Design a Fed warship

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2004-07-20 06:46pm

After the success of the Defiant, Intrepid, Sovereign, and Prometheus classes, Starfleet has decided to make almost all new ship designs more military-oriented.

You've been tasked with designing one of these new vessels. The limitations are that the vessel must use existing tech not banned in the Federation. In addition, the vessel must suit the role you choose for the ship, a light cruiser shouldn't be smaller than a shuttle or be the size & cost of the Scimitar.

Crom · Post by **Crom** » 2004-07-20 07:01pm

Well, hopefully I could get my hands on a warp core that's less volatile than the standard Starfleet model. Perhaps using a singularity powered engine, like the Romulans. Assuming we could find a more stabile warp core device, I would basically take a Galaxy class ship and ...

-Strip out all the civilian housing (including schools, science labs, and most of the holodecks).
-Remove the separate saucer section design. I never really thought that was very useful anyway.
-Find a way to limit dependancy on the SIF. I don't like the idea of the ships needing force fields just to stay in one piece. If that means building the ships thicker and more heavily armored, fine.
-Build in fighter bays. Use Run-abouts, I guess.
-Load up on phasers and photon torpedos.
-Use holodecks specifically for training personal, especially for boarding and repelling boarding.
-Move the bridge to an area on the ship that has some transporter blocking capabilities.

I guess that's it. I know it's a little vague, but my knowledge of Star Trek is pretty limited of late.

Jalinth · Post by **Jalinth** » 2004-07-20 07:26pm

I'd consider a "Delta flyer" carrier.

The carrier itself is armed only with defensive weapons/ECM/etc - otherwise, it is pretty much launching/recovery bays, machine shops and armament storage. It should also be as speedy as possible since it can't take much damage.

The Delta Flyer would be redesigned for very short duration (sub 1 day) stays. Life support and any other non-combat gear would be stripped and one day worth of life support carried. The cockpit would be exactly that - an enclosed cockpit, some room to move around but otherwise zero wasted space.

The carrier would be "fleet combat" only units - they can't go one on one by themselves, but would help to disrupt the battle line (silly, but that is Trek for you) and kill off weaker/damaged opponents.

Any comments/criticisms?

Elheru Aran · Post by **Elheru Aran** » 2004-07-20 10:20pm

Hmmm... carriers...

Big ass ship; picture it as being essentially two slabs of (insert fancy poly-tita-obylendinouoium-type Trekkie metal) with the warp core glommed horizontally onto the underside of the top slab. The bridge is a pod atop the ship, much like on the Miranda (I think). It has a few phaser strips on top and bottom, and a forward-firing torpedo launcher, but its primary defense is through escorts and the ships it carries.

Speaking of which, it's large enough to take six Defiant-class ships (docked side by side, three on bottom and three on the top), or an equivalent number of Peregrine fighters, or equivalent number of Delta Flyers. Heck, if stretched enough, it could probably take a Miranda.

Warp nacelles are recessed into top side of the upper hull slab; there's four of 'em, and they're ARMORED, dammit!!!!

The hull slabs are kept together by heavy armor struts arranged in trapezoidal structures in regular rows along the ship's length; makes for some narrow corridors when you have the bigger ships, but as the fighters use umbilical tubes to dock for the most part, the pilots can pretty much just float thru the zero-g into their ships and set right out.

More to come as I toy with this ship concept...

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2004-07-20 10:31pm

Copy and Paste from a post on SB I made.

I was looking at a ship that would be a logical extension of current UFP design and not some super fanwank design that looks nothing like the current lineage.

Federation Audacious Class Dreadnaught.

Length: 1420 Meters
Beam: 500 Meters
Height: 230 Meters.

Background:

After the now infamous Valient incident where a Defiant class Warship went head to head and was anihilated by a Prototype Dominion Battleship, the Federation Admiralty came to the conclusion that they lacked a heavy capital ship capable of dealing with the new 'superships' being built by many other powers. Ships like the Dominion Battleship or even the Klingon Neg'Var outclassed anything in the Federation inventory in a one on one engagement. Though the later Sovereign class Cruiser was an exceptionaly good and powerful design, the Scimitar incident proved even the Federations most powerful design with two lighter support ships could not hope to win a slugging match against the biggest of superships.

In response, the Federation set out to design a new type of ship. A Federation Dreadnaught. The design specifications called for a ship capable of defeating any projected opponent short of a Borg Cube with a good margin of firepower. Hull work was started during the last four months of the Dominion war, the contract awarded to Antares Fleet Systems, the same group who developed the Sovereign class Starship. Indeed the Audacious looks somewhat like a much bulkier and enlarged Sovereign, mostly due to the successful warp dynamics of the hull design.

The project development was close to completion when contact was established with the USS Voyager and technical information about advancements in propulsion systems. Quantum Slipstream technology was utilised with partial success by the lost ship in an attempt to return home and picked up by the Advanced Starship Design Bureau, who rectified the flaws in the technology. The drive was then adapted to the testbed Excelessor class USS Braveheart and proved highly successful, leading to the redesign of the Audaciouspowerplant. After the infamous Scimitar incident, final construction was rapidly finished and the prototype, NX-90110 Audacious was launched.

Propulsion

Two Slipstream Cores (one primary one backup) provide main power, replacing the five warp core design originally planed as well as eliminating the massive antimatter storage problems. Six Impulse Engines provide acceleration nearing a ship a third her size and manoeuvrability beyond what anyone would expect of her mass. Maximum sustained slipstream velocity equals 2000 light years an hour for a maximum of twelve hours before a six hour cool down is necessary for the nacelles. Sustained warp cruise of 9.995 (20 light years / hour or sprint of 60 LY/H for 12 hours).

Offensive Systems

12 X Class XII (I) Phaser Strips. Enhanced with redundant capacitor banks that allow for one minute of full power firing, even if main power is completely cut off. The capacitors also serve as energy sinks/reserves for other systems if needed such as shields or emergency power.

18 X Class II Weapons Defence Arrays. The same defence system you see on DS9's docking ring between the upper and lower pylons. They have a Class X phaser strip around a burst fire torpedo launcher capable of 3 shot bursts of torpedoes.

6 X 10 Shot Torpedo launchers (3 forward 2 aft).

1 X High Energy Partial Cannon. Using similar technology to the deflector dish trick in BOBW. Except this emitter is specifically designed to take the massive power and will not burn out. However it can only fire once every forty five minutes. It takes ten seconds of the output of the power systems and discharges it in one second (though the charging sequence is spaced out over 60 seconds usually so as not to impair secondary systems).

Defensive Systems

Standard ablative armour on critical sections of the ships hull (all or nothing style) averaging 50CM in thickness. Far fewer windows them most ships, more like the Defiant class in that respect. 'Endgame' Ablative Generators installed providing full cover armour in combat conditions capable of shrugging off most feasible attacks.

High capacity regenerative shield system with primary and secondary shielding layers in a 70-30 split of power, to reduce shield leakage and high wattage weapon effectiveness. Auto-randomising frequency modulations on both shields effectively prevent Borg adaptation. Fully integrated multiphasic and metaphasic systems installed.

High level Electronic Warfare equipment including a cloaking device (concessions from the Romulans after the Scimitar conflict lets the UFP use them), full spectrum sensor and communications jamming, decoy drones with holographic mimic abilities (though only for 20 minutes at best before power exhausts), stealthy recon drones, 'disposable' attack drones (essentially armed shuttles without the interior space for the crew, fitting bigger weapons/drives and a high yield suicide warhead).

Other

The ship has a large area of space behind the shuttlebay and cargo bays which is completely mission adaptable. Four decks deep and moving forward a third of the way into the saucer, it can be changed around for any use as needed. Fighter/shuttle storage, cargo space, marine/personnel barracks, different environmental conditions e.t.c. A week at a shipyard is all that is needed to change the ships configuration. General speaking it is defaulted as a mix of parts storage, cargo storage and munitions storage.

The ship has an auxiliary craft complement of four Runabouts and eight scout craft in standard configuration, though they may carry upto 32 mixed strike craft if converted into a carrier configuration.

In short, Starfleet has created a rapid response ship, able to be stationed at key strategic locations and be deployed to any crisis situation in minutes or hours at worst. The massive firepower and incredible toughness of the ship means few would willingly face it in combat and its mere presence serves as a powerful deterrent to hostile action against the Federation. Fifteen of these vessels have been constructed, Fifty are planed.

Audacious Class class with a Sovereign Class for scale.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2004-07-21 02:15am

A basic, brute-force approach: take a Steamrunner spaceframe, but employ actual multiple structural hardpoints instead of forcefields to support it. Apply heavy armouring. Arm it with two fixed-axis ion cannons fueled directly by the warp drive. Build lots of them.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2004-07-21 02:29am

Where exactly is all this crap about ships NEEDING Forcefields to hold themselves together comming from?

Funny how the Saucer on the E-D with no power at all for ANYTHING, let alone SIF was able to hold up easily to slaming onto a planet.

Hell Voyager in 'Timeless' with her SIF completly down slamed into that planet perfectly intact and slid out fine. Though the years in the glacier compacted the lower two decks, the interior of the ship was quite intact.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-07-21 02:31am

Create a Saber-like ship about 400m long, line the entire front of the "saucer" with torpedo launchers. Give it twenty or so. Try to pack as many torpedos in as possible, at least 400 or so. Only other armament is a set of roughly Intrepid-class phasers to knock down small craft and perhaps a large array on the nose to NDF soft targets. Very large impulse engines for better maneuverability than normal. Build the thing up enough that it doesn't require SIF to hold together. If possible, throw the power that would have gone to phasers into shields.

At this point you have a fairly small craft that can kick the living shit out of any larger craft and probably hold its own against smaller ones. I'd expect torpedo launchers to be fairly simple and cheap, so you can probably build more of these than you could the standard Swiss Army Knife-style Federation cruiser. It would be a very poor ship to throw into some engagements, but in a large Dominion War-like fleet engagement it could toss around some serious firepower. It should also be somewhat more survivable than a typical Federation ship.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-07-21 03:41am

Chris OFarrell wrote:Where exactly is all this crap about ships NEEDING Forcefields to hold themselves together comming from?

From the TNG TM actually, although it certainly isn't canon.

Funny how the Saucer on the E-D with no power at all for ANYTHING, let alone SIF was able to hold up easily to slaming onto a planet.

We don't really know that its power had failed. The saucer has fusion reactors for its impulse drive and they may very well have been functioning.

Hell Voyager in 'Timeless' with her SIF completly down slamed into that planet perfectly intact and slid out fine. Though the years in the glacier compacted the lower two decks, the interior of the ship was quite intact.

Wasn't that the intertial dampers that had failed not the SIF when it crashed?

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2004-07-21 03:46am

One I made this past February...

Bulldog Class

Specs:

Dimensions -
Length: 248 Meters
Draught: 37.8 Meters

Crew: About 60

Performance -
Cruise: Warp 9
Max: Warp 9.95
Endurance: Six Months (avg.)

Weapons -
Primary: Four Small Pulse Phasers (equiv. to Defiant); Two Torpedo Tubes (one fore, one aft; magazine capacity 60 photon torps, 20 quantum torps); One Heavy Pulse Phaser Cannon
Secondary: Five Type 9 Phaser Strips

Defense -
Standard Shields, Limited Ablative Armor on Strategic Areas

No backstory as of yet, but I do remember posting one here or at Spacebattles...

Wired_Grenadier · Post by **Wired_Grenadier** » 2004-07-21 04:35am

I'd say the Nebula class is pretty close to a good warship. The strengths of the Galaxy without its weaknesses.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2004-07-21 06:28am

The Kernel wrote: From the TNG TM actually, although it certainly isn't canon.

Truely

We don't really know that its power had failed. The saucer has fusion reactors for its impulse drive and they may very well have been functioning.

No it didn't. Data had to reroute AUXILARY power to the lateral thrusters simply to try and level their decent, if they had impulse power they would never have gone into the atmosphere in the first place.

Wasn't that the intertial dampers that had failed not the SIF when it crashed?

Not exactly. The Dampers went offline a few seconds before they crashed, but the reason they had to make the emergency landing was that the ship was going to structualy collapse otherwise from the slipstream damage.

Of course HOW entering a gravity welll and preasured atmosphere actualy places less stress on the spaceframe, I leave to you....

Patrick Ogaard · Post by **Patrick Ogaard** » 2004-07-21 07:11am

First go:

A family of small starships for escort, attack and interception roles.

All three starship classes are based on the Nova class of survey/science ships, which is itself in turn based on the Pathfinder, the unrealized predecessor design to the Defiant.

The escort and local defense variant is practically a garden variety Nova, with the following major modifications:

The two sensor pallets flanking the navigational deflector are removed, and the spaces directly behind the pallet spaces are gutted. In the original Pathfinder design, torpedo launchers were supposed to go there. Instead, a pair of standard PPCs will be installed in the resulting space.

Modest type 5 phaser strips, straight off the production lines for runabouts, are installed on the engineering hull and the nacelles to cover the arcs of fire not covered by the primary phaser strips and PPCs.

The science and survey labs will be deleted, replaced by expanded torpedo magazines and berthing for at least a platoon-strength unit of security personnel equipped and trained to conduct and repel boarding operations.

The waverider shuttle in the slot of the captain's yacht is replaced by a heavily armored and shielded launch with sufficient space for a full squad of heavily equipped boarding troops, two squads if they don't mind squeezing in a bit. There are also a boarding lock with cutting attachment, a ventral turret with a microtorpedo launcher and a pair of type 5 phaser emitters, and strategically placed type 4 phaser emitters giving full coverage dorsally, to the sides and rear. When the launch is docked with the carrier vessel, the turret remains exposed and operational, providing some additional tactical options.

And that's it. The starship's FTL capability of warp 6 to 8 should be entirely adequate for the role of an escort ship for convoys, as well as for local defense and patrols in the vicinity of starbases and colonies. This is especially true when the vessels are deployed in pairs on patrol, or in full squadron strength at major starbases.

The second class in the lineup is the attack ship version, filling the role of a light destroyer.

This variant is actually the same as the escort and local defense version, except for the warp core being replaced by the original version envisioned for the Pathfinder, providing high warp capability on a par with fast Starfleet ships like the Galaxy, Sovereign and Intrepid. When maneuvering at impulse, the more powerful warp core also allows for more power to the shields and more liberal use of the PPCs.

With high speed and firepower in a small package, squadrons of these vessels are commonly deployed as screening forces in high-speed fleet operations. Flotillas of these vessels can operate independently during wartime, quickly swarming and destroying even large capital ships. Patrol squadrons, operating along sensitive borders and trade routes, usually deploy the ships of their squadrons in divisions of two light destroyers. Individually, the light destroyers are outclassed seriously by capital ships, though they do themselves outclass the light warships of potential rivals, like the ubiquitous Dominion attack ships used by Dominion breakaway elements, light Klingon birds-of-prey, or the Hideki class of light Cardassian warships.

The third class in the lineup is the interceptor version.

The interceptors are directly derived from the high speed Pathfinder courier ships. These use two sets of nacelles and two warp cores to achieve sustainable warp speeds far beyond anything nearby rivals are capable of.

Interceptors are otherwise equipped as the escort ships, though there is no allowance for the additional security troops, their spaces being taken up by additional engineers and expanded engine room spaces. The only functions of interceptors are high-speed interceptions of hostile vessels and, conversely, high-speed raids into enemy territory.

The extremely high warp factors achievable by the interceptors come at a hefty cost, both in terms of resource allocation and performance, however. While blindingly fast and actually somewhat maneuverable at warp, interceptors have only modest maneuverability and acceleration at impulse due to the mass and bulk of a complete second warp drive system. The presence of ventral warp nacelles also makes it impossible for an interceptor to land on planets, a useful quality of the other two designs, though interceptors can maneuver in atmosphere.

Standard tactics for interceptors are high warp approaches to the target, followed by a photon torpedo barrage at close torpedo range, itself followed up as necessary by a second torpedo barrage and/or a sustained volley from the PPCs and auxiliary phasers. Interceptors do not dogfight with attack ships or hang around to duke it out with capital ships, instead withdrawing to conduct further hit-and-fade attacks or retiring to friendly lines.

One weakness of interceptors is their lack of aft torpedo launchers, a problem for a vessel that, by its very mission profile, often finds itself playing the hare in a tailchase at warp speed. To address this problem, some interceptors have had their shuttlecraft removed and their shuttle bays gutted. A pair of conventional torpedo launchers is then installed directly behind the shuttle bay doors, a nasty surprise for pursuers coming too close at warp, or the source of an explosive parting gift to a target. The other fix relies on the fact that many interceptors have, in a further effort to boost their warp speed performance, been equipped with warp coils using tetryon plasma. Since the interceptors have dual warp drives, the captain simply vents the plasma from one system, leaving pursuers dead in the water as the plasma temporarily disables their warp drive capability while the interceptor flies on at warp using its other warp drive.

The three vessels are part of a cost tier system: huge numbers of the relatively cheap escorts can be produced, large numbers of attack ships / destroyers can be fielded and small numbers of expensive and temperamental interceptors can be stationed at trouble spots. The fact that all vessels use the same hulls, with largely identical internal fittings and systems, is a further bonus.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-07-21 11:00am

Chris OFarrell wrote:Where exactly is all this crap about ships NEEDING Forcefields to hold themselves together comming from?

Funny how the Saucer on the E-D with no power at all for ANYTHING, let alone SIF was able to hold up easily to slaming onto a planet.

Hell Voyager in 'Timeless' with her SIF completly down slamed into that planet perfectly intact and slid out fine. Though the years in the glacier compacted the lower two decks, the interior of the ship was quite intact.

The Enterprise always needed those fields...when the structural integrity fields failed, they'd always have a "structural integrity failure in one minute" warning, or something similar.

I'd say they can go without them, but are very weak.

Trek relies on force fields for almost everything...heck, we've seen in FC that even the WINDOWS are invisible force fields. Imagine a sudden power failure- then every open window on the ship suddenly becomes a vacuum and sucks people out. Picard returns to his ready room only to find the room empty and very cold.

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2004-07-21 11:02am

In FC, that thing was a cargo hatch and note it did have a physical cover over it anyway it could close in the event of force field faliure.

Enola Straight · Post by **Enola Straight** » 2004-07-21 11:13am

A Fed Heavy Bomber.

Take your basic Cap ship and elongate the Engineering section, and incorporate multiple torpedo tubes which completely transverse the ship; i.e. two tubes could fire a torp either fore or aft, five tubes firing port/starboard, and five tubes firing...uh, up and down.

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2004-07-21 11:17am

Enola Straight wrote:A Fed Heavy Bomber.

Take your basic Cap ship and elongate the Engineering section, and incorporate multiple torpedo tubes which completely transverse the ship; i.e. two tubes could fire a torp either fore or aft, five tubes firing port/starboard, and five tubes firing...uh, up and down.

Dorstal/Ventral you mean?

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2004-07-21 11:19am

Fed Stand-off Torp ship/Space sub(Thingy!)

Screw the cloack restrictions pick one up or devolp your own, mass it as much as a GCS but build it along the ecnomincal lines of a Defiant, Back it with only a pair of Laser Strips For and aft(With 180 coverage)

Pack the thing with Torp launchs(Along lines with the Akira 16+)

Probably along twenty forward faceing, then teach the bloody Captian's some tatics about Subspace insystem jumping and then use that cloak of yours to hide, pop out were you think the enemy will be(Or give the ship somekind of shortrange mini ship to "peek" outside of the cloak) then pop out Unload a spread or two of torps(Seeing as they seem to be able to fire two realy quick thats 40+ Torp shots to work with)

Use hit and run tatics, Port, cloak, shoot, and Port agian

If you can see it you can kill it and if you can't your back to old fasion shoot and look tatics

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2004-07-21 01:00pm

I will Start with the frame of the Galaxy Class. This ship class has lots of space for me to use.

I think I will keep the seperation feature. It could be used to turn the saucer into a long distance support ship.

The first thing I would do is double the number of Phasers on the saucer, but the new ones would be lighter point defence Phasers. Using the now unneeded space used for the civis, I would add reactoers to power the Phasers and on the top of the dish would be added a single GSC war nacelle. as part of this nacelle would be the addition of 2 more Photon Tordedo Tubes(burst launchers)

The shuttle bay on the dish would now take up most of the left over space that is not slated for the weapons. The ship would cary about 36 Perigrine Fighters. Having warp power the dish should be able to keep away from enemies in a fleet engagement while adding its torpedos and fighters to the battle.

The Battle section, with the Battle Brdge now serving as the main bridge, would have added Phasers on the nacelles and the midline. There is room for two more Torpedo lauchers to the neck. The Impulse engine on this section should also be slightly enlarged. This section would also have the addition of the Defiant's ablative armor

Even if it doesn't seperate this should be a formible ship.

Zor · Post by **Zor** » 2004-07-21 01:25pm

Victory Class Dreadnought

Dementions-943 meters by 240 meters by 322 meters.

Disign-Sovereign type disign, how ever, the back part is wider and the nacells (wicth there are four of, two on the left and right, one top, one bottom), many windows have been replaced with armor plating, Bridge located in the center of sauser section.

Weapons Systems-The heavyest weapon is the Class Ten torpedo tube, class ten torpedoes are 6 six meters long, 1.5 meters wide and .7 meters high, carrying a maximum 8 kgs of antimatter, backed by that ZPD device that dubbles the yeild of torpedos. Located were the Defetor dish is normaly on fed ships. Fires once every 8 seconds. Secondary weapons includes 12 burst Quantum Torpedo tubes (4 forward, 4 side, 4 aft) and 32 Pulse Phaser cannons (10 forward, 15 side, 7 aft). Able to Replace torpedos, and carries standard arsenal of 25 Class tens and 475 normal torpedos.

EVA assets-12 Type 11 shuttles, 32 Peregrine fighters

Crew-488 Starfleet personel, 2,000 MACOs (restored MACO forces, Look at my thread on them)

Quarters-Quarters have been cut down, while each crew memeber does get his own Quarters, they are only 3 meter by 3 meter things with minimum funishings (Bunk, Table, Chair, viewscrean), Insted of having a replicator in every quarter, there are 15 Messhalls, each with a replicator and a mess crew of 2 personel.

Entertainment Facilities-Each Quarter has a TV and an Extencive Video Library. There are also 10 arcades, complete with a multitude of 20th and early 21st century Video Games. Quarters also have musical Libraries. MACOs sleep in Barrakes

Power plants-4 warp cores, each 95% as powerful as a Soveriegn's.

Drive systems-Warp and Quatum Slipstream drive, Capable of Crossing the Milky way galaxy in six months on Slipstream, max warp speed warp-9.985. Max Sublight speed .7 C.

Defence Systems-70 meters of Ablative armor over Tritanium Frame. 4 regenitive sheild generators 150% as effective as a Sovereign's, and Grav Countermessures. A Grav Counter mesure is a low speed torpedo with a Powerful AG grenerator, it screws up torpedos corse.

General Tour of Duty, 8 years.

The Victory class ship is the newest, and most powerful ship in the Federation fleet, the first two (USS Victory NCC-90177 and USS Nelson NCC-90178) are rated to be the most powerful ship in the Fleet. Able to go tow to tow with 6 Klingon Neh'var class ships. It is the first ship to carry Class Ten Torpedos, wicth allow them to destroy a Romulan Warbird in one hit, and seriosly damage more powerful craft. Brining this craft's sheild's down is hard, and the Problem of Frequency weapons has finaly been solved, eacth of the four sheild bubbles is set to a diferent Frequency. It is in all rights superior to Dominion class ships. It also serves as a Carrier and Troop Transport. The Victory is under the command of Admirla Paris, the Nelson is patroling the Romulan Neutral Zone under the command of Admiral Picard.

CJvR · Post by **CJvR** » 2004-07-21 05:40pm

I would start with the Prometheus.

Ripping out most of the redundency systems caused by the MVAM would release mass and volume that could be put to far better use. One of the three bridges, the internal hullplating and phaser arrays, the auxilliary naselles in the primary hull. The Federation have a vast firepower/ton advantage over most rivals, most extreme in the Defiant class, so there is no real need to go for gigantic starships. Build Defiants for patrol and internal security and back them upp with rapid reaction forces. If about a third of SF ships were combat designs the fleet could more than double it's firepower without really sacrifying it's exploration duties since many of it's explorers act as patrol and security anyway.

The main deflector would be modified to fire the way Ent-D did in BoBW without crippling the ship.
Heavy Pulse Phasors would be added in fixed mounts, lighter versions in turrets to complement the arrays. All phaser mounts should fire on a random frequency and change it after every shot.
The split main warp core and the auxilliary core remain. Having three separate cores should make the ship harder to cripple than the usual single core design. Core survivability is something that would have to be drasticaly inproved. Why do the Feds haul around a armed bomb of AM/M anyway? Their transporters have the ability to convert mass to energy why not use it to power the ships as a simple mass converter?
The torpedo weaponry would have to be upgraded, without the complexities forced on the design by the MVAM there should be room enough to mount a big fast-firing torpedo system. A wide variety of torpedoes should be available.
The ship would be armored and have some interna bulkheads and blastdoors that dont rely on forcefields and SIF to keep the ship fighting. If it is possible to armor the naselles on a fast warship I would do it, if it is only possible on battlebarges like the Defiant then I would go for some form of retractable naselle that could be protected in battle and extended for highspeed transits.

If they get the Slipstream and regenerating armor and any other nifty new gadgets to work they should obviously be included in the design. Since the Fed play around with time manipulation I always though temporal compressors for the phasers would boost their shield breaching ability.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2004-07-21 08:05pm

Praxis wrote: The Enterprise always needed those fields...when the structural integrity fields failed, they'd always have a "structural integrity failure in one minute" warning, or something similar.

Sources and quotes. Right now. And frankly from what I remember, when they have threatened to fail, its generaly BEEN in extreemly high stress situations that no material could come CLOSE to withstanding without the reinforcement effects.

I'd say they can go without them, but are very weak.

Thats nice speculation. Do you have proof? I am getting sick of this constent hersey, its like the 'Warp Core of Doom' BS thats been adressed time and time again, but still keeps comming back.

Trek relies on force fields for almost everything...heck, we've seen in FC that even the WINDOWS are invisible force fields. Imagine a sudden power failure- then every open window on the ship suddenly becomes a vacuum and sucks people out. Picard returns to his ready room only to find the room empty and very cold.

What the hell are you talking about? The Windows on the ship ARE WINDOWS, this is bloody clear from hundreds of episodes of Star Trek. What Picard opened in FC was an exterior HATCH and to preserve the atmosphere, the computer activated a forcefield automaticly. Have you even watched anything but First Contact?

CDiehl · Post by **CDiehl** » 2004-07-21 09:50pm

I may have mentioned this idea before.

Hannibal-class vessel

Peacetme duties - colony transport, emergency rescue craft
Wartime duties - planetary defense, infantry transport

This has the same basic shape as a Galaxy-class ship, with the following alterations:

Armor built under the hull, and an internal deflector/containment shield projected under the armor.
Larger, double the dimensions of a Galaxy.
Stardrive has two necks, one in front and one in back, each with a saucer.
Saucers carry bombardment, anti-personnel and anti-vehicle weapons, thrusters capable of atmosphere entry and departure, and capable of independent interplanetary travel.
Saucers can carry between 5,000 and 10,000 passengers with supplies and vehicles.
Carries 4 warp chambers, with 2 running at all times, one and a backup.
Nacelles point downward and are mounted on heavier pylons.
Stardrive has a large number of anti-spacecraft and bombardment weapons.
Battle Bridge is replaced with a standard bridge.
Stardrive has room for a further 1,000 passengers/redundant crewmembers.
Stardrive carries tractor beams able to pull saucers from a planetary surface to orbit.
Both saucers and stardrive have most of the luxury items removed, except the captain and first officer's quarters.

Variant - Falconer-class vessel

Peacetime Duties - Emergency rescue, planetary defense craft
Wartime Duties - Fighter carrier, infantry transport

Differs from Hannibal in the following ways:

Front saucer does not separate, and contains launch and repair facilities for shuttles, runabouts and/or fighters.
Stardrive carries antifighter and bombardment weapons.

I figured, saucer separation is not a bad idea, just one that's been badly executed. Also, I think it's good to have a way to move lots of people up and down from orbit without transporters, and to shelter them.

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2004-07-21 10:08pm

Stabby class expendable Ram ship:
Length 120 Meters

A high capacity shield generator, some heavy armor, a communications array and a single occupancy room, with a one man crew, supplemented by large numbers of Exo-Comps(yes, it has engines and reactors too).

Section 31, with limited resources, and a need for near-total secrecy, is nonetheless in the unenviable position of having to potentially tilt the balance if the survival of the Federation is on the line. As such, they are required to maximise the use of their manpower and available resources. The Stabby class is their acknowledgement that they are unable to go toe to toe with capital ships of other navies in any substantial quantity. With this in mind, the Stabby is designed to pick out a single large combatant, and sacrifice itself to remove its target from the equation. The pilot is normaslly an accelerated growth clone, indoctrinated from the moment his test tube is cracked to sacrifice itself whenever needed for the good of the Federation.

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2004-07-23 10:53am

Intrepid-refit class light cruiser

*Secondary deflector dish/sensors array replaced w/ Isokinetic cannon
*Aeroshuttle replaced w/ torpedo turret
*bridge replaced w/ torpedo turret
*phaser strips added to hull, 2x on each nacelle-pylon, 2x on each nacelle
*phaser arrays added to cover ventral saucer section, ventral & dorsal rear engineering section.
*Astrometrics/Stellar Cartography replaced w/ battle bridge
*warp core & drive upgraded & uprated
*hull coated in ablative armor
*existing torpedo inventory expanded to accomidate additional launchers
*crew distribution (reduced science personel, increased security/tactical)
*corridors now feature Nemisis-style mini-armories at regular intervals.