Fed Module Debate

[Tyler]

posted on October 25th, 2010, 11:05 pm

Last edited by Tyler on October 25th, 2010, 11:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You are still comparing 'storing small supplies' to 'storing a fleet of fully fitted starship-sized objects'. Objects that seem to be at least Defiant sized.

If pods are a waste and the ships designed for that purpose are also a waste by default, then the way to prevent the waste is to design the ship without that intention.

I never called the Nebula a specific purpose ship. Building a ship your way and 1 extra pod is more expensive than a standard multi-purpose ship that Starfleet specializes in. I referred to the Nebula before as a multi-purpose ship (like it's big sister ship) with each varient having an edge over the others in a specific area. Much cheaper that way, building ships that do multiple roles without expensive pods that look to cost as much as a Defiant.

posted on October 25th, 2010, 11:09 pm

I never said 1 ship = extra pod.

Infact, I specificly stated on multiple posts  that the most common extra pod would be the tactical one (and only because in the dominion war, it was mass produced, before the war there would not be as many spares of it).

Simply put, for every 10 nebulas in a region, there'd be 2-3 extra pods, tops.


For the cost of building a defiant sized object, which is externaly powerd for the most part, you can take a ship nearly as big as a galaxy class and totaly change its mission capabilties.

Having the option for a few of your ships to spend a short time in dock and suddenly have  the ship do something totaly differnt is far from a waste, it means the same ship can do the duty of more than one.

posted on October 25th, 2010, 11:18 pm

I never said 1 ship = extra pod.

Infact, I specificly stated on multiple posts  that the most common extra pod would be the tactical one (and only because in the dominion war, it was mass produced, before the war there would not be as many spares of it).

Simply put, for every 10 nebulas in a region, there'd be 2-3 extra pods, tops.

It was an example; 1 Nebula + 1 pod = Construction cost/time roughly a third to a quater higher than a standard multi-purpose Nebula. The more pods per ship, the higher it would get compared to just the ship.

For the cost of building a defiant sized object, which is externaly powerd for the most part, you can take a ship nearly as big as a galaxy class and totaly change its mission capabilties.

Having the option for a few of your ships to spend a short time in dock and suddenly have  the ship do something totaly differnt is far from a waste, it means the same ship can do the duty of more than one.

What has 'external' power' got to do with the resources and materiels it's made of? Changing its role from one to another requires ripping out tech relating to one role and replacing it with another.

Nebulas can already do multiple tasks without new pods, since multi-purpose ships are the norm for 90% of Starfleet ships. The Nebula only makes up a fraction of the fleet, an expensive and time/space consuming storage isn't worth it since the pod can only be used on a fraction of the ships in the fleet.

posted on October 25th, 2010, 11:32 pm

It was an example; 1 Nebula + 1 pod = Construction cost/time roughly a third to a quater higher than a standard multi-purpose Nebula. The more pods per ship, the higher it would get compared to just the ship.
consuming storage isn't worth it since the pod can only be used on a fraction of the ships in the fleet.

Storage in space is pretty easy, as it's pretty empty.


As for pods per ship, for every 100 nebulas, there'd be proably no more than  25 unused pods, with halfish of those being refit.

You dont have one of each pod per ship, you just have a few extra pods stored at various starbases, incase they're needed.

posted on October 26th, 2010, 12:11 am

That's still the same as 25 Defiants, for a ship that doesn't even need them due to its multi-purpose design. A far more worthwhile purchase.

It's not canon, pointless and not even needed, but if you want to make your version work like that it's your choice. I don't think we'll ever agree on this...

posted on October 26th, 2010, 12:13 am

Like Tyler says they are never shown in canon to be replacable therefore anything else is just your opinion.

posted on October 26th, 2010, 4:35 am

Yeah, we agreed over that, now were just arguing logistics.

[Tyler]

posted on October 26th, 2010, 9:29 am

Last edited by Tyler on October 26th, 2010, 9:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

And however you look at it, stockpiling Defiant-sized pods (which need to be fully fitted to be worth it) on the off-chance of a ship of a single class uses it is inefficient. Nebula Class are not even close to the most common ships, probably with about 1 or 2 hundred out of the several thousand ships in Starfleet being that class, making the pods too limited in use to be worth it. They'd literaly be building pods for little purpose than gathering dust with resources better and refit time better spent on building a new Defiant.

Stockpiling small supplies like phasers, portable shield generators and other ground combat equiptment would be useful, that part I'm not disagreeing with, but building an entire section of a ship to replace an existing one for a mission-type would be too costly and time-consuming to be worth it.

Imagine the real-life Navy building duplicates of the entire foward section of a battleship with heavier guns, to be replaced whenever they needed a bit more muscle.

posted on October 26th, 2010, 9:32 am

how do you get the impression, such a pod is as costly as a Defiant?
take the tactical pod: a large steelframe with an efficient storage system, a couple torp launchers and some targetting systems... You may need some ladders and small tunnels where engineers can crouch through.
Now compare that to:
-Pulse weaponry
-A warp core
-A Full impulse drive
-Full corridors, a bridge, a board computer, a complete sensor system
-Quantum torp launchers
-A deflector
-A Full set of Equipment such as Phasers etc. for the crew
-Some kind of Emergency Energy and redundant systems, spare parts etc.
-All those nifty Extras: Shuttles, Mines, etc.

Yes, now that you state it... They should be about the same!!!!

posted on October 26th, 2010, 9:38 am

I never said it would cost the same, I said it's roughly the same size and the resources would be better spent on a Defiant.

Though the pod would require the same amount of metal and would need full corridors, rooms, be linked to the turbolift system, the enviromental system, computer system, ect.

posted on October 26th, 2010, 10:03 am

pretty much depends on the pod... I don't think, the tactical pod or the sensor pod really have full corridors/turbolifts etc. they will have some small entrances for engineers yet I can't think of any reason to have corridors in the tactical pod...
After all, it mainly consists of excessive torp storage, a torp launcher and targetting systems, thus it's the part of the ship which is most likely to be shot in combat. I just don't see any reason to put quarters there.
It may have some extra storage for other stuff than torps but In my Opinion, the quarters in the saucer section should be just fine...

Anyway, something speaking against the "modular" Idea is the fact, these pods are all attached in a diofferent manner.
If you watch the sensor attachment, it has 2 connections, while the tactical weapons pod has 1 big connection in the mid!
The Hospital/Colony Pods will probably have much more structure there to hold the bigger add on. Also there WILL be a need to have turbolifts etc. to these Installments, so, thats yet ANOTHER connection.
There are ways to handle this, but if I created a Modular construction, I'd make sure, all modules are connected in the same manner!

[Tyler]

posted on October 26th, 2010, 10:30 am

Last edited by Tyler on October 26th, 2010, 10:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

pretty much depends on the pod... I don't think, the tactical pod or the sensor pod really have full corridors/turbolifts etc. they will have some small entrances for engineers yet I can't think of any reason to have corridors in the tactical pod...
After all, it mainly consists of excessive torp storage, a torp launcher and targetting systems, thus it's the part of the ship which is most likely to be shot in combat. I just don't see any reason to put quarters there.
It may have some extra storage for other stuff than torps but In my Opinion, the quarters in the saucer section should be just fine...

Torpedo launchers and the torpedoes are placed in rooms that are designed for full access by crew, so fully-accessable rooms would be needed for that. Turbolifts would be used to travel from one edge or floor to the other (these things ain't small). Though the room in the Warp nacelles can be reached through jefferies tubes, so the structures might have their own small network of lifts or corridors.

Think Deck 15 on the Intrepid Class, but on a much larger scale. Since each Nebula is a seperate varient with no modular replacement, the pods would be accessed the same way as another deck or a nacelle.

Anyway, something speaking against the "modular" Idea is the fact, these pods are all attached in a diofferent manner.
If you watch the sensor attachment, it has 2 connections, while the tactical weapons pod has 1 big connection in the mid!
The Hospital/Colony Pods will probably have much more structure there to hold the bigger add on. Also there WILL be a need to have turbolifts etc. to these Installments, so, thats yet ANOTHER connection.
There are ways to handle this, but if I created a Modular construction, I'd make sure, all modules are connected in the same manner!

The structures on each Nebula class varient are connected differently but in the same place, with the Phoenix varient having a small stump beneath its pylon that resembles a small part of the single pylon the normal one has.

posted on October 26th, 2010, 3:04 pm

Interesting debate guys.

There are of course different kinds of efficiency to look at: the US does keep lots of modular equipment around, because we have a very high money-to-soldier ratio.  China on the other hand has more potential soldiers than they have funding to arm them, so it's more efficient for them to have specific-purpose equipment.  So the question is, does Starfleet have more building materials or people?

I think the answer is building materials.  In the ST universe you can set up industrial replicators and mine raw metals from random uninhabited lava worlds (or moons ) but no matter how many people are in your federation, you can only train so many of them each year.  Otherwise your training facilities will balloon out of control and be spread over such a large area that it's impossible to keep the training consistent.  They've got billions of civilians, so they want to make sure only the best get into starfleet, so they set up a difficult training system, which makes it impossible for them to graduate above a certain number of officers each year because of diminishing returns.

If you go with the assumption that Starfleet has more money than it has soldiers (including the fact that they can shift money away from their non-military fleets in times of war, but can't shift crew this way) then yes, it IS more efficient for them to use a modular design on their starships.  Compared to to an entire ship, each pod would be incredibly cheap to produce, in fact it would probably be more expensive to store than to build.  As a result they would keep very few of them on standby (maybe 10-20 for 100 nebulas) but it's a fundamentally good idea.

Heck, Voyager replicated an astrometrics bay; probably a station with industrial replicators could just BUILD a new pod in 1-2 weeks to a month.  In a universe where the time it takes to refit a ship is approaching the time it takes for the ship to travel 1/10 of the way across your territory, you can do all kinds of crazy stuff and have it work.

Now, should we do this in-game?  Absolutely not.  The nebula isn't a common enough ship to warrant that much attention.  The existence of the sensor neb and the torp neb are enough to let players know that this paradigm existed right before they cleanse the map of their enemies.  I like the idea of a ship that recrews allies (really only helpful for derelicts with damaged life support) but I think it shouldn't be a ship by itself.  Maybe give the newton this ability, or the existing sensor neb.  A full-blown hospital ship wouldn't respond to a battle in progress, they'd wait till it was over.

posted on October 26th, 2010, 3:56 pm

While the US may have some modular weapons systems none of them are for anything as big as a ship.  Even though in the feature such things are planned, they are for frigates/corvettes not heavy cruisers. Also its not like they are taking the superstructure off and attaching a new one, they are just removing a small portion of the ship and inserting a new one.

posted on October 26th, 2010, 4:03 pm

Weapons and weapon pylons, and guns and fighters(carrier) could be considered modular for current ships and large planes.

All of our current/past space ships have also been in one way or another modular.  Especially our space station and shuttle's rocket motor systems.