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Starfleet Design Bureau

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[X] Support (Cargo, Fabrication, Repair)

It's a poor choice to make a mobile hospital; it'll never compete with a ground-based one, the staff and facilities will stand idle most of the time. But, being able to build hospitals, or help doing it, is extremely valuable. Hospital ships are a weird niche.

Exploration would be extremely valuable, however we're overextended and it'd be better to strengthen our won frontiers and assets before we expand outwards again.

As for survey, we've just built a dedicated survey ship class; this ship is very expensive, and we really need material support and this thing patrolling, we do not need it hanging around a single planet for ages unless it's helping that colony with sentry satellites, fabrication plants, reactors, hospitals or housing.
 
KarmaA said:
If any peer-enemy is going to concentrate enough forces they'll take out whatever fixed installations we have. Right now the goal is to keep ships close to areas and deal with distributed a pirate presence. They're also supposed to be a clear sign that the Federation is alert and to act as a tripwire. Any force distribution that accomplishes these tasks will be at risk from a defeat caused by a peer state fleet if they decide to do so. Should we not distribute ships because we fear they could be destroyed?
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Ships being destroyed are a zero sum result for an attacker and a one-time detriment to us. Infrastructure being captured is a massive boon to an attacker as that represents industrial capacity and a forward operating base that expands their warmaking potential significantly, representing a continuous detriment and forcing another battle to try and take it back. Not even getting into how space stations are just as if not more expensive to replace than a ship in the event of a self destruct

The respective fail states of either of those aren't remotely comparable in terms of scale.

Obviously so, in fact.

If you can't present a solution to the issue of relying on infrastructure with what we have right now, then it isn't a feasible alternative to having the Federation fulfill the role of support as a stop gap.

Because we're future proofing here. And the Pharos' ability to act as the anchor of a defense is already obsolete
 
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Onionjones said:
Didn't know about the idea to turn sea water into kerosine - have no idea how that would work
I guess otherwise I got bunker oil mixed up with jet-1a or whatever they use but that is still some sort of underway replenishment and this is the first ship here capable of that
They're still good names I think except ranger isn't really great for the lead ship
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Water + dissolved CO2+ lots of energy in the right conditions = hydrocarbons. Basically you burn it in reverse.
 
Cold Dust said:
It's a poor choice to make a mobile hospital; it'll never compete with a ground-based one, the staff and facilities will stand idle most of the time. But, being able to build hospitals, or help doing it, is extremely valuable. Hospital ships are a weird niche.
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In the modern day, we have things like MRIs in semi-trailers that get driven around to share between multiple different hospitals...
 
KlavoHunter said:
In the modern day, we have things like MRIs in semi-trailers that get driven around to share between multiple different hospitals...
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Yeah but it doesn't take 2-16 weeks for them to arrive somewhere. And they're not in space, being a hideously expensive spacecraft. That also has to do spacecraft things. And whose continued movement, patrols etc are absolutely vital to national defense.

A Federation-class can't afford to gut most of its interior to be a mobile hospital, fly for at least a fortnight before arriving, and then only bandaid the problem. It's different if they reinforce your housing and infrastructure, or give you a capability (hospital, groundside pharmacology labs) you can roll with, or develop and distribute a vaccine that'll make you immune to a local virus, but I'm not really happy with something that can only help when a disaster is happened, can't prevent it and has no utility outside that scenario.

Edit: Reread now I'm caffeinated, your point is well-taken. However all starships have a fairly extensive medical bay on board. If we rock up and they need our med bay, they can use it.

If it's more serious, then a larger medbay or full hospital facility would be very valuable.

However if a colony's having troubles and they don't have hospitals and storehouses of food, medicine, clothing etc then they haven't been set up properly, and really that's when you radio Starfleet and say, "Colony in distress, insufficiently developed, unable to deal with their own issues. We need to stay here for 4 weeks to help improve their facilities due to humanitarian concerns. Suggest followup by an Archer-class, someone really messed up here."
 
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Cold Dust said:
It's a poor choice to make a mobile hospital; it'll never compete with a ground-based one, the staff and facilities will stand idle most of the time. But, being able to build hospitals, or help doing it, is extremely valuable. Hospital ships are a weird niche.
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Mobile hospitals are still a thing in spite of this, specilist units that'd be too expensive to justify having everywhere, donation or vaccination units that go around blanketing an area without coverage to then move on to the next.

And unlike with a ship that builds hospitals they have everything they need to treat stuff on hand, no need to wait for perishable stocks to be shipped in nor the staff to man it.

They've got a niche to fill, even if it's not a very deep one.
 
Building a hospital at Omicron VII, population: 1 crotchety old geologist, 1 weird Lurch-esque butler guy, 1 beautiful waifish assistant, and 1 salt vampire isn't really doing much good if there's no doctors and nurses to staff it.
 
Tank man said:
Mobile hospitals are still a thing in spite of this, specilist units that'd be too expensive to justify having everywhere, donation or vaccination units that go around blanketing an area without coverage to then move on to the next.

And unlike with a ship that builds hospitals they have everything they need to treat stuff on hand, no need to wait for perishable stocks to be shipped in nor the staff to man it.

They've got a niche to fill, even if it's not a very deep one.
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You're on to something. Consider how weird Space Diseases get. Consider how exotic the vaccines and treatments always are, from what we've seen. And consider a small colony dealing with the disease flow of interstellar travel, and of a new world, while also getting their feet under them.

On a fully developed world, yes, you don't need a hospital ship. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking the sticks, where the problems haven't been solved yet and the infrastructure isn't developed. That's where a mobile hospital crewed by the best in starfleet shines.

Bedpotato said:
On earth perhaps, but in space where travel takes weeks to months? The emergency is most likely long over by the time such a hospital ship has made it to the world in question (As we would never get enough of these built to justify them)
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How many large scale medical crises do you know that have been over in a week?
 
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TehChron said:
Ships being destroyed are a zero sum result for an attacker and a one-time detriment to us. Infrastructure being captured is a massive boon to an attacker as that represents industrial capacity and a forward operating base that expands their warmaking potential significantly, representing a continuous detriment and forcing another battle to try and take it back. Not even getting into how space stations are just as if not more expensive to replace than a ship in the event of a self destruct

The respective fail states of either of those aren't remotely comparable in terms of scale.

Obviously so, in fact.

If you can't present a solution to the issue of relying on infrastructure with what we have right now, then it isn't a feasible alternative to having the Federation fulfill the role of support as a stop gap.

Because we're future proofing here. And the Pharos' ability to act as the anchor of a defense is already obsolete
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How many Pharos stations were captured again?

If this thing is spending the time to build up frontier colonies then the Federation needs to be building up a logistics backbone to support them. On the ship support side either the ships we're supporting are so far away from existing hubs we need the Federation until we can build that backbone or else the areas aren't really a priority and not justify the expense of a Federation.

You build the gas station, mitigate the risks, and continue the rest of your buildup. Not having your perfect gas station doesn't mean giving up on gas stations completely as a concept after they'd given you everything you needed for 20+ years. Trying to make a mobile platform compete with the strengths of infrastructure and thinking it'll be cheaper seems goofy. Ships blow up and we have small numbers of them does that mean ships are fundamentally a broken concept we should ignore?


Tank man said:
They've got a niche to fill, even if it's not a very deep one.
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That's my issue, it feels like too narrow a niche to justify the expense after a small number are made. Making it better at the niche is helpful but giving it depth in another area opens up a bunch of missions to justify more purchases.
 
KarmaA said:
How many Pharos stations were captured again?

If this thing is spending the time to build up frontier colonies then the Federation needs to be building up a logistics backbone to support them. On the ship support side either the ships we're supporting are so far away from existing hubs we need the Federation until we can build that backbone or else the areas aren't really a priority and not justify the expense of a Federation.

You build the gas station, mitigate the risks, and continue the rest of your buildup. Not having your perfect gas station doesn't mean giving up on gas stations completely as a concept after they'd given you everything you needed for 20+ years. Trying to make a mobile platform compete with the strengths of infrastructure and thinking it'll be cheaper seems goofy. Ships blow up and we have small numbers of them does that mean ships are fundamentally a broken concept we should ignore?



That's my issue, it feels like too narrow a niche to justify the expense after a small number are made. Making it better at the niche is helpful but giving it depth in another area opens up a bunch of missions to justify more purchases.
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I don't think we can say the niche is actually that shallow. Consider the frontier planets we see in our Wagon Train to the Stars. Small farms. Remote science stations. Mines. Places that are utilitarian and still developing to be more than the original reason they were founded. That is in fact exactly the kind of place that needs a good hospital rather than the bare bones they'll have as a necessity.
 
Ebiris said:
Building a hospital at Omicron VII, population: 1 crotchety old geologist, 1 weird Lurch-esque butler guy, 1 beautiful waifish assistant, and 1 salt vampire isn't really doing much good if there's no doctors and nurses to staff it.
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...Then the medbay will be more than adequate. It's not a choice between no medical facilities or a full-on hospital. It's a choice between a standard medbay and something much bigger.
 
Cold Dust said:
...Then the medbay will be more than adequate. It's not a choice between no medical facilities or a full-on hospital. It's a choice between a standard medbay and something much bigger.
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An up sized and more capable medbay is actually one of the things I think would fit in support as well as frontier. Starships have problems too advanced for the standard medbay too and while a lot of them can be put off having real treatment show up while the ship is being refueled and restocked makes sense.

Fill the fuel tanks.
Fill the crew's bellies.
Repair the ship.
Heal the crew.
 
Cold Dust said:
...Then the medbay will be more than adequate. It's not a choice between no medical facilities or a full-on hospital. It's a choice between a standard medbay and something much bigger.
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Up to like 20 people on a science station, yeah you just need a regular medbay. When you're dealing with a colony of thousands you'll want a proper mobile hospital. When you have a few cities on the planet and a few million people they'll need their own facilities.

But the thing is, colonies of thousands are going to be really common on the frontier. It takes a long time to develop enough for anything more like a modern city.

And then, in time of war gods forbid, that same expanded medical capacity will keep Starfleet crews alive after the battle.
 
[X] Frontier (Cargo, Evacuation, Medical)

Even outside of an immediate medical crisis, there's benefit to having a high-grade hospital making regular check-ins at your remote border colony just for general healthcare.
 
Bedpotato said:
On earth perhaps, but in space where travel takes weeks to months? The emergency is most likely long over by the time such a hospital ship has made it to the world in question (As we would never get enough of these built to justify them)
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They're weeks to months from infrastructure regardless. Your alternative is... they just die without us even making the effort to do anything about it? I don't get your point.
 
KarmaA said:
How many Pharos stations were captured again?
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One was blown up because Starfleet decided that it wasnt worth repairing after it got disabled in its first fight in the 4YW, and the other was all but captured save for a very desperate saving roll involving a member of Starfleet going on a suicidal spacewalk with an overloaded phaser directly into an anti-matter containment tank.

That's pretty bad. Sorry if you see it otherwise, but uhhhhh....Yeah I got nothin'

KarmaA said:
Chalk that up as something to keep in mind during rebuilding. You don't give up entirely on rebuilding because of it.
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Starfleet did with Pharos Seven.
 
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Strunkriidiisk said:
They're weeks to months from infrastructure regardless. Your alternative is... they just die without us even making the effort to do anything about it? I don't get your point.
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Another thing is that, being a ship that's spending long periods of time along the border colonies and that's also fast as fuck it's very likely it'll not only happen upon emergencies during its general missions but also be well within responding range if something comes up.
 
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