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Starfleet Design Bureau

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@Sayle
Are we going to get the chance to design the slew of new warship classes (or dual-purpose warship classes) to replace our gutted fleet? Because I feel like that's both a big opportunity for the quest and something we need to do in-story as well. A big technological leap plus huge security impetus kind of necessitates it.

While the existing Enterprise-class explorers will probably return their original role as soon as we can pump out a sufficient number of ships for defense, everything else is feeling rather dated and obsolescent beyond immediate defense needs.
 
Empress_Boog said:
The problem with the Inline is that it takes internal space, and that was the whole benefit of taking Full Saucer. I do believe Blister is the best choice here.
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My point here is that I'm not really sure we do need the full amount of internal space from the Full Saucer design. The Half Saucer design being an option suggests that we could well get away with a slightly-less-blingy survey ship that doesn't have every bell and whistle, but can still do a satisfactory job.
 
LawsOfRobotics said:
I think if the thread is going to vote to add a bigger cargo bay (in exchange for something else) then we should add a full Engineering Section, but I don't think this ship needs a big cargo bay. I want to make the utility cruiser next which will have the big cargo bay and a good set of weapons and maneuverability. I want to show some restraint by letting this ship focus on science and medicine and we have enough room for that with just a blister deflector.
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The thing is, I really want at least a small shuttle bay, to launch the more advanced probes that we can't do from a torpedo tube. We especially need the shuttles to launch ALL probes if we forgo the torpedo tube entirely.
Lightwhispers said:
My point here is that I'm not really sure we do need the full amount of internal space from the Full Saucer design. The Half Saucer design being an option suggests that we could well get away with a slightly-less-blingy survey ship that doesn't have every bell and whistle, but can still do a satisfactory job.
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Yeah that's a fair point, but now that we have it I want to use it for science, Blister lets me do that.
 
So, rephrasing:

[ ] Inline Deflector (-Internal Space, +no cost)
[ ] Blister Forward Deflector (+ small cost)
[ ] Engineering Section (+larger cost, +Internal Space)

Personally while I wouldn't mind the extra of an engineering section, my vote is for the blister as a compromise.
 
She may be smaller than an NX, but she's already CHONK.

[ ] Engineering Section (200,000 -> 260,000 Tons, +Internal Space)

MORE CHONK.
 
I think the inline deflector is the best because it's the least tonnage-intensive (which means you require smaller engines to achieve your minimum speed) and the full saucer is more than big enough to hold the equipment that this ship needs anyways.

And in the last war, people should have learned the benefit of building lots of small, single-purpose, well-designed ships. Letting the shipyards and workers gain experience in building solutions like this which can cut down on costs and mass is a good thing in the event we get into another shooting war and need to mass-produce war destroyers and war cruisers.
 
blister seems the most reasonable, but Inline means potential classic UFO look and that's pretty tempting yeah.
 
Empress_Boog said:
The thing is, I really want at least a small shuttle bay, to launch the more advanced probes that we can't do from a torpedo tube. We especially need the shuttles to launch ALL probes if we forgo the torpedo tube entirely.
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I fully support a small shuttle bay and one torpedo launcher (that can also be used for probes). I just feel like we are going to get a vote between a bigger med bay and a bigger cargo bay if we don't get the Engineering Section, and I want the bigger med bay. So I am just asking for restraint on pursuing any Engineering score or to just get the bigger ship if we don't have restraint.
 
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I'm thinking either Blister or Inline. Blister is probably better because it lets us keep that internal space to push more science into for a lower increase in size. Engineering would get us even more internal space but it increases the total mass by 3x as much as the Blister, so I'm not sure about going that far unless we really want to cram all the science into this thing.

I'm hoping that Blister might keep the ability to try out weird nacelle configs that Inline has though, which is something I'd like to prototype for the other ships. If it can't for whatever reason the choice is going to get harder.
 
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Sayle said:
You're essentially describing the utility cruiser and explorer.
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Not exactly? The Stingray and the Enterprise were very different ships that served different purposes (in peacetime). And we have need of both--for rebuilding our defenses and for the exploration/diplomacy purposes (as well as science).

Utility cruisers are good and all, but you'll notice that most countries with navies IRL have warships on the smaller end dedicated to specific defense purposes, even if they have larger ships capable of longer range and more warfighting potential. We don't even have a coast guard equivalent.
 
Internal space is important for science ships, given that most of our options to add to the Science score comes when we get to pick Internals options. Too little room there puts a ceiling on what we can do in terms of science, or might compromise other stuff we'd really like to have, like a shuttle bay. So I think going for a fully inline deflector would be a mistake for that reason.

However, a full secondary hull is quite a lot of extra mass and invites scope creep. The blister mounted deflector seems like a reasonable halfway house here.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
I think the inline deflector is the best because it's the least tonnage-intensive (which means you require smaller engines to achieve your minimum speed) and the full saucer is more than big enough to hold the equipment that this ship needs anyways.

And in the last war, people should have learned the benefit of building lots of small, single-purpose, well-designed ships. Letting the shipyards and workers gain experience in building solutions like this which can cut down on costs and mass is a good thing in the event we get into another shooting war and need to mass-produce war destroyers and war cruisers.
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Learning mass production is a very valuable thing, and for that you want it to be as cheap as possible. Plus, mass and scope creep are all too easy and I want to avoid that.
 
I think the blister makes perfect sense here. We don't want to lose the internal space we got with the saucer, but there's no reason to add an engineering section when we're almost certain to build a patrol cruiser/frigate that has explicitly asked for engineering and cargo capability next. The middle of the road choice preserves what we've already paid for without adding a lot of cost.
 
I'm inclined to go for either the Blister Deflector or the full secondary hull with deflector - we picked Full Saucer for a reason, after all. That, and it'd allow for additional capability in terms of shuttlepods for surveying and exploration, enhanced medical and biological research facilities (useful if we need to press this thing into service as a hospital ship, or to research unique lifeforms/biohazards found on surveyed planets), etc.,
 
We just saw that our Industry isn't as big as it used to be, let's make sure we don't go too crazy on feature creep. The Blister should work fine.
 
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