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Starfleet Design Bureau

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MightbeaMimic said:
"Multirole crap" AKA Starfleet's greatest strength.

Instead of having a small number of military ships in peacetime along with a bunch of specialised but lightly protected science/exploration/etc ships starfleet has a larger number of ships that can immediately be pivoted to military duties that they are actually still pretty darn good at.

Having every ship able to fight decently means that your peacetime fleet isn't weak and you can respond to surprise attacks far better
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Also science and exploration ships face a lot of threats in this universe so the military strength isn't wasted on them either. We have to keep those militarized against opportunity attacks and dangerous study subjects anyway, so we may as well take advantage of that to have a very smooth peacetime to wartime transition.

Having some dedicated warships isn't a problem but the bulk of our fleets are always going to be multirole.
 
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It could be argued that Starfleet should have always had Akira and Defiant equivs for patrol backup. But I can entirely understand why it stuck with Mirandas and Excelsiors for those roles for so long.
 
As an aside, I wouldn't assume we're keeping the tech advantage. The last update flat out said the issue with their speed was that cloaks were incompatible with antimatter, but that a new experimental power system was being used. The standard Romulan power source in later eras is, indeed, not a matter-antimatter reaction, but instead an artificial singularity.
 
My two cents - dedicated warships are a good idea, but there's nothing inherently wrong with multirole. Just need to be willing to accept the downside of being less effective than it would be if it were dedicated to one purpose or the other. I'd like a bit of both - dedicated warships, but still having explorer type all purpose ships too.
 
10ebbor10 said:
It took the Romulans a year to get to Earth, and that was using their fastest ships. Our military vessels can match that speed, but our cargo tenders will not be using cutting edge military drives.
If they do warp 3, we can be happy. 2.5 is a more likely figure.
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I'm dubious about this, in part because we absolutely could refit the Merchant-class and start building more if logistics became an issue - remember, the Warp 5 engine was specifically built to be backwards compatible with the Warp 3 engine that was used in the Merchants. And if the Merchant-class is too small, designing a version with greater cargo capacity doesn't seem too improbable to me.
 
Yes, a fire brigade consisting only of warships. There don't have to be many, let's say for example in the time of the Dominion War only about 50 ships that only consisted of armor, weapons, shields, cargo space and med bay. They could be super line breakers, or hold the line until more ships could be assembled.
 
Frankly the idea that Starfleet ships are better-served with more weapons over being able to do exotic physics with their deflector dish for combat doesn't hold up anyways.

You launch your torpedo salvo at a helpless Oberth and it disappears into some kind of space-time rupture your sensors can't figure out and now you're at war with the beings from the Dungeon Dimensions because you torpedoed their capital. You gloat at a Miranda captain and they grin and inform you that this is going to void the warranty, but the look on your face will be worth it and suddenly half your crew melts. Your brand-new superweapon that Mad Scientist Dikhed told you would work this time fires and some Vulcan wags his finger disapprovingly and the World Ender Mark 3 We Really Mean It This Time beam deflects off an Excelsior and through your support fleet, destroying three Birds of Prey.

That is the terror of fighting Starfleet. Their raw specs are meaningless. In the heat of battle they'll somehow gravitational lense their phaser to be six times tighter a beam without loss of power and burn through your shields with a spot failure and then you're up a creek without a canoe, much less a paddle.
 
The Federation's technological and industrial advantage could have come from the lack of focus on dedicated warships. Just me spit-balling:

The multi-role vessels are capable of doing other things, from ferrying supplies/cargo, performing scientific research, medical assistance, and diplomatic outreach. That means Starfleet vessels can be used for doing non-combat work during peacetime. The ships aren't stuck being unproductive and instead can participate in economic work. Scientific research and data gathering leads to more advanced technologies. Ferry supplies helps with colony building and disaster aversion. Medical assistance to reduce damage to Federation worlds by diseases. Diplomatic outreach to bring in new members peacefully or negotiate new trade agreements.

How many episodes start off with a captain's log stating that the hero ship was ferrying cargo to different planets? Such a mundane task was carried out by Pike's, Kirk's, and Picard's Enterprises all the time.
 
Night said:
Frankly the idea that Starfleet ships are better-served with more weapons over being able to do exotic physics with their deflector dish for combat doesn't hold up anyways.

You launch your torpedo salvo at a helpless Oberth and it disappears into some kind of space-time rupture your sensors can't figure out and now you're at war with the beings from the Dungeon Dimensions because you torpedoed their capital. You gloat at a Miranda captain and they grin and inform you that this is going to void the warranty, but the look on your face will be worth it and suddenly half your crew melts. Your brand-new superweapon that Mad Scientist Dikhed told you would work this time fires and some Vulcan wags his finger disapprovingly and the World Ender Mark 3 We Really Mean It This Time beam deflects off an Excelsior and through your support fleet, destroying three Birds of Prey.

That is the terror of fighting Starfleet. Their raw specs are meaningless. In the heat of battle they'll somehow gravitational lense their phaser to be six times tighter a beam without loss of power and burn through your shields with a spot failure and then you're up a creek without a canoe, much less a paddle.
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This. It's not the Star Wars quest. A rapid response (half saucer) CL for border patrol, up gunned explorers for capitals.

A low endurance, arrow medium cruiser that dumps engineering for science would be an interesting ship. Decently militarized for border surveys but deliberately not for conquest via limited range.
 
Ash19256 said:
I'm dubious about this, in part because we absolutely could refit the Merchant-class and start building more if logistics became an issue - remember, the Warp 5 engine was specifically built to be backwards compatible with the Warp 3 engine that was used in the Merchants. And if the Merchant-class is too small, designing a version with greater cargo capacity doesn't seem too improbable to me.
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We could do that though.

But the Romulans aren't going to wait. Their cloaked bird of prey is a new design. The more tine passes, tge more time they have to build more and figure out tge quirks.
 
AntiSanity said:
The Federation's technological and industrial advantage could have come from the lack of focus on dedicated warships. Just me spit-balling:

The multi-role vessels are capable of doing other things, from ferrying supplies/cargo, performing scientific research, medical assistance, and diplomatic outreach. That means Starfleet vessels can be used for doing non-combat work during peacetime. The ships aren't stuck being unproductive and instead can participate in economic work. Scientific research and data gathering leads to more advanced technologies. Ferry supplies helps with colony building and disaster aversion. Medical assistance to reduce damage to Federation worlds by diseases. Diplomatic outreach to bring in new members peacefully or negotiate new trade agreements.

How many episodes start off with a captain's log stating that the hero ship was ferrying cargo to different planets? Such a mundane task was carried out by Pike's, Kirk's, and Picard's Enterprises all the time.
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It's also going to improve drastically on the value of after action reports if every fleet engagements have a bunch of shipboard scientists taking measures of everythign to keep busy. So that would contribute to refining technology quickly.
 
grimely said:
As an aside, I wouldn't assume we're keeping the tech advantage. The last update flat out said the issue with their speed was that cloaks were incompatible with antimatter, but that a new experimental power system was being used.
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I think this is backwards. What the update said was that matter-antimatter drives were the Romulans' experimental (for them) power system which did not work with their existing cloak technology--and that the cloaked ships all used a different power source.
 
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    • The after-action reports from the Battle of Denobula make one thing painfully clear - the Stingray is out of its depth. This is understandable, certainly: the poor thing was designed to be an in-system patrol boat, or at most an anti-piracy patroller. Nobody at the bureau considered the possibility that it would be serving in a wartime capacity even remotely seriously. War with who? Before the Stingray was phased out? Not likely.

    But it's happening, and the reality is that for cost it is still more effective than the NX-class, simply because you need raw numbers to spread hostile fire. But when it takes two Stingrays to be comfortable with taking on a Romulan warbird and you're coming up against force concentrations that equal or exceed your own, something has to give. The order comes down from on high with a simple directive: give Starfleet a replacement for the Stingray, preferably as cheap but definitely more effective.

    Easier said than done. The new deflectors are three decks high and even with Vulcan help the first United Earth manufactured shield emitters are several years away. There is no reality where you create a starship that can go toe-to-toe with a Romulan warbird for anything like the cost recommendations you're being given. So you're going to have to make some hard decisions right out the gate.

    Main hull first. Arrowhead configuration would give you plenty of space for engines, opening the possibility for a hyper-manoeuvrable vessel with a concentrated armament that is nonetheless capable of staying on target. Problem: with the new deflectors you won't have any forward torpedo tubes unless you can undersling the deflector dish, and even then a single tube will be all you'll get. There might be some way to get a vertical nacelle configuration that alleviates some of the problems, but that would be experimental work.

    Possibility two: half saucer. You might be able to get away with the deflector in-line with the hull, but having to mount the nacelles port and starboard instead of from a midline truss would mean occupying substantial internal space with the warp engine and transfer conduits. Optionally a secondary hull would solve the deflector and nacelle problems, but increase mass. Might be worth it for greater tactical output and staying power, but it certainly won't be as cheap or agile with the nacelles and secondary hull restricting engine placements.

    [ ] Arrowhead. Aim for a cheap light cruiser. (Industry: 2)
    [ ] Half-saucer. Aim for a capable medium cruiser. (Industry: 4)

    Two Hour Moratorium, Please.
     
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    • Look, we know what we want.

    And we want to print them by the dozen.

    Pity about torpedoes...

    Arrowhead time, YEAH.
     
    I think the manoeuvrability upsides of arrowhead are rendered completely pointless by it cutting into forward torpedoes, since that's the weapon that benefit the most from the ability to reliably point at enemies and the weapon with the more successful prototype from last design phase.

    If we want this thing to be able to cut through warbirds' shield we need multiple forward torpedoes launchers.
     
    Sayle said:
    Main hull first. Arrowhead configuration would give you plenty of space for engines, opening the possibility for a hyper-manoeuvrable vessel with a concentrated armament that is nonetheless capable of staying on target. Problem: with the new deflectors you won't have any forward torpedo tubes unless you can undersling the deflector dish, and even then a single tube will be all you'll get. There might be some way to get a vertical nacelle configuration that alleviates some of the problems, but that would be experimental work.
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    DID SOMEONE SAY YOLODYNE?
    More seriously, I'm inclined to go for the hypermaneuverable Light Cruiser, if we can get funky nacelles that allow more torps that's just gravy.
     
    Nyvis said:
    It wouldn't be "more torps" it would be "any torps at all". There's no point to maneuvrability if you have nothing to aim at the enemy.
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    Aside from the whole 'not getting hit' part, sure.
    But that's why I'm advocating for funky nacelles. So we can do science crimes and have a solid forward armament at the same time.
     
    I really want an Arrowhead just for the aesthetic, but maneuverability without be able to exploit it seems like a massive issue.
     
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