PIC S3 Ships & Tech
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For my part, I don't consider it a huge weakness if the average "line" ship used by the major powers is supposed to have enough weaponry to devastate a planet, even if the ship isn't designed for tactical specialities. If that power range is accurate, then the bridge isn't going to be inherently safer if it's buried deeper in the ship. The weapons will still do a ton of damage if the shields are offline.
That's why Ablative Hull Armor Panels are the default external hull armor on top of regular Hull.
And during my era, Multiple Seperate Layers of Quickly regenerating energy shields are standard.
The Skeleton Structure of the StarShip should be coated with a Neutronium Alloy for strength so that it's not as likely to buckle or be destroyed under heavy fire. (Neutronium is still very resource expensive to manufacture, you can't replicate it, you can only formulate it and manufacture it, so sparing use of it in only critical systems).
And ST:VOY End Games "Ablative Hull Generator" should be standard on top of having normal shields and Ablative Hull Armor Panels.
You pass through Multi-Layer Shields, great, we can re-replicate extra Hull Armor as needed and wait for shields to quickly recharge.
I'd rather turn every battle into a long war of attrition. If you fight my version of StarFleet, be ready for a multi-hour to multi-day war against every single one of my StarShips.
If you thought "Iron-Man" matches in wrestling was long, be pre-pared for Marathon like Wars for Ship-to-Ship combat.
Yup. Don't tell me that the nacelle struts can be very thin because of "space age materials that are 'super strong'" and then complain about thin necks. It's completely inconsistent in terms of presentation. The Bridge on top is nonsensical. Fix that in Star Trek and then complain about the various structures and styles of various starships.
Because if the argument for variety is different impact on warp geometry then why not create the most efficient design for the job and go with 6 types of ships, tops.
I'd also venture that putting the starship's antimatter supply at the very opposite of the bridge right at the bottom of the ship is equally nonsensical. I'd want that stuff not immediately next to the hull. Never mind whaling on the bridge, a few good shots to a starship's ventral engineering hull would leave them in serious trouble...
This is very true. Look at modern aircraft – there's a great convergence of design based around specific requirements (passengers, military fighters, cargo, etc) with modified versions of standard planes available for specific tasks (e.g. the SOFIA observatory). In comparison starship design is like something out of Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines.
Well, there are different economics at play here. Over the years we've seen the occasional article hyping some sort of new aircraft design that could revolutionize air travel - Boeing's Sonic Cruiser, assorted flying wing designs, and even the really-this-time Boom Supersonic craft that evolves the now-classic Concorde-age look. Some of these fail due to insufficient technological advances, but some would never fly (sic) because it would be too expensive to develop, or it would be too expensive to redevelop airport infrastructure to accept wildly different plane shapes. Look at the expensive boondoggle that was the A380, where airports had to build new gates to accommodate a double-decker plane, only to have the plane itself flop in the market and leave airports (and other supporting infrastructure) holding the bill for a fleet of planes that won't be large enough or fly often enough to justify the expense.
Compare this to post-scarcity Starfleet, which is limited perhaps only in raw materials, but which otherwise has relative carte-blanche to try all sorts of variations and new ideas. Perhaps this ethos was relatively limited until recently, and we come back to stuff like the Dominion War and the loss of Utopia Planitia to spur a new wave of innovation, including revised and improved construction techniques. The number of new designs per era will ebb and flow accordingly depending on politics and resources, but in Trek's utopian thinking, it will not likely be restrained by a lack of imagination.
Mark
Compare this to post-scarcity Starfleet, which is limited perhaps only in raw materials, but which otherwise has relative carte-blanche to try all sorts of variations and new ideas. Perhaps this ethos was relatively limited until recently, and we come back to stuff like the Dominion War and the loss of Utopia Planitia to spur a new wave of innovation, including revised and improved construction techniques. The number of new designs per era will ebb and flow accordingly depending on politics and resources, but in Trek's utopian thinking, it will not likely be restrained by a lack of imagination.
Mark
To use a non-Trek example, Battletech has a range of more advanced materials for having better internal structure or armor, but they all have relative strengths and weaknesses on top of higher cost and availability being potential hurdles. An endo steel IS effectively halves the amount of weight of a chassis while not limiting the amount of space it can mount, but at the cost of being bulkier. It also requires a zero-g environment to produce, which made it an early lost technology during the Succession Wars.
Ferro-fibrous armor is likewise bulkier to mount but uses fewer tons spread out to provide a similar rate of protection. A number of variations exist, some more useful than others. One variant, laser-reflective (glazed) armor, was originally the result of an accident on a batch of standard FF armor that resulted in it gaining much higher protection against energy based weapons. The downside is that it's also notably more brittle and vulnerable to ballistic and physical weapons.
Extra light (XL engines) save space by making their protective shields thinner than a standard engine, which means they can keep the basic performance intact. But the thinning also makes them more vulnerable to critical hits or ammunition explosions, and some pilots are uncomfortable with the potential loss of safety.
Ferro-fibrous armor is likewise bulkier to mount but uses fewer tons spread out to provide a similar rate of protection. A number of variations exist, some more useful than others. One variant, laser-reflective (glazed) armor, was originally the result of an accident on a batch of standard FF armor that resulted in it gaining much higher protection against energy based weapons. The downside is that it's also notably more brittle and vulnerable to ballistic and physical weapons.
Extra light (XL engines) save space by making their protective shields thinner than a standard engine, which means they can keep the basic performance intact. But the thinning also makes them more vulnerable to critical hits or ammunition explosions, and some pilots are uncomfortable with the potential loss of safety.
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On this point I completely agree, which is why terms like "efficiency" or "practicality" in terms of Starfleet's design choices carry little weight with me. They are not operating in the same type of economy as the current world, which I think is by design. So, we cannot approach it from the same scarcity limitations of today because that's not the rules. The Federation is governed by bettering themselves and humanity, which I would imagine would invite multiple types of designers and engineers to craft different ship types for production based upon current Federation need or interest. So, if they want to retire a frame after 10 years? Go for it. Break it down and make the newest model. It's a nonissue.
I spent a good part of my day at work editing deep water fish for a graphic project. This started me thinking about Trek ship designs- a lot of variety in configurations to do essentially the same task. While some designs are more efficient in certain ways, there are a lot of different ways to achieve the desired result.
Personally I like a ship design to make sense as to why it is different (ie the Miranda class having greater hangar facilities and a swappable dorsal equipment pod), but Trek now has so many new ship designs which do not seem to make much sense aside from just being cool looking.
I have come to accept these by thinking about them more like the diversity of ocean fish.
Bridge modules are the after the fact justification for a early decision to have it a readily obvious location for the viewer, but we have seen in the movies and different series what a direct target it can be and shields do not make it totally safe in an exposed position. The NuBSG did it right to bury it deep in the hull of the Galactica.
Just my 2¢
Personally I like a ship design to make sense as to why it is different (ie the Miranda class having greater hangar facilities and a swappable dorsal equipment pod), but Trek now has so many new ship designs which do not seem to make much sense aside from just being cool looking.
I have come to accept these by thinking about them more like the diversity of ocean fish.
Bridge modules are the after the fact justification for a early decision to have it a readily obvious location for the viewer, but we have seen in the movies and different series what a direct target it can be and shields do not make it totally safe in an exposed position. The NuBSG did it right to bury it deep in the hull of the Galactica.
Just my 2¢
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It's possible there are more factors than we see in-universe. For instance, let's say that different shapes and alloys for warp coils affect how they channel power, and whether they're most efficient at certain speeds or accelerations, or the precise shape of the warp field, and that in turn influences the ideal shape or size of the ship they're mounted to. Fish probably aren't a bad metaphor. There are a lot of ways to get around underwater, and there are also some successful strategies that can be arrived at independently (the broad wings in the back, long neck in the front design could be the whales and dolphins of the spaceways).
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I'm signing off for a bit to avoid spoilers until I can watch the finale tomorrow night, but here are a couple parting notes:
- From the sneak peak scene and the trailer, it seems Geordi has not kowtowed to certain upgrades of the Galaxy-class starship in the interim - namely, how the CG Galaxies on DS9 and Voyager typically had their saucer impulse engines lit. Or they weren’t restored after the crash - perhaps they were ejected on entry, damaged when the secondary hull blew, or something else. Of course, we know they aren’t strictly necessary for the Big D to fly or fight.
- The Enterprise-F bridge not only put Shelby on a custom pedestal, but her flanking chairs were actually replaced by two freestanding consoles placed slightly forward of her position. It’s the ensigns stationed there that turned to attack her.
- The Enterprise-F does NOT recycle the captain's chair from the Titan set though, giving Shelby what looks like a pretty normal executive chair (you can see the spring assembly underneath it), possibly with some LCARS panels pasted on the armrests. She's manipulating a control at some point, but we don't see a panel per se, so the actor could simply be pressing the top of the armrest.
- In the Ready Room this week, Wil Wheaton reveals that he had a certain pattern of actions that he used to set course and speed from the helm of the Enterprise-D. I happened to be re-watching "Loud as a Whisper" this week (we started a rewatch of TNG just as Picard S3 was beginning) and lo and behold, Wesley does exactly as Wil said he did. <3
Mark
- From the sneak peak scene and the trailer, it seems Geordi has not kowtowed to certain upgrades of the Galaxy-class starship in the interim - namely, how the CG Galaxies on DS9 and Voyager typically had their saucer impulse engines lit. Or they weren’t restored after the crash - perhaps they were ejected on entry, damaged when the secondary hull blew, or something else. Of course, we know they aren’t strictly necessary for the Big D to fly or fight.
- The Enterprise-F bridge not only put Shelby on a custom pedestal, but her flanking chairs were actually replaced by two freestanding consoles placed slightly forward of her position. It’s the ensigns stationed there that turned to attack her.
- The Enterprise-F does NOT recycle the captain's chair from the Titan set though, giving Shelby what looks like a pretty normal executive chair (you can see the spring assembly underneath it), possibly with some LCARS panels pasted on the armrests. She's manipulating a control at some point, but we don't see a panel per se, so the actor could simply be pressing the top of the armrest.
- In the Ready Room this week, Wil Wheaton reveals that he had a certain pattern of actions that he used to set course and speed from the helm of the Enterprise-D. I happened to be re-watching "Loud as a Whisper" this week (we started a rewatch of TNG just as Picard S3 was beginning) and lo and behold, Wesley does exactly as Wil said he did. <3
Mark
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So what do we call the next show that has the new crew of the USS Enterprise-G?
To two names, I’d say.
I doubt they’re going to have two concurrently running shows with a ship named Enterprise. Despite what looks suspiciously like the setup for a new show, I don’t think it’s gonna happen, unless they decide to end SNW after the second season.
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