Of the four I'd by far prefer a Constitution-B. Aside from the fact I'm a big fan of the ships the recent defense crunch has left me wanting more good generalist ships out there ASAP.
To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
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Derek58
Rocket Punch is Best Punch
- Location
- Getter Valhalla
We lost one ship that actually impacted our total Defense, and will probably have to temporarily reassign another while the Kearsage gets repaired. The Miracht's crew is almost completely fine, so it shouldn't be hard to crew a new EC Excelsior when the next one comes up for crewing. Adding that into the ships we're building, and it didn't have a huge impact on things.
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I don't know for sure anymore what with the way the design sheet still seems to be in flux. However based on what people were throwing around in our last research vote, I was assuming we start the build in 2315Q1. Technically it would be possible to start in 2314Q4 if the research finished in 2314Q3, but for reasons of us getting resource infusions in the beginning of the year and the Ambassador prototype costing a lot, I think it would be better to wait one quarter so that we can start a lot of other ships earlier in the year in 2314. I'll be happier to make that argument in more detail when it actually becomes relevant.
Regardless, we are actually getting to the point where berth space is becoming a constraint again, especially as we are expecting a couple of more members in the next year or two. So I think there's a strong argument for some shipyard expansions soon. Maybe in the 2312 snakepit.
Assuming we can retrieve them safely, yes. But if we make the next Excelsior an EC crew with the Miracht's crew, then that's one less Excelsior that would otherwise have been sent to sector garrison duty.
(to everyone)
I'm also concerned that the anti-Syndicate task force is down to just two Centaur-As. Remember we stripped them of the Dryad to make up for the loss of the Lion. Two escorts isn't much of a task force. On the plus side, if Eaton wins the Amarkia command vote she'll have a lot easier time calling in ships from that Sector fleet as needed since she'll be wearing both hats.
Derek58
Rocket Punch is Best Punch
- Location
- Getter Valhalla
Which isn't that much of an issue IMO.
We could also use some extra Excelsior berths so that we have room to start doing refits on our existing Excelsiors while still being able to make new ones. Yeah, definitely going to push for a UP expansion this year's snakepit, or maybe starting a new shipyard at a new member world.
Jenny
anonymous user
- Location
- maryland
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- She/Her
We could bring back the Dryad by swapping the Docana for the Suvek? The Andor sector commodore gives an extra chance for mapping events, which likely means science anyway.
We could also consider stripping the Tellarite sector down to just one ship plus starbase & outposts, but that seems risky.
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Both those options make sense, but we'll have to see if we're even given the option to move ships in response to what just happened.
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
IIRC we were intending to do an EC ship soon if not immediately anyways. (And it delays our crew crunch.)
- Location
- USA
40 Eridani B opens up at beginning of 15 if I read that right and it is 3m slot.
aeqnai
Nerdy Homu
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- Laniakea Supercluster
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Hopefully the moon isn't tidally locked, then.
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
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- He/Him
Or failing that, throw out so much chaff and anti-sensor kit, they'll be shooting blind for years.
Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
I wonder what the Sydraxians will think once they find out the Miracht was destroyed. Lost their chance for revenge and everything.
They probably still want their pound of flesh. Getting the Miracht would have been great for them, but from what I remember of the intel report they arn't to picky as long as they blow enough stuff up to feel honour is satisfied.
Which it might never be. The intelligence report noted that it seems to have become a spiral of self-justification with them.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
That's a nice haul. We greatly need that event pp, because that Syndicate cost is already reducing our annual pp income by 50% to 39pp. We've racked up 85pp in events so far since the last snakepit.
We also have a good chance of having sufficient rp for the next research phase - just need 33 more rp for full team activation.
And Straak, if he wasn't a Vulcan, he'd be sporting a smug all the damn time.
More evidence of starbases helping out with event response. And it's great that this Vega starbase finished this year.
Okay, assigning the Cheron to the Ferasa sector has proven to be a brilliant maneuver. It's paid dividends 3 times already!
2311.Q2.M2: [+2 Impact, reduce Corruption value on Nor'Orion]
2311.Q3.M3: [+3 Impact]
2311.Q4.M3: [+3 Impact]
edit: goddamnit I meant Cheron not Chekov
We also have a good chance of having sufficient rp for the next research phase - just need 33 more rp for full team activation.
And Straak, if he wasn't a Vulcan, he'd be sporting a smug all the damn time.
More evidence of starbases helping out with event response. And it's great that this Vega starbase finished this year.
Okay, assigning the Cheron to the Ferasa sector has proven to be a brilliant maneuver. It's paid dividends 3 times already!
2311.Q2.M2: [+2 Impact, reduce Corruption value on Nor'Orion]
2311.Q3.M3: [+3 Impact]
2311.Q4.M3: [+3 Impact]
edit: goddamnit I meant Cheron not Chekov
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Darn. And I was hoping we could trick them into attacking that automated planetary fortress in a gesture of "Defeat the enemy, who defeated my enemy, to prove I am THE STRONGER!"
...Okay that would probably not work but it's a nice thought.
I can just imagine Captain Mbeki trying to get his people moving overland so they're out of direct line of sight of the giant doom cannon.
Seriously, if that thing can blast the nacelles off an Excelsior, it can probably scar up that moon something fierce in bombardment mode.
You already solved that problem; Lady Lex is headed there, and I believe you're planning to switch Dryad back in a few more quarters when it's possible. That'll bump up the task force to a level stronger than it was in, say, July 2311, with a real cruiser flagship in place of the Kearsarge
We're trying to hoard resources and crew for the wave of Rennies we plan to start in 2314, and while Mirandas are crew-economical ships, they do require significant numbers of redshirts- the same category you need lots and lots of for a Renaissance-class. Starting two new Miranda-As is ROUGHLY equivalent to giving up one in 2314 for want of crew to operate it. I'm more or less okay with that, but I'm the crazy outlandish guy who's borderline a Swarm Doctrine advocate. Are you okay with it too?
We're worried but not THAT worried. As noted, the berths we're refitting Mirandas in are berths a Constitution-B just sailed out of, and each ConnieBee gives us +5 Defense in a single sector. Plus if we get desperate due to more ship losses, we do have some reserve capacity, some 'slack' in the system... it's just that right now that slack is currently being used to work on the anti-Syndicate campaign, because we've thrown nearly every available ship at it that isn't required elsewhere.
I like this version, and advocate a Constitution-B (have already called for it in Old Heart, New Sinews), but what happens in the Lor'Vela Berth One should probably be subject to a vote somehow since it's a largely independent choice from the rest of the plan.
Realistically, we're going to have explorers operating in that area of space quite heavily. The Ked Paddah are totally unknown to us and it's premature to even talk about bringing them into the Federation until we know more- they might be too aggressive for us to really want them as members. And it may be undesirable to recruit the Licori, besides, because astrographically we don't want to "wrap around" Romulan space until we and the Romulans have reached some kind of arrangement regarding extension of the Neutral Zone to coreward and a defined Romulan sphere of influence.
That said, ultimately I'm advocating promoting the current chief of staff because I believe that continuity in his specific position is going to be needed for Kahurangi's successor (probably Sulu) to experience a smooth transfer of power. Furthermore, declining to promote him is tantamount to forcing his retirement, which is simply not true of Patty Chen. It's about personalities more than about mechanical bonuses. If it were purely mechanics, I'd be voting for Chen, because more Explorer Corps recruits is a better bonus than boosts to diplomacy rolls for the few more years before the chief of staff retires on his own.
There's a difference between "this is what the ship is going to look like, roughly" sketches and "gee, Bob, where does this bolt go" blueprints.
When you get approval to build a large machine, you can usually settle for a "this is what it will look like." And in many cases you should, because detail design requires thousands of man-hours of work by highly skilled engineers and is an expensive project in its own right.
To build any important part of a ship you need to have "where does this bolt go" levels of detail figured out in advance before you begin. I mean sure, you can start assembling the hull framework while people are still bickering over the layout of the bridge consoles and whether to put the toilet to the right of the sink or vice versa, but you have to have pretty darn accurate information as to what the hull is supposed to look like before said hull can take shape.
But seriously, no person responsible for manufacturing a ship would start construction work unless every truly significant question about how to design it were already settled, with SOME answer being given even if not necessarily the optimal answer or the final answer. You don't kneed to know whether the navigator sits to the left of the helmsman or to the right when you start cutting metal for the framework of the bridge module, for instance. But you certainly need to know exactly how big the bridge is going to be!
Here is a somewhat lengthy article on the ship design process:
Designing a Ship
The way I figure it, the kind of "here's the spreadsheet" designs the SDB people are submitting would be, at most, the "Spring Style." Approval from the Council to build a ship is the final step of "CHOP-TWO," the point where we get final, definitive agreement that a specific design can be built.
Mechanically in this quest we might have to do it the other way around. First we might end up voting to build A ship, then vote on WHICH ship. But that makes virtually no sense as a narrative process. It's an artifact of our voting mechanics. Kahurangi or Sulu or whoever isn't going to go to the Council arguing for the design of an escort without knowing what kind of escort they plan to design.
So is there continuous design work going on prior to Council approval of designs? Yes. But does that level of design work include the "down to the last bolt-hole" level required to actually build the ship? Almost certainly not. Because as noted in the linked article, it's easy to produce 'rough' designs intended to give the overall sense of what the ship will be like, and much more challenging to produce a single 'detail' design that can actually be implemented in the sense of "let's cut metal, time to get to work."
Rough design work can be going on continuously in the background. Actually bringing together a large enough group of engineers to complete detail design in a timely manner (i.e. figuring out how to install parts in the ship faster than new parts are invented TO install in the ship, when said ship weighs a million tons and is complicated to match its weight) almost certainly requires Council pre-approval of the rough parameters of the existing design.
I'm not seeing the part where Chen is unsuited for Tactical. Look up her original bonus on the front page. We've had her running a shipyard for some years now, but that is in part because before that her career was so heavily biased in favor of the Explorer Corps and the Tactical track.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
It actually should be 95pp. @OneirosTheWriter omitted 5pp in the snakepit. By the time I pointed that out, it was too late for the vote though. But it looks like he hasn't corrected the pp after the fact yet:
Okay, here is my argument on the SF berths. I think we want to use them for Miranda refits, as part of our strategy of getting all our Mirandas refitted and saving up resources for a wave of Renaissances once we can build them. That means taking those Mirandas out of service for a year. Now, each of those berths opening up represents a new Constitution-B going into service. However, we might well have to be manning Apinae Sector at that time for the Indorians, who may well make membership in the annual diplomatic rolls. Factor in we might have more lost ships and that could leave things tight. By waiting until 2312Q1 we'll have another couple of Constitution-Bs and an Excelsior coming into service and there will likely be more room for taking ships out of service.
That leaves the ship type to build in Lor'Vela as the most interesting thing to vote on. What does everyone think?
I like it. I've been in favor of a Connie-B since we started debating it a couple weeks ago.
But I don't see any reason why we should delay those 2 Miranda-A refits in the SF berths from 2312Q4 to 2313Q1. Resources definitely won't be a problem with 2312Q4 starts. If there's some emergency repair that those berths are needed for, prior history has shown we can simply bump those refits out temporarily for such repairs.
To provide more options for the upcoming vote, here were my thoughts on what were viable 2312 build plans a couple weeks ago (note: this was a reply to Simon Jester):
First thing to point out, all these plans would have to be revised to replace one Miranda-A refit with the Kearsage repair.
Second, these plans all assume that the Miranda-A refits that you have scheduled in SF are started in 2312Q4 rather than 2313Q1.
Third, with the hits to our reserve crew and the general lack of free berth space, I'm no longer in favor of the 2 Connie-B plans or any plans that involves more than 2 new ship builds, and 2 new ship builds is already stretching it.
As for the types of ships, with the loss of the USS Lion, I don't think building an Oberth instead of different escort is as attractive anymore, but it's still viable and it helps save a bit of enlisted. We also definitely do not need more Miranda-A builds with all the refits going on.
So more realistically, I think it'll boil down to a vote of:
a) 4 Miranda-A refit, 1 Connie-B
b) 4 Miranda-A refit, 1 Centaur-A
c) 4 Miranda-A refit, 1 Oberth
d) 3 Miranda-A refit, 2 Centaur-A
e) 3 Miranda-A refit, 1 Centaur-A, 1 Oberth
I'll admit, that does make Eaton tempting there. Having the option to actually fly in the Amarkia sector's Excelsior flagship (USS Salnas) is appealing if that's possible. But Eaton already does provide a research bonus while th'Marlaas doesn't provide any currently, and th'Marlass has been wanting a new job for half a decade already while Eaton effectively already has a new one (and is in fact doing two jobs). Also, I judge Eaton's and th'Marlaas's sector commander bonuses to be about on par with each other.
Which is a reminder that most captains who lose their ship or take enough damage that it's nearly destroyed pretty much have their careers ended by it. Even if cleared by an investigations board, there are usually enough other talented people competing for the same jobs that it's easier to pick the one who didn't manage to have a ship shot out from under her. That's why Captain Revak's ability to have his career survive the explosion on the Cheron was so remarkable. Personal deflector shields indeed.
In other words, things don't look good for Mbeki.
More insight on the Licori. Apparently all of their mad science tendencies are tied up in these mentats. Makes a kind of sense when you think about it. These people have already agreed to die for science, shortening their life to a mere ten years. Having gone that far, they'd rather do things fast than careful. If they want to achieve immortality through their achievements, then need to make discoveries before they burn out. There's no time for hesitation.
A nice personal touch here.
Poor Mbeki; it'll take a miracle for him to get another command after this.
Hell yes, the aerocommandos are back in service!
Pumps fist. Yes! The Sydraxian border zone really shows its worth here. It's stopping not only Sydraxian raids, but helping to put a curb on Yrillian piracy. Hopefully this will provide some calm to the worries that are making the border worlds vote Hawk.
The Cheron continues to be a boss in every way.
In some ways, this may be the most important event of the entire year. Preventing the Romulans from using Federation space to flank in their war with the Klingons goes a long way to keeping the Federation from becoming sucked into the conflict. It was this concern that made us stack an Oberth here, and the effort has been well-rewarded. This one was really important to succeed on.
The whole Straak storyline provided some much-needed humor after the disasters of this turn. It was pretty hilarious. "Astounded Amarki" is an awesome event reward.
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Okay, let me expand on my logic there. We probably want those berths free in 2314Q2 when we can start building Renaissances in there, right? So there are six quarters (18 months) between the Constitution-Bs launching and being able to start the Renaissance builds. That's not enough time for an Escort build, so the only useful thing we can do with those berths is Miranda refits which take a year, and we'll have six months (two quarters) of 'down time' no matter what.
So from my perspective, why not schedule the Miranda 'out of service' time when it seems most advantageous from a greater deployment perspective? Putting them into refit one quarter earlier basically amounts to one extra quarter of service time as Miranda-As rather than straight Mirandas, which doesn't seem all that important. We're going to have two quarters of 'empty berth' no matter what. It's only a question of if you want one quarter of empty berth before the refit and one quarter after, or two quarters of empty berths after the refits.
Can we not start a Rennie 2q late?
- Location
- USA
I would rather get the new ships out sooner even if it means a bit longer wait on refitting some of the ships.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Well from my perspective, the flexibility of assigning the SF berths to other builds in 2313Q3 (who knows what could happen in 2312/2313) and a quarter earlier of slightly more combat-capable ships is worth a quarter of tighter deployments. With the introduction of 5 Connie-Bs and 1 Oberth (
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I wonder how much of Miracht's saucer will be salvageable-we probably don't have a ship big enough to take it under tow back to a shipyard, and the crash landing with only impulse power to the Structural reinforcement fields is going to have bent a few structural girders. But there must be parts that can be recycled if we can get them back to a yard, fittings, phasers, sensors-we'll need to send someone in to defuse those weapons emplacements first though I'll bet. Engineering command probably won't go within an AU of that wreck until the all-clear is sounded.
I also think that Commedore ka'Sharren is probably going to commandeer a simulator and run as many permutations of the last moments of the Miracht as possible to work out what went wrong, and what might have gone right. Could she have got clear of that one, or was their fate sealed as soon as the first targeting sensors swept over them? Or in other words, was this an Air France 447 or an Air Canada 143?
I also think that Commedore ka'Sharren is probably going to commandeer a simulator and run as many permutations of the last moments of the Miracht as possible to work out what went wrong, and what might have gone right. Could she have got clear of that one, or was their fate sealed as soon as the first targeting sensors swept over them? Or in other words, was this an Air France 447 or an Air Canada 143?