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TeaMug said:
Maneuverability is assessed relative to what might be expected for a ship of similar size. We're never going to outfly a BoP, that's why Starfleet wants all-round phaser coverage.
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Maneuverability is a very straightforward thrust-to-mass ratio and is entirely size-agnostic. There is absolutely no difference in maneuverability between a 200,000-ton starship with 400,000 tons of thrust and a 500-ton shuttle with 1,000 tons of thrust. Zip. Zero. Nada. They will accelerate, decelerate, and change directions exactly as quickly.
 
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The problem with BoPs, as I understand it, is that they try not to pick fights with our cruisers one-on-one. Which means yes, even at Very High Maneuverability, one of them's getting behind you.

This can be seen with how the Newton served... not completely terribly before the Four-Year War, but afterwords full-forwards armament was switched to being unacceptable: it was the wartime conflicts of many-against-many that brought out the worst weaknesses of that design.
 
[X] Quad Nacelles (Maximum Cruise: Warp 7 -> 7.4) (Mass: 220kt -> 300kt) [Cost: 79]

The impression I got from the war is that fleet movement is rather elastic. It's not just 'a death all fleet travels together at the speed of the slowest ship' it's also a ton of 'how fast can ships independently get to this system in time to concentrate forces in reaction to a detected imminent attack'

The corollary of that is how quickly a fleet can disperse/exploit a won decisive battle after concentrating, and that the attacker gives the defender less time to concentrate (and thus less ships to defend with) the faster they consolidate their dispersed warships for a major offensive.

I'm not going to say Max Cruise is the only or even most important speed stat- but I think it matters in ways that are surprisingly distinct from a wet water navy where strategic speed of a fleet is entirely contingent on its slowest member and that grand fleets for decisive battles have to be assembled largely proactively rather than reactively from individual ships. Max Cruise seems to be really important in ways that aren't exactly intuitive.
 
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Sayle said:
Neat. I just ran an exponential curve with a decay constant based on the fractional warp factors between maximum cruise and maximum warp. It's interesting that you came to relatively similar numbers (+- 100 hours) by a different method. Although my calculator won't spit out specific endurance times at specific warp factors without an extra step, only at .1 increments.

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I did mine my zooming in on the screen and measuring with a ruler to measure where on the warp scale the 10k & 0 hrs points are, then trying to use the Dy/Dx formula to figure out the Y=mX+C. Took me a bit to figure out that it was actually Y=C-mX. I knew it probably wouldn't be too accurate and it was only when I was trying to get to sleep that I realised I had used a 0hr endurance @ 8.58, instead of 12hrs @ 8.6.
When you do have graphs for the displays, could you have a table of the values or the formula used included somewhere as well please? It's nice to have accurate data we can reference on future projects.
Also note that you had used an endurance of 40Khrs (1666 2/3days) at the 7.0 max cruise. Nice to see a stated component lifespan before an overhaul is needed.
 
thepsyborg said:
Maneuverability is a very straightforward thrust-to-mass ratio and is entirely size-agnostic. There is absolutely no difference in maneuverability between a 200,000-ton starship with 400,000 tons of thrust and a 500-ton shuttle with 1,000 tons of thrust. Zip. Zero. Nada. They will accelerate, decelerate, and change directions exactly as quickly.
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You sure this applies to NPCs?
I was under the impression there was elements not modelled for NPC nationstates
At least for Klingons, who explicitly have a better techbase

Karugus said:
[X] Quad Nacelles (Maximum Cruise: Warp 7 -> 7.4) (Mass: 220kt -> 300kt) [Cost: 79]

The impression I got from the war is that fleet movement is rather elastic. It's not just 'a death all fleet travels together at the speed of the slowest ship' it's also a ton of 'how fast can ships independently get to this system in time to concentrate forces in reaction to a detected imminent attack'

The corollary of that is how quickly a fleet can disperse/exploit a won decisive battle after concentrating, and that the attacker gives the defender less time to concentrate (and thus less ships to defend with) the faster they consolidate their dispersed warships for a major offensive.

I'm not going to say Max Cruise is the only or even most important speed stat- but I think it matters in ways that are surprisingly distinct from a wet water navy where strategic speed of a fleet is entirely contingent on its slowest member and that grand fleets for decisive battles have to be assembled largely proactively rather than reactively from individual ships. Max Cruise seems to be really important in ways that aren't exactly intuitive.
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Personal impression with regards to speed stats is:
Max Cruise << >> Max Sprint >>> Effective Cruise

Especially since we have gone out of our way to mitigate fuel issues, first with the network of bases inside Federation territory, and then with extra antimatter tanks as modules whenever available
 
thepsyborg said:
Maneuverability is a very straightforward thrust-to-mass ratio and is entirely size-agnostic. There is absolutely no difference in maneuverability between a 200,000-ton starship with 400,000 tons of thrust and a 500-ton shuttle with 1,000 tons of thrust. Zip. Zero. Nada. They will accelerate, decelerate, and change directions exactly as quickly.
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Acceleration is size-agnostic. The ability to turn to a new facing is reduced in larger ships, because centripetal force increases the farther you are from the center of rotation.

A bigger ship inherently contains points farther from that center. A rapid turn that merely stresses the inertial dampeners in a smaller ship, will smear crew across bulkheads in a larger ship.

(I generally consider larger ships to be blatantly superior to smaller ships. However, 'rapid turning' has now joined 'radiating heat' on my list of things small ships are better at)
 
Once again the thread cannot plan. Oh well.

[X] Cruise Nacelles (Efficient Cruise: Warp 6.8 -> 7) (Mass: 220kt -> 260kt) [Cost: 67]
 
uju32 said:
Strategic response speed is what allowed the fleet to assemble at Andoria
*snip*
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We agree! I made a mistake if I didn't make that clear. Hence the quad nacelles.

Endorfinator said:
Once again the thread cannot plan. Oh well.

[X] Cruise Nacelles (Efficient Cruise: Warp 6.8 -> 7) (Mass: 220kt -> 260kt) [Cost: 67]
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Vagueposting discontent is unbecoming of a starfleet officer! Why do you think we're making a mistake focusing on Maximum Cruise over Efficient Cruise or Sprint?
 
Endorfinator said:
Once again the thread cannot plan. Oh well.

[X] Cruise Nacelles (Efficient Cruise: Warp 6.8 -> 7) (Mass: 220kt -> 260kt) [Cost: 67]
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Golgotha said:
I would also love if we took the idea from the radiant but instead of optimizing the maximum sprint speed we optimize the maximum cruise speed....

...There is no need for maximum sprint. That's for the Excaliburs, hit and run, wolf pack. Cruise is for getting to a target quickly, like a station, planet or fleet battle. That's the role of this ship. We have seen we can make smaller deflectors at the cost of warp speed, I wonder if we can make an oversized overpowered deflector to improve Cruise speed.
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I mean, I've been planning quad for this since December 19th :p
 
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I for one still remember a ton of doomers saying that we wouldnt even crack 250 kt if we didnt take the biggest saucer possible during the vote that landed us on Command Configuration.
 
Sayle said:
Neat. I just ran an exponential curve with a decay constant based on the fractional warp factors between maximum cruise and maximum warp. It's interesting that you came to relatively similar numbers (+- 100 hours) by a different method. Although my calculator won't spit out specific endurance times at specific warp factors without an extra step, only at .1 increments.

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I don't know if it's canon because I think I read it in a novel although it might have been the TNG tech manual (loved that thing) but aren't whole warp factors meant to be much less physically demanding? Like if you can reach warp 8 it's easier on your ship than warp 7.9?

edit: went and checked the warp factor page on Memory Alpha and yeah it's a TNG thing so I guess is irrelevant when we're using the TOS warp scale at the moment anyway, and has more to do with power thresholds to reach plateaus of stability more than engine wear.

Memory Alpha warp factor page. said:
By the creation of Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, the warp factor scale used by Starfleet in the 24th century was based on a recalibration of the scale used in the Original Series. Rather than a simple geometric progression based on relative speed, warp factors were established to be based upon the amount of power required to transition from one warp plateau to another. For example, the power to initially get to warp factor 1 was much more than the power required to maintain it; likewise warp 2, 3, 4, and so on. Those transitional power points rather than observed speed were then assigned the integer warp factors. These transitional points were established to apply to the original warp scale as well in the canonical warp chart presented in "First Flight".
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Ebiris said:
I don't know if it's canon because I think I read it in a novel although it might have been the TNG tech manual (loved that thing) but aren't whole warp factors meant to be much less physically demanding? Like if you can reach warp 8 it's easier on your ship than warp 7.9?
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Perhaps it's due to the cycle frequency/resonance on the coils. Have you tried to reverse the polarity on the (inset random science sounding gadget here)?
 
Ebiris said:
I don't know if it's canon because I think I read it in a novel although it might have been the TNG tech manual (loved that thing) but aren't whole warp factors meant to be much less physically demanding? Like if you can reach warp 8 it's easier on your ship than warp 7.9?

edit: went and checked the warp factor page on Memory Alpha and yeah it's a TNG thing so I guess is irrelevant when we're using the TOS warp scale at the moment anyway, and has more to do with power thresholds to reach plateaus of stability more than engine wear.
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Yeah the warp power curve is an odd one because it implies if you can make Warp 5 you should be able to make Warp 5.6 or thereabouts with the same power loading. It even shows up on screens in Enterprise, which accurately uses the TOS warp scale. But that clearly doesn't happen, because starships generally travel at whole warp factors, which means there's some other unexplained factor. Islands of stability in how well your warp coils respond to certain temperatures? Are the integer warp factors the 'natural' resting points for subspace drag or something? I don't know.

Certainly most of the writers treated warp as a fairly simple power=speed dynamic, and fortunately that's simpler to model.
 
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