Starfleet Design Bureau

I must admit, I'm impressed by how remarkably averse we are as a design bureau to torpedoes in any sort of ship, regardless of its role. I mean, I get wanting more room for science and other modules (something that the QM has stated isn't even an issue all the time, but I digress), but part of the design documents for the ship that we agreed on was that it be a reasonably capable combatant in addition to its other roles. Phasers are good, but there are plenty of threats, known and unknown, that just need the extra punch torpedoes give.
 
I must admit, I'm impressed by how remarkably averse we are as a design bureau to torpedoes in any sort of ship, regardless of its role. I mean, I get wanting more room for science and other modules (something that the QM has stated isn't even an issue all the time, but I digress), but part of the design documents for the ship that we agreed on was that it be a reasonably capable combatant in addition to its other roles. Phasers are good, but there are plenty of threats, known and unknown, that just need the extra punch torpedoes give.

That's because the thread tries to over optimize to A and S rankings. As such, that one slot *could be* a SCIENCE! (which lets be fair, I think is really dumb that we want to overoptimize, but I'm never a fan of that.) improver.

So to this logic, that one slot that could be the difference between a B+ to A- is vitally important. It probably really isn't, and we don't need to hyperfocus on it, but it's the thread logic.
 
400,000t is now considered a light cruiser. The reason a lot of us are actually happy that it's going to be relegated to rear area patrols is because it's supposed to be a science vessel that can do rear area patrols during war. Keeping it from being pressed into front line service is a goal, so that it can spend most of its time doing what we are designing it to do, SCIENCE!

I'm sure the crew will be appropriately happy when they try to fight a Klingon capital ship raiding in the back without torps.
Also we were explicitly asked to make it useful in war, which we haven't as the previous class had the exact same problem of no torps making useless in nearly anything except fending off the lightest of ships.
 
I must admit, I'm impressed by how remarkably averse we are as a design bureau to torpedoes in any sort of ship, regardless of its role. I mean, I get wanting more room for science and other modules (something that the QM has stated isn't even an issue all the time, but I digress), but part of the design documents for the ship that we agreed on was that it be a reasonably capable combatant in addition to its other roles. Phasers are good, but there are plenty of threats, known and unknown, that just need the extra punch torpedoes give.
The antimatter warheads are an undeniably potent armament, providing a major punch at the beginning of an engagement. However the Galileo's lackluster engines mean that it would be unable to reliably put them on target against anything smaller than a heavy cruiser. Admittedly that may be exactly the kind of opponent that you would be the most glad to have torpedoes, so there is that.
This ship is not intended to engage heavy cruisers.

I'm sure the crew will be appropriately happy when they try to fight a Klingon capital ship raiding in the back without torps.
Also we were explicitly asked to make it useful in war, which we haven't as the previous class had the exact same problem of no torps making useless in nearly anything except fending off the lightest of ships.
A Sagarmatha is barely able to defeat a Klingon cruiser from ambush and sustains heavy damage while doing so. A Galileo with torpedoes is, while formidably armed for a light cruiser, still inferior to a Sagarmatha in a tactical engagement in nearly every single way.

If a Galileo, torpedoes or not, tries to engage a Klingon capital ship, we're just giving them a free kill. The correct response is not to try to shoot the much higher performance Klingon ship, it's to go find some real warships to deal with it.
 
I'm sure the crew will be appropriately happy when they try to fight a Klingon capital ship raiding in the back without torps.
Also we were explicitly asked to make it useful in war, which we haven't as the previous class had the exact same problem of no torps making useless in nearly anything except fending off the lightest of ships.
Um, so anything less than at worst an A- in Tactical is "Useless in war, failure" now? B- is nothing to sneeze at, frankly. The Curiosity had just 2 Type 1 Phasers while this hull is looking to have triple the number of Type 2s that were designed to have greater coverage capability and hit 50% harder on a per mount basis.
 
I must admit, I'm impressed by how remarkably averse we are as a design bureau to torpedoes in any sort of ship, regardless of its role. I mean, I get wanting more room for science and other modules (something that the QM has stated isn't even an issue all the time, but I digress), but part of the design documents for the ship that we agreed on was that it be a reasonably capable combatant in addition to its other roles. Phasers are good, but there are plenty of threats, known and unknown, that just need the extra punch torpedoes give.

That and IIRC they are the only weapons that can be used if you get jumped while going at warp speed. Phasers are made to work at some point around DS9 but thats a recent improvement.
 
This ship is not intended to engage heavy cruisers.

Regardless of intention, there are more than likely going to be some engagements that this vessel is going to need a large burst of firepower to put out, whether that's a heavy ship in wartime that doesn't give a damn what this ship's intended to engage, or unknown anomalies or void creatures that it encounters in the course of conducting science missions (there may not be many, but there were a few scientific anomalies in canon that required a torpedo exploding in them to smooth things out and return them to normal).
 
@Sayle, if we fitted a single torpedo launcher, could we get a guarantee that won't lose us a module slot?

We could even go with that joke we had for the old Curiosity class, and call it an "advanced probe launcher". Heck, integrate it into an astrometric lab maybe?

I'm trying to think of a compromise here which is not going to leave 40% of the thread annoyed with another 50%, and that's the best one I've come up with.
 
This ship is not intended to engage heavy cruisers.
Intention does not always translate to what happens in practice, especially given both the size of the Federation (and her potential enemies). These ships could quite easily find themselves on the frontline, either by accident as a new front suddenly opens up or by choice because they're literally the only ships close enough to respond in time.

We also know from the various tv shows that anomalies/incidents of the week that can only be (or are at are least best) dealt with by application of torpedo are relatively common.
 


Looking forward to the next phase, regardless of how this vote ultimately ends up. I'm just tired of the arguing.
 
This ship is not intended to engage heavy cruisers.


A Sagarmatha is barely able to defeat a Klingon cruiser from ambush and sustains heavy damage while doing so. A Galileo with torpedoes is, while formidably armed for a light cruiser, still inferior to a Sagarmatha in a tactical engagement in nearly every single way.

If a Galileo, torpedoes or not, tries to engage a Klingon capital ship, we're just giving them a free kill. The correct response is not to try to shoot the much higher performance Klingon ship, it's to go find some real warships to deal with it.
Indeed. The reason we, as Starfleet, science so hard is to do the Finding Out BEFORE we Fuck Around.

So if you're building a war ship you build the Defiant. But an exploration ship, you want to be able to fend off minor threats - most small spacefaring polities, and pirates - and avoid or outrun peers.

For anyone too much bigger than us, frankly, weapons never solve the problem anyway. Nadions and antimatter are potent, but also a well understood problem that enemies plan for. And when you run into someone who has solved that problem, you REALLY want that science.

It's different, of course, if we're talking about an Enterprise or something. The Galaxies and Constitutions and the like weren't meant to be war ships, or pure science vessels, or diplomats, so much as to be the Federation in microcosm and project the Federation's presence wheresoever they happened to be. Which is why they were as good at everything as possible for their day, and no regard to the expense, and had all the costs AND benefits of being extreme generalists. Which might, for example, hurt them in a straight fight, but also saved them countless times.
 
Um, so anything less than at worst an A- in Tactical is "Useless in war, failure" now? B- is nothing to sneeze at, frankly. The Curiosity had just 2 Type 1 Phasers while this hull is looking to have triple the number of Type 2s that were designed to have greater coverage capability and hit 50% harder on a per mount basis.
This ship is not intended to engage heavy cruisers.


A Sagarmatha is barely able to defeat a Klingon cruiser from ambush and sustains heavy damage while doing so. A Galileo with torpedoes is, while formidably armed for a light cruiser, still inferior to a Sagarmatha in a tactical engagement in nearly every single way.

If a Galileo, torpedoes or not, tries to engage a Klingon capital ship, we're just giving them a free kill. The correct response is not to try to shoot the much higher performance Klingon ship, it's to go find some real warships to deal with it.

This is just simply untrue? Like, for the millionth time, the Tactical Rating is an objective assessment of the ship's combat abilities, and it's an A. That's more important than my opinion, or yours, or anyone else's. The Galileo with torps is a good fighter for its size, taking into account its manoeuvrability and the likely range of ships it is going to run across, reflected in its rating. Like... that's what the mechanics of the quest state as a fact, you know?

Also, there's this idea that if something isn't the Super Duper Dreadnought, it's simply a waste to put in a fight, which is... not really a very good mindset for fighting a war as an industrial power? We weren't asked here to design The Best Battleship Ever, we want an cost-effective line combatant which can trade materiel efficiently with other ships. This isn't an explorer, it's not expected to fight enemy heavy cruisers alone - in wartime, it's expected to form an effective combatant when it fights in groups.

Ultimately, the simple fact is that torpedoes give the ship an A in Tactical, whilst it has an A- in cost. That means they should trade highly effectively with other warships, and this is the mindset you need to have if you are a navy designing a cost-effective combat platform.

If you don't care because you want a module slot, fair enough, but let's be honest about the merits here, right? This kind of sour grapes logic is silly.
 
Regardless of intention, there are more than likely going to be some engagements that this vessel is going to need a large burst of firepower to put out, whether that's a heavy ship in wartime that doesn't give a damn what this ship's intended to engage, or unknown anomalies or void creatures that it encounters in the course of conducting science missions (there may not be many, but there were a few scientific anomalies in canon that required a torpedo exploding in them to smooth things out and return them to normal).
Intention does not always translate to what happens in practice, especially given both the size of the Federation (and her potential enemies). These ships could quite easily find themselves on the frontline, either by accident as a new front suddenly opens up or by choice because they're literally the only ships close enough to respond in time.

We also know from the various tv shows that anomalies/incidents of the week that can only be (or are at are least best) dealt with by application of torpedo are relatively common.
We should add antimatter torpedo launchers to our science ship on the off chance that it's going to need them to deter aggressive fauna? Fauna that are resistant to shipboard phasers? And what do you mean, second front? Against who? The Kzinti are not expected to be a problem in the near future. The only expected enemy are the Klingons, who torpedoes will not be particularly useful against while mounted to this ship. The extra science module will be more useful in almost every scenario.

This is just simply untrue? Like, for the millionth time, the Tactical Rating is an objective assessment of the ship's combat abilities, and it's an A. That's more important than my opinion, or yours. The Galileo with torps is a good fighter for its size, taking into account its manoeuvrability and the likely range of ships it is going to run across. Like... that's what the mechanics of the quest state as a fact, you know?

Also, there's this idea that if something isn't the Super Duper Dreadnought, it's simply a waste to put in a fight, which is... not really a very good mindset for fighting a war as an industrial power? We weren't asked here to design The Best Battleship Ever, we want an effective line combatant which can trade with other ships. This isn't an explorer, it's not expected to fight enemy heavy cruisers alone - in wartime, it's expected to form an effective combatant when it fights in groups.

Ultimately, the simple fact is that Torpedoes give the ship an A in Tactical, whilst it has an A- in cost. That means they should trade highly effectively with other warships, and this is the mindset you need to have if you are a navy designing a cost-effective combat platform.
But it's not cost effective during wartime. A D- in infrastructure means that it is comically expensive to construct when your bottleneck is military production, and is close to being rejected for cost. A D- means that Starfleet looks at the cost of armament and goes "fucking what?"

The Copernicus is an extremely expensive starship, requiring substantial outlays to the civilian sector for manufacture of hull materials and standard operating systems. This is compounded by an equally onerous expense to the Utopia Planitia manufacturing center for her substantial armament and defensive systems. This is somewhat mitigated by the reduction in mass provided by the new electro-ceramic plating and a reduction in the aft phaser emplacements, but remains prohibitive. Accordingly the Copernicus is awarded one point out of eleven for both civilian and starfleet cost metrics, resulting in a D- in these sectors.
A D- is prohibitively expensive. Which is fine if you don't want to put phasers or torpedos on anything else at the moment, but god help you if you want to build these during a war. Or like, arm the Cygnus replacement moderately well.
 
400,000t is now considered a light cruiser. The reason a lot of us are actually happy that it's going to be relegated to rear area patrols is because it's supposed to be a science vessel that can do rear area patrols during war. Keeping it from being pressed into front line service is a goal, so that it can spend most of its time doing what we are designing it to do, SCIENCE!
Except that we were explicitly asked in the design brief for a ship that isn't restricted to that like the Cygnus was.
Because the Cygnus not being able to stand on the line was a problem according to Starfleet Command's sensibilites, so the entire "it's a rear line ship only" argument is willfully ignoring what the design brief is actually asking for.
 
But it's not cost effective during wartime. A D- in infrastructure means that it is comically expensive to construct when your bottleneck is military production, and is close to being rejected for cost. A D- means that Starfleet looks at the cost of armament and goes "fucking what?"

Okay except, again, we know that this is not true, because of the explicit statements from the GM that it does not make a difference in practice.

In a war which happened next year in a universe where we went for the torpedo-Galileo, we aren't going to be constructing the Gaileo at high-volume in wartime, we'd be building mostly Selachiis, and the cost difference isn't enough to make a difference:
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 a war which took place further out, say in a decade or two, we'd probably mostly be building mostly whatever our next-gen frigate design is, or our next-gen explorer or warship? Not a science ship which is also a decent line combatant in a pinch.

Again, because we have a lot of wartime production capacity which is sitting around idle since we stopped building the Selachii, we can task it to upgrading the Galileo essentially for free. It's a golden opportunity which we likely won't have again as we start building more combat-focussed ships in the next few years.
 
2208: Project Galileo (Engineering Section)
[X] 6 Phaser Banks

In the end you elect to give the Galileo a purely phaser-based armament. The six phaser banks will allow the ship to strike in practically any direction, barring some minor blindspots where the nacelles intersect with the firing arcs provided by the aft banks. While lacking the major punch provided by torpedoes, the disadvantages offered by the reduced engine power and increased overhead by including the launchers was eventually judged to outweigh the tactical benefits. Instead of torpedoes a probe launcher has been installed above the main deflector. Despite the probes being substantially larger than the standard torpedo the reduced footprint from removing the antimatter feed and containment systems leaves the launcher with a smaller scale compared to the weapons system.

That brings you to actually fitting the interior. There are three areas in the engineering section that could be used for auxiliary purposes. The first is directly below main engineering, where the Galileo is fitted with a standard cargo bay. This could be substantially expanded to provide the ship with a major cargo carrying capability, which would synergise with its rapid-response capabilities and the planned basing out of midrange and border starbases. Alternatively the space could be used for a small arboretum capable of sustaining most known forms of plantlife to allow samples to be maintained for later specialist analysis.

Second is adjacent to the main deflector itself, which has room for either a secondary computer core to expand the ship's computing capacity or a workshop to allow local repairs and fabrication. The former will allow onboard laboratories access to much more computer time, while the latter provides an invaluable service for both the ship or anything that requires replacement parts that aren't immediately on hand.

Last is next to main engineering, which could be used for a specialist dilithium laboratory. This would allow the Galileo to evaluate dilithium deposits on-site during its surveys rather than marking them for later investigation. Alternatively the space could be set aside for a more general geosciences suite which could accomplish more work overall but lacking the specificity of the specialist equipment needed for dilithium analysis.


[ ] 0: Cargo Bay Expansion (+1 Engineering, 3 Cargo -> 6 Cargo)
[ ] 0: Small Arboretum (+2 Science)

[ ] 1: Secondary Computer Core (+2 Science, Advanced Computing)
[ ] 1: Workshop (+2 Engineering, Fabrication)

[ ] 2: Dilithium Analysis (+1 Science, Dilithium Prospecting)
[ ] 2: Geosciences (+2 Science)



Two Hour Moratorium, Please
 
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[ ] 0: Small Arboretum (+2 Science)
[ ] 1: Secondary Computer Core (+2 Science, Advanced Computing)
[ ] 2: Dilithium Analysis (+1 Science, Dilithium Prospecting)

Not one step back.
 
We're still in an era we have to replace Dilithium regularly, aren't we? That actually makes it pretty tempting. Most of the others...we were asked for a science ship, and the computer core is a gimmie. Cargo would actually synergize with sprint speed, it's true, but it wasn't in the brief.
 
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