Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
I always figured redshirts were given energy-absorbent uniforms. Like a lightning rod.
To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
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- Sci-Fi
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I always figured redshirts were given energy-absorbent uniforms. Like a lightning rod.
- Location
- Patriarchova
Yes, but I found it odd that you were pointing out the balance of power between all our cruisers and explorers but not the escorts. Which could be a dangerous oversight when you look at the odds of, say, a Renaissance and a Miranda-A vs a Kaldar and a Combat Takaaki.
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- Location
- Austin, TX
Centaurs A, not a Miranda A, If the comparison is with their best escort for combat, please.
Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
Centaur A and Miranda A are virtually identical in combat, except for the slight benefit of the Centaur having one more Defense.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
@Leila Hann
It is a valid point that their escorts can reliably outduel our escorts, although I don't think "Rennie+Miranda vs Kaldar+Gun Takaaki" works out as badly as you think.
That's Combat 8 Hull 6 Shields 8 against Combat 9 Hull 7 Shields 7. Durability is more or less a wash. The one-point advantage in Combat matters, but it matters proportionately less for larger and larger forces.
When it's Combat 4 versus Combat 5, the side with more firepower has a 56.4% hit probability. At Combat 6 versus Combat 7, 54.4%. At Combat 8 versus Combat 9, the Cardassians get a 53.4% hit probability on us, versus a 46.6% hit probability of us against them. That's getting down into the range where it's very possible for that to simply not show up as an issue in the first dozen or so exchanges of fire. Which is, statistically speaking, when the escorts' shields start going down and other factors come into play.
I'd still say edge goes to the Cardassians, but it's a lot narrower than in most of the cruiser-cruiser and battlecruiser-explorer duels I looked at.
Compared to the Miranda-A, the Centaur-A has one more point of Science, two more points of Presence, and one more point of Defense. It pays for that by costing a lot more in special resources and techs, and to a lesser extent in bulk resources.
The only part of that which has any combat consequences is the Defense stat. The Centaur-A would have one point more Defense, but without knowing the exact evasion stats of the Miranda, Centaur, and Takaaki, we really cannot say how important that is.
So honestly, I'd consider the "send a Miranda-A in place of a Centaur-A" scenario favorable to US, not them. Because the Miranda-A will be easier to replace if it gets blown up, without having significantly less combat potential.
It is a valid point that their escorts can reliably outduel our escorts, although I don't think "Rennie+Miranda vs Kaldar+Gun Takaaki" works out as badly as you think.
That's Combat 8 Hull 6 Shields 8 against Combat 9 Hull 7 Shields 7. Durability is more or less a wash. The one-point advantage in Combat matters, but it matters proportionately less for larger and larger forces.
When it's Combat 4 versus Combat 5, the side with more firepower has a 56.4% hit probability. At Combat 6 versus Combat 7, 54.4%. At Combat 8 versus Combat 9, the Cardassians get a 53.4% hit probability on us, versus a 46.6% hit probability of us against them. That's getting down into the range where it's very possible for that to simply not show up as an issue in the first dozen or so exchanges of fire. Which is, statistically speaking, when the escorts' shields start going down and other factors come into play.
I'd still say edge goes to the Cardassians, but it's a lot narrower than in most of the cruiser-cruiser and battlecruiser-explorer duels I looked at.
There is no large, highly significant difference between the Centaur-A and Miranda-A for combat purposes, @HearthBorn. They have identical Combat, Hull, and Shield stats.
Compared to the Miranda-A, the Centaur-A has one more point of Science, two more points of Presence, and one more point of Defense. It pays for that by costing a lot more in special resources and techs, and to a lesser extent in bulk resources.
The only part of that which has any combat consequences is the Defense stat. The Centaur-A would have one point more Defense, but without knowing the exact evasion stats of the Miranda, Centaur, and Takaaki, we really cannot say how important that is.
So honestly, I'd consider the "send a Miranda-A in place of a Centaur-A" scenario favorable to US, not them. Because the Miranda-A will be easier to replace if it gets blown up, without having significantly less combat potential.
UbeOne
Daydreaming CPU
- Location
- Philippines
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- She/Her
Are we going to produce additional Mirandas later on?
aeqnai
Nerdy Homu
- Location
- Laniakea Supercluster
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- She/Her
They're easily our most cost-efficient combat escort design and stand to be so for a good while-- canon implies they're still being new-built during the Dominion War even. Yes, we'll have more Mirandas eventually, and even if we don't UESPA and the other member fleets will have them by the boatload.
If we do another shipyard expansion and have three or four more berths, it might be useful to produce some cheap ships in them to use the space without too much expense, similar to how we do refits now.
- Location
- Patriarchova
Once we've refit all our existing ships? Quite possibly, yes. While centaurs are obviously better, Mirandas are easily the most spammable ship we have, and I suspect we'll get a Miranda-B refit in the not too distant future that'll keep them useful into the mid 2300's.
Forgothrax
Not Going Gently
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'd like to see a modified Saber class with L3. They're even cheaper than a Miranda-A.
AKuz
Been Better
- Location
- A Rising Tide of Horrors
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- She/Her
The most cost-effective type of combat escort would be a Bird of Prey analogue.
"USS Anomaly Bait"
UbeOne
Daydreaming CPU
- Location
- Philippines
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- She/Her
USS Redshirt
AKuz
Been Better
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- A Rising Tide of Horrors
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"USS Teaser For This Week's Episode"
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- United States, EST
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USS No Council, We're Not Trying To Find Out If We Can Get The Klingons To Try To File A Copyright Infringement Case
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
If there was a war on and I didn't expect it to end quickly, I would advocate for us producing Miranda-As, yes.
I did a rather extensive analysis on this at one point. Basically, if you are worried primarily about fighting, then on the scale of entire fleets, building a mob of Miranda-As is almost always a better choice than anything else you can build for the same cost. There are exceptions to that, but not a lot of them.
UbeOne
Daydreaming CPU
- Location
- Philippines
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- She/Her
AKuz
Been Better
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- A Rising Tide of Horrors
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"USS We Probably Shouldn't Have Licked That"
We'd be better off producing a modern tech escort designed to the Miranda principles (low cost, low crew), in my opinion. Even with the initial 3y prototyping time.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The police cutter design is a good ship, but the ones I'm familiar with really don't have the punch required of a wartime combatant. You need EITHER something that can go toe-to-toe with a Takaaki better than a Miranda-A can, OR something that can be mass-produced so cheaply that you'll reliably have two or three of them to gang up on said Takaaki most of the time.
So personally, I'd advocate building Miranda-As NOW, while simultaneously starting work on something superior to supplant/replace them with after the war. Among other things because by the end of said war, there'd presumably be a lot of badly damaged or overworked Miranda-As lying around that we'd need to write off for scrap or otherwise rid ourselves of. We'd need something to replace them with, or at least a more satisfactory design we could use in the event of further hostilities.
In wartime, you generally mass-produce whatever designs you have, rather than stopping to build a completely new design after the war starts. See Superiority, by Arthur C. Clarke, for an example of why.
If we did it at the same time the war started, the time required to design and prototype the ship would cumulatively take so long that the war would be over before we finished. One or two years to get political approval and do the design work, followed by three years to prototype, is about as long as a war can realistically last.
So personally, I'd advocate building Miranda-As NOW, while simultaneously starting work on something superior to supplant/replace them with after the war. Among other things because by the end of said war, there'd presumably be a lot of badly damaged or overworked Miranda-As lying around that we'd need to write off for scrap or otherwise rid ourselves of. We'd need something to replace them with, or at least a more satisfactory design we could use in the event of further hostilities.
In wartime, you generally mass-produce whatever designs you have, rather than stopping to build a completely new design after the war starts. See Superiority, by Arthur C. Clarke, for an example of why.
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To be more exact, we're looking at a pair of escorts-one large one, fairly expensive, and nearly competitive with the Renaissance on a much smaller crew, and a low end model with stats that are much more modest, but only costs about 45br/30sr to act as a customs cutter and general patrol ship, but not a dedicated fighter. Currently however, the spreadsheet used to design ships is in a lot of flux and we can't be sure what either will look like in the final configuration. Escort design is kinda broken at the moment, and a big escort the size and capability of the Renaissance, while powerful, kinda defeats the purpose of an escort by just giving us a cruiser with different serial numbers. The police cutter, on the other hand, is intentionally cut to the bone in order to lower it's production costs so the member fleets can spam them out as they require. So neither really fits the 'cheap combat powerhouse' niche.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yeah.
People should remember that there are three known Takaaki variants, and not much evidence that the 'generalist' version even exists. If it does exist, it would probably have roughly the same stats as a Centaur-A, or maybe not quite as good.
The dedicated 'courier' statline is C2 S1 H3 L3 P3 D3. The 'science' statline is C1 S5 H2 L3 P1 D2. Neither of those is significantly superior to our existing escorts- in fact, the courier variant is pretty strictly inferior to the Centaur-A, and the science variant is kind of pathetic at anything except being a science vessel. It's good at that (nice that they have a science vessel that's survivable in combat!) But it's not a great ship that we should be jealous of or anything.
The thing that's got people worrying is that the "gun Takaaki" has a statline of C4 S1 H3 L3 P1 D2. In other words, it's a combat powerhouse that sacrifices virtually all the event-response and non-combat performance we expect from most of our escorts.
I'm quite sure we could design an escort like that, but I'm equally sure the Council wouldn't want to sign off on it. To build an escort capable of overmatching the Takaaki, we'd either end up:
1) Building a multirole ship so big and versatile it outweighs and outperforms the Cardassian escorts in all categories. In other words, a ship that can outfight a gun Takaaki AND out-diplomance a courier Takaaki AND outscience a science Takaaki. As Vehrec notes, at that point we might as well just call it a cruiser (or, heck, a pocket explorer) and call it a day. Because it's inevitably going to be costlier and harder to build for us than the Takaakis are for Cardassia.
2) Buildling a pared-down dedicated warship- a sort of proto-Defiant. That's what Cardassia did with the gun Takaaki in the first place. But realistically we can't do that unless something as scary as the Borg shows up to motivate us.
People should remember that there are three known Takaaki variants, and not much evidence that the 'generalist' version even exists. If it does exist, it would probably have roughly the same stats as a Centaur-A, or maybe not quite as good.
The dedicated 'courier' statline is C2 S1 H3 L3 P3 D3. The 'science' statline is C1 S5 H2 L3 P1 D2. Neither of those is significantly superior to our existing escorts- in fact, the courier variant is pretty strictly inferior to the Centaur-A, and the science variant is kind of pathetic at anything except being a science vessel. It's good at that (nice that they have a science vessel that's survivable in combat!) But it's not a great ship that we should be jealous of or anything.
The thing that's got people worrying is that the "gun Takaaki" has a statline of C4 S1 H3 L3 P1 D2. In other words, it's a combat powerhouse that sacrifices virtually all the event-response and non-combat performance we expect from most of our escorts.
I'm quite sure we could design an escort like that, but I'm equally sure the Council wouldn't want to sign off on it. To build an escort capable of overmatching the Takaaki, we'd either end up:
1) Building a multirole ship so big and versatile it outweighs and outperforms the Cardassian escorts in all categories. In other words, a ship that can outfight a gun Takaaki AND out-diplomance a courier Takaaki AND outscience a science Takaaki. As Vehrec notes, at that point we might as well just call it a cruiser (or, heck, a pocket explorer) and call it a day. Because it's inevitably going to be costlier and harder to build for us than the Takaakis are for Cardassia.
2) Buildling a pared-down dedicated warship- a sort of proto-Defiant. That's what Cardassia did with the gun Takaaki in the first place. But realistically we can't do that unless something as scary as the Borg shows up to motivate us.
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
This is a case where I think our doctrinal choice hasn't been to our advantage. Ideally our escorts should be, in fact, escorts; not deployed alone, but in a group or as helpers to other ships. But we haven't emphasized that in either our theory doctrine or our deployments.
When we have more ships it might be worthwhile to start forming squadrons on more than an ad-hoc basis for our non-explorers.
When we have more ships it might be worthwhile to start forming squadrons on more than an ad-hoc basis for our non-explorers.