Yeah, this is where I am. Let's not overly worry about the old hulls. We keep building bigger and bigger anyway, so our outdated ships get outdated hard regardless.
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I feel like that's just asking for the GM to throw a curveball and have a war start earlier than in OTL. That being said, having that forwards-compatibility sounds like an excellent idea. Still, it wouldn't do to have a conflict start, when you've got a handful of exceptionally capable ships and a fleet of outmoded ones.
darkstarling
Brilliantly Crazed
- Location
- Columbus, Ohio
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I don't think the Department of Temporral Investigations has been sharing their notes though. And there's no guarantee that's true. There are always warhawks on all sides going 'we can take 'em!' and a fleet with substandard warp drives except the new models is the kind of things Klingons might pounce on.
That said I'm still tentatively leaning vertical. Upgrading our fleet is REALLY tempting, but at the same time if I'm understanding this right our trade off is 'all ships now have potential to crash to sunlight out of high warp in emergencies' and that's just unacceptable
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Yeah, like I said, I'd rather stick with the Vertical Configuration and be conservative with the Injectors, because that's a lot less likely to blow up in our face given the problems that have been described with the horizontal configuration in our current layout.
- Location
- Alaska, USA
It wouldn't fit in any hull if we did that. ST engineering spaces are narrow.
Exactly my thinking, and I do see the appeal of the vertical drive, but that'd leave us without any real wiggle room for further compromises in terms of backwards-compatibility, and having a fleet that's not suitable for combat is arguably worse than one which is vulnerable in combat. I feel like the points that have been raised do make a very good case for the vertical drive, but I'm still concerned about the downsides.
- Location
- California
We know that, the in universe designers don't. They need to consider that war could come soon.
Horologer
Incertae sedis
- Location
- a risen sea
thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God
I think it's a waste not to make at least refitable. We know the Kea it's going to be refitted and when she gets her torpedoes she will be a good heavy ship. The next ship we design looks like it will have the last generation engines with us taking the decade option and it being 2113 right now.
Taking verticals does seem like the best option looking over what people have said.
Taking verticals does seem like the best option looking over what people have said.
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- Location
- England
Considering the sheer number of issues described with non-Vertical, I believe that Horizontal Configuration would just be keeping the last-generation magnets, especially since nothing about the Vertical description suggests that the simple act of configuring it that way would lead to size reductions, as opposed to mounting it that way and then giving it the upgraded tech.
I could be wrong about that, mind, and even in that case it's not like there's not an argument for going Vertical anyway. But I'm pretty sure it's what's happening here.
We still need a line cruiser right?
If we make them incompatible and we role out line cruiser and explorer/battlecruiser before the war kicks off we will be fine. We can slowly start substituting ship classes, due to our design philosophy the old classes will cover 2nd line or dedicated roles so we focus on maximum capability in areas of need.
TheShadowDeamon
Mighty Dragon
That's a rather dangerous problem there, I'll vote for the vertical stack
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- He/Him
I want fresh designs that don't use decades old equipment. If Starfleet Command wants cheaper options, they still have the plans on file for the Kea and Saladin class vessels.
[ ] Horizontal Core
[X] Vertical Core (Size Reduction) (Compatible -> Refit)
[ ] Horizontal Core
[X] Vertical Core (Size Reduction) (Compatible -> Refit)
darkstarling
Brilliantly Crazed
- Location
- Columbus, Ohio
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah that's the big question. Back compatibility is great... unless we're just giving our whole fleet dire safety issues.
I don't believe that's what the update is saying.
The options seem to be either a) design the new engine to be able to fit into the space left behind by removing the old one, allowing for easy replacement on existing ships, or b) use new tech to make the new engine take up less total volume than the old one, but in a different orientation, so that replacing the engine on existing ships would require ripping out some deckplates and bulkheads and rearranging everything in the main engineering space.
The 'turn it off and on again' problem being talked about is just the justification for why we can't easily refit with the volume-saving new technology. There is no scenario where we'd actually have that problem in practice, no matter what we choose.
[X] Vertical Core (Size Reduction) (Compatible -> Refit)
I would rather accept that we won't be able to effectively refit our current fleet to more-or-less ensure that all future ships will be refit-compatible with Warp 9+ nacelles using these as a base. My thinking is that if we accept a full design paradigm break now then that will mean the next major redesign for nacelles (and thus refit compatibility) gets pushed much further on than if we try to maintain some refit capability for this gen leap.
[X] Vertical Core (Size Reduction) (Compatible -> Refit)