WilyMachineKing1
Executive Manager of Limbus Company
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- Reno Nevada
[X] Ventral Secondary Hull (Engineering Section)
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- california
[X] Ventral Secondary Hull (Engineering Section)
[X] Ventral Secondary Hull (Engineering Section)
As a high-end explorer, I think making it big for extra endurance and capability is a very good idea. Also big means you can stuff more redundancy into it, which also means we can take some risks regarding the technology - if something doesn't work as intended, there'll be enough space to put in lower-tech backups and alternatives.
Doctrinally, we should start thinking about both peacetime and wartime doctrine - peacetime, it'll probably be deployed on its own, wartime it probably needs some sort of escort vessel design.
Doctrinally, we should start thinking about both peacetime and wartime doctrine - peacetime, it'll probably be deployed on its own, wartime it probably needs some sort of escort vessel design.
Speaking of dual-use stuff @Sayle will we ever get a chance to design like, a shuttle-sized gunship/"fighter" (in the Star Fleet Battles 'fighter' sense, which isn't quite the same thing as a real life jet fighter doctrinally)?
Given how many of our ships have shuttle bays, having a "fighter" type design that can fit in shuttle berths would also be great because you can use them for near-field patrols of planets and also it means in wartime you can swap general purpose shuttles for these puppies to add a bit more firepower and coverage.
Given how many of our ships have shuttle bays, having a "fighter" type design that can fit in shuttle berths would also be great because you can use them for near-field patrols of planets and also it means in wartime you can swap general purpose shuttles for these puppies to add a bit more firepower and coverage.
[X] Ventral Secondary Hull (Engineering Section)
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- USA
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It would be a very boring quest project because it's a very straightforward design: shrink-wrap a hull around the smallest possible cockpit, shield generator, and life-support and the biggest possible thruster and phaser that will fit within standard shuttle dimensions. Then if you have space left (you probably don't), then depending on how much space, add a photonic torpedo launcher or one-shot torpedo tube or hardpoint. The end.
The only real freedom of choice would come from how much of your volume budget you want to devote to thruster vs phaser, and in practice both of those are going to be set in stone by existing thruster and phaser designs: it's going to mount one of whatever the current state-of-the-art phaser is, and either a single one of the smallest currently-produced starship impulse thruster, or a multi-pack (four? six?) of the standard shuttle's thruster, whichever is faster.
Edit: Now, these very well might exist- and it would be interesting to get an interlude vote between starship projects where we pick one of a handful of lesser programs to recommend Starfleet put some development budget towards in the background. I just don't see them being very interesting as full projects in their own right.
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- Location
- America
We could just stick with what we know works. Vanguard-Heavy Metal.
We did it before with the Nx and Thunderchild+stingray/skate. You've got long range speedy mediums and heavy hitters escorted by basically fighters.
Start by throwing fast cruisers at the enemy to mix it up with the enemy lights and light mediums and generally spoil the enemy's maneuvers. Follow up with a slower moving pain train bringing lots of Shields, armor, and firepower to fix their attention while the cruisers swing off to go find something juicy to kill.
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- Somewhere in the Ashes
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- She/Her
Counterpoint, the Jem'Hadar attack ships were small enough that shooting at them was more of a PD exercise than anything else. Fortunately, that seems to have been more of a software update to the phasers than anything requiring new hardware.
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- Earth
Jem'Hadar attack ships range anywhere between 60+ meters to 110 meters, with on screen calculations around 90-110 meter range. They are full sized ships more than fighters.
Those attack ships are a more heavily armed version of the Skate rather than fighters. And a group of three could withstand a Galaxy-class ship's phasers. They are not "more of a PD exercise."
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[X] Ventral Secondary Hull (Engineering Section)
Ambit
Help me
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- Third Circle of Hell
So, looking back at the update before the last:
Seeing as we're setting up the biggest possible frame for this ship, our new hull composition noted to be more expensive than tritanium (if not overwhelmingly so), and our plan to put as much stuff into it as we can...this is not looking so good for how many of these things are going to be made.
We'd better get a bunch of S, A+, and A in there to make up for the sheer expense. Here's hoping.
...not particularly optimistic about both the "costs incurred by Starfleet to the civilian sector" or "infrastructural capacity required from the fleetyards" I'll admit.
Based on Project Khufu, we at least know that stuff like the hull, impulse thrusters, warp coils, antimatter pods, and (from later on) computer cores are a pull on the civilian side of things. Meanwhile, weapon and defense related stuff are a pull on Starfleet's industry. Engines are a combined civilian/Starfleet expense, based on how they needed both credits and industry points.
Seeing as we're setting up the biggest possible frame for this ship, our new hull composition noted to be more expensive than tritanium (if not overwhelmingly so), and our plan to put as much stuff into it as we can...this is not looking so good for how many of these things are going to be made.
We'd better get a bunch of S, A+, and A in there to make up for the sheer expense. Here's hoping.
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- Location
- Buskerud, Norway
Trying to make a Fighter Seems like a bad idea since they would be very compromised with our level of tech i doubt that we even could fit everything we would have anted in a fighter to be actually useful at all in a shuttle sized vessel lets just keep using our standard shuttles that are armed, but never meant to actually being used in fleet engagements.
Especially since trying to make something smaller than the skate be combat effective at this rate is a suicidal idea
That being said I am not opposed for us to make a Skate 2 With Shields better hull and phasers, better get improved thrusters first though
Especially since trying to make something smaller than the skate be combat effective at this rate is a suicidal idea
That being said I am not opposed for us to make a Skate 2 With Shields better hull and phasers, better get improved thrusters first though
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[X] Ventral Secondary Hull (Engineering Section)
Trek tech and its capabilites tend to lend itself more to what are effectively the gun boats/torpedo boats of WW2 in space than fighters as we'd think of them. Or perhaps flying boats now that I think if it.
Not truly capable of independent operation but still capable of going moderste ranges at speeds greater than the big ships can manage and with some of the heaviest weapons that can be equipped for its mass/size.
What we'd be looking for isn't a carrier as much as it is a tender. Flying around and supporting more long ranged operations but not being required for basic operations in the first place.
Not truly capable of independent operation but still capable of going moderste ranges at speeds greater than the big ships can manage and with some of the heaviest weapons that can be equipped for its mass/size.
What we'd be looking for isn't a carrier as much as it is a tender. Flying around and supporting more long ranged operations but not being required for basic operations in the first place.
I feel like the options would be very limited and I'm conscious of the lack of variability and the scale of the pixel art.
LunaMoth
Wings of Kynareth is my comfort song...
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Star Trek doesn't really do fighters either, for the Doylist reason that I think Star Trek is trying to somewhat emulate the naval combat with the wooden ships of old but in space, more or less. Most ships we see in Star Trek can be considered a full ship in its own right, and most battles take place between a few large ships rather than a lot of small ones. Even the borg only ever attack with a handful. The dominion go against this, but they don't have fighters either, they have essentially our skate class but purple and beetle shaped.
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That's similar to my read on federation designs. The wiki does have a Federation Attack Fighter / Maquis Fighter which were runabout sized and seemed like system defense and patrol craft. Limited when compared to something like the Maquis Raider, which were double the size, which slots into that gunboat role nicely. The Skate was a bit under one and a half times the length of a Raider and had the legs to get to battles.
If the fighters are range restricted (and we don't include a warp drive) the tech for a design could likely exist during this timeframe. It'd be less capable than the fighters mentioned but it'd also be up against less advanced enemies. I suspect they'd have a freighter haul them or put a few into a shuttlebay as part of 3-4 supply runs if they needed to be delivered to a colony. Making something like a battletech jumpship for like 6-8 fighters to attach to for transport feels like it'd end up costing enough starfleet would just buy a normal ship instead.
The fighter was in like one DS9 episode and feels like the writers were thinking the same thing this thread was so they created it. With the federation's resources I wouldn't be surprised though if there were really small runs of specialized equipment that only stayed close to where they were needed (~one offs that wouldn't really merit screen time or prop budget).
LunaMoth
Wings of Kynareth is my comfort song...
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Honestly the runabouts that do get shown on screen a lot are basically just little mini-starships and not really fighters.
yeah the federation attack craft was a modified civilian runabout, any fighters that do exist are probably more or less one offs, and probably mostly used for in system defense or something else minor like that. Also I think its worth noting that though its not stated, these ships could probably go to warp, since they were modified runabouts; which in my opinion kind of disqualifies them from actually being fighters so perhaps it was just a name.
(civilian craft in star trek, is in such a weird place, because all we ever see of it is cargo freighters).
There's probably some in-universe justification for mostly making vessels that replicate boats during the age of sail, perhaps certain technology like shields, or warp fields being finicky makes them largely a bad idea IDK.
STO does have carriers, but STO is also not really cannon, and I feel like carriers in the game are mostly there to fill the archetype of a summoner class.
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I suspect we will have a time skip after Project Copernicus, but I hope it isn't too big a skip. It could be fun take a break from designing for Starfleet, and design something different to make the alt universe we are building feel more filled out. I am thinking things like a civilian cargo ship, or a starbase, or a Vulcan or Andorian ship.
