Starfleet Design Bureau

What do you think the Federation has the most pressing need for?
How is the Federation population distributed across its worlds? Are we talking 90+% on a few core worlds fed by a lot of much smaller colonies? A roughly even distribution? Some other pattern? I ask because which base type if best changes based on this- if you have most of your population and industry in one or two places it makes a lot of sense to concentrate your defenses there, a more even distribution of population makes multiple smaller outposts more sensible, etc.
 
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Please tell me this means the TURRET cannot move while firing and not the ship its attached to, because that absolutely would constitute a trap option.

The Turret can't move when shooting, the ship still can.

It's because if it starts moving when there's a beam coming out, that beam isn't going to move with it, and so the turret will get slagged. This might actually be fixable in the long run though to allow for raking fire, though I think it's more likely that we might get early access to something like the Defiant's Phaser Cannons on this route, which IIRC aren't hitscan like normal phaser beams are, but do a lot more damage and are still faster than torpedoes.

Interestingly, these will be a general improvement on Focused Emitters when dealing with a relatively immobile structure like a Starbase though. We need a lot less to get the same amount of coverage.
 
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I guess I don't see how designing the ideal small outpost would be significantly better than just adding some extra defense satellites or a frigate to whatever our existing designs are. Medium or Large, for me.
 
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Leaning towards the middle option. Something like a hub for nodal forces. A nexus from where ships can meet and reinforce beleaguered locations, perhaps.
 
[X] Regional bases for Federation fleet elements and expansion in outer regions

Federation space is friggin huge, so our primary way of controlling it is going to be fleets, not static defense.
 
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The Turret can't move when shooting, the ship still can.

It's because if it starts moving when there's a beam coming out, that beam isn't going to move with it, and so the turret will get slagged. This might actually be fixable in the long run though to allow for raking fire, though I think it's more likely that we might get early access to something like the Defiant's Phaser Cannons on this route, which IIRC aren't hitscan like normal phaser beams are, but do a lot more damage and are still faster than torpedoes.
You can still do some degree of raking fire by turning as you shoot. The emitter may not be able to turn, but the whole starship can sweep through an angle.
 
Alright, now we move on to starbases. Let's consider...

[ ] Small outposts able to project Federation influence on the borders.
[ ] Regional bases for Federation fleet elements and expansion in outer regions.
[ ] Starbases to defend Federation core worlds.

Based on gut feeling, we aren't dealing with a power that has cloaking technology as one of their mainstays (yet), so large starbases seem somewhat superfluous at the moment. At the same time, the small outpost idea wouldn't be a bad idea in peacetime, but with the rest of Kzinti ships blowing them up and us having to replace them, I feel that the cost might outweigh the benefits. Therefore, I'm leaning towards regional bases as the concept to go with.
 
How is the Federation population distributed across its worlds? Are we talking 90+% on a few core worlds fed by a lot of much smaller colonies? A roughly even dsitribution? Some other pattern? I ask because which base type if best changes based on this- if you have most of your population and industry in one or two places it makes a lot of sense to concentrate your defenses there, a more even distribution of population makes multiple smaller outposts more sensible, etc.

At this point in time I'm pretty sure 90% on the core worlds is probably an accurate estimation. But your strategic picture is going to largely be determined by travel times and where you can consolidate your fleets. Also how capable you think your adversaries are going to be. Do you think you can head off conflicts at the border by establishing a stronger presence there? Do you think you're more likely to fight a responsive war in the Federation outskirts, where you'll be juggling fleets and trying to exclude the enemy from the core worlds? Or is it going to be a war to the knife where you want to throw every ship into the fray without having to hold back so many in defense roles?
 
Unrelated note, it's still super weird that given how ridiculous the Kzinti are, where "This is proof positive that there are Precursors and they are assholes, because these fuckers somehow made it to space with how insanely scuffed their culture is", that they still are capable of insane feats of industry and science despite hating anyone who isn't a bloodthirsty psychopath so much.

The whole "Yeah, our worlds are defended by insanely powerful super starbases and we can afford this at the same time we're making our crazy fleets, and we can afford to be wasteful with our ships because they're still super dangerous for their cost" thing is just... Really? At least the Klingons respect their scientists and artisans!
 
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All ships equipped with the Type-2 are equipped with multi-axis impulse engines and the most powerful inertial dampers in the galaxy so they can slam to a stop at a moment's notice. This resulted in most kills in the Federation-Klingon Wars being from starships locking the Klingons in a tractor beam then slamming on the breaks, a tactic colloquially known as "the Qo'nos splatter".
Got it, time to design the El Santo class Tractor Beam Suplex Cruiser!
 
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"the Qo'nos splatter"

Utterly hysterical as well as utterly horrifying.

"How did you kill all the occupants of that bird-of-prey."
"Utilising the inertial dampeners we converted the occupants from biology to physics."

---

I'd go regional bases. Frontier bases seems like something to make once you've got ongoing orbital infrastructure, and I think starting with giant orbital infrastructure would just magnify any mistakes we make on V1.
 
Feeling regional. It lets us avoid having to leave ships to defend but isn't so massive that we're greatly limited in how many we can build letting us progress at a decent pace.

Small being easy to set up would let us press more aggressively by quickly extending our range though. The Kzinti seem like they would be pretty aggressive in attacking something smaller, maybe even suicidally so.
 
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Unrelated note, it's still super weird that given how ridiculous the Kzinti are, where "This is proof positive that there are Precursors and they are assholes, because these fuckers somehow made it to space with how insanely scuffed their culture is", that they still are capable of insane feats of industry and science despite hating anyone who isn't a bloodthirsty psychopath so much.

The whole "Yeah, our worlds are defended by insanely powerful super starbases and we can afford this at the same time we're making our crazy fleets, and we can afford to be wasteful with our ships because they're still super dangerous for their cost" thing is just... Really? At least the Klingons respect their scientists and artisans!

They conquered (overthrew) a species of incredibly intelligent engineers who imprint and mature quickly - the Jotoki. Aside from a Kzin overseer riding herd on them, they essentially do all the R&D for the empire, as well as the actual engineering work on most ships.

Jotoki resemble large, spindly starfish. They have a torochord (ring-shaped) instead of a notochord, with five "self-sections" (apparently semi-independent brains) that operate the Jotok's body cooperatively. The Jotoki begin life as small aquatic swimmers, most of which are eaten by predators; in time, five of the survivors will merge to form one collective organism, which grows into an arboreal adolescent form; its tails become arms, and its fins differentiate into fingers. When it grows large enough, the Jotok imprints itself on an adult (if one is available) and enters a stage of rapid learning and brain growth. A Jotok who desires a family can simply go into the wilderness and "harvest" an adolescent of the proper age (a property that Kzin slavers later exploit). Unimprinted adult Jotoki are considered feral, and regarded as little more than animals. Since the five subunits that make up one Jotok individual are not necessarily genetically related, reproduction does not require sex; a Jotok can simply find a pond and deposit its offspring to begin the cycle again. Before their enslavement, Jotoki operated in groups called "clanpods", as part of their former planet-wide tradeweb. Details of this arrangement are not known. Jotok technological specialties included gravity polarizers, linguistics and biotechnology. They had the ability to force-grow clones to adulthood.

The Jotoki were also experts at trade. Their interstellar trade empire was quite developed for its time, but after Kzinti were used as mercenaries for many years, the Kzinti revolted and conquered the Jotoki. The Jotoki became the slaves and food-animals of the ferocious Kzinti.
 
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They conquered (overthrew) a species of incredibly intelligent engineers who imprint on birth and essentially mature within a year - the Jotoki. Aside from a Kzin overseer riding herd on them, they essentially do all the R&D for the empire, as well as the actual engineering work on most ships.

Like I said.

Proof positive that the Kzinti are the favored project of some Precursor Asshole. What are the odds that there's a fully sapient, highly intelligent race that's perfectly happy with being enslaved to do R&D with a bunch of murderous psychopaths close enough that said race of murderous psychopaths can reach them before anyone else can take advantage of that?

I don't know if that's literally the case in the original material--all I know about them is from cultural osmosis--but that's the vibe I get.
 
Also uncharacteristically bloodthirsty/psychopathic of Federation personnel given the depicted lamenting of the death of Kzinti boarders.
It is likely more merciful of an end than punching holes in the vessel using phasers and letting the air vent.

This is ship to ship combat in space, one of the most hostile to life environments that exists, where all the ships are flying around powered by antimatter explosives. Anything that destroys a ship by it's nature destroys the crew.
 
That is debatable, at another time perhaps.
It would be interesting to design a ship that is a phaser combat bruiser and prison transport in one. In combat it would use phasers to disable enemy shields then transporters to scoop up and beam into containment the entire enemy crew. This would allow for almost entirely non-lethal ship to ship combat where the only casualties are due to internal damage such as EPS conduit explosions during the fight before shields are disabled.
 
It is likely more merciful of an end than punching holes in the vessel using phasers and letting the air vent.

This is ship to ship combat in space, one of the most hostile to life environments that exists, where all the ships are flying around powered by antimatter explosives. Anything that destroys a ship by it's nature destroys the crew.
Realy ? I thought star trek tech was advenced enough that there IS a signitive odd that AT least some of thé crew could survive thé destruction of a few fight critical component of thé ship ?
 
[ ] Starbases to defend Federation core worlds.
I wanna make something expensive. We've been making budget stuff, let's make something without compromising.
 
Leaving aside my thoughts on avenues for the gimbal phasers as described.

Regional seems our best bet.

Small, while easy to build to give large swathes of territory at least modest protection, feel slightly like bait to 'mysteriously' be destroyed and give the Romulans a look at our technology in a deniable manner.

Large, while an absolute necessity later down the line, feel premature at this stage. Will take years to proliferate beyond the most strategically critical systems/worlds. But I do believe the Earth Spacedock we see in TMP is Large.

Medium is my preference, but I could be convinced to go large.
 
Regional bases seems like the best option. Core stations are something that can happen later, while the minor outposts just don't have the oomph for our needs.
 
Leaning towards the middle option. Something like a hub for nodal forces. A nexus from where ships can meet and reinforce beleaguered locations, perhaps.

I agree. Being sized large enough they can hold for a bit should provide plenty of security for a lot of scenarios. Pirates couldn't credibly pose a threat to these and they'd be large enough to support transshipping, make civilian space based industry easier to develop, and base at least a few police cutters full time. Being able to spot forces assembling to attack one is also a huge plus in my book. Because they can support a small fleet we can park one nearby with little notice (celebrations, training, war) and not create a ton of problems for the locals too.

If we need more force we build 2 and put more guns on the second one :D. (More likely we just base a task force out of one and build out a defense grid that can slow an attacker enough for the task force to take advantage).
 
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