We only have like 15 Miranda-As and even if the Hishmeri started out with just 20 of their frigates and somehow lost five since this report they'd still win because as it currently stands no one would consider the Miranda-A a "powerful" frigate.
The Hishmeri operate in clans though. Unless we're declaring a war of genocide on them, we're never going to be going up against their entire strength. More likely, we'd only be facing separate clan fleets at a time.
 
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B. Put them in militarily-endangered border zones in squadrons of ~3-4 as a rapid response force just in case there's trouble on those borders. Something like:
Gabriel Border Zone - Keeps 4 Mirandas
Cardassian Border Zone - 3 Mirandas
Klingon Border Zone - 3 Mirandas
Romulan Border Zone - 3 Mirandas
Themis Border Zone - 2 Mirandas

I'd go with this one. That way we have an emergency response group near our hot zones.
 
This is a dodge, considering the discussion is ongoing in the context of combat cap, and also that deactivating Mirandas frees up crew, which is our current bottleneck. Not huge amounts of crew, but if we're short just a tiny bit of crew for our next practically anything else, it's a worthwhile trade.
This conversation literally started with the sentence "I hope we hit the combat cap soon", which is what I was objecting to. I agree this is a dodge - you've apparently dodged the question for long enough that you've forgotten this, though I'm willing to believe you weren't being so obtuse on purpose.
 
If the Mirandas are so crummy alone, is it possible to force them to travel in groups? 2 Mirandas at a time might be viable, or they might work assisting better ships.
 
Throw all of them into a task force led by the USS Salnas and send them at the Hishmeri. (With orders not to split up, so that any combat goes to fleet combat instead of event rolls.) Set phasers to BEFRIEND.
I like this kind of use but I would prefer more good ships to supplement a fleetball made of Miranda's. Riala comes to mind to really make Hishimeri think twice before messing with this task force.
 
Ok here's a different argument, by the time the first 'wave' of Comets complete it will have been over a decade of commitment. Ceasing Miranda & Centaur production in favor of Comets makes all the time we spent designing, prototyping, and building them feel worth it. Not building Comets after all the effort to get them in the field feels like a waste of time and resources.

Which is system working as designed. The Comet is a specialist for a limited use case. It's something we want to have around in case we need it because the design process is so long, but we only need 5-10 active right now. If something happens and we need more we'll have them. If not, we can just keep the design on file and periodically update it if necessary.

R&D and prototyping is fairly cheap and we now have a large enough fleet we can afford to invest in limited run specialists. Expect to see more of these pop up.
 
It is a very Starfleet TNG idea, the combat cap, though while I like having a limit of some sort, I am not completely sold on combat (tonnage or hulls sound a better contrain, but, then again, if we go TNG a combat cap is more than reasonable) but it is straightforward and easy to keep track of, so...
Yes, that's true, they could just give us a total tonnage constraint, a major budget, or size limit, but that would actually help less with the goal they are trying to accomplish.

The council doesn't want to stop Starfleet's growth. They want us to be an entity designed primarily for exploration, diplomacy, and defense. Not the American idea of defense either. Limiting tonnage and budget or size would limit what we can accomplish across the board. Fewer hospital ships, fewer ships pulling miners out of the fire, fewer research opportunities. Nobody wants that.

A combat cap ensures that we remain dedicated to our purpose and can look for unencumbered advantages in other areas. It is representative of what the council sees Starfleet doing from the outside.

When we do hit that combat cap, I have no doubt that reasonable options will be presented to us. I also don't doubt that reasonable concessions will be made for the increasing efficiency of our designs making lower combat scores infeasible.
 
I said before that we could probably negotiate our way to a higher combat cap. Or to getting more combat cap discounts. Things like Keplers and other barely armed science ships not counting against the cap.

Does the Kepler even have a single torpedo launcher? I can't recall, and if it doesn't it's actually slightly undergunned for non-combat peacetime assistance purposes because it can't use torps for remote demolitions.
 
A reminder for people considering ship designs and roles: no vessel exists in a vacuum. Judgement of a specific class rests solely upon the role it plays within our ship ecosystem. Stats and costs exist to fit the role of the ship. You cannot judge a ship without first considering its place in our fleet.

I said before that we could probably negotiate our way to a higher combat cap. Or to getting more combat cap discounts. Things like Keplers and other barely armed science ships not counting against the cap.

Does the Kepler even have a single torpedo launcher? I can't recall, and if it doesn't it's actually slightly undergunned for non-combat peacetime assistance purposes because it can't use torps for remote demolitions.

It doesn't, but I suspect that on a S7 ship they can achieve the same with a deflector dish pulse.
 
Wait, where's the probe dispenser then?

Starfleet standard probes use a torpedo chassis and launch from the torpedo tubes.

We might need to slip a torpedo launcher into a Kepler-A if we can't get a probe bay part.
 
"Sir, enemy ships have warped in off the port bow."

"Prepare to open fire."

"Sir, with the latest refit we have no more weapons on board."

"Then prepare to scan them, very thoroughly."
 
"Sir, enemy ships have warped in off the port bow."

"Prepare to open fire."

"Sir, with the latest refit we have no more weapons on board."

"Then prepare to scan them, very thoroughly."
"And fire up the graviton cannon subroutine on the deflector dish."

As long as event mode is in use rather than combat engine mode S is a viable substitute for C when breaking things.
 
Yes, that's true, they could just give us a total tonnage constraint, a major budget, or size limit, but that would actually help less with the goal they are trying to accomplish.

The council doesn't want to stop Starfleet's growth. They want us to be an entity designed primarily for exploration, diplomacy, and defense. Not the American idea of defense either. Limiting tonnage and budget or size would limit what we can accomplish across the board. Fewer hospital ships, fewer ships pulling miners out of the fire, fewer research opportunities. Nobody wants that.

A combat cap ensures that we remain dedicated to our purpose and can look for unencumbered advantages in other areas. It is representative of what the council sees Starfleet doing from the outside.

When we do hit that combat cap, I have no doubt that reasonable options will be presented to us. I also don't doubt that reasonable concessions will be made for the increasing efficiency of our designs making lower combat scores infeasible.


Agreed, though the aggregate combat potential of all starfleet ships feels a tad off to me, since we really do not have C0 ships, so I think some sort of Science to firepower ratio would be better to convey the goals of Starfleet...


Having said that, we also should keep in mind that the cap should grow as the federation grows and might grow if our neighbors start saber rattling or if we end up in a shooting war with a peer or near peer power.
Still, as others mentioned, the cap is soft, we can pass it (not that the council will be happy about that or that they won't be happy about it) still I am quite sure that in the scenario of us nearing the cap, we will probably see some restrictions from the council, like budgetary reductions or a request for us to either scrap or mothball older ships and, speaking of older ships, we might very well need to start phasing them out due to age or age related issues (either to the breakers or to the mothball yards and I am very sure the latter would take an operational cost to be run)

Hell, we could see ships getting an operational cost in BR and SR/year (after N years of operation or what not to symbolize the cost of keeping older gear working and could even start climbing till they become cost ineffective)
 
Wait, where's the probe dispenser then?

Starfleet standard probes use a torpedo chassis and launch from the torpedo tubes.

We might need to slip a torpedo launcher into a Kepler-A if we can't get a probe bay part.

Certain functions are assumed to be subsumed by the frame or other parts. I would assume that the Kepler can launch probes just fine, as torpedo parts are neither mandatory nor give any S.
 
Leslie:

"Yes to the second, not so much to the first. The best reason to launch a probe is because you want to be at a safe distance over there while the probe takes its readings. Getting the probe clear of the ship faster so you can fire up the warp drive has its advantages."

"Then again, I never was much of a science vessel man. Coulda signed up on one of those shiny new Oberths, but no. Connie life for me."

[chuckles]
 
Agreed, though the aggregate combat potential of all starfleet ships feels a tad off to me, since we really do not have C0 ships, so I think some sort of Science to firepower ratio would be better to convey the goals of Starfleet...


Having said that, we also should keep in mind that the cap should grow as the federation grows and might grow if our neighbors start saber rattling or if we end up in a shooting war with a peer or near peer power.
Still, as others mentioned, the cap is soft, we can pass it (not that the council will be happy about that or that they won't be happy about it) still I am quite sure that in the scenario of us nearing the cap, we will probably see some restrictions from the council, like budgetary reductions or a request for us to either scrap or mothball older ships and, speaking of older ships, we might very well need to start phasing them out due to age or age related issues (either to the breakers or to the mothball yards and I am very sure the latter would take an operational cost to be run)

Hell, we could see ships getting an operational cost in BR and SR/year (after N years of operation or what not to symbolize the cost of keeping older gear working and could even start climbing till they become cost ineffective)

A mothball purchase in the council might be nice in a decade or so, where we set up a place to store old marinda-a s that we (for whatever reason) want rid of and can't trade to member fleets for resources or PP.
We carefully store them, record all their quirks and make a plan to prevent dregredation (avoiding what happened with the constitution class), and then can quickly whip them out and research refit and upgrade them to a semi modern standard when a state of emergency breaks out, biophage style.
Marinda c class, aka "Broken Glass"
This allows us to remove Miranda A's as needed, and makes it easy to give them to member fleets as they know that they won't be stuck juggling what to do with out of date ships either. They can make use of them and put them in mothball for upgrade.
 
Leslie:

"Yep. A program like that makes a good spare parts boneyard, too. We used to have like that, but the buildup to keep up with the Klingons in the '70s and '80s while they were overclocking Praxis meant we weren't retiring old ships, just putting them in rear area duty. Kind of like nowadays, really. Then when we finally got to stand down most of the really old ships after Khitomer, the politics meant cutting them up to make razor blades for Yrillians, because nobody expected it'd ever be worth scraping up the crews for a bunch of Soyuzes and Geminis and whatnot."
 
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