To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
- Start date
- Sci-Fi
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- Tags
- star trek exploration fully automated luxury gay space communism top level canon (canon) #hashtagcontent all-encompassing space amoeba cardassian boy bands cardassian magical girls darkest bureaucracy debate makes the qm cackle like palpatine hoh is an empire quest it has to be foreign infiltrators more ships ship happens singers delenda est starfleet this is not an empire quest ur waifu is collective?
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Oh definitely, my crew cost estimates are speculation. That's why I want to know what the actual crew costs are. In the absence of further information and estimating from contemporary ships with known crew costs (Starfleet and Amarkian), I still expect Rigel's overall tech crew costs to be lower than their enlisted costs.
And I'm not disputing that the Rigellians can afford another Megatortoise. They can start building one this very year, and have enough time to obtain enough officers to crew it in 3 years.
Well, you could vote for it
Rigel's budget just looks imbalanced compared to their crew income. It's the most iffy thing I see on their current priorities, so I'm voting to change it.
I don't like tactical voting, but Chekov does make a convincing argument...
[X][PRIORITY] Rigel Mid-Term: Change from "Improve Tech Recruitment" to "Improve Budget"
[X][VULCAN] 2x1000kt
[X][BETA] Swarm
[X][AMARKI] Spend two years upgrading it to a 3mt berth
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Endurance
- Location
- Australia
Oh definitely, my crew cost estimates are speculation. That's why I want to know what the actual crew costs are. In the absence of further information and estimating from contemporary ships with known crew costs (Starfleet and Amarkian), I still expect Rigel's overall tech crew costs to be lower than their enlisted costs.
And I'm not disputing that the Rigellians can afford another Megatortoise. They can start building one this very year, and have enough time to obtain enough officers to crew it in 3 years.
Well, you could vote for it
Rigel's budget just looks imbalanced compared to their crew income. It's the most iffy thing I see on their current priorities, so I'm voting to change it.
I don't like tactical voting, but Chekov does make a convincing argument...
[X][PRIORITY] Rigel Mid-Term: Change from "Improve Tech Recruitment" to "Improve Budget"
[X][VULCAN] 2x1000kt
[X][BETA] Swarm
[X][AMARKI] Spend two years upgrading it to a 3mt berth
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Endurance
6/8/4 - Megatortoise
3/5/4 - Turtleship
1/3/4 - Cutter
- Location
- somewhere
It's not true that the Amarki 2.5mt berths are only rarely free. Since we made contact with them they have been used to repair the CAS Riala, the Kumari and the Miracht, and to build two more Riala class ships, so even if you consider repairs they have been in use slightly less than half the time. Expanding them for the Ambassador class is ridulously premature. Not only is there almost another decade for them to do that in, we don't even definitely know 3mt will be enough. With the ship design system still being reworked it's possible the final design will end up being something like 3.1mt after all. And if the berths somehow end up being busy continuously from now on that indicates they probably should build an additional 3mt berth rather than upgrade one of the existing ones (or upgrade existing berths in addition after the new berth takes off some of the pressure).
[X][AMARKI] Loan the berth to United Earth for a 2nd Excelsior
[X][AMARKI] Loan the berth to United Earth for a 2nd Excelsior
Compared to their income of 1.5/4/3.5 we get:
Megatortoise:
-Requires 4 years crew income (6/16/14)
-8 Excess Enlisted
-10 Excess Techs
Turtleship:
-Requires 2 years crew income (3/8/7)
-3 Excess Enlisted
-3 Excess Techs
Cutter:
-Requires 2 years crew income (3/8/7)
-2 Excess Officers
-5 Excess Enlisted
-3 Excess Techs
In short they don't need any increase in Techs. Of the three crew types I'd say Officers are the shortest in supply.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
I find it incredibly unlikely that we'll design an Ambassador that weighs more than 3mt, since we're not going to want to spend pp and time upgrading a 3mt berth just to allow a >3mt prototype build in the next few years, let alone the required upgrading to the rest of our berths before the prototype finishes building. There would have to be a damn good reason to increase the Ambassador tonnage above 3mt.
With regards to the Amarkian berth, since our own berths have the spare capacity to handle the UE request for a 2nd Excelsior next year, I'd prefer to let the Amarkians continue improving their infrastructure, on the slim chance that they would use such a 3mt berth for prototyping their own larger explorer design in the latter half of this decade.
Knowing that Rigal has, if anything, an excess of techs I'm updating my vote:
[X][PRIORITY] Rigel Mid-Term: Change from "Improve Tech Recruitment" to "Improve Budget"
[X][VULCAN] 2x1000kt
[X][BETA] Swarm
[X][AMARKI] Spend two years upgrading it to a 3mt berth
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Endurance
[X][PRIORITY] Rigel Mid-Term: Change from "Improve Tech Recruitment" to "Improve Budget"
[X][VULCAN] 2x1000kt
[X][BETA] Swarm
[X][AMARKI] Spend two years upgrading it to a 3mt berth
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Endurance
Chaos Blade
Procrastinating Writer
- Location
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
[][VULCAN] 2x1000kt
[][BETA] Swarm
[][AMARKI] Spend two years upgrading it to a 3mt berth
[][RIGEL] Assign to follow Explorer Corps ship S'harien
[][BETA] Swarm
[][AMARKI] Spend two years upgrading it to a 3mt berth
[][RIGEL] Assign to follow Explorer Corps ship S'harien
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X][PRIORITY] Rigel Mid-Term: Change from "Improve Tech Recruitment" to "Improve Budget"
[X][VULCAN] 2x1000kt
[X][BETA] Swarm
[X][AMARKI] Spend two years upgrading it to a 3mt berth
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Endurance
[X][VULCAN] 2x1000kt
[X][BETA] Swarm
[X][AMARKI] Spend two years upgrading it to a 3mt berth
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Endurance
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
[X][PRIORITY] Rigel Mid-Term: Change from "Improve Tech Recruitment" to "Improve Budget"
[X][VULCAN] 2x1000kt
[X][BETA] Combined Arms
[X][AMARKI] Loan the berth to United Earth for a 2nd Excelsior
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Endurance
[X][VULCAN] 2x1000kt
[X][BETA] Combined Arms
[X][AMARKI] Loan the berth to United Earth for a 2nd Excelsior
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Endurance
Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
[X][VULCAN] 2x1000kt
[X][BETA] Combined Arms
[X][AMARKI] Loan the berth to United Earth for a 2nd Excelsior
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Endurance
[X][BETA] Combined Arms
[X][AMARKI] Loan the berth to United Earth for a 2nd Excelsior
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Endurance
pheonix89
Wants to be Seven Of Nine
- Location
- North American Plaguelands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X][VULCAN] 2x1000kt
[X][BETA] Swarm
[X][AMARKI] Spend two years upgrading it to a 3mt berth
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Endurance
@OneirosTheWriter Why are the Amarki building an Excelsior instead of a Riala? If they had access to the Excelsior-A, I could sort of see it, but as a member world fleet their job leans more toward combat than the Explorer Corps, and the Riala's just plain better at war than the Excelsior.
[X][BETA] Swarm
[X][AMARKI] Spend two years upgrading it to a 3mt berth
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Endurance
@OneirosTheWriter Why are the Amarki building an Excelsior instead of a Riala? If they had access to the Excelsior-A, I could sort of see it, but as a member world fleet their job leans more toward combat than the Explorer Corps, and the Riala's just plain better at war than the Excelsior.
- Location
- USA
[X][PRIORITY] Rigel Mid-Term: Change from "Improve Tech Recruitment" to "Improve Budget"
[X][VULCAN] 2x1000kt
[X][BETA] Swarm
[X][AMARKI] Loan the berth to United Earth for a 2nd Excelsior
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Endurance
Ambassador is a 6 year prototype and 2 or 3 more of research and will not be started this year. That gives the Amarkia 9 to 10 years for an upgrade to go in. Getting another excelsior for UE fleet on the other hand would help defense of Sol sector and let us worry more about other sectors
[X][VULCAN] 2x1000kt
[X][BETA] Swarm
[X][AMARKI] Loan the berth to United Earth for a 2nd Excelsior
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Endurance
Ambassador is a 6 year prototype and 2 or 3 more of research and will not be started this year. That gives the Amarkia 9 to 10 years for an upgrade to go in. Getting another excelsior for UE fleet on the other hand would help defense of Sol sector and let us worry more about other sectors
The Amarki arn't building an Excelsior, they are lending the berth to UE, for Earth to build one.
- Location
- USA
@OneirosTheWriter for the Caitian the berths on mwco are wrong it should be S'Neranya(1 x 2.5mt berth, 2 x 600kt berth) not 4 600kt berths
Let's consider what the Combined Arms/Swarm doctrines actually do.
Swarm - Bonus when outnumbering, better shield burn-through chance, better evasion for escorts, better chance to flee, escorts are faster to research, build, and respond, and can eventually work together on event responses.
Combined - Sectors with mixed fleets require less D and have a higher combat power, ship design is easier, Explorers in a fleet with more escorts get more evasion and shields, all ship design projects easier.
Overall, the message I am getting from this is that for the Betazoid fleet acting alone Swarm doctrine is better. For the Betazoid fleet acting alongside Starfleet Combined Arms is better. Since I would hope the Betazoid fleet would never have to stand alone, I believe their fleet design should be based on the assumption that they will be working with Starfleet, and they should design/build ships to complement Starfleet rather than try to go it entirely alone. Therefore Combined Arms.
[X][PRIORITY] Rigel Mid-Term: Change from "Improve Tech Recruitment" to "Improve Budget"
[X][VULCAN] 2x1000kt
[X][BETA] Combined Arms
[X][AMARKI] Loan the berth to United Earth for a 2nd Excelsior
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Cheron
I found the other arguments convincing, and I like the idea of sending them along with the Cheron to see how "the best" do things.
Swarm - Bonus when outnumbering, better shield burn-through chance, better evasion for escorts, better chance to flee, escorts are faster to research, build, and respond, and can eventually work together on event responses.
Combined - Sectors with mixed fleets require less D and have a higher combat power, ship design is easier, Explorers in a fleet with more escorts get more evasion and shields, all ship design projects easier.
Overall, the message I am getting from this is that for the Betazoid fleet acting alone Swarm doctrine is better. For the Betazoid fleet acting alongside Starfleet Combined Arms is better. Since I would hope the Betazoid fleet would never have to stand alone, I believe their fleet design should be based on the assumption that they will be working with Starfleet, and they should design/build ships to complement Starfleet rather than try to go it entirely alone. Therefore Combined Arms.
[X][PRIORITY] Rigel Mid-Term: Change from "Improve Tech Recruitment" to "Improve Budget"
[X][VULCAN] 2x1000kt
[X][BETA] Combined Arms
[X][AMARKI] Loan the berth to United Earth for a 2nd Excelsior
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Cheron
I found the other arguments convincing, and I like the idea of sending them along with the Cheron to see how "the best" do things.
- Location
- Australia
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Warning: wall of analysis below
Spent some time thinking about this and did a more complete analysis:
First, I want to address your "future refitability" argument separately: Suppose we have ship designs A, B, and C, where A is an old ship class, B is the last possible refit of A, and C is a completely new ship class that has comparable stats/costs efficiency with B (and has more refit potential). Suppose we have a ship of class A, and we want to decide whether to refit it to class B, or replace it with the new build of class C. Let's also suppose that refitting to B vs scrap A + new build of C is equivalent in cost somehow (it's not in reality, especially in berth time) to eliminate another variable.
Now, if we always choose to replace with class C because of future refitability, then this situation will keep repeating itself, and we'll never exercise that future refitability to its fullest, since that last refit simply won't be done. So by itself, the lack of future refitability when determining whether to do a refit does not matter.
It does matter when considering between new ship builds, or when the B refit is so outdated (relatively inferior in stats/cost efficiency compared to C) and cannot be redesigned to be comparable in stats/cost efficiency to C. The latter situation typically shouldn't happen within two tech tiers and with the upcoming ability to design custom refits.
Now when considering stats, there are indeed cases when scrapping/mothballing an older ship and building a newer ship is better than refitting that older ship, but it's a higher bar than you might expect. Refits are still faster than new ship builds and are economical when we have sufficient berth capacity, which we do. So the replacement option needs to be sufficiently good to beat that advantage.
Let's look at the closest example we have right now, which is whether to scrap/mothball our 2280s-era Constellations for 2300s-era Renaissances or to refit those Constellations. I'll also try comparing with the Constellation => Centaur-A replacements due to similar capabilities, but this replacement isn't as clear to analyse, since escorts are relatively expensive for br/sr and cheap on crew, such that at same crew costs, BR and SR costs in Centaur-A become prohibitive.
If you're considering a completely new ship design, well, that will cost more pp (more than the 23pp of the Constellation refit), research time, and prototyping time, so refits are still far superior in terms of cost&time-to-production. And it still isn't necessarily mutually exclusive with refitting, especially if we could improve an earlier proposed refit design with newer tech (see "Constellation-alpha refit" below).
I'm going to show two types of stat-based analysis:
1) simply summing across ships per stat - relevant to garrison constraints, min science constraint, max combat constraint
2) estimating "fleet combat potential" ("CP"=(C+H+L)^1.5) and "event potential" ("EP"=(S+P+D)^1.5) in a similar way to what Nix did when estimating overall effectiveness in fleet combat and events. I want to emphasize that this is still a simplification and an approximation - there will be events where one "fleet" can still have higher chance at succeeding than another "fleet" that has higher total EP if the first fleet has higher EP per ship (it depends on the specific stat checks and event DCs). I'll also simulate the Lone Ranger cruiser +1 response bonus as D+1 in the EP formula.
Ship stats and costs, assuming we schedule builds to always take advantage of Patricia Chen's bonus:
- Constellation: CP19 EP23 C3 S2 H2 L2 P2 D3(4)* -70br -40sr 9qtr O-2 E-4 T-2 (scrap: +35br +20sr)
- Constellation-A: CP23 EP32 C4 S3 H2 L2 P2 D4(5)* -70br -45sr 9qtr O-2 E-4 T-2 (refit: -20br -10sr 4qtr)
- Renaissance: CP52 EP47 C5 S3 H4 L5 P4 D5(6)* -100br -80sr 9qtr O-3 E-5 T-3
- Centaur-A: CP23 EP27 C3 S3 H2 L3 P3 D3 -80br -70sr 6qtr O-1 E-2 T-2
* for defense stat, listing both the raw stat value and the simulated stat value with the Lone Ranger cruiser +1 response bonus
I should also note that the Constellation-A refit is kinda mediocre, and by 2313, we should have the ability to customize the refit design. Given that we aren't planning to build more Constellations, I can make the refit more expensive (including refit time) while adding more stat increments. I'm not sure if this is allowed, but let's say it is for sake of example. I'll call this speculative refit the "Constellation-alpha" and estimate its stats and costs as:
- Constellation-alpha: CP27 EP36 C4 S3 H2 L3 P3 D4(5) 80br 60sr 9qtr O-2 E-4 T-2 (refit: -40br -40sr 6qtr) - basically a Centaur-A with C+1 D+1 and takes longer to build
This might seem overpowered compared to the similarly sized Centaur-A, but consider that this is using 2313 tech versus the Centaur-A's 2304 tech, and that the Centaur-A probably isn't an optimized design (on the old ship design spreadsheet with 2304 tech values, the Centaur-A requires no fudge factors).
Since crew is our primary bottleneck, I'll try to align multiples of ships with about the same crew costs for replacement options:
- 3 Constellation: CP57 EP69 C9 S6 H6 L6 P6 D9 210br 120sr 27qtr O-6 E-12 T-6* (scrap: +105br +60sr 0qtr)
- 3 Constellation-A: CP69 EP96 C12 S9 H6 L6 P6 D12 -210br -135sr 27qtr O-6 E-12 T-6 (refit: -60br -30sr 12qtr)
- 3 Constellation-alpha: CP81 EP108 C12 S9 H6 L9 P9 D12 -240br -180sr 27qtr O-6 E-12 (refit: -120br -120sr 18qtr)
- 2 Renaissance: CP104 EP94 C10 S6 H8 L10 P8 D10 -200br -160sr 18qtr O-6 E-10 T-6
- 3 Centaur-A: CP69 EP81 C9 S9 H6 L9 P9 D9 -240br -210sr 18qtr O-3 E-6 T-6**
- 4 Centaur-A: CP92 EP108 C12 S12 H9 L12 P12 D12 -320br -280sr 24qtr O-4 E-8 T-8**
- 5 Centaur-A: CP115 EP135 C15 S15 H10 L15 P15 D15 -400br -350sr 30qtr O-5 E-10 T-10**
* note: Constellation costs here already "paid" for so this is listed for coming up with replacements with about same crew costs
** note: Showing multiple Centaur-A options, since escorts are relatively expensive for br/sr and cheap on crew compared to cruisers
Possible build options to "replace" 3 Constellations, assuming Constellations are scrapped for non-refits:
=> 3 Constellation-A: CP+12 EP+27 C+3 S+3 H+0 L+0 P+0 D+3 -60br -30sr 12qtr O-0 E-0 T-0
=> 3 Constellation-alpha: CP+24 EP+39 C+3 S+3 H+0 L+3 P+3 D+3 -120br -120sr 18qtr O-0 E-0 T-0
=> 2 Renaissance: CP+47 EP+25 C+1 S+0 H+2 L+4 P+2 D+1 -95br -100sr 18qtr O-0 E+2 T-0
=> 3 Centaur-A: CP+12 EP+12 C+0 S+3 H+0 L+3 P+3 D+0 -135br -150sr 18qtr O+3 E+6 T-0
=> 4 Centaur-A: CP+35 EP+39 C+3 S+6 H+2 L+6 P+6 D+3 -215br -220sr 24qtr O+2 E+4 T-2
=> 5 Centaur-A: CP+58 EP+66 C+6 S+9 H+4 L+9 P+9 D+6 -295br -290sr 30qtr O+1 E+2 T-4
So:
- The Constellation-A refit is cheap and fast and mostly improves its event potential and garrisoning.
- The Renaissance replacement option provides better combat potential at the trade-off of higher cost and more berth time, but doesn't improve event potential much over the Constellation-A refit.
- The Constellation-alpha refit at its speculated stats and costs is comparable to the Renaissance replacement, costing a bit more and with less combat potential, but with better event potential and garrisoning, which is pretty good for a ship that's intended for garrison duties.
- The Centaur-A replacements are harder to compare because of the very different cost characteristics. At the low end of 3 Centaur-As, it has about the same combat potential as the Constellation-A refit, is poorer at event potential and garrisoning, costs a lot more in br/sr and takes more berth time, yet saves a lot on crew. At the high end of 5 Centaur-As, it provides the most combat and event potential (as expected) but the costs and berth time are exorbitant. It's a pick your poison thing.
Out of those options, for a ship that's intended for garrison duties instead of combat, I prefer the refit options. Even the mediocre Constellation-A refit option is decent since it's really cheap and fast. If we had another modern cruiser design that was focused on events and garrisoning, I'd be more tempted to replace the Constellations with new builds of that design.
Spent some time thinking about this and did a more complete analysis:
First, I want to address your "future refitability" argument separately: Suppose we have ship designs A, B, and C, where A is an old ship class, B is the last possible refit of A, and C is a completely new ship class that has comparable stats/costs efficiency with B (and has more refit potential). Suppose we have a ship of class A, and we want to decide whether to refit it to class B, or replace it with the new build of class C. Let's also suppose that refitting to B vs scrap A + new build of C is equivalent in cost somehow (it's not in reality, especially in berth time) to eliminate another variable.
Now, if we always choose to replace with class C because of future refitability, then this situation will keep repeating itself, and we'll never exercise that future refitability to its fullest, since that last refit simply won't be done. So by itself, the lack of future refitability when determining whether to do a refit does not matter.
It does matter when considering between new ship builds, or when the B refit is so outdated (relatively inferior in stats/cost efficiency compared to C) and cannot be redesigned to be comparable in stats/cost efficiency to C. The latter situation typically shouldn't happen within two tech tiers and with the upcoming ability to design custom refits.
Now when considering stats, there are indeed cases when scrapping/mothballing an older ship and building a newer ship is better than refitting that older ship, but it's a higher bar than you might expect. Refits are still faster than new ship builds and are economical when we have sufficient berth capacity, which we do. So the replacement option needs to be sufficiently good to beat that advantage.
Let's look at the closest example we have right now, which is whether to scrap/mothball our 2280s-era Constellations for 2300s-era Renaissances or to refit those Constellations. I'll also try comparing with the Constellation => Centaur-A replacements due to similar capabilities, but this replacement isn't as clear to analyse, since escorts are relatively expensive for br/sr and cheap on crew, such that at same crew costs, BR and SR costs in Centaur-A become prohibitive.
If you're considering a completely new ship design, well, that will cost more pp (more than the 23pp of the Constellation refit), research time, and prototyping time, so refits are still far superior in terms of cost&time-to-production. And it still isn't necessarily mutually exclusive with refitting, especially if we could improve an earlier proposed refit design with newer tech (see "Constellation-alpha refit" below).
I'm going to show two types of stat-based analysis:
1) simply summing across ships per stat - relevant to garrison constraints, min science constraint, max combat constraint
2) estimating "fleet combat potential" ("CP"=(C+H+L)^1.5) and "event potential" ("EP"=(S+P+D)^1.5) in a similar way to what Nix did when estimating overall effectiveness in fleet combat and events. I want to emphasize that this is still a simplification and an approximation - there will be events where one "fleet" can still have higher chance at succeeding than another "fleet" that has higher total EP if the first fleet has higher EP per ship (it depends on the specific stat checks and event DCs). I'll also simulate the Lone Ranger cruiser +1 response bonus as D+1 in the EP formula.
Ship stats and costs, assuming we schedule builds to always take advantage of Patricia Chen's bonus:
- Constellation: CP19 EP23 C3 S2 H2 L2 P2 D3(4)* -70br -40sr 9qtr O-2 E-4 T-2 (scrap: +35br +20sr)
- Constellation-A: CP23 EP32 C4 S3 H2 L2 P2 D4(5)* -70br -45sr 9qtr O-2 E-4 T-2 (refit: -20br -10sr 4qtr)
- Renaissance: CP52 EP47 C5 S3 H4 L5 P4 D5(6)* -100br -80sr 9qtr O-3 E-5 T-3
- Centaur-A: CP23 EP27 C3 S3 H2 L3 P3 D3 -80br -70sr 6qtr O-1 E-2 T-2
* for defense stat, listing both the raw stat value and the simulated stat value with the Lone Ranger cruiser +1 response bonus
I should also note that the Constellation-A refit is kinda mediocre, and by 2313, we should have the ability to customize the refit design. Given that we aren't planning to build more Constellations, I can make the refit more expensive (including refit time) while adding more stat increments. I'm not sure if this is allowed, but let's say it is for sake of example. I'll call this speculative refit the "Constellation-alpha" and estimate its stats and costs as:
- Constellation-alpha: CP27 EP36 C4 S3 H2 L3 P3 D4(5) 80br 60sr 9qtr O-2 E-4 T-2 (refit: -40br -40sr 6qtr) - basically a Centaur-A with C+1 D+1 and takes longer to build
This might seem overpowered compared to the similarly sized Centaur-A, but consider that this is using 2313 tech versus the Centaur-A's 2304 tech, and that the Centaur-A probably isn't an optimized design (on the old ship design spreadsheet with 2304 tech values, the Centaur-A requires no fudge factors).
Since crew is our primary bottleneck, I'll try to align multiples of ships with about the same crew costs for replacement options:
- 3 Constellation: CP57 EP69 C9 S6 H6 L6 P6 D9 210br 120sr 27qtr O-6 E-12 T-6* (scrap: +105br +60sr 0qtr)
- 3 Constellation-A: CP69 EP96 C12 S9 H6 L6 P6 D12 -210br -135sr 27qtr O-6 E-12 T-6 (refit: -60br -30sr 12qtr)
- 3 Constellation-alpha: CP81 EP108 C12 S9 H6 L9 P9 D12 -240br -180sr 27qtr O-6 E-12 (refit: -120br -120sr 18qtr)
- 2 Renaissance: CP104 EP94 C10 S6 H8 L10 P8 D10 -200br -160sr 18qtr O-6 E-10 T-6
- 3 Centaur-A: CP69 EP81 C9 S9 H6 L9 P9 D9 -240br -210sr 18qtr O-3 E-6 T-6**
- 4 Centaur-A: CP92 EP108 C12 S12 H9 L12 P12 D12 -320br -280sr 24qtr O-4 E-8 T-8**
- 5 Centaur-A: CP115 EP135 C15 S15 H10 L15 P15 D15 -400br -350sr 30qtr O-5 E-10 T-10**
* note: Constellation costs here already "paid" for so this is listed for coming up with replacements with about same crew costs
** note: Showing multiple Centaur-A options, since escorts are relatively expensive for br/sr and cheap on crew compared to cruisers
Possible build options to "replace" 3 Constellations, assuming Constellations are scrapped for non-refits:
=> 3 Constellation-A: CP+12 EP+27 C+3 S+3 H+0 L+0 P+0 D+3 -60br -30sr 12qtr O-0 E-0 T-0
=> 3 Constellation-alpha: CP+24 EP+39 C+3 S+3 H+0 L+3 P+3 D+3 -120br -120sr 18qtr O-0 E-0 T-0
=> 2 Renaissance: CP+47 EP+25 C+1 S+0 H+2 L+4 P+2 D+1 -95br -100sr 18qtr O-0 E+2 T-0
=> 3 Centaur-A: CP+12 EP+12 C+0 S+3 H+0 L+3 P+3 D+0 -135br -150sr 18qtr O+3 E+6 T-0
=> 4 Centaur-A: CP+35 EP+39 C+3 S+6 H+2 L+6 P+6 D+3 -215br -220sr 24qtr O+2 E+4 T-2
=> 5 Centaur-A: CP+58 EP+66 C+6 S+9 H+4 L+9 P+9 D+6 -295br -290sr 30qtr O+1 E+2 T-4
So:
- The Constellation-A refit is cheap and fast and mostly improves its event potential and garrisoning.
- The Renaissance replacement option provides better combat potential at the trade-off of higher cost and more berth time, but doesn't improve event potential much over the Constellation-A refit.
- The Constellation-alpha refit at its speculated stats and costs is comparable to the Renaissance replacement, costing a bit more and with less combat potential, but with better event potential and garrisoning, which is pretty good for a ship that's intended for garrison duties.
- The Centaur-A replacements are harder to compare because of the very different cost characteristics. At the low end of 3 Centaur-As, it has about the same combat potential as the Constellation-A refit, is poorer at event potential and garrisoning, costs a lot more in br/sr and takes more berth time, yet saves a lot on crew. At the high end of 5 Centaur-As, it provides the most combat and event potential (as expected) but the costs and berth time are exorbitant. It's a pick your poison thing.
Out of those options, for a ship that's intended for garrison duties instead of combat, I prefer the refit options. Even the mediocre Constellation-A refit option is decent since it's really cheap and fast. If we had another modern cruiser design that was focused on events and garrisoning, I'd be more tempted to replace the Constellations with new builds of that design.
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Is it though? We have no idea how fleets with differing doctrines interact. It seems odd to assume a combined fleet would benefit from multiple doctrines simultaneously.
One of the following cases seems more logical to me:
- Fleets with differing doctrines are treated separately.
- One fleet is in command and only their doctrine applies.
- No doctrine benefits apply due to conflicts.
@OneirosTheWriter - Care to chime in?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Ah-HA. That explains why they need the techs! Their cruiser and escort designs are tech-hungry too!
I don't think I'll change my vote to include the priority shift after all...
Yeah; as long as they're building cutters they're fine, but when they try to build cruisers and explorers... Hey!
Wait, the lack of officers might tie into why they want to shadow Starfleet to see how we operate... mm. I think I'll vote for "shift to officers."
[X][PRIORITY] Rigel Mid-Term: Change from "Improve Tech Recruitment" to "Improve Officer Recruitment."
[X][VULCAN] 2x1000kt
[X][BETA] Swarm
[X][AMARKI] Spend two years upgrading it to a 3mt berth
[X][RIGEL] Assign to follow USS Endurance
Five years from now the Amarki may want to work on two explorers simultaneously- or we may be at war, forcing a delay of the berth upgrade. Better to get it out of the way now; UESPA can probably use a few years to get used to its first Excelsior before commissioning a second.
- Location
- USA
Even with starting an excelsior for them now they will have 4 years of experience with the current one before the new one would be ready for them to take possession.
Also if we are tied up in a war causing both of the Amarkia 2.5mt berths to be busy I would rather have another excelsior.
Also if we are tied up in a war causing both of the Amarkia 2.5mt berths to be busy I would rather have another excelsior.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Even supposing that the Lone Ranger and the Combined Arms of separate entities could somehow combine in a single fleet, there is still less direct benefit to the Betazoid ships than if they adopted the Swarm doctrine. Most Betazoid ships will be escorts with very few if any explorers, and the combat bonuses of Swarm doctrine are generally superior to those of Combined Arms doctrine.
As odd as it sounds, I think Swarm doctrine for the Betazed is better not because of combat but rather for peacetime purposes. From the recent Amarkian and Apiata action in events, I'm pretty sure that member and affiliate nations do have some sort of events of their own. Swarm doctrine provides bonuses to event response while Combined Arms doctrine doesn't.
Combined Arms doctrine's main benefit is the improved research and ship design, which makes sense for a member nation that still intends to keep designing its own ships like the Amarki. I'm also not sure how relevant the sector garrisoning bonus of Combined Arms doctrine matters for member nations.
All the above is a purely mechanical argument. On the narrative side of things, I consider it a wash.
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