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Starfleet Design Bureau

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Fouredged Sword said:
The flight deck has a place.

That place is on the next generation Super Archer.

SUPER ARCHER - 240ktons, 12 deck sphere primary hull. Large warp 8 core. Secondary hull flight deck. Large cargo pod. Nacelles in cargo pod configuration. Light shields.

And an entire 12 deck sphere devoted to engineering.

Efficient cruise speed - 6. Maximum cruise 7. Maximum warp something like 7.4, but she's a cargo hauler.

One rapid launcher forward and back. 4 phaser banks to give her reasonable phaser coverage.

Tactical - C-
Science - C- (4)
Engineering - S (oh God fuck tons of engineering)

Starfleet no joke absolutely 100% needs to build this ship for the same reason they are still building Archers. It blows any other possible engineering ship out of the water. The Super Archer would deliver more cargo and a higher engineering score faster at a not very much higher cost compared to an Archer.

Starfleet will shatter their molars grinding their teeth, then order 20.
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More likely that you get a big, full saucer for that role post-Four Year War IMO
We got a pretty harsh lesson about specialist non-combat ships in the war
I do agree with including the capacity to haul a Large Cargo Pod; that I would love to see

Looking at timelines, the Archers were in service until 2310, so you'd expect their replacement to enter service a decade before
Which means that design work starts around two decades before, in the 2290s
Which means its probably after Project Excelsior

We're probably looking at a Pharos replacement immediately after we finish the Federation; Pharos started design in 2194, and was commissioned in 2200
So Pharos Nextgen >> Project Excelsior >> Super Archer. And reuse the Excelsior saucer for the Super Archer

IMO
Strunkriidiisk said:
On an unrelated note: before anyone else catastrophizes further about the rate of loss on peacetime Excalibur missions, keep in mind that those 5 Excaliburs map one-to-one with the canon 5 Constitutions that got Got, down to the circumstances. And the Connie had one grade better science than the Callie does. Chill out, the Callies are performing to expectations.
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The point of this quest is to try to do better than canon if we can though?
That said, the Connies had much worse Tactical despite being 10,000 tons heavier, which almost certainly had impact on their ability to shoot their way out of danger

I mean, they lost 5 out of 14 ships, a loss rate in the 35% range; worse than the Excaliburs
Thats pretty objectively appalling
 
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uju32 said:
More likely that you get a big, full saucer for that role post-Four Year War IMO
We got a pretty harsh lesson about specialist non-combat ships in the war
I do agree with including the capacity to haul a Large Cargo Pod; that I would love to see

Looking at timelines, the Archers were in service until 2310, so you'd expect their replacement to enter service a decade before
Which means that design work starts around two decades before, in the 2290s
Which means its probably after Project Excelsior

We're probably looking at a Pharos replacement immediately after we finish the Federation; Pharos started design in 2194, and was commissioned in 2200
So Pharos Nextgen >> Project Excelsior >> Super Archer. And reuse the Excelsior saucer for the Super Archer

IMO

The point of this quest is to try to do better than canon if we can though?
That said, the Connies had much worse Tactical despite being 10,000 tons heavier, which almost certainly had impact on their ability to shoot their way out of danger

I mean, they lost 5 out of 14 ships, a loss rate in the 35% range; worse than the Excaliburs
Thats pretty objectively appalling
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Ok, tell you what. I can compromise with Starfleet.

100 meter 3 deck command saucer.

Secondary hull below the saucer with the deflector and fabrication facilities.

Secondary hull above the saucer with a double flight deck.

The large warp core extends from one secondary hull, through the saucer, into the other for a total of 11 decks on a very small ship.

The cargo pod slides into the middle between the secondary hulls with the nacelles on ether sides. Two struts (one to each secondary hull) on the nacelles just for aesthetics.
 
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@Sayle are the Xindi a thing in the quest and are they now a Federation member? If so the existence of Xindi aquatics might drive up the desire to put in 'cetacean ops' in ships, since it'd be more than just earth cetaceans who would/would use them (plus, they've got actual arms they can use too).
 
Didn't the Keas get their prospecting equipment (or whatever their main unique thing was) mostly ripped out to make room for the torpedoes in the refit, with that equipment already being obsolete?

Doing "the kea again, but better" is entirely acceptable when you remember that the current Kea is no longer actually capable of its original role, if that's the case.
 
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Chargone said:
Didn't the Keas get their prospecting equipment (or whatever their main unique thing was) mostly ripped out to make room for the torpedoes in the refit, with that equipment already being obsolete?

Doing "the kea again, but better" is entirely acceptable when you remember that the current Kea is no longer actually capable of its original role, if that's the case.
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I am fine making the Federation a prospecting ship, just not at the expense of the tactical role. Starfleet went "We need a tactical role filled. Please do that and maybe make it do something useful on the side", not "We need a ship to do a specific thing, but also make it fill a tactical role."

Starfleet so rarely asks for a military focused ship and so VERY rarely asks for a big one where we can rack up some costs. They won't ask for it unless they REALLY need that tactical functionality.
 
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Fouredged Sword said:
Take a section of the saucer. Build a park on the top level. Replace the hull plating with transparent aluminum so the flat roof is transparent. It isn't quite a glass dome, but you can relax on the grass under the stars.
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I was hoping we'd get something like this with the Attenborough, but in retrospect it would have been hard to swing with a landing saucer and our space constraints.

I'm hoping this ship will have have room for something like this, though. It's true that this is a tactical ship, and we chose the smallest saucer option, but it's still an objectively big saucer with heavy shielding.
 
I mean, that's probably a bit much but an arboretum might not be too much of a swing. Even at max efficient cruise (7) it'd still be 79 days to cross 1/2 of the Federation and about 158 to cross it all, or with a max efficient cruise of warp 7.4 about 67 days to cross 1/2 of it and 135 for all of it, combined with the likely insane fuel reserves it's probably going to be away from starbases and other places with crew recreation/relaxation areas a lot
 
Fouredged Sword said:
Ok, tell you what. I can compromise with Starfleet.

100 meter 3 deck command saucer.

Secondary hull below the saucer with the deflector and fabrication facilities.

Secondary hull above the saucer with a double flight deck.

The large warp core extends from one secondary hull, through the saucer, into the other for a total of 11 decks on a very small ship.

The cargo pod slides into the middle between the secondary hulls with the nacelles on ether sides. Two struts (one to each secondary hull) on the nacelles just for aesthetics.
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Cant imagine why youd restrict the design to 100m, given how mass makes the ship harder to kill
Especially since you arent trying to maximize maneuverability

180m, 3 deck Primary hull in Command config is 140 kilotons
Add a Large Cargo Pod at 100 kilotons and a pair of nacelles at 20kt each
Engineering Hull at, say, 40kt.

That gives you a rough mass budget of 320 kilotons
Standard or light shields, 2x RFLs or 1x RFL + 3x standard tubes, 4 or 6 phasers, twin impulse drives, cruise-optimized nacelles, through flight deck, expanded cargo bay

Come in below 90 Cost in series production I think:
18 or less for torpedo tube suite, 12 or 18 for phasers, 8 for impulse drives, 22.5 for primary hull, 6.5 for engineering, 24 for light shields or 36.5 for standard shields, ??? nacelles, ??? cargo pod
 
Tank man said:
@Sayle are the Xindi a thing in the quest and are they now a Federation member? If so the existence of Xindi aquatics might drive up the desire to put in 'cetacean ops' in ships, since it'd be more than just earth cetaceans who would/would use them (plus, they've got actual arms they can use too).
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No, I don't think they exist at all. The Sphere Builder Temporal Incursion was cancelled/nullified. I can't find the post that references it anymore, though.
 
KlavoHunter said:
Better than canon, actually. USS Constallation's counterpart dabbed on the Planet Killer!
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I'd have loved to see him dance around that antiproton beam pumping torpedos down its throat.

Add it to the songs of the 18 swords, as well as Joyeux making its last stand over Andoria and the lost hunters of Orion. Not to mention Fair April.

And darn it now I want the Star Trek version of Sabaton...

Ebiris said:
It's not as if flight deck is going to win now anyway, but I voted for it because shuttles consistently give good engineering points to ships, and it'd probably synergise pretty well with stuff like dilithium prospecting. Warp into a system, vomit out two dozen shuttles to go trawl its asteroid belts, that kind of thing. Post battle salvage and recovery too.

The idea of them being applicable in combat was never going to fly, pun unintended.
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Yes this exactly. Fighters in Star Trek have exactly one role - low intensity conflict and guerilla warfare. They cannot stand up to real starships, and aren't expected to.

Fouredged Sword said:
I mean, this is exactly why the huge shuttlebay WOULD be a great thing... if it didn't reduce the tactical value of the ship when tactical value is the topline on the tender.

I think turning the next ship we build into a dilithium prospector with lots of shuttle would be really useful.
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As long as we remember that next time we build something that mentions prospecting, because I'll hold the thread to that...

Archduke said:
Too bad we're too early for something like Cetacean Ops as a module.
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Yeah, that won't be for a few decades after George and Gracie come back and they recalibrate the universal translators to point at cetaceans.
 
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uju32 said:
Cant imagine why youd restrict the design to 100m, given how mass makes the ship harder to kill
Especially since you arent trying to maximize maneuverability

180m, 3 deck Primary hull in Command config is 140 kilotons
Add a Large Cargo Pod at 100 kilotons and a pair of nacelles at 20kt each
Engineering Hull at, say, 40kt.

That gives you a rough mass budget of 320 kilotons
Standard or light shields, 2x RFLs or 1x RFL + 3x standard tubes, 4 or 6 phasers, twin impulse drives, cruise-optimized nacelles, through flight deck, expanded cargo bay

Come in below 90 Cost in series production I think:
18 or less for torpedo tube suite, 12 or 18 for phasers, 8 for impulse drives, 22.5 for primary hull, 6.5 for engineering, 24 for light shields or 36.5 for standard shields, ??? nacelles, ??? cargo pod
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Cost vs survivability in combat is a thing for a ship that is at best a second line combat ship. I am fine making the next generation Archer a better fighter, but we still want to keep her in the light cruiser range so that Starfleet can afford to build her in large numbers.

The idea is "What is the smallest cruiser hull we can cram a large warp core into and also strap a large cargo pod to?"
 
Fouredged Sword said:
Cost vs survivability in combat is a thing for a ship that is at best a second line combat ship. I am fine making the next generation Archer a better fighter, but we still want to keep her in the light cruiser range so that Starfleet can afford to build her in large numbers.

The idea is "What is the smallest cruiser hull we can cram a large warp core into and also strap a large cargo pod to?"
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Large Cargo Pods were 100kt when we were designing the Archer; they arent going to get smaller
We would be going into heavy cruiser territory anyway, just by the decision to make a big hauler
Its a false economy, even before you begin to quantify fittings

I mean, you can go for light shields instead of standard to cut costs
Or go with 1x RFL + 3x standard tubes, which is cheaper than 2x RFLs but has the same firepower
But once you decided on Large Pods, there's an entry price to be paid
 
Tank man said:
@Sayle are the Xindi a thing in the quest and are they now a Federation member? If so the existence of Xindi aquatics might drive up the desire to put in 'cetacean ops' in ships, since it'd be more than just earth cetaceans who would/would use them (plus, they've got actual arms they can use too).
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Given the sheer power of Xindi ships and their total absence in literally every other piece of media I'm inclined to believe the Sphere Builders upteched them and used them as patsies, and absent that particular part of the temporal wars the Xindi are pretty regular. But they're also weirdly xenophobic despite being a multi-species group, so I'm guessing they won't be Federation members until TNGish.
 
Sayle said:
Given the sheer power of Xindi ships and their total absence in literally every other piece of media I'm inclined to believe the Sphere Builders upteched them and used them as patsies, and absent that particular part of the temporal wars the Xindi are pretty regular. But they're also weirdly xenophobic despite being a multi-species group, so I'm guessing they won't be Federation members until TNGish.
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Apparently they appear in Prodigy, in an episode, though I'm not sure the context, and whilst it isn't quite screen media (canon) STO does feature the Xindi, in particular a Xindi Primate ambassador (as a federation ambassador). As far s their absence in book media goes, Star Trek literature was very much a TNG S1-2 only club for a long time, I mean they genocided the Aenar to explain why they never showed up and got very mad over the fact Andoria was a small ice ball (and kinda seemed to hate the Andorians on the whole…)

Still, good to know!

Edit:
Actually, shit, just to make sure, the rest of the Federation isn't holding the secret to curing the Andorian reproductive crisis that once revealed will cause them to withdraw from the Federation and become a shitty Cuba metaphor for the equally shitty space Warsaw Pact?
 
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Tylonius said:
...wat?
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The Typhon Pact crisis novels were godawful stupidity, that spiralled in ever-tighter circles of dumbness.

Some wack stuff about how the Federation was secretly holding back science/medical stuff that'd let the Andorians reproduce more freely instead of allegedly needing a 4-sexed polycule to bring a single baby into existence.

Stupid stupid stupid dumb fuckery unworthy of reading.

it's straight-up Not Star Trek.
 
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Tylonius said:
...wat?
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The novelverse was generally terrible outside of a few good stand alone books or series.

It's part of the plot of the DS9 relaunch novels, in the latter half, that some space Warsaw Pact (the Typhon Pact, comprising of the Romulans, Breen, Tholians, Gorn, Tzenkethi, and the Kinshaya*) forms against the Federation & Klingons space NATO (featuring them, the Cardassian Union, and Ferengi Alliance) following the defeat of the Borg in the Destiny novels, and because of how Andorian reproduction is meant to work (involving four individuals) they've got a constantly shrinking population** that's going to be severely depleted or outright die out if a workaround isn't found. Apparently a cure has existed for some time but for some ungodly reason the fucking thing is never shared with them, presumably because it involves genetic modification*** or some weird racism stuff (never read it myself), and naturally once this is found out things kinda go tits up with the Andorians withdrawing from the Federation and becoming what's effectively space Cuba for the space Warsaw pact.

*Iirc they're meant to be some ancient enemy of the Klingons, kinda Romulan sized and a theocracy.
**No fucking clue how it got so big in the first place if that's an issue, you'd think if that basic facet of their reproduction was true they'd give birth to like 4-6 kids in average each time.
***Being the novel verse they seem to ignore all the context where genetic modification is used to correct issues like this and the only issue is in making genetic supermen (such as Bashir's case - he could have been brought up to what in universe was considered the human norm via gene therapy and just gone about his life/gotten into Starfleet quite easily, what was illegal was that he was given super intelligence by an unlicensed practice and never disclosed it, iirc).

KlavoHunter said:
it's straight-up Not Star Trek.
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There's also, not in this but another one, Control being behind basically everything United Earth and then later the Federation did with no real human agency - even S31 being it's puppets.

Like, DIS is dogshit but even it realises Control is a fucking stupid plot point as it existed.
 
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Tank man said:
Apparently a cure has existed for some time but for some ungodly reason the fucking thing is never shared with them, presumably because it involves genetic modification*** or some weird racism stuff
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From what I recall, it was weird racism - Andorian society is too militaristic for some people's tastes, so they were 'allowed' to decline.

*looks at the 2240s*

Somehow I don't foresee that particular bit of idiocy being replicated in this game's continuity.
 
Tank man said:
The novelverse was generally terrible outside of a few good stand alone books or series.

It's part of the plot of the DS9 relaunch novels, in the latter half, that some space Warsaw Pact (the Typhon Pact, comprising of the Romulans, Breen, Tholians, Gorn, Tzenkethi, and the Kinshaya*) forms against the Federation & Klingons space NATO (featuring them, the Cardassian Union, and Ferengi Alliance) following the defeat of the Borg in the Destiny novels, and because of how Andorian reproduction is meant to work (involving four individuals) they've got a constantly shrinking population** that's going to be severely depleted or outright die out if a workaround isn't found. Apparently a cure has existed for some time but for some ungodly reason the fucking thing is never shared with them, presumably because it involves genetic modification*** or some weird racism stuff (never read it myself), and naturally once this is found out things kinda go tits up with the Andorians withdrawing from the Federation and becoming what's effectively space Cuba for the space Warsaw pact.

*Iirc they're meant to be some ancient enemy of the Klingons, kinda Romulan sized and a theocracy.
**No fucking clue how it got so big in the first place if that's an issue, you'd think if that basic facet of their reproduction was true they'd give birth to like 4-6 kids in average each time.
***Being the novel verse they seem to ignore all the context where genetic modification is used to correct issues like this and the only issue is in making genetic supermen (such as Bashir's case - he could have been brought up to what in universe was considered the human norm via gene therapy and just gone about his life/gotten into Starfleet quite easily, what was illegal was that he was given super intelligence by an unlicensed practice and never disclosed it, iirc).


There's also, not in this but another one, Control being behind basically everything United Earth and then later the Federation did with no real human agency - even S31 being it's puppets.

Like, DIS is dogshit but even it realises Control is a fucking stupid plot point as it existed.
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Looking it up online it seems like something that happened over a period of time, not something that always was. Andorian birth rates kept dropping and their fertile period kept shrinking, meaning fewer Andorian born to each quintuple.
 
Fouredged Sword said:
Looking it up online it seems like something that happened over a period of time, not something that always was. Andorian birth rates kept dropping and their fertile period kept shrinking, meaning fewer Andorian born to each quintuple.
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Yeah, but it doesn't making any fucking sense with what we know of 22nd century tech let alone 23rd/24th, even without the aid of anyone else (planet/species wise) a single research university on Andoria should have been able to deal with this. Increasing the fertile period and increasing/stabilising brood size is nothing compared to the miracles they've managed.
 
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