...This is a thing.
Basically, if adding 'generalist' capability to a frigate has negligible cost, then yes, I agree, it makes no sense to design a combat frigate. I will note that in the long run this represents something of a diversion away from Star Trek canon. There's a reason Starfleet got a lot more dangerous in a fight when it started designing ship classes with combat in mind- because they could relatively easily design classes like the Akira and Defiant that represented a great increase in firepower by sacrificing some or all of the non-combat extras.
Part of the issue here is Council restrictions. Starfleet being more dangerous when they started designing combatants is because, in TBG mechanic terms, the Council lifted Militarization penalties per-ship for those particular designs. If I didn't have to work with the C-2 = minimum S rule or if I could just not give a shit about a P0 ship, or if I just needed a pure combatant that's Vanguard-Only, it would be cheaper and easier to build a pure combatant. Since I'd slap on minimal nacelles, ignore Science components, and not really add anything for Presence (usually you end up spending a bit to get P1 on an escort, on a cruiser+ you pretty much get it automatically from mandatory components). It wouldn't completely fix the problem, but it would help. Whether we would WANT such a ship is another matter, but if long running wars became a thing, or having to deal with Cubes was a recurring problem, I think we would rapidly start optimizing for Vanguard and Heavy Metal. Not having a peacetime use for a ship is fine, after all, if you always have a war to shove them into...
The other issue is that granularity breaks down for escorts as previously stated. Ignoring SR costs completely, if fractional costs for crewing into, say, quarters was a thing you'd see a lot more differentiation of designs. But it's not uncommon for there to be as much as 0.75 crew worth of difference between two designs, but since they're both above 2 and below 3 crew points in cost, they both cost 3 crew points. Similarly, that five points of SR that a design costs extra can map to fractions of a point of SR over that cutoff point (my 1/3/3 generalist frigate design is hovering around 1-2 points of SR greater than the 60 cutoff).
And see, I get that, but I'm trying to predict the questions the Council is going to ask us about this. The point is, "it's a wartime reconnaissance vessel that purely coincidentally does a Kepler's job" is not going to make the Council stop asking awkward questions like "why not just build a better Kepler "
Now, the honest answer is "because we want a really great wartime reconaissance vessel and this stupid hippy Kepler isn't good enough to make us happy." But this answer will predictably make Stesk go all frowny and could net us a militarization point or three. Which is exactly as it should be when we're designing entire classes of high-powered ships with the explicit intention of using them to fight large-scale pitched battles. Just because the ship doesn't have a wealth of heavy guns doesn't mean it's not an example of Starfleet designing a ship 'for war.'
The same argument applies to refitting the Oberths as spy ships, rather than as more civilian-oriented research vessels.
While I understand the point, the matter remains that we have had access to a minesweeper role for quite some time; I believe it popped up around the Licori war. Given that sweeping mines is a S check, and that minesweepers get a special bonus to survive mine hits (which I think indicates that they're the first to hit a failed mine) the role probably requires High S with ability to take a hit. So the Kepler would not serve and a specialist would be required. Given that our Tactical Admiral is not dumb and can play politics to some degree (flag rank = politics in IRL militaries, I see no reason Starfleet would not be the same way) I suspect that we would be able to get such a design past the Council. I see no reason that a scout design would be more problematic.
I also checked with Oneiros via Discord before posting this in the main thread, and apparently "P3 would take much of the sting out." So it might be a difficult sell, but it's not going to be terribly difficult. We might eat a Militarization point for the design, but if the combat frigate update only costs 2Mil, I doubt it would be more than that. It is my personal belief that, given our very high Threat level and examples of actions that reward us with Militarization wiping, we can eat a point if we stand to gain something decent from it. If nothing else, the highest level Penetrating Nadions tech earns us a point. As do QTorps.
Also, ironically, there's a "300kt Intel Module" option on the research list, T5 IIRC. So apparently at some point we'll be able to design ships that can carry specialist intel gear and that's cool yo
Cuz I'd rather get all entries with just pass/fail/rewards than have an EC cap. An EC cap makes no sense at all for Starfleet at a meta-narrative level, or from an IC level unless somehow the Expansionist party has been completely ousted.
Frankly, we're going to have the ability soon to produce 4 Ambys every 4 years and crew them with EC crew unless we're taking EC casualties. And that ability will only expand. At some point, we are going to have to draw a line in the sand as to how many EC events are generated per quarter or the game will choke on them. IDK where Oneiros' limit is, but he's already noting that he's choking on 20 events per quarter. Even if we slice the vast majority of regular fleet-generated events, as well as RP-get and Mapping Missions for EC, building off of that I very much doubt we will be able to maintain more than 15 FYMs as well as Oneiros' sanity. I will happily accept restrictions on those for reasons of GM workload. The game is more important than one mechanic.
