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Sayle said:
Theoretically speaking it's likely to be the main limiter for ship buildrate, but that's in relation to other ships in construction. Which is largely non-combat logistical vessels currently, since the Soyuz had a lot of production during the war. But if you were going to be simultaeneously manufacturing, say, the Soyuz and the Galileo, it'll impact the ratio of how many get made of each.

But again, these ratings are kind of the reviews going "I expect a C, if there's a D there better be a B somewhere else to justify the tradeoff".
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I mean, given that we've built a healthy number of Soyuz at this point, and it's a much more limited design... I'd be alright with allowing production of that to tail off slightly as we start pumping these out like hotcakes. How would it effect the total number of ships we can build assuming a switchover to pumping out Galileos for several years?

Six phasers and two torpedoes upgrades our Tactical rating, single target damage, and ability to take on other capital ships by like, a lot. And it's not unreasonable to expect this thing to fight capital ships in wartime, because by every possible standard it is one in terms of tonnage.

This does mean exceeding the brief somewhat, but I think "We built a workhorse cruiser which is armed like a frontline warship yet cheap to be built in large numbers, and can do oodles of science." is an opportunity we could grasp with both hands.

This could be the ship which defines a generation of Starfleet. A budget Constitution. Dear god.
 
Skippy said:
I mean, given that we've built a healthy number of Soyuz at this point, and it's a much more limited design... I'd be alright with allowing production of that to tail off slightly as we start pumping these out like hotcakes. How would it effect the total number of ships we can build assuming a switchover to pumping out Galileos for several years?

Six phasers and two torpedoes upgrades our Tactical rating, single target damage, and ability to take on other capital ships by like, a lot. And it's not unreasonable to expect this thing to fight capital ships in wartime, because by every possible standard it is one in terms of tonnage.

This does mean exceeding the brief somewhat, but I think "We built a workhorse cruiser which is armed like a frontline warship yet cheap to be built in large numbers, and can do oodles of science." is an opportunity we could grasp with both hands.

This could be the ship which defines a generation of Starfleet. A budget Constitution. Dear god.
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I think it's more "The Constitution in this timeline is going to be the hot-rod, long range version of the Galileo".

Or we're going to build something closer to the Kelvinverse Connie, which--fair is fair--is pretty cool anyway.
 
landcollector said:
As a rearline combatant, according to the design brief. Giving it a throw weight equivalent to a frontline heavy cruiser seems more than a little excessive.

Edit: And nearly outright fails the design in Infrastructure.
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That argument fails to convince me. While I wouldn't mind only having four phasers, I do think that this ship needs the torpedoes to effectively fight in wartime.
 
Th3Saints said:
Anything with 6 phasers is mandatory, a blindspot in this ship is a death sentence.

the question is if we eat the cost for A tactical with torps or not.
Personally im leaning no torps this ship was pretty much geared to maximise quantity with utility with the ship has is the torps feel like a add-ons, the only way they are effective is against slow or medium low maneuverability ships unless some genius cracks the picard maneuver.
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Skippy said:
I mean, given that we've built a healthy number of Soyuz at this point, and it's a much more limited design... I'd be alright with allowing production of that to tail off slightly as we start pumping these out like hotcakes. How would it effect the total number of ships we can build assuming a switchover to pumping out Galileos for several years?
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I suspect the combat role the Galileo fits in will probably inform the type of ships that follow afterwards in terms of armament (since the thread tends to keep an eye on tactical synergies) more than it affects the order size of the Galileo itself.
 
Skippy said:
This does mean exceeding the brief somewhat, but I think "We built a workhorse cruiser which is armed like a frontline warship yet cheap to be built in large numbers, and can do oodles of science." is an opportunity we could grasp with both hands.

This could be the ship which defines a generation of Starfleet. A budget Constitution. Dear god.
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Is it really budget anymore with a frontline heavy cruiser-esque weapons loadout? Just look at that hit to Infrastructure.

Empress_Boog said:
That argument fails to convince me. While I wouldn't mind only having four phasers, I do think that this ship needs the torpedoes to effectively fight in wartime.
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Given you seem super deadset on max weapons anyway, I question if anything would convince you to change your mind on that. *shrug*
 
Alectai said:
Most importantly, going against a Torpedo Armament means that the major Infrastructure bottleneck is Phasers--which are the secondary weapon of the Selachii class--their primary weapons (Their Photon Torpedoes) are not so limited, which means we can likely produce these in parallel for maximum synergy.

After all, Phasers are used by almost everything, they're being produced in large quantities one way or the other. But as we're seeing, the major Infrastructure cost overlay is in Torpedoes.
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So despite my enthusiasm for the Costco Constitution concept, I think this is a potentially valid point. It would be worth getting some numbers for comparison.

@Sayle, could you give us ballpark figures for how many Galileo and Soyuz class ships we could build per year, if the Galileo were designed with:
(1) A six phaser, no torpedo setup.
(2) A six phaser, two torpedo setup.
(2) A four phaser, no torpedo setup.

Essentially trying to get a feel for how many Soyuz we lose, versus the gained tactical rating and punch on each Galileo.
 
Low maneuverability makes torpedoes less viable. Low maneuverability makes phaser coverage more necessary. 6 Phasers / no torps.

And let's make this the multi-species coalition-builder the federation needs; appeal to Vulcan sensibilities by not installing every weapon in the dang 'verse.
 
I'm feeling either four phasers with torps or six phasers without torps.

The question is what this ship is supposed to do in wartime. If it's supposed to act as part of a fleet or squadron, torps are the way to go. The added alpha strike capability more than makes up for the lower coverage.

However, if we instead intend to use it for things like backline commerce protection, then pure phasers is the better option, since it will likely be facing lighter enemies without significant support.

I'm leaning towards the pure phaser build myself. This thing is fine against pirates and the like, but it's not a warship.
 
With the poor maneuverability, I feel like we have to take the 6 phasers. Otherwise it would be too easy for someone to just sit in our blind spot and we would not be able to do anything about it.

I'm not convinced about the torpedoes though. Because yeah they do increase our damage output, but that poor maneuverability means we won't be able to use them very much.
 
landcollector said:
Given you seem super deadset on max weapons anyway, I question if anything would convince you to change your mind on that. *shrug*
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The infrastructural argument doesn't work on me. Star Trek as a setting has always had an unrealistic number of ships, on the low end of that scale, obviously, and by trying to always make as many ships as possible is just going against the grain for minor gains in my opinion. But onto weapons, if we are getting torps I would actually prefer four phasers and not six. But without torps I am voting for the six phaser option.

Edit: Now, what does make me think phaser only is the low maneuverability, hard to aim torps if you can't move the ship.
 
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Skippy said:
So despite my enthusiasm for the Costco Constitution concept, I think this is a potentially valid point. It would be worth getting some numbers for comparison.

@Sayle, could you give us ballpark figures for how many Galileo and Soyuz class ships we could build per year, if the Galileo were designed with:
(1) A six phaser, no torpedo setup.
(2) A six phaser, two torpedo setup.
(2) A four phaser, no torpedo setup.

Essentially trying to get a feel for how many Soyuz we lose, versus the gained tactical rating and punch on each Galileo.
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Well the Selachii aren't in production right now. But assuming war breaks out in a couple years and the Galileo+Selachii become your wartime combo and you split resources between them 50/50.

1) 1.8:1
2) 2.2:1
3) 1.25:1

To be honest given those numbers I feel like you'd probably be aiming to produce something like 3/4 Selachii for every Galileo anyway, so I don't think the limitation of resources would be the determining factor. In terms of resources 6 phasers/2 torpedoes "loses" a Selachii for every Galileo versus the 4 phaser build.
 
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Alectai said:
I think it's more "The Constitution in this timeline is going to be the hot-rod, long range version of the Galileo".

Or we're going to build something closer to the Kelvinverse Connie, which--fair is fair--is pretty cool anyway.
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Oh sure, definitely. It's just like, the canon Constitution class was a beast. It was said to be able to fight multiple Birds of Prey at once. Twelve of them were considered a pretty good counter to the cream of the Klingon battlfleet. A budget version of that we build as a line cruiser would... be quite a backbone to Starfleet. Like it would massively change the balance of power between Starfleet and the Klingon Empire if we can build twenty four of these things.

landcollector said:
Is it really budget anymore with a frontline heavy cruiser-esque weapons loadout? Just look at that hit to Infrastructure.
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I think that given the overall cost rating is so good, and with @Sayle saying that the total order size won't change... we have have found a sweet spot here where we can gain a lot of extra capability for not-terrible cost.

strictpig said:
I'm not convinced about the torpedoes though. Because yeah they do increase our damage output, but that poor maneuverability means we won't be able to use them very much.
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We can use them very effectively against larger ships and stations, and it still increases our multi-target damage by a bit, just not as massively it does everything else. Basically the six phase layout is perfectly adequate fine for swatting smaller ships and contributing to a battleline, but the two torpedo launchers on top makes this ship an outright terror.
 
Sayle said:
Well the Selachii aren't in production right now. But assuming war breaks out in a couple years and the Galileo+Selachii become your wartime combo and you split resources between them 50/50.

1) 1.8:1
2) 2.2:1
3) 1.25:1

To be honest given those numbers I feel like you'd probably be aiming to produce something like 3/4 Selachii for every Galileo anyway, so I don't think the limitation of resources would be the determining factor.
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Okay, that's good to now.

Well given this is the case, it seems... very compelling? It's a 22% production efficiency decrease for something like a 50% or greater increase in firepower averaged across categories, and more than a whole letter grade increase in our Tactical rating.

Plus as you say... we're not in wartime and are not currently building Selachii, and if we were, we would probably prioritise the Selachii anyway, so it's unlikely to be the determining factor in terms of build rates in practice. We get basically-the-same number of ships in reality. It maybe has an impact on what we look for in future designs but... holy shit, we've just built the Grand Fleet over here, we could build an ice cream van for our next design and still have parity with the Klingons for a generation.
 
Skippy said:
I think that given the overall cost rating is so good, and with @Sayle saying that the total order size won't change... we have have found a sweet spot here where we can gain a lot of extra capability for not-terrible cost.
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I'm not so sure about that honestly. I really am unable to see the viewpoint of those wanting frontline tier armament on something meant to be puttering around secured space doing SCIENCE! in peace and secondline stuff in the event of conflict. Second liners in this era don't need torps yet imo.
 
With the budget hawks sabotaging the maneuverability, this thing absolutely needs full phaser coverage.

I want the torpedo launcher as well, but more for science probes than their combat role since torpedo tubes are the standard delivery mechanism for such probes. Torpedoes and probes get used to solve the science problem of the week almost as frequently as the deflector dish does, possibly even more so.

[ ] 6 Phaser Banks, 2 Forward Torpedo Launchers
 
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Heh, if we'd had an option for two more phaser banks then combined with the two torpedo option this would literally be a Constitution Refit about six and a half decades early.
 
Let's consider a different, maybe more common scenario. Instead of a fleet action, the Galileo on its own meets one hostile ship. It can maybe flee with its superior warp or it can try to engage and drive off the other party if there's something worth defending.

Wars are rare, solo ship raids are more common. So one on one, what is the best choice?

[ ] 4 Phaser Banks, 2 Forward Torpedo Launchers

Probably this. It has very high single target raiding. A very small, agile ship may be able to get behind it and out of phaser lines, but just one small agile ship won't pack enough power to beat the Galileo over a protracted battle even if it can avoid the torpedoes and some of the phasers some of the time. It has a decent multi-target rating. Not great, but hey.

Yes a D+ infrastructure hurts, but compared to six phasers and no torpedoes, I like this answer much better.
 
If you make it so effective damage wise that people want to push it onto the front & heaviest fighting regularly right after we took survivability concessions because we don't want it on the frontlines there will be issues.
 
landcollector said:
I'm not so sure about that honestly. I really am unable to see the viewpoint of those wanting frontline tier armament on something meant to be puttering around secured space doing SCIENCE! in peace and secondline stuff in the event of conflict. Secon liners in this era don't need torps yet imo
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The thing is, we were given a brief for a ship which can serve capably as a combatant. This allows us to greatly exceed that brief, for essentially no significant additional cost. Word of QM that it will not effect the order size, and it won't significantly effect build rates in wartime. These were better answers than I'd expected in either case.

So the way I look at is is sorta like... why wouldn't we seize that opportunity to get an immense upgrade almost for free? If we build twenty four to eighteen of these things, that's a foundation for Starfleet which gives it a line of battle about as good as it had in canon, before we even build our actual explorer design.

For an A- cost rating!!!

I'm crying and shitting myself here and having a seizure of joy all at once, the cost/benefit calculation is so good!
 
[X] 6 Phaser Banks
[X] 4 Phaser Banks

I am not eating a D- in infrastructure cost for 2 torpedoes when we could get the same tactical rating for a C- with more coverage to boot.
 
Skippy said:
The thing is, we were given a brief for a ship which can serve capably as a combatant
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This is supposed to be a sucessor to the Curiosity, remember. Which filled the roles of SCIENCE! in peace and rearline vessel in wartime. Not a frontliner. I am scratching my head in confusion as to why you want tops on a very sluggish hull and practically interpret the design brief in ways it wasn't meant to be read imo.
 
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