Galaxy Should be Buildable

posted on December 25th, 2011, 9:12 pm

A new design is just new tech in a different-shaped shell. Putting the new tech in a Galaxy (or any other ship of the same basic size) would be no different to the Sovereign. Built with the tech instead of a refit, I mean.

Since the look is just eye-candy, there's no real reason to change it.

posted on December 25th, 2011, 9:22 pm

A new design is just new tech in a different-shaped shell. Putting the new tech in a Galaxy (or any other ship of the same basic size) would be no different to the Sovereign. Built with the tech instead of a refit, I mean.

Since the look is just eye-candy, there's no real reason to change it.

On the contrary. Currently Taiwan is very uncomfortable because President Obama denied the sale of F-16 C/D. Obama did approve to sell/transfer technology to upgrade Taiwan's existing F-16 fleet to C/D standard so why is Taiwan in such a bad place right now.

Simple because the hulls of the F-16's in Taiwan's service are nearing their expected life cycle and the hulls are starting to show signs of stress.

It is this stress why older models of the F-15 in Japan's service were limited to low G-maneuvers following a crash.

It is save to assume that warp flight brings stress of its own and one thing is for sure: the Galaxy is starting to show its age.

[Tyler]

posted on December 25th, 2011, 9:27 pm

Last edited by Tyler on December 25th, 2011, 9:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Which doesn't mean anything, a ship built 2 days ago is 2 days old no matter how many years there have been others that have used the same look. A ship doesn't age a century the instant it leaves the yard just because it looks the same as one used 100 years ago.

posted on December 25th, 2011, 9:45 pm

Which doesn't mean anything, a ship built 2 days ago is 2 days old no matter how many years there have been others that have used the same look. A ship doesn't age a century the instant it leaves the yard just because it looks the same as one used 100 years ago.

That's true, but an old design stays an old design and it is likely that newer designs are better suited for new designed upgrades/technology and therefor it stands to reason that once a new design is introduced the production of the old design is discontinued.

posted on December 25th, 2011, 9:58 pm

But what how would a new look affect the tech?

I could imagine something more streamlined being a benefit for a ship going on planets, but the 'new look makes tech work better' logic on a ship not going on planets doesn't seem any different to painting flames on the side to make it go faster.

posted on December 25th, 2011, 10:01 pm

Maybe the newer designs are less damaging on space, like the Intrepid's variable-geometry nacelles supposedly are? Although I recall reading somewhere that Starfleet had solved the problem with it's warp drives and thus lifted the speed limit (although I'm not sure if that's canon or not lol...)

posted on December 25th, 2011, 10:14 pm

But what how would a new look affect the tech?

I could imagine something more streamlined being a benefit for a ship going on planets, but the 'new look makes tech work better' logic on a ship not going on planets doesn't seem any different to painting flames on the side to make it go faster.

I'm not saying "the look" makes any difference, but new systems may simply be incompatible with newer systems. To refit an old design to fit the newer technology would in some cases mean the whole internal infrastructure, every interface etc to be replaced which would not be very cost effective.

To avoid wasting resources in the aftermath of a war the new designs would get priority and production of the old designs would be discontinued.

posted on December 25th, 2011, 10:28 pm

Look the facts are simple. While any bean counter can argue that at some point old is just too old their is the practical mater of just how big (ie how many ships they need) StarFleet is.  The production staff set some very hard limits on just how fast starships are and FC set an on screen size of 8,000 lightyears to the Federation. If you do the math the absolute smallest force that could do SF's job is 24,000 hulls. that provides a dispersion of 3 ships per cubic lightyear of Federation space. If we take Registery numbers at face value then that seggest a force of around 70,000 hulls which still only provides a dispersion of roughly 8.6 ships per cubic lightyear. And these numbers are only current to FC. as the Federation grows in size many more ships will be needed. I don't think Star Fleet can afford to decomission all that many starships.

posted on December 25th, 2011, 10:35 pm

I'm not saying "the look" makes any difference, but new systems may simply be incompatible with newer systems. To refit an old design to fit the newer technology would in some cases mean the whole internal infrastructure, every interface etc to be replaced which would not be very cost effective.

To avoid wasting resources in the aftermath of a war the new designs would get priority and production of the old designs would be discontinued.

Seems to have been a misunderstanding... I'm talking about building new ships with the same exterior appearance, not a refit of an existing ship.

Built with the tech instead of a refit, I mean.

I can see what you mean about refitting already existing ahips only working for so long, though.

posted on December 25th, 2011, 10:43 pm

Seems to have been a misunderstanding... I'm talking about building new ships with the same exterior appearance, not a refit of an existing ship.

So you mean a replica?

Sounds interesting, but it feels wrong for a shipt that's either still in production or still in service.

posted on December 25th, 2011, 11:16 pm

I say we scrap every Galaxy and sell the tritanium to the Ferengi. That way the thread would have a real injustice to protest, as opposed to the imagined ones.

posted on December 26th, 2011, 7:08 am

In what way are registry numbers inconsistant exactly.  Any close look shows that registries appear to flow in a fairly chronilogical order.

This one I'd need to do a bit of digging to find examples of clear contradiction and not just the general idea (fairly certain I've heard it stated on here as well as on Ex Astris Scientia), but off the top of my head I do know that the USS Reliant's registry number was chosen just to be a particular year for a Moby Dick reference.

Anything is possible.

Exactly, which means we should stikk to the more probable scenarios. Akiras and Steamies being older than Galaxy class does not seem probable given their design asthetics. Maybe they weren't part of a separate design era, but they almost certainly weren't pre-Galaxy.

There is another explanation. Starfleet has always been charged with the security of the Federation. The TV shows consintrated heavily on the Exploration side of Starfleet before FC. It is also just as likely the these classes belong the the Military side of StarFleet  and would therfore be more likly to be encounered in situations like the Domminion war and the FC battle. It also appears that the Fleet had more time to form up for the FC battle then it did for Wolf 359. The Typhon fleet also seems to have drawn ships from a larger pool since Defiant had time to get there from DS9.

Note that Wolf 359 was near the Federation's capital. I find it hard to believe they had all their military ships off somewhere while the exploration vessels were literally as far away as they could possibly be from where exploration can happen.
Consistently thruout TNG, we saw things like Nebula classes and Excelsiors. The tachyon net fleet used against the Romulans surely would hav had up to date ships, but there were no Akiras there that I saw.

You think phasers are the only hardware that needs to be cooled down?

The closer a conduite is to the surface of the ship the more heavily it needs to be shielded. More ship means more mass to vaporise to get to the EPS conduites.  The EPS system is going to have surge protecters and circiut breakers to prevent cascade failures just like any real world power grides. A bigger system can handle more juice so it also means better surge protection.

Whether phasers are the only thing needing cooling or not is irrelevant. The relevant thing is whether their cooling systems need to take up huge areas relative to what they cool.

Vaporise mass to get to EPS conduits? Hav you ever actually watched Trek? They took EPS damage with shields fully up, and with no loss of hull on multiple occasions.
Real world power systems are much more secure than anything on Star Trek (don't believe me? count the number of times your keyboard literally exploded and injured or killed someone, compare with the command consoles (nothing but big specialized keyboards really) on the bridge of an Enterprise.) Did the technical manual say there are surge protectors? I would think there would be very few surges reaching the bridge of a large vs a small ship with such protection (note the Voyager vs. Ent-D issue I raised before about how they both got a lot of EPS problems.)
More conduits does mean more load potential, but you'd need more cores for that or you're just not utilizing each conduit fully. So maybe, if we decide to cram each ship full of power cores and conduits as well, and the systems to utilize that power (phasers especially), we'll get scaling power with size. But we won't, because cramming them that full of unused power just means the weapon systems explode at the drop of a hat when battle starts. TNG showed a ship do just that in one episode. Only one core is safe and is all that's really needed. That core scales with ship size, but only due to naturally higher power requirements. More than necessary and you end up blown to bits.

posted on December 26th, 2011, 7:13 am

Seems to have been a misunderstanding... I'm talking about building new ships with the same exterior appearance, not a refit of an existing ship.

Guess what? That's not a Galaxy class! It would be pointless anyways, since the shape itself causes problems with resource cost. A lot of the colors would be wrong too...

posted on December 26th, 2011, 8:33 am

Dude I admire your enthusiasum but it is clear you are not reall open to the possibilty that you might be wrong.

This one I'd need to do a bit of digging to find examples of clear contradiction and not just the general idea (fairly certain I've heard it stated on here as well as on Ex Astris Scientia), but off the top of my head I do know that the USS Reliant's registry number was chosen just to be a particular year for a Moby Dick reference.

Really what refference? The book was published in 1851 and it was not written about a 'future' event.

As for the rest I'm not even waisting my time. 

posted on December 26th, 2011, 2:31 pm

On the contrary. Currently Taiwan is very uncomfortable because President Obama denied the sale of F-16 C/D. Obama did approve to sell/transfer technology to upgrade Taiwan's existing F-16 fleet to C/D standard so why is Taiwan in such a bad place right now.

Simple because the hulls of the F-16's in Taiwan's service are nearing their expected life cycle and the hulls are starting to show signs of stress.

It is this stress why older models of the F-15 in Japan's service were limited to low G-maneuvers following a crash.

It is save to assume that warp flight brings stress of its own and one thing is for sure: the Galaxy is starting to show its age.

Oh dear seriously..... now your comparing 20th century fighter jets to a 24th century space ships and technology ..... made of completely different materials and dont have shields.

Oh then there's the fact that ships in startrek regularly get hull upgrades to not only fix damage ect but also to reduce incoming damage. Fighter jets are made of titanium and other metals like steal and aluminum ect which are made to protect it from in atmosphere type degradation and some weapons fire, space ships are made so they can be protected from the harshness of SPACE and much more modern weapons and they also have shields you cant seriously start comparing those kinds of technology to make any sort of valid point.