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Starfleet Design Bureau

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Firehawk242 said:
My logic on the topic is a bit different than this.

The Kzinti gave us a headache because they did stupid shit with their engines to pull crazy maneuvers our ships couldn't match. Klingons are only slightly less insane in this regard. We are going to have to deal with a bunch of lunatics in the space equivalent of drag race cars with guns no matter what we do, so having improved impulse performance should blunt that nonsense before it can even get started.
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Oh, improved impulse thrust would definitely help with fights, among other things too. It's why I said I'm not going to be put out if the shield boost loses this vote, it's a good choice. I just feel it's an obviously better choice, and think that many of the problems more impulse thrust solves have entirely valid alternative solutions that don't involve going fast.

For instance, going fast ourselves to minimize the maneuverability gap between us and a hostile ship is a perfectly good way to try and deal with Klingon drag racers. However unless they've managed to bypass the mass-impulse ratio entirely, the fastest drag racers which we'd have the hardest time dealing with in a slower ship are also likely to be the smallest, and the kind of ship our phasers are well suited to dealing with. So going for ships with phasers in a high coverage arrangement, and going "run around all you want, you'll still be in our firing arc" is also a perfectly fine way to try deal with Klingon drag racers without needing us to increase our own speed to match.
 
TheShadowDeamon said:
Perhaps they tilted the core on its side along the width of that fat aft section?
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Nah, the impulse crystal is quire clearly visible (extremely far back too) on the aft section and that more or less corresponds with the 'top' of the core.

Doesn't preclude a smaller and fatter core that still has a similar top though (and iirc the defiant's was basically the same overall length just cut into four and stacked side by side - though that probably introduces its own problems). Might explain the placement even if it has to use a non-standard ejection method.
 
[X] Impulse Shunt (+20% Impulse Engine Output)

The value of increased mobility across our entire fleet can not be overstated. this will be especially true for any Selachii-class successors we might build in the future.
 
[X] Impulse Shunt (+20% Impulse Engine Output)

Ultimately if we want a ship that's more durable we can just get it by building a bigger ship. Which better impulse engines will make easier. I guess at some point we will run into warp issues by making the ship bigger, but we just went on a big drive for better warp performance so we could likely make a quite hefty ship before having to resort to something like quad nacelles.
 
[X] Impulse Shunt (+20% Impulse Engine Output)

My reasoning is simple. First, how often will an extra 10% shields benefit the ship? Second, how often will the extra 20% impulse benefit the ship?

Logically, extra STL speed will be useful more often, and more consistently, than extra shielding.
Sure, eventually we'll need to reinforce the shields, and should do so soon. However this isn't a development for just military vessels, but also for civilians. We do need to consider the civilian side as well.
 
Sayle said:
For TMP-era ships the the top of the warp core is just below the glowing dome next to the impulse engines and runs about as far down as they can go. The Excelsior's runs something like 18 decks. How that works in-universe with the Miranda, considering it doesn't have a neck and secondary hull to descend into, I have no idea. Defiant-style micro core? Must end up quite slow.
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With the Miranda, fan designs have usually show it running mostly horizontal fore to aft between the shuttle bays, except where it has a short vertical segment to the impulse dome. Also, the original concept with the TMP-era core (which was when the idea of there even being a 'core' originated, and I don't think that term was used until TNG) was that the reaction started at the base of the shaft and then continued through the entire length, possibly including the horizontal tube back to where it split to the nacelles, and so the Miranda having a very wide horizontal space still gave it a lot of room. A lot of that got soft retconned over the years in favor of the TNG-style core, especially when Voyager introduced a similar looking swirl core with TNG distinct top and bottom matter/antimatter injectors.

So basically, the Miranda and Connie refit use an entirely different style of core than what we're talking about for this current in-game generation. The Excelsior may have switched between TMP-style and and TNG-style core based on the limited views we got of its engineering, there's some information and screenshots in this thread on Trek BBS where someone is doing deck plans of it: Excelsior Tech Manual
 
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You know, it occurs to me that the Selachi class are pushing 40 years old when this warp drive becomes available. The Sagamartha class explorers are pushing 55. The humble constable...well, maybe this drive will be small enough to replace the smallest of boys.
 
Honestly, I wonder if it might be possible to design a ship that is intentionally designed to be transitional. It's impossible to refit the Warp 8 Engine by default because their form factor is fundamentally different, but I wonder if it'd be possible to build a ship with an oversized Engineering hull with the express purpose of being able to be refittable to the new Engine by just making sure that there's nothing critical in the space the Warp 8 Engine will occupy?

Well, who knows.
 
Alectai said:
Honestly, I wonder if it might be possible to design a ship that is intentionally designed to be transitional. It's impossible to refit the Warp 8 Engine by default because their form factor is fundamentally different, but I wonder if it'd be possible to build a ship with an oversized Engineering hull with the express purpose of being able to be refittable to the new Engine by just making sure that there's nothing critical in the space the Warp 8 Engine will occupy?

Well, who knows.
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the EPS system also needs to be replaced
 
Thorgon said:
the EPS system also needs to be replaced
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We need more capable EPS Systems in the future to hold more powerful energy surges.

And of course, my vote.

[X] Impulse Shunt (+20% Impulse Engine Output)

Like I and the others has stated earlier, our ships will continue to grow bigger in the years to come, so better give them all the maneuverability they need now rather than later when some of them have fallen victim to a flanking enemy due to their lumbering size.
 
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Tank man said:
Do you know what HMS Dreadnought is?

One of her most revolutionary aspects was in the use of turbines for propulsion, a few decades after they had been rather dramatically unveiled. Of course, this wasn't her only innovation, a uniform main battery was another.

Our engine tech will definitely be ahead, and we'll most likely have the chance to similarly leapfrog with our weapons and other systems. Even if we don't we'll have one of the cores of modern starships locked down and thus the room to play some catch-up (in the unlikely event we need to).
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Of course. Which is why the difference in speed between Dreadnought and her predecessor Lord Nelson was 3 knots. And why the difference in speed between our current designs and the hypothetical super ships that are totally going to make up for the fact our rivals have had decades of ship building time on us is ~2x. Predreadnoughts still saw active service past WW1 and only were essentially discarded thanks to the Washington Naval Treaty.

We have consigned the entirety of our navy to the dustbin of irrelevancy due to myths of Dreadnought and naval budgets that were a product of naval arms limitations not a naval arms race. If this works its as much a success born of luck from enemies missing a golden opportunity to punish our hubris as it is good design doctrine.

Our enemies already have the revolutionarily better engines, and will have a decade or two to put them in ships before our first attempt gets off the ground. Banking on revolutionary hypothetical technologies waiting in the wings to save us when we're the ones who have lost the 'Dreadnought Race' seems questionable at best.
 
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Karugus said:
Of course. Which is why the difference in speed between Dreadnought and her predecessor Lord Nelson was 3 knots. And why the difference in speed between our current designs and the hypothetical super ships that are totally going to make up for the fact our rivals have had decades of ship building time on us is ~2x. Predreadnoughts still saw active service past WW1 and only were essentially discarded thanks to the Washington Naval Treaty.

We have consigned the entirety of our navy to the dustbin of irrelevancy due to myths of Dreadnought and naval budgets that were a product of naval arms limitations not a naval arms race. If this works its as much a success born of luck from enemies missing a golden opportunity to punish our hubris as it is good design doctrine.

Our enemies already have the revolutionarily better engines, and will have a decade or two to put them in ships before our first attempt gets off the ground. Banking on revolutionary hypothetical technologies waiting in the wings to save us when we're the ones who have lost the 'Dreadnought Race' seems questionable at best.
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believe me, I get it. the great torpedo vote killed me as well

but the vote is over, we just have to knock it out of the park with the last gen 7 design, likely sprint focused out of necessity. as long as the connies are the 2230 vote we'll have plenty of them by 2260 and they'll have the warp 8 cores
 
Karugus said:
We have consigned the entirety of our navy to the dustbin of irrelevancy due to myths of Dreadnought...
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I was unaware of, and still do not care about, any analogies to historical naval construction. I still voted for the more-power later-delivery core. Please don't assume I was taken in by starry-eyed dreaming.

My reasoning: The Klingons have ships that are faster than ours. No-matter what injector methodology we choose, our next ship design was going to be using the current reactor tech anyways. Therefore, our next ship will of necessity be built for maximum speed, to address the Klingon advantage.

So, as far as I am (was) concerned, the nature of our next ship is already set: speed, then combat, then whatever actual-noncombat-goodies we would otherwise prefer to have. It will be a mediocre generalist, a solid combatant, a a hell of a fast responder.

We really don't get a choice. I'd rather build an ambassadorial ship with a giant biodome, but the Klingons have forced our hand.

So, the choice becomes: do we build a core that can be retrofit into the existing fleet, or one that promises to work better for future ships?

More ships capable of running down klingons really would be useful! And a new core would in fact allow existing ships to power though to higher speeds!

But the Klingons might get even faster (or they might not, more on that in a second). Which is why our next ship has to be a speedster regardless; we want as much buffer as possible - if the Klingons outpace our re-cored faster fleet, we want to be certain that we have at least one ship that can run them down.

So that's where my mind is sitting: we have to build a ship that drastically outspeeds our current fleet (with current reactor tech, remember, the new reactor won't be available until after our next design regardless or our core-dev decisions), just to be sure.

So, if my projections are correct, we're going to be building the Barry-Allen class next. And that class, by nature of it's superior speed, is going to be the first responder to any Klingon aggression, because it's fast enough to get there first, and it's going to have to handle the Klingons by itself, because any possible support can't keep up.

(And if the Klingons don't get faster? The Barry-Allens will still be the ones facing them in combat)

And this will be true regardless of what choices we make regarding the next-generation core.

And if that's the case regardless of if we refit the rest of the fleet, I figure, why bother worrying about refits at all? Might as well make the better core, and gain what benefits we can there.


My reasoning may be flawed. If so, I would love to know how. But I am not relying on flawed analogies with the past, and I am not relying on meta-narrative war scheduling to justify my decision.

I think we're going to be on the back foot for a while regardless, and I'm choosing the option that I think will leave us stronger in the future.
 
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