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Medium is my honest minimum.
I had really hoped for one roll not two, but it has to be done.
Not to mention, this is the very example of a generational prototype that will boost every ship after it, just like the new hull plating.

Eat the cost now, on a ship with small build numbers and a desperate need for more thrust, gain the benefits on the next mass produced ship that needs either less thrusters or makes big gains in combat with the same amount.
 
[ ] 3 Type-2 Thrusters (Maneuverability: Medium) [Experimental] [Two Success Rolls: Cost/Performance] (+Cost)


Medium maneuverability is a minimum for anything that isnt basically a battle moon.
And better thrusters is one subsystem that would definitely apply to subsequent ship designs.
I cant see a reason to skimp on this.

Tank man said:
Assuming they're strictly double the cost of the Cygnus then in a decade we should be able to commission 7 of them. Enough for a 1:1 replacement of both the NX-class and the Thunderchild-class as built.
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I mean, we had a planned run of 3x NX-class explorers in 5 years pre-war, not counting the prototype.
During the war we went to 1x NX-class every year.
4x ships in five years is an entirely reasonable number, if we can make it.
 
Tank man said:
Assuming they're strictly double the cost of the Cygnus then in a decade we should be able to commission 7 of them. Enough for a 1:1 replacement of both the NX-class and the Thunderchild-class as built.
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By "as built" you mean the initial runs? There were eight NXs built total: Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavour, Endeavour-A, Buran, and Burya. And of course three Thunderchilds.
 
Type-2's are needed.

Manueverability is very useful both during exploration (evade negative space wedgie), response (get into position to use the tools) and combat (positioning).
 
I'm somewhat perplexed as to why the nacelle struts are so long when they could be shorter if they just angled the nacelles vertically more.

Alternatively, if the secondary hull was more wide and short (like an extension of the saucer, but bulbous), the nacelles would be way smaller or almost nonexistent.

@Sayle
Shouldn't we be getting the chance for experimental ships? To test these new technologies without putting them on a whole new class of ships before finding out if they even work?

Like, IRL this is a common thing. The USS Enterprise (CVN-65) was a one-off that had 11 nuclear reactors to confirm how nuclear-powered carriers would work before they made an entire class of nuclear-powered carriers, and there are tons of early carriers that were one-offs to experiment with carrier operations before fleet carriers were pumped out. USS Ranger, IJNS Hosho, HMS Hermes. USS Nautilus was a one-off nuclear submarine, too. The Soviets built a special nuclear-powered submarine as a one-off (which used liquid metal as its coolant) which achieved insane speeds but also proved the concept/technology to be too impractical to serially produce. There have also been a lot of conversions of existing ships to test out new technologies/concepts before investing in them with a full design/class.

The Type-2 Impulse Thrusters seem to be a great example of this. The prototype should be tested on an existing ship converted to the task, making sure they work, before the first in a whole new class and type of ship is forced to field it. In quest mechanics, this would probably mean that the first of this new class of explorers would not be able to test the Type-2s, but a different surplus ship would be converted to test them out and subsequent Copernicus-types would have the option to fit them or not (and the original could possibly be retrofitted with them if they work).

IRL, the terms are "experimental" or "technology demonstrator" or "testbed".
 
Low Manoeuvrability seems like a bit of a gamble for an explorer. I'm not just thinking about the tactical element here, although that's a concern, but on a practical level. Sometimes you need thrust at sublight to get away from solar storms, pulsating gravity wells, giant space slugs trying to mate with your ship, and so on.

However the newer thrusters which increase our costs and require two Prototyping rolls also represent a bit of a gamble.
 
Sayle said:
I assure you I went through several much more hideous designs before surrendering to the least-bad option.
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She doesn't look great, true, but it isn't actually that bad. Personally I think it is the struts holding the nacelles being fully straight. If the struts were in a swept wing design, or even just angled it might look better. But, I am not the one drawing these designs, you are Sayle, and I have no clue how hard it might be to make these. I have loved each and every one of them, my children.
 
SaltyWaffles said:
The USS Enterprise (CVN-65) was a one-off that had 11 nuclear reactors to confirm how nuclear-powered carriers would work before they made an entire class of nuclear-powered carriers
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She had 8, as it was thought, conventional carriers have 8 so why wouldn't she (2 boilers per shaft)? JFK was meant to have 4 of a modified design as a cost saving measure (1 boiler per shaft), before the Nimitz eventually settled on 2 much more powerful ones given the power they could provide.
 
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Sayle said:
I assure you I went through several much more hideous designs before surrendering to the least-bad option. And that's just the struts, not even the nacelle placement.


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By the way, is it the case that the struts extend out from the warp field regulator, which is itself connected to the secondary hull by a neck?
 
This is a boondoggle regardless of what we do, it may as well be one that can at least work properly in the small numbers we can afford.

I also think this is going to be a very useful prototype for future builds regardless, unlike the quad nacelles.
 
SaltyWaffles said:
@Sayle
Shouldn't we be getting the chance for experimental ships? To test these new technologies without putting them on a whole new class of ships before finding out if they even work?
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My logic is that experimental is the "hey lab, you got anything in the pipeline that does X?" and prototype is "hey, I know you've got this all worked out but it hasn't gone on a ship yet to get real-world experience". If you passed on the thrusters on the next ship they'd probably be prototypes instead of experimentals.

From a quest perspective though it's there mostly to create meaningful decisions. By real-world comparisons every starship probably costs as much as a Battle Group unless it's something the size of a Skate. Until you get a very, very large industrial base then one-and-done starship designs (with all the design and custom fabrication involved) feel pretty unlikely to me.

Zimmerwald1915 said:
By the way, is it the case that the struts extend out from the warp field regulator, which is itself connected to the secondary hull by a neck?
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Yes. I know the angle isn't great.
 
I'm loving the designs as well.
But i think we made this harder to make it with parallel - letting them be in a different cruise or sprint configurations might have let us have an X-Wing or backwards sweeping struts or something.
That's on us for voting on it, really.
 
Empress_Boog said:
She doesn't look great, true, but it isn't actually that bad. Personally I think it is the struts holding the nacelles being fully straight. If the struts were in a swept wing design, or even just angled it might look better.
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Agreed. The problem is every time I did that I ended up going "shit, this looks more like late TNG than early TOS or late ENT." Ships get sleeker and more streamlined-looking as technology advances, apparently. I ended up deciding that "utilitarian ugly" was part of the TOS aesthetic for some stuff so you can't judge me suck it losers.
 
I'm going to have to go for the Type-2. It's an Explorer, so it's going to run into strange new things and anomalies, and chances are it's going to run into at least one threat it can't just blast or warp away from.
 
I'm leery of just going "of course it needs maximum maneuverability", perhaps we could just let the chonker be a chonker, and give her MAXIMUM GUNS to cover all the angles with enough firepower to smite God. :lol:
 
Nyvis said:
This is a boondoggle regardless of what we do, it may as well be one that can at least work properly in the small numbers we can afford.

I also think this is going to be a very useful prototype for future builds regardless, unlike the quad nacelles.
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Boondoggle?
Definition said:
work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value.
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Thats more than a little uncharitable for something that hasnt even frozen its design.

I suspect that while it will end up heavier, it will actually cost less than a Thunderchild, even though I expect a cost increase over the NX-class design. And I would object to your characterization of the the quad nacelles as well. There's no chance that the engineering and design expertise doesnt actually apply to subsequent warp drive designs.

We might eventually not consider it cost-effective to mass produce four-nacelle ships, but there's enough instances of that format in canon that suggest that it works quite well under some circumstances.
 
The ship's quite the looker. And now we get to the matter of moving her around in real space. And as maneuverability, even for as big a ship as this one is going to be, means we get experimental once again with the new thrusters. Starfleet's going to be watching this vessel and its compatriots closely, I can tell.

Nyvis said:
This is a boondoggle regardless of what we do, it may as well be one that can at least work properly in the small numbers we can afford.
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Who mentioned anything about putting these out in any great numbers at first? These were always going to be small-run ships from the first of the class, and as long as we kit it out well, there's going to be a much longer service run for the class, meaning more vessels in the long run. The Cygnus' retrospective had nearly thirty ships of the class serving for going on a century. Copernicus may not be as eminently practical or easily produced at scale at the moment as Cygnus' design was, but as long as it's capable, then the economy of scale will serve to make building more members of the class a more inexpensive affair.
 
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