Starfleet Design Bureau

[CuriousRaptor]

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?

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Nope C is average, D is below average, and they expect you to have something to make up for it, B is good, A is very good/peak ability, S is you somehow bypassed the theoretical limit.... how? Note S class usually means you need synergies to even have a shot at getting it in most cases.

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.



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.

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Refer to the tactical systems updates where in the 6 phasers and 2 torps would have changed it from C- and B- to D- and A. It would have increased the Infrastructural costs quite a lot, and would have likely caused the Kea to have an even longer build time comparatively, whereas the Sultan would be able to be pumped out in even greater comparative numbers, have nearly as good a tactical score, and be good enough (Tm pending) Keep in mind a D- is almost failing and would get us a long look by anyone anywhere for pushing the design. All on a ship that by design brief wasn't supposed to be a main-line combatant.

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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I find that doubtful in extremis given they would have been able to make even more sultans compared to the Keas with torpedos, and quantity has a quality all its own. The issue was never the torpedoes in of themselves, it was size and how many bodies we could throw at the enemy for Starfleet tactical. Because 2 A- tactical ships is vastly better than one A tactical in their minds.

 

[thepsyborg]

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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The Klingons are not peer opponents. The Klingons are about one full generation of tech ahead of us. (They're not going to stay there, but they had one hell of a head start.)

A score of B- is slightly above average for its time and tech.

In these you will be graded from "D-", representing the lowest possible result, to "A" at the highest. The scores of A+ and S are reserved for breakthroughs in capability thanks to prototype technology or unforeseen design synergies, with a score of "C+" representing an average result. These scores are relative: the Thunderchild-class would always be considered an A in tactical, even if its absolute ratings become less relevant over time.

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[7th Hex]

Nope C is average, D is below average, and they expect you to have something to make up for it, B is good, A is very good/peak ability, S is you somehow bypassed the theoretical limit.... how? Note S class usually means you need synergies to even have a shot at getting it in most cases.

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Ah, I was going to ask if there was a new WoG that I missed for the scale, but it looks like @thepsyborg posted it already and my eyes must have just glazed over it when reading the update in question. Just another thing that changed between threads alongside all the mechanic/stats updates I guess, since I remember them being pretty clearly defined in the original thread.

 

[Strunkriidiisk]

Imagine my reaction to excitedly opening this thread, only to see This Fucking Argument starting right back up.

Oh wait, I can use an audiovisual aid:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTsXtu3ivko

 

[Wootius]

I find that doubtful in extremis given they would have been able to make even more sultans compared to the Keas with torpedos, and quantity has a quality all its own. The issue was never the torpedoes in of themselves, it was size and how many bodies we could throw at the enemy for Starfleet tactical. Because 2 A- tactical ships is vastly better than one A tactical in their minds.

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It would have had the same burst damage, better single target, obviously superior multi-target, higher defenses, and the tactical and strategic advantage in Warp to choose its battles still. It is slower but the heavy cruiser/fleet anchor roll already fits in with the current existing ship classes better by giving the Sharks something to hide behind when they need to.

It was the perfect time to make a Thunderchild descendant.

 

[Silvis]

How about we move on to something that the thread actually mostly agrees on. Like the fact that we all take the budget requirements for explorer class ships. As basically just "Yes".

Which I totally agree with by the way.

 

[Skippy]

Refer to the tactical systems updates where in the 6 phasers and 2 torps would have changed it from C- and B- to D- and A. It would have increased the Infrastructural costs quite a lot, and would have likely caused the Kea to have an even longer build time comparatively, whereas the Sultan would be able to be pumped out in even greater comparative numbers, have nearly as good a tactical score, and be good enough (Tm pending) Keep in mind a D- is almost failing and would get us a long look by anyone anywhere for pushing the design.

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The Infrastructural costs were, by explicit statements of QM, not relevant in the specific circumstances we were in. (They would be relevant in other circumstances, in general.) Again, please read the link I provided in the last post, I am not explaining all of this again.

Build times are a fair point, although given we're not in a war, I don't think it's the most relevant thing as we have the luxury of time. Honestly I'm not sure how much torpedoes actually play into it, but you'd imagine some effect.

All on a ship that by design brief wasn't supposed to be a main-line combatant.

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This is a kind of weird thing to say given the last update saw Starfleet choosing to cut our order and build another design in parallel due to the deficiencies of the Kea as a main-line combatant, before eventually refitting it to correct our mistake. There was clearly some misunderstanding of the brief going on, along with legitimate disagreements, but at this point it feels kind of silly to try and die on that hill.

Like, it's not the biggest deal in the world, honestly, but the sheer levels of rationalisation you see in this Quest are mind-boggling. Genuinely I've seen nothing like it in years.

EDIT: Honestly we're just having the old vote argument again, which is really silly, so I'm going to leave it here.

 

[landcollector]

before eventually refitting it to correct our mistake.

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You wanted torps, should not have cheaped out on the Impulse engines. That was the mistake, end of story.

Edit: otherwise, I had a bit of feelings roller-coaster on this one. The initial run of only 4 was disappointing but the 2nd and 3rd runs breaking into double digits was uplifting.

 

[LunaMoth]

Like, it's not the biggest deal in the world, honestly, but the sheer levels of rationalisation you see in this Quest are mind-boggling. I've seen nothing like it in years.

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This was the first quest I actively started participating in to a major degree I think, I think part of the charm here is trying to guess what the best options are and seeing how what we vote for fares, and is directly why there's so much rationalization because while Sayle provides info on what each option does they don't explain everything about each option or how it interacts with other picks (which is also part of the charm tbh).

 

[Compellor]

Yeah, our focus was "enough phasers to swat orion pirates, enough coverage to sweep stragglers off a sagarmatha's tail, enough science to survey god, mostly cheap enough"

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"Would you like to take a survey? Question 1: What does God need with a starship?"

Anyway, a few Klingon cruiser captains in the border reaches are going to get a big surprise. For years the Federation's huge scary-looking heavy cruisers are turning tail and running whenever a real warrior shows up. Then suddenly we're in Kirk's era and the big ships are turning toward the D6 and locking torpedoes.

 

[CuriousRaptor]

It would have had the same burst damage, better single target, obviously superior multi-target, higher defenses, and the tactical and strategic advantage in Warp to choose its battles still. It is slower but the heavy cruiser/fleet anchor roll already fits in with the current existing ship classes better by giving the Sharks something to hide behind when they need to.

It was the perfect time to make a Thunderchild descendant.

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The fact you want a science ship to be a Dreadnought heir is... odd to say the least. But you have your opinion. I disagree with it, but hey that's life. Maybe next design we can make something neat.

This is a kind of weird thing to say given the last update saw Starfleet choosing to cut our order and build another design in parallel due to the deficiencies of the Kea as a main-line combatant, before eventually refitting it to correct our mistake. There was clearly some misunderstanding of the brief going on, along with legitimate disagreements, but at this point it feels kind of silly to try and die on that hill.

Like, it's not the biggest deal in the world, honestly, but the sheer levels of rationalisation you see in this Quest are mind-boggling. Genuinely I've seen nothing like it in years.

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The fact you're actively intimating people with a difference of opinion are making things up in order to have a reason to disagree with you is telling. It's actually rather insulting.

But given we seem to be relitigating old arguments, let's drop it and agree to disagree.

 

[Trent01]

How about we move on to something that the thread actually mostly agrees on. Like the fact that we all take the budget requirements for explorer class ships. As basically just "Yes".

Which I totally agree with by the way.

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I will agree with you on that subject, so long as I get your counter-sign that all war-focused ships we design should be of Arrowhead-type.

Theres a trend there, and it's a good one. Multi-role explorers or utility cruisers need the volume of saucers, but when it's war, it's WAR mode. No distractions from that, and command agreed with us there considering how long they kept the Skates even if they still depended on hull polarization.

 

[CanYouMeme]

The two aren't mutually exclusive, you know? A ship can be built to be cheap and with the mindset of 'we're focusing on just one faction of the customer support base', and still end up as a ship which does a bunch of stuff, none of them especially well. The intent might not have been jack of all trades, but that seems to be what they got.

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I don't even know where this argument is going anymore, so if we can't mesh positions after this I'm going to drop it.

Look, I'm making an issue out of this because you seem to be presenting it as a "specialization vs generalization" issue. That is not my contention here, not why an arguably inferior ship that skimped on the primary mission was selected in superior numbers and roughly equal tonnage, and not why we should consider this an issue to consider going forward.

It is a "cost vs utility" issue. And the Saladine, for all that it is arguably an inferior ship, has a superior cost vs utility metric than the Kea.

Yes, the Kea had a technically longer lifespan. Yes, the Kea fulfilled the primary mission better. But because of suboptimal decisions on our part, it wasn't useful enough across a broad enough spectrum of missions for its cost, and Starfleet decided it wasn't good enough on its own.

Sayle chose to cover our asses this time by presenting a ship that deliberately complimented our design and ignored the primary customer requirement as much as it could, and - I shall reiterate - the Saladine was still was ordered in roughly equal mass. A QM saving us from ourselves is not a luxury we should count on.

The Klingons are not peer opponents. The Klingons are about one full generation of tech ahead of us. (They're not going to stay there, but they had one hell of a head start.)

A score of B- is slightly above average for its time and tech.

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Fair enough, I'll take the correction.

I've concluded that settling for "somewhat above the Mathematical Average" as our preferred standard was something we shouldn't have done in this instance. See above for the rationale why.

How we move on to something that the thread actually mostly agrees on. Like the fact that we all take the budget requirements for explorer class ships. As basically just "Yes".

Which I totally agree with by the way.

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I second this proposition.

 

[Skippy]

You wanted torps, should not have cheaped out on the Impulse engines. That was the mistake, end of story.

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Torpedoes work even better with better engines, it's true; but we know from Word of QM and also the fact that the Tactical Ratings are inclusive of stuff like manoeuvrability that this in no way made torps useless for the Kea. (Except in voter's minds, apparently.) Like, this is simply and explicitly false; torpedoes represent a siificant increase in aggregate firepower and this was backed up numerically, in the ratings, and by the QM, not to mention Starfleet agreeing! This is the era of ships getting bigger and manoeuvring more sedately after all, like the D6; look at Sayle's comments when we were picking the phasers.

The impulse engines also would have increased the cost rating which we actually needed to care about; torpedoes did not.

 

[KNakamura]

I'm obliged at this point.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U2zJOryHKQ

 

[Lavaflow]

On an in-universe level, it is possible that the Saladin didn't have a war to fight in when it commissioned because of the simple fact that it was commissioned. War, even for Klingons, is generally a risk vs reward proposition. The Saladin, looking at the stats, seems to have been as close to a dedicated warship as Starfleet could have produced outside of a time of war. Klingon strategic planning could have seen them coming out of the yards and decided that the original plan fighting a Starfleet with the only dedicated warships aging into obsolescence was an entirely different proposition to fighting a Starfleet with those ships but also fresh new war cruisers deploying.
On a meta-narrative level, I've got no idea if that's at all relevant.

 

[Silvis]

"So," Macnair said, sidling up to Naith during the recess. "What do you think?"

"It is a remarkable vessel," Naith said, paging through the documentation with one hand and consuming a pastry with a name Macnair couldn't pronounce with the other. It wasn't an alien pastry, Macnair just struggled with French. "And an expensive vessel."

"Can we build it?" he asked.

"Obviously," Naith replied. "You wouldn't be presenting this information if the prototype wasn't nearing completion."

Macnair rolled his eyes. "That's not what I meant. You know better than anyone else what the Federation's supply lines look like right now. Can we build this?"

Naith considered for nearly three minutes, the silence only broken by the occasional tap on her dataslate and the sound of her chewing at the pastry. "Yes."

Macnair blinked in surprise. "No qualifiers you'd like to attach to that? No demands for it to be stripped back?"

"No," she said. "Were this Vulcan, or Andoria, or Tellar Prime, I would say this ship is impractical and infeasible. But this is Earth. Were I consulted, I would have described the Enterprise as impractical and infeasible, considering Earth's capabilities at the time. I would have considered the Thunderchild equally impractical and infeasible. And for the other members of the Federation, they would have been. But the factors that prevail elsewhere clearly do not apply to Earth. You seem capable of, to borrow a phrase from your people, doing anything you choose to set your mind to. And you are quite capable of setting your collective mind to tasks."

"So you're saying we can afford it, but no one else could pull together the will to make it real?" Macnair said. "Good. Then she's following in the Enterprise's footsteps."

"Indeed." Admiral Naith finished off the last bite of her pastry. "Project Copernicus has my approval, pending final space trials. And I now understand your earlier smugness."

"What? Me? Smug?" Macnair said, putting a hand to his chest. "I would never."

"Your sarcasm is noted. I recommend refraining from using it when you argue Project Copernicus's case in front of the others."

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So to summarize what I get from this. If our Explorer class isn't making the shipyard workers cry themselves to sleep. Then we're doing something wrong.

 

[Shard]

The update is as soothing iced lemonade sundae on a hot summer's day, an uplifting note to raise up the day; The discussion was texture to the drink, raising it from mere beverage to an experience remembered. The vote rererelitigation is as choking on an unexpected lemon peel that somehow got through, a moment spoilt.

Yeesh.

 

[7th Hex]

I will agree with you on that subject, so long as I get your counter-sign that all war-focused ships we design should be of Arrowhead-type.

Theres a trend there, and it's a good one. Multi-role explorers or utility cruisers need the volume of saucers, but when it's war, it's WAR mode. No distractions from that, and command agreed with us there considering how long they kept the Skates even if they still depended on hull polarization.

Click to shrink...

Eh, minor disagreement on the idea that all combat-focused ships should be Arrowheads. Skate-style bare minimum murderballs are great for emergency build programs in major peer fights, the kind where we need to double our fleet size yesterday. Outside of those though I think we can lean a bit more towards quality of warships rather than quantity, and Half-Saucer or at least Arrowhead+Blister type hulls also have their place IMO. Even if we completely eschew non-military uses of the extra volume they can still be put to use making a better warship such as by giving it extra antimatter to extend it's range, or maybe just not being as much of a cramped block of machinery to live in while on patrol.

Gotta work the soft factors you can't easily quantify too, instead of sacrificing everything on the altar of hard factors like firepower and mass reduction ya know?

 

[Silvis]

My main issue with Arrowhead ships is that we don't get total coverage of our surroundings with our weapons. Which when our most common enemies have cloaking technology. Which means that skips having blindspots is kind of a problem.

 

[LunaMoth]

My main issue with Arrowhead ships is that we don't get total coverage of our surroundings with our weapons. Which when our most common enemies have cloaking technology. Which means that skips having blindspots is kind of a problem.

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Ironically the arrowhead design would probably be good for a cloak ship, or at least thats the vibe of the arrowhead hull-shape.

 

[Darth Locutus]

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.

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I honestly think that the ideal is a mix, and you have to at least acknowledge and account for the risks and possibilities of non-warships getting into fights.

Have dedicated warships that act as a QRF but otherwise hang out at major worlds and starbases, have dedicated bulk-carriers for when you need to ship 11 billion tons of ore or whatever, and have a few dedicated hospital ships for plague outbreaks, but most of the fleet should be generalists because space is too big to afford time to have a specialist ship come in most of the times. Especially in this era when warp is still so slow, whatever ship is on hand will be THE ship that has to solve the crisis of the week, so it's best for it to be at least competent in all major roles.

 

[Mulisa]

Hah! Get Bent San-Fran! Go big or go home!

Another Dreadnought next to celebrate naval excess!

 

[NSMS]

I don't even know where this argument is going anymore, so if we can't mesh positions after this I'm going to drop it.

Look, I'm making an issue out of this because you seem to be presenting it as a "specialization vs generalization" issue. That is not my contention here, not why an arguably inferior ship that skimped on the primary mission was selected in superior numbers and roughly equal tonnage, and not why we should consider this an issue to consider going forward.

It is a "cost vs utility" issue. And the Saladine, for all that it is arguably an inferior ship, has a superior cost vs utility metric than the Kea.

Yes, the Kea had a technically longer lifespan. Yes, the Kea fulfilled the primary mission better. But because of suboptimal decisions on our part, it wasn't useful enough across a broad enough spectrum of missions for its cost, and Starfleet decided it wasn't good enough on its own.

Sayle chose to cover our asses this time by presenting a ship that deliberately complimented our design and ignored the primary customer requirement as much as it could, and - I shall reiterate - the Saladine was still was ordered in roughly equal mass. A QM saving us from ourselves is not a luxury we should count on.

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...wait, did you think I was arguing about why the Salad got favoured over the Kea? Because I was talking purely in a context of 'this is what the ships do', not 'this is why Starfleet chose one over the other'.

 

[7th Hex]

Wait, taking the chance to reread our previous designs in both threads, is this actually the first Starfleet ship we've made that got a S or S equivalent Science score?