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Starship Design Bureau

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Starship Design Bureau Starfleet Design Bureau
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Ramble said:
In Yesterday's enterprise, four of Romulus's newest battleships jumped the Enterprise and quickly dismantled it. They lose one due to the Enterprise crew setting a Warp core beach after taking the prize wreck into tow.

In this one, four Romulan Battleships jump the Enterprise-C and despite having the element of surprise. Ent-C hulks two of them in a straight slugging match and then scuttles itself effectively immediately after the Romulans initiate atrocities.

In Yesterday's enterprise, the battle at Narendra III proved to the Klingons that the Federation was honorable.

Here, the new Romulan battleship proves that they need 4 to 1 odds to reliably fell a single ambassador class Cruiser. 3 to 1 is a toss up. They would lose a 2 on 1, and a straight duel doesn't even warrant speculation. For the Klingons, the Federation has proved not only honorable but straight out better warriors than the Romulans.
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imagine bricks that are currently being left in Romulan starship design bureaus restrooms right now
 
The Enterprise C choosing to fight makes this a strategic loss for the Romulans. The fact that in this timeline the Enterprise killed 2 battleships while at a 4 to 1 disadvantage is just adding humiliation on top of that
 
MightbeaMimic said:
The Enterprise C choosing to fight makes this a strategic loss for the Romulans. The fact that in this timeline the Enterprise killed 2 battleships while at a 4 to 1 disadvantage is just adding humiliation on top of that
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it's even funnier when you break it down. 4 BATTLESHIPS had the jump on a CRUISER and the cruiser still killed 2 of them. imagine the conversations the Romulans are having speculating what would happen if the Federation built a battleship XD
 
Moist Bread said:
it's even funnier when you break it down. 4 BATTLESHIPS had the jump on a CRUISER and the cruiser still killed 2 of them. imagine the conversations the Romulans are having speculating what would happen if the Federation built a battleship XD
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I mean, the Ambassador was in fact a capital ship, not a cruiser. That was very much a thing. At most you could argue it was a capital ship that was like third science ship and third diplomatic vessel rather than being all warship, which in fairness it was.
 
EternalStruggle said:
I mean, the Ambassador was in fact a capital ship, not a cruiser. That was very much a thing. At most you could argue it was a capital ship that was like third science ship and third diplomatic vessel rather than being all warship, which in fairness it was.
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so if we took out the civilian two thirds and swapped them for military oriented thirds them the Enterprise would have been able to go 12 on 1
 
EternalStruggle said:
I mean, the Ambassador was in fact a capital ship, not a cruiser. That was very much a thing. At most you could argue it was a capital ship that was like third science ship and third diplomatic vessel rather than being all warship, which in fairness it was.
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The Ambassador-class counts as a heavy cruiser, but yeah Federation ships are notorious for kicking ass while still keeping to their generalist design philosophy.
 
Just remember that Ambassadors are the word of quality over quantity.

D+ on manufacturability mean the yard workers hate this one weird trick of choosing all prototype tech.
 
Rockeye said:
Just remember that Ambassadors are the word of quality over quantity.

D+ on manufacturability mean the yard workers hate this one weird trick of choosing all prototype tech.
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I very much was worried when I came across the Completed Designs while reading the thread, wondering what could've happened to cause such terrible Maintenance and Manufacture scores, but having read the full results I'd say it turned out pretty well all around.
 
EternalStruggle said:
I mean, the Ambassador was in fact a capital ship, not a cruiser. That was very much a thing. At most you could argue it was a capital ship that was like third science ship and third diplomatic vessel rather than being all warship, which in fairness it was.
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I take it as something of a truism that the Federation's great diversity of scientific advancement and general industrial capacity means that it's a sleeping tiger - if it wanted to build a fleet of pure warships, I think the Klingons and Romulans both would lose any chance of fighting them a couple of decades later once enough had rolled off the production line. I'll take argument on the whole advancement angle, given alternate timelines where the Federation loses, but it's outright canon that after the Dominion War that the Federation is poised to be the only major power in the quadrant in a position to still carry out any offensive operations.

When you consider that the Klingons build heavy on combat effectiveness and the Romulans essentially sat with their thumbs up their butt for about half the Dominion War, that says things about the Federation's industrial capacity and the size of Starfleet. Especially when you factor in how the Dominion War attritioned the hell out them and probably purged the ranks of basically all the antiquated spaceframes. They came out of the war with a stable full of designs like the Intrepid, Prometheus, Sovereign, Akira, Norway, Steamrunner, and Defiant. About the only thing you see that seems to be an older design is the Centaur-class, which still seems to be in the Excelsior-flavour. Judging by the Resolute they seem to be taking over as the short-range science ship of choice.

Edit: For the advancement angle, I submit to you the Enterprise-E which got in a pretty long lasting slugging match with the Scimitar, a supercapital which probably massed five times more than her.
 
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I'd wager that most of the reasons why the Federation loses is Alt timelines would be the same reason the North could have lost in the Civil war. Lack of aggression, slow spool up and war weariness coupled with standing forces unready for an actual knock down drag out FIGHT. The Federation Long term would be able to out scale almost anyone, the problem isn't long term, it's keeping themselves from getting eviscerated short term in a Knife fight by someone who's a lot more willing to do horrible things to win and snowball that into an advantage.

It's kinda the same reason why evil Twin of the Federation, the Terran hegemony, is so feared. They are out and out monsters. Yeah they might not have the best tech or economy, but they have zero qualms about busting out atrocities not out of place in massively darker settings.


Like even now, the Ambassador is a great ship. Issue is it costs a metric but ton and the Klingons and Romulans can make inferior ships, that are numerically superior far more easily. So while the Ambassador can kill them in a two on one or maybe even three on one, a four on one is a losing proposition and those odds are more frequent that the Federation would like. Not even getting into how the Doctrine of the Federation often has this high value and very hard to replace ship without escorts making attritioning them down much easier.


It's Ironically the B-10 issue the Klingons had in Starfleet Battles. Yes you have a Battleship, the biggest baddest thing ever made. But you nearly killed your economy to do it and the Hydrans next door could kill it in half its costs in Strike craft, especially if you screw up with it. Alternatively, Yamato syndrome of "Too expensive and good to lose."
 
It also seems like the Federation R&D is generally the best in the galaxy barring the Borg, who are their own level of bullshit.

Also that their ships are genuinely built to the highest quality possible, no cutting corners or any real attempt at cost-lowering. Reminds me of what that one AI fic said about Klingon vessels that are my own personal head-canon. That they are pretty much just oversized, full of redundant and go for the idea of 'we're never going to out-tech, so we'll outmass'. Leads to things like having last-generation disruptors, but sized up with a reduction in crew comforts to match.
 
From my understanding one of the issues the Federation tends to have is although it is by far the best set up for long-term success out of the empires in the Alpha Quadrant they got that way through massive investments in exploration, expansion, and sciences. And as a result their industry, infistructure, and defenses tend to be overstretched. This means while they are on the cutting edge of most scientific fields and can build and deploy massive powerful multipurpose ships those same ships usually have to operate alone unless a major effort is undertaken to gather a fleet. An issue compounded by its central and sprawling location in the quadrant meaning they boarder everybody while most potential rivals only boarder one or 2 other peers. So the Federation is never really in a position to dedicate most of its forces unless it is a major emergency like the Borg and that leaves them massively exposed to an attack or uptick in piracy.
 
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Eldon said:
From my understanding one of the issues the Federation tends to have is although it is by far the best set up for long-term success out of the empires in the Alpha Quadrant they got that way through massive investments in exploration, expansion, and sciences. And as a result their industry, infistructure, and defenses tend to be overstretched. This means while they are on the cutting edge of most scientific fields and can build and deploy massive powerful multipurpose ships those same ships usually have to operate alone unless a major effort is undertaken to gather a fleet. An issue compounded by its central and sprawling location in the quadrant meaning they boarder everybody while most potential rivals only boarder one or 2 other peers. So the Federation is never really in a position to dedicate most of its forces unless it is a major emergency like the Borg and that leaves them massively exposed to an attack or uptick in piracy.
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That might be the reason why the Ships are a little on the do everything scale. Every ship is somewhat expected to act for multiple roles rather than its stated purpose.
 
The Enterprise-C proved herself in that fight, despite she lost.

The fact that another production run is being made for the class shows that she's a worthy investment.
 
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