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Starship Design Bureau

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Starship Design Bureau Starfleet Design Bureau
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Karugus said:
and yet now people are turning up their noses at perfectly good science. Moreover, a long range independently deployed starship obviously needs to defend itself and Star Fleet has recent experience that galaxy is more dangerous than they anticipated.

It's fine to say no to the prototype, but acting like science ships haven't fought nearly as many battles as warships in the Star Trek setting seems to be running against the grain.
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We're not. We're just trying to save up prototypes for dedicated Science stuff which will come up. As for combat? The Intrepid should be solidly average, which is pretty darn good for a science ship, and frankly we need this thing to have high Endurance, which the new, untested, and never been used before phasers detract from simply by being new. We're going to toe the line with the new deflector, new warp engine, new nacelles, and new ship configuration. We also want wriggle room for any neat cutting-edge science stuff coming up.

Like The Interpid will still be able to trade hands with nearly anything it runs into, probably be able to Science up some technobabble to hurt what it can't normally fight, and should that fail? Run like hell to escape. We just don't want to blow our prototyping load on shooty when science, the big issue, is still on the docket for later.
 
Karugus said:
and yet now people are turning up their noses at perfectly good science. Moreover, a long range independently deployed starship obviously needs to defend itself and Star Fleet has recent experience that galaxy is more dangerous than they anticipated.

It's fine to say no to the prototype, but acting like science ships haven't fought nearly as many battles as warships in the Star Trek setting seems to be running against the grain.
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Yeah with the comment you quoted, I was just trying to point out that the sensor package blocking the phaser strip was put there purely because it is a science ship. The prototyping should be saved for the science internals so the ship can science better, I wasn't saying that it doesn't need to protect itself.
 
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To be fair the canon intrepid was an incredibly tough ship, it had very strong shields and pretty serious firepower.

I've seen plenty of people theorise that it was basically one of the antibody ships starlet tried to build.

Even without the borg focus its very good at military missions, the first mission we see Voyager on isn't exactly a science one.

Though it did have type X phasers, so we wouldn't be nerfing it by keeping them.
 
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CuriousRaptor said:
We're not. We're just trying to save up prototypes for dedicated Science stuff which will come up. As for combat? The Intrepid should be solidly average, which is pretty darn good for a science ship, and frankly we need this thing to have high Endurance, which the new, untested, and never been used before phasers detract from simply by being new. We're going to toe the line with the new deflector, new warp engine, new nacelles, and new ship configuration. We also want wriggle room for any neat cutting-edge science stuff coming up.

Like The Interpid will still be able to trade hands with nearly anything it runs into, probably be able to Science up some technobabble to hurt what it can't normally fight, and should that fail? Run like hell to escape. We just don't want to blow our prototyping load on shooty when science, the big issue, is still on the docket for later.
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The thing is, we're never going to be making a ton of these things, and we've already chosen the most damning prototypes with a reputation for consistently boosting maintenance and production costs.

Given the industrial replicators should help ease some of the maintenance concerns, I'm absolutely okay with treating the Intrepid design as more of a scientific test bed than say the Reliant.
 
CuriousRaptor said:
We're not. We're just trying to save up prototypes for dedicated Science stuff which will come up. As for combat? The Intrepid should be solidly average, which is pretty darn good for a science ship, and frankly we need this thing to have high Endurance, which the new, untested, and never been used before phasers detract from simply by being new. We're going to toe the line with the new deflector, new warp engine, new nacelles, and new ship configuration. We also want wriggle room for any neat cutting-edge science stuff coming up.

Like The Interpid will still be able to trade hands with nearly anything it runs into, probably be able to Science up some technobabble to hurt what it can't normally fight, and should that fail? Run like hell to escape. We just don't want to blow our prototyping load on shooty when science, the big issue, is still on the docket for later.
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Personally I would like it to be an Excelsior heir, not just look like one. Fight, Science, diplomacy, the workhorse of the fleet for the next hundred years. So type XII
 
[X] Type-XII Phaser Arrays (Prototype)

Here's what I'm thinking: phasers are tools in the same way a combat knife is a tool. Meant for last-resort self-defense but can be used in numerous non-combat situations. By now the limits of the Type-X should be showing, but the Type-XII likely still has room for tinkering with.
 
We don't exactly have a limit on the number of prototypes we can take.

I don't want to get to the next ship in line only to have to roll these same dice then instead.

If it's going to be a bad roll, better to have that bad roll here.
 
LunaMoth said:
Yeah with the comment you quoted, I was just trying to point out that the sensor package blocking the phaser strip was put there purely because it is a science ship. The prototyping should be saved for the science internals.
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Exactly. This isn't a warship primarily. If this was say, The Sovereign or we had the chance on the Ushaan? I'd be down, Sovereigns have to have great tactical to simply be worth the production, and the Ushaan was more or less built to be two giant phasers strapped to an engine and told to go ruin someone's day. But the Intrepid isn't a Capital ship, nor is it a dedicated warship. it's a science ship and we still have science stuff to go on internals.

We already have four prototypes in the design, one entirely experimental, and we're still not at the internals which make or break the design entirely. Best to hold off on another prototype until later.
NavySeel said:
To be fair the canon intrepid was an incredibly tough ship, it had very strong shields and pretty serious firepower.

I've seen plenty of people theorise that it was basically one of the antibody ships starlet tried to build.

Even without the borg focus its very good at military missions, the first mission we see Voyager on isn't exactly a science one.
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And The Intrepid class was such with the default Phasers everyone is saying are insufficient now, in more or less the exact same configuration as we took the canon main hull design. I get wanting more pew pews. I like ships that can turn an enemy into an epitaph with an eyeblink. But frankly the intrepid already is that. We don't need to make a science ships into a prototype literally everything ship and have it turn into a larger, costlier and harder to fix Defiant.
Karugus said:
The thing is, we're never going to be making a ton of these things, and we've already chosen the most damning prototypes with a reputation for consistently boosting maintenance and production costs.

Given the industrial replicators should help ease some of the maintenance concerns, I'm absolutely okay with treating the Intrepid design as more of a scientific test bed than say the Reliant.
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Issue is if we overload this thing too much we'll end up with a ship design that end up like the Defiant, but with zero assurances it'll get fixed up later. Inf act due to how much bigger and more expensive it will be, it's likely it'll be a dead design outright.
Kartr_Kana said:
Personally I would like it to be an Excelsior heir, not just look like one. Fight, Science, diplomacy, the workhorse of the fleet for the next hundred years. So type XII
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Excelsior was also INCREDIBLY easy to make and maintain, this ship will not be. Also, this is not a capital ship. This is not going to be the Excelsior. It's unlikely to even be the Ambassador or Galaxy. Trying to shove bleeding edge prototype we can onto a ship can easily result in a dead ship design, a useless thing starfleet doesn't make like the ships mentioned in quest start. We're not making a new capital ship design that will even years later be the backbone of the fleet as it ages out of being a capital into a simpler heavy cruiser. This is not a capital ship. It was not designed to be a Capital ship. If you really want to make a ship like such, when the next prompt for the next project comes up, vote for making a capital ship.
ScyBlade said:
[X] Type-XII Phaser Arrays (Prototype)

Here's what I'm thinking: phasers are tools in the same way a combat knife is a tool. Meant for last-resort self-defense but can be used in numerous non-combat situations. By now the limits of the Type-X should be showing, but the Type-XII likely still has room for tinkering with.
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They're also untested and it's entirely possible they fail outright while making this ship cost even more. This isn't a warship.

Enthusiast#117 said:
We don't exactly have a limit on the number of prototypes we can take.

I don't want to get to the next ship in line only to have to roll these same dice then instead.

If it's going to be a bad roll, better to have that bad roll here.
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By that logic voting should never happen and we should always vote all bleeding edge tech for everything all the time even in the most niche and useless situations. This isn't we must prototype all the things quest. This is starship design quest. We have to balance the desire for new shinies against failing our mission goals, and running up the cost on something non-essential to the ship's stated role when we're about to hit the big-ticket science items which we actually need for our design goals will only worsen the ship's chances.
 
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CuriousRaptor said:
By that logic voting should never happen and we should always vote all bleeding edge tech for everything all the time even in the most niche and useless situations. This isn't we must prototype all the things quest. This is starship design quest. We have to balance the desire for new shinies against failing our mission goals, and running up the cost on something non-essential to the ship's stated role when we're about to hit the big-ticket science items which we actually need for our design goals will only worsen the ship's chances.
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We've hardly had an indication that the prototype would be more or less expensive to produce or maintain than the Type X.

We often get more data to base a decision off of outside of the prototype roll itself, but in this particular case all we know is that the goal is a more concentrated beam with a faster firing rate.

No "increased power draw", no "fiddly components"... that's all we have to go on.

Often we get more than that, and the drawbacks are sometimes undesirable. Not choosing the prototype then makes sense.

But here, where undesirable drawbacks are far from certain, I'd rather not shy away from the risk.

It could also just be a straight upgrade, after all.
 
LunaMoth said:
I forgot something even failed on the Ushaan its the most successful ship we've made so far.
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Yup the launcher underperformed and made Ease of Production go down as now they'd need to make copies of our crappy one for the ship instead of the new one, and the quantums failed outright. Not sure what if anything that did since we kept the type 6s though.

Enthusiast#117 said:
We've hardly had an indication that the prototype would be more or less expensive to produce or maintain than the Type X.

We often get more data to base a decision off of outside of the prototype roll itself, but in this particular case all we know is that the goal is a more concentrated beam with a faster firing rate.

No "increased power draw", no "fiddly components"... that's all we have to go on.

Often we get more than that, and the drawbacks are sometimes undesirable. Not choosing the prototype then makes sense.

But here, where undesirable drawbacks are far from certain, I'd rather not shy away from the risk.

It could also just be a straight upgrade, after all.
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Typically a failure in a prototype drops ease of production/maintenance as it's either more finicky than the finished version or they have to dedicate new production facilities to an inferior prototype of the finished version. Every time a Prototype failed or underperformed, we've taken hits to either ease of, not counting anything else. The Ushaan had everything passed might well have been a S rank tactical with Ease of production and Maintenace A.
 
By my rough count I think we're sitting at:
19 for Type XII
23 for Type X

It's actually a lot closer than I was expecting.

Also canonically Voyager had Type X. And I'm still inclined towards Type XII in the hopes that this thing will be a true "Do Everything" Cruiser and to work out any bugs in the Type XIIs before we move on to the Akira and Sovereign.

If we go Type X then I'm thinking Akira next with the new Nacelles and Type XIIs.
 
Kartr_Kana said:
By my rough count I think we're sitting at:
19 for Type XII
23 for Type X

It's actually a lot closer than I was expecting.

Also canonically Voyager had Type X. And I'm still inclined towards Type XII in the hopes that this thing will be a true "Do Everything" Cruiser and to work out any bugs in the Type XIIs before we move on to the Akira and Sovereign.

If we go Type X then I'm thinking Akira next with the new Nacelles and Type XIIs.
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I think something said to be a science ship should be specialized for science.
 
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