote since I am just so done with Schrödinger's Mass votes, what was the Klingon view of the war? How is it remembered and talked about in their halls? Do they sing of the valour of both sides or of the worthiness of their foes?
KlavoHunter
THOU SHALT WORSHIP NO GODS ABOVE ENTERPRISE!
I admittedly leaned towards the 'nice phaser mounts' of the Command-style Deck, but the new mechanics where mass boosts the effectiveness of shields and phasers has convinced me that we want one of the beefier options.
The smaller forward profile is only really effective when the ship has enough maneuverability to consistently put its bow on the enemy. For a 'fleet anchor ship', the captain won't even use the maneuverability we give them: See the Captains of the Newton-class starships who used High Maneuverability to play Fleet Anchor.
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Usually there's going to be a main thrust of advance with enemy heavy elements (D7s, what else) we can aim our profile at, and the wide coverage is for the lighter flanking elements where it matters less anyway, even in a larger brawl. At the very least it can save us some grief when approaching an enemy line to crash through it, before it becomes irrelevant.