Hypothetical look into Galaxy-X design history

[Alyeska]

With the coming war between the Federation and the Dominion (this had been known for some time), Starfleet saw the need for a relatively fast and powerful ship to use for deep strike missions against the Dominion. Starfleet needed a ship design that they could produce quickly without major cost. This ruled out new ship designs and construction. Starfleet needed to select a ship to upgrade or modify for this mission, and it needed to be in significant enough numbers that Starfleet could afford to remove several from service for a time. After several months of debate and proposals of various ship alterations and upgrades (The Excelsior refit to the Lakota standard was one of the more promising candidates), the Galaxy class was the final ship selected.

The Galaxy-X was born.

The concept behind the Galaxy-X was to upgrade its firepower, speed, endurance, warp speed, and warp endurance. And it had to be done at a cost below that of building a new ship. Starfleet had to come up with a way to upgrade the Galaxy-X without breaking the bank.

The USS Venture combat modification already gave the design team a start. By adding phaser arrays to the top of the warp engines the Galaxy class improved its top side phaser coverage by a significant amount. This design concept was immediately implemented into the Galaxy-X. Furthermore the port and starboard phaser coverage was somewhat lacking. The warp pylons were extended at their curvature point to allow for room to fire and power two rather then just one phaser array. These changes alone increased the Galaxy-Xs phaser count to 15 visible phaser arrays.

Some of the design team was not pleased with just adding a few new phasers and pointed out the Galaxy-X needed a significant improvement in firepower. Why not replace all the Galaxy-X phaser arrays with the newer Type-12 that the Sovereign was using and the proposed Prometheus would use. This created a new debate among the design team. The Type-12 was powerful, but it was also expensive and energy intensive. The Type-12 supporters countered the Galaxy-X was already going to receive a warp core upgrade in order to move it faster, so the energy budget wasn’t a major concern. Eventually after looking at the budget constraints, a compromise was settled on. The two main arrays on the Galaxy-X would remain Type-10 arrays. Their size alone made them extremely powerful, even if they were of an older design. The rest of the Galaxy-X was covered by relatively small arrays, and these would all be upgraded to Type-12. This would remove the normal forward firepower bias on the Galaxy-Xs phaser design and balance its firepower throughout the design. Several smaller Type-12 arrays could easily equal a single large Type-10 array.

To finish off the weapon improvement changes the main torpedo launchers on the Galaxy-X were to be upgraded to a multi role standard allowing them to fire both Quantum or Photon torpedoes.

With the weapon systems on the Galaxy-X finalized, the warp drives and power core needed to be looked into. Imediately half of the design team proposed fitting the Galaxy-X with Sovereign type warp engines. The warp theorists discarded that proposal by pointing out the Sovereign warp engines are designed for the Sovereign full form and warp geometry. You can’t automatically swap them over. To improve the speed of the Galaxy-X you have to stay within its design constraints. Instead 3 warp engines of an upgraded Galaxy design should work to fit the same intent. Upgrade the original two Galaxy engines and place a 3rd engine off of its spine and just above the other two engines. This improves the Galaxy’s speed and warp endurance. However, this also takes significantly more power. Now the design team needed to address the power concerns. While the Sovereign warp engines couldn’t be used in the Galaxy-X, the Sovereign warp core could. The design team modified the Sovereign core to fit into the Galaxy-X frame. This provided sufficient power to the warp engines. However it was immediately obvious that using three warp engines of a lesser efficiency used up more power. The ship couldn’t produce enough power to also maintain shields and phasers while at warp. To fix this the design team added two defiant type warp cores for secondary power purposes on the Galaxy-X. These cores power the shields and weapon systems while the main core keeps the ship at warp. When out of warp one core shuts down and the other lowers capacity unless emergency power is needed.

With the new power drain it was obvious the ship wouldn’t have sufficient range on current anti-matter supplies. A second anti-matter supply was added to the saucer section and this solved that problem.

The whole of the ship was reinforced with double thickness outer hull and added internal structure. SIF fields were doubled in strength for combat operations and ablative armor was located over important ship functions. Shield emitters were also doubled in number, though regenerative shields were left out.

With a 3rd warp engine the design team added another Type-12 phaser array.

The final design of the Galaxy-X is as follows.

14 Type-12 phaser arrays (small)
2 Type-10 phaser arrays (large)
2 multi purpose torpedo launchers
3 warp engines
Tri-linked impulse system with an improved main impulse
1 sovereign warp core
2 defiant warp cores

The final price on the Galaxy-X proved to be slightly over budget, but with in acceptable range. Many of the costs were one time R&D costs while the actual refit costs were almost on target. Each Galaxy frame could be upgraded to a Galaxy-X within a span of just 6 months.

In the end Starfleet only ordered 6 Galaxy-X ships and used them extensively throughout the war in deep strike missions in Dominion territory. They suffered heavy casualties and only 2 ships survived the war, one of which was immediately decommissioned shortly after returning from its final mission due to heavy battle damage.

[brianeyci]

Is this the same Galaxy-X that has the cloaking device and the "phaser lance" that can punch through a Nerg'Var in one hit?

I've always wondered why SF doesn't build gunships around torpedoes. Torpedoes home, are the high yield weapon of ST, and a ship designed with lets say 10 torpedo launchers and 2000 torpedoes would be a powerful artillery ship. Look at DS9, upgraded shields and stocking up a mere 1000 torpedoes with only a few launchers held of an entire Klingon fleet.

Brian

[Gustav32Vasa]

Look at DS9, upgraded shields and stocking up a mere 1000 torpedoes with only a few launchers held of an entire Klingon fleet.

Brian

Minor nitpick, DS9 had 5000 torpedoes.

[Alyeska]

Yes, this is the same ship, only earlier in its history. No phaser cannon, and none of the saucer hull extensions.

[Alyeska]

BTW, Starfleet does build torpedo ships. The Akira class has 15 torpedo launchers (11 of them forward facing). The Nebula class can be equipped with a torpedo pod giving it a forward launcher capacity of 10 launchers (2 large, 8 small).

[Aaron]

BTW, Starfleet does build torpedo ships. The Akira class has 15 torpedo launchers (11 of them forward facing). The Nebula class can be equipped with a torpedo pod giving it a forward launcher capacity of 10 launchers (2 large, 8 small).

Whats the difference? Can only large launchers fire Quantums?

[Alyeska]

BTW, Starfleet does build torpedo ships. The Akira class has 15 torpedo launchers (11 of them forward facing). The Nebula class can be equipped with a torpedo pod giving it a forward launcher capacity of 10 launchers (2 large, 8 small).

Whats the difference? Can only large launchers fire Quantums?

No. Only quantum torpedo launchers can fire quantum torpedoes. Large launchers can fire 6 or more torpedoes at once and maintain a higher rate of fire with individual torpedoes. Small launchers can only fire a single torpedo at a time and have worse refire rates.

[Alan Bolte]

I was wondering about that the other day. Why do they have different launchers? What could possibly be so different?

[Chris OFarrell]

As far as I can see, they are not. They are simply a limited supply weapon.

[Alyeska]

The fact that only certain ships can fire them shows that there is something special about them.

[SirNitram]

The fact that only certain ships can fire them shows that there is something special about them.

We have? I thought only certain ships had them, not that specific ones were needed. Where, may I ask?

[Alyeska]

Defiant and Sovereign class are the only classes to be known to fire them. That they are even fired in special launchers (ever notice how the Sovereign fired Quantum torpedoes from just ONE launcher?) is even more proof. For whatever reason Quantum torpedoes can only be fired in specialy designed launchers.

[Alyeska]

IIRC the Lakota was stated to have the capability. Obviously that was part of her war refit upgrade she recieved. Had that captain not been so nervous on firing on the Defiant she could have won the battle by opening up with the Quantum Torpedoes at the very start.

[SirNitram]

Defiant and Sovereign class are the only classes to be known to fire them. That they are even fired in special launchers (ever notice how the Sovereign fired Quantum torpedoes from just ONE launcher?) is even more proof. For whatever reason Quantum torpedoes can only be fired in specialy designed launchers.

Lakota had them, and Voyager was apparently ready to strap 'em in. I'm quite skeptical on this 'Requires specialized launcher' spiel when, for all intents and purposes, they still look like Photon Torpedos set to 'Blue'.

[Sarevok]

The Cardassians also had quantum torpedoes. The robot ship or cruise missile seen in the Voyager episode Dreadnaught had quanum torpedoes.

It was mentioned in that episode that Voyager's launchers could be modified with some work to fire the quantums recovered from the robot ship. My guess is most Federation launchers would be able to fire quantums with little modification but since quantums are in limited supply most ships are not issued quantum torpedoes.

[Sarevok]

IIRC the Lakota was stated to have the capability. Obviously that was part of her war refit upgrade she recieved. Had that captain not been so nervous on firing on the Defiant she could have won the battle by opening up with the Quantum Torpedoes at the very start.

Yes the USS Lakota was armed with quantum torpedoes.

From "Paradise Lost".

LEYTON

Under no circumstances is that ship to reach Earth.

The Lakota's carrying quantumtorpedoes, isn't she?

BENTEEN

Yes, sir.

[Alyeska]

Defiant and Sovereign class are the only classes to be known to fire them. That they are even fired in special launchers (ever notice how the Sovereign fired Quantum torpedoes from just ONE launcher?) is even more proof. For whatever reason Quantum torpedoes can only be fired in specialy designed launchers.

Lakota had them, and Voyager was apparently ready to strap 'em in. I'm quite skeptical on this 'Requires specialized launcher' spiel when, for all intents and purposes, they still look like Photon Torpedos set to 'Blue'.

I never heard of Voyager having them. Lakota was specialy modified before she carried them.

Just look at the fact that the Sovereign fires them from one specific launcher. It has the same refire rates as the other launchers, why does just one launcher fire them? And why is the Defiant class the only other class of ships to be seen firing them? Quantum Torpedoes can't be THAT expensive and it would sure as hell make sense to arm as many ships as possible with them, yet we've only had two confirmed ship classes fire them.

Furthermore the DS9 TM shows the quantum cases to be different then photon cases. It even makes a point of saying every Starfleet ship has "Photon Torpedo Launchers" while the Defiant class has "Torpedo Launchers". And the Defiant is known to have fired photon torpedoes from its launchers before.

[SirNitram]

Defiant and Sovereign class are the only classes to be known to fire them. That they are even fired in special launchers (ever notice how the Sovereign fired Quantum torpedoes from just ONE launcher?) is even more proof. For whatever reason Quantum torpedoes can only be fired in specialy designed launchers.

Lakota had them, and Voyager was apparently ready to strap 'em in. I'm quite skeptical on this 'Requires specialized launcher' spiel when, for all intents and purposes, they still look like Photon Torpedos set to 'Blue'.

I never heard of Voyager having them. Lakota was specialy modified before she carried them.

Voyager did not have them, but, as I said, was ready to strap them in: The episode is Dreadnought, where they find the wayward Dominion superweapon.

Just look at the fact that the Sovereign fires them from one specific launcher. It has the same refire rates as the other launchers, why does just one launcher fire them? And why is the Defiant class the only other class of ships to be seen firing them? Quantum Torpedoes can't be THAT expensive and it would sure as hell make sense to arm as many ships as possible with them, yet we've only had two confirmed ship classes fire them.

I don't know about them not being able to be 'that' expensive. Even if not for materials cost, there may only be a limited part of the infrastructure building them. And Photons still work, so if they're cheaper, why switch unless a class needs them?

Furthermore the DS9 TM shows the quantum cases to be different then photon cases. It even makes a point of saying every Starfleet ship has "Photon Torpedo Launchers" while the Defiant class has "Torpedo Launchers". And the Defiant is known to have fired photon torpedoes from its launchers before.

That's barely a real argument if the source was canon. The omission of one word does not magically remake the tool.

[Alyeska]

Nitram, explain why only two classes of ships have been seen to fire them. Explain why the Sovereign litteraly only fires them from a SPECIFIC launcher and that very same launcher is never seen firing photon torpedoes.

If every ship can fire quanum torpedoes without modification, we would have SEEN this by now. Instead we only see two classes of ships with the capability to fire them from special launchers, and a third ship is mentioned to have quantum torpedoes only after an extensive refit.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Its quite analogous to modern technology. The B-2 Spirit needed newly installed hardpoints in order to drop new ordinance. If QTs are indeed more powerful than PTs, they're probably handled differently and as more massive. Consider for example that PT launchers may not be hardened against the recoil from firing heavier QT munitions. Hardened launchers can fire QTs so there's no point in firing PTs anymore.

[drachefly]

Considering how willing the Voyager crew were to dramatically modify their ship, it isn't surprising that they thought they could modify their torpedo launcher to handle quantum torps, even if the modification required would be fairly significant.

[BenRG]

In any case, the fact that the Voyager's engineers were confident that they could retro-fit their launchers to use Dreadnought's quantum mini-torpedoes doesn't mean much regadring the deployment of Federation quantum torpedoes. After all, we are talking about Cardassian warheads here. Who knows? They may have intended just to do a warhead swap-out and put the quantums in modified photorp casings.

Every canon or official source that I have seen suggests that Quantum Torpedoes (at least the Feddie variety) need special launchers of their own. This seems stupid. Personally, if I were designing a new generation weapon, I would make it compatible with the existing launcher systems on line vessels unless there was an overwhelming technical reason why this wasn't possible. It would be like developing a new generation of naval SAM that didn't fit in the multi-cell launcher systems on the current surface warships.

[Uraniun235]

Every canon or official source that I have seen suggests that Quantum Torpedoes (at least the Feddie variety) need special launchers of their own. This seems stupid. Personally, if I were designing a new generation weapon, I would make it compatible with the existing launcher systems on line vessels unless there was an overwhelming technical reason why this wasn't possible. It would be like developing a new generation of naval SAM that didn't fit in the multi-cell launcher systems on the current surface warships.

If you're going to make it so bloody similar, why even bother calling it a "quantum" torpedo and just make it a photorp Mark IX or something?

[brianeyci]

Federation ships have made retrofits away from spacedock. The biggest one I can remember is the last few episodes of Voyager when they installed ablative armor generators. Also, many times they extensively retrofitted Voyager's propulsion systems (Quantum slipstream drive, transwarp drive, etc.) Also in DS9 in the alternate universe, (I believe Alyeska mentioned this), they built a Defiant hidden in a nebula without any spacedock or special facilities in six months.

Also the "Federation is stooopid" doesn't work. We don't know anything about the launching mechanism or the modification required other than they need such a modification. There might be a good reason why the Federation designed quantum torpedoes to be incompatable with photon torpedoes. Whatever it is, no need to jump to stupidity as the first answer.

Brian

[JeanLucPicard]

The reason why Starfleet quantum torpedoes need special launchers is because Starfleet doesn't want people like the Maquis, Bajorans, Klingons, etc, getting their hands on some of the most powerful torpedoes there are. Look @ it this way: would you like it if a Klingon BOP took out a Soveregn class starship just because it had quantum torpedoes?