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Cold Dust said:
The difference between a max of warp 7.6 and warp 8 isn't slight, it's massive. It's the difference between being corralled by D6s or being able to simply flee. I'd also point out many of our speed limitations and quirks are due to our v3 nacelles and warp 8 cores, once we upgrade to v4 nacelles and w9 cores this thing'll be extremely fleet... If we don't lobotomize it's FTL system right now. It'll still likely be stuck at a reduced speed and won't be upgraded if it's got a truncated deflector.

Besides, we have the warp 7 Archer-class for transport and technical support, that design's dedicated for it. Why throw out a warp 8 heavy cruiser for a warp 7.5 slightly less capable, slightly more generalist, more heavily armed Archer-class?

We sacrificed a great deal so our warp 8 fleet can make the transition to warp 9 via refits and upgrades, it's time to fully exploit that advantage, think forward and design ships that'll hang around for a while, bulk up our fleet, give us a reserve of fast, tough, strong ships. We've got a breather to start building things that'll be here for a long time, may as well start now.
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You don't have to yell.

As the OP has pointed out, Max warp doesn't reflect on interior emergency situations. A fast ship with bunch of guns is by definition generic and the most easily replaceable thing we'll have in our roster.

Also I attend to vote for linear or Sprint to claw back some of the tactical speed.
 
i think conventional is the way to go. this ship is meant to be the fleet anchor in battles, and that means it needs to keep up.

if we can guarantee that we can put on a sprint configuration nacelle to get back up to warp 8 while keeping our high efficient cruise, that would be fine, but if we cant hit warp 8 with the flight deck, i think we need to go conventional.
 
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Militarized shuttles are pretty useless against anything that isn't shuttle scale, anyway.
  • You can't get a high warp factor without an antimatter core, for which we shouldn't be sparing the dilithium.
  • Phaser strength mechanically scales off mass, which the shuttles don't have, and narratively off the reactor, which shuttles aren't big enough to carry a really good one.
  • Torpedoes are the size of people even before accounting for the launcher mechanisms, and furthermore their punch comes from antimatter, which means the live torpedoes can't be stored for any meaningful length of time, and the shuttle can't fuel them if they only take on inert shells.
  • They don't have the size or the power systems to take a hit. I doubt they can even mount anything more than light shield emitters, if that.
 
WCSII said:
So~ at this weight, if we want to get anything other than just "very maneuverable" with the impulse engines, we're going to want a third. Flight deck out right removes that option, not even mentioning the speed loss. And no, the flight deck won't cover for the loss, the weight is noted to be the same either way. While Efficient/Max 7.4 cruise is all well and good. Only being able to jump up to a "whopping" 7.6 max sprint... yeah~... between significantly lower sprint speed, and maneuvering loss going flight deck. I'll pass.
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We dont need Extra High; Medium-High might work with two engines though

Candesce said:
Maximum Warp is for close emergency response and for combat pursuits, either side.
As a lynchpin of a fleet, the Federation has no business engaging in pursuits when it has buddies, and the amount of force required to make retreating a better call than standing and fighting is going to be significant.

I'm not saying higher Maximum Warp has no value, but the value it provides isn't in "faster ships cover more ground." It's a very different calculation than Efficient Cruise, which is almost always what our ships are going to actually be using.
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Outside of outright war, the principal tactical scenario are going to involve solo Federations, and because Starfleet almost never starts shit, the enemy gets to pick the time and arena to start shooting

You have to account for the potential of this vessel getting jumped by incursions of D7 packs and BoPs, or their response to the Excalibur, or an actual enemy capital ship, and thats just on the Klingon border
Never mind the Romulans and the Tholians

Its a heavy cruiser, not a dreadnought
There are going to be scenarios where the ability to beat an expeditious retreat in the face of enemy overmatch will be the only hope of victory, or even survival to fight another day; we dont have enough ships to afford scenarios where we lose them

Need I remind you how the Earth-Romulan War started with Romulan hunter-killer teams ambushing and murdering an NX?
Even explorers can suffer overmatch, nevermind a heavy cruiser
 
Is there any merit to the flight deck, then? It sounds like a trap option or an objectively bad choice at this rate.
 
Until and unless we get fighters/runabouts. The only use for a "through" shuttlebay is for high volume of cargo and engineering shuttles. Not only would it cut down on our top speed, but it would eat up a huge amount of space that we could fill with other modules and the cargo bays that would normally go there. It's a "interesting sounding", shiny distraction. Remember that Sayle has mentioned that just because an option can be chosen, doesn't mean it is a good option to go for.
 
Onionjones said:
Also the Miranda is literally about to come out and that should be able to handle most engineering or similar projects
I don't think these ships should have to compete because this could just replace the Kea and Saladin
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Command called labs out as not being wanted though. Engineering is always a useful role for taskforce though and for something that is much more likely to be onsite for battle damaged planets and stations.
 
Yeah, the problem with attempting to make militarized shuttles or fighters is that Federation military technology doesn't really work well with them.

A shuttle is too small to put a powerplant in that's big enough to give a phaser much punch, and torpedo launchers are too large and expensive to easily put on a smallcraft. Without any weapons that make a fightercraft worthwhile, there's just no point in arming them.

It's vaguely possible that a disruptor weapon derived from Klingon technology might make it worth it, given that the Klingons routinely use small ships and still get good punch out of them, but barring that they're just not viable, except perhaps as a dropship for planetary insertion, which is rather niche.

In other notes, it sounds like we already have enough ships with Science and Engineering scores to do those jobs in general, and any labs or workshops we might include should be ones with specific focuses. Things like Dilithium prospecting are still valuable, but raw Science score isn't considered a priority.

We could also consider that this ship actually has a lot of potential as a diplomatic cruiser. Big, seriously tough, impressive looking, and strategically fast all contribute to making it good at making strong impressions, showing the flag, and hosting VIPs.
 
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Wootius said:
Command called labs out as not being wanted though. Engineering is always a useful role for taskforce though and for something that is much more likely to be onsite for battle damaged planets and stations.
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I just think that if starfleet procurement has to choose between this or more mirandas for the same role they'll chose the miranda and we'll get less of the federation class
It's not like the Miranda isn't capable after all - in canon I think its larger than the constitution
 
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UbeOne said:
Is there any merit to the flight deck, then? It sounds like a trap option or an objectively bad choice at this rate.
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There are scenarios where you want high cargo throughput but cant use transporters
Where you are in a star system and want to send teams to other parts of the system without moving your ship
When you want to support an away team without bringing the main ship overhead

We fitted the Archer with one, so we know its a good choice
Its just not a good choice for this ship's stated requirements; we'd have to give up too many other things for it to work
 
Strunkriidiisk said:
Militarized shuttles are pretty useless against anything that isn't shuttle scale, anyway.
  • You can't get a high warp factor without an antimatter core, for which we shouldn't be sparing the dilithium.
  • Phaser strength mechanically scales off mass, which the shuttles don't have, and narratively off the reactor, which shuttles aren't big enough to carry a really good one.
  • Torpedoes are the size of people even before accounting for the launcher mechanisms, and furthermore their punch comes from antimatter, which means the live torpedoes can't be stored for any meaningful length of time, and the shuttle can't fuel them if they only take on inert shells.
  • They don't have the size or the power systems to take a hit. I doubt they can even mount anything more than light shield emitters, if that.
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This is ultimately the argument that convinces a "no" from me on the Flight Deck.

I was hoping more for "Skate-class update that could dock and effectively use the Federation Class as a cruise tug" sort of scenario. If a flight deck won't give us that, standard is the way to go.
 
Wootius said:
Command called labs out as not being wanted though. Engineering is always a useful role for taskforce though and for something that is much more likely to be onsite for battle damaged planets and stations.
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This is inaccurate
The quotation that was provided otherwise was that we were permitted to omit them
Not that they werent wanted, or needed

This is freaking Starfleet; Science is always wanted
Their capacity to produce miracles out of their backside is based on their Science capabilities
Megascale lifeforms and negative space wedgies are science issues, not based on your killiness
 
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Lohjak said:
The Excalibur already does that. Now, it's not actually adequate for the task and will suffer heavy casualties while doing it, but unfortunately it's the only role they're suited for.

I'm not sure that designing a big Excalibur, a ship that Starfleet will not order more of, is really the move here. Maybe we'll get more orders since more module space makes it more useful in peacetime, but it would be a rather redundant design.
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The ship has terrible science I was being more specific in being able to scan and catalogue anomalies, but was more focus on using the scanners to find resources to exploit then doing pure science. Also wasnt the excalibur have medical science instead? So its not even useful in space science, besides being good for medical uses.
 
The loss of module space, cargo space and warp factor is not worth the host of shuttles the flight deck would bring about.

[X] Conventional Secondary Hull (Mass: 220kt) [Cost: 55.5)
 
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