First smaller ship of comparable equal/superior across the board performance is the Intrepid, assuming it doesn't eat a nerf sometime in the couple hundred turns between now and then.
So the next vote we're probably going to be asked to take is for 2309 construction. I think this ought to be pretty non-controversial, but let me open it up for comment.
Basically:
2309Q1 - Start an Excelsior build in Utopia Planitia berth vacated by the Caitian ship; allow Tellarites to begin building an Excelsior for themselves in Tellar Prime berth.
2309Q2 - Start three Constitution-B builds: 1 in new Andor 1mt shipyard, 1 in UP 1mt berth after the Yukikaze finishes its refit, and 1 in new 3mt UP berth
2309Q4 - Start three Constitution-B builds; in SF berths freed up by launching Centaur-B; 1 in 40 Eridani berth. Also start Renaissance prototype in new UP 1mt berth.
Okay, two questions you'll be asking here. First, why put a Constitution-B build in a 3mt UP space? The answer is that I am assuming the Renaissance must/should be built at UP, since that's where it's design team is. Since it will occupy its berth for a full 18 quarters we don't want to start it in a 3mt berth, but that means reserving a 1mt berth for it and that means the only place to start the Constitution-B that quarter is in the 3mt berth. (I assume doing so is worthwhile because we want as many Constitution-Bs as possible ASAP.) If you do not agree that the Renaissance needs to be built at the UP shipyard, we could choose to start it at a 40 Eridani A 1mt yard in Q4 instead, and put the Constitution-B in that third UP berth.
Second question is, why aren't we starting a Constitution-B in that 40 Eridani-A berth in Q4? The answer is lack of resources. We're talking about starting an Excelsior and 7 cruisers (including the Renaissance) in one year, That is a massive amount of SR drain, manageable only because we get a 40sr discount on each of the first four Constitutions, and I assume we'll spend pp for an Excelsior's worth of resources. We don't have enough SR to start an eighth cruiser until 2310Q1, when the next year's income has come in.
I do admit that tying up all our 3mt berths this way is pretty risky. You never know when a ship will get damaged. But, eh, we can always kick a build out of its spot if necessary. We saw with the Sarek it just results in a delay of completion to the kicked ship.
Thoughts?
I think the question of whether we will do the resource request is also pretty interesting. I think we should present two plans when it is time, one assuming a resource request and one not and make that very clear, so there are no surprised people at the snakepit vote like last time. Whether we need one depends among other things on whether the integration of our 3 affiliates progresses in time for the EOY income and how much they offer.
We definitely can, since a tech to do this exists for free in the combined arms doctrine. Even without that, a way to do that at cost probably will appear once we get size 8 cruisers. We know those are possible because the Niagara is a size 10 cruiser.
While that certainly looks to be the case right now, given that it competes with Ambassadors for Berth space and probably isn't better than the Excelsiors we'll be building at the time, I wouldn't count on that not changing. We've seen ships get buffs before as the sheet changes, and we know that the sheet can change to better reflect what it is supposed to do. It is entirely possible this will happen again.
I just saw you seem to be assuming normal cost for the prototype. Wasn't resource cost also supposed to be 50% higher? And does it still work out that way if it is?
This is the "we don't want to spend political will on an Excelsior's worth of resources" plan:
No political will spent.
2309Q1 - Start an Excelsior build in Utopia Planitia berth vacated by the Caitian ship; allow Tellarites to begin building an Excelsior for themselves in Tellar Prime berth.
2309Q2 - Start two Constitution-B builds: 1 in new Andor 1mt shipyard, 1 in UP 1mt berth after the Yukikaze finishes its refit.
2309Q4 - Start two Constitution-B builds in SF berths freed up by launching Centaur-B. Also start Renaissance prototype in new UP 1mt berth.
So no expenditure of political will = 2 fewer Constitution-Bs. Which ought to make sense, after all the pp gets us 150 sr, and a Constitution costs 80 sr to build.
Base Strike doctrine actually, not Combined Arms.
We have a discount of 40 sr on the first 4 Constellation-Bs from an omake, and you forgot to account for the Renaissance prototype. Our current income is 450br 305sr, and our current sr stockpile should be 150.
Thanks! Updating...
Obviously we can't set a build order in Q1 for prototypes we haven't even requested, let alone started designing yet. That doesn't mean we can't do so for prototypes that have significant design work done, a known cost and a known due date for the design.
