Remove ads

Starfleet Design Bureau

Linked contents
Starship Design Bureau Starfleet Design Bureau
Reader mode
With all this technologies it's time for a new fleet for a new federation. perhaps something which all member states can use and produce to simplify logistics in the federation. and the first among these ships should be a generalist which the utility cruiser makes the most sense.
 
[ ] Begin work on a utility cruiser for workhorse duties.

Sounds like a good way to transition from wartime to peacetime fleet, incorporate our new disparate technology across the federation, and it provides support for both defense and infrastructure.
 
Well, whatever gets picked has a decently high chance of being a boondoggle from all the prototype tech we'll be throwing on it. And we have to, because our wartime and pre-war fleet is now hilariously obsolete.
 
I like the idea of using the scientific ship as a prototype testbed for our technologies, and it serves the same political purpose as the utility cruiser; a show of returning to a focus on peacetime activities. Several people have already raised the salient point that a science ship will likely largely be operating within range of worlds and bases that can support it if something shorts out and it needs to work things out. With utility and explorer vessels, I'd prefer the security and reliability that come from having tested these techs out already so that something doesn't go wrong on patrol or beyond the borders of our nascent Federation.
 
Sayle said:
The current builds are all Skate-class frigates for local defence. The Thunderchild has a single surviving ship (the Warspite), while the NX has three surviving ships. We can have an interlude to update the NX a bit after the next build but it'll never be as capable as a newly built ship.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Can we/will we eventually get a interlude to refit the remaining thudnerchild ie adding a secondary hull and modernizing it perhaps having more built. Or even use it as a base for a new explorer. @Sayle
 
I like the idea of a survey ship. With the economy winding down from war time production, we will need to find new mines to replace the ones that we have exhausted.
 
We have 4 things to prototype on this new generation of ships: engine, nacelles, phasers, shields. I think it is a very bad idea to stick 4 prototypes on our mainstay frigate that we need to produce probably a dozen or more of to fill the gap left by the Stingray and Enterprise losses. At the same time, it seems very foolish to build a new frigate without those technologies, particularly without the engines and shields (phasers are good, but it's not as clear how big of a breakthrough they are). That means we should build a ship as a testbed vessel first, and I think the explorer is the ship to start on. Each prototype is the sort of breakthrough an explorer needs, and the industry cost is already going to be high on a capital ship, no matter what we do.
 
The need to prototype new technologies is a good point, which suggests a vessel that will be produced in lower numbers. That said cost is also an issue. A one-off series of testbeds might be better than committing to a class for serial production, though on the other hand sometimes ship design just fails and that's part of life too.
 
James Poopert said:
Can we/will we eventually get a interlude to refit the remaining thudnerchild ie adding a secondary hull and modernizing it perhaps having more built. Or even use it as a base for a new explorer. @Sayle
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Spending effort on refitting a single ship with basically no auxiliary functions, especially when building any others will inevitably be expensive and use outdated technology, sounds both wasteful and unlikely.
 
Cavalier said:
The need to prototype new technologies is a good point, which suggests a vessel that will be produced in lower numbers. That said cost is also an issue. A one-off series of testbeds might be better than committing to a class for serial production, though on the other hand sometimes ship design just fails and that's part of life too.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Yeah that's why I'm on the explorers. Those can benefit the most from prototypes and are going to be staffed by the most qualified scientists and engineers to take care of them, and there won't be a need for a large run of them so it's not going to cause large scale production issues if it creates extra costs.

It's also quite symbolic to go back to our peacetime multirole cruisers.
 
As to Survey vs Explorer:
If you're playing a 4X strategy game, which do you do first: check nearby systems for resources, colony sites, and unexpected dangers? Or send a scout in a random direction and hope to find something really interesting?
 
Compellor said:
As to Survey vs Explorer:
If you're playing a 4X strategy game, which do you do first: check nearby systems for resources, colony sites, and unexpected dangers? Or send a scout in a random direction and hope to find something really interesting?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I mean, they're the same thing.

Stellaris, one of the first things you do is have as many science ships as you can afford scientists for to survey your surroundings and plan out your expansion.

Joking aside, I do believe that under the circumstances, a full out Explorer isn't the best of ideas. The question then is "Utility Cruiser as a Stingray successor, or a Survey Cruiser as a dedicated internal survey ship"

Which I can't decide on yet.

I'm leaning Utility Cruiser right now, but I can still be convinced otherwise.
 
Last edited:
Compellor said:
As to Survey vs Explorer:
If you're playing a 4X strategy game, which do you do first: check nearby systems for resources, colony sites, and unexpected dangers? Or send a scout in a random direction and hope to find something really interesting?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It depends on the game and how badly they punish landgrabs and admin expansion. I doubt we'd completely build tall but right now aren't we pretty concentrated in terms of industry and population?

Edit: Also odds of poking some sleeping horror/ship destruction.
 
Last edited:
Sayle said:
Spending effort on refitting a single ship with basically no auxiliary functions, especially when building any others will inevitably be expensive and use outdated technology, sounds both wasteful and unlikely.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Would we be aboe to use stuff from it like the saucer on new ships cause I know we did that with ships on the previous thread and it happens canonicaly in star trek.
 
[X] Begin work on a survey ship for scientific survey and investigation.
I honestly don't care which one wins, I'm just voting for the one that I think is the hardest pivot away from wartime production.
 
[X] Begin work on a survey ship for scientific survey and investigation.

I would like a full Explorer, but as pointed earlier in the thread, putting something out with all of these new technologies is a bad idea if it is leaving Federation space. So that leaves utility and survey, and I found survey to be the more useful of the two. We still have the Zheng He, despite how outdated it is, and no real survey equivalent.
 
A momentous occasion; a new Federation has been formed!

[X] Begin work on a utility cruiser for workhorse duties.

I fully expect we're going to be using all three proposals as testbed designs for new equipment; let's make sure we can ensure a flow of spare parts across the new Federation.
 
[X] Begin work on a survey ship for scientific survey and investigation.

It looks like a bunch of our expected prototypes are going to be tied to the Warp drive with the Vulcan engine and Andorian nacelles, so any time spend dealing with one of those needing extra maintenance or something to keep functional is time the utility cruiser isn't being a workhorse. I'd prefer our workhorse to have generally good reliability for better "uptime", and the Explorer really should have that too if they're going out beyond the range of easy assistance, so the survey ship seems like the safest one to prototype some new tech on.
 
Last edited:
[X] Begin work on a survey ship for scientific survey and investigation.
[X] Begin work on an explorer to expand the final frontier.

My preferences are in priority order from top to bottom. @Nyvis raises a good point that an explorer vessel would be staffed with those most capable of working out any kinks that come up with any prototype techs while out and about the stellar neighborhood. However, I'm still of the opinion I've stated above. Also, I feel that Nyvis' point could also be applied to the survey ship as well.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top