Starship Design Bureau

[CuriousRaptor]

[X] An angular, widened saucer to accommodate a forward-facing shuttlebay or deflector.

[X] An elongated forward saucer section to maximise the power of a continuous phaser strip.

Judging by the description of how Borg adaptation works, as long as we have a big enough punch the ship could still have some effect against the borg. In otherwords, to be combat effective the ship needs to have strong phasers. If the borg adapt and our phasers aren't big enough, it doesn't matter how maneuverable the ship is: it is going to lose eventually.

Considering how Wolf 359 was basically a scramble of as many available ships as possible, the next time the Borg attack we will not have much warning and will be scrambling again. So, every ship needs to be able to damage the borg because we do not know which ships will be available to combat the borg. Ships with insufficiently strong phasers are just targets to be killed rather than an actual source of defeating the borg.

Therefore, maximise the power of the continuous phaser strip is best. And is, indeed, necessary as we do not know how strong the phasers need to be to do damage to an adapted borg.

I am unsure of the firepower of a fighter, but judging from DS9 and STO, fighters individually are not as strong as a phaser strip. If so, they are not optimal as a borg defender. In fact, they just might be useless against an adapted borg cube. If you are looking at fighters as torpedo launchers- they are not as effective as torpedo tube as the tube has more ammo. Better to stay away from a dedicated fighter for this ship.

Click to shrink...

Issue is Borg can jsut adapt to Phasers and then you're SoL. Phasers alone are not enough.

 

[Jensaarai]

I think we're kind of getting a bit ahead of ourselves about how the Saber will ultimately turn out. This is just the first vote, after all.

 

[Silversun17]

I am unsure of the firepower of a fighter, but judging from DS9 and STO, fighters individually are not as strong as a phaser strip. If so, they are not optimal as a borg defender. In fact, they just might be useless against an adapted borg cube. If you are looking at fighters as torpedo launchers- they are not as effective as torpedo tube as the tube has more ammo. Better to stay away from a dedicated fighter for this ship.

Click to shrink...

Just to be clear I'm not talking about torpedo bombers but rather putting the maximum number of torpedo tubes on this baby.

 

[Bedpotato]

[X] An elongated forward saucer section to maximise the power of a continuous phaser strip.

More firepower Starfleet wants a combat ship lets give it to them!

 

[buli-buli]

[X] An angular, widened saucer to accommodate a forward-facing shuttlebay or deflector.

 

[DecaffeinatedOwl]

My only concern is that carriers have a "bigger is expontionally better" thing because it let's you pack more fighters and more supplies for those fighters.

Click to shrink...

We have to trial this doctrine somewhere, and by that token a heavy frigate's probably too small.

 

[LunaMoth]

pretty sure shields are more important than firepower against borg. Since borg adapt to phasers after a few shots.

 

[Arcus]

My only concern is that carriers have a "bigger is expontionally better"

Click to shrink...

Do you actually have a logical rationale for why this would be the case, or are you just assuming?

(IMO fighters in space are frankly a silly idea to begin with, but if the setting already has them...)

 

[Silversun17]

Do you actually have a logical rationale for why this would be the case, or are you just assuming?

Click to shrink...

RL carrier desgin. The bigger a carrier the bigger the air wing it can host and the more supplies it can haul.


See American super carriers vs what everyone else with carriers uses.

 

[LunaMoth]

(IMO fighters in space are frankly a silly idea to begin with, but if the setting already has them...)

Click to shrink...

If they already have them go all in with the ridiculousness.

 

[JevvyPython]

[X] An elongated forward saucer section to maximise the power of a continuous phaser strip.

I'm partial to the argument for overwhelming firepower. We have ships that fill other niches in a fleet but does the Federation have any ship that maximizes combat output at the expense of anything else?

 

[Arcus]

RL carrier desgin. The bigger a carrier the bigger the air wing it can host and the more supplies it can haul.


See American super carriers vs what everyone else with carriers uses.

Click to shrink...

"Wet naval carriers do it, so space carriers should also follow the same rules" is equivalent to arguing that modern "armoured cavalry" should use horse shaped mechanical walkers for maximum effectiveness because cavalry historically used horses.

Also, the reason why supercarriers are advantaged over smaller designs is that they can have longer runways instead of having to cope with VTOLs or other hacks.

And the comparison of bigger vs smaller should probably be by equivalent tonnage. Comparing a 5 million tonne ship to a ship that masses 1/5th the tonnage is silly. Sure, it can carry 5 times as many supplies, but that doesn't make it exponentially better if you could have 5 of the smaller ships for the same cost.

 

[MysteryCPU]

Issue is Borg can jsut adapt to Phasers and then you're SoL. Phasers alone are not enough.

Click to shrink...

There aren't trick options that are "hehe, actually that's useless". The Borg work like they do in canon. They adapt to what they're hit with, but sufficient firepower can get stuff done.

Click to shrink...

Well, I would hope that we would work on getting Quantum Torpedoes. But, Borg adaptation can be overcome according to QM.

QM's statement is that a sufficiently strong phaser strike can get stuff done. Thus, we need to maximize phaser power.

BUT, if we go by QM's statement, the Borg CAN adapt fully to fighters because they don't have sufficient raw firepower. Thus, fighters are a terrible idea for an anti-Borg ship.

Edit: Also, how many fighters do you think we can put in the ship without a secondary hull? And if that space taken makes it so that we can't overcome Borg adaptation, it would render the ship a floating target with 1-2 extra small floating targets. If we want fighters, we should wait for the larger design when we can both have an excellent phaser platform AND the space for a large number of fighters.

In addition, if QM is considering STO as a part of his thought, we need Strong Phasers to take down Borg shields. Torpedoes are not good with shields in STO.

 

[0t4n1z3r019]

[X] An angular, widened saucer to accommodate a forward-facing shuttlebay or deflector.

 

[Plazaz]

[X] An elongated forward saucer section to maximise the power of a continuous phaser strip.

 

[wanje]

[X] An elongated forward saucer section to maximise the power of a continuous phaser strip.

 

[Rockeye]

[X] An elongated forward saucer section to maximise the power of a continuous phaser strip.

Zappy zappy~

 

[Enthusiast#117]

[X] An angular, widened saucer to accommodate a forward-facing shuttlebay or deflector.

I'm in it for the small and zippy part, not the miniature carrier part.

 

[Jax]

[X] An elongated forward saucer section to maximise the power of a continuous phaser strip.

 

[me.me.here]

[X] A standard saucer with dual secondary hulls.

Practically and strategically speaking, high warp factors are a pretty big deal - it increases the volume of space a ship can cover in a given time, and for something like a light cruiser which is (at least in my head) usually more about coverage and patrolling that about being particularly killy I think that outweighs having a big gun or a fancy deflector.

Also ~~perfect circle~~

 

[Introverted]

[X] An elongated forward saucer section to maximise the power of a continuous phaser strip

 

[Happerry]

[X] An elongated forward saucer section to maximise the power of a continuous phaser strip.

 

[Skippy]

[X] An angular, widened saucer to accommodate a forward-facing shuttlebay or deflector.

This lets us be as compact as possible, which is important for maintaining the design goal of minimising mass so the ship can be extremely agile. Ultimately I am forced to vote for this despite the lure of shiny pew pew.

 

[Lonosic]

[X] An elongated forward saucer section to maximise the power of a continuous phaser strip.

 

[MysteryCPU]

This lets us be as compact as possible, which is important for maintaining the design goal of minimising mass so the ship can be extremely agile. Ultimately I am forced to vote for this despite the lure of shiny pew pew.

Click to shrink...

I may be missing something, but the angular, widened saucer is not stated to be more compact or have less mass than the phaser design. It is simply wide where the phaser design is long. And there is no description as to the design being more agile. It just allows for either a fighter hanger or foreward facing deflector. Which does affect Warp speed, but not agility.