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Starfleet Design Bureau

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LunaMoth said:
It really is.

I've always wondered about why exactly in-universe the federation decided to go and replicate the aesthetic of retro sci-fi, there's never really been a satisfying explanation, looking at the TOS enterprises internals makes me hungry for some reason; I think its the bight primary colors being used. :V
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Oh, that. That's easy. NASA builds its stuff the same way, and for a very good reason:

Have you ever tried to break a retro sci-fi device? It's like trying to break a baby toy, those big goofy buttons just laugh at you. Compare that to a more modern touch screen that picks up cracks and scratches at the slightest provocation, and then tell me which you want on a ship that's expected to operate months away from the nearest repair dock.

It's also OSHA compliant, which means it's easy to use in the case of damage, polluted air, dimmed lighting, etcetera. TOS era aesthetics are what you get when you make something that's hard to break and that will keep working even after you broke it.
 
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Firehawk242 said:
Oh, that. That's easy. NASA builds its stuff the same way, and for a very good reason:

Have you ever tried to break a retro sci-fi device? It's like trying to break a baby toy, those big goofy buttons just laugh at you. Compare that to a more modern touch screen that picks up cracks and scratches at the slightest provocation, and then tell me which you want on a ship that's expected to operate months away from the nearest repair dock.
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Yeah I forgot about that reasoning, it makes sense.

I love the prevalence of bright color, and large obscure buttons.
Star Trek Prop, Costume & Auction Authority: Star Trek: Enterprise TOS-Style Computer Console
 
Touchscreens are also much easier to mistype on if you're not looking at them.

For instance, because you're watching the tactical display.

When a bad input can launch a WMD (or fail to launch one) anything that increases the risk of a bad input needs an incredibly good justification to be allowed.

Ergo, no touchscreens.
 
[X] Field-Focused Bussard Injectors (+Complexity, +Warp Maximum) [Prototype]

ZOOM!

---

At what stage of this turn do we choose what level risk of 'detonate galaxy' we deem acceptable?
 
[X] Impeller-Equipped Bussard Ramscoops

Field-Focused Bussard Injectors are a situational (1) bonus to maximum (2) speed, at the cost of complexity (3) and cruise endurance (4).
  1. I don't care about situationals, I care about baselines.
  2. I don't care about Maximum, I care about Cruise.
  3. I only barely care about construction expense, but I care a lot about uptime and maintenance.
  4. Even if I did care about Maximum, I wouldn't trade the increased cruise endurance from partial underway fuel replenishment for it.
Complexity is likely to lead to more and/or more annoying maintenance requirements, I don't care about what it promises to offer, so I don't see any compelling reason to risk the prototype roll.

Edit: Okay, my bad, I was under the impression that the speed boost applied in regions of above-average interstellar particle density- nebulae or whatever.
 
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[X] Field-Focused Bussard Injectors (+Complexity, +Warp Maximum) [Prototype]

Prototype project deserves to have prototype components. Also this seems like it'll be foundational to the performance of future designs.
 
...How does an impeller even work in space? It is literally a fan that sucks air, the density of the interstellar medium is so low at the densest pockets that i am pretty sure it wouldn't help at all.

Take these numbers with a grain of salt, i found multiple different numbers for this stuff, so i am using the ones which were most repeated on a few sources, or most optimistic for the capability of a vacuum impeller.

After some quick googling, my quick research indicates that air has 10^26 molecules per m3, while the interstellar medium has 10^12 atoms at its densest pockets, to 100 per m3 at its least dense parts, with an average of 1 million per cubic metre.

Modern vacuum impellers reach 500 microns of pressure, while air has a density of 760000 microns.

I am pretty sure this is incorrect but i have no idea how i am actually supposed to math it, but assuming that air molecules have 3 atoms, and a thousandth of the pressure has a thousandth of the atoms, then a vacuum pump reaches 1.92*10^23 atoms per m3, nowhere near the 1e12 of the densest interstellar medium.

i am pretty sure that under a certain pressure, an impeller doesn't help anymore, because less pressure also means it is removing less atoms, until it removes almost none, but i am not an expert on vacuum pumps, so i could be wrong.

I don't trust the impellers, they feel like snake oil, but electric fields is how we move plasma.

[X] Field-Focused Bussard Injectors (+Complexity, +Warp Maximum) [Prototype]
 
[X] Field-Focused Bussard Injectors (+Complexity, +Warp Maximum) [Prototype]

Let's see how much rope Yoyodyne asks for this time.
 
[X] Field-Focused Bussard Injectors (+Complexity, +Warp Maximum) [Prototype]

Prototype now, before we HAVE to try it on a ship. This way when it inevitably fails it's first test, we can get the design fixed and working BEFORE we stick it on a ship.
 
[X] Impeller-Equipped Bussard Ramscoops
I Oppose Picking every prototype for the nacelle ad accidentally create a Warp Grenade
 
AltF4152 said:
...How does an impeller even work in space? It is literally a fan that sucks air, the density of the interstellar medium is so low at the densest pockets that i am pretty sure it wouldn't help at all.
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I assume it's some sort of magnetic field that benefits from being spun around like an impeller. Maybe it scoops up the interstellar medium that way and funnels it into the collectors at a velocity that makes it easy to divert into the fuel tanks, whereas the direct injectors just ram it straight into the warp plasma at maximum velocity for more energy.
 
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