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Starfleet Design Bureau

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Having competing designs for the same brief makes sense, as it's what any large organisation like Starfleet would do, and gives us more actual stakes when designing. This was a neat resolution, and honestly it's more fun to read something comparing and contrasting two designs.

Putting torpedoes as standard on future designs also makes sense, it should avoid this in future. A good learning experience, in the end.

CanYouMeme said:
It's also extremely important for us to note as a baseline in the future - a B- Tactical rating means a ship can't be expected to consistently win a fight against a peer opponent, judging by the engineer's evaluation in the first half. A useful reference for later.
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At the risk of being histrionic, this was brought up repeatedly at the time, and also confirmed by the GM in extensive questioning. (In short, full coverage phasers are alright for self-defence against little ships, not for war against similar-sized ships, stations, etc.). Hopefully now there's not a really contentious argument going on where it's an active area of contention, we can accept this and move on.

At the end of the day had the opportunity to build a line cruiser, a sort of budget Constitution to fill out Starfleet, able to respond to almost any situation and perform well whilst retaining an impeccable science suite, using torpedo manufacturing capacity that would lie idle otherwise. (Or at it turned out, go to the Saladin.) A Kea with torpedoes would have an equal tactical rating to the Saladin, but full phaser coverage and a higher Defence Rating due to sheer size, on top of being much faster at warp. She would thus obsolete less rapidly as a combatant, on top of being a vastly better science platform. Better defences would also actually increase her scientific value by letting her venture farther afield; the update notes that Starfleet felt obliged to mostly keep the Kea within the safety of Federation borders.

We dropped the ball a little bit here. Luckily Starfleet was able to at least mitigate our mistake by going for a smaller order of the Kea as a science platform (where it did very well), whilst building a more competent cheap combatant to complement her. It's not the end of the world.

If there's a lesson we should take from this, it's that bolstering a ship's mission profile and overshooting our bare minimum design specifications is usually a good idea if it costs us little to nothing to do so. Let's move on from this, and never again clip ship's wings based on the flawed assumption that exceeding the bare minimum is somehow wrong.
 
Skippy said:
At the end of the day had the opportunity to build a line cruiser, a sort of budget Constitution to fill out Starfleet, able to respond to almost any situation and perform well whilst retaining an impeccable science suite, using torpedo manufacturing capacity that would lie idle otherwise. (Or at it turned out, go to the Saladin.) A Kea with torpedoes would have an equal tactical rating to the Saladin, but full phaser coverage and a much higher Defence Rating due to sheer size, on top of being much faster at warp. She would thus obsolete less rapidly as a combatant, on top of being a vastly better science platform. Better defences would also actually increase her scientific value by letting her venture farther afield; the update notes that Starfleet felt obliged to mostly keep the Kea within the safety of Federation borders.

We dropped the ball a little bit here. Luckily Starfleet was able to at least mitigate our mistake by going for a smaller order of the Kea as a science platform (where it did very well), whilst building a more competent cheap combatant to complement her. It's not the end of the world.
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I mean, they just outright ripped out a lab to fit torpedoes and more anti-matter in so you we all won in the end with the heavy science cruiser.

Especially me. It is the Kea. : D
 
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Skippy said:
Having competing designs for the same brief makes sense, as it's what any large organisation like Starfleet would do, and gives us more actual stakes when designing. This was a neat resolution, and honestly it's more fun to read something comparing and contrasting two designs.

Putting torpedoes as standard on future designs also makes sense, it should avoid this in future. A good learning experience, in the end.



At the risk of being histrionic, this was brought up repeatedly at the time, and also confirmed by the GM in extensive questioning. (In short, full coverage phasers are alright for self-defence against little ships, not for war against similar-sized ships, stations, etc.). Hopefully now there's not a really contentious argument going on where it's an active area of contention, we can accept this and move on.

At the end of the day had the opportunity to build a line cruiser, a sort of budget Constitution to fill out Starfleet, able to respond to almost any situation and perform well whilst retaining an impeccable science suite, using torpedo manufacturing capacity that would lie idle otherwise. (Or at it turned out, go to the Saladin.) A Kea with torpedoes would have an equal tactical rating to the Saladin, but full phaser coverage and a much higher Defence Rating due to sheer size, on top of being much faster at warp. She would thus obsolete less rapidly as a combatant, on top of being a vastly better science platform. Better defences would also actually increase her scientific value by letting her venture farther afield; the update notes that Starfleet felt obliged to mostly keep the Kea within the safety of Federation borders.

We dropped the ball a little bit here. Luckily Starfleet was able to at least mitigate our mistake by going for a smaller order of the Kea as a science platform (where it did very well), whilst building a more competent cheap combatant to complement her. It's not the end of the world.

If there's a lesson we should take from this, it's that bolstering a ship's mission profile and overshooting our bare minimum design specifications is usually a good idea if it costs us little to nothing to do so. Let's move on from this, and never again clip ship's wings based on the flawed assumption that exceeding the bare minimum is somehow wrong.
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Could you please just get over it already? You lost a vote, it happens to all of us. Move on.

Why can't we just enjoy the ship we ended up with?
 
Derpmind said:
Could you please just get over it already? You lost a vote, it happens to all of us. Move on.
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This is a quest, and we're discussing a retrospective which reflects on our design choices and lessons for the future. The decision over torpedoes was pivotal to the whole outcome of the Kea and had ramifications beyond the project itself, as the update itself repeatedly mentions. One can hardly discuss the Kea without discussing torpedoes.

If you're not a fan of continuing to discuss this design, then fair enough, I sympathise, no one is forcing you to do so. There's no reason to be silly here.
 
Because the way to make better ships is to learn lessons from the last ships.

I also think you should care about the 'pew-pew'. (You really should) when it's relevant and surprisingly, it's almost always relevant.

ETA: That said, we shouldn't litigate. We've made our points. We should just keep it in mind for later.
 
With the low maneuverability, ultra high warp sprin,t and the refit to include torps, I can almost see it acting in the tactical role almost like a horse archer, boom and zoom.
 
Skippy said:
This is a quest, and we're discussing a retrospective which reflects on our design choices and lessons for the future. The decision over torpedoes was pivotal to the whole outcome of the Kea and had ramifications beyond the project itself, as the update itself repeatedly mentions. One can hardly discuss the Kea without discussing torpedoes.

If you're not a fan of continuing to discuss this design, then fair enough, I sympathise, no one is forcing you to do so. There's no reason to be silly here.
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I refuse to dignify this with a response. If you can't be straight with me, it's not worth even bothering to talk to you. I suggest you also refrain from keeping this discussion going. Please.
 
abominable said:
Basically focus on getting tactical to S, maybe maneuverability as the second priority.

Science is the thoroughly abused and neglected middle child. :V
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They are more likely to have A tactical more often than not, S rank requires them to have some serious bull malarky on the field, and with their comparatively lackluster science and industry, they aren't getting to out-tech the Federation often. Frankly Sciecne will often come in dead last with it being: Tactical > Production > Engineering >Science as the usual priority list for the Klingons and Romulans.
 
CuriousRaptor said:
They are more likely to have A tactical more often than not, S rank requires them to have some serious bull malarky on the field, and with their comparatively lackluster science and industry, they aren't getting to out-tech the Federation often. Frankly Sciecne will often come in dead last with it being: Tactical > Production > Engineering >Science as the usual priority list for the Klingons and Romulans.
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Oh sure, I just mean that S should always be the established goal for any dedicated warship, and after all the compromises to get everything to acceptable ratings, they should still have something along the lines of an A rating.

In summary, you may not get to S, but you're definitely gonna try your best.
 
The way Starfleet holds off more militaristic species is by building "science ships" and "explorers" with the firepower to hold their own against dedicated warships and the speed to outrun what they can't fight. This is why Starfleet tends to favour versatile, multirole cruiser designs, which would often be considered heavily overengineered by the standards of the Romulan or Klingon Empires.

I think there is a certain amount of basic disagreement in the Quest about whether this "Starfleet philosophy" is a good thing, or we should instead build very narrowly scoped ships for one or two jobs at a time. I won't pretend I'm neutral here given how emphatically I've argued in the past for enhancing a ship's mission profile whenever possible. But whether you agree with me or not, it seems that this is often the meta-level disagreement which tends to underpin and motivate the object-level discussions over particular options.
 
CuriousRaptor said:
It's essentially a shiv made to shank Klingon in a fight for RIGHT NOW. As the fight failed to materialize until many decades later, it aged poorly.
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This, tactical is always going to push for cheap and upgunned but unless the fight is happening inside the decade or two their design is going to age poorly. The Skate design school is an amazing outcome of this thread, but outside of serious wars is an over specialization.

The Kea's perfect science compliment, uncramped design, and already good baseline combat stats for a fleet anchor gave her the value and space for refits when the call to war came. It's a confirmation that the general Starfleet ethos works.
 
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Wootius said:
This, tactical is always going to push for cheap and upgunned but unless the fight is happening inside the decade or two their design is going to age poorly. The Skate design school is an amazing outcome of this thread, but outside of serious wars is an over specialization.

The Kea's perfect science compliment, uncramped design, and already good baseline combat stats for a fleet anchor gave her the value and space for refits when the call to war came. It's a confirmation that the general Starfleet ethos works.
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Skates, and such are ideal for when we know a fight is coming, when the enemy is reaching for their bonk stick, or when an enemy comes from nowhere and we need our own bonk stick. But outside of imminent conflict they are terrible for doing anything but maybe patrolling. This was true back then and will remain true now. The issue we are always going to see is if we can make a ship that's a generalist good enough to unseat the other generalists Starfleet already has and can make easier, or should we specialize into whatever given mission assignment we have. With that in mind, neither side was as much as a generalist as Starfleet usually favors (i think that'd be something like B across the board) but instead what specialties we played too and how badly we ate at other stats for the losses. The kea is an all around better ship for anything that isn't immediate attritional warfare, so it performed massively better because starfleet wasn't thrust into said circumstances.
 
It's a good point, but the one snag is that giving the Kea an effective armament requiring a few decades and a refit meant that Starfleet essentially felt forced to produce the Sultan to offset the Kea's deficiencies. This carries an opportunity cost, because the Sultan is just straight-up a less capable ship than the Kea, in every way except being able to perform competently as a wartime combatant, and being able to operate more hulls. It's much better than building entirely Keas and then getting caught in a war, don't get me wrong, but there's some issues.

To put it a different way; the cost we incurred was being forced to build sixteen Sultans when we could have built another eight to twelve Keas, which would have had greater longevity, and allowed us to do a lot more science in total. (Although there is something to be said for the sheer number of hulls in service, as more ships can survey more systems, etc..) This is honestly a much more interesting and nuanced kind of tradeoff more reminiscent of actual procurement decisions, so I hope this idea of parallel design teams continues in the event that Sayle feels better and continues with the Quest.

Also on that note, sending you all my best wishes @Sayle, hope that you're able to get that treatment soon and it helps. ❤
 
Skippy said:
It's a good point, but the one snag is that giving the Kea an effective armament requiring a few decades and a refit meant that Starfleet essentially felt forced to produce the Sultan to offset the Kea's deficiencies. This carries an opportunity cost, because the Sultan is just straight-up a less capable ship than the Kea, in every way except being able to perform competently as a wartime combatant, and being able to operate more hulls. It's much better than building entirely Keas and then getting caught in a war, but there's some issues.

To put it a different way; the cost we incurred was being forced to build sixteen Sultans when we could have built another eight to twelve Keas, which would have had greater longevity, and allowed us to do a lot more science in total. (Although there is something to be said for the sheer number of hulls in service, as more ships can survey more systems, etc..) This is honestly a much more interesting and nuanced kind of tradeoff more reminiscent of actual procurement decisions, so I hope this idea of parallel design teams continues in the event that Sayle feels better and continues with the Quest.

Also, sending you all my best wishes @Sayle, hope that you're able to get that treatment soon and it helps. ❤
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I mean you're not arguing with me, I was team torpedo. : p
 
Skippy said:
It's a good point, but the one snag is that giving the Kea an effective armament requiring a few decades and a refit meant that Starfleet essentially felt forced to produce the Sultan to offset the Kea's deficiencies. This carries an opportunity cost, because the Sultan is just straight-up a less capable ship than the Kea, in every way except being able to perform competently as a wartime combatant, and being able to operate more hulls. It's much better than building entirely Keas and then getting caught in a war, don't get me wrong, but there's some issues.

To put it a different way; the cost we incurred was being forced to build sixteen Sultans when we could have built another eight to twelve Keas, which would have had greater longevity, and allowed us to do a lot more science in total. (Although there is something to be said for the sheer number of hulls in service, as more ships can survey more systems, etc..) This is honestly a much more interesting and nuanced kind of tradeoff more reminiscent of actual procurement decisions, so I hope this idea of parallel design teams continues in the event that Sayle feels better and continues with the Quest.

Also on that note, sending you all my best wishes @Sayle, hope that you're able to get that treatment soon and it helps. ❤
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Keep in mind the refit was 40 years into its life, ten years past the Sultan being considered entirely unsuited for a science ship. Any torpedoes we added would have either ratcheted up the cost even more or left gaps in the Kea's phaser coverage and made it far easier to be brought down. Which ultimately wouldn't have edged the Sultan out at all given the Sultan was designed to be a shiv against the Klingons of the time, where as an even more expensive ship with the same holes in coverage and far less maneuverability means a net tactical loss anyways.
 
Honestly Starfleet has been in the position of not really needing highly focused dedicated warships, because they enjoy a technological and economic advantage such that their armed exploration vessel can causally hand other people's battleships their own warp cores- even when the battleship in question is two decades newer and designed specifically to beat the ship in question. Even the Dominion didn't really push them that far, it takes Bad Timelines like Yesterday's Enterprise where the Federation is on year sixty of the Klingon War(s) to get them to actually build real dedicated warships.
 
CuriousRaptor said:
Keep in mind. C is average, a design with straight c's is the expected average for a ship of its size/class.
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I could have sworn a C rating on the scale meant "below average?" IIRC we were working with A-B-C for high end, middle of the road, and below average respectively, and then added S and D to the ends of the scale for "as good as physically possible" and "absolute disaster," right?
 
I don't think we are on one of those bad timelines yet, in fact I don't think this timeline has diverged too far from cannon beyond ship designs.


(also side note but I just got a little salty with my response earlier because I personally don't want this quest to become chasing after s rank tactical to the expense of everything else, I'm gonna drop it but its just total mil-fic isn't my jam).
 
Wootius said:
I mean you're not arguing with me, I was team torpedo. : p
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lmao
Apologies, I think my experience of this thread for a while was as a sort of fever dream where people were annoyed at me for arguing about torpedoes.

Think of the last level of Hotline Miami 2, except instead of the Russian mafia it's just an argument about "turning radius" until it all bleeds together and you realise you're actually in one of the circles of Hell.

CuriousRaptor said:
Keep in mind the refit was 40 years into its life, ten years past the Sultan being considered entirely unsuited for a science ship. Any torpedoes we added would have either ratcheted up the cost even more or left gaps in the Kea's phaser coverage and made it far easier to be brought down. Which ultimately wouldn't have edged the Sultan out at all given the Sultan was designed to be a shiv against the Klingons of the time, where as an even more expensive ship with the same holes in coverage and far less maneuverability means a net tactical loss anyways.
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At the risk of beating a fossilised horse into dust, by word of QM torpedoes would not have increased the cost of the Kea in any way. Basically, we had a lot of production lines for torpedoes which were sitting idle after the war, so it was really fortuitous timing. There was the option for reducing phaser coverage to four and mounting torpedoes, but it was not seriously in contention.

LunaMoth said:
(also side note but I just got a little salty with my response earlier because I personally don't want this quest to become chasing after s rank tactical to the expenses of everything else, I'm gonna drop it but its just mil-fic isn't my jam).
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I would say personally, as the CEO Of Making SDB Questers Cry By Telling Them Uncomfortable and Inconvenient Truths About Torpedoes, that I 100% agree with you about this.

We need to design ships that can defend the Federation, but Starfleet's missions of exploration, diplomacy, scientific discovery, space colonisation and humanitarian (sophontitarian?) support, are just as important. Starfleet isn't just a navy, and Star Trek is not Mil-SF, whilst there are elements of both in its DNA, to focus only on those would rob the setting of its charm and joy.
 
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CuriousRaptor said:
Keep in mind the refit was 40 years into its life, ten years past the Sultan being considered entirely unsuited for a science ship. Any torpedoes we added would have either ratcheted up the cost even more or left gaps in the Kea's phaser coverage and made it far easier to be brought down. Which ultimately wouldn't have edged the Sultan out at all given the Sultan was designed to be a shiv against the Klingons of the time, where as an even more expensive ship with the same holes in coverage and far less maneuverability means a net tactical loss anyways.
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The torpedoes didn't cost anything in coverage, maneuverability, or science. The refit lost a lab for extra antimatter.

The argument is the torpedo expense would have negated the cost of the Sultan class entirely as the Kea would have been seen fit for border duty, maybe an extra Shark or two for tense areas. I find the argument persuasive.
 
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