- Location
- USA
Iirc, Armor is one of our tech categories.
Linked contents
- Location
- his hidden lair
I think its a matter of presentation and the inability for us to really hash out what the hypothetical alternatives would look like mechanically. One side can only argue from the battered but ultimately victorious battle, and the other can only argue from their own preexisting hypotheticals and assumptions projected onto what happened- assumptions a lot of the other voters clearly didn't agree with in the first place. And that's not trying to ascribe any extra weight to the Dreadnought proponents, we couldn't make a more cogent argument if we were in a similar position either.
I can't say with any certainty that CLs were the 'wrong choice'- but I do think we'd be looking at a completely different set of battles if we had and its a hard comparison to make. But when people start throwing around the words wunderwaffen and superweapons in the wake of the fight, and allude to historic superweapons that were abject failures that the Thunderchild clearly isn't by this point its going to raise hackles.
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Honestly part of the problem was the stat scaling and industry. The Thunderchild looks damned good with 4x the tactical rating but less than twice the cost of the NXs. Part of that comes down to the TC having newer tech, but the NX squadron only had to fight 5 Warbirds not 12 as well.
Really, if we're going to do another round of shipbuilding for the war we need a Stingray replacement that's a frigate not a PT boat.
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At minimum a refit to upgun the Stingray with the new weapons is a must, if viable. If it's not we need a new one straight up.
- Location
- Somewhere in the Ashes
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeahhhh, she's had a good run, but she's showing her age.
grimely
Twink Death Sufferer
If we get another design vote in the war, a heavy cruiser seems the best fit yeah. I don't think we can improve Stingrays besides more gun until we get shields, but the frame of a heavy cruiser has lots of room for improvement for pure combat purposes over the NX.
In a sane universe you would be right. The only sane option the Coalition has is to dismantle the Romulan Star Empire and reform them ala Japan/Nazi Germany.(Any other option is ludicrous and suicidal for the politicians in charge)
Sadly as Star Trek canon shows somehow everyone accepted the armistace and neutral zone. I mean United earth is a Democratic Power, So is the Vulcan Confederation, the Tellarites, and the Andorians.(All to some degree or another)
So the citizen of said powers would be baying for security from surprise Genocide by Romulan.(On earth they also would scream for revenge millions have died on earth and our colonies all of them had families there is a high chance that people lost their loved ones and are now alone. That is not a good environment to advocate for peace.)
A neutral Zone and not looking at the enemy is not a good rection to something like that. No one can trust romulus to not build the next wave of worldkillers with better shields/cloaks and higher speed.
Jensaarai
Sing Victory Everlasting
- Pronouns
- They/Them
The Stingray is our oldest design, and it's starting to feel the strain of fitting newer and more advanced systems in that tiny frame. It's unfortunate, but we've been flying along in our tech development, so things only a decade old are swiftly becoming outdated.
I think we could come up with a light cruiser that takes advantage of the new stuff we've prototyped and get something a bit more able in tooth and ability, for hopefully around the same price.
We're going to get one more design before the war ends IIRC, and given we want it to be built in enough numbers to have an impact on the latter phase, and we already have a modern design for a capital ship, I think a light cruiser is the best option. Get as many photonic torpedo launchers out onto the frontlines as we can.
That's fair enough, although I would say that I used terms like "superweapon" and "supership" deliberately to try and avoid the more charged comparisons to historical ships and vehicles from the previous argument. I can't recall if Corn did, but I definitely didn't use the term "Wunderwaffen" anywhere.
That's fair enough, although I would say that I used terms like "superweapon" and "supership" deliberately to try and avoid the more charged comparisons to historical ships and vehicles from the previous argument. I can't recall if Corn did, but I definitely didn't use the term "Wunderwaffen" anywhere.
- Location
- Australia
Yeah, honestly this is pretty huge just from a morale point of view.
Though I can see the Ferengi/Klingons/Cardassians get even more butthurt about the Federation being 'Humanity and Friends'.
Heh, the Federation really is just the Dominion but with actual morals.
- Location
- his hidden lair
I suspect stat scaling better with industry is intentional, but the tradeoff seems to be in things like defense rating. The NX is more efficient in terms of the Defense stat vs. industry compared to the Thunderchild... but we don't know what that means and how its applied.
Especially since the Thunderchild began this combat by eating an alpha strike we can be reasonably confident would probably have gutted an NX. Now, I think to some extent our notions of the durability of the NX class are skewed because 4 Warbird's alpha strikes were enough to gut an NX, but that was from stealth- and the update implies it could have survived if its defenses were up.
Especially since the Thunderchild began this combat by eating an alpha strike we can be reasonably confident would probably have gutted an NX. Now, I think to some extent our notions of the durability of the NX class are skewed because 4 Warbird's alpha strikes were enough to gut an NX, but that was from stealth- and the update implies it could have survived if its defenses were up.
- Location
- Southern Virginia
The Romulans did kill fewer people than the Xindi, and both were gunning for destroying Earth. In the canon war the Romulans rammed warbirds into planets at warp speed at least 3 times and also genocided another race they were fighting with via biological weapons. They accepted the armistice and the Neutral Zone because the Coalition victory at Cheron left Romulus open to attack and because the political situation had been repeatedly destabilized over the course of the war. It's not clear the Coalition could have actually pressed on to conquer Romulus, though, and none of the powers were inclined to take any further losses to do so.
I mean it's possible that the situation may be a little different. If the Coalition draws away enough Romulan strength they never have the opportunity to launch an invasion of Haakonia and lose half the fleet there, maybe they never deploy biological weapons to genocide the Haakonians. An ally inside the Romulan sphere would make things very different if the Coalition contacted them in turn. But I'm not sure there's a need to otherwise disturb canon any more if the Romulans are beaten hard and won't be a threat again in the immediate future.
I mean it's possible that the situation may be a little different. If the Coalition draws away enough Romulan strength they never have the opportunity to launch an invasion of Haakonia and lose half the fleet there, maybe they never deploy biological weapons to genocide the Haakonians. An ally inside the Romulan sphere would make things very different if the Coalition contacted them in turn. But I'm not sure there's a need to otherwise disturb canon any more if the Romulans are beaten hard and won't be a threat again in the immediate future.
- Location
- Somewhere in the Ashes
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"We will lead, you are welcome to follow." vs "Join us or die."
The result is somewhat similar on the surface, but very different deeper down.
People should also remember stations are op.
Just look at what ds9 does in the future.
Just look at what ds9 does in the future.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
This kind of runs on the assumption that an unconditional surrender is a possibility. That the coalition can actually enforce whatever conditions it wants.
I think this is unlikely.
The major weaknesses of the Romulan fleet, as we've seen so far, are it's warp speed and endurance. Their fleet simply can not get to the enemy, unless they're doing what effectively amounts to a suicide charge. That means that so far, we've been fighting Romulan forces that have had one hand tied behind their back.
As forces close in on the Romulan Empire, it's coalition whose supply lines will be stretched, while the Romulan Empire will be free to use all their tricks. Stealthed raiders and supply lines are not friends, and are likely to make any effective siege of a planet impossible.
And hey, when the biggest ship we have carries a grand total of 160 personnel, a planetary invasion is simply impossible. Surrender or get nuked is the only way to take any planet that has more than a token outpost on it.
It depends, do we only get to design or refit choose one, or design AND a refit. Because Nx's are perfectly fine with a refit. Stingrays though are... rougher.
Starbases in general are very much depends on the writer. Some are overpowered bulkwark of defense, others are threatened by a Light cruiser5 with a bad attitude, and most land somewhere in between. Still killing even a small one in one pass is noteworthy and liekly to make Romulan war planner break out the ale for a series of long nights at best.
- Location
- his hidden lair
I don't think Corn did it here, but it got thrown around a few times in the original vote so it must have lingered in my mind. I do think the use of things like 'superweapon' and 'supership' have enough of a pejorative implication to get the dreadnought crowd defensive. People tend to get defensive when the opposition is implying their premise is fundamentally unrealistic and unfounded. Especially in light of the Thunderchild's first combat action, where at a minimum it destroyed it's industry in Romulan tonnage, assisted the destruction of other Romulan warships, survived until reinforcements, and then spearheaded the next attack. Its really hard to say it performed less than adequately- let alone that it was fundamentally an unreasonable investment of resources.
I'm completely down for Photon torpedo spam on a light hull, I'm just worried we'll deploy a new CL and shortly thereafter get shields that are hard to retrofit onto what's supposed to be a mass produced workhorse design.
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One thing I do wonder is how much a secondary hull would have altered the outcome here. We know from the NX that more mass makes ships more tanky, so would the Thunderchild have survived her punishment a bit better? Or would the greater mass have made her less manoeuvrable and actually less survivable overall? Interesting to speculate.
It's possible if we had gone for the secondary hull, we could have added even more impulse engines to compensate, but this would lead to a more expensive ship. Or maybe we'd have got the exact same choices and four impulse engines would still have led to a Medium manoeuvrability; the ratings aren't that granular at the end of the day.
The disposition of the Xindi is actually interesting to consider in general in the light of this war. In Enterprise, several factions of the Xindi coalition ended up allying with Enterprise and later pursued normalising their diplomatic relations with Earth. We know that they eventually became member-states of the Federation, although it's ambiguous as to when that happened.
I wonder if they're remaining neutral during this war, or friendly to the Coalition of Planets.
It's possible if we had gone for the secondary hull, we could have added even more impulse engines to compensate, but this would lead to a more expensive ship. Or maybe we'd have got the exact same choices and four impulse engines would still have led to a Medium manoeuvrability; the ratings aren't that granular at the end of the day.
The disposition of the Xindi is actually interesting to consider in general in the light of this war. In Enterprise, several factions of the Xindi coalition ended up allying with Enterprise and later pursued normalising their diplomatic relations with Earth. We know that they eventually became member-states of the Federation, although it's ambiguous as to when that happened.
I wonder if they're remaining neutral during this war, or friendly to the Coalition of Planets.
- Location
- Earth
Just to be clear for everyone, other than the Coalition of Planets victory at the Battle of Cheron, the references to planetary ramming, biological weapons, and Haakonans are novel references not shown on TV.
(The Beta quadrant people are Haakonans on the planet Haakona I believe. Haakonians are a different species in the delta quadrant, part of the Haakonian Order.)
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StriderInCosmos
Wanderer in the Worldsea
- Location
- Somewhere in... Terminal Dogma? I think?
It's part of what draws me to a 'medium' cruiser concept: something that can be produced in relatively large numbers while still being large enough that refits for things like new warp cores or shields aren't a pressing issue.
On the flipside, though, we don't need to siege down planets to enforce peace terms on the Romulans - if their ability to generate more warfighting capability via industry is destroyed, and they're not allowed to set up more elsewhere, then a prolonged war arguably only benefits the Coalition (ie., we can replace losses, while every ship lost by the Romulans cannot be replaced). While being unable to meaningfully invade Romulan planets might be problematic, demonstrating that the Romulan Star Empire's government cannot meaningfully defend those planets from the threat of orbital bombardment would drive substantial unrest amongst the Romulan populace, potentially leading to revolution or regime change. And to demonstrate the threat of siege/orbital bombardment, you would just need to target industrial sites from orbit (something that can be done with much cleaner and more precise munitions than the nuclear strikes launched by the Romulans).
It would be fantastic if we could designate an NX Mid-War Refit to go alongside a Stingray sucessor, yeah.
That's fair enough. There are a limited number of ways to express the idea of a weapon which has a larger investment of resources into it with the aim of achieving proportionally greater results, but I could definitely have tried harder to find one that would be less reminiscent of the previous argument.
Well, I think that if we get shields in a prototyping phase after our next design, then it will probably be after the war. In which case I don't mind so much if our light cruiser does not have them, because post-war our light cruisers will mostly be patrolling and fighting pirates? We know from our current ships that a lack of shields is a disadvantage, but they can still be effective combatants.
If that's the case, we could aim to stick shields in the successor to the NX class which we design postwar. Something which can be a battlecruiser to both deter the Romulans from Romulan War II: Photonic Boogaloo, and also carry forth the torch of exploration once again.
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chaotic-logic
possible impossibility
- Location
- unknown
CL means light cruiser