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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest) Starfleet Ship Design Bureau, Refit ("To Boldly Go...")
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KnightDisciple said:
Okay, so just so I'm a bit clearer, generally speaking our goal has been, is, and will be a 3-tier ship design setup (Explorer, Cruiser, Escort)? Obviously specific classes get created, refitted, and eventually phased out in stages, but broadly speaking 3 types of ships?
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Since there are real mechanical differences between the three types, yes, we're likely to preserve those differences.

The Renaissance is, from what I can see and tell, our Ambassador-era Cruiser (I'm using the Explorer class as a "benchmark" for Eras, so there was the Constitution Era, we're in the Excelsior Era, will go into Ambassador Era, and eventually the Galaxy Era)? It won't be launched the same year or anything, and probably phased out sooner, but still.
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...Sort of. Although we could equally well say that the (now-obsolete) Constellation-class cruiser was built at the tail end of the Connie Age and is continuing to serve (less effectively) into the Excelsior Age.

Is our Escort class going to be a completely custom design (aka no real canon equivalent)?
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Too soon to know. The rules for customizing ships are changing as we speak.

Will there be a replacement for the Oberth at some point, a dedicated SCIENCE! vessel? Or will the Nebula (somwhere between Explorer and Cruiser in size) fill that role when fitted with the Sensors/Labs/Computers module (while also ending up, essentially, our Cruiser)?
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There's a lot of calls for an upgraded science vessel design, but it's likely going to wait until late in the 2310s (if people decide having one is more important than having a new general purpose escort) or early 2320s (if the other way around). Also, it's hard to predict exactly what will happen because (as noted) the rules for customizing ships are changing as we speak.

Can you refresh me (as someone who archive-binged the threadmarked updates and skipped a lot of the discussion in between) what all the various ship stats are? (The Design spreadsheets make my eyes spin.)
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Ship stats are archived here.

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/starfleet-ship-design-bureau-to-boldly-go.33039/

Yeah, lots of smaller berths sounds quite plausible. They're probably really good at spitting out their Birds of Prey, too. Honestly they probably tinker with designs less than Starfleet/The Federation does, as my own speculation.
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Yeah, the flip side of that is that they have like 100 ships kicking around that were designed some time around the end of the TOS era and are now something like 40-50 years old. There are disadvantages to not upgrading.

Yeangst said:
Nah, I'm much more broken up about the first two.

I'm not seeing much difference between Cardassian Goon squads and Bajoran Theocratic Goon Squads stomping on Bajoran faces. Especially when the difference only applies to 5-10 years.
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Do you have any actual evidence that the pre-Occupation Bajoran government was anywhere near as brutal as the Cardassian Occupation?

Or are you just making up excuses not to care about a humanitarian problem?

The Federation has explicit policies to not interfere with other peoples' internal affairs, even when they are suffering under horrible, repressive governments. We aren't going to try and pull an Iraq 2003. The moral logic isn't much different here.
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That still doesn't mean we can whistle cheerfully when other people's government gets worse due to them being invaded and oppressed by foreigners who accelerated their oppression timetable in response to their actions.

We messed up. The Bajorans are going to pay for it, unless we find a way to improve the situation in ways that cancel out the harm we've caused.

[X] Late 2311/ Early 2312 Deployment
 
pheonix89 said:
@OnierosTheWriter
What's the requirement for the Sydraxian Border Zone? That's supposed to come online this quarter, taking the Vega Starbase with it. Also, the CBZ starbase is completing this turn and the ongoing/completed projects section of the front page doesn't include the mining colonies from this Snakepit.
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It's 9D. I asked some time ago. But of course, for a border zone that we expect to be actively facing down armed raiders, going the minimum seems dumb. An Excelsior backed by two Escorts is the absolute minimum I want to see there.

Simon_Jester said:
In canon, the Cardies waited about 5-7 more years before occupying Bajor... we think. It's a bit vague. It seems likely, especially with the intel confirmation, that the Cardassians decided to move in with force to forestall us from turning Bajor into a Federation affiliate through our diplomatic charms. Therefore, by pushing Bajor diplomatically, we wound up accelerating the timeline of the Occupation by 5-7 years.
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Best possible result is that it changes not just the timeline but the nature of the Occupation. If Bajor continues to be run by Bajorans with merely a regular tribute requirement, that's a lot less Bajoran suffering than Cardassian soldiers directly running things. Of course... that's "best" for the Bajorans. A bloody occupation that requires tons of ships and men to keep going is arguable more beneficial for us.

KnightDisciple said:
A
Can you refresh me (as someone who archive-binged the threadmarked updates and skipped a lot of the discussion in between) what all the various ship stats are? (The Design spreadsheets make my eyes spin.)
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Fifth threadmark down "Ship Classes". Or just keep scrolling down the front page. It's in the core game info.
 
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Simon_Jester said:
Bad idea. We want an escort that can do what the [i}Centaur-A[/i] does
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I wont support an escort design that isn't pushing reaction to at least 4+, I wont be back in the UK until a weeks time so I can't do any spreadsheet fiddling myself but hopefully I have that long to put together my own design. Fundamentally our escorts should be pretty high reaction so that can cheaply fill garrison duty for crew and materials cost whilst also being pretty reasonable at combat. Presence and science would be a nice additional benefit.
 
KnightDisciple said:
Fair enough on general points, but I should have been clearer. When I see this:

I'm assuming that's "Science 2 Hull 2 Defense 2", but what are C, L, and P for? P is Presence? C is...Crew?

[X] Late 2311/ Early 2312 Deployment
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C is Combat, P is Presence yes, and L is Shields because we didn't want two stats with the same letter on.
 
I wonder if the Klingon Fleet total is even all of their ships. It might be all the ships belonging the Empire itself, but how many ships do the Great Houses maintain privately? There could easily be dozens of Birds of Prey under our radar because they belong the Houses and don't get counted on anything official.
 
While we're all flagellating let's enjoy some retroactively prophetic posts I found while trying to figure out if I voted for Bajor push or not:
Briefvoice said:
Brutalizing the Bajorans into not talking to the Federation anymore is a lot less work than brutalizing the Federation into not talking to the Bajorans, and just as likely to be effective. Heck, maybe they'll decide that occupying the Bajorans is the only way to stay safe....
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Simon_Jester said:
Here's hoping we get lucky, and the Cardassians have forgotten how to push around a bunch of Bajorans.
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Luckily I don't have to flagellate because I didn't vote, but it also means I don't get to say I told you so either. :(

In any case, I don't think we need to sweat Bajor too much. In terms of meta knowledge gained -- that affiliate status can be blocked by other power's diplomacy, and to a lesser extent pushes are noticed by other powers -- we're kinda ahead, in that we learned about these mechanics by kicking off an event that we kinda knew was going to happen anyways. Imagine if we had instead fumbled this with like, the Apatia.

And as @Briefvoice has said, kicking off the occupation early, or in a different form, might mean this is salvageable. Right now the Cardassians seem to be in the lead-up to the full occupation, and for all we know this 'prequel' phase could last eight years. That might be time for us, or the Seyek, to work some magic. Or it might be worthwhile to let the Cardassians sit on the status quo and hope the true-blue and brutal Occupation never emerges.
 
@Briefvoice is there any chance of swapping one of the Mirandas at Rigel for another ship for the early phase? I really don't want them to be the frontline event responce ship. Can we swap one of the ships from Tellar while we are alwating for the connie-b wave to hit?

Otherwise looks great, and thank you for the hard work of doing full fleet plans.
 
KnightDisciple said:
The Renaissance is, from what I can see and tell, our Ambassador-era Cruiser (I'm using the Explorer class as a "benchmark" for Eras, so there was the Constitution Era, we're in the Excelsior Era, will go into Ambassador Era, and eventually the Galaxy Era)? It won't be launched the same year or anything, and probably phased out sooner, but still.
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Prior to now I've been catagorising them by generation. With each generation being defined by its primary explorer design.

Gen 1- Constitution-A, Constellation, Miranda, Soyuz, Oberth
Gen 2- Excelsior, Constitution-B, Centaur, (Ares)
Gen 3- Ambassador, Rennaisance, New Orleans/Lion, Kepler
Gen 4- Galaxy, Nebula, Niagra, Saber, Intrepid, Defiant
Gen 5- Sovereign, Akira, Steamrunner, Luna

Constitution and Soyuz could be said to be part of a Gen 0 along with the TOS era cruiser Ranger, and the Deadalus science vessel. Unlike the Ranger they were deemed viable enough for deep refits to become Gen 1 ships. The Connie-A being good enough that no replacement Gen 1 Explorer was developed, and the Soyuz was supplemented by a purpose built Gen 1 escort, the Miranda. Perhaps the Ranger was also refitted even though we never saw it, but was found to be lacking and quickly replaced by the Constellation.

Gen 0- Constitution, Ranger, Soyuz, Deadalus

This would explain why there is such a big jump in tonnage between the Constituion and the Excelsior, as the proper Gen 1 Explorer which would have likely massed around 1.8mt never existed.

Maybe the Rangers were all parcelled off to Starfleet Engineering and Medical, and are only just now beginning to wear out. Which would explain why we haven't had to build any ships for those branches recently, and also why we didn't start with any Rangers.

Other anomalies are;
-The missing Gen 2 cruiser, which I tried to explain with the Ares, but is probably also largely down to the relative newness of the Constellations at the time. We have also built the Constitution-B for this role right at the end of gen 2.
-There are two cruisers seemingly built during the 4th Generation, the Nebula and the Niagra. Here I think it is likely that neither we built in bulk due to the large number of Excelsiors converted to cruisers. The Niagara probably as a direct repalcement for Constellations that had become obsolete and worn out, and the Nebula as a multi-role modern pocket explorer for internal duties and sector command ship.
-We know of no canon dedicated Gen 2 or 3 science ships. It is Possible that the Oberth from Gen 1 was simply so good that they didn't consider designing a Gen 2 science vessel necessary. It looks like we are developing the Kepler to fill the Gen 3 spot.
-Famously the Defiant in Gen 4 doesn't fit into the traditional Explorer, Cruiser, Escort, Science dynamic. Which is obviously because it is a dedicated hunter killer warship.
 
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Briefvoice said:
I wonder if the Klingon Fleet total is even all of their ships. It might be all the ships belonging the Empire itself, but how many ships do the Great Houses maintain privately? There could easily be dozens of Birds of Prey under our radar because they belong the Houses and don't get counted on anything official.
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The fleets of the Great Houses as the Klingon equivalent of our Member Fleets? Huh, I can see that being the case actually.
 
ClawClawBite said:
@Briefvoice is there any chance of swapping one of the Mirandas at Rigel for another ship for the early phase? I really don't want them to be the frontline event responce ship. Can we swap one of the ships from Tellar while we are alwating for the connie-b wave to hit?

Otherwise looks great, and thank you for the hard work of doing full fleet plans.
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I'm a little uncomfortable there as well. What would people think about sending the Gale (a Centaur-A) to Rigel in place of the Shield (a Miranda)? That would leave Rigel with a Miranda and a Centaur-A, and Tellar with a Constellation and a Miranda.
 
Briefvoice said:
2. The Licori mentats are partially about not liking AI. I wonder if they had a really bad experience with it in their past, similar to the human experience with genetic modification.
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I just realized what the inspiration for the Licori was: Dune. The aftermath of the long jihad against the thinking machines enslaving them resulted in developing mentats via genetics and Arrakis's spice melange. As a nice coincidence, spice also happens to be red in color.

OneirosTheWriter said:
However, the level of in-fighting began to drop sharply after the Diplomatic Service began to make overtures to the Bajorans. Whether this was a coincidence and the in-fighting was dying down already at the time, or whether outreach to Bajor galvanised the Cardassian High Command is currently uncertain. The head of the Cardassian desk is of the opinion that the latter is the case. There are at least a few indications that the idea of Bajor entering Federation sphere of influence put, in her words, "a terrible shiver up the spines of the Obsidian Order." This is based on political communiques intercepted by the T'Mir, currently hiding out in the 44 Jotun system.
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Well, as one of the people who voted for the Bajor push (albeit tentatively and partly because the competing plan involved an unwanted tech team), I admit the push is a mistake.

Not because of the earlier timeline of the Bajor occupation - it presents a moral dilemma, sure, but from a realpolitik point of view, it may actually be advantageous for us in the end.

Rather, it's because now pushing the other Cardassian affiliates becomes both riskier and more urgent. Can we still pry away the Dawiar, which is strategically important for closing the Rethelian Corridor? Do we face increasing competition for getting the Yrillians, who are becoming more and more of a middleman in Sydraxian and Syndicate-related incidents?

At least there are a couple silver linings:
1) The Cardassians may not have been as fully prepared as they wanted to be for the annexation of Bajor
2) This is the first instance of a diplomatic affiliate contest coming to a head that I can recall, and we now have insight into future ones
3) We technically have a foot in the door so that if a war with the Cardassians ends in our favor, Bajor would be an obvious war goal (in Paradox grand strategy terms)
4) Starfleet somehow managed to get off the hook for the Bajor diplo push - thanks Sousa!

Algalon said:
Last End of Year card was 65.

Going through the threadmarks from then up to today, I counted 117.
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I'm totaling up 120, minus whatever annual Syndicate resilience (probably at least 10/yr):
2310 EOY 65
2311.Q1.M2 Master of Orion 2
2311.Q1.M3 Master of Orion 3
2311.Q2.M1 Master of Orion 5
2311.Q2.M2 Captain's Log 2
2311.Q2.M2 Master of Orion 9
2311.Q2.M3 Captain's Log 4
2311.Q2.M3 Master of Orion 9
2311.Q3.M1 Master of Orion 6
2311.Q3.M2 Captain's Log 3
2311.Q3.M2 Master of Orion 2
2311.Q3.M3 Captain's Log 3
2311.Q3.M3 Master of Orion 7
Total 120
We also don't know if they have an equivalent mechanic for halving the "Syndicate impact" for the next year (and it's still not clear how exactly that halving works for us with "Syndicate cost").

edit: grammar
 
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lbmaian said:
I just realized what the inspiration for the Licori was: Dune. The aftermath of the long jihad against the thinking machines enslaving them resulted in developing mentats via genetics and Arrakis's spice melange. As a nice coincidence, spice also happens to be red in color.



Well, as one of the people who voted for the Bajor push (albeit tentatively and partly because the competing plan involved an unwanted tech team), I admit the push is a mistake.

Not because of the earlier timeline of the Bajor occupation - it presents a moral dilemma, sure, but from a realpolitik point of view, it may actually be advantageous for us in the end.

Rather, it's because now pushing the other Cardassian affiliates now becomes both riskier and more urgent. Can we still pry away the Dawiar, which is strategically important for closing the Rethelian Corridor? Do we face increasing competition for getting the Yrillians, who are becoming more and more of a middleman in Sydraxian and Syndicate-related incidents?

At least there a couple silver linings:
1) The Cardassians may not have been as fully prepared as they wanted to be for the annexation of Bajor
2) This is the first instance of a diplomatic affiliate contest coming to a head that I can recall, and we now have insight into future ones
3) We technically a foot in the door so that if a war with the Cardassians ends in our favor, Bajor would be an obvious war goal (in Paradox grand strategy terms)
4) Starfleet somehow managed to get off the hook for the Bajor diplo push - thanks Sousa!



I'm totaling up 120, minus whatever annual Syndicate resilience (probably at least 10/yr):
2310 EOY 65
2311.Q1.M2 Master of Orion 2
2311.Q1.M3 Master of Orion 3
2311.Q2.M1 Master of Orion 5
2311.Q2.M2 Captain's Log 2
2311.Q2.M2 Master of Orion 9
2311.Q2.M3 Captain's Log 4
2311.Q2.M3 Master of Orion 9
2311.Q3.M1 Master of Orion 6
2311.Q3.M2 Captain's Log 3
2311.Q3.M2 Master of Orion 2
2311.Q3.M3 Captain's Log 3
2311.Q3.M3 Master of Orion 7
Total 120
We also don't know if they have an equivalent mechanic for halving the "Syndicate impact" for the next year (and it's still not clear how exactly that halving works for us with "Syndicate cost").
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I'm naturally a pessimist so I'm going to presume they've some how reduced that down by half so we've only done 60 impact for real.
 
lbmaian said:
I just realized what the inspiration for the Licori was: Dune. The aftermath of the long jihad against the thinking machines enslaving them resulted in developing mentats via genetics and Arrakis's spice melange. As a nice coincidence, spice also happens to be red in color.
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Or rather "coincidence". ;)

Rather, it's because now pushing the other Cardassian affiliates now becomes both riskier and more urgent. Can we still pry away the Dawiar, which is strategically important for closing the Rethelian Corridor? Do we face increasing competition for getting the Yrillians, who are becoming more and more of a middleman in Sydraxian and Syndicate-related incidents?
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The thing about the Yrillians is that due to the nature of their government they can change on a dime. If you could get the voters to sign onto a "Cardassians suck; Federation is great" referendum, it would be very difficult for the Cardassians to clean it up behind the scenes.
 
Okay, made a minor deployment modification to Rigel and Tellar sectors so that Rigel isn't stuck with only two Mirandas for six months. In return, Tellar only has a Constellation and a Miranda instead of a Constellation and a Centaur-A.
 
SuperSonicSound said:
I wont support an escort design that isn't pushing reaction to at least 4+, I wont be back in the UK until a weeks time so I can't do any spreadsheet fiddling myself but hopefully I have that long to put together my own design. Fundamentally our escorts should be pretty high reaction so that can cheaply fill garrison duty for crew and materials cost whilst also being pretty reasonable at combat. Presence and science would be a nice additional benefit.
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Reaction (Defense for those who don't read the SDB) is bad if you don't have the stats to back it up. A specialized reaction ship with high reaction must also be a generalist, or it will be called for events it can't handle. Such escort designs exist and it's a valid design philosophy, but will be neither small nor cheap. We're looking at all-4, one 5, and around 2320 to 2325 tech.

Ultimately the debate over what our escorts ought to even do does belong here. Generalists is an inefficient role for smaller ships as they require more stats on general, but the argument goes that escorts will be the most frequent garrison ships and therefore should handle all the duties. I feel our cruisers and explorers ought to be our generalists, rather than inefficient ships like the Centaur and proposed larger escorts. Making a lean and efficient escort designs for specific purposes like science or combat should be much easier, will cost less crew, and fewer resources, and will do more overall. In combat two smaller ships will frequently wreck a larger, double cost one. Science/Combat patrol craft, Science/Presence couriers/hospital ships, etc, can probably be done far better on a smaller scale than generalists.

Now, there is a quantity argument to be made even for event response, but even then we can make efficient all-3 or all-2 designs, or specialized corvettes. I am therefor strongly against the 4-reaction generalist escort design.


KnightDisciple said:
All fair points. I'm hoping we can end up doing something to avoid the canon scenario, which was "about one-quarter of a step below the Holocaust, and only just barely".


Okay, so just so I'm a bit clearer, generally speaking our goal has been, is, and will be a 3-tier ship design setup (Explorer, Cruiser, Escort)? Obviously specific classes get created, refitted, and eventually phased out in stages, but broadly speaking 3 types of ships?

The Renaissance is, from what I can see and tell, our Ambassador-era Cruiser (I'm using the Explorer class as a "benchmark" for Eras, so there was the Constitution Era, we're in the Excelsior Era, will go into Ambassador Era, and eventually the Galaxy Era)? It won't be launched the same year or anything, and probably phased out sooner, but still.

Is our Escort class going to be a completely custom design (aka no real canon equivalent)?

Will there be a replacement for the Oberth at some point, a dedicated SCIENCE! vessel? Or will the Nebula (somwhere between Explorer and Cruiser in size) fill that role when fitted with the Sensors/Labs/Computers module (while also ending up, essentially, our Cruiser)?


Can you refresh me (as someone who archive-binged the threadmarked updates and skipped a lot of the discussion in between) what all the various ship stats are? (The Design spreadsheets make my eyes spin.)

They're definitely an industrial powerhouse. And they're definitely not stupid in a fight.


And for all that some like to paint them as stupid, they really aren't.

Yeah, lots of smaller berths sounds quite plausible. They're probably really good at spitting out their Birds of Prey, too. Honestly they probably tinker with designs less than Starfleet/The Federation does, as my own speculation.

As to the "armed borders against another empire", who knows? Probably not the Breen. Hm. Maybe some fragment of the Dominion? I'm a bit fuzzy on which Quadrant bumps up against which....
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To catch you up on ship design:

All future ships will be custom built from the ship design sheet. The Renaissance is the last that uses the canon stats listed from the OP. There is no real consensus beyond the Ambassador, but projects that are being considered:

1. Ambassador - 2313 - 3 mt - next generation explorer and replacement to the Excelsior as the flagship design and ship of choice for the Explorer Corps. There's wide consensus on this and we've even settled the date. e: But not the exact statline as the SDB spreadsheet is still in development.

2. Unnamed Science Escort - approx 2317 to 2320 - 900 kt - Usually referred to as the Kepler. A max sized escort with 7 to 9 science, good survivability, to replace the Oberth. Cost is not an object, as it's difficult to exceed 100/100 and 2/2/3 at this scale anyway. Some debate as to combat capability and defense score, the argument goes that more science is preferable over more defense to focus its reaction to science events, but more defense may be preferable mean better evasion in an awacs or intel role. Stats would be C3+, S7+, H2+, L3+, P1+, D1+ or D3+. I am perfectly willing to destroy the arguments in favor of evasion/D but don't want to editorialize too much here.

3. Unnamed Next-Generation Escort - approx 2320 to 2325 - 900 kt - A max sized escort to do everything we want an escort to do (but what is that?). At 900 kt, we could just shave 100kt off of the Rennie or we could pursue divergent strategies like making a new better Centaur-A. There is considerable debate on the exact statline, but we can probably make the equivalent of all-4, one 5 or unbalanced versions of the same. No real consensus on cost or crew efficiency either.

4. Excelsior-A refit - soon - We've been indicated that this is in the pipes.


Projects that have been suggested but have yet to gain traction:

4. Current-Generation Efficient Escort - approx 2315 - 500 to 600 kt - Designs range from a half-cost half-crew Centaur-A to an all-2s training ship to a combat+science patrol craft to combat interceptor designs that remind me a bit too much of the Defiant. They all share a few characteristics: 1/1/1 crew (!), low SR cost (30 to 40), low BR cost.

5. Next-Generation Combat Escort - ??? - ??? - Basically all the designs that are designed to take on a Takaaki or a Jaldun and not much else. Almost wartime designs really.

6. Modular Next-Generation Escort - 900 kt - The "MESS". You won't find me saying anything good about this design, so someone else like the man who's been pushing it will have to extol its virtues.

7. Current-Generation Efficient Excelsior - approx 2320 - explorer-sized - Basically an Excelsior stats ship that's made with cost efficiency in mind but is still explorer-sized. It's debatable if this would even be allowed.

8. Current-Generation or Next-Generation Excelsior Cruiser - approx 2320 - 2 mt - Excelsior stats on a cruiser body and a much better cost and crew basis than our current Excelsior. We lack cruiser berths and have just built the Connie-B and Rennie, though.

If your questions go away from design philosophy and into technical details, we should really head to the Ship Design Bureau thread. But those are the general thoughts on future Ship Design so far.
 
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SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Reaction (Defense for those who don't read the SDB) is bad if you don't have the stats to back it up. A specialized reaction ship with high reaction must also be a generalist, or it will be called for events it can't handle. Such escort designs exist and it's a valid design philosophy, but will be neither small nor cheap. We're looking at all-4, one 5, and around 2320 to 2325 tech.

Ultimately the debate over what our escorts ought to even do does belong here. Generalists is an inefficient role for smaller ships as they require more stats on general, but the argument goes that escorts will be the most frequent garrison ships and therefore should handle all the duties. I feel our cruisers and explorers ought to be our generalists, rather than inefficient ships like the Centaur and proposed larger escorts. Making a lean and efficient escort designs for specific purposes like science or combat should be much easier, will cost less crew, and fewer resources, and will do more overall. In combat two smaller ships will frequently wreck a larger, double cost one. Science/Combat patrol craft, Science/Presence couriers/hospital ships, etc, can probably be done far better on a smaller scale than generalists.

Now, there is a quantity argument to be made even for event response, but even then we can make efficient all-3 or all-2 designs, or specialized corvettes. I am therefor strongly against the 4-reaction generalist escort design.




To catch you up on ship design:

All future ships will be custom built from the ship design sheet. The Renaissance is the last that uses the canon stats listed from the OP. There is no real consensus beyond the Ambassador, but projects that are being considered:

1. Ambassador - 2313 - 3 mt - next generation explorer and replacement to the Excelsior as the flagship design and ship of choice for the Explorer Corps. There's wide consensus on this and we've even settled the date. e: But not the exact statline as the SDB spreadsheet is still in development.

2. Unnamed Science Escort - approx 2317 to 2320 - 900 kt - Usually referred to as the Kepler. A max sized escort with 7 to 9 science, good survivability, to replace the Oberth. Cost is not an object, as it's difficult to exceed 100/100 and 2/2/3 at this scale anyway. Some debate as to combat capability and defense score, the argument goes that more science is preferable over more defense to focus its reaction to science events, but more defense may be preferable mean better evasion in an awacs or intel role. Stats would be C3+, S7+, H2+, L3+, P1+, D1+ or D3+. I am perfectly willing to destroy the arguments in favor of evasion/D but don't want to editorialize too much here.

3. Unnamed Next-Generation Escort - approx 2320 to 2325 - 900 kt - A max sized escort to do everything we want an escort to do (but what is that?). At 900 kt, we could just shave 100kt off of the Rennie or we could pursue divergent strategies like making a new better Centaur-A. There is considerable debate on the exact statline, but we can probably make the equivalent of all-4, one 5 or unbalanced versions of the same. No real consensus on cost or crew efficiency either.

4. Excelsior-A refit - soon - We've been indicated that this is in the pipes.


Projects that have been suggested but have yet to gain traction:

4. Current-Generation Efficient Escort - approx 2315 - 500 to 600 kt - Designs range from a half-cost half-crew Centaur-A to an all-2s training ship to a combat+science patrol craft to combat interceptor designs that remind me a bit too much of the Defiant. They all share a few characteristics: 1/1/1 crew (!), low SR cost (30 to 40), low BR cost.

5. Next-Generation Combat Escort - ??? - ??? - Basically all the designs that are designed to take on a Takaaki or a Jaldun and not much else. Almost wartime designs really.

6. Modular Next-Generation Escort - 900 kt - The "MESS". You won't find me saying anything good about this design, so someone else like the man who's been pushing it will have to extol its virtues.

7. Current-Generation Efficient Excelsior - approx 2320 - explorer-sized - Basically an Excelsior stats ship that's made with cost efficiency in mind but is still explorer-sized. It's debatable if this would even be allowed.

8. Current-Generation or Next-Generation Excelsior Cruiser - approx 2320 - 2 mt - Excelsior stats on a cruiser body and a much better cost and crew basis than our current Excelsior. We lack cruiser berths and have just built the Connie-B and Rennie, though.

If your questions go away from design philosophy and into technical details, we should really head to the Ship Design Bureau thread. But those are the general thoughts on future Ship Design so far.
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For next gen combat escort, there's the Lion.
 
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