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[X] Two Forward, Two Aft (Mark IV) [24/72 Damage] [Cost: 169]
[X] Two Forward, One Aft (Mark IV) [24/72 Damage]/[12/36 Damage] [Cost: 164]
 
Lohjak said:
They don't need their ships to have dedicated dilithium analysis suites. It's a nice bonus on a survey ship like the Kea, but it's also just a nice to have. The Kea is still a perfectly functional survey ship without one.

If we just slap on a dilithium analysis suite without all the synergistic planetary survey equipment I doubt Federations will be used as dilithium prospectors often if at all, and if we do fit it as a planetary survey vessel I doubt Starfleet will order many.
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Starfleet is fine with a tactical patrol boat being a dilithium finder. That's what the Saladin did for 27 years after its science mission was retired before the time rewrite.
 
Wootius said:
Starfleet is fine with a tactical patrol boat being a dilithium finder. That's what the Saladin did for 27 years after its science mission was retired before the time rewrite.
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The Saladin actually continued to do science on the interior after the war, it just wasn't able to be deployed out to the frontier:
Sayle said:
Unfortunately by 2240 their vulnerability to more maneuverable Klingon designs like the Bird of Prey and outmatched systems against the new D7 cruiser consigned them to a more protected survey and local patrol role in Federation space proper.
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Which makes perfect sense, seeing as how around the same time the Kea had its dilithium analysis suite removed. If a Kea finds some dilithium in the process of surveying a planet, divert a Saladin from patrol to go check it out.

It's much harder to justify diverting the fastest, heaviest, most capable ship you have to run back to the interior to go check out some dilithium than it is an aging patrol boat (which will remain in service until 2271 anyways). I'd rather just wait for Starfleet to throw a survey package together for the Miranda.
 
[x] Two Forward, Two Aft (Mark IV) [24/72 Damage] [Cost: 169]
[X] Two Forward, One Aft (Mark IV) [24/72 Damage]/[12/36 Damage] [Cost: 164]
 
[X] Two Forward, Two Aft (Mark IV) [24/72 Damage] [Cost: 169]
[X] Two Forward, One Aft (Mark IV) [24/72 Damage]/[12/36 Damage] [Cost: 164]
 
[X] Two Forward, Two Aft (Mark IV) [24/72 Damage] [Cost: 169]

So from catching up in this thread, is it correct to assume that some oops numbers for the Miranda are the root cause of the massive debbie downers people have been having? Because from what I'm seeing, we're thrashing the Miranda on combat potential without even factoring our torps in thus far. Our maneuvering is damn near just as good, we have around half again the hull and near double the shields, we blow it out of the water on speed, our sole failing is that we're going to come out to a little over double the price, and for approximately double the capability if not more, that's not too shabby. We have the Miranda as a budget option and the Federation as our big stick, as is good and proper for a light cruiser versus a heavy cruiser. This is basically an early Galaxy.

As for names, of course, I propose Thunderchild-A.
 
Lohjak said:
The Saladin actually continued to do science on the interior after the war, it just wasn't able to be deployed out to the frontier:

Which makes perfect sense, seeing as how around the same time the Kea had its dilithium analysis suite removed. If a Kea finds some dilithium in the process of surveying a planet, divert a Saladin from patrol to go check it out.

It's much harder to justify diverting the fastest, heaviest, most capable ship you have to run back to the interior to go check out some dilithium than it is an aging patrol boat (which will remain in service until 2271 anyways). I'd rather just wait for Starfleet to throw a survey package together for the Miranda.
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We're already exploiting pretty much all the dilithium in the interior already. What we need to do and are doing is competing with other powers to identify and claim unexploited dilithium reserves. The Federation Class is absolutely the kind of ship we should equip with dilithium prospecting.
 
Lohjak said:
The Saladin actually continued to do science on the interior after the war, it just wasn't able to be deployed out to the frontier:

Which makes perfect sense, seeing as how around the same time the Kea had its dilithium analysis suite removed. If a Kea finds some dilithium in the process of surveying a planet, divert a Saladin from patrol to go check it out.

It's much harder to justify diverting the fastest, heaviest, most capable ship you have to run back to the interior to go check out some dilithium than it is an aging patrol boat (which will remain in service until 2271 anyways). I'd rather just wait for Starfleet to throw a survey package together for the Miranda.
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and you glossed over

The Saladin accomplished vital industrial work in its dilithium prospecting missions, very much paying for their own warp engines, but after 2240 the shortcomings of their single-nacelle design and lesser capabilities effectively removed their status as a science ship only three decades after their launch.
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it's callout for performance was its early cheapness and then its later industrial work. there's going to be a lot more planets that need a shorter glance on the edge of federation space then left in the interior
 
Endorfinator said:
We're already exploiting pretty much all the dilithium in the interior already. What we need to do and are doing is competing with other powers to identify and claim unexploited dilithium reserves. The Federation Class is absolutely the kind of ship we should equip with dilithium prospecting.
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It can enforce the claim by sheer weight of hullmetal and firepower, even if an enemy squadron rolls up on our future dilithium mine to dispute its ownership.
 
Endorfinator said:
We're already exploiting pretty much all the dilithium in the interior already. What we need to do and are doing is competing with other powers to identify and claim unexploited dilithium reserves. The Federation Class is absolutely the kind of ship we should equip with dilithium prospecting.
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Then we need to dedicate modules towards planetary survey. On a ship this size that means probably two each towards bioscience and geology (one of which being dilithium), or one large module each. That's at least going to be half the payload of the ship, and any other modules will have to accept that it's just going to spend most of its time sitting around planets doing survey work.

Which is, again, not something I think Starfleet will care for, given the plethora of science ships they have access to.

Wootius said:
it's callout for performance was its early cheapness and then its later industrial work. there's going to be a lot more planets that need a shorter glance on the edge of federation space then left in the interior
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You can't just find dilithium with a perfunctory look about a planet, you gotta do an actual proper survey and send guys to look at stuff:
Sayle said:
No, you can't just just run through systems scanning as you go. Otherwise everybody would be doing that and people wouldn't find out things by beaming into caves with tricorders or specialist equipment.
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The dilithium analysis equipment does not let us just find dilithium as we go, it's so the ship can complete all steps of dilithium prospecting instead of having to wait for specialist equipment. That means that if we want it to actually find dilithium, we'll have to build a proper survey cruiser that will spend a lot of time surveying and not a lot of time using the max cruise we paid so much for.
 
It seems there's an early consensus on four launchers firing Mark IV torpedoes, which is fine by me - that leaves us neatly more heavily armed than even a refit Miranda or Excalibur in both phasers and torpedo banks, while also being better at rapid response than any ship before it (especially if improved nacelle metallurgy bumps our Maximum Warp further).

EDIT: On the topic of surveys, the actual "survey package" ship I'd be interested in would be the Attenborough, honestly - and IIRC, there was actually a specialized sub-variant specifically for that role.
 
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Gotta go with the prototorps, gotta keep some aft firepower.

[X] Two Forward, One Aft (Mark IV) [24/72 Damage]/[12/36 Damage] [Cost: 164]
[X] Two Forward, Two Aft (Mark IV) [24/72 Damage] [Cost: 169]
 
Candesce said:
With the Miranda's very low sprint, it's not really a good pick for work in or beyond border zones. And that's where we'd be looking for dilithium.
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The Miranda is fine unless it gets ambushed by multiple D7s or probably a K'Tinga, and the latter is probably a toss-up once the Miranda is refit with new weapons. It's not ideal, but the Miranda isn't ideal for anything but bulk. It's just good enough and cheap.

The biggest advantages we have over the Miranda are that we carry a somewhat larger module selection, and we get there much faster. Planetary survey benefits a little from being larger, although the Miranda is big enough that it should be able to fit something useful, but it throws our speed advantage into the trash. It's going to be sitting around planets for 90% of its service life, what does it care about going fast?
 
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