A B average was a reasonable outcome but we're going to need to play things a bit riskier to get anything really outstanding. At least the brief is simple.
Technology has marched on since the Excelsior was first designed, with new materials allowing new brace and truss designs for a spaceframe. Given the emphasis on cargo space for this design the team ends up designing a saucer with a pronounced ventral bulge, appearing more like an oval from the side than a plate. This has the advantage of providing much more internal space, and ribs reinforced with superior manufacturing techniques can prevent the larger mass from deforming under thrust. Elevated dorsal sections in a staggered rise provide space for the main bridge and potentially some useful areas down the line.
You actually believe you might be able to fit in all the systems you need without butchering other elements of the ship. This optimism doesn't last when it becomes clear that to keep the required crew below the maximum that some sacrifices are going to have to be made. Case in point is the secondary hull, which contains most of the engineering spaces in traditional design plans. The simple reality is that to keep the crew count down you need less mass, less systems to maintain, and more automation.
Whatever you decide, the secondary hull will have to be seriously truncated to meet your design targets. But fitting the deflector, impulse drive, warp conduits, and torpedo systems all in the same space is impossible. You're going to have to do some surgery on the saucer section and put at least one of those systems in the primary hull. The design team takes a few weeks to put together some proposals, and upon returning the most promising are further refined.
Surprisingly enough the main sticking point becomes a shuttlebay, which is undeniably useful when ferrying cargo and attempting transit when transporters are unavailable. While the team agrees that some shuttle capability is necessary, there is a sharp division between the camp that wants a full bay installed and those that would prefer an emergency shuttle only. Given the lack of aft spaces available for the impulse engines, a shuttlebay would represent serious competition for the same space.
Adding a shuttle bay will require a larger secondary hull, but also move the impulse engines to the rear of the saucer section. Keeping the design small and on-target for crew complement would leave a vertical launch bay the likes of which hasn't been seen for a hundred years. The only proposal that would resolve this is to split the thrusters either side of a recessed shuttle bay entrance, but given the complexity of the task doing so with unproven technology would be reckless to the extreme and you can kiss any engine improvements goodbye. You'll probably also end up ditching any chance of aft-facing torpedoes, although the engines should be powerful enough that you can get away with forward tubes only.
[ ] Build out a larger secondary hull to fit a shuttle bay and main deflector, displacing the impulse engines to the saucer section. (Less Crew Available for Optional Internals)
[ ] Stick to a smaller secondary hull with an integrated engine and scrap the shuttlebay, implementing a vertical-launch shuttle bay on the ventral side of the saucer for emergency use only. (No Shuttlebay)
[ ] Carve a divot into the aft hull behind the bridge and split a pair of Avidyne thrusters around the entrance. (No Impulse Prototypes/Aft Torpedoes)
Project Ferdinand
The ship should have sufficient tactical armament for convoy duty and responding to distress, as well as sufficient cargo space to act as a bulk hauler. It must have a crew of 100 or less.
[X] Carve a divot into the aft hull behind the bridge and split a pair of Avidyne thrusters around the entrance. (No Impulse Prototypes/Aft Torpedoes)
We want the engines to be reliable anyway and I was toying with the idea of putting all torpedoes forward in my head since if this ship runs it needs to freaking RUN not get into a fire fight while running.
If the purpose of the ship is carrying a large amount of cargo for its size, then not having a shuttle bay feels like it really hamstrings the design? It's possible to just use transporters for cargo transfer, sure, but instances where transporters aren't viable are a dime a dozen in Star Trek. This is on top of all the other reasons a ship that is responding to distress calls, escorting convoys or doing general starship stuff would find a shuttle very useful.
The idea here is to keep the design conservative other than going for the new phasers, and finding enough internal space for everything is going to be a nightmare anyway, so I think that the aft carve-out is probably our best bet. No aft torpedoes is something we can probably live with, this is a frigate, it can zoom around and use its frontal armament.
I feel like the big question is if the aft launchers will be needed to achieve the tactical rating requirement. An aft launcher feels useful for something meant to act as a convoy escort, but maybe maneuverability or shields might be able to make up for that? Definitely don't feel comfortable without a proper shuttle bay.
Aft torpedo launchers must have a valid in-universe reason for existing. For one thing, one can easily imagine a Star Trek episode where the ship is damaged and trying to escape a scary adversary, and fire a torpedo which is specially fused or modified to briefly blind the enemy sensors, allowing them to escape into a nebula or something. Being able to shoot back can also significantly constrain your enemy's option versus having an exploitable blind spot - especially against smaller adversaries like Birds of Prey.
However, I think that if the new phasers work out, we will still be able to reach the Tactical rating we need? If the new emitters have too many teething issues which we can't fix then it's likely that the class will be a failure or borderline at best, but I think that is likely to be true regardless of whether or not the ship has an aft torpedo launcher. If one assumes that we're committed to using this class as a testbed for the new phaser tech, that risk is sort of priced-in already. So I think we may be able to live without an aft launcher in this case.
Our three primary requests are to
A) Keep crew under 100,
B) act as a cargo hauler
C) Keep combat/tactical usage
Our three options each cut into one of those three so we should consider both which cuts the least and where we think we have the most wiggle room. Descriptions have continued to worry about personnel limits, so I think savin manpower is needed. That leaves no shuttle bay or no impulse prototype and aft torpedoes. Out of those two options I prefere keeping the shuttle bay because that is useful for both cargo transferring and how a lack of shuttles will limit our tactics making me think it will hurt both B and to a lesser extent C.
[ ] Carve a divot into the aft hull behind the bridge and split a pair of Avidyne thrusters around the entrance. (No Impulse Prototypes/Aft Torpedoes)
[X] Build out a larger secondary hull to fit a shuttle bay and main deflector, displacing the impulse engines to the saucer section. (Less Crew Available for Optional Internals)
Changed my mind, since this choice would probably be better for the Convoy duties requirement.
[X] Build out a larger secondary hull to fit a shuttle bay and main deflector, displacing the impulse engines to the saucer section. (Less Crew Available for Optional Internals)
We want the engines to be reliable anyway and I was toying with the idea of putting all torpedoes forward in my head since if this ship runs it needs to freaking RUN not get into a fire fight while running.
If this ship is running, then it needs aft torpedoes to punch the pursuer in the nose until they fuck off.
Sure, we're using the new array-type phasers, but phasers normally can't be used at warp speeds, and torpedoes can.
[X] Build out a larger secondary hull to fit a shuttle bay and main deflector, displacing the impulse engines to the saucer section. (Less Crew Available for Optional Internals)
Less Crew Available for Optional Internals? Maybe I'm stupid, but that doesn't sound bad to me on this design. This ship isn't going to be super complicated and have many secondary functions like science and diplomacy - It's a military-grade cargo transport. Stay focused.
[X] Build out a larger secondary hull to fit a shuttle bay and main deflector, displacing the impulse engines to the saucer section. (Less Crew Available for Optional Internals)
[X] Build out a larger secondary hull to fit a shuttle bay and main deflector, displacing the impulse engines to the saucer section. (Less Crew Available for Optional Internals)
[X] Build out a larger secondary hull to fit a shuttle bay and main deflector, displacing the impulse engines to the saucer section. (Less Crew Available for Optional Internals)
The best option if we're willing to sacrifice a bit of internal extras. Given this ship's purpose, the only internals we really care about are cargo related, so I think we're not losing much here. Plus, this lets us do prototype impulse engines, which could help our tactical score.
