Mothball Upgrades

[Mark]

:::lightbulb blinks on:::

Now I get it!!!

[Sionnach Glic]

[Bryan Moore]

I know we're not supposed to necro old pages, but this was an interesting topic, and one I"d brought up before. With us talking about defending Sol or any other system, I was thinking about my idea of refitting crap for local defense. Maybe their spaceframes wouldn't hold up well with defensive power, but what if you just took these old ships, outfitted them with various torpedo launchers, phasers, basically made them stationary or at least very very low mobile platforms? Again, just fit them with weapons, a better shield generator, and let 'em fire away. Not the first choice, but I bet colonists on some remote outpost near Gorn territory or something would love to have something like this floating in orbit. Minimal crew, minimal mobility, but a decent use.

My only argument against would that be you could just build new platforms for not much more.

[Sonic Glitch]

I know we're not supposed to necro old pages, but this was an interesting topic, and one I"d brought up before. With us talking about defending Sol or any other system, I was thinking about my idea of refitting crap for local defense. Maybe their spaceframes wouldn't hold up well with defensive power, but what if you just took these old ships, outfitted them with various torpedo launchers, phasers, basically made them stationary or at least very very low mobile platforms? Again, just fit them with weapons, a better shield generator, and let 'em fire away. Not the first choice, but I bet colonists on some remote outpost near Gorn territory or something would love to have something like this floating in orbit. Minimal crew, minimal mobility, but a decent use.

My only argument against would that be you could just build new platforms for not much more.

You mean something like what the Germans did with the Tirpitz? Turn her into a floating battery?

[Bryan Moore]

I know we're not supposed to necro old pages, but this was an interesting topic, and one I"d brought up before. With us talking about defending Sol or any other system, I was thinking about my idea of refitting crap for local defense. Maybe their spaceframes wouldn't hold up well with defensive power, but what if you just took these old ships, outfitted them with various torpedo launchers, phasers, basically made them stationary or at least very very low mobile platforms? Again, just fit them with weapons, a better shield generator, and let 'em fire away. Not the first choice, but I bet colonists on some remote outpost near Gorn territory or something would love to have something like this floating in orbit. Minimal crew, minimal mobility, but a decent use.

My only argument against would that be you could just build new platforms for not much more.

You mean something like what the Germans did with the Tirpitz? Turn her into a floating battery?

Exactly! Great reference. Man, thats obscure, but great. I remember in 8th grade doing a mini report on that as part of a larger project.

[Sonic Glitch]

I know we're not supposed to necro old pages, but this was an interesting topic, and one I"d brought up before. With us talking about defending Sol or any other system, I was thinking about my idea of refitting crap for local defense. Maybe their spaceframes wouldn't hold up well with defensive power, but what if you just took these old ships, outfitted them with various torpedo launchers, phasers, basically made them stationary or at least very very low mobile platforms? Again, just fit them with weapons, a better shield generator, and let 'em fire away. Not the first choice, but I bet colonists on some remote outpost near Gorn territory or something would love to have something like this floating in orbit. Minimal crew, minimal mobility, but a decent use.

My only argument against would that be you could just build new platforms for not much more.

You mean something like what the Germans did with the Tirpitz? Turn her into a floating battery?

Exactly! Great reference. Man, thats obscure, but great. I remember in 8th grade doing a mini report on that as part of a larger project.

Hey, random historical facts (more specifically random historical facts about WWII) is what I do. Oughta come in handy as a future history teacher. Glad I could back you up.

[Bryan Moore]

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the Federation actually did something like this, maybe not frontline stuff, but in the backwaters. Think of places like the Qualor Depot, with all of those ships lying around. I wouldn't be surprised if you had ships salvaged and dragged to their remote colony worlds where they could be used in that manner.

Or, if you have a non-alligned, but friendly world, you could sell the old ships to them, so long as they are technologically advanced enough so as not to break the Prime Directive. Strip them of major components (remember these ships are out of date), and let these worlds have the hulls for use however they want.

[Deepcrush]

Don't bother stripping them out. That takes time and effort. Just sell the damn things and use the profits to fund more modern ships.

[Mark]

If Starfleet were in the straits that it is in the the Voyager nover Full Circle, that wouldn't be a horrible idea you know. Look at it. A massive percentage of Starfleet has been destroyed. Billions are dead, and entire planets were wiped out during the Borg attack. Now, thanks to the Typhon pact, all Starfleets "enemies" have formed an alliance.

Reactivating all those old ships and strapping HUGE guns to them would take alot less time than building new ones from scratch, especially with limited resources.

[Teaos]

You cant just strap huge guns on them, you have power them with a better core, better hardware, better software. The space frame might just not cut it.

[Mark]

I'm not talking about enhancing overall combat performance via phasers, target lock, shields, and so forth.

I'm talking about strapping on an independently powered weapons pod (you don't need a whole lot of power to launch torps), or some other completely horrible and temporary measure. Indeed, you may completely RUIN the space frame, BUT....if you'd lost nearly half of your remaining fleet, and a bunch of PLANETS, including a core world, and suddenly found yourself facing a hostile alliance of long standing enemies, what WOULD you do?

[Teaos]

FIll them full of antimatter and turn them into fireships

[Mark]

That would be great for system defense....................

[Tsukiyumi]

That would be great for system defense....................

Man them with holograms.

[Mark]

And with an explosion of that size, disrupt some planetary orbits.

Worse, get the holographic rights nutjobs up in arms!