Honestly, a bunch of relatively cheap escorts that nonetheless have good Defense/Science/Presence suites is probably a better match for Betazed's needs than a bunch of crew-heavy Rennies.
Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it. And the political cost might be high. I remember there being discussion of us starting to build Rialas instead of Excelsiors, and that was what came up in that context.
Uh... then why would they build Miranda-As? The only thing refit Mirandas are really any good at is fighting. They're inferior for event response compared to a Centaur-A, because they have lower Defense, lower Science, and drastically lower Presence. The whole point of the Miranda-A is that it's a "cheap and nasty" escort design with about as much combat punch as a Centaur-A, on a cheaper, stripped-down platform.
Even the Constitution-B represents an advance over the Betazoids' and the Amarki's pre-existing cruiser designs. And we pretty much KNOW those are going to work.
Well, that wouldn't be so bad.
Because I copied the wrong line, that's why.
Uh... who said anything about Miranda-As for the Betazoids? Not me. They're about as close to a pure combat escort as the Federation is likely to build for a long time. What I was advocating were Centaur-As.
But it also prevents members from experimenting with new design methods or technologies that are more suited to the member world. I would like for our member worlds to be capable of trying out new ideas without being constrained to conforming to the designs Starfleet currently has. The advantage for them trying their own ideas is that if the ideas work, we can easily take the aspects that work well and integrate them into the design ethos for Starfleet itself, and if the idea doesn't work, it will quickly find itself discarded due to a superior alternative. Besides, we are a Federation, not a monolithic entity like our neighbors, and should act as such. As for production, each member world would likely alter the design anyways to suit their purposes anyways (see the B-25 in WWII) so expecting them to become completely uniform is an exercise in futility.[X][PRIORITY] Amarkia Mid Term to Focus on more cargo shipping
[X][BETA] Miranda-A Focus
[X][AMARKI] Focus on building Centaur-As
[X][CATS] Excelsior
Standardization is good. Unless they have a design that is particularly filling a gap in our capability, we should start member worlds on the road to conforming to Starfleet designs as soon as possible.
Normally standardizing would net many benefits in terms of economies of scale, as they'd be able to use the much larger Federation-Industrial complex to outfit their ships, probably driving down 'costs,' such as they are. I don't think if this is reflected in the mechanics though.
Must... resist... Borg... reference...
Using the B-25 as an example is pretty weird because I somehow doubt the various Mitchells were noticeably different in the way an Excelsior and Fathership are.
).
i think u just might be shilling for the Big Centaur lobby... two votes for more Centaurs???
Yes, the borg do take the best aspects of others into themselves, but they also prevent them from continuing on the path they were taking preventing further new technologies and innovations. The Federation, at its heart, when it comes to the members decisions, can be summarized thusly:
