Fed Module Debate

posted on October 27th, 2010, 1:28 am

Hmm, I'd say that the Nebula is modular to the extent that they can change the pods, but it's likely the kind of operation which requires a full spacedock or ship yard and a good week. And it's likely that such changes are only made in circumstances that warrant it, most likely in situations where there is experimental testing going on, or where a very specific, very specialized set of equipment is required. I doubt Star Fleet keeps even small piles of pods kicking around but rather makes changes on an as-needed basis. It would certainly be easy enough for even a smaller starbase to replicate all the parts for a single pod. They assemble it prior to the vessel's arrival and then do the refit when it arrives.

Now it is conceivable that the pods have some kind of clamp system, especially since some, if not all, Federation ships have detachable nacelles as a safety precaution. However, this seems like the less likely case; more probable that the spaceframe is designed such that there is a joint where one section can be detached with relative ease and another put in its place.

posted on October 27th, 2010, 1:46 am

I like that explenation the best. If the pod is too badly damaged or they might change it for war. Also i doubt that they keep any around its more like build one if you need it.

[Tok`ra]

posted on October 27th, 2010, 2:24 am

Last edited by Tok`ra on October 27th, 2010, 2:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

the monsoon kinda looks like this. maybe a monsoon could have a sensor pod on top lol. give it extended sensor range, but no torp special.

I'm pretty sure that the only of the dome types to appear on TV (USS Pheonix) had a photon.

Yeah, though modular pods would be cool, it would be inefficient to build all the pods, store them, and only use some.

Even more inefficient to build a whole ship for a mission profile that doesnt happen often, but when it happens you need all of the specialty ships possible.

Lets say all pods cost the same.

Lets further say that of a complete nebula, the pod is 20% of the cost.


That means that for every five pods of a seldom used mission profile built, you get FIVE ships for the price of one.

Admittedly, it'd be realistic to think that each pod type would be different in costs in resources and manpower, however the more expensive a pod type is ....... it's still cheaper than building a whole ship for that purpose, instead you have the Nebula class thats capable of pretty much everything, a job needs doing, a nebula goes to wherever the depot for the pod is, swaps, and is ready to go within a day or so

Examples of important, but likely seldom used, pod types:

First of all: We only 100% know of three pod types. The Pheonix style saucer type pod, the triangle shape pod used for basicly all of the others seen, and the USS Melborne with the two extra mini warp nacelles (probably a high speed/duration courier/scout module). I'll assume that the hull shell of those two types servers as the exterior structure of other module types as well, with most pod types of further modularization for regular use (a general purpose pod type)

Medical: Lets say there was a disaster on some world Yeah, it's reasonable to assume that the Federation has hospital ships already, but as big as the Federation is they wouldnt always be able to respond. Yes, regular starships could assist, but a pod devoted wholy to medical care, staffed heavily (and no doubt drawing personnel from the immediate area arround the faculity/starbase/planet it was stored at) such a pod (a significant portion of the size of a galaxy class saucer, meaning it'd be one BIG hospital) could provide heavy relief. And as a side benefit, when not in need the pod is just popped, and the ship is able to do other jobs.

SWACS (the space version of AWACS): Simply put, a huge sensor. Obviously, any kind of science heavy mission capability gives the exploration side of starfleet wood, but tacticaly speaking this would also allow for a patrol to be more effective, due to having multiple uses amongmore than one of starfleets roles (exploration, science, AND defence) this pod would likley be one of the more common types.

Warp pods: USS Melbourne. Probably serves as a high warp courier/scout thats capable of high speed at sustained levels, which would make sense for a scout (get in, then out run/last the pursuit). I'd wager that aside from any one of experimental pods this would be the rarest.

People mover pod: Transport for new colonies, POW containment, troopship, anything that needs large numbers of people stored. Proably a big rectangle, with extra shuttle bays, and life support out the wazoo for moving large amounts of people.

Carrier: Giant hanger bay pod basicly, a pocket carrier, would also be able to fill other mission types were mass hanger space is needed, such as a planetry mass evacuation, or landing troops on a hostile planet, as well as support for disaster relief on a world.

General purpose: The 'standard' triangular pod type seed on the TV, quite probably modular itself for general use mission capability.

Combat: Some people treat the red points on the triangluer pod as torpedo ports, if so it could be capable of heavy probe use in peacetime.

Yeah, federation ships often seem to be 'dual use' in that they have a peacetime/wartime role, so all fed ships would be capable of doing a lot of these mission roles, that said using the nebula as a truck to haul the pod trailer would mean that with a few days prep time to swap pods and get running, a Nebula could equal a fleet of ships in things like emergency relief efforts, plus be able to defend itself from the average threat, especially if escorted.

The Nebula itself is the better part of the size of the Galaxy class. Acting essentially as a truck hauling around whatever mission payload it acts as, that'd mean in certain situations the pods would be an economical choice to a ship for that specefic purpose.

When it uses resourses for something that won't be used and just sits in a storage bay because it can only be used by a small fraction of the fleet when it could instead be put towards something useful (like an actual warship), then it's wasteful. Each pod has the same amount of hull/frame as a Defiant, which would be a wiser construction.

Nebula pod or Defiant; which would be more useful in a battle? Sabre, Norway, ect would also be a more useful alternative to a science ship with adittional weapons. Numbers are as important as weapons often, as is recon and border patrol.

Execpt Tyler, the Nebula existed before most of those vessels. Basicly, back in the pre-borg TNG era, starfleet was based heavily on multi-mission capability. Look at the Galaxy class as an example. This could be a logical outgrowth of that, a ship class capable of multiple SINGLE mission capabilities.

Add that to the fact that the Nebula class was seen a LOT more than the Galaxy class, and it'd really make sense, as we see a trend of each flagship class having a smaller utility ship type with similar design thruout trek. Connie/Miranda, the Miranda is a Connie saucer with extra superstructure built on it.

Excelsior/Centaur , of course we know next to nothing of the latter of the two in this case.

The Ambasador comes during a period of mostly peace aside from border skirmishes (Tzinki, Cardies, and on the offical charts both are much smaller than the Federation) so odds are Excelsior type2 production likely continued instead.

Then when newer designs are coming that eventualy become the Galaxy class, the idea is had for ships going more modular, this produces the Galaxy class eventualy, but before then the Nebula class comes, and the saucer sep type tech that later was used on the Galaxy class gets put to use and likely perfected in the pod's seperation ability, coming to the point of not needing a base even in the Galaxy class.

Then the Dominion shows up, and at that point ships capable of doing a little of everything and a lot of combat become what matters again.

Then the Galaxy type comes,


bah.... I keep typing slowly a little at a time and folks post more..... :p

Hmm, I'd say that the Nebula is modular to the extent that they can change the pods, but it's likely the kind of operation which requires a full spacedock or ship yard and a good week. And it's likely that such changes are only made in circumstances that warrant it, most likely in situations where there is experimental testing going on, or where a very specific, very specialized set of equipment is required. I doubt Star Fleet keeps even small piles of pods kicking around but rather makes changes on an as-needed basis.

Indeed, however I imagine the main limiting factor is crew. Lets assume it uses an older version of the saucer sep the Galaxy has (likley it'd be upgraded however). That'd mean the neck for the pod is basicly a big trailer mount, and in an emergency (IE: Medical/evacuation) any starship that could respond, would, and the nebula would go grab the needed pod type and at that point would have the effect of dozens of starships, pretty sure I remember mentioned at least once that ships can hold 10x+ their crew for evacuations for short periods before the life support systems were overwhelmed. A nebula pod desigend as a mass people mover would be more than capable of evacuating many many times any dozen starships overloaded like that, and NOT need to worry about overloading life support.

and like ive said already why have pods for the nebula class if they are not replacable? just seems silly to not have them b interchangable

and i just thought of something i dont think the contruction of a pod would take long (no warp core and such) to build so maybe they could be built on demand so u wouldnt have to store them yay   Cheesy

Exactly Facist. They would mostly use 'basic' systems, with the bullk of the pod being easily replicated. with most of the resource cost being in adding in the 'finishing touches' for the pods purpose.

and like ive said no point in building a ship with different modules if the modules arent replacable thats silly and makes no sense

You're not entirely correct there, the Galaxy is quite modular. In a few TNG episodes, Picard mentions they're offloading science modules and such. The thing is, thats small scale limited use, they're going to hang out for a while somewere were something can be studied, they install a mission pod, assign a few crew, and study it.

The Nebulas mission pods however are the opposite of that. Yeah, good chance theres a 'standard' pod that does multi-mission stuff, but if something specefic needs doing....... they swap pods.

posted on October 27th, 2010, 2:30 am

tok'ra I agree with ya, but that wall of text could sink the titanic.  The thread needs to rest now.

posted on October 27th, 2010, 5:08 am

I think people are forgetting Starfleet's design philosophies.

Method #1 - 'Explorer'.  This ship can kick butt, take names, scan the names for subspace resonance, analyze the resonance, and host a Bar Mitzvah.

Method #2 - 'Specialist'  This ship does a specific job.  Hospital ship, tug, etc.  However, it also has at least passable weapons and shields, and the ability to do many other tasks, just not nearly as well as it's real role.

Method #3 - 'Warship'  A rare thing until the Borg and the Dominion war, this ship kills things.  It also tends to mount scientific equipment, recreational facilities, and at least moderate deep-space capabilities, making it able to double as an Explorer, if slightly less scientist, and more warrior.

Honestly, the detachable pods thing doesn't match any of those philosophies.  Now, I COULD see the pods as being something that they build a pile of at one yard, while another yard builds the rest of the ship.  Modular construction, allowing them to build a large ship in a mid-sized yard, so the big yards can focus on things like Galaxy and Sovereign hulls.  And with a modular construction design, you could develop multiple types of 'pod' allowing you to keep the stardrive assembly line producing the same thing for more effecient construction (no need to retool or retrain at any point).  The downside being that the ship would remain inferior to normal designs, though easier to get into large-scale production.

posted on October 27th, 2010, 7:01 am

I think I'll give my bonus points to the pro-modular group.  There are romulan refits that are at least as costly as plunking on a pod, if not more, and one of the strongest counter-arguments seems to be that it isn't canon, which is irrelevant considering that neither is Fleet Ops.  So ha!  Until I see
"STAR TREK XX:  Attack Of The Noxter!"  Well, you get the idea... 
-Oh, and it's expensive?  That's what mining is for.  People will pay for something if they want it. 
-Oh, it's just redundant?  You don't know a damned thing about the military.  Spare parts and maintenance plans easily and often end up costing more than whatever is being purchased.  Keeping your equipment current and functioning is 'kinda' important.

Therefore, since no strongevidence was presented "in the show" to either degree, this leaves us with breathing room for our own possibilities.  Let a pod-less Neb warp in!  Let adding a pod be expensive, but still leave the default ship with a unique ability or two! (Just like a Generix!)

Rough example?  Sure:  Upon Veterancy, no-pod Nebula Acquires "Fleet Operations" command pod, with a slew of those synergy thingies or something...  Either that or a couple of quantum pulse cannons.  There's lots of room for consideration, and it gives you more fleet variety.  Especially if the devs might sneak up on us with one or two more variants in the future.

posted on October 27th, 2010, 4:29 pm

Building slightly on some of Prof. J's comments, in universe, the Federation (or any race for that matter) doesn't really seem to care about "cost", even resource cost since they can replicate everything. This means they could take a pile of garbage "reverse replicate" it back into raw matter and then turn it back out as a shinny new, preformed piece of duranium. Additionally, since the Federation can make synthetic dilithium, they don't really have a dependency on mining and can make as much as they need, presumably from replicated raw materials. Thus the only real "costs" for the Federation is time, man power, and energy which they have plenty of.

As for redundancy, we know that ships carry mountains of spare parts or can replicate what they need; and starbases obviously store mountains of parts as well, particularly large parts which a starship couldn't carry or even replace without proper facilities. In fact you kind of get the feeling that starbases might even have a couple of warp cores on hand. And also on the side of redundancy is the fact that most systems on a starship have at least one, if not two or three backup systems. I highly doubt that the Federation is worried about "costs" or redundancy or space efficiency; starbases are monstrous, they're like cities, they can take whole starships inside of them, storage space is not an issue.

posted on October 27th, 2010, 5:30 pm

I'm pretty sure that the only of the dome types to appear on TV (USS Pheonix) had a photon.

sabre class fired photons too, do you really want sabres with photons? no of course not, we have to consider balance, most ships probably have torp launchers, but in game we have to ignore this sometime.

posted on October 27th, 2010, 5:44 pm

we could give them photons just for looks.   I am all for visual effects, as long as they don't cause lag.

posted on October 27th, 2010, 5:46 pm

we could give them photons just for looks.   I am all for visual effects, as long as they don't cause lag.

no thanks, the only time i would like sabres with torps is under the effect of the nova special fleet supply. since we saw the sabre using torps in a fleet.

posted on October 27th, 2010, 5:47 pm

That would be an interesting feature.  Maybe newtons should get them too.

posted on October 27th, 2010, 6:12 pm

nah they shouldnt even have a phaser.

posted on November 3rd, 2010, 6:54 am

sabre class fired photons too, do you really want sabres with photons? no of course not, we have to consider balance, most ships probably have torp launchers, but in game we have to ignore this sometime.

Indeed, it IS called balance.

Solution: Refire rate.

Smaller ships may do the same per SHOT damage with a torpedo, but they have 'smaller refire systems resulting in a lower rate of fire'.

Makes sense too, really, the bigger ships would have more room for systems to make chain firing a torpedo easy, while the smaller ships would have really small torpedo bays.

stuff

Exactly. The base model ship is build easily, and the pods are mass produced, as thy are essently just a shell that holds stuff, and can do stuff when plugged into a ship.

The pods contain the specialized mission kit, if a specialist mission is needed, either just have a nebula come in, swap a pod, go do it.

My guess is that even if we only see the triangular and circular pod (and the circular pod only once because TNGs graphics guys disliked the look of it so they poppde off the pod for a new one) there are a few more pod hull types, but the trangular pod is the 'standard' shell for a pod, with the pods themselves modular as well, to make refitting them easier as well. For average smaller missions, a ship may just have a few modules swapped out, but a major mission comes, and a pod swap can occur, especially if time is of the essence.And that was my whole arguement for the pods in relation to the dominion war that you proably saw a few folks call 'wasteful' (ignoring th efact that the federation can replicate most of the mass with ease), when if you think of it from a logistical prespective, having a ship that can stop a science or whatever mission, spend a day or two at a dock, and suddenly be a dedicated warship, all  thru simply swapping for a combat pod, that is the best of both worlds.

Also to add to the types of varriants you could add ingame....... (I mean as many refits as the roms get ........ ) .....a Nebula with a wider/taller triangular pod with a LOT of torpedo tubes, rapid firing photons with minimal tracking ability. Visualy it'd look awsome, it's a torpedo rain. Tacticaly ......... it'd be just as bad in most combat as the arty steamrunner, as it's torpedos chance to hit non-station targets would be pretty low.

posted on November 3rd, 2010, 11:37 am

Indeed, it IS called balance.

Solution: Refire rate.

Smaller ships may do the same per SHOT damage with a torpedo, but they have 'smaller refire systems resulting in a lower rate of fire'.

Makes sense too, really, the bigger ships would have more room for systems to make chain firing a torpedo easy, while the smaller ships would have really small torpedo bays.

makes sense in a tv show.

does not make sense in a game.

in a tv show: loads of pew pew is good

in a game: whats the point of cosmetic weapons that do nothing? they just make the fps lower. the sabre does so little damage that to give it torps with the same dps the weapons would do practically no damage. the sabre doesnt need torps. not every fed ship needs torps.

you gonna wait another week before replying lol, id nearly forgotten about this spam thread. spam spam spam.

posted on November 3rd, 2010, 10:10 pm

If it were up to me, all fed photons of the same type would do teh same damage, like in that KA2 mod.