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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest) Starfleet Ship Design Bureau, Refit ("To Boldly Go...")
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AKuz said:
So we have one ship in 5 years and then more in what 7? 8? Years? That is still too long.
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It's the same math for the ConnieBee as for the Cruiser, since we'd start research on both this year. The prototype would be built in 4.5 years starting next shipyard ops-the shipyard ops after that is when ConnieBees can be built, but we'd only get one batch before the prototype is finished and it is completely obsolete
 
On a more general note, I'm going to admit to being very confused by what's changed in shipbuilding (right now I've only done a complete read up through Page 200 or so). At that time, there was talk about upgrading the Centaur-class, which seems to be happening.

But people were also very enthusiastic and excited about starting to build Renaissance-class cruisers early. And now it seems like discussion has shifted to very different ideas and plans. That building the Renaissances is in fact going to be impossible (maybe until the schedule date of 2320, maybe until even longer than that). And that instead there is talk of both commissioning refitted Constitutions as a stopgap measure, and of commissioning an entirely new class of cruiser much heavier than the Connie or the Rennie, too heavy to fit in our numerous million ton berths.

I know lots of plans and discussion has been published and people may reasonably say "just read the thread." But I'm very confused. I would appreciate it if someone who's tapped into the discussion better than me could try to summarize for me what recent developments have unfolded in the past week, and what it 'looks like' the future plan is going to be.
 
tryrar said:
It's the same math for the ConnieBee as for the Cruiser, since we'd start research on both this year. The prototype would be built in 4.5 years starting next shipyard ops-the shipyard ops after that is when ConnieBees can be built, but we'd only get one batch before the prototype is finished and it is completely obsolete
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Looking at the 1mt cruisers and escorts you guys have been squeezing out, the Connie-B isn't actually obsolete at all. It's comparable or superior to your 1mt designs in almost every way except if we're berth limited and are getting 2:3 to an escort.

If we start a modern design in 5 years after the first batch of Connie-B are ready, why is that a problem? The Connie-B will be rivaled by, say, a Peacekeeper refit, and only when we reach second refit territory would it go obsolete.
 
Plotwise, we beat it. It's irritating when the crisis shows back up after it's past it's expiration date.

It might not be gone, gone, but it's not going to be a primary event again.

Like, it was the major antagonist / plot point of a movie or a season. It might show up again as an episode here or there, but it's arc long plot is over.
 
Katsuragi said:
Plotwise, we beat it. It's irritating when the crisis shows back up after it's past it's expiration date.

It might not be gone, gone, but it's not going to be a primary event again.

Like, it was the major antagonist / plot point of a movie or a season. It might show up again as an episode here or there, but it's arc long plot is over.
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Well, it CAN show up again in the future. But only several seasons later, and it needs to play a different role than last time. I'm not sure if the Beast is flexible enough to do that.

TBH, that inflexibility and one-noteness is probably why it didn't reappear in Homeworld 2.
 
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The issue is the Rennie is trying to squeeze in too much into too small a ship. If it had even 200kt more space, it can be done easily(minus one shield, since 5 shield at scale 4 doubles in power). I have such a design right now on my worksheet that can be researched in only 2-3 years, and can be built if we can somehow upgrade all our small berths by 200kt
 
tryrar said:
The issue is the Rennie is trying to squeeze in too much into too small a ship. If it had even 200kt more space, it can be done easily(minus one shield, since 5 shield at scale 4 doubles in power). I have such a design right now on my worksheet that can be researched in only 2-3 years, and can be built if we can somehow upgrade all our small berths by 200kt
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The Renaissance has been guaranteed as a doable ship design since day one of the game. We don't even have to design it on the spreadsheet, actually, If we choose it, then @OneirosTheWriter has to figure out how to make it happen, even if it means tossing out the spreadsheet and simply making up some reasonable number of research turns.
 
You know, we CAN just place the order for the canon Rennie and leave it to the QM.

And where on earth did this discussion of NOT ordering a Cardassian Border Zone starbase happen?
 
pheonix89 said:
And where on earth did this discussion of NOT ordering a Cardassian Border Zone starbase happen?
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I believe the logic is that putting a Starbase somewhere else allows us to take ships from that location and move them to the CBZ, but if we put the Starbase at the CBZ then we don't exactly want to take ships away from there and move them elsewhere! It's not clear what benefit a Starbase at the CBZ would do besides boost the defense score. If it could prevent attacks or aid in intelligence gathering, it might be worth it.
 
pheonix89 said:
You know, we CAN just place the order for the canon Rennie and leave it to the QM.

And where on earth did this discussion of NOT ordering a Cardassian Border Zone starbase happen?
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RBZ cost is given as 20pp (18 with discount) while KBZ is shown as 30 pp (27 with discount). We do not yet know the cost for a starbase in the CBZ, if it is 20pp I would suggest putting one there over the RBZ if it is 30 then putting one in the RBZ is more cost effective.
 
pheonix89 said:
You know, we CAN just place the order for the canon Rennie and leave it to the QM.

And where on earth did this discussion of NOT ordering a Cardassian Border Zone starbase happen?
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CBZ would actually be my last place to put a new Starbase, for a few reasons. We don't have any central location to put it. The CBZ is wide open and conflict could happen almost anywhere. So the Cardassians could easily bypass a Starbase if they chose.

If I had to choose a spot for a new base, I'd go with Betazed. They're the only Federation Homeworld to lack one. And it would free up ships from the Sol Sector to the front lines.

Tldr. Build Starbases near strategic targets that are likely to be attacked, because otherwise they are useless in wartime.
 
They're good to have in an active zone if only because they shorten the logistical trail and mean that idle help is closer. There certainly may be other benefits, too, like signals intercept and a fixed Federation presence that other races would know to go to for help. But using them for defense requirements has really good points too, because it allows us to shuffle more ships out of peaceful areas to zones where we need them.
 
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I think I understand now.

I don't feel up to addressing everything that's been said yet, as there are over sixty pages of thread I've yet to read. But I want to say two things:

ONE
Any new cruiser we build will be a class that is seriously intended to replace the Constellation-class and hopefully to eventually replace any refitted or unmodified Constitutions, including Cheron, our one Connie still in service. That 'eventually' may have to await refits and 2320-30 era technology, but we want it to happen.

That almost has to mean a hull of one million tons or less, even if that means sacrificing capability. Because otherwise, the new cruiser class will be in large part competing with Excelsiors for shipyard facilities. That's awkward enough in peacetime, but deeply problematic in wartime. Unless there are a lot of 1.5 or 2 million ton berths I'd forgotten about, we simply cannot afford to go over the million ton limit for this class of cruiser.

TWO
I agree with the logic of NOT putting a starbase on the Cardassian border zone at this time. At the same time, though, we need infrastructure in the area, not just ships. We really, really want to establish chains of outposts in the area. We need the sensor coverage, we need the general increase in information on what's going on "on the ground" in that sector. And...

This is also the beginning of the process of our formally asserting to Cardassia our claim to at least a moderate number of worlds in that region. They're already doing it to us, and if we don't do it to them we risk falling prey to "what's mine is mine, what's yours is mine too" reasoning on the part of the Cardassians. The Federation stands for cooperation and understanding between intelligent beings, but it also stands for refusing to allow ourselves to be bullied by militarists, foreign or domestic.
 
Whatever it is we build as our new medium ship ABSOLUTELY has to stay under 1 mt.

If this means getting the Connie or Constellation Refit to stall for time while we research? So be it.
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Looking at the 1mt cruisers and escorts you guys have been squeezing out, the Connie-B isn't actually obsolete at all. It's comparable or superior to your 1mt designs in almost every way except if we're berth limited and are getting 2:3 to an escort.

If we start a modern design in 5 years after the first batch of Connie-B are ready, why is that a problem? The Connie-B will be rivaled by, say, a Peacekeeper refit, and only when we reach second refit territory would it go obsolete.
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Funny idea, if we somehow had the pp to start both the Connie Refit & the Super Cruiser program, the timing of things lines up rather well.

Connie-B: 2 Year refit program, 1st build done in 5 years, 2nd build done in 8 years.
S-Cruiser: 1 year design, prototype done in 5.5 years, 1st build done in 8.5 years.
 
We could later on build one or two explorers at a time for 5YMs while the rest of the large berths would be filled with the more cost-effective 1.8mt cruisers.
 
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