A little torn because of this, however part of the reason why they have to run so much is not enough guns. We've already upgraded the Torpedoes and I expect we'll be able to significantly increase the number of phasers. So if there's something they can't out run, hopefully they can out fight it.So the options are to either close the gap between max cruise and max speed, or lengthen the gap.
There are arguments to be made for either case.
Canonically, the NX is going to be doing a lot of cruising between destinations. But also, canonically, when it encounters trouble, it spends a lot of time trying to leg it.
So~ we kinda have to chose between good at it's job, or less drama llama. I'm divided.
That really depends on how far away the distress call is. Say 12 hours or less and sprinting there is an option, a crisis that's 2 or 3 days away... Maximum cruise will get you their faster. Given how few ships we actually have and how big space is, and how slow we are even with Warp 5 engines, I think a high sustained rate of passage will be more useful to responding to events days or weeks distant.[X] Racing Configuration (+0.2 Maximum) (Industry 17->21)
If this was a successor Enterprise (read. any Federation instead of United Earth) I would vote for cruising speed. But while this is supposed to be an exploratory ship, it is also going to be the flagship class of the fleet for the next few years. We cannot have it incapable of responding to distress calls in a timely manner.
It's funding from the Warp 5 programme. We only get it for the first ship, every ship after that we will be paying for normally.
That's what the chief engineer is for.
Dang it. That's actually a decent point.That really depends on how far away the distress call is. Say 12 hours or less and sprinting there is an option, a crisis that's 2 or 3 days away... Maximum cruise will get you their faster. Given how few ships we actually have and how big space is, and how slow we are even with Warp 5 engines, I think a high sustained rate of passage will be more useful to responding to events days or weeks distant.
Eh, even though the NX is already going to be shipping out with better than canonical start armament, that only means that our NX isn't going to find itself humped by Pirates like a female dog in heat. The real threats that the NX Enterprise had to run away from was the polity funded ships (like the NX) that could take a couple hits from the phase cannons, or the new atomic torpedoes, and just disdainfully sniff at us before asking with a sneer what that was supposed to do, "scuff [their] [feces}?" So~, nah, we still need legs, cause the only thing our guns are gonna dissuade are the up gunned freighters the pirates tend to use.A little torn because of this, however part of the reason why they have to run so much is not enough guns. We've already upgraded the Torpedoes and I expect we'll be able to significantly increase the number of phasers. So if there's something they can't out run, hopefully they can out fight it.
Yes, but it will still effect us regardless. Also, let's be real, this class of ship is going to get into loads of trouble whether we're at war or not.
More and better everything, presumably.