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[X] 0: Four High-Focus Phaser Placements (+25% Coverage, +3 Average Damage)
[X] 1: Two Aft Phasers (+25% Coverage) (+1 Average Damage)

This is not just about getting ambushed or surrounded, this is also useful in an offensive role because you can make an attack run where you fire your front phasers as you come in, then try to put some distance to avoid taking too much concentrated damage and still get to fire your aft phasers as you do so.
 
Nyvis said:
[X] 0: Four High-Focus Phaser Placements (+25% Coverage, +3 Average Damage)
[X] 1: Two Aft Phasers (+25% Coverage) (+1 Average Damage)

This is not just about getting ambushed or surrounded, this is also useful in an offensive role because you can make an attack run where you fire your front phasers as you come in, then try to put some distance to avoid taking too much concentrated damage and still get to fire your aft phasers as you do so.
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Various forms of Star Trek secondary media - Starfleet Battles, the Starfleet Command videogames (including Starfleet Command 3, which is set in the mainline canon rather than SFB) and Star Trek Online give Trek shields facings. Assuming a four facing shield, this means that if you're doing a basic SFB-style overrun attack, your initial crunch alpha hits the front shield and then your follow-up phaser shots mildly tickle the target's rear shield.

Moreover, those phasers are eating power, power which can be assigned to other things like shields, electronic warfare, shield reinforcement, or whatever other bits and bobs your ship has, but they aren't helping you crunch through the weak shield your photons have created.

Being able to use aft phasers against the same target in a straight-line attack isn't as helpful as it seems, given this, and taking away power from other systems might actually be too much of an opportunity cost.
 
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MJ12 Commando said:
Various forms of Star Trek secondary media - Starfleet Battles, the Starfleet Command videogames (including Starfleet Command 3, which is set in the mainline canon rather than SFB) and Star Trek Online give Trek shields facings. Assuming a four facing shield, this means that if you're doing a basic SFB-style overrun attack, your initial crunch alpha hits the front shield and then your follow-up phaser shots mildly tickle the target's rear shield.

Moreover, those phasers are eating power, power which can be assigned to other things like shields, electronic warfare, shield reinforcement, or whatever other bits and bobs your ship has, but they aren't helping you crunch through the weak shield your photons have created.

Being able to use aft phasers against the same target in a straight-line attack isn't as helpful as it seems, given this, and taking away power from other systems might actually be too much of an opportunity cost.
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You are better off putting that power towards thrusters and turning to put them back in your alpha strike zone faster.

Though you know what I would like? Phasor capacitors. A subsystem that allows a third phasor to be fired in alpha strike. It would increase the alpha strike damage of a ship without increasing the average damage. Not useful at all for something with 100% coverage that will always be firing, but really useful for something like this where a lot of the time the phasors won't be pointing at anything.
 
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The SFB lesson is that the main benefit of rear-arc phasers is drone/fighter defense (because you'll want to run away from them if they're deployed in large enough numbers, and that means they're in your rear arc), and I don't think anyone's actually done anything like that yet.

I would love @Sayle introducing some of SFB's not-quite-canon weapons concepts because things like drones (which are superficially like cruise missiles but because of their tactical speed act more like area denial tools or mines in many ways) and SFB "fighters" (which, because of their lowish combat speed and lack of power management, are more like attack boats) add more tactical options than just choosing X number of guns to put on a ship.

But right now all we have to worry about is photons and phasers.
 
Fouredged Sword said:
You are better off putting that power towards thrusters and turning to put them back in your alpha strike zone faster.

Though you know what I would like? Phasor capacitors. A subsystem that allows a third phasor to be fired in alpha strike. It would increase the alpha strike damage of a ship without increasing the average damage. Not useful at all for something with 100% coverage that will always be firing, but really useful for something like this where a lot of the time the phasors won't be pointing at anything.
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Sayle said:
Here also we see the close-in phaser emplacements near to the center of the primary hull, a design decision driven by the high expense associated with the fabrication of weapons-grade EPS conduits. This was also the last vessel which utilized phaser capacitors capable of holding a full weapon charge, an ability inherited from the phase cannon. However in a more advanced phaser the capability was rarely useful and the capacitors rapidly degraded in effectiveness as they were used. There is only one record of them being used in a combat situation, during which the UFS Kilimanjaro ambushed a Klingon D6 cruiser over Archer IV, turning a lopsided confrontation into an even fight that the Kilimanjaro won after sustaining substantial battle damage. Later vessels would draw phaser power straight from the EPS system as needed, having found it a cheaper and less maintenance intensive alternative.
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Ironically we used to have that capacity and just removed it, though the reasoning seems sound.
Which really is a shame that we couldn't just improve it.
Though I can't say I've seen the "cheaper" part of the change!
 
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MJ12 Commando said:
I would love @Sayle introducing some of SFB's not-quite-canon weapons concepts because things like drones (which are superficially like cruise missiles but because of their tactical speed act more like area denial tools or mines in many ways) and SFB "fighters" (which, because of their lowish combat speed and lack of power management, are more like attack boats) add more tactical options than just choosing X number of guns to put on a ship.
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Not sure we'll ever get there, but baby steps. We're developing more granular weapon arcs, maybe in future we can start dialling in shield strength and so on.

Golgotha said:
Ironically we used to have that capacity and just removed it, though the reasoning seems sound.
Which really is a shame that we couldn't just improve it.
Though I can't say I've seen the "cheaper" part of the change!
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Given the phase cannons were spindly little things that emerged from the hull on gantries, I assume significantly higher power demand and larger focusing apparatuses require the bulk of the weapon to be stationary.
 
[X] 0: Four High-Focus Phaser Placements (+25% Coverage, +3 Average Damage)
[X] 1: No Aft Phasers

With this maneuverability we already have aft phasers - their names are Immelmann and Crazy Ivan.
 
[X] 0: Four High-Focus Phaser Placements (+25% Coverage, +3 Average Damage)
[X] 1: Two Aft Phasers (+25% Coverage) (+1 Average Damage)

Shield 'arcs' having totally un-linked strength seems a bit unlike the shows, so I'm willing to bet on the first pass knocking the shields down and the parting shot dealing the hull damage.
 
@Sayle

Ok, so modeling this I am getting some odd scaling issues. The size lines up for the type 3 nacelle is supposed to be on 1 pixel = 1 meter scale, but that makes the ship significantly bigger than a Sagarmartha.

But if I make it 1 pixel = .5 meters the nacelle is half as big as it is supposed to be.

So I am trying to determine what is correct. Is this ship 254 x 205 x 35 meters or 127 meters x 102.5 x 17.5 meters?

Or do I have the scale completely wrong and it's a different size entirely?
 
Fouredged Sword said:
@Sayle

Ok, so modeling this I am getting some odd scaling issues. The size lines up for the type 3 nacelle is supposed to be on 1 pixel = 1 meter scale, but that makes the ship significantly bigger than a Sagarmartha.

But if I make it 1 pixel = .5 meters the nacelle is half as big as it is supposed to be.

So I am trying to determine what is correct. Is this ship 254 x 205 x 35 meters or 127 meters x 102.5 x 17.5 meters?

Or do I have the scale completely wrong and it's a different size entirely?
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I'm sizing the nacelles according to aesthetics rather than a set size. It's still the same 1 pixel = 0.5 meters.
 
I'm still pretty excited to see how this stacks up in the end. It's roughly comparable in mass to a BoP, but it looks like it has significantly greater defenses and armament without compromising on agility. Of course, a BoP is dirt cheap for its mass budget because it uses a lot of cheap and rugged components and construction to get there, but it's still interesting to see how these stack up.

We should get one Aux Slot I think too out of this. We may have lost one from what we did with the deflector, but we should be able to make good on some of those losses by passing on the aft phasers. This is still a 160 kt craft after all, and we could squeeze aux slots in even on the god damn Constable with a shoestring budget.
 
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Art: Selachii-class Heavy Frigate
  • Media
    • Sayle said:
    I'm sizing the nacelles according to aesthetics rather than a set size. It's still the same 1 pixel = 0.5 meters.
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    Sounds good.

    Here is my model of the Soyuz.



    She looks pretty good.

    For size reference, here she is with a Sagarmartha



    Fun fact. If you are in the forward arc these three ships hit equally hard.
     
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    • The Sagarmatha still probably is much tougher due to how chonky it is, but the throw weight of a Soyuz isn't to be underestimated, especially since they should be deployed alongside more general-use starships who have excellent coverage anyway.

    And Maximum Maneuverability is not to be downplayed holy hell.
     
    Alectai said:
    The Sagarmatha still probably is much tougher due to how chonky it is, but the throw weight of a Soyuz isn't to be underestimated, especially since they should be deployed alongside more general-use starships who have excellent coverage anyway.

    And Maximum Maneuverability is not to be downplayed holy hell.
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    The Sagarmatha is chonky, yes, but the Soyuz isn't actually much less chonky. It's just more compact. No secondary hull. No long spindly legs. It's smaller, but not actually any thinner than a Sagarmatha's primary saucer.

    If the Sagarmatha is tougher I would attribute it not to geometry, but simply because it has a bigger warp core that can power stronger shields.

    And even then, I suspect that the Soyuz ability to dodge makes it a tough target enough to make up any difference.
     
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    Either way, it's coming together as a very nice proto-Defiant. If we can squeeze in improved Sensors on top of that, it'll even have a useful niche as a general patrol and Point of Interest Highlighter in peacetime.
     
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