Post War Fed Shipbuilding

[Atekimogus]

Exactly. Which makes the Sovereign a better contender to fill the Ex's role-slot in the future than GCS/NCS ships. Not sure what you are getting at...

The Ex was designed in a different era - Starfleet's priorities have changed since then and the GCS, as Starfleet's most modern peacetime design, is the one that best reflects those priorities.

That's true, but since we are talking about the post-dominion war era...do you think they will switch back that fast to a less militarized fleet? I guess after all that happened (not only the cost of lives, but having one of your premier member worlds - Betazed - invaded) I think regardless if Starfleet likes it or not, they have to assume a more defensive policy for the next few years I would think.

Why? The forces on an object simply orbiting a planet are far less than one that has to withstand 3000g acceleration, not to mention the technical challenges of building a warp drive that size. The ratio is, if anything, considerably less than between a castle and a mediaeval sailing ship.

Ok, maybe I was comparing apples and oranges. However I would find it odd, that civilizations which are on the same tech level or even considered below are able to build bigger ships.

The feeling I always had was that they are building their ships because of other motivations and technical limitation is not the most deciding factor. Romulans want intimidating ships and accept that they are not the fastest, and probably not the most efficient around. Klingons have limited resources and want the biggest bang for their buck while remaining tactically flexible, so they build mid size ships etc. etc.

On earth, ship-size is more limited by the panama-canal than the actual engineering problems involved and my gist is that it is similar in the Trek Universe. They could go bigger, but atm it isn't really practical for various reasons.

Exactly. In her day, however, the Ex was that battleship, and was reduced to support duties by advances in technology. For comparison, at Gravelines in 1588, Revenge's 48 heavy guns made her one of the strongest ships present. By the time of the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 1650s and 60s, 48 guns was at best average.

We really don't have an disagreement here because all I was saying is that I can very well imagine that the Sovereign will follow a similar development as the Excelsior in a few years/decades.

For example, if there ever will be a series 50 years after the ending of DS9 I could very well imagine, that it is a Sovereign which transports Admiral XY to our new hero-ship.

Exactly - so you're better off using the ship that is already pretty capable, rather than the stripped down one that some idiot will inevitably want to refit - stripping out weapons to fit five-star accommodation and fancy scientific sensor suites.

It's a shame we actually know so little about the Sovereign. Apart from damage resistance (which is also questionable since iirc Shinzon just wanted to cripple them) there is really no telling how it compares to contemporary ships of similar size.

I would, however have thought that the ship wasn't THAT far behind the GCS in science capability. Weren't there quite a few labs mentioned during First Contact? I guess it would be enough to handle the few unexpected instances the universe throws at it during patrol duties etc....

OOU they're a cut-and-paste job. IU this means that they could easily be exactly the same launchers, regardless of whether we actually see them in action as we did the E-D in BoBW. They're nothing like Voyager's.

You overread it probably, but IU they also could not be the same launchers as on the GCS because they are only half its size. (GCS 3 decks and quite long, Sov, 1-1,5 decks, quite short)

They are actually the exact same size as the Intrepids launchers which are also 1,5 decks high so imho it is far more likely that they have more in common with the less capable Intrepid launchers, than with the huge GCS launchers and since we haven't seen anything to contradict this, that's what I am going with.

You are free of course to believe otherwise, since I cannot prove that they "cannot" produce a ten torpedo burst (as well as the non-existance of a deity)

(Now I do treat the MSDs as canonical since we see them on the show/movies, hope that is ok with you)

[SomosFuga]

IIRC they mention in FC that the Ent E was their best ship at that moment

They are actually the exact same size as the Intrepids launchers which are also 1,5 decks high so imho it is far more likely that they have more in common with the less capable Intrepid launchers, than with the huge GCS launchers and since we haven't seen anything to contradict this, that's what I am going with.

Why do you think the Intrepid launchers are less capable than those of the GCS?

[Atekimogus]

IIRC they mention in FC that the Ent E was their best ship at that moment

Well the exact phrase was "the most advanced starship in the fleet" which could mean any number of things.

Given their design philosophy I doubt that it automatically means "the biggest guns". (More likely fastest ship, strongest shields for it's size etc.)

They are actually the exact same size as the Intrepids launchers which are also 1,5 decks high so imho it is far more likely that they have more in common with the less capable Intrepid launchers, than with the huge GCS launchers and since we haven't seen anything to contradict this, that's what I am going with.

Why do you think the Intrepid launchers are less capable than those of the GCS?

Because of 7 seasons of Voyager where we never have seen anything remotely comparable performancewise.

If you are saying that a contemporary system (as the main selling point of the Intrepid were the bio-neural gelpack, aka better computers, and not the weapon systems) barely half the size of the other is performing at the same level as the GCS launchers despite any evidence it seems you should provide reasons why you think this is so, not vice versa.

[SomosFuga]

IIRC they mention in FC that the Ent E was their best ship at that moment

Well the exact phrase was "the most advanced starship in the fleet" which could mean any number of things.

Given their design philosophy I doubt that it automatically means "the biggest guns". (More likely fastest ship, strongest shields for it's size etc.)

Ok, "the most advanced starship in the fleet" doesn't mean the most powerful but in the context they said it, it likely does it. Anyway i think the Sov is the more powerful SF ship we have seen till now. Acording to this site (not canon of course) it has 12 type XII phaser arrays against 12 type X for the GCS; 8 PT tubes plus 1 QT tube against 2 PT tubes. We have seen her take some nasty damage. It's obviously more maneuverable and most likely way faster, so yes, i believe this is a SOTA combat oriented ship. I don't think it's been designed to replace the GCS in her explorer/science/diplomatic role, we haven't seen that ship yet (maybe the Titan?).

I agree with you that i don't think the GCS will take the role of the Excelsior as workhorse of the fleet but either will the Sov, at least not in the next several decades. There are several classes that may take that role.

They are actually the exact same size as the Intrepids launchers which are also 1,5 decks high so imho it is far more likely that they have more in common with the less capable Intrepid launchers, than with the huge GCS launchers and since we haven't seen anything to contradict this, that's what I am going with.

Why do you think the Intrepid launchers are less capable than those of the GCS?

Because of 7 seasons of Voyager where we never have seen anything remotely comparable performancewise.

If you are saying that a contemporary system (as the main selling point of the Intrepid were the bio-neural gelpack, aka better computers, and not the weapon systems) barely half the size of the other is performing at the same level as the GCS launchers despite any evidence it seems you should provide reasons why you think this is so, not vice versa.

Well, that i can't do. It just seems logical to me but that is my opinion and anybody is free to think otherwise. But i have to mention again that the Sov has 8 of those tubes (the Intrepid has 4 or 5) and the Galaxy has 3.

[McAvoy]

Ok, "the most advanced starship in the fleet" doesn't mean the most powerful but in the context they said it, it likely does it. Anyway i think the Sov is the more powerful SF ship we have seen till now. Acording to this site (not canon of course) it has 12 type XII phaser arrays against 12 type X for the GCS; 8 PT tubes plus 1 QT tube against 2 PT tubes. We have seen her take some nasty damage. It's obviously more maneuverable and most likely way faster, so yes, i believe this is a SOTA combat oriented ship. I don't think it's been designed to replace the GCS in her explorer/science/diplomatic role, we haven't seen that ship yet (maybe the Titan?).

I agree with you that i don't think the GCS will take the role of the Excelsior as workhorse of the fleet but either will the Sov, at least not in the next several decades. There are several classes that may take that role.

It took the Excelsior several decades to become the workhorse of the fleet. The Excelsior was probably the largest and most powerful Starfleet could produce up to the Ambassador class and her sister classes. The 24th century Excelsior class was probably a durable, easy to upgrade/fix/build class which is why there was so many in the fleet. Same goes for the Miranda class except for the durable one. Those two classes probably took a fraction of the time to build than the other newer ones.

I do think the Galaxy class is far too large to build in numbers. While I do think the Sovereign class is of the right size, I don't think it would be the workhorse either.

There is a good comparison between Starfleet and the navies. Take a look at the battleships of 100 or more years ago. Many hovered around the 10,000 to 16,000 ton range. Then with the introduction of the Dreadnought, battleship size jumped in size and tonnage. Before this there were physical limitations on the navies on their battleships. Docks, bridges, canals and so forth. All had to be enlarged to accomodate the ships. Also politics prevented them from being too large. The US designed a maximum battleship that could fit within the Panama Canal. It ranged from 12 16" guns to 15 18" guns, with speeds varying from 23 to 30 knots, tonnage ranging from 60,000 to near 90,000 tons. The US was fully capable of building these battleships, but never did as it was a paper stufy and Congress would have never, ever during that time wanted to fund such ships. Not only that, build building these ships probably would have wiped funding for the other battleships being designed or even building then. So the US could have built five of these maximum battleships trading in probably ten battleships and possibly the Lexington class battlecruisers.

That is what I see with Starfleet in not building these monster uber ships. With such a vast territory to patrol and explore, they need numbers especially with TNG where the E-D was the only ship in the area.

[Atekimogus]

Well, that i can't do. It just seems logical to me but that is my opinion and anybody is free to think otherwise. But i have to mention again that the Sov has 8 of those tubes (the Intrepid has 4 or 5) and the Galaxy has 3.

Actually I would count only 2 for the GCS, since seperating was viewed more of an emergency plan and not a standard tactical practice so the third one is more or less obsolete imho.

As for the phasers I agree, they are supposed to be more advanced (type x+ or somesuch) but again, maybe that doesn't mean more powerfull.

Since we have seen the GCS obliberate a huge chunk of borg cube when the phasers were working with only two good hits my feeling was always that those phasers are not more powerful.......they just actually work from time to time against the borg. (I think it is even mentioned in the First Contact novalization that those new phasers are especially effective against borg irrc.)

(Against normal targets neither do they seem to work much better but I find it also hard to believe that a weapon half the "caliber" of the other would achieve a significantly larger energy-output (since UFP-Phaser already operate at..what was it? 97% efficiency?). I guess here we already reached a point where bigger really is better. And the GCS array is MUCH bigger than the sovereign one.)

In that regard they are similar to quantum torpedoes, who I also view more of a weapon you can use against the borg with a greater likelyhood of working, but which isn't really much stronger than a normal PT since the TNT of such a thing is already more than sufficient.

That said, I agree pretty much with the rest you said, she obviously is more agily and damage resistant.

[alexmann]

I haven't read the whole thread so forgive me if I am just repeating what everyone else has said.

In my opinion, they would keep all of the ships that they already had until they could be replaced. I would imagine that they would continue building ships at the fastest rate possible, but would shift the focus away from combat ships. However, they would still have use for the combat ships to patrol borders, defend from pirates and to defend from any other threats such as the Borg or a return by the Dominion.

I can see 7 catagories that they would need to fill:

#Heavy Cruiser
#Combat Cruiser
#Medium Crusier
#Light Cruiser
#Destroyer
#Science Vessel
#Cargo Ship

Heavy Cruiser

For the heavy cruiser, it is between the Galaxy and the Sovereign. The Sovereign seems to be the most likely candidate because of the simple fact that it is three times more powerful than the Galaxy, and at roughly the same size. I would estimate only a handful of these ships, perhaps a couple of dozen, three dozen at most. The problem with this is that Galaxys already exist in far greater numbers than the Sovereigns. I would suggest they would keep the 14 existing Galaxy class ships along with the 3 Sovereigns and severely restrict production of these if not eliminate it until the other types are more built up.

Combat Cruiser

For this one, I would have it as a mix of Akira class ships, and Prometheus class ships. Graham has listed the Akira as a heavy cruiser although in my opinion it is too combat heavy and would be more suited to combat cruiser. I would suggest 30 of each with a low production rate.

Medium Cruiser

The most likely ship class for this type would be the Nebula. With a total of 93 ships remaining, this should be able to fill the position of Medium Cruiser, with a medium production to match. I would suggest a total of 125 ships be maintained.

Light Cruiser

For this ship, I belive that the most likely candidate would be the Intrepid class. This has a total of 35 remaining ships and would need a high production rate. I would suggest a total of 200 ships be maintained.

Destroyer

For this one, I think the most likely class would be the Defiant class. With a total remaining of 26, I would reccomend a medium production rate. I would suggest a total of 50 ships be maintained.

Science Vessel

This one is obvious, the Nova class. A small ship, you would want a large number of them. With a total remaining of 17, I would reccommend a high production rate. I would suggest a total of 275 ships be maintained.

Cargo Ship

Lastly, this goes to the New Orleans. Needed to transport large quantities of material, be it food, raw materials, medicine or fuel, these are needed to maintain the infrastructure of the Federation and to help construct all the others. With a total remaining of 98, I would reccomend a high production rate. I would suggest a total of 350 ships be maintained.

I also think that they would build more construction facilities to assist in the fleet's recovery.

Any questions?

[Jim]

This got me thinking a little... how come the UFP has so many different ship types while other races have only a few...?

[Graham Kennedy]

Because the writers think that fans love to see new Federation ships, so they serve them up with absurd frequency.

[stitch626]

IU... so many engineers, with different ideas, and command likes variety?

[Atekimogus]

Or we have a wrong view of starfleet and most of their ships are indeed relatively specialized, we just happen to be on those multi-purpose ships all the time, since follwing the adventures of the USS Fartinsky in search of gaseous anomalies and nothing else isn't really tv-show material.

Smaller empires do not have the luxery of this specialization so they built only a few designs and maybe only fit them differently internally.

[Graham Kennedy]

Well, Trek Tech might negate a lot of the advantages of standardisation, at least on the production side. We standardise designs in part because it makes them easier and cheaper to produce... you tool up a factory or shipyard and then just stamp them out. Replicators would mean that redesigning parts is as simple as just fiddling up a new schematic for it, or even just telling the computer to alter the design in such and such a way. Now we see that kind of thing on a small scale a lot, rather than on big non-replicatable things like ship parts. But then we don't really know how large things like a ship are built... today we build ships in "slices" and then assemble the slices, could there be a super-sized replicator that could spit out a big chunk of a ship in one shot? Maybe even a whole nacelle, or engineering hull? We've never seen anything like that, but then we see very little of how these things are built anyway. But something like that would make it far, far easier for a shipyard to produce an Akira this week, a Nebula the next week, a brand new design that the yard manager thought up the week after, etc.

[SomosFuga]

Actually I would count only 2 for the GCS, since seperating was viewed more of an emergency plan and not a standard tactical practice so the third one is more or less obsolete imho.

Yeah, me too but i'm going with this site specs.

As for the phasers I agree, they are supposed to be more advanced (type x+ or somesuch) but again, maybe that doesn't mean more powerfull.

It's possible but AFAIK the higger the type more powerful is the phaser: type II < type III < type VII < type X < type XII.

Since we have seen the GCS obliberate a huge chunk of borg cube when the phasers were working with only two good hits my feeling was always that those phasers are not more powerful.......they just actually work from time to time against the borg. (I think it is even mentioned in the First Contact novalization that those new phasers are especially effective against borg irrc.)

I would guess that's because that was their first encounter with SF weapons, before they adapt to it.

(Against normal targets neither do they seem to work much better but I find it also hard to believe that a weapon half the "caliber" of the other would achieve a significantly larger energy-output (since UFP-Phaser already operate at..what was it? 97% efficiency?). I guess here we already reached a point where bigger really is better. And the GCS array is MUCH bigger than the sovereign one.)

IIRC we have never seen a SOV firing against any ship class than a GCS had also fire on, except of course the borg cube, so we don't know if they work better. What we do know is that the SOV's phasers are type XII and the Galaxies's are type X. As for the cubes we don't know if they actually belong to the same class or only share the basic shape. For what we know the cube frome J25 could have been an explorer while the cube in FC was attacking the core of the federation so probably was a dedicated warship .

[Atekimogus]

It's possible but AFAIK the higger the type more powerful is the phaser: type II < type III < type VII < type X < type XII.

Would make sense but there are a few instances iirc which contradicts that. Also we do not know if handphaser for examples have the same classifcation system as shipbased weaponry. (eg. a type II handphaser would not be the same as a tpye II phaserstrip on a shuttle?)

For exampe, according to the producers of Voyager, the Intrepid uses Type X phaser arrays, just as the Galaxy class. However neither are they the same size (as far as I can tell) nor are they more powerful than the GCS phasers.

This leads me to believe that the classifcation system hasn't necessarily to do with the power output or potency of the phaser, but more with the approx. tech level, the way it was built, if it's a stripe or not, if it fires pulses or beams etc.

I would guess that's because that was their first encounter with SF weapons, before they adapt to it.

Exactly my point. If they found a way to negate this adaption with type XII phasers, there is no need at all to crank up the power. One ship could destroy a cube. (Obviously they were not THAT successful with type XII...)

IIRC we have never seen a SOV firing against any ship class than a GCS had also fire on, except of course the borg cube, so we don't know if they work better. What we do know is that the SOV's phasers are type XII and the Galaxies's are type X. As for the cubes we don't know if they actually belong to the same class or only share the basic shape. For what we know the cube frome J25 could have been an explorer while the cube in FC was attacking the core of the federation so probably was a dedicated warship .

Good point about the two different cubes. No way to know for sure but it is a good possibility. They certainly look different. (Ironically I prefer the cheap plastic-kit look of the early borg cubes compared to the later CGI ones we see on Voyager or FC, call my crazy:)

[Coalition]

Well, Trek Tech might negate a lot of the advantages of standardisation, at least on the production side. We standardise designs in part because it makes them easier and cheaper to produce... you tool up a factory or shipyard and then just stamp them out. Replicators would mean that redesigning parts is as simple as just fiddling up a new schematic for it, or even just telling the computer to alter the design in such and such a way. Now we see that kind of thing on a small scale a lot, rather than on big non-replicatable things like ship parts. But then we don't really know how large things like a ship are built... today we build ships in "slices" and then assemble the slices, could there be a super-sized replicator that could spit out a big chunk of a ship in one shot? Maybe even a whole nacelle, or engineering hull? We've never seen anything like that, but then we see very little of how these things are built anyway. But something like that would make it far, far easier for a shipyard to produce an Akira this week, a Nebula the next week, a brand new design that the yard manager thought up the week after, etc.

Replicators do have their limits:
TNG episodes:
Evolution - nanites are made in a factory
Galaxy's child - scientific equipment had to be carried to the destination, vs replicated by a ship on-site
The Mind's Eye - memory chips replicated will have errors, and the pattern can be traced
Phantasms - a conduit was manufactured using a different process (aka not replicated)
Firstborn - Duras sisters trying to buy mining equipment to get a certain type of ore
(various episodes that had biological materials that could not be replicated, let alone rainwater)

DS9:
Progress - various items traded by Jake and Nog that were not replicated

So items made with a replicator will have single bit errors, complex items cannot be replicated, large items (the conduit) are still manufactured in factory style, and purchasing or trading for items is cheaper than getting them from a replicator.

For starships, I'd see it as more along the lines of different prototype designs are made with several of each, then all of them tried out for a while. The most successful design is then put into full production, and the others are then run until they fail, taking parts from one that fails to repair others that are still running. As they fail, the crews are transferred to other (successful) designs.