[X] Central Engine [Cost: 91] (Maneuverability: Normal) [120% Standard]
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Maximum maneuverability at 300kt is equivalent to standard maneuverability at 150kt, which is only a bit worse than the D7 which has standard maneuverability at 120kt.
As stated in the update:
It's not going to be fast, but at least it's not going to be ponderously slow, so when it inevitably has to fight an enemy heavy cruiser with minimal or no support it's not just going to be stuck sitting in one place waiting for the enemy to maneuver into a favorable arc.
- Location
- Anatolia
That's the same as saying you don't want to play basketball cause you can't be Michael Jordan. Even if it's true that we can't run circles around the Klingons, having enough maneuverability is important to at least hang in the same circle of movement instead of ceding the advantage and letting them cut us apart piecemeal.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
I think the firepower from prototype phasers Is more than sufficient that any such 1v1 engagement will actually result in the Federation simply rolling over it's opposition? Our Phasers have excellent arcs, the damage output (for the prototype phasers) is equivalent to being alpha striked by two torpedo launchers every round. The ridiculously heavy shields mean that it'll get through such a 1v1 engagement with a permanently unfavorable arc essentially unscathed.
My fear is that we go high end engines, follow up by making a torpedo boat and then have pika faces when we fail to use torpedoes effectively at all for the first half of the ship's lifespan.
The damage output of the prototype phasers is the same as the alpha strike of the prototype torpedo launchers, which is probably what we'll end up using so we don't have to pay for RFLs. So we'll probably still end up with something like triple the alpha strike in the front arc compared to the side.
darkstarling
Brilliantly Crazed
- Location
- Columbus, Ohio
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- He/Him
For names, I'm still thinking an Errantry class has a lot of potential. It's heroic without being strictly martial, it's multicultural, and it's a clear statement that we're here to save the day and hold the line.
Basically, if this weren't a battleship I wouldn't be advocating for what always turn out to be the costliest options. But it is, and I want to do it right, and that means paying through the nose.
Now, will this mean working HARD on our modules to makes sure our ship is justified when there's no shooting happening? Absolutely, that's going to be contentious. I'm sure I'llyell and scream and fret engage with my peers sensibly because in the future we don't do interpersonal conflict. But that's not up for a vote right now.
The phasers are going to be what we use to wreck Birds of Prey and other small, nasty ships. Our engines and torpedoes are what we use to engage enemies our own size. And we're tankier than the relatively light Klingon ships we know about so being able to keep up with their maneuver means we have a clear advantage. For something speced as a battleship, 'clear advantage in a fight' is exactly what I want to hear. I don't want to match our peers in a fight. I want our peers to look at us, and decide 'not today.'
Basically, if this weren't a battleship I wouldn't be advocating for what always turn out to be the costliest options. But it is, and I want to do it right, and that means paying through the nose.
Now, will this mean working HARD on our modules to makes sure our ship is justified when there's no shooting happening? Absolutely, that's going to be contentious. I'm sure I'll
[X] Central Engine [Cost: 91] (Maneuverability: Normal) [120% Standard]
Strunkriidiisk
THE LEGEND
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's not exactly a naming scheme with a lot of play though. I'd go with something more like Valiant, Defiant, Courageous, Resolute, Stalwart, etc. You can even get a 'Gallant' in there.
- Location
- USA
I dunno. Templar, Cavalier, Janissary, Immortal, Hetairoi, lotta Knight equivalents through history to draw from if you dont keep it to just Europe.
KlavoHunter
THOU SHALT WORSHIP NO GODS ABOVE ENTERPRISE!
UFS Ronin sounds sexy as hell
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Maybe the Avalon class? Fits the ongoing theme with it's effective partner the Excalibur class, while also being a knightly name
- Location
- USA
I for one would love to make a class of zippy little torpedo boat patrol craft under the name UFS Minuteman.
darkstarling
Brilliantly Crazed
- Location
- Columbus, Ohio
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You can also do famous wandering heroes. Tell me you wouldn't want to serve on the USS Pelinore. Not the mention the Cyranno, Rama, even the controversially-named S'Task.
Its not a torpedo boat; its right there in the writeup that its not going to match the Excalibur's agility
High Agility =/= Torpedo boat
The Newtons are not torpedo boats either, and they have High Maneuverability
Maneuverability, however is a key element in a ship being able to get its torpedoes on target as well as dodging and complicating the targeting solutions of enemy ships
You see, phasers [and disruptors] are not perfect hitscan weapons
If you are fast enough, imperfections in targeting, weapon heat dissipation and the skill and alertness of the enemy crew can be exploited to dodge energy beam fire.
We see it happen at Andoria, where a BoP dodges phaser fire from the Joyeuse
That was the disadvantage of these high-speed tactics, Commander Robert April mused, that the necessity of evading pursuit from the frigates and light cruisers in the Federation line inevitably meant their momentum occasionally carried them into the line-of-sight of the heavy cruisers. Admittedly the Joyuese's aft phaser bank was still doing most of the work, and he was starting to get a little bit tetchy about the readings from the aft emitters. "Captain," he reported. "There is an increasing beam dispersion in the aft banks. I recommend a thirty-second coolant cycle to bring the temperatures down." The ship rocked gently, a Bird-of-Prey's dual disruptors raking across the starboard bubble.
"Shields at 73%," Lieutenant Chin-Riley observed. "No damage."
Captain Cornwell nodded. "Aft phasers, cease fire. Mr Hadley, keep an eye out. Any update on the cruisers."
"Aye Captain, aft phasers ceasing fire." Hadley checked his scopes. "The light cruisers are engaged at the center of the line. D7s still hanging back. Wait - we have a bogey coming up our port. Bird-of-Prey, they're going to overshoot."
"Ready tubes one and two, standby forward phasers."
The Bird-of-Prey swooped past the ship on the right, it's path curving across the bow of the Joyuese. The pair of photons launched almost simultaneously, a pair of cool-blue sapphires slamming into the smaller ship. The first splashed against the dorsal shields, but the second bled through the bubble with the effect of a hammer, the smaller ship's left wing jerking sharply down. Almost wobbling on its axis, the Bird-of-Prey flipped over to face the Joyeuse in a move that saw a scintillating blue phaser beam sweeping through empty space.
"Shields at 73%," Lieutenant Chin-Riley observed. "No damage."
Captain Cornwell nodded. "Aft phasers, cease fire. Mr Hadley, keep an eye out. Any update on the cruisers."
"Aye Captain, aft phasers ceasing fire." Hadley checked his scopes. "The light cruisers are engaged at the center of the line. D7s still hanging back. Wait - we have a bogey coming up our port. Bird-of-Prey, they're going to overshoot."
"Ready tubes one and two, standby forward phasers."
The Bird-of-Prey swooped past the ship on the right, it's path curving across the bow of the Joyuese. The pair of photons launched almost simultaneously, a pair of cool-blue sapphires slamming into the smaller ship. The first splashed against the dorsal shields, but the second bled through the bubble with the effect of a hammer, the smaller ship's left wing jerking sharply down. Almost wobbling on its axis, the Bird-of-Prey flipped over to face the Joyeuse in a move that saw a scintillating blue phaser beam sweeping through empty space.
And its dependent on your ship being fast enough to take advantage
This has been tried in this quest. It does not work
See again Project Galileo, which produced the Kea.
We designed it so that even at 255 kilotons post re-sizing, in warp it was the second-fastest thing in its class after the Radiant, which was a newer ship design. It comprehensively outsped the D-6, with higher cruise and higher max warp
We gave it SIX phasers for a total of 12 damage
No torpedoes. Low Maneuverability
A-rank cost
When war broke out, one of the first things Starfleet did was recall all the surviving Keas in its class and stick them all in shipyards to rip out modules in order to install torpedoes and extra antimatter tanks. In the middle of a war we were losing, when we desperately needed every armed ship on the front lines.
Thats how tactically suboptimal an all-beam starship is, when a desperate navy sends you back to the shipyard
I mean, its in the Kea retrospective as the last Starfleet warship without torpedoes
Im personally sticking with Federation class, where the member ships are named after member planets
Quite aside from the thematic resonance of doing this after the Federation survived and won an existential war?
Its a cheap way of incentivizing Starfleet to name one ship for every full Member Planet
Which would ensure a run of at least twenty or twenty one ships
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
If it does not say Dual Engines = Torpedo Ship then why does the vote say so:
===
And if a Kea-with-Torpedoes is undesirable, why is the Kea explicitly referenced?
It's possible my reading comprehension is atrocious and I have terribly misread the options in the latest update. Could you correct this misunderstanding I seem to have gained from misreading the latest design specifications? They seem to imply a desire for a Kea-like ship.
The rest of the sentence after the comma explains why the Kea was referenced though? I.e. size and module amounts, considering it was the biggest ship we put out pre-war, and had the most modules. You know, the half of the sentence you ignored with your emphasis.
Also we are expecting the Federation Class to be encountering more 1v1 engagements than fleet actions iirc.
Chargone
Invisable operator
- Location
- New Zealand
Kea with torpedoes, But Better, is the goal in engagements with multiple ships on both sides, acting as an anchor point for other, more agile ships to operate around and to force enemy ships to behave more predictably, etc.
In the Far More Common situation of this ship being solo against small groups or individual enemy ships, there's no one else to do the other half of the job, so the Federation class will need to be able to do the maneuver work itself on top of that.
NSMS
Probably evil, unfortunately.
- Location
- A rapidly widening tear in the fabric of reality
The way I read it, they want a ship capable of standing in the middle of a fleet battle line and saying 'you don't get to come over here' to the enemy. Essentially, supporting the rest of the fleet and creating a zone of cover/defense that other ships can duck into when they get into trouble. That requires a large, well armed ship, but not necessarily a disco ball.
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You cannot assume that we will have a tech advantage, or even parity, with potential hostiles
Or that their RnD is standing still
The Klingons for example have been explicitly working from a more advanced techbase, and we have no idea whats on the drawing boards of the various Gorn, Romulan, Orion and Tholian ship design bureaus
What happens if they roll out the K'tingas with better shields? Or better armor?
Or some doodad that mitigates currentgen phaser damage like the Borg do?
After we've locked ourself into being a phaser boat?
As for the rest?
We have done the cutting costs on combat ability thing
Id like to think we dont need to re-learn that lesson so soon after the consequences were demonstrated in the war
The rest of that quote says, and I quote "one on one engagements"
Like Starfleet have forecasted is the current state of play in the Quadrant
The vast majority of the time, combat will be the Feddie on its own against one or more enemy ships
It will need that agility to survive those situations, with our peer opponents upgunning
Trying to strip that cost is just a false economy
Especially since the surcharge for Maximum Maneuver is just 8 points, which is going to be less than 5% of the final price of this 140+ point ship
Seriously, you cant simutaneously be arguing that we take 8x Prototype Phasers for 40 points cost, a surcharge of 16 points over the mature phaser version
And then be quibbing about 8 points for Max Maneuver
The reference is size
The Kea is just five kilotons smaller than a twin nacelle Federation. The Kea-with-torpedoes Refit was low Maneuver, and thus has issues getting enemy ships in the sights of its torpedoes when acting solo
Notice how no more Keas were built even during the war? Despite its being more tanky than the Newton, it didnt have the ability to apply that firepower without a bunch of support ships feeding it kills
Like at Andoria
What we want is a Better Kea; better maneuver, better firepower, better tankiness and the capacity to do other things
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Yeah, basically we want a real heavy line cruiser, not the retrofitted second line Keas or the big torpedo boat Excaliburs. But that means that they have to actually be proper heavy cruisers too, and their superior strategic speed and range over other ships means that they'll be responding solo if nothing else can get there in time.
- Location
- UK
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- He/Him
Of course no Keas were built, it's a warp 7 design.
But really, high maneverability is a waste here. We're building a huge ship with the strongest shields possible.
Against a small ship it'll absorb fire and win via phaser coverage.
Against a big ship it'll be a slugging match where they both just fly at each other.
Against lots of small ships that might overwhelm it? Just warp away so they have to fly in a straight line and eat aft torpedoes.
There's just no need to buy two engines here, especially when it means they'll only ever run at 80% output. It's wasteful.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The Excalibur-class had three runs of ships: A small initial block of four, a follow-up run of eight ships after the class had proven its tactical usefulness, and an emergency run of six ships during the war. I think 'Excalibur' is a great and evocative name for the class, but the name alone had zero effect on how many were built.
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Excalibur isn't a meaningful name in this sense.
The idea is when we've built so many of these ships and then Tellar says, "Hey, where's the USS Telllar?" and fronts some money to get that one built because we can't have a member world be left out.