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You'll change your mind later if you try and build the Thunderchild Mk2 and the bean-counters tell you they don't have enough production to build that in a decent timeframe and the Galileo-turned-main-cruiser that has had much higher orders than expected because it makes up a solid part of your fleet composition. So it's not like there's no downsides. It is still a choice. But if you're working from a set of priors that doesn't weight that possibility very highly then the logic makes sense.
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Gotta take 6 phasers, that's the explicit trade-off for having the low maneuverability engines.
I don't think torpedoes are necessary, the damage numbers might look good but they're hamstrung by low maneuverability so won't be that useful. Just give it all around phaser coverage so it can handle stuff coming from any angle no matter what. In any fleet engagement it'll be great for covering flanks while the high maneuverability/focused firepower ships get the kills, and on its own it has the warp speed to avoid fights outside of its weight class.
[X] 6 Phaser Banks
I don't think torpedoes are necessary, the damage numbers might look good but they're hamstrung by low maneuverability so won't be that useful. Just give it all around phaser coverage so it can handle stuff coming from any angle no matter what. In any fleet engagement it'll be great for covering flanks while the high maneuverability/focused firepower ships get the kills, and on its own it has the warp speed to avoid fights outside of its weight class.
[X] 6 Phaser Banks
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You are literally 53 minutes early.
Don't just look at the letters, though. Look at the numbers. Those single target numbers for the 4 phasers/2 torpedos option is so much better than 6 phasers, and I think this ship is going to need to drive off a lone raider much more often than a fleet action. Single target is where it's at. Enough I'm willing to eat a slightly worse infrastructure grade.
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I definitely missed this somewhere but in my defense this thread is busier then all of my work inboxes put together. What does Infrastructure measure? Like the shipside power supply and backend for non lethal systems? Something external to the ship? Something obvious I'm not thinking of?
Hm, so with only the two engines, any torpedoes we put on this are only really going to get put on target of the larger hostile ships.
OTOH, the update itself made the good point that those are the targets we're most likely going to want the torpedoes for in the first place. Especially with the higher power high arc phasers useful against lighter ships, so really what torpedo capability we lost with just the two engines is only the ability to try and swat medium or large light ships with them. Still useful, but something phasers can do too.
It's a shame that there's no phase option that covers the rear except for the highest amount of them, otherwise I would have gone for 4+2 in a heartbeat. Now I'm stuck trying to decide between it, 6 phasers, or 6+2.
OTOH, the update itself made the good point that those are the targets we're most likely going to want the torpedoes for in the first place. Especially with the higher power high arc phasers useful against lighter ships, so really what torpedo capability we lost with just the two engines is only the ability to try and swat medium or large light ships with them. Still useful, but something phasers can do too.
It's a shame that there's no phase option that covers the rear except for the highest amount of them, otherwise I would have gone for 4+2 in a heartbeat. Now I'm stuck trying to decide between it, 6 phasers, or 6+2.
How much Starfleet has to manufacture in its own controlled facilities rather than just farming production out to the civilian sector. Essentially what parts of the ship do you not want an industrious civilian and/or criminal walk out of the factory with without resistance. Which boils down to the components for the tactical and military-grade defensive systems.
The New World Economy is weird. They're not even paying the civvies. At least not the ones on Earth. But I guess with a population of billions there's always going to be people who want to do stuff and rise to the challenge. "Starfleet is asking for someone to produce hull plating for the next science cruiser? That sounds like a fun challenge, and we'd be making a meaningful difference. Let's do it."
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*nods*
That's fair, and it's right that it's not literally costless but... if we can pump out the "I Can't Believe It's Not a Constitution!" for a significantly lower cost but almost the same combat ability... we're not going to need another dedicated slugger until we design our next explorer.
Because it's a massive upgrade in capability we want, on the same number of hulls, without majorly effecting build schedules or anything else? It would massively increase the ability of Starfleet to resist a Klingon invasion, a very real concern in the period we're moving into? Like, you realise the amount of SCIENCE! we can fit into these ships will be identical whichever weapons loadout we go for, right? So will the number we build, by word of QM.
There's no reason to treat the minimum performance set out by the brief as a maximum when we can do massively better after having apparently found an amazing sweet spot in cost and effectiveness.
It's like, yes, you're right, we were trying to design a family sedan, but somehow serendipitously we've found out we can also make it able to fly for a very small price increase. We can either limit ourselves to our initial idea and produce a decent sedan, or completely upend the automotive market by producing a flying car that shoots lightning and cures cancer, and make one morbillion dollars.
How much we can supply crucial subsystems to produce this ship in parallel with others. In practical terms it does not matter much outside of wartime, and won't effect the order size for this ship. It would limit the maximum rate we could build these and other ships at the same time, or our ability to commit to another capital ship whilst these are still in full-rate production, but neither is super likely. Also in wartime we'd probably just stop building these altogether and build more cost-efficient but limited escorts.
So the way you can look at it is... it uses up a fair chunk of our armaments production, but in peacetime when we're not doing a lot with it anyway.
I don't agree with you on this. The torps will take up some room that could have been another aux module or something else.
In the near future, yes! But not for this build.
Torpedoes do take a bit of space, this is true. It can be the difference between having a module available to use or not but it isn't a 1:1 map onto that.
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Fair enough. I don't recall this being the case on past designs, and it's not listed in the update which it normally would be if there was a tradeoff, but this is worth checking.
@Sayle, will the tactical systems we pick reduce the number of slots for scientific/auxiliary systems?
EDIT: Ninjaed!
In any case, I think an entire rating difference is worth losing one module. We can still hit a decent Science score anyway, this thing has tons of space.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Yeah, ultimately, I just... Don't feel the need for torpedoes.
Because torpedoes can be evaded or miss, and we're not running a high agility spaceframe that can reliably put torpedoes on target. The Numbers on paper assume that 100% of all shots are a hit after all, which is only true for Phasers.
Ultimately, I just don't believe the benefits of Torpedoes make up for pushing this to a main-line combattant. Six Phasers will already make it a fantastic budget fleet anchor, while not compromising on its primary duties as a science vessel.
Because torpedoes can be evaded or miss, and we're not running a high agility spaceframe that can reliably put torpedoes on target. The Numbers on paper assume that 100% of all shots are a hit after all, which is only true for Phasers.
Ultimately, I just don't believe the benefits of Torpedoes make up for pushing this to a main-line combattant. Six Phasers will already make it a fantastic budget fleet anchor, while not compromising on its primary duties as a science vessel.
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Being slow with less than 100% coverage is a major vunerability if this ship gets stuck on its own fighting ships that can dance around it - and twenty or s years from now, we can't assume it'll have the advantage in sprint speeds so as to be able to run away.
Thought this is a narrow edge case, to be sure.
With our terrible engines, I say it's better to go for zero torps and six phasers.
Thought this is a narrow edge case, to be sure.
With our terrible engines, I say it's better to go for zero torps and six phasers.
I am very certain this is not true?
That's why "multi-target damage" and "single target damage" are separate stats, among other things. Like @Sayle can correct me, but the formula he's using takes into account manoeuvrability, I believe.
The numbers do scale the usefulness of torpedoes based on engine power, but it does assume you get a 'free' accurate shot with the alpha strike stat which measures your maximal output, not the probability of maximal output.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Which isn't actually a guarantee in reality, correct? So much as it's assuming "If the stars align and a single salvo has a 100% hit rate with all viable weapons, this is the damage output you'll get?" While the actual Damage Ratings are the "Expected results in reality given average performance"?
Edited the initial post, but yes.
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We can either accept that this will basically not be valid as a 2nd rate combattant, or sacrifice most of the gains made on costs. I don't want to say I told you so but who am I kidding, I told you so.
I think the right option here is to just take the L, admit we failed to make a multirole cruiser and hope there's demand for a non tactical explorer on the cheap, because the infrastructure grade drop for arming this properly to cover for its lack of mobility is enormous.
I think the right option here is to just take the L, admit we failed to make a multirole cruiser and hope there's demand for a non tactical explorer on the cheap, because the infrastructure grade drop for arming this properly to cover for its lack of mobility is enormous.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
So, the expected damage is the Average Damage, while Max Sustained Damage assumes that we're taking on the ideal target and are consistently able to land shots on them with all viable weapons, while Alpha Strike is "This is the hypothetical cap if everything lines up perfectly" damage output, correct?
Sayle explained that we still got an A- Cost, the expenses we're seeing here are just the strain on military infrastructure to field one of these.
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I think either 6 or 6+2 is the way to go here. While single target would be nice in a one on one fight, it's important to remember that this ship is going to be explicitly bad at getting torpedoes on target on anything "smaller than a heavy cruiser". That means that the torpedos will be more helpful in fleet combat, or in other scenarios where the ship has to engage single, large targets, but it won't be particularly helpful against small raiders. Frankly though, I'm quite tempted by 6+2. Yes, it's more than the brief requested, but maybe this can be the first proper Starfleet heavy cruiser: all the science, and enough guns to fight Klingon heavy cruisers straight up.
The infrastructure values are all relative, though? As I understand it actual cost of the hull is already locked in as of the conclusion of the engine vote, meaning that even if we do go for 6P&2T it's still going to be an incredibly cheap cruiser/it isn't going to impact the number that get built.
Average Damage is 'if an enemy randomly pops up in a random position, how much damage on average will they be hit by'.
Max Sustained Damage is 'how much average damage do you do if you keep permanently on-target and can keep your torpedoes cycling'.
Alpha Strike is 'everything is lined up and your torpedoes are ready'.
Single Target is the actual damage you expect to be able to do with maneuverability taken into account.
Multiple Target is how much actual damage you expect to be able to do, taking into account that an enemy might pop into a firing arc that isn't covered at all and you might do zero damage.
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