To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

Briefvoice · Feb 21, 2017

Vehrec said:
How do the refit costs for our existing Excelsiors look? Should we prioritize getting a new shipyard or 3MT berth for refits, or would that put us in the red? I note you have 10 refits listed on the spreadsheet, but we're looking at having 13 ships that will need it.

I see the primary issue with refits being not cost, but how many Excelsiors we are willing to have out of service at once. Therefore it's more of a deployment issue than a spreadsheet issue.

It's going to be a tricky balancing act. I think we'll want to cycle some of the Explorer Corps ships through refit as they end their 5YM, taking the opportunity to put in a gap year of refits before starting the next 5YM.

SynchronizedWritersBlock · Feb 21, 2017

Briefvoice said:
I see the primary issue with refits being not cost, but how many Excelsiors we are willing to have out of service at once. Therefore it's more of a deployment issue than a spreadsheet issue.

Yeah, I'd wonder if we should wait for the first Rennie wave. That seems a better time to me, as they will easily cover garrison requirements.

It's going to be a tricky balancing act. I think we'll want to cycle some of the Explorer Corps ships through refit as they end their 5YM, taking the opportunity to put in a gap year of refits before starting the next 5YM.

Agreed with that.

Vehrec · Feb 21, 2017

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
It's difficult to say if we want the Excelsior refit so urgently, in my opinion.

It's possible upcoming sheet changes push the big Ambassador out of viability. Certainly, our recommended changes would do it. That means that we'd be looking seriously at an Excelsior-replacement Ambassador design. So a refit would only really apply to hulls we already have in service/construction.

Are you recommending those changes because they make 'big Ambassador' not viable, because they make things more 'backwards compatible', or for some other balance related reason? You guys are pushing a lot of changes to the spreadsheet right now and I don't know which ones your talking about making a difference here, or why you're recomending those. I know you personally are not in favor of the expense and crew requirements of the big design and while you're not exactly it's enemy, I don't know if you'd shed many tears to see it go either.

I'm not voting for the Excelsior-A+ here when I go for the new Explorer designs, even though I can see the appeal to some. But if 'Big Ambasador' is off the table in terms of next-gen explorers, that means that the Excelsior-A+ is our main viable option, and that feels milquetoast to me. I'm all for debating Big vs Efficient in this thread, but if Big is no longer on the table, then I don't feel like voting for a new Explorer now if it means that Efficient is going to win by default by being the only viable design.

SynchronizedWritersBlock · Feb 21, 2017

Vehrec said:
Are you recommending those changes because they make 'big Ambassador' not viable, because they make things more 'backwards compatible', or for some other balance related reason? You guys are pushing a lot of changes to the spreadsheet right now and I don't know which ones your talking about making a difference here, or why you're recomending those. I know you personally are not in favor of the expense and crew requirements of the big design and while you're not exactly it's enemy, I don't know if you'd shed many tears to see it go either.

I'm not voting for the Excelsior-A+ here when I go for the new Explorer designs, even though I can see the appeal to some. But if 'Big Ambasador' is off the table in terms of next-gen explorers, that means that the Excelsior-A+ is our main viable option, and that feels milquetoast to me. I'm all for debating Big vs Efficient in this thread, but if Big is no longer on the table, then I don't feel like voting for a new Explorer now if it means that Efficient is going to win by default by being the only viable design.

It's complicated and has little to do with the big Ambassador design itself. When we talk design on the current sheet, there's a "parts curve" of research tier vs effectiveness. The shape of the curve is good right now; as parts rank up in tier the difference between them is around where we want it to be. However, we've revealed with escort-sized designs and refits that the curve may need to be shifted downwards in effectiveness while preserving the differences and shape of the curve. Depending on the magnitude of the shift, or indeed if Oneiros decides to do it at all, the "big" Ambassador (by which we mean 8/8/5/8/8/8 stats) may or may not remain possible.

That's why I really don't like making this vote now. The information just isn't there.

nocarename · Feb 21, 2017

Remember questers!
If you're Batman, another hero, or even a supervillain, the Batman setting is a superhero one. If you're a mook, it's a horror story. (If you're a Cop or a PI it's a Noir detective setting. So.)
The lights go out and people vanish. Your friends disappear from the back of the group when you walk from place to place. Phil went outside to grab a smoke and no one's seen him since!

Iron Wolf said:
Orion Batman is probably going to need to move to Yrillia at this point.

That's where I'm going to have to send Orion!Marika once I get something actually finished for her.

Briefvoice · Feb 21, 2017

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Depending on the magnitude of the shift, or indeed if Oneiros decides to do it at all, the "big" Ambassador (by which we mean 8/8/5/8/8/8 stats) may or may not remain possible.

That's why I really don't like making this vote now. The information just isn't there.

Really, who cares if it's all 8s or if there are some 7s in there? The point is that it's going to be a substantial improvement on the Excelsior. I think you're over-estimating how much people care about the specifics of the statline.

nocarename said:
That's where I'm going to have to send Orion!Marika once I get something actually finished for her.

That will be confusing, since there's already a Yrillian!Marika.

lbmaian · Feb 21, 2017

Vehrec said:
We are already in the process of claiming Ariel colony and establishing an outpost there.

The last time Ariel was explicitly mentioned was in the update where we found a mining option in it. We're not establishing an outpost there right now.

We can infer that the GBZ task force will eventually do so without our input.

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
That's why I really don't like making this vote now. The information just isn't there.

Well, that's nothing new - we've had plenty of votes with minimal information. Syndicate legislation being a prominent example.

KnightDisciple · Feb 21, 2017

nocarename said:
Remember questers!
If you're Batman, another hero, or even a supervillain, the Batman setting is a superhero one. If you're a mook, it's a horror story. (If you're a Cop or a PI it's a Noir detective setting. So.)
The lights go out and people vanish. Your friends disappear from the back of the group when you walk from place to place. Phil went outside to grab a smoke and no one's seen him since!

That's where I'm going to have to send Orion!Marika once I get something actually finished for her.

I hope I conveyed it without getting too overboard!

Briefvoice · Feb 21, 2017

lbmaian said:
The last time Ariel was explicitly mentioned was in the update where we found a mining option in it. We're not establishing an outpost there right now.

We can infer that the GBZ task force will eventually do so without our input.

Assuming they win the war! I mean, territory in the Gabriel Expanse is being fought over. It's no surprise that it's no longer a matter for Snakepit votes. It's a matter of whose fleet can hold the territory.

Nix · Feb 21, 2017

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
If you want to be scrapping Excelsior-As in 20 years when we're up against the combat cap, then sure, make those arguments. I do agree that we should refit and that it has benefits, but not to presume that those benefits include starting more Excelsior-As. We don't have the information to make that decision, and I actually think it's kind of a shitshow that we're holding this vote without a finalized sheet so that you can have the information.

But my opinion from using the current sheet and the changes people have been suggesting to it, that the Ambassador could out-compete the Excelsior-A in cost and crew efficiency, and if we pick such a design, once the prototype is near complete, we should not be building any E-A.

It's just 18pp. Even if the Ambassador makes new Excelsiors unattractive once it rolls out the 10 or so Excelsiors-A that would be build until then (average 1-2 per year) easily make it worthwhile, without even considering refits to existing ships (which also make it worthwhile by themselves). We are probably going to get the Constellation refit as well before too long, just for refitting 7 ships (and the member fleet ones), which makes it a far worse deal than the Excelsior refit could possibly be, but still worthwhile.

I very much do not expect us to mothball any Excelsiors in the next few decades either, if we run into the combat cap we are going to mothball Constellations, Constitutions and Mirandas first. Even if that should result in the explorer percentage getting high enough to cause actual problems I expect us to reclassify Excelsiors as cruisers rather than mothballing them.

nocarename · Feb 21, 2017

Briefvoice said:
That will be confusing, since there's already a Yrillian!Marika.

It'll be fine. Yrillian!Marika has the fancier ship and the more experienced crew.
Orion!Marika the, um, prettier crew.
~Selection bias!~

MTB · Feb 21, 2017

Nix said:
I very much do not expect us to mothball any Excelsiors in the next few decades either, if we run into the combat cap we are going to mothball Constellations, Constitutions and Mirandas first. Even if that should result in the explorer percentage getting high enough to cause actual problems I expect us to reclassify Excelsiors as cruisers rather than mothballing them.

Or gift them to home fleets.

Yeangst · Feb 21, 2017

[X][FACTION] Approach the Mercantilists about a diplomatic/financial push to assist the Orions with their political and economic transition.

Void Stalker · Feb 21, 2017

We have 4 Excelsiors finishing in 2315, use two of those berths on refits. And the two that finish from those berths can be the ones replacing the Excelsiors we refit

Iron Wolf · Feb 21, 2017

nocarename said:
That's where I'm going to have to send Orion!Marika once I get something actually finished for her.

I think if Gartia escaped the downfall of Celos (@OneirosTheWriter ) as I think I might have said elsewhere, she'd probably head to Yrillian space next. It's gonna be busy over there!

Simon_Jester · Feb 21, 2017

Okay, WOW. It looks like while I was out, the political stuff has already bandwagoned, but I at least want to converse and keep up the pretense that I'm a participant in the thread...

UbeOne said:
1. Should we get Seruk to retire, or not?

No. That old bastard is useful. I've become a fan of the 'make him a vice admiral' plan, actually, just so we can keep our mascot of the bureaucracy. I refuse to hate him just because he sometimes tells us things we don't want to hear like "it's not normal to keep the same captain on the same ship for fifteen years."

SuperSonicSound said:
Year and half is a long time to have the ships out of circulation, tbh I'm rather tempted with that cost to just replace them with Rennies and give the old hulls over to our member world fleets.

Rennie costs 100/80 vs 40/30. Eats one more unit of crew across the board. So refitting the Constel is slightly cheaper but you end up with a less effective vessel and the constellations are going to be out of service for six turns whilst you upgrade them for essentially 1/3rd of the cost of building a new vessel.

If we just build Rennies to replace them and throw the old constellation hulls over to the member worlds we'll have a more capable fleet, we could take the refit project anyway though so that the member worlds could do the refits on the older a vessels but we only have seven of them.

We can also VERY cheaply refit the Constellations into passably effective utility garrison escorts. Which doubles down on the role we already have for them.

As fighting ships, even the cruiser variant of the Constellation-A is going to be unsatisfactory (-1C -1L -1D compared to a ConnieBee, -1C -1H -2L -1D compared to a Rennie), but at least they'll be able to keep up with enemy escorts on equal terms instead of getting easily blown out of space by a Hasque or a gun Takaaki.

All the arguments against selling them off still apply, in my opinion.

kyuden said:
Considering the Development faction keep hitting us about our logistics issues would it be worth doing a deal with them for assistance building/expanding dedicated auxiliary yards?

Kahurangi already madet hat deal, and Development already spent 50 of our political will points starting one at Amarkia.

Leila Hann · Feb 21, 2017

Simon_Jester said:
Okay, WOW. It looks like while I was out, the political stuff has already bandwagoned, but I at least want to converse and keep up the pretense that I'm a participant in the thread...

No. That old bastard is useful. I've become a fan of the 'make him a vice admiral' plan, actually, just so we can keep our mascot of the bureaucracy. I refuse to hate him just because he sometimes tells us things we don't want to hear like "it's not normal to keep the same captain on the same ship for fifteen years."

We can also VERY cheaply refit the Constellations into passably effective utility garrison escorts. Which doubles down on the role we already have for them.

As fighting ships, even the cruiser variant of the Constellation-A is going to be unsatisfactory (-1C -1L -1D compared to a ConnieBee, -1C -1H -2L -1D compared to a Rennie), but at least they'll be able to keep up with enemy escorts on equal terms instead of getting easily blown out of space by a Hasque or a gun Takaaki.

All the arguments against selling them off still apply, in my opinion.

Kahurangi already madet hat deal, and Development already spent 50 of our political will points starting one at Amarkia.

I support the cruiser constie refit. The escort version has the same price issues as the Centaur-A, but the cruiser version can be a mainstay capital ship for our smaller member fleets to use along with Miranda escorts.

Iron Wolf · Feb 21, 2017

The reason there were so many mirandas in the dominion war is because they were actually Apiata ships, clearly

MTB · Feb 21, 2017

By the way, do the members continue to develop their own ships?

HearthBorn · Feb 21, 2017

[X][COUNCIL] Plan Modern Explorers and Syndicate Amendment
[X][FACTION] Approach the Pacifists about a focused diplomatic initiative with the intent of mediating the Ked Paddah/Licori war to prevent needless loss of life.

Nix · Feb 21, 2017

MTB said:
By the way, do the members continue to develop their own ships?

Some do, at least for some types. The Amarki were considering designing a new escort a while ago, for example.

Simon_Jester · Feb 21, 2017

Leila Hann said:
I support the cruiser constie refit. The escort version has the same price issues as the Centaur-A, but the cruiser version can be a mainstay capital ship for our smaller member fleets to use along with Miranda escorts.

I can see the logic there. Honestly, I think the best argument against doing the Constellation refits this year is that we need another year of game time to argue and come to a consensus about which version we prefer.

Katsuragi said:
[] Request Start of Heavy Explorer project, receiving one-off boost of Research Points and go-ahead for some projects, 34pp

Throwing my vote at this, Don't care what else goes through.

Unfortunately our political votes aren't line-item, so what you're doing is voting for this one thing and then (effectively) voting to do nothing with our other 45 or so political will this year...

fasquardon said:
Total plan cost is 81pp.

I really don't see why we need to start the Ambassador this year and the Constellation cruisers are getting seriously long in the tooth. I'd really like to get them set up for starting their upgrades as Rennies are rolling off of the yards.

Getting the science academy now will help us build up the tech manpower to start rolling out a good number of new generation science ships (is it being called the Kepler now?) in a few years.

Kepler-class is a working title. That said, I suspect the tech requirements of new science vessels won't be as comically unbalanced as the Oberth's are. I could be wrong about that, call it a gut feeling.

The main reason I disagree with your plan is that we've been setting up preparations for years to start the Ambassador project in 2313. I wouldn't mind switching out the Excelsior refit proposed by Nix or Erandil for a Constellation refit and starting Excelsior refits next year, but I don't like the idea of delaying Ambassador rollout. Especially since getting the prototype started is a Starfleet ambition and the sooner we achieve it, the sooner we score points for it and the sooner we can move on to the next one.

Erandil · Feb 21, 2017

MTB said:
By the way, do the members continue to develop their own ships?

Nix said:
Some do, at least for some types. The Amarki were considering designing a new escort a while ago, for example.

And the Rigel (or maybe Risa) guys also asked us for our input regarding their fleet setup (though in their case it was a more a question of copying Fed design or continuing with their own).

MTB · Feb 21, 2017

Erandil said:
And the Rigel (or maybe Risa) guys also asked us for our input regarding their fleet setup (though in their case it was a more a question of copying Fed design or continuing with their own).

That becomes a full-time job for Oneiros. I assume member states have access to Federation tech?

Simon_Jester · Feb 21, 2017

Torgamous said:
[][FACTION] Approach the Pacifists about designing a cloak-capable diplomatic vessel for diplomacy with Cardassian clients.

If only I had @Leila Hann's "frowning pacifist Vulcan" picture handy... Seriously. NO CLOAKS. At least not as far as the Vulcans are concerned, I'm betting. Amarki or Apiata or even Indorians may not understand why they're concerned, but that's different.

Glassware said:
[][FACTION] Approach the Pacifists about a focused diplomatic initiative with the intent of mediating the Ked Paddah/Licori war to prevent needless loss of life.

I really want to get on top of that before it spirals out of control and the Licori start blowing up suns or something.

I like this idea very much. I'll note that it doesn't even have to be about improving relations with the Federation (the usual focus of our focused diplomacy), just about ending the war or at least getting a cease-fire while the two sides talk it out.

Briefvoice said:
[][FACTION] Approach the Mercantilists about a diplomatic/financial push to assist the Orions with their political and economic transition.

I like this too. "Federation Free Trade Zone!"

The Combat Cap is still 350 and will likely be close to that by the end of the decade depending on how tensions with the Cardassians rise or fall and how many more new members we add. Probably somewhere from 370 to 400. We may yet get to the point where we actually have to be retiring ships for good.

That... does seem rather likely.

Translation: When Ainsworth blows the hell out of the Sydraxian fleet, we'll pick up militarization points like candy. Sigh. Well, we have some room on that front, and it's a worthy cause. At least the Hawks will be a little happier with Starfleet for once.

This is true. And frankly, we were going to rack up militarization for something involving the Cardassians sooner or later. We've been very, very good little boys and girls about not trying to strangle them as they danced rings around us, taunting us and daring us to knock the chips off their shoulders. But even our own xenopsych teams are telling us that the Cardassians aren't going to agree to normal relations without a fight. Subject to that constraint, the best possible scenario is to fight them in an area where only belligerent warships are likely to be harmed, where everyone involved consented to fly into a warzone. Best we can do.

Yeah right. Heidi Eriksson is singing, "Gonna be retired in three months. Not going to be my problem so soon. Your roasting is just the pleasant reminder of the beach heat I will soon enjoy when I move out to the islands. Yeah-yeah."

15pp isn't actually very much. I'm not even sure what the Pacifists are going to be able to buy with that. I know they don't have to pick from our list precisely, but I assume the value will be about the same.

Maybe they'll try the "mission to the Ked Paddah and Licori" thing.

I assume a Super-Kepler would fall under a Garrison Escort? As the Council never tires of reminding us, there is no maximum science!

...[Pulls mask off random counselor]

...Ah-HA! A GAENI!

Poor Caladonians, going to be locked out for a few years more.

They seem happy in the background doing all their sciencing. They probably are glad to have the time just to get caught up, since they were in the TOS era when we met them. My keeping the spotlight off themselves, they avoid getting denigrated for primitive technology, the way we keep making fun of the Indorian fleet and throwing popcorn at it for being weak and primitive.

To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

a thirsty squirrel

Love God. Do Right. Fear No Man.

Normie