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Starfleet Design Bureau

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Sayle said:
Tritanium Hull: 100 Federation Credits per 100,000 Tons.
Avidyne Type-1 Impulse Thruster: 200 Federation Credits
Type-2 Warp Coils: 200 Federation Credits per Standard Nacelle
Antimatter Pod: 100 Federation Credits
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I would like to remind everyone that while we aren't tracking Credits anymore, this is still a good way to get a feel for relative costs.
Nacelles are expensive. Doubling up on them is definitely going to reduce the number of ships that will be built.
 
Strunkriidiisk said:
There's not been any mention of five-year missions in the design briefing, and moreover this isn't the Federation of Kirk's time - it's entirely fair to imagine we're not at that point yet, since we're (probably) more than 50 years of development away from the Constitution-class which as far as we know were the first vessels capable of such long-term deployment. If Copernicus just does short jaunts into the unknown from Federation territory it would still be an iterative step forward.
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It's the classic profile of all explorer vessels. The NX-class went on a long-duration mission into uncharted territory as well. Whether the specific duration is one, three, five, or eight years is less important than the main job of the ship, which is exploring unknown space and contacting new civilisations. The main benefit cruise speed gives is entirely agnostic to mission duration; it simply allows you to explore more stuff in a given unit of time, whatever that unit of time happens to be.

To put it another way, if you're able to see 12% more stuff, then the percentage is the same whether you're going on a six month, three month, or one year long cruise. It simply reduces the amount of time the ship has to spend cruising through interstellar space, which is (usually) boring.
 
Surely Yoyodyne can't screw it up THIS time! I'm finding the different options somewhat hard to picture, but generally sprint configuration has the nacelles farther back than cruise? Anyways, I do think we might as well try one of the quad nacelle variations, probably the parallel nacelles.
 
I hate and distrust Yoyodyne but dang if their salespeople aren't top notch.

Sprint is less useful but gets more screentime and it would give us that sovereign or constitution refit feel. Cruise might feel something like a shortened excelsior or galaxy.

Cruise is definitely where it's at for covering ground and extending the range of explored space. If we succeed at one of the prototypes we might finally get our baseline to cross that 5.0/7.0 threshold for future designs.

Raw90 said:
I'm finding the different options somewhat hard to picture, but generally sprint configuration has the nacelles farther back than cruise?
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My guess is that from a side view sprint has swept back nacelle pylons, cruise is straight up and down, and parallel makes the pylons invisible since the nacelle would be directly between the viewer and the secondary hull. At the risk of poisoning the option the discovery's nacelles are parallel (as I understand it).

I'm not sure if the pylons will be long and put the nacelles higher than the primary hull or will be lower for a more modern look. The galaxy's pylons are swept forward a bit so we could even get something like that.

Edit: Disregard the over under comment, looking at the picture again if cruise or sprint win then the nacelles should end up higher than the saucer for "intake" clearance. Parallel should end up below the saucer.
 
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Anyway, I'm tempted to go for the Quad Parallel configuration, as a sort of balance between conflicting impulses. For ego and symbolic reasons, I'd like to break the Warp 7 barrier on this ship, but cruising speed is still important. So golden mean it is.

The maximally utilitarian choice is probably the regular nacelles in a cruise configuration. Going from a cruise factor of Warp 4.8 to Warp 5 makes the ship about twelve percent faster by my estimate just now, and I suspect that doubling our number of nacelles would increase the cost of the ship by more than twelve percent. Might be worth checking though.
 
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Enthusiast#117 said:
I would like to remind everyone that while we aren't tracking Credits anymore, this is still a good way to get a feel for relative costs.
Nacelles are expensive. Doubling up on them is definitely going to reduce the number of ships that will be built.
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We were never going to build many of these ships.

Also two nacelles is just... boring. We've skipped over novel configurations on most of our designs to date and the Skate and Curiosity only barely count as novel.

Skippy said:
It's the classic profile of all explorer vessels. The NX-class went on a long-duration mission into uncharted territory as well. Whether the specific duration is one, three, five, or eight years is less important than the main job of the ship, which is exploring unknown space and contacting new civilisations.
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Which is a fair point, it was just the specific insinuation of 'five-year missions' close to a century ahead of where it's indicated that they happened and with worse tech to try and make it work with that put my hackles up.

To be honest I'm not even really that attached to a sprint configuration other than because it continues to be deeply frustrating that people seem opposed to actually achieving the speed the Warp 7 engine was advertised for and prolonging the joke started by the Warp 5 engine.
 
Bacon_commando said:
[ ] Quad Nacelles Parallel (+0.2 All) [Prototype] [One Success Roll: Performance] (+Cost)

It's only one prototype roll, and our luck has been good so far. I will take the risk if it means we finally get to have a ship with no ugly and incredibly infuriating decimals :V
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it's a yolodyne prototype roll though.

I also don't like this is an especially useful breakthrough for future ships, I'd rather roll on stuff we'll reuse because that means benefits even if we fail and have to refine it offscreen.
 
Strunkriidiisk said:
Which is a fair point, it was just the specific insinuation of 'five-year missions' close to a century ahead of where it's indicated that they happened and with worse tech to try and make it work with that put my hackles up.

To be honest I'm not even really that attached to a sprint configuration other than because it continues to be deeply frustrating that people seem opposed to actually achieving the speed the Warp 7 engine was advertised for and prolonging the joke started by the Warp 5 engine.
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Yeah that's fair enough. It was a highly specific wording choice and you're right to correct me - I was speaking in generalities.

And yes, personally I find the idea of not breaking the Warp 7 barrier really nettling as well. That's why I'm planning on splitting the difference and going for the Quad-Parallel configuration on my vote.
 


I'm going to approval-vote for Quad Parallel but if parallel configuration fucks us again in the prototyping roll and we lose the Warp 7 threshold I reserve the right to say "I told you so" and campaign to have it banned.
 
Ah, and here we are. The part of the ship that really determines how funky this is going to look. Let's regard our options, shall we?

Sayle said:
[ ] Dual Nacelles Cruise (+0.2 Cruise)
[ ] Dual Nacelles Sprint (+0.2 Sprint)
[ ] Quad Nacelles Cruise (+0.4 Cruise) [Prototype] [One Success Roll: Performance] (+Cost)
[ ] Quad Nacelles Sprint (+0.4 Sprint) [Prototype] [One Success Roll: Performance] (+Cost)
[ ] Quad Nacelles Parallel (+0.2 All) [Prototype] [One Success Roll: Performance] (+Cost)
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With such options in mind, and with the brief calling for an explorer, that means we should likely focus on cruise speed, as that determines how long our legs are at any given moment compared to whether we can run away from any given thing quickly (which, given our current warp profiles as stated by Sayle, is already pretty damn good with our current tech base). That said, I'm a sucker for trying things out, as the proven nacelle design is perfectly reasonable for other vessels down the line (those damnably convincing Yoyodyne salespeople...)

So, when it comes down to it, if I were to give my backing to a dual nacelle configuration, it would probably be the cruise variant. But with a seeming holy grail of both topping out our cruise and sprint speeds to those nice round numbers that many people seem concerned about, and a chance to make a unique-looking ship, my vote is most likely going to be the quad parallel configuration.

Also, at the moment, she's a fine-looking vessel, even before her nacelles go on.
 
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Nyvis said:
it's a yolodyne prototype roll though.

I also don't like this is an especially useful breakthrough for future ships, I'd rather roll on stuff we'll reuse because that means benefits even if we fail and have to refine it offscreen.
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Quite to the contrary if we roll really well it will have good sprint AND cruise speed because the buff applies to both and it would then be really tempting to apply it in a lot of places for large ships that are going to be expensive anyway.
 
Would someone be kind enough to explain to me why almost all of the federation's spacecraft have a design "disk with a pod below and a pair of reactors connected by two long arms to said pod" with small variations around of said design from time to time?

And why does each race seem to have its own design of spaceships instead of all heading towards an "optimal" spaceship as would seem logical?

I don't know much about Star Trek lore.
 
I'm sold on the idea that Cruise is the most useful option.

Strunkriidiisk said:
To be honest I'm not even really that attached to a sprint configuration other than because it continues to be deeply frustrating that people seem opposed to actually achieving the speed the Warp 7 engine was advertised for and prolonging the joke started by the Warp 5 engine.
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I'll vote for Sprint when we're designing a dedicated emergency response ship again. Cruise just fits the mission profile better.

Is the Warp 7 barrier important somehow?
We broke Warp 6 too, but I didn't exactly see celebrations.

The tech will get there when it gets there. Making the ship go slower overall just so it can break an arbitrary barrier in bursts does not fill me with good feelings.

Max Sprint is also damaging to the ship. It will require less maintenance if the Cruise speed is high enough that it doesn't need to sprint as often.

For an explorer, Sprint doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
 
Carcer said:
Would someone be kind enough to explain to me why almost all of the federation's spacecraft have a design "disk with a pod below and a pair of reactors connected by two long arms to said pod" with small variations around of said design from time to time?

And why does each race seem to have its own design of spaceships instead of all heading towards an "optimal" spaceship as would seem logical?

I don't know much about Star Trek lore.
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Basically it boils down to primary weapon. The Federation uses phasors and those, especially later in the series, require long strips. You want those strips to have maximum field of view and so that means you really want to mount them on the outer edges of a disk shape.

Disruptors and such are more linear and so the ships tend to be more angular.

And for at least Klingon ships the bridge goes on on a long neck that is basically entirely a defensive choke point because the crew having an uprising and killing the captain is basically the oldest way to get a promotion. The captain, of course, wants to avoid this and so segregates the command staff onto a little knob at the end of a hallway stuffed full of guns.
 
[ ] Quad Nacelles Parallel (+0.2 All) [Prototype] [One Success Roll: Performance] (+Cost)



Curiosity was Warp 4.8 normal cruise, Warp 6 maximum cruise and Warp 6.8 sprint.

Assuming (BIG if) we can use that as a baseline, a 20% increase in all metrics would put Copernicus at Warp 5.76 normal cruise, Warp 7.2 maximum cruise and Warp 8.16 sprint
I can live with that just fine.

And as a prototype, it does advance both lines of warp theory/warp engineering optimization in the Federation.
Which might have an impact on what we have available in future shipbuilding options.
 
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Carcer said:
Would someone be kind enough to explain to me why almost all of the federation's spacecraft have a design "disk with a pod below and a pair of reactors connected by two long arms to said pod" with small variations around of said design from time to time?

And why does each race seem to have its own design of spaceships instead of all heading towards an "optimal" spaceship as would seem logical?

I don't know much about Star Trek lore.
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Well, the pod houses the deflector, which (along with the offset nacelles) due to Reasons needs to have clear 'line of sight' to the front of the ship and the most usual direction of travel, and IIRC there was some implication that these systems were meant to be at least somewhat hazardous in extended exposure hence them being displaced from the main duty stations and crew quarters.
 
Sayle said:
But that brings you to the nacelles. This is the largest ship ever produced by human hands, though still dwarfed by the Vulcan explorator ships. But where those are fast and hyper-specialised, you aim to accomplish similar velocities and capabilities in a much cheaper package. Part of that involves ditching the circular warp coil assemblies for linear subspace emitters, which trade off field stability for greater performance and vulnerability to damage at a cheaper cost.
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*Sad ring noises*
uju32 said:
[ ] Quad Nacelles Parallel (+0.2 All) [Prototype] [One Success Roll: Performance] (+Cost)



Curiosity was Warp 4.8 normal cruise, Warp 6 maximum cruise and Warp 6.8 sprint.

Assuming (BIG if) we can use that as a baseline, a 20% increase in all metrics would put Copernicus at Warp 5.76 normal cruise, Warp 7.2 maximum cruise and Warp 8.16 sprint
I can live with that just fine.
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Project Copernicus has the same baseline (before nacelle configuration) warp numbers that the Curiosity had:
Sayle said:
4.8 cruise and 6.8 maximum.
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Enthusiast#117 said:
Is the Warp 7 barrier important somehow?
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This is the Warp 7 engine. Meeting or passing Warp 7 is what it's intended to do.

The Warp 5 engine was supposed to hit or beat Warp 5, and it never did outside of a mention of the Enterprise-class Challenger passing Warp 5 in a sprint due to 'improved injectors' with no indication whether that innovation was retrofit to any other ships in the fleet. I don't want to repeat that, because it would be just too ridiculous.
 
Fouredged Sword said:
Quite to the contrary if we roll really well it will have good sprint AND cruise speed because the buff applies to both and it would then be really tempting to apply it in a lot of places for large ships that are going to be expensive anyway.
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I don't really think doubling nacelles on other ships is practical, this is only really an option because this is huge and thus the single nacelles are getting very big compared to our standard design ones. For this ship, doubling nacelles might actually generate economy of scale by letting us reuse smaller ones, as opposed to on smaller ships where we'd need to produce small ones for that purpose.
 
20% feels ambitious with Yoyodyne if we see 5.2 cruise from any of the prototype options we'll be doing good. 5.4 feels like it'd take a nat 100 equivalent.

If it wants to be known as a warp 7 engine it should have the margin to hit that on any reasonable design we make. Let them put it on a one-off marketing prototype "dragster" if they're so attached to the label.

Edit: We might get the option for a rapid diplomatic courier/scout/interceptor or something with the only mission to go fast.
 
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[ ] Dual Nacelles Cruise (+0.2 Cruise)

The cost is too great to bear, c- before we even get to the guns :sad:
 
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Kind of topic right now. But what's everybody thinking in terms of tactical systems?

I'm personally for maximum everything and yes I'm including thrusters in that since they directly affect the ships tactical score.
 
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