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Our Ship:

So far we have:

Come to the decision to build a Federation Battleship based in the year 2390; it is of GCS and Sovereign size.

As a battleship it is going to be out fitted with 60cm ablative armour with a high density double hull. This reduced the final production run of the ship by six ships from the original twenty giving us a run of fourteen ships. It also drops its final speed by 12% and agility by 24%.

The shielding stands at 7 million Terra Joules shielding in a bubble shape running off an independent power supply. The bubble shields while weaker than form fitting shields have the added advantage of less maintenance and also have greater flexibility in battle, due to its simplicity it can shift power from one section to the other recharging damaged sections. The independent power supply offers greatly improved survivability as the shields are no longer attached to the core. It does however take up a larger percent of internal volume than other wise would have been used.

Our Beam weapons sit at 200,000 Terra Watts powered off the warp core, with a All Rounder configuration.

Torpedo configuration stands at: 2 x Rapid fire QT [both forward facing]
2 X pulse fire PT/QT [Both aft facing]
2 X Type 3 burst fire PT [one aft, one forward]
800 torpedoes stock

The ship has a four nacelle design with the nacelles pulled up close to the ship but still being a separate structure, this was to offer a speed boost and extra survivability in battle but comes at the cost of extra maintenance and increased probability of a nacelle hit during battle.


So far our internal volume space stands at:
24% warp core (Includes everything related to it such as work area ect) (Includes extra power for beam weapons)
7% Shield power unit.
10%< Cargo (At least, the more of this the longer it lasts)
Torpedo Tubes: 20% Final size
Proton Torpedo replicator: 2% Final size
15%< Crew (Thats the bare minimum, depending on the amount of crew and comfort it could go all the way up to 40%)
10%< Essential (Stuff like sickbays and one shuttle bay ect that we need, could go up with added facilities)
7% Phase Canon
Total: 95% minimum

I'll do a run down on the space used so far and how it effects the ship, I'll then give the size requirements for the torpedo tubes ect.

Warp core: Currently 24% internal volume. This could be as big as it gets but one of the future polls will be about speed. One of the factors will be that for every 1% volume we add to the core the faster the ship goes. So it could get bigger if we want to add some speed to our turtle.

Shield Power unit: 7%. Final size

Phase Lance: 7% Final size

Torpedo Tubes: 20% Final size

Proton Torpedo replicator: 2% Final size

Cargo (Includes replicator stock ect does not include weapons stock): 10% Minimum. For every percent this takes up the ship has one month of supplies. So it currently has ten month endurance under normal conditions.

Crew: 15% Minimum. That is the bare minimum needed to field our ship under current specs. It doesn't include any room for land forces. It also puts them on the lower end of comfort; bunking for crew men and shared room for everyone bellow Lt commander. The ship is also more automated this way. For every 1% more room given the automation of the ship goes down.

Essential: 10% Minimum. This covers the basic essential like a transporter a single sickbay and a basic shuttle bay. This will be the final poll we do, I've yet to make up suitable numbers for it but the more facilities we add the more it will cost in internal volume. Since this is the basics you are probably going to want to add at least another 3-4%.

Total 95% minimum.


This week we tie up all the lose ends. Obviously this cant go in a poll so everyone can just throw in there ideas. As you can see in the internal volume run down above we have 5% space left. Now you can either increase something like cargo capacity and give us better endurance or you can give us more facilities like extra medical bays ect.

Since this is the last thread before I do the write up and I or someone else does the design sketches for it (We can keep the debate going in the other thread for that) you can put up any ideas you would like included in the ship.

I'm going to do a rather detailed write up on the ship, about how it was designed and the ideas behind it. So here we get to add features and other stuff we would like to see on a Federation Battleship.

I should also point out that as the ship stands now it only has tha basics of the essentials, one sickbay, one small shuttlebay ect. You can use the 5% remaining sapce to expand these or on something else.

I'd throw in a holodeck for training purposes.
But for Christ's sake, put some damn safeties on the thing.

OK here is an idea I had for this. A few polls back someone brought up the point that this would most likely also function as the fleet command vessel. With that in mind I think it should have a massive bridge/command area.

I was thinking something like triple the size of a GCS bridge. The working bridge for the ship its self would be placed in the foward section of the command unit slightly lower down (like a few steps) this would handle the running of the ship. It would be bigger than the stardard bridge with multiple stations for each department. This also ties into my idea for the computer core of the ship.

Rather than just one large computer core the ship has several totally independent cores. Each department (Science, opps, tactical ect) each would have their own independent computer system. This would stop the ships computers being taken over since you would need to hack multiple computers at the same time. The access would also be greatly limited with only certain units being able to access certain levels of the core and the control unit on the bridge being the master unit. All of these units would be controlled from the bridge. Thus each station has access to all the information needed and can instantly tell those in command while keeping access secure.

This would complicate matters but it would offer greatly impoved security and make it all but impossible to knock out all the computers on the ship.

So that pretty much covers the ships bridge, above and behind this bridge but still in the same open area is the fleet command bridge. With the captain of the ships standing at the back of his bridge he can be in instant contact with both his bridge and the fleet bridge.

The fleet bridge would have dozens of computer units staffed by officers to trace all the ships in the fleet and the strike groups, they would instantly be able to give status reports on their charges while also being able to relay orders from the fleet commander. It would offer greatly improved communication and organisation for fleet actions.

Oh and it goes with out saying that this bridge would be placed deep with in the ship and not on top.


While thats my idea for the bridge, feel free to rip it apart or change it, debating things makes us look at them better.

I have a few other ideas for but I'll wait to see what other come up with first.

I'm gonna put forward for a CnC command centre within the ship.

Use a holodeck or some such to make an environment similar to that of the Minbari sharlin cruisers maybe?

I'm thinking about what's going to be housed in the fleet command bridge. The first thing that comes to mind would be a tactical discussion area. For this, there would be a big central map of the battlefield - could be holographic - and people would hold meetings in this area. The fleet commander could even be stationed here with his assistants. Is the ship's captain the same person as the fleet commander? It might be cool to have the two as separate characters, who bounce ideas off each other - the battleship captain itching to use all the firepower at his fingertips, while the FC tells him to settle down, Beavis.

In fact, I really don't see what the hugely huge extra bridge would house besides something like this. Of course, with bigger fleets, there might be one ubercommand ship, then several subcommand ships that lead squadrons... But then we start getting into Star Wars territory. In all of the larger battles seen in the shows, everyone seems to be somewhat autonomous, apart from the pre-designated attack plan, and checking the fare of the other ships. Especially in DS9, I just remember everyone going apeshit until the plot needed to advance, then someone says, "They're outflanking us!" and the music changes. Not to rag on the show - I loved it - it's just not very informative of Starfleet's military tactics or organization.

Hmm... there are lots of weapons to control on the battleship. Perhaps there's a Weapons Cove somewhere in this cavernous bridge where all of the ship's weapons are controlled. Several officers man this area, lead by either a tactical specialist or the captain himself. Argh, yet more Star Warsy.

I have to admit - at first when I decided to get involved in this roleplaying, I had no idea why you all spent 150+ pages planning everything, then wrote only 8 pages of actually role-playing. Now, I'm understanding - this part is fun!

What i am planning is to have a bridge in a large holographic environment, with all the stations mounted facing the bow with which the holographic environment is aligned to. the panels are arranged farely standard for federation tech but all on one level. The captain/fleet commander has his own large tactical display table/panel. The holographic image displays the entire battlefield in visual spectrums but can have other tactical, scientific overlays and such like placed on them if possible.

I'd advise against a holographic environment. Too many things to go wrong. Stick with standard interfaces.
Actualy, go back to the era where they used computers that didn't blow up spectacularly for no reason and use them.

Okay, the main two points:

Circuit breakers every metre along every single cable in the entire ship.
A button on the bridge that can't have a forcefield activated around it that says 'press this to turn off the damn holodecks'

Other things like norton and zone alarm installed would be useful. More reliance on passwords, optical/DNA scans, voiceprints etc. Random people cannot use any pannels - the controls must recognise the fingerprints first. On board security teams only exist as patrols - checking ID for restricted areas - not to purposefully apprehend enemy boarding parties - that's what the buttons that say "remove atmosphere in section x", or "beam x into space" are for. Phasers are to have laser sights. The warp core is to have a forcefield around it all the time.

I wouldn't have the huge bridge some people want - automation is good enough that you don'y need it. You'd probably need an extra tactical station, but other than that the existing bridges already have all the basics. Something a bit less like someones living room than the GCS bridge would be good, as would a sensible placement (i.e. right in in the middle of the ship).

What I would do would be to have a separate command area for the embarked flag officer - one of the worst aspects of DS9 was putting Sisko in command of both the Defiant and a fleet. Leave the Captain on the bridge to fight the ship, and leave the Admiral in a separate facility to command the fleet (this is where a holographic projector would be useful) - he'll also need a staff both to keep him updated during the battle, and for planning operations beforehand.

I think the command centre should be similar to the astrometrics on board the Enterprise in Generations, in a smaller scale.

I was thinking more a cross of Voyager's astrometrics lab and the briefing room in RotJ - you'd need at least a dozen people in addition to the flag officer, to man communications and keep the admiral up to date on what was happening. The central holographic projector could either stick with a display of the entire battle, or zoom in on critical areas.

True.....so....what i'd do is have a central "table" with all the control panels set into it, with the holoprojector set into the desk.

It occurs to me that a holographic battle display could have been useful in the Dom war rather than the flat-panel displays used. Or even a holographic ship display in Main Engineering, rather than a 2-D MSD.

Of course, you'd need backups to the holograms...

How about two seperate bridges, one as the ship main bridge, and the second as the fleet bridge being being something like a command center like at a military command facility or NASA.

It wouldnt need to be anywhere near as big as that, the control panels can be pretty small if necessary.