- Location
- Patriarchova
I'd rather use the free berths for Miranda refits, or for Centaur-A's, personally. If the Miranda-B or Centaur-B ever ends up being a thing, those ships will be useful for much longer.
To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
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I'd rather use the free berths for Miranda refits, or for Centaur-A's, personally. If the Miranda-B or Centaur-B ever ends up being a thing, those ships will be useful for much longer.
- Location
- USA
We are doing it at the expense though, if we are paying the Connie B cost now, that is resources and crew not available for a Renissance later, and looking at it we are running into an officer and enlisted shortage. And we have 8 Connie B's under construction currently, I think that is a good run for them, adding one more does not seem to meet a need, the Centaur is also 2 officer and 2 enlisted cheaper so it makes it easier to crew the Renissance. As for doing them in a wave, with our new ships I do want us to build as many as possible that do not break our budget.
As for not refitting for 10+ years, that may be the case but when that time comes I would rather have an extra Renissance or two that can be refitted than a Connie B or two that cannot. For me building another Connie B indicates we need another heavy cruiser and we need it soon beyond the 8 under construction and beyond the Excelsior that we are building. I just don't feel like the strategic situation requires us to do so. Now if we were playing as the Cardassians or Dominion that are geared towards conquest then definitely I would support heavy cruisers sooner so that we can use them. We aren't though and I just don't feel the pressure (really the 5 connie B's coming out next year are giving me a feeling of safety).
We are gaining 26 D next year, and at least 11 a year for the next three years after without starbases or new ships being built, we can afford it what we are lacking is enlisted and officers so a race that would boost one or both should be a top priority.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
It is extremely unlikely that a new-build Centaur-A will remain useful to Starfleet for longer than an equally new Constitution-B. Remember that Constitution-Bs aren't refits of tired old ships; they are entirely new (or nearly so, with nothing more significant than the dining room chairs and such getting reused).
Even if the Centaur-B refit becomes available some time in, oh, 2325 or 2330 (likely), it will probably not grant the Centaur-B higher average stats than a Constitution-B.
Furthermore, I don't see how refitting Mirandas competes with building a Constitution-B in a particular berth. A Constitution-B adds a new ship to our fleet. Refitting Mirandas makes existing ships stronger, but doesn't increase the size of the fleet. Ultimately we should refit all our Mirandas (and in my opinion our Constellations), but the need to do so isn't so urgent that we need to devote ALL our one-megaton berths to doing so. We can spare one or two to build ships like Oberths, Centaur-As, and Constitution-Bs.
And of those three choices, I most favor the Constitution-B option, specifically, for Utopia Planitia Berth Two.
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This is a straightforward choice: in a specific, single berth, do we build a more powerful but more expensive ship? Or a less powerful but less expensive ship?
I favor the former, in this particular case.
Please recall that my proposal is to build ONE Constitution-B in place of ONE Centaur-A and a Constellation refit, between 2312 and 2315 specifically, in Utopia Planitia Berth Two.
Now, would you mind explaining exactly when and where in the spreadsheet we are in danger of running out of any specific resource, thus preventing us from building a planned Renaissance at a later date? Exactly when does this "costs us a Rennie" problem you're talking about take place?
It meets the same needs we foresee our Renaissances meeting. The only difference is that in, say, 2317, we will be meeting those needs with fifteen cruisers, rather than fourteen cruisers plus an escort.
If the problem is ONLY crew, then IF we are so close to running out of crew that it actually makes a difference, "mothball one Constellation" is the answer. Hopefully that need will not arise, but if it does, that's the solution.
Giving up a potential cruiser build in favor of an escort to save crew only makes sense if we're short on crew NOW, which we are not.
You still haven't explained why.
You continue to claim that this is going to cost us the opportunity to build a Renaissance. I continue to not believe you. The resources to do this would have been spent on other, entirely different ships anyway. The ONLY significant cost is that we end up using two enlisted and two officer units on the new ship.
Does our pool of enlisted and officers drop to "two or less" at any point in the foreseeable future? If so, when and why? If not, then how are we being prevented from building Renaissances by this extra Constitution-B?
Then why do you so urgently desire Renaissances, which fill the same role the ConnieBees fill, and do almost exactly as well in the same role?
If the answer involves future upgrade potential, I would like to point you to the word 'urgently' in my question?
No. Please no. Let the Federation get to know its self again.
Let us nail down the Syndicate and cut some steaks out of it.
Let diplomacy chug on automatic, just a little.
Even if we could garrison the entire alpha and beta quadrants we wouldn't be able to integrate them culturally. Not and really stay the Federation.
Sit on your hands instead of handing out cookies to get people to sign up.
Please.
- Location
- USA
2318 has us down to 2 officers and 2 enlisted. More so there are several berths that go idle for a while to allow crew to build back up, for example the exelcsior started 2316 instead of 2315 to avoid going negative there. There are also several berths lying idle in 2317 and 2318 and two renaissance are pushed back a year to 2318 starts to avoid crew problems. Still it shows us going negative in 2320. So yes that extra officer and enlisted does cause delays.
And for planning we have to look at what we need now along with what we need down the line. 10, 20 years forward we can upgrade the Renaissances to keep them in service, the Connie B at that point is likely to start suffering from the same performance gap that has hit our Constellation. So part of the emphasis on Renaissance is that it is helping to future proof our fleets, that they can contribute more and longer than the Connie B. As for why I want large waves I like that for new ships to get our new designs out there in the numbers we want and can afford (not necessarily need). Basically I do not see an urgent need for a ninth Connie B between now and when we start getting the Renaissances online.
- Location
- Central Standard Time
@OneirosTheWriter, would it be possible to build freighters for member worlds so that our berths do not idle?
I am not wedded to any build plan. If I had to choose, I would be more likely to take a Centaur-A over another Connie-B due to my feeling that we are developing an Escort shortage, which is somewhat backed up in-universe by comments from the Personnel department.
I guess it comes down to expected need. Are we going need combat capable heavy metal in the next half dozen years, or are we going to be mostly responding to events?
I guess it comes down to expected need. Are we going need combat capable heavy metal in the next half dozen years, or are we going to be mostly responding to events?
- Location
- USA
It is a possibility we need to consider, and I am partial to the Seyek (Stellaris Race) and Qolathi (we were told they are explorers like us) which if we could swap values I would do so to have them at the next in line as opposed to the Indorians and Risans. And them joining would likely be sometime in 13 or 14 if we pushed hard every turn on one of them which still gives a few years of breathing room. At the end of 2311 we will have 8 members, Apiata has some major issues to work out and that may take a bit, Indorians as over 400 are likely to be the next call it 14 or 15 unless we get relation boost events or they roll very well.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
We're going to be pouring as many resources as possible into counter-Syndicate operations for the next 3-5 years, at minimum, not to mention putting ships into our shiny new border zone. I really would prefer we not up Starfleet's defense obligations faster than necessary for the next decade or so.
- Location
- Australia
Will likely be posting again this evening, and will make the fixes to the tech post then.
Probably not, I'm not sure how I would manage the mechanics of it.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
In my copy of the spreadsheet, I'm making the following assumptions:
2313Q3 Research: +5sr/colony totaling 25sr - this is one of the reasons SR isn't going to be bottleneck for the remainder of this decade
2313Q4 Academy steering: -1T, +0.5O/E, -0.25T(EC), +0.25O(EC)
2314Q2 Academy expansion: +0.5O/E/T
2314Q4 Indorian ratification: +10br/sr, +0.5O/E/T (lowball since even Betazed got us more than this), +0.25O/E/T(EC)
2316Q4 Research: +0.05/affiliate totaling 0.4O/E/T
2317Q4 Academy steering: -1T, +0.5O/E
I stopped at that point, since I mostly cared about avoiding a crew crunch around 2318.
I'm ambivalent with diplo pushing Seyek or Qloathi. Unless garrison requirements ramp up by a lot, we should have the ships to garrison them by a ratification date of around 2318 or so, assuming a single diplo push. However, I'm not in favor of doing such a diplo push next year if the Cardassians are still distracted then; I'd favor another round of diplo pushes on Cardassian affiliates or near-affiliates instead.
Ok, here's various shipbuild plans for 0, 1, 2 Connie-Bs. The 0 Connie-B plan is the base one that's on the spreadsheet currently and has a Centaur-A.
A 2315 Renaissance is delayed by a year in this plan, but I'm being conservative here.
If this is in the context of the Connie-B, the Connie-B is nearly guaranteed to be superior to a Miranda-B and Centaur-B. Even with custom refits going to be a thing, we're probably going to be capped to +1 per stat per refit.
I suppose this is the key issue. With the upcoming SBZ (D12?), Rigel/Apiata/Indorian ratifications (could total D30), possible garrison requirement changes (we've been warned about this and it's due later this year or next year from previous comments), further anti-Syndicate support, and the fact that it's not a good idea to only barely meet garrison requirements, I'm not satisfied with the ships we'll have by 2315, and I do think an extra 2 defense for 2 officer/enlisted is warranted. If we were not already stretched for ships during this time frame, then I would be more comfortable with holding off for 2317 Renaissances.
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- Location
- USA
If they are part of an existing sector they would not likely add much to the defense obligations, more so if they come with a starbase as well. Still I can see where the new members can be a problem and will be pushing for pushes on the non affiliates, Yrillian, Dawair, Gretarian and I think we can do one for the Sotaw since they are at 35 and that will not push them to 100.
It's been a while since we encountered a new race, hasn't it? I think the last one was the Lecarre, and before them the Qloathi.
- Location
- Central Standard Time
What about +2 pp for building? It's low enough that we wouldn't want to abuse it, but high enough (read: above zero) that we would do it if there was nothing better.
To make it balanced, I would probably lock it in and make the berth unavailable for bumping without forfeiting 1 pp.
A generalized version of the mechanic would be:
1 pp/year, paid upon completion.
If bumped, forefit that year's pp gain.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I'd rather save the political will and use it on something else than push the Sotaw. We've had good relations with the Romulans even if that hasn't had much mechanical benefit (aside from, you know, not having Romulans messing with us the way they chronically did in TOS and TNG). Trying to recruit a client race in the Neutral Zone might spoil that, and I don't want to take the chance. Especially not when we're so busy trying to clean house with the Syndicate and clear our flank of the Sydraxian problem.
Just because we CAN pick four species and do diplomatic pushes on them every year, doesn't mean we SHOULD.
Given the way the gameplay's been going for the past few years I'm not surprised. But it'd be interesting to run into some Klingon or Romulan affiliates in the unclaimed space to rimward or coreward of their territory, respectively. And we have no idea what is out there past Rigel.
The biggest single issue here is that we don't actually have spare space in our one-megaton berths for this kind of thing. Not if you accept the need to refit the rest of our 23rd-century ships and build Rennies.
If we WERE going to do stuff like this, our auxiliary yard facilities would be almost ideally suited for the purpose. We'll see what the mechanics look like in a few years.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
So, to be clear, two questions:
1) Will building one more Centaur-A now, instead of one Constitution-B, enable us to actually have one more Rennie, total, for all future time? Or will it just mean we get one Rennie one year sooner than would otherwise be possible? If ships are being delayed because we lack the people to crew them all, would the extra two officers and two enlisted enable us to squeeze out an extra Renaissance that would otherwise be impossible? I'm pretty sure the answer is 'no,' more on the reasoning below. *
2) If the answer to the above question is "no," then is getting one more Rennie in (for example) 2320 rather than 2321 actually worth 'downgrading' from a cruiser to an escort in terms of construction we'll have by 2315?
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*I'm not sure I buy the "one more Rennie" argument, because we get enough people to crew multiple new ships every year. Any Rennie we can't lay down in 2318, we'll have a chance to lay down in 2319 with the new crew coming in from that year. We're not losing a ship, we're delaying one.
The Constitution-B will still be performing as well or better than the escorts we'll have at that time, and there are dozens of other ships we'd realistically want to retire before even thinking about retiring a ConnieBee. By the time the ConnieBees are "suffering from the same performance gap that has hit our Constellations," it'll be 2340. And the ship class that performs well enough to make it truly worth replacing the Constitution-Bs isn't going to be the Renaissance-A. It's going to be whatever ship class succeeds the Renaissance as well, when we design our "early TNG-era" cruiser some time around 2340.
So... you don't foresee us having trouble meeting defense requirements AND policing the Syndicate AND potentially reinforcing the Apiata against a Cardassian attack that could be hitting them any time now if they keep attacking Cardassian ships and installations, between now and the year 2318?
That seems pretty optimistic.
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Of course, I think this whole idea is built upon a mistaken idea that we have tons of berths going idle.
- Location
- Australia
Yeah, it's weird, dice are avoiding it like the plague!
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yeah. Maybe we'll have that problem if we manage to run ourselves out of crew, or build up to our combat cap. But until then, we have a lot to keep us profitably occupied.
- Location
- Central Standard Time
We don't. However, if we don't want to build a warship, we might as well make ourselves useful and build a freighter for someone.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yes, but we've got eighteen Mirandas and Constellations to refit, plus a whole bunch of cruisers to build.
Us building civilian freighters when every member world has multiple berths capable of doing exactly that is not high on our priorities list.
[Plus, if we did that regularly, the Council might just decide to take away one or more of our berths and assign it to civilian construction permanently. Swords into plowshares, dontcha know!]
Us building civilian freighters when every member world has multiple berths capable of doing exactly that is not high on our priorities list.
[Plus, if we did that regularly, the Council might just decide to take away one or more of our berths and assign it to civilian construction permanently. Swords into plowshares, dontcha know!]
- Location
- Central Standard Time
@OneirosTheWriter how does the Auxiliary Yard work? Do ships come out of our budget, or is there a separate budget?
- Location
- Australia
Separate budgets. They don't actually require much, most auxiliaries use plentifully available material rather than very high grade duranium and tritanium composites, and I've already talked about how civilian-grade warp cores are locked down to nearly black box status. The costs of course, is Warp 5 Cruise, which takes about a month to traverse a subsector (the grid marks, feel free to pick your own size for them, and thus speed for warp 5).
For Starfleet, auxiliaries come out of budgets associated with those commands rather than Operations, and thus aren't tracked with yours. (Truth be told I save myself the bother of tracking them and just rule of thumb it. Sorry if that upsets anyone, but I have to cut corners off somewhere!)
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Fine by me. Um, question, are hospital ships counted as a type of auxiliary? Because I would imagine they might need to be a little faster than average, even if that makes them more expensive.
- Location
- Australia
Yes and yes.