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Starfleet Design Bureau

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Neodymium said:
so by the sounds of it this will be a second wave science ship that will not venture beyond the borders of the federation or will rarely be in unsafe situations. as this is our first ship from the war it should probably be cheap to allow industry to grow. as such I think the sphere is the best option.
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Our borders aren't a rock solid wall that nobody can access, we had pirate problems even before the Romulan War, those don't suddenly magically evaporate because we've become a single polity and pirates just don't spawn inside blue borders.

We're still in the Wild West days of space exploration, even "Claimed" space is potentially hazardous. It still doesn't mean we need to build a powerful tactical cruiser, but it should at least be able to run away long enough to get help. ORB is completely fucked if anything so much as breathes on it.
 
Lord Necromancer said:
[ ] Full Saucer (Industry: 4)

This seems like the best setup for a research ship as it gives more space for sensors and research equipment
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Again.

"We are not deciding whether this is capable of Doing Its Job vs Not Doing Its Job".

We would have been informed if Full Saucer was a no-brainer that we needed to build a science cruiser.

The choice is, instead. "Do you want a fully developed Secondary Role at maximum expense" vs "Do you want a ship that can run away from problems if it comes up at moderate expense" vs "Do you want a cheap space coffin that will explode if anything unexpected happens but at least it's cheap as hell"

We're still in the Wild West days, we're not at the point where we can do ORB even for internal surveys. There's still problems and headaches lurking around, and our survey cruisers not being able to reliably retreat in the face of danger feels premature.

ORB might have been defensible if we went with the Utility Cruiser first, as things stand, our Science Cruisers should be capable of getting out of trouble reliably, rather than just hoping Science Magic wards off evil.

Given the fate of the Oberths, that's not a winning plan. Even when you're part of a superpower. It's just that 24th century Federation can afford for the occasional Oberth to be crushed in a negative space wedgie or jumped by aliums in exchange for them being really good at science for their price point.
 
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If we were building a utility cruiser I would support a half-saucer with a large secondary hull for cargo bays. But for a science vessel I really want it to have a secondary purpose as a hospital ship which needs the internal space for science labs, computer cores, and medical bays. We can save a lot of industry on the survey ship overall by going with a small or non-existent secondary hull and not stuffing it full of weapons, but if we go cheap and small on the primary hull I feel like we really limit the flexibility of the ship.
 
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I don't get it we won a war and our fleet is arguably the largest it has even been and while I don't expect many ray's or thunderchilds to be kicking about surely the skates are still in relative abundance to conduct anti cruise patrols. or are we completely scuttling the war fleet? should this not be the safest time in federation history?
 
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LawsOfRobotics said:
If we were building a utility cruiser I would support a half-saucer with a large secondary hull for cargo bays. But for a science vessel I really want it to have a secondary purpose as a hospital ship which needs the internal space for science labs, computer cores, and medical bays. We can save a lot of industry on the survey ship overall by going with a small or non-existent secondray hull and not stuffing it full of weapons, but if we go cheap and small on the primary hull I feel like we really limit the flexibility of the ship.
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That's three roles, we can still fit that into a half-saucer!

Especially since we'll be able to save space by passing up a torpedo armament, and we don't need extended cargo space either.

Neodymium said:
I don't, get it we won a war and our fleet is arguably the largest it has even been and while I don't expect many ray's or thunderchilds to be kicking about surely the skates are still in relative abundance to conduct anti cruise patrols. or are we completely scuttling the war fleet? should this not be the safest time in federation history?
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Our power projection is shot, and we lost a lot of our ships that can project power in the final battle, and what's left are mostly remaining Skates (With little to no long range ability), and the surviving NX classes (Which are going to be playing double duty for the forseeable future).

Skates do not have the supplies to do extensive patrols, at best, they can cycle between close planets. If something Goes Wrong, nobody's coming to save the Science Cruiser, so they need to get themselves out of trouble.

I'd agree with going with ORB if we had a modern Utility Cruiser. As things stand, we don't. So it's better for our Survey Cruiser to be capable of getting out of trouble if possible. Doesn't need to win dogfights, just survive long enough to Science Up a way to escape and run screaming for help.
 
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Yeah, I'm inclined to go Full Saucer more because it allows us to have our survey ship cake and also be capable of defending itself (or, if defense isn't working, running away to science another day). So having the space to mount things like a photonic torpedo launcher (which could potentially double up as a probe launch system), shuttlepods, etc., sounds like a good idea to me - especially because we're not going to be building massive numbers of these things, and being able to do more than just scientific exploration sounds useful if a sudden emergency pops up and we need all ships on the line.

In terms of layout, I'm kind of partial to something akin to the NX Refit or STO's Columbia-class - ie., a saucer section, nacelles extended back on struts, and then a small underslung secondary hull for mounting science labs and payloads (as well as a larger deflector dish, if needed). Depending on how things go, one idea could also be to make the secondary hull modular, either allowing secondary hulls to be swapped out as the mission requires or making its internals variable. While this might increase complexity, it could allow the science ship to be used in a pinch for roles closer to those of the utility cruiser - or, at the very least, allow a dedicated science ship to be turned into a higher capacity hospital ship if the situation calls for it.
 
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Neodymium said:
I don't, get it we won a war and our fleet is arguably the largest it has even been and while I don't expect many ray's or thunderchilds to be kicking about surely the skates are still in relative abundance to conduct anti cruise patrols. or are we completely scuttling the war fleet? should this not be the safest time in federation history?
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The Skates have absolutely terrible range given how compact they are, so they probably can't patrol very far away from any supply depots or starbases.

We also only have one Thunderchild-class left, and it's looking like that will just be left to live out the rest of its life with no refits, so it won't be long before it's completely obsolete.

Our Stingrays are also becoming more and more outdated, so we'll need that utility cruiser soon anyways.
 
Ash19256 said:
Yeah, I'm inclined to go Full Saucer more because it allows us to have our survey ship cake and also be capable of defending itself (or, if defense isn't working, running away to science another day). So having the space to mount things like a photonic torpedo launcher (which could potentially double up as a probe launch system), shuttlepods, etc., sounds like a good idea to me - especially because we're not going to be building massive numbers of these things, and being able to do more than just scientific exploration sounds useful if a sudden emergency pops up and we need all ships on the line.
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Our Blank Cheques are gone, we can't just go Maximum Cost anymore. A Half-Saucer is faster than a Full Saucer, which means it's better at escaping trouble.

I don't get what the argument here is? The choice is clear between "Fully developed Secondary Role at maximum cost", "Agile Single Role At Moderate Cost" and "Single Role Space Truck at Bargain Prices"

Could I get you to weigh in on if this summary is accurate or not Sayle ?
 
The science ship needs to do two things, the first is science, the second is biological shenanigan response. (Such as the fever Earth's allies were suffering from because of the Romulans.)

Edit: So it's clear that second duty means it needs response times and the number of times the Federation has poked science that decided to poke back, a half-saucer probably isn't a bad idea.
 
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The full saucer is just initially the highest cost, but that doesn't mean we can't trim some stuff back later on to bring the price down some.
 
KhazintheDark said:
The science ship needs to do two things, the first is science, the second is biological shenanigan response. (Such as the fever Earth's allies were suffering from because of the Romulans.)
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I mean, I'd argue that "Biohazard response" is a subset of Science rather than a completely new category, but even still, I imagine that we'll still be able to free up some space for a superior medical lab by passing up on Torps, which is my current idea.

Jensaarai said:
The full saucer is just initially the highest cost, but that doesn't mean we can't trim some stuff back later on to bring the price down some.
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I'd argue that it's better to start as you intend to go on. Not wish on pie in the sky and think we can claw back on mass after starting with the High Mass option.

If we want cheap singlerole, Half-Saucer and ORB are the way to go.
 
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Jensaarai said:
Yeah, but... I want that internal space for more science stuff.
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There's diminishing returns!

The one to go absolutely crazy on Science for are our Explorers, which are going to be expected to be beyond the borders while Cost isn't much of an object. Just going "I smash two Science Labs into this saucer" is not going to produce double the Science. The only thing adding another Science Lab would do is let them work another project in parallel--assuming processing power can keep up. Not enable whole new vistas of Science.

We passed on our Utility Cruiser for our first tranche, and there were good reasons for it, but this means that there aren't going to be any regular patrols to call for help. Our ship needs to get itself out of danger, and not cost a small fortune per hull to get there. Half-Saucer is a good balance there.
 
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Alectai said:
There's diminishing returns!

The one to go absolutely crazy on Science for are our Explorers, which are going to be expected to be beyond the borders while Cost isn't much of an object. Just going "I smash two Science Labs into this saucer" is not going to produce double the Science.
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We're being asked to make a "survey ship capable of undertaking scientific investigations," so I don't see why focusing on the Science stat is a bad thing?

The explorers are our multirole starships, decent at everything.
 
Jensaarai said:
We're being asked to make a "survey ship capable of undertaking scientific investigations," so I don't see why focusing on the Science stat is a bad thing?

The explorers are our multirole starships, decent at everything.
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As I clarified, the issue is that two Science Labs doesn't mean your ship now does Double the Science. It means it can do two projects at once (Again, assuming available processing power can keep up). That's an improvement for sure--but not to the rate of "Doubling your Science Score", so is it worth another price hike? I don't think so. Especially since other add-ons are going to be scaled with the Saucer's size in mind. And if Internal Space is that important, then people are going to want even more with the secondary hull.
 
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Alectai said:
Our Blank Cheques are gone, we can't just go Maximum Cost anymore. A Half-Saucer is faster than a Full Saucer, which means it's better at escaping trouble.

I don't get what the argument here is? The choice is clear between "Fully developed Secondary Role at maximum cost", "Agile Single Role At Moderate Cost" and "Single Role Space Truck at Bargain Prices"

Could I get you to weigh in on if this summary is accurate or not Sayle ?
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It's not necessarily maximum cost, given you still pick the secondary hull and other widgets. I wouldn't have put it the same way in terms of multiple roles or whatnot, but it's not an inaccurate summation.
 
Alectai said:
There's diminishing returns!

The one to go absolutely crazy on Science for are our Explorers, which are going to be expected to be beyond the borders while Cost isn't much of an object. Just going "I smash two Science Labs into this saucer" is not going to produce double the Science.
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We need high tech scanners and science stuff on a survey ship though, the sphere feels like it provides the most volume. I mean look at the Antares-type (which is apparently used for literally everything in the TOS era including surveying), not a sphere but it certainly has a bunch of internal space a flat saucer cant provide.
 
Sayle said:
It's not necessarily maximum cost, given you still pick the secondary hull and other widgets. I wouldn't have put it the same way in terms of multiple roles or whatnot, but it's not an inaccurate summation.
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Right, so there's still a chance that the numbers can be fiddled with, but by default, Saucer is the Big Chungus.

Still think we'd get the best price to cost rate by having a Half-Saucer at least.
 
Alectai said:
As I clarified, the issue is that two Science Labs doesn't mean your ship now does Double the Science. It means it can do two projects at once (Again, assuming available processing power can keep up). That's an improvement, but is it worth another price hike? I don't think so.
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Science Labs, if the stat bonuses haven't changed, add +2 to Science. We might also get a chance at another computer core like the NX-class has, so that's additional Science.

This is going to be a mono-focused design, so I don't see any problem with bumping Science up as high as we reasonably can.
 
I'm thinking either the full or half saucer options. The full saucer is the option to take if we want to know that we can fit all the science and stuff we could ask for into the design. This survey ship isn't supposed to be doing much beyond science though, like how the Utility cruiser is being expected to be both tactical response and do cargo runs, or how a good Explorer has a basic "must be this good to enter" benchmark for everything to make sure it can do whatever it needs to while out there cut off from support, so I think we could still fit a good amount of science capability in just the half saucer since there's not going to be that much competing with it.

As for pirates being a potential threat to the Survey ship regardless of what saucer we pick: Yeah they could be, but what actually would these ships be carrying that would make them a target for pirates? I could see them going after the Utility cruiser since it also does cargo runs so it could have something nice in the holds, but what are they going to get out of these? Scientific data on the composition of a nebula that's acting weird? I don't think that's going to give the pirates much of a return.

On a completely separate aesthetics note, I think a half saucer paired with the underneath secondary hull could look neat too.
 
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