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Starfleet Design Bureau

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Our next project is likely to be the next-generation explorer, the pride of Starfleet, and likely the largest vessel we've designed this quest. I think attempts to limit the budget overmuch will be limited.
 
Six nacelles in three two-nacelle pods arranged in a ring around an arrowhead-shaped hull, with an inline secondary hull bigger than the whole rest of the ship and containing nothing.
 
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Riggnarock said:
There was a whole Voyager episode about that use it or lose it budget thing.

I'm pretty sure Starfleet doesn't do that.
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On the other hand Starfleet is likely making the budget with the use case of the ship in mind. Starfleet knows how many resources they can allocate and how many ships they want to crew for task. They give us a budget because they want the best ship they can get within that budget. Saving budget is nice, but not at the expense of making a worse ship.
 
VOTE
[X] Triple Impulse Thrusters (Maneuverability: Medium) [400 Credits]



Id preferred to have 4x thrusters instead of 3x, but I dont have a benchmark for what the rest of the budget looks like in this new technological era.
So maybe I'll just keep that in mind for the Explorer.
 
Strunkriidiisk said:
If we were not expected to use up to the proscribed budget given, it would have been smaller or had 'soft' breakpoints within the nominal 'maximum' budgetary allocation representing increasing discontent with our decisions. Artificially keeping it 'under budget' doesn't actually do anything except waste industrial capacity for no benefit - industry which, given it's civilian-side, probably doesn't grow like the Starfleet-side industry has been mentioned to unless we can demonstrate that expanding is worth their time, i.e. by fulfilling the allocated capacity they've contracted to us.
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I'm mostly voting for it because I've got a suspicion that the internals might cost a bit more. The cargo space is probably cheap if it costs anything at all, since that's mostly just empty space with maybe a bit of floor reinforcement to handle heavy objects. I'd to try and get an workshop in this too though, I could certainly see that costing some credits. And I don't think any of those are going to fit in the space just forward of the main computer core where we put the transporter in the Curiosity-class, so that's something else we'll likely have to fill.

Maybe I'm wrong and we would have a good amount of credits left over, but I consider using less credits than our budget lets us to be a better "fail state" than using more.
 
I like to think that United Earth has gotten smarter than current goverments. Austerity economic policies probably aren't in vogue these days.
 
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2167: Project Khufu (Tactical)
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    • [X] Triple Impulse Thrusters (Maneuverability: Medium) [400 Credits]

    Installing three impulse thrusters is certainly going to let the Khufu dance compared to what you might expect from a ship of her size. The first goes along the midline of the ship, stretched out to provide a balanced thrust profile. The other two flank it on either side, avoiding the flared back points of the saucer section and sticking to the broadest part of the aft section. It takes up quite a lot of space when all is said and done, but the ship has room there for a reason.

    Which brings you to the weapon systems. With a limited budget you have a few choices to make that will drastically impact the tactical capabilities of the ship as a whole. The first is whether to include the photonic torpedoes or forgo them entirely. The technology is understandably outdated compared to the new phasers, although it does provide nearly twice the punch when it fires. Now if it didn't fire three times slower, that would be great, but it does. If you put in two forward tubes then you'll have four phasers, and if you leave the space empty that gives you six. So perhaps the question you should be asking yourself what you can do with the phasers.

    The first two are a fairly simple decision to place a pair along the ventral bow with overlapping fields of fire. That way they can combine their output dead-ahead while still each covering their respective sides. But the next two stir up something of a debate. The obvious choice is to mirror the ventral positioning on the dorsal surface, providing the same advantages in the second field of fire. But a major suggestion is instead to double up on the ventral axis, placing the next pair of emitters below the deflector dish. They would be exposed there, yes, but they would also have a commanding field of fire over the entire ventral hemisphere and could combine with the firepower of the bow phasers.

    You label them as the forward focus and full-coverage plans, respectively. Now the situation becomes a little more complex if you decide on six phasers instead of four and the torpedoes. With six phasers you can mirror the ventral saucer emitters anyway, then place the remaining two aft. But here again the team is divided between putting the aft phasers both on the ventral engineering section for that boost in forward firepower or splitting them so that one phaser covers the ventral hemisphere while the other sits above the shuttlebay and covers the Khufu's remaining blind spot. That would mean the ship could fire in every direction at the sacrifice of forward power. It's a moot question if torpedoes are installed, but still worth considering.

    [ ] 4 Full-Coverage Phaser Emitters and 2 Torpedoes (Average Damage: 4.6, Max Sustained Damage: 10.5) (Alpha Strike: 23) [75% Coverage]
    [ ] 4 Forward-Focus Phaser Emitters and 2 Torpedoes (Average Damage: 4.6, Max Sustained Damage: 18.5) (Alpha Strike: 31) [50% Coverage]

    [ ] 6 Full-Coverage Phaser Arcs (Average Damage: 6.5, Max Sustained Damage: 12) [100% Coverage]
    [ ] 6 Forward-Focus Phaser Arcs (Average Damage: 8, Max Sustained Damage: 16) [87% Coverage]

    Credits Remaining: 170



    Two Hour Moratorium, Please.
     
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