Did not notice it was on the front page. Use the Defiant as an example of a Combat Escort of that makes you happy.
To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
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- Sci-Fi
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Did not notice it was on the front page. Use the Defiant as an example of a Combat Escort of that makes you happy.
I don't entirely agree that the Centaur concept is a dead end.
A useful generalist frigate (as in one with relatively equal stats) is very, very, difficult at frigate scales.
A garrison frigate is basically what we're putting out in the Kepler. A pared down Kepler (S5 P4 D4 for example) would be easy at the Centaur-A scale with current tech. Note that the proposed Kepler fits into the garrison frigate requirement. So you can think of the Kepler as the logical successor to the Centaur-A. Whether we want a pared-down Kepler or not is another question, and I would say there's no point to that; it won't be considerably cheaper.
The generalist concept can fit cruisers better since they have more weight and since the parts of a fairly equal-statted ship are more spread out over multiple subframes. On the other hand if we have to focus on certain stats, like in the Ops and Engineering subframes like the Kepler does, then frigates are a better fit than cruisers are until you really start getting into 1.5mt+ sizes.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Canon Galaxies are an expansionist and pacifist wet dream. As much as we love those factions (well, sometimes), they're the logical conclusion taken to the extreme when you allow an unholy union of expansionists and pacifists free reign with regard to any hawkish concerns.
But more seriously, I can see good reason behind the canon Galaxy. In gameplay terms, all that space reserved for families would not only translate to a massive presence stat (any maybe higher reaction due to endurance), but also would allow the Galaxy to perform colony ship and hospital ship roles.
So it would be an extremely capable ship. Just optimized for an era of rapid and peaceful expansion.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
By that time they'll have Galors. Which at this point I'm expecting to be very nasty 1.8 or two-megaton cruisers that 'wolfpack.' For that matter, they may be built to Excelsior/Ambassador scale in a dedicated wave of three-megaton berths the Cardies haven't gotten around to building yet.
Honestly, we may end up skipping straight to five-megaton explorer berths, freeing up our (by then many) three-megaton berths for 'cruiser'-weight ships like Excelsiors, Akiras, and Niagaras.
Strictly speaking yes, but what I'm getting at is that the general category of these big 1.2-1.5-megaton cruisers of the Jaldun family was already the dominant Cardassian ship class by 2305 or so, and we never so much as got a hint that an older class even existed. That means the Jaldun cannot be a NEW class circa 2300, because the Cardies would have needed time to build all those ships.
Thing is, if a ship fails twice while Green, the consequences are pretty much the same as failing twice while Blooded or twice while Veteran. Even if the odds of the failures actually happening are only 40% as high, it doesn't matter very much, if the ship gets 2.5 times more opportunities to screw up. And simply translating the screwups into the future doesn't change anything, because we will ALWAYS have opportunities for a bad event roll to cause us severe trouble.
So I don't feel like we're gaining very much one way or the other by using a one-time unique boost to give (say) 8-10 XP to boost a Green ship to Blooded (maybe not even that if we're just going from 4 XP Green to 8 or 10 XP Blooded)... As opposed to going from, say, 10 XP to 30. We're not clearly averting more failures, the failures we avert aren't necessarily more significant, and we're doing less to reduce the time it takes to build up crew veterancy.
Well, she WAS a Rogers design. It may well be that the class was just... not well conceived. Alternatively, the Centaur may have been expected to fill the role of a 'pocket Connie' to the Ares's 'pocket Excelsior.'
The problem is, it's strictly superior to the Miranda-A but greatly more expensive, it's sort of competitive with the Rennie for event response (factoring in cost) but much less capable in a fight. The design suffers from being "neither fish nor flesh nor fowl."
The best thing you can say for Centaur-As is that they are REALLY crew-efficient, especially in officers, and can fill any role at least adequately as long as "heavy intense combat" isn't part of the job description. I agree, though, that the high SR cost is crippling the design's potential.
If we were truly hard up for crew, as opposed to 'might not have quite as many as we want,' we'd almost certainly build a lot more Centaurs.
It would seem like hideous bad luck to lose Centaur just a couple of years after commissioning her in an incident no one ever mentioned. There's no suspicious hole in the registries where she ought to be like with the (hypothetical) USS Excalibur.
Would potential emerging technologies lower the Centaur's SR cost without lowering performance?
Thebigpieman
I've got this, I think.
- Location
- United States
That would require it being given a refit and not retired completely. By that point it is very likely we could come up with a better design anyways. But that remains to be seen.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
For our realities in game, yes- but in a different scenario where resources were the constraint, not so much.
That said, the Saber and its stats on the front page have NOTHING to do with what we are likely to design in its place, and probably not much to do with what Starfleet actually did in the TNG/DS9 era.
Nor are they particularly balanced.
EDIT: The ship design minigame-thing (all three iterations of it to date) really was a big step up.
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- Location
- Australia
So I'm starting to pencil in the member world ship orders and check over their state of affairs, looking for MWCO options. How much interest is there in a resource exchange with the Gaeni?
They have 90br and 170sr atm which even with their SR heavy designs is a bit too lopsided.
They have 90br and 170sr atm which even with their SR heavy designs is a bit too lopsided.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
There is most likely a lot of interest. We could use it.
Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
We wants it. Give it to us, precious. Gollum, gollum.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Technically possible (if you move this Centaur start date to 2298 due to prototype penalty), since the USS Centaur ship was never explicitly named, but unlikely or inconsequential. There's only a single gap in the low NCC-210x registries: NCC-2102. Even lost ships should still retain a NCC registry entry. Oddly enough, Yukikaze has registry NCC-2101, despite not being the lead ship.
I know Roger-era ship designs can be reasonably maligned, but I admit to being partial to the Centaur. Not its specific stat line - just the fact that's the very start of a new generation of ships that culminated in the Renaissance, and likely shares many design similarities.
First, there's a huge distinction to be made between the Centaur class and the generalist frigate concept.
The Centaur, as originally designed, was actually not a generalist frigate. It had a stat line of C3 S2 H2 L2 P2 D2 80br 60sr. That's +1S,H,P +20br +20sr compared to the Miranda, and of the three improved stats, only P has no combat relevance.
It's really the Centaur-A refit that made it a generalist frigate. It could've easily been a next gen combat frigate, if the 4 stats improved were instead +1C,H,L,D for a hypothetical stat line of C4 S2 H3 L3 P2 D3, although still expensive in SR. But for whatever reason, the SDB decided to infringe on much of the Constellation's role when coming up with Centaur-A refit. (I really don't know what 2304 SDB was smoking, what with coming up with the ridiculous C4 S3 H2 L2 P2 D4 Constellation-A refit design, along with the Centaur-A as we know it.)
Second, I somewhat agree that the generalist frigate concept just doesn't work out. Unless we were blessed with BR bottlenecks rather than SR ones.
But there's definitely room for the garrison frigate role. As SWB points out, that's basically what the Kepler is, with very good science, presence, and reaction. The Constellation-A is also basically a garrison frigate, if you ignore the "cruiser" and 3yr aspects of it.
Which understandably leaves for little room for the SR-heavy Centaur-A as it stands.
That's why I want a refit for the Centaur that either:
a) reduces the SR cost (and ideally improve either science or presence), so that it serve as a viable competitor with the Constellation-A trading off lots of crew and build time vs SR cost, reaction, and possibly a point of science;
b) or focus on the combat aspects of the Centaur as a stop-gap albeit SR-expensive combat & scouting frigate. A stat line of C4 S3 H3 L3 P3 D3 at the same 70sr, for example, would be a reasonable refit that lasts for about a decade, until we can mass produce the next gen combat and/or scouting frigate.
I think it should be possible. Two possible avenues to achieve this: either Oneiros fiats such a refit, or perhaps the SDB thread can try recreating the Centaur-A at tier 1, and then try to upgrade parts to reduce SR cost.
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We could easily trade away 200 br and not feel it.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
YES
do you even need to ask
Misc rat race comments:
I just noticed how much this posting makes sense.
At first, I thought Straak would help out the
But then I realized that the 40 Eridani A Design Bureau is going to be responsible for building the thing that's going to discover all those juicy rocks: the Kepler.
I feel kinda bad for Taggart. Her last known mission on the Winterwind was a failure, and she leaves for another posting.
Derek58
Rocket Punch is Best Punch
- Location
- Getter Valhalla
More SR is very good for us
And if we don't take it, though we probably will depending on the price, they can either stockpile it or offer it to another Federation Member.
This is pretty reasonable given the Ambassador's stats. Here is a comparison between a Green Ambassador and the various levels of Excelsior-A:
Ambassador: C8 S9 H7 L9 P9 D8
Green Excelsior-A: C7 S6 H4 L6 P6 D6
Blooded Excelsior-A: C8 S7 H5 L7 P7 D6
Veteran Excelsior-A: C9 S8 H6 L8 P8 D6
Elite Excelsior-A: C10 S9 H7 L9 P9 D6
So for anything outside an Elite Excelsior-A it is a straight up upgrade to switch over to even a Green Ambassador. Elite Excelsior-As are more questionable since they have better Combat (+2C) but worse equally worse Defense (-2D) and are equal in every other regard.Green Excelsior-A: C7 S6 H4 L6 P6 D6
Blooded Excelsior-A: C8 S7 H5 L7 P7 D6
Veteran Excelsior-A: C9 S8 H6 L8 P8 D6
Elite Excelsior-A: C10 S9 H7 L9 P9 D6
Eh, the Galaxy carrying families does make sense if you consider what it was designed for. The Galaxy was clearly designed for a different type of Five Year Mission then other explorers. Instead of putting around the edges of know space it was meant to pick a direction and head out for years in that direction, kinda like the Stargazer currently is. Given that it makes sense for it to carry families since after so long with minimal contact, too far out for regular communication, you'd be strangers by the time the mission finished.
Somewhere along the lines however that plan seems to have fallen apart given how the Enterprise-D spent it's entire life, apart from brief encounters with Q or other weird events, cruising around the edges of the Federation. My guess is the many flaws in the Galaxy's design meant it couldn't actually operate that long without support from a friendly starbase/shipyard. So they decided to play it safe and put it on regular Explorer duties.
It is literally impossible for us to whittle away our bulk resources surplus even if we did nothing but spam the most BR-heavy designs we have, like the Constellation-A and Miranda-A. We'd still run out of special resources first.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
While the numbers are obviously made up, you're ignoring my point that lower overall failure rate earlier, as in the first couple years, is more important than lower aggregate failure rate over twice or thrice the amount of years. Diplomatic successes and pp rewards (or at least non-failures) are as important to maximize as early as possible, because of the benefits of such successes compound themselves over time. That's not even counting the overall improved survival rate.
On the Centaur and the subsequent Centaur-A refit, I feel they both were likely testbeds for new high-automation systems. Filling the thing with bleeding-edge automation technology would explain the massive SR cost and relatively good crew efficiency. It would also explain the quick refit, as ideas that didn't work are replaced with (equally expensive) ideas that did.
This also explains why it's a design that's very likely to fall to the wayside rather than continue to be upgraded. Basically, it's an Ares that went a step further and actually got built, in the sense that it relied heavily on technology that wasn't fully realized but was pushed ahead of its time.
Such designs also usually leave long-lasting legacies in the designs that come after them. The Renaissance and the Kepler will likely owe a great deal to technologies pioneered in and refined from the Centaur.
This also explains why it's a design that's very likely to fall to the wayside rather than continue to be upgraded. Basically, it's an Ares that went a step further and actually got built, in the sense that it relied heavily on technology that wasn't fully realized but was pushed ahead of its time.
Such designs also usually leave long-lasting legacies in the designs that come after them. The Renaissance and the Kepler will likely owe a great deal to technologies pioneered in and refined from the Centaur.
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- Location
- Australia
I'm almost stumped as to what the Tellarites should be building.
They already have four Rennies in the oven. The Lorch Krind will finish repairing in three months. I'm going to add two Engineering Ships to the smaller berths. So one 1mt berth open now, one open next quarter.
And they have 235br/90sr burning a hole in their pocket.
Current fleet disposition is:
1 Excelsior
1 Connie-B
3 Constie
2 Centaur-A
6 Miranda-A
Add in Centaur-As for scouting? Try and beg/borrow/steal a berth to push the Miracht Agrad to Excelsior-A? A fifth Rennie?
They already have four Rennies in the oven. The Lorch Krind will finish repairing in three months. I'm going to add two Engineering Ships to the smaller berths. So one 1mt berth open now, one open next quarter.
And they have 235br/90sr burning a hole in their pocket.
Current fleet disposition is:
1 Excelsior
1 Connie-B
3 Constie
2 Centaur-A
6 Miranda-A
Add in Centaur-As for scouting? Try and beg/borrow/steal a berth to push the Miracht Agrad to Excelsior-A? A fifth Rennie?
Constellation-A, almost certainly, unless they don't have the crew for it. It does the science-y role better than the Centaur-A and is better suited to their reserves.
I'd recommend an Oberth if they didn't have that skewed resource stockpile, but again, the Constellation-A does an Oberth's job.
e: Also, are they not planning on replacing the Miranda-A they lost?
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- Location
- Australia
What I do like about this explanation is that it pretty neatly gels with the design ideas that led to the Galaxy, with other ships being used as technology test beds as part of a looong-range approach to the apex peacetime explorer (the Galaxy).
I do feel like there's a large scope for adding 'experimental' parts to the SDB doc, where using them in actual designs gets you a +4~5 to research, or even big lump sum tech advances. But they're a bit nutso on the SR.
Theunderbolt
"Prepare for trouble..."
- Location
- USoA
Looking at the map they're deep in Feddie territory. Do they have any interest in setting up shop somewhere in the GBZ/frontier?
New or refits on their 3 existing units?