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don't think that it would be so efficiant to completly split starfleet into military and civilian departments. The reason being that fielding "civilian" exploration vessels would probably just result in losing a lot of ships. Your explorers and out-of-inner-territory science vessels have to be able to fend for themselves.

Of course these ships need to defend themselves, but throwing ships equiped for exploration onto the front lines is idiotic, as the ship will never be as good as a pure warship. Thats the problem.

You could, I suppose, crank out a lot more pure military vessels like the defiant, but then you're losing out on a lot of exploring and discovering that you could be doing instead. And one successful first contact could add a whole system to the federation. Which means more ships and personell down the line.

As I said, keep producing armed explorers, while at the same time produce heavily armed warships under the direction of a different organisation.

Also note that at the moment the Rommies are sort of our allies.

Not really. They only allied woth the Feds and klingons because they thought the Dominion was about to invade. And if they ever find out they were tricked then say goodbye to that alliance.

At the least we could count on them to join the fight against the borg. And since they're kinda between earth and the borg, expect them to take the worst of it.

True, although I think everyone would take up arms against the borg.

don't think that it would be so efficiant to completly split starfleet into military and civilian departments. The reason being that fielding "civilian" exploration vessels would probably just result in losing a lot of ships. Your explorers and out-of-inner-territory science vessels have to be able to fend for themselves.

Of course these ships need to defend themselves, but throwing ships equiped for exploration onto the front lines is idiotic, as the ship will never be as good as a pure warship. Thats the problem.

You could, I suppose, crank out a lot more pure military vessels like the defiant, but then you're losing out on a lot of exploring and discovering that you could be doing instead. And one successful first contact could add a whole system to the federation. Which means more ships and personell down the line.

As I said, keep producing armed explorers, while at the same time produce heavily armed warships under the direction of a different organisation.

Also note that at the moment the Rommies are sort of our allies.

Not really. They only allied woth the Feds and klingons because they thought the Dominion was about to invade. And if they ever find out they were tricked then say goodbye to that alliance.

At the least we could count on them to join the fight against the borg. And since they're kinda between earth and the borg, expect them to take the worst of it.

True, although I think everyone would take up arms against the borg.

Hmmmm actually lets make this discussion a little more practical.

Lets say that a ship is worth a number of points equal to its strength/1000+it's mass/2,000,000 i.e. an Akira is worth three points.

That would represent, roughly, the resources required to produce and maintain the ship. This will tend to make larger ships "pricier" because their strength tends to go up along with their mass. But it is generally the case that it's harder to produce bigger things.

Also lets say for the sake of argument that starships actually get some utility out of extra stuff. For example an upgraded Galaxy class winds up costing more than two defiants because of it's bulk despite not really being all that much better in a fight than one of them (from daystrom numbers). But lets assume that the space is actually achieving useful non-combat things such as much much longer endurance, higher morale (families, arboretum, holodecks), better sensors especially for scientific things, and much much better diplomatic facilities. Also better first contact potential because if you fly into a system with the defiants they're likely to think you're planing an invasion once they scan your ships and see they're packed to the gills with weapons and little else.

So pick 200 points worth of ships and describe how you would use them. Assume starfleet as a whole has the same ratio of ships simply multiplied by however big starfleet is. Note that while starfleet will probably keep old ships around assume you're buying new ships.

Of course you could do this with any other race, since daystrom gives numbers for most of them. I suppose in theory you coud make up new ship designs using the strength calculator, just don't be cheesy about it.

EDIT: Also for sake of argument try to use daystrom stuff for other number if possible. For example apperantly an Akira loaded for war can carry 100 Peregrine fighters if you're a fan of those. With the above system fighters provide the most total strength per points spent. But they have absolutly zero utility outside of war, require a carrier (probably Akira) to do anything other than single system/planetary defense, and would be of debatable utility outside of major sublight fleet operations as they would have great trouble chasing or engaging larger ships that keep hoping to warp factors that they can't even start to match.

But regardless of the numbers you will always need big ships to deliver the big weapons. They may be unefficent compared to other but are needed.

I would go for massive ships. The bigger the better.

I'd build ships that were designed specifically for military means. The idea is to win a fight before you have to fire the first shot. Ships specifically designed to destroy all life on a planet's surface if need be. Ships that had redundant multiple computers in a borg like arrangement.

For these massive ships I'd have several dozen small cheap fighters that the pilots are put through propaganda to believe in sacirficing themselves for the greater Empire and use them in high numbers. If need be these ships, which when combined in fleet elements could represent hundreds if not thousands, could crash into the enemy warp cores and bridges. They would not be equiped with warp drives. Simple phasers or disruptors and maybe a high yield explosive in case of kamakazi orders are given.

I would think either the Romulans or the Terran Empire of the mirror universe would be the best races to have this. Some extinct Empires would be good too.

Thats pretty much just star wars. This needs to be something that the Federation could actualy do with out selling out its core values.

Actually I think that's roughly what the dominion was shooting for.

Except that a warp core is also used for generating power (and adding to the devestation when they ram). Leaving them out wouldn't work so well.

First off if you want fighters that are there to bomb then ram, just make them drones, you don't need pilots for that.

Second, even in star wars there are smaller ships that are better then bigger ships. ie mon-cal's are 1200m and ISD's are 1800m. Mon's crew of 5000, ISD's crew 28,500.

Its not just the size of the ship that matters. The crew, weapons, sheilds, armor and engines all play a role.

Well yeah you need a variety. But its the big ships that strike fear.
And drones work better I suppose. Still its fun to have propaganda machines rolling.

I don't think the Federation would ever go for mass deployment of fighters. Regardless of how efective they may be.
The fact is that in every battle fighter pilots will take heavy casualties, even if the battle is a resounding sucess for the Federation. This seems to go against the Federations view of war, in which as much steps as possible should be taken to minimize losses, regardless of how much this impacts their overall military power.

Well it comes down to the math, a wing of fighters is 36 lives where as a ship is hundreds. And if the make drone fighters then they wouldn't have to worry about the death rate as it would be zero.

Indeed, a more realistic military would take this trade off in a second. Although my opinion of Starfleet's competence is rather well known at this point.

The smart thing is to have both. Don't call on just one, but both answers to the same problem. A squad of fighters can take down a Bug without to much trouble and those made up most of the dominion fleet, you could piss them off big time that way.

I agree with Rochey (for once) that the Federation is unlikely to sacrifice fighter pilots if it can at all be avoided.

Which is so great as that means they are giving up starships with hundreds of people instead, so smart right!