[X] 6 Phaser Banks
Which underscores just how terrifyingly powerful V'ger's plasma weapons were in TMP when the upgraded Defensive screen could barely tank one hit and would likely fail to stop a second hit.Defensive 'screens' as opposed to shields. Which can tank hundreds of hits from it's own photon torpedoes at the cost of being unable to shoot back with them active.
I don't care about whether or not Torpedoes increase the cost of the ship; they still take up internal space that can be better used for more science.
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.
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 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.
This ship is not intended to engage heavy cruisers.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.
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.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'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.
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.
Indeed. The reason we, as Starfleet, science so hard is to do the Finding Out BEFORE we Fuck Around.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.
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.
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).
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.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.
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?"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.
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.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.
Except that we were explicitly asked in the design brief for a ship that isn't restricted to that like the Cygnus was.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!
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?"
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.