They do. Green water navies make fast attack craft. It's pretty common.
Ship design has shown this untrue.
To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
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- Sci-Fi
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Actually I think there's better use for space-based infrastructure, after destroy nearly every warship and planetary military bases we should take all of their spaceside infrastructure like shipyards and most of their freighters leaving enough for food and give them to former Cardassian clients which would boost our influence and compensate for all the resources and damage they taken.
This pretty much make them halfway to our affiliates.
And by the time Cardassian rebuild half of their losses, the former clients would become too powerful to be bullied again and already surrounded them as our affiliates of course whether Cardassian change remains to be see.
We can keep eye on our new affiliates to make sure they don't bully Cardassian too much.
Attacks on their planetary military bases would cause a change of govt plus its also to show they truly are beaten as we broadcast freely of their defeat and continue to showcase independent news over time.
Its not going to be a Versailles treaty if they can still gain food and limited resources easily with what remain of their freighters.
- Location
- Cyberspace
Mmmm... you know, is there any reason not to change up, if not the Five Year Mission itself, then at least how other large vessels patrol around? Have a doctrine of an Explorer plus two escorts. It doesn't just improve the combat capabilities, but gives a bunch of flexibility. For example:
* The escorts can provide two additional supplemental sensor platforms when scanning a system.
* Ability to be in multiple places in general (multiple contacts to pursue or investigate).
* Offers a wider 'net' when patrolling by having the escorts separated out by a few light-years.
* Isolated (if lesser) science or medical facilities to offer additional quarantine options.
* Ability to 'scout out' a potential trap with an escort while the larger ship supervises to catch ambushers.
* Offers a position for officer seasoning, including brand-new captains.
* Gives the ability to evacuate the crew of the larger vessel if the worst comes.
* Escorts could be specialized to a greater or lesser extent. For example, a hospital ship or a science ship.
* A way to respond to greater danger or a state of emergency would be simply to add a third and maybe a fourth escort, allowing easy transition.
Granted, a Five Year Mission has this almost mythic appeal to the people of the Federation - it's a potent symbol and all that - but for vessels not on one, at least, that might encounter random Events, there couldn't be a more supportive doctrine.
I vaguely recall the Cardassian view being some mixture of "yeah, they're actually complete peace-loving pushovers" and "they've got some serious sneakiness under the peace-loving hood". I'm thinking Federation actions in recent years kind of weakens the former view - some of the actions taken during the biophage were fairly ruthless, and the current campaign against the Syndicate has some vicious bits as well.
Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
Is it possible to tow things through the warp? Because the image of us literally stealing Cardassian shipyards is amusing, if impractical.
Forgothrax
Not Going Gently
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- He/Him
Playing with the design, cutting P doesn't really save much, because I can't drop it to 0 (earns Militarization Points) and trying to drop it to just 1 means I take a Defense hit (and we get militarization points if we have C > 2D). At most, with tweaking, I could possibly save us 5SR and 5 BR for a loss of -1p. Can't cut S at all, because C > S+2 means that we get militarization points for that as well.
As for mothballing, Oneiros has said that something like building a Combat module to mothball and a S&P module for peacetime would result in the modules being counted towards our cap. I think building a fleet escort that we mothball in peacetime would likely earn the same penalty.
The lead time just means it's more imperative to start the project early (so that the first fruits will be available as we finish the Cardassian war and to have as replacements for lost escorts).
It's funny.
The Cardassians are short on bulk resources and on food.
Two things we have in overabundance.
If they weren't a military government focused on expansion and on racial superiority, the economic questions would solve themselves.
The Cardassians are short on bulk resources and on food.
Two things we have in overabundance.
If they weren't a military government focused on expansion and on racial superiority, the economic questions would solve themselves.
Combined Arms patrols in task groups.
pheonix89
Wants to be Seven Of Nine
- Location
- North American Plaguelands
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- She/Her
The Cardassians haven't seen what the Federation is like in full gloves off mode yet. The Romulans and Klingons HAVE.
Also Cardassian ideology does not permit a world where the federation as it actually is can exist - an accurate xenopsych profile is basically heresy in their ideology.
- Location
- Earth
You can build 5 Centaur-A's for 400br 350sr and S15 P15. You can build 4 Renaissances for 400br 320sr and S12 P16... but if a +1S refit only increases the cost by 10sr(I'm being generous and assuming it's not 5sr which would be more likely, if you look at past refits the Centaur-A was 10sr for +1S +1L +1P +1D after all) it becomes 400br 360sr S16 P16. Going higher in ship numbers only makes it worse from there.
Now, crew wise you've got a point, though the high crew cost (3O 5E 3T) was due to it being an non-optimized canon ship. I'm pretty sure someone with the build sheet could make something better.
Hmm, well I would point out that we have 0 Militarization and 13 Threat right now and quite frankly what else are we ever likely to spend it on other than dedicated combat designs? (I assume ship Militarization cost is just a one time thing, otherwise never mind)
Mothballing, well A), that was a while ago and about ships we would be getting service out of in the mean time, and B), if it still works that way I can't think of a reason to ever bother keeping ships in mothballs then.
As for the last point, sure. I don't think it's too likely your going to get support for spending PP and RP on it though, unless we have way more than I believe we're getting.
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pheonix89
Wants to be Seven Of Nine
- Location
- North American Plaguelands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So true. So freaking true. This entire freaking conflict exists because the Cardassians cannot into peer diplomacy and interstellar econ. Seriously there HAS to be something they've got plenty of and we could use more of and it's not like the federation is remotely short on what they're low on.
But because they've got a government of asshats they're getting into a disadvantageous cold war that won't solve the problem instead.
- Location
- Patriarchova
The available evidence suggests that they're short on SR, not BR.
I also can't believe that a people with advanced TrekTech who control an empire that covers dozens if not hundreds of star systems is actually unable to feed itself. The Cardassian food shortage is a 1984-esque scam to keep their people in line, or I'm a Pakled.
Well we can trade after we destroy their military and client system.
- Location
- Central Standard Time
However, we lose flexibility.
We have 3-4 ships patrolling cubic light-years of space.
Each sector is several weeks wide at emergency mobilization speeds. Thus, tying our ships together doesn't help.
Other people have argued this much better than I, but this should be a sufficient TLDR.
This topic is an older one, dating back to when we decided on doctrine research.
- Location
- Patriarchova
In progress. The enemy still completely or partially controls two of the three major cities, including the capital, and we need to finish the job before the Cardassians can take advantage.
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Assuming that, you know, the replicators exist and can make food, kinda a big deal.
- Location
- Central Standard Time
Derek58
Rocket Punch is Best Punch
- Location
- Getter Valhalla
It's still a serious fight in the capital, but Ginadain's about to fall.
- Location
- Patriarchova
No.
Replicators should be redundant when it comes to things like food production. With the kind of biological, chemical, and mechanical engineering that even lower powered Trek races have, it would be the easiest thing in the world to make mega-arcologies that pump out GMO superfoods by the kiloton. With the amount of territory the Cardassians control, even if it really is a resource-poor region of space, the only way they could possibly not be able to feed themselves is if their population is multiple orders of magnitude higher than anyone else's.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I don't know what would be analogous to that in the context of Star Trek, but it definitely wouldn't a ship the Federation is likely to want to build.
Suffice to say that I tried to pick limited objectives and war aims. Things the Cardassians might conceivably agree to BEFORE we destroy every ship they have and occupy some of their planets, which could get extremely ugly, difficult, and bloody.
Think in terms of cabinet wars. Wars where your opponent is still there afterwards, and you're still going to have to deal with them as a serious, significant opponent- just hopefully on more favorable terms.
The "loot the Cardassian war economy entirely and give it to unspecified affiliates of theirs, some of which hate us" plan would require us to much more completely defeat the Cardassians in order to secure peace. It would take a longer, costlier war. And it would result in more internal division and dissension within the Federation. As in, Stesk will probably support us in at least beating the Cardassian fleet, and hopefully in turning Bajor Sector into a neutral zone. But I doubt he'll support us in dictating terms at phaser-point over Cardassia Prime if the Cardassians themselves are willing to negotiate a cessation of hostilities and normalization of relations short of that.
Actually that's pretty much the conditions Versailles imposed on the Germans. It's not that they didn't have AN economy afterwards. It's that the amount of economic damage and the reparations demands were barely enough to supply food. The government collapsed into chaos (Germany basically fought a low-level civil war from 1919-22 or so). The reparations demands prevented easy restoration of a civilian economy, which created a radicalized sector of the population (the future Nazis). And the intense humiliation of having their national military arbitrarily capped at an extremely low level, having to accept full blame for the war in the treaty, and having to give up provinces to basically every one of their neighboring nations including nations that hadn't participated in the war...
Suffice to say that the Allies really, really set themselves up for the prospect of a vengeful Germany trying to recoup its losses. They were unlucky in just how vicious and crazy that vengeful German government was, but something along those lines was almost bound to happen.
We do NOT want the end of this conflict to look even a bit like Versailles, and the fact that you're having to explain how "it's not really Versailles-like!" is not reassuring. I'd much rather have a 'cabinet war' resolution with the Cardassians that allows them to retain the means to defend themselves and to negotiate from a position of lesser strength but still strength. Trying to smash them so hard that they wind up begging on their knees is likely to backfire, both because of its effects on the Cardassians and its effects on us.
We can definitely tow things up to and including explorers at warp drives, and almost anything in space can probably be cut up into pieces no larger than an explorer and towed. I'll be honest, the idea of stealing some of their shipyards or whatever appeals to me too. I just don't think it's very practical to try and deprive the Cardassians of all their space-military infrastructure at the peace table. They'll just keep fighting if so, and if that means we impose hardship on them... well, the Cardassian government is kind of perfectly set up from a propaganda position to blame foreigners for hardship.
It's like trying to starve North Korea into submission- or, more aptly, like fighting a duck by shooting water at him.
Well, the problem with mothballing combat modules is that you obviously intend to add them to ships, quickly, to turn them into warships. Mothballing entire ships means you can't just snap your fingers and turn 'peace ships' into warships; you have to have crews available for the mothballed ships. Since the main reason we'd be talking about mothballing ships in the first place is that we can't afford to crew them... that's a significant factor in any calculation.
So I suspect we can reduce the count towards combat cost of a ship by mothballing it. But that doesn't mean we can do the same for the combat cost of a "fighting module" on an existing ship that was supposed to be relatively peaceful.
Seems likely. On the other hand, if omakes are to be believed, it may well be that their homeworld is such a tapped-out ecological wreck that the capital needs serious imports of food and raw materials to sustain its population and economy. Because they made a deliberate choice to rely on interstellar colonies and shipping, rather than build up autarkic production capability in the home system.
In which case the situation is, uh... not-simple. The resource shortages are almost certainly a scam on some level. But at the same time they may have actual economic problems requiring a certain minimum level of interstellar commerce, and active exploitation of frontier/vassal worlds' resources, in order to keep everyone alive and to keep the machine running.
@OneirosTheWriter has mentioned a few times that the vast majority of "spaceships" are vessels meant to tool around a solar system at impulse speeds and are not capable of FTL travel. They're not really our concern because ships like that are completely outside the purview of Starfleet. Those would be "green water" ships.
While member worlds could be building and arming ships like that, I have to think they'd be pretty helpless against anything with a warp drive. I mentioned this in my pirates omake actually. Any starship equipped with a warp drive can literally fly rings around a slower-than-light ship, engaging only when they choose.
Per ship.
I am one of the best at the build sheet right now.
I am telling you that you are wrong from a build sheet perspective. Diminishing returns on strength of parts per quantity become such that smaller ships are more efficient. The most efficient number of almost any part to have is two. The larger your ship is the more parts you can fit the higher stats you can get. But those stats are less efficient. In addition, escorts are allowed to use more of their hull for any given subsystem than cruisers and explorers.
- Location
- Patriarchova
That's definitely true of industrial resources. But food?
Let's assume that there's not enough room or whatever on Cardassia Prime to build the needed arcologies to feed the planet's population. How many orbital space farms would you need to make up the difference? How much energy would you need to power the transporters that send the produce down to the surface (and recycled fertilizers back up)? How many people would you need to employ to keep it all running?
Now. How much of that do you think you could build for the same cost as a single Jaldun cruiser?
My interpretation is that the Cardassians did, in the not-too-distant past, have a legitimate food crisis due to a series of ruinous internal and external wars that wrecked their production. But now that they're unified under a single government and not embroiled in an existential conflict, there is no good reason for them to still be hungry.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Honestly, if it gets to that point, I don't want to end the war with the Cardassian Union.
I would want to end it by negotiations with the Union's successor states.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
File that under "no way will we have the political will for that" barring the Cardassians doing something very, very stupid.