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Starship Design Bureau

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Skippy said:
Fundamentally, every starship in Starfleet is expected to undertake science duties. That's Starfleet doctrine, that's why every ship is an absurdly overbuilt cruiser. (Yes, even the Defiant.) If Starfleet wanted to design a utilitarian escort, we would design a Bird of Prey, which can be operated by a crew of twelve, and trade on advantageous terms with any Federation starship in service. But we don't, because that isn't Starfleet doctrine.

Adding science bays gains us a whole extra rating, when nothing else we have can do the same. Extra transports or extra medical facilities make the ship better at responding to crises, but as a Federation starship, which is useful, it's already extremely well-equipped at doing that at a baseline, with a level of provision that most other races would consider remarkable. Science facilities will make the ship better at doing scans, surveys, and other routine tasks, which is a mission it will be doing every day, alongside its regular escort duties. It's a significant increase in the utility of the ship, especially because the jump from D to other tiers represents a much bigger difference than going from say, B to A tier.

Like, I think there's an idea here that from a utilitarian, "min-maxing" perspective, what we should do is neglect science... but the utilitarian answer is actually absolutely the opposite! Adding labs this gets us the largest statistical improvement to the ship's stats any option. It is a given that these capacities will be used if they are built, because there is not a single Federation starship in service which does not do science as part of its mission profile.
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We're still a Starfleet ship though, we will still presumably have some science facilities on board, even if its not a full on laboratory. I also feel like the ratings thing isn't be all end all, particularly given what our mission spec requirements for the Ferdinand Project are.
 
For the last ship, going for lots of internal modules dropped the Ease of Production by a full letter grade. The roles this ship is expected to fill are ones that it only really make sense for a cheap ship so that seems like something more important to prioritize. By cutting back on modules as much as possible, we can maximize both the ease of production and of maintenance.

[X] Plan Minimal Responder
-[X] Better Quarters
-[X] Expanded Sickbay: -5 Crew

The sickbay still seems like the one which will be vital most often.
 
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Dessard said:
For the last ship, going for lots of internal modules dropped the Ease of Production by a full letter grade. The roles this ship is expected to fill are ones that it only really make sense for a cheap ship so that seems like something more important to prioritize. By cutting back on modules as much as possible, we can maximize both the ease of production and of maintenance.

[X] Plan Minimal Responder
-[X] Better Quarters
-[X] Expanded Sickbay: -5 Crew

The sickbay still seems like the one which will be vital most often.
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The Ease of Production on the Renaissance dropped because you had nacelles that wanted to explode, not because you picked lots of internal space. We're refining the clarity of what does what as we go, though.
 
[X] Plan Emergency Responder
-[X] Better Quarters
-[X] Extra Transporter Rooms: -5 Crew
-[X] Expanded Sickbay: -5 Crew
-[X] Multidisciplinary Science Labs: -10 Crew
 
This feels like a huge mistake to me.

Taking more shuttle bays instead of science labs, when we have already built a massive shuttle bay for a ship of this size, means we are slightly better at doing shuttle operations, a thing we can already do. To do this we sacrifice giving the ship the ability undertake a whole other mission profile which is crucial to the remit of all starships and will become more important as this colonisation boom slows down.

Being Able To Do A Whole Extra Thing >>>>> Being Slightly Better At a Thing We're Already Very Good At

Seriously, I cannot fathom the logic here. It feels like people are misunderstanding the mission brief not emphasising science to somehow meaning that science a detriment, when it is something all starships need to do. If there it was exchanging the Science labs for nothing, then frankly this would be a better trade-off, because at least that might actually reduce the running costs of the ship by a whole rank, whereas five people is really marginal and will get us a "+" at most.
 
Skippy said:
This feels like a huge mistake to me.

Taking more shuttle bays instead of science labs, when we have already built a massive shuttle bay for a ship of this size, means we are slightly better at doing shuttle operations, a thing we can already do. To do this we sacrifice giving the ship the ability undertake a whole other mission profile which is crucial to the remit of all starships and will become more important as this colonisation boom slows down.

Being Able To Do A Whole Extra Thing >>>>> Being Slightly Better At a Thing We're Already Very Good At

Seriously, I cannot fathom the logic here. It feels like people are misunderstanding the mission brief not emphasising science to somehow meaning that science a detriment, when it is something all starships need to do. If there it was exchanging the Science labs for nothing, then frankly this would be a better trade-off, because at least that might actually reduce the running costs of the ship by a whole rank, whereas five people is really marginal and will get us a "+" at most.
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We already have a C rank in science (for our ship class, anyway- Sayle updated the update with the relative ranks). For our mission brief? That's more than enough. The extra science wouldn't be bad in and of itself, but the opportunity cost from it is real and- in my opinion, at least- not worth it.
 
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Skippy said:
To do this we sacrifice giving the ship the ability undertake a whole other mission profile which is crucial to the remit of all starships and will become more important as this colonisation boom slows down.
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Don't you mean less important as there are fewer things for hapless civilians to trip over without warning?

The Ferdinand is shaping up to be a second rate warship for internal patrols and response, which is a job that will never end. The extra shuttle bays can be used for things like overbuilt probes or some kind of strike craft adjacent thing depending on events and will greatly help the convoys they are unloading to unload. If there is a science anomaly they should evacuate the blast zone and call for the top percentile crews of the Renaissance class to render the anomaly down into physics.

And if you need some labs for a specific mission, stuff them into a cargo bay or something for the duration.
 
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