Starfleet Design Bureau

[Ash19256]

So, with regards to people wondering what we get by going Quad Nacelles over Dual, and what configuration might be best, I decided to make use of a Warp Factor converter I made a while back for turning TOS era Warp Factors into velocities (as multiples of c, ie., how many times lightspeed you're going). Going to put the text in a spoiler, because I'm not great at making this sort of thing concise.

Spoiler: Warp Math

Starting off, here's the conversions for the baseline warp factors that Sayle mentioned (Warp 4.8 efficient cruise, Warp 6.8 maximum sprint), rounded to two decimal places - as well as my best guess of the default "Maximum Cruise" speed, assuming there is normally a 1 Warp Factor split between max cruise and the other two figures (with the Cygnus-class having a smaller range as a result of cruise optimization):

Warp 4.8: 110.59c
Warp 5.8: 195.11c
Warp 6.8: 314.43c

Now, I'm going to go straight to showing the results of Quad parallel, simply because the two dual nacelle options simply swap one value from the above set into their performance chart. Based on the above, and the mentioned boost to performance, the Parallel nacelle arrangement should enable efficient cruising at Warp 5, and a maximum sprint of Warp 7. That gives us the following velocities:

Warp 5: 125c
Warp 6: 216c
Warp 7: 343c

Now, the dedicated "Sprint" or "Cruise" options for the Quad Nacelles theoretically would push to a further .2 Warp Factor in either Cruise or Sprint - but, of course, they would leave the default number for the other factor lower. As such, I will simply be giving cruise and sprint values for the two options, specifically indicating which one the velocity value belongs to:

Quad Nacelle Cruise: Warp 5.2, 140.61c
Quad Nacelle Sprint: Warp 7.2, 373.25c

Note that the above could be wildly off base, so if @Sayle says that I've messed up with the math here I'll edit this post to acknowledge my errors.

As for my conclusion, I'm going to suggest sticking with the Parallel configuration, as this gives us a decent mix of both the high end Warp velocity, while also enabling long-range and reasonably high-speed cruising. It's also worth noting that the "Quad Nacelle Cruise" configuration would be essentially repeating the warp velocity values of the Cygnus-class, while Sprint might not increase the cruise values at all, leaving the explorer with potentially a smaller effective range than the preceding (and much smaller) utility cruiser. Even if it pushes the maximum cruise figure up the scale to Warp 6 or higher, it's definitely not going to impact the efficient cruise velocity - thus requiring more antimatter for the same effective range, even if the ship can cover that ground in a smaller amount of time.

 

[Chipsy_21]

[X] Quad Nacelles Parallel

I just want to see if our people can learn something from this, and where better than on the ship with probably the best science equipment yet.

 

[Vortix]

[X] Quad Nacelles Parallel (+0.2 All) [Prototype] [One Success Roll: Performance] (+Cost)

 

[thepsyborg]

We're at the point where 0.2 can cut days off a long cruise and hours off a sprint.

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Well with the currently-leading option we're not going to have any more cruise speed at all, and going from 6.8 to 7.0 sprint speed is...let's see. An increase from 314.43 to 343c, if @Ash19256 's numbers at the top of the page are correct.

An extra 28.57c for 12 hours sprint means:

• +0.039 light-years sprint radius.
• -2.73 hours time savings absolute maximum in the ideal comparison case where you're sprinting to something exactly 0.039LY away.
• -0.25% time savings on the 16-LY Earth-Vulcan trip (from 45 days, 23.82 hours to 45 days, 21.09 hours, assuming a 12-hour sprint of 7 vs 6.8 and a cruise of 5 for the remainder)
  
  In exchange for which you're paying
  
  
• 20-25% fewer ships built
  
  meaning- for the example case of four quads built versus five duals built, which may even be overly optimistic (we could easily be looking at the difference between a three- and four-ship class, here; maybe even two- versus three-ship)- but for the case of four versus five ships, that means:
  
  
• about 4.1-4.3% greater average distance to incident (between a randomly-distributed incident and the nearest of four versus five randomly-distributed ships within a given volume of 3-dimensional space)

Spoiler: distances

I made an excel spreadsheet with a thousand rows of random numbers for X, Y, and Z coordinates for an incident and five ships, calculated the distances from the incident to the nearest ship of four and nearest of five, and averaged each set of distances. Then I refreshed the spreadsheet several dozen times to ensure the range of variation was sufficiently narrow that I could be reasonably happy with my sample size. Then I added more rows to narrow it down. By the time I got to twenty thousand rows I was pretty confident.

It is thus trivially-simple to calculate that the break-even volume for emergency response time is about 1.025 light-years across. Smaller than that, and the average ~4.2% greater average distance from an incident to the nearest ship is made up for by the faster sprint speed. Larger, and the nearest dual-nacelle explorer will be closer by greater than ~0.04LY.

Therefore, if the volume the ships are expected to operate within is larger than 1.025 light-years across, the dual-nacelle ship will have faster average emergency response times.

That's fucking tiny.

Also, you know, the whole fact that we're giving up 20-25% of the entire class's potential distance explored, science done, diplomatic efforts extended, and simple presence bolstering and making allies, just for that extra 0.04LY.

Edit: Look, even if we absolutely fucking nail the prototype roll and get +0.3/+0.3 instead of +0.2/+0.2 with no downsides beyond cost and mass?

The absolute best possible outcome spends 20-25% scientific and diplomatic capacity to buy 1.3% emergency response time.

To look cool.



Edit2: I was being entirely too optimistic about our speeds; as best I can tell, we're looking at Warp 5/6.8 for dual-cruise, 5/7.0 for dual-parallel neutral outcome, not the 5/7 versus 5/7.2 I had in my brain for some dumb reason. After fixing my numbers, my point is (marginally) even stronger.

 

[Carcer]

[x] Dual Nacelles Cruise (+0.2 Cruise)

 

[KNakamura]

"20-25% fewer ships built"

Th- This feels like one of those analysises that ignores there are other factors in building explorers. Also, where are you getting that number from?

 

[Ambit]

20-25% fewer ships built

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Oh hey, I've never had the chance to use this emote before!



(I'm deriving a silly amount of pleasure just from being able to do that. I've never gotten to in all my years of questing...at least as far as I can remember.)

 

[Tank man]

Even then, historically with the exception of the Excelsior class Starfleet explorer classes have tended to be fairly low run. 12 Connies (in the first run at least), 6 Galaxies (again first run); and whilst we don't know the exact number the NX-class probably had a similarly small run between the Connie and Galaxy numbers.

These are explicitly a direct replacement for the NX class, of which here I believe only 4 were built (going by the retrospective post). We only need 4 for a 1:1 replacement, and since our economy/resource base is so much larger now I believe it'd be very easy to exceed that by at least 2 and possibly up to 4, with the quad design.

 

[thepsyborg]

"20-25% fewer ships built" [...] where are you getting that number from?

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INDUSTRY COST	Dual Running Total	Quad Running Total
380kt (base size) Saucer 100 Federation Credits per 100kt	380 Federation Credits	380 Federation Credits
120kt (base size) Ventral Engineering Hull 100 Federation Credits per 100kt	120 Federation Credits 500	120 Federation Credits 500
Type-2 Warp Coils 200 Federation Credits per Nacelle	400 Federation Credits 900	800 Federation Credits 1300
Antimatter Pods (above and beyond the baseline; I'm assuming we're going to vote to include one more but not two or three more beyond that) 100 Federation Credits each	100 Federation Credits 1000	100 Federation Credits 1400
Avidyne Type-1 Impulse Thruster (I'm assuming we're going to get the three engines that was assumed during the entire inline vs secondary debate) 200 Federation Credits each	600 Federation Credits 1600	600 Federation Credits 2000

I'm not even going to try to predict whether the thread will ultimately vote for secondary computer cores or whatnot, but from the things that we know and/or can reasonably assume, 8000 Federation Credits will buy you five 1600-credit dual-nacelle or four 2000-credit quad-nacelle explorers.

For a given industrial and economic capacity devoted to the explorer program, we're gonna end up with about 4/5ths of the number of quads as we would duals.

Maybe a bit higher as a fraction, but a bit lower in actual quantity, if we go really ham spending on antimatter pods and computer cores and whatever else shows up, as that would reduce the proportional difference between their costs while, you know. Getting us fewer of them in general.

Also, maybe a bit lower as a fraction, if the prototype rolls go anything other than perfectly and the class is seen as an overcost overlarge overambitious wunderwaffen and gets a negative or even just mixed reception from the authorities, leading them to devote less resources to its production because they feel they're clearly not getting as much out of them as they hoped they would.

 

[KarmaA]

Since the two nacelle options have so much ground left to cover I'm now focusing my excitement on seeing if the pylons will be one per nacelle or doubled up. That and if there will be a big vertical gap between the nacelles (fairly clear lines of sight for each for the 2 nearest nacelles) or if they'll be tucked close together (or maybe mirrored) similar to the front bit on a staff weapon from SG-1.

 

[LunaMoth]

I'm not even going to try to predict whether the thread will ultimately vote for secondary computer cores or whatnot, but from the things that we know and/or can reasonably assume, 8000 Federation Credits will buy you five 1600-credit dual-nacelle or four 2000-credit quad-nacelle explorers.

Click to shrink...

On the Internals vote people are likely to vote for stuff that makes sense for the budget and ship score, and on phasers/torpedo's and impulse engines as well. On the big external and visible votes however, like the saucer and nacelles, at least a few people including me are just voting for what we think looks the coolest; probably.

 

[Dragonlord7012]

*snip*

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Do you have this breakdown, but in smooth brain warp geometry, for the options?

 

[Strunkriidiisk]

Since the two nacelle options have so much ground left to cover I'm now focusing my excitement on seeing if the pylons will be one per nacelle or doubled up. That and if there will be a big vertical gap between the nacelles (fairly clear lines of sight for each for the 2 nearest nacelles) or if they'll be tucked close together (or maybe mirrored) similar to the front bit on a staff weapon from SG-1.

Click to shrink...

With regards to the first part the update did say that it's two nacelles per pylon, so start with a baseline closer to the Constellation than the Stargazer.

 

[KNakamura]

INDUSTRY COST	Dual Running Total	Quad Running Total
380kt (base size) Saucer 100 Federation Credits per 100kt	380 Federation Credits	380 Federation Credits
120kt (base size) Ventral Engineering Hull 100 Federation Credits per 100kt	120 Federation Credits 500	120 Federation Credits 500
Type-2 Warp Coils 200 Federation Credits per Nacelle	400 Federation Credits 900	800 Federation Credits 1300
Antimatter Pods (above and beyond the baseline; I'm assuming we're going to vote to include one more but not two or three more beyond that) 100 Federation Credits each	100 Federation Credits 1000	100 Federation Credits 1400
Avidyne Type-1 Impulse Thruster (I'm assuming we're going to get the three engines that was assumed during the entire inline vs secondary debate) 200 Federation Credits each	600 Federation Credits 1600	600 Federation Credits 2000

I'm not even going to try to predict whether the thread will ultimately vote for secondary computer cores or whatnot, but from the things that we know and/or can reasonably assume, 8000 Federation Credits will buy you five 1600-credit dual-nacelle or four 2000-credit quad-nacelle explorers.

For a given industrial and economic capacity devoted to the explorer program, we're gonna end up with about 4/5ths of the number of quads as we would duals.

Maybe a bit higher as a fraction, but a bit lower in actual quantity, if we go really ham spending on antimatter pods and computer cores and whatever else shows up, as that would reduce the proportional difference between their costs while, you know. Getting us fewer of them in general.

Also, maybe a bit lower as a fraction, if the prototype rolls go anything other than perfectly and the class is seen as an overcost overlarge overambitious wunderwaffen and gets a negative or even just mixed reception from the authorities, leading them to devote less resources to its production because they feel they're clearly not getting as much out of them as they hoped they would.

Click to shrink...

This didn't answer the question. You can't predict number built without knowing the total budget available at build time,or after. You're just projecting outward from "This is more expensive by potential x credits" to "less will be built."

Also: "Wunderwaffen".

Bluntly, current cost is C- at our stage, not D or F.

 

[StriderInCosmos]

Something to also keep in mind; As long as the ship performs admirably in one or more categories (High Bs or even As are what I would go for), then such a thing will offset the negative impact of the cost.

 

[Tank man]

Given these ships are meant to be NX replacements (to say nothing of the other nations exploratory programmes that got folded into Starfleet) and will be the Federation's face, eyes/ears and hands both close to and far from home (and have been designed as such) for at least 2-3 decades I imagine the budget for them whilst not quite wartime 'open the taps to full' will be considerably higher than anything else we've built in a long time, both proportionally and in real terms.

As long as we don't end up making them cost as much as a small Starbase it should be fine. The capability they bring will offset most cost concerns.

 

[LunaMoth]

As long as we don't end up making them cost as much as a small Starbase it should be fine.

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Starfleet has a ton of small Starbases, so they must not actually be that expensive, but your point still stands.

 

[Tank man]

Starfleet has a ton of small Starbases, so they must not actually be that expensive, but your point still stands.

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True, though I more meant a Spacedock style, or Starbase 6/J-type I guess given the timeframe. Which iirc is big enough to internally dock 4 Connie's simultaneously.
Perhaps the K-type would be a better comparison?

Bigger than the eternally resizing Orbital Office/Regula style starbases but smaller than the Mushrooms, of which we see about 4-6 ever if I recall correctly.

 

[thepsyborg]

Do you have a summary of these numbers on the options, but in smooth brain warp geometry?

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	Dual-Cruise	Quad-Parallel	Difference	%Diff
Expected speeds	WF 5.0 (125c) efficient cruise WF 6.8 (314c) max sprint	WF 5.0 (125c) efficient cruise WF 7.0 (343c) max sprint	- +0.2 (+29c)	- +9.1%
12-hour Sprint Distance:	0.43 light-years	0.47 light-years	+0.04 LY	+9.3%
Time to Vulcan	45d 23.82hr	45d 21.09hr	-2.73hr*	-0.25%
Expected industry cost:	1600 Credits	2000 Credits	+400 Credits	+25%
Ships per 8000 Credits:	5	4	-1	-20% **
Average distance to random incident:***	25.92 light-years	27.0 light-years	+2.08 LY	+4.2%
Average response time within a 60-ly-across volume***	74.98 days	78.02 days	+3.04 days	+4.1%

*This is also the flat time savings on any distance greater than 0.47 light-years, with the percentage time savings of course being higher for short and lower for long distances.

**This also reduces the class's total distance cruised, star systems surveyed, science lab-time, and diplomatic presence time per year by the same proportion.

***With Earth being roughly 16, 11, and 11 light-years from Vulcan, Tellar Prime, and Andoria respectively, I'm assuming that A) total Federation territory is on the order of 30LY across, and B) this class of explorers will operate within about double that.

This didn't answer the question. You can't predict number built without knowing the total budget available at build time,or after. You're just projecting outward from "This is more expensive by potential x credits" to "less will be built."

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I'm. Yes, yes I am. That's exactly what I'm projecting. Given that the quad will be exactly the fucking same by every other metric- it will cruise exactly as far, do exactly as much science and diplomacy, and carry exactly as many guns- I'm assuming that the Federation will build proportionately more of them if they're cheaper and less of them if they're more expensive, by the same proportions.

If anything, the number built will scale worse than straight proportional X-hulls-per-Y-industry, because quad nacelles are a less productive use of that industry- they'll be getting less out of it- and the decisionmakers will therefore elect to devote less resources to the program because they're not an efficient use of those resources.

The capability they bring will offset most cost concerns.

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That's. That's the entire point I've been trying to make. Quad nacelles add no meaningful capability.

You'll note I voted for the biggest saucer and secondary hull options, and I'm likely to vote for as many extra features and capabilities and weaponry as I can in future stages. But quad nacelles just don't add any significant capability in exchange for their absolutely heinous cost.

 

[KlavoHunter]

Engine arguments aren't fun - we end up bashing heads over MATH! vs SPRINT! and then all we have to look forward to is Sayle writing "and then they ALMOST made it to the next warp factor"...

 

[Dragonlord7012]

	Dual-Cruise	Quad-Parallel	Difference	%Diff
Expected speeds	WF 5.0 (125c) efficient cruise WF 6.8 (314c) max sprint	WF 5.0 (125c) efficient cruise WF 7.0 (343c) max sprint	- +0.2 (+29c)	- +9.1%
12-hour Sprint Distance:	0.43 light-years	0.47 light-years	+0.04 LY	+9.3%
Time to Vulcan	45d 23.82hr	45d 21.09hr	-2.73hr*	-0.25%
Expected industry cost:	1600 Credits	2000 Credits	+400 Credits	+25%
Ships per 8000 Credits:	5	4	-1	-20% **
Average distance to random incident:***	25.92 light-years	27.0 light-years	+2.08 LY	+4.2%
Average response time within a 60-ly-across volume***	74.98 days	78.02 days	+3.04 days	+4.1%

Click to shrink...

Huh, so eyeballing it,
Quad-Sprint is like maybe +5% better overall performance(primarily in niche cases), but at 4/5 ships.

How does Duel-Cruit/Quad-Cruise work out?

 

[Strunkriidiisk]

INDUSTRY COST	Dual Running Total	Quad Running Total
380kt (base size) Saucer 100 Federation Credits per 100kt	380 Federation Credits	380 Federation Credits
120kt (base size) Ventral Engineering Hull 100 Federation Credits per 100kt	120 Federation Credits 500	120 Federation Credits 500
Type-2 Warp Coils 200 Federation Credits per Nacelle	400 Federation Credits 900	800 Federation Credits 1300
Antimatter Pods (above and beyond the baseline; I'm assuming we're going to vote to include one more but not two or three more beyond that) 100 Federation Credits each	100 Federation Credits 1000	100 Federation Credits 1400
Avidyne Type-1 Impulse Thruster (I'm assuming we're going to get the three engines that was assumed during the entire inline vs secondary debate) 200 Federation Credits each	600 Federation Credits 1600	600 Federation Credits 2000

I'm not even going to try to predict whether the thread will ultimately vote for secondary computer cores or whatnot, but from the things that we know and/or can reasonably assume, 8000 Federation Credits will buy you five 1600-credit dual-nacelle or four 2000-credit quad-nacelle explorers.

For a given industrial and economic capacity devoted to the explorer program, we're gonna end up with about 4/5ths of the number of quads as we would duals.

Maybe a bit higher as a fraction, but a bit lower in actual quantity, if we go really ham spending on antimatter pods and computer cores and whatever else shows up, as that would reduce the proportional difference between their costs while, you know. Getting us fewer of them in general.

Also, maybe a bit lower as a fraction, if the prototype rolls go anything other than perfectly and the class is seen as an overcost overlarge overambitious wunderwaffen and gets a negative or even just mixed reception from the authorities, leading them to devote less resources to its production because they feel they're clearly not getting as much out of them as they hoped they would.

Click to shrink...

Cygnus (our budget-limited, mass-production workhorse) cost us 1370 credits, according to the same metric you're using here. Even the quad-nacelle Copernicus design isn't even twice that amount.

Less than twice the industrial cost of a Cygnus, for our modern Explorer? That's fantastic.

 

[Tank man]

Looking at the preceding Cygnus class with quad parallels her efficient cruise speed should be warp 5.4, her maximal cruise should be 6.2 and her maximum obviously 7.

That is 46 days and 9 hours to cross a sector of space (25ly - or 37d and 2h to get to Vulcan from earth), and 30 days and 15 hours to cross a sector of space at maximal cruise (or 24d and 12.5h to get to Vulcan from earth). About the only correct values are the 12 hour sprint.

Assuming I've done the maths correctly. It was never my strong suit.

 

[Tempest Warden]

On the Internals vote people are likely to vote for stuff that makes sense for the budget and ship score, and on phasers/torpedo's and impulse engines as well. On the big external and visible votes however, like the saucer and nacelles, at least a few people including me are just voting for what we think looks the coolest; probably.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, half the time one of the factors for me is influenced by appearence.

 

[StriderInCosmos]

Engine arguments aren't fun - we end up bashing heads over MATH! vs SPRINT! and then all we have to look forward to is Sayle writing "and then they ALMOST made it to the next warp factor"...

Click to shrink...

Ah, but you forget the fact that all among us are nerds. One of our favorite past-times is arguing over the minutiae of largely trivial fictional matters.