"A dedicated science vessal can do more..."

[BlastHardcheese]

I saw this line being thrown out in TNG quite often. The Enterprise discovers an amazing new region of space/planet/life form/entity/etc and Picard decides that a "dedicated science vessel" would be able to exploit this potential for study better than the big E can.

Why? The Galaxy class like the Constitution before it are primarily exploratory ships. I've read numerous references to them both having a plethora of dedicated science labs which are not seen on alien ships of equivalent size class.

I always thought the Galaxy class was an attempt to take science class ships like the Oberth and put their facilities into a heavy cruiser that could defend itself and explore for long duration missions.

In the TNG time period, the Galaxy class is never considered a dedicated warship. I was always under the impression she supposed to be a dedicated exploratory science vessel.

 

[SoM]

The E-D was a jack-of-all-trades, but over and above the question of facilities is the question of time - does Starfleet want to commit the E-D to survey X for six weeks, six months, or even six years or more, when a smaller vessel could do what the E-D could do in terms of studying X, but - unlike the E-D - not go to the borders of the Neutral Zone when the Romulans were making threatening noises to "show the flag". It makes more sense for the E-D to do a short initial survey on discovery, and then send a smaller, dedicated vessel to do the lengthy follow-up.

In other words, it's not just about what a Galaxy-class could do, but what a smaller science vessel couldn't.

 

[BlastHardcheese]

You make a good point. However the science division of Starfleet must really get the shaft in that respect when they're stuck performing scientific study cooped up in ships as small as the Oberth or Nova class! It's no wonder that Saavik jumped at the chance of beaming down to an environmentally hostile planet.

 

[SoM]

Not really - take a look at the Defiant-class to see that the crew of a dedicated warship gets it worse, if anything. Since a dedicated vessel doesn't need as much space (freighters excepted) or as many crew just by the nature of being a single-use type (if a Galaxy is going to be both a Nova and a Defiant, it needs everything both have - more, even, to incorporate other potential missions) they're automatically going to be smaller.

 

[BlastHardcheese]

(if a Galaxy is going to be both a Nova and a Defiant, it needs everything both have - more, even, to incorporate other potential missions) they're automatically going to be smaller.

Speaking of which, I thought it would be a smart move to have Galaxy class saucers refitted with defiant sized ships docked underneath them like the captain's yacht instead of (or in addition to) saucer separation for battle strategy.

I've seen from on screen experience that fighters are relatively useless against dedicated light warships in the trekverse so a docked attack craft might be quite useful on a refit Galaxy class. Even a stripped down non(or barely) warp capable attack craft with Defiant class weaponry would've been brilliant to aid in defense. Or keep it as it warp capable defiant class so that it could carry the saucer at warp speed too.

 

[Vanyel]

Speaking of which, I thought it would be a smart move to have Galaxy class saucers refitted with defiant sized ships docked underneath them like the captain's yacht instead of (or in addition to) saucer separation for battle strategy.

Interesting idea. I can see the about three Defiants in a battle refit Galaxy. Each in a drop bay (port, foreword, starboard) on the ventral section of the saucer. A battle refit Galaxy, with a bit of internal modification to a accommodate the Defiants, could do that.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

I think that since Star Trek II, when they made the Enterprise seem more militaristic and ships like the Grissom seemed to be only dedicated for science and exploration; They seem to forgot that the Enterprise was a vessel designed predominantly for peaceful space-exploration complete with a great deal of laboratories, probes, and scientific resources, with the ability to kick ass and take names if it had to as good as any dedicated cruiser.


CuttingEdge100

 

[BlastHardcheese]

Interesting idea. I can see the about three Defiants in a battle refit Galaxy. Each in a drop bay (port, foreword, starboard) on the ventral section of the saucer. A battle refit Galaxy, with a bit of internal modification to a accommodate the Defiants, could do that.

Now that you put it that way, it sounds a little fanboyish and silly. Starships are expensive to build and maintain, and three Defiants attached to a Galaxy would be expensive as hell, to say nothing of the increased mass to the carrier ship. That would just slow the whole ship down.

I imagined a single defiant class attached like the intrepid class aeroshuttle under the saucer with its own warp core and engines that could supplement the main warp drive and power systems, but also detach and operate independently or remain within the saucer and warp the saucer out of the battle zone, detach and come back to assist the stardrive section.

It could even have extensions to its torpedo tubes that run through the saucer interior allowing it to fire torps while docked so that the Galaxy would have two extra forward facing tubes in docked mode.

 

[Vanyel]

Interesting idea. I can see the about three Defiants in a battle refit Galaxy. Each in a drop bay (port, foreword, starboard) on the ventral section of the saucer. A battle refit Galaxy, with a bit of internal modification to a accommodate the Defiants, could do that.

Now that you put it that way, it sounds a little fanboyish and silly. Starships are expensive to build and maintain, and three Defiants attached to a Galaxy would be expensive as hell, to say nothing of the increased mass to the carrier ship. That would just slow the whole ship down.

I imagined a single defiant class attached like the intrepid class aeroshuttle under the saucer with its own warp core and engines that could supplement the main warp drive and power systems, but also detach and operate independently or remain within the saucer and warp the saucer out of the battle zone, detach and come back to assist the stardrive section.

It could even have extensions to its torpedo tubes that run through the saucer interior allowing it to fire torps while docked so that the Galaxy would have two extra forward facing tubes in docked mode.

"Fanboyish"? More than likely. "Silly"? I don't think so. The Galaxy's have a higher top speed than a Defiant. They could make a good way to deliver more ships to a battle.

Just a thought.

 

[B.J.]

Actually, Probert's original notion for the ship separation involved a huge "D" shaped craft lifting out of the top of the saucer and going to fight the battles while the rest of the ship stayed safe. So, not *that* fanboyish afterall. See this page for some of his concept art on that.

 

[BlastHardcheese]

Actually, Probert's original notion for the ship separation involved a huge "D" shaped craft lifting out of the top of the saucer and going to fight the battles while the rest of the ship stayed safe. So, not *that* fanboyish afterall. See this page for some of his concept art on that.

That's what I was thinking of when I imagined a Defiant themed assault ship to aid in battle. If I really wanted to get fanboyish and overcomplicated I could imagine one of those AGT superlasers integrated into the saucer and powered by the Defiant's warp engine when docked. So when the ship was fully docked together it would have immense 1v1 firepower but could also separate much like a Prometheus.

 

[Santaman]

^^ Needlessly complicated, just add the weapons of a few Defiants to the saucer, room plenty inside it to add a lot more stuff as well since 30% of it is empty.

A far better idea would just do away with the sauser entirely and use the material to make a few battle sections, with a few modifications to the design it could be a really nasty combat oriented vessel.

As for the Defiant class herself, nice for its size but not that powerful all in all, it can't keep up with the big boys and hardly is able to beat a refit Excelsior...
I just don't get the fanboy pooha about it since a Galaxy or Nebula would make short process of it.

 

[kv1at3485]

A far better idea would just do away with the sauser entirely and use the material to make a few battle sections, with a few modifications to the design it could be a really nasty combat oriented vessel.

An even better idea is just to stop building such gargantuan ships and get used to task forces of complementing specialists.

Need for "science" capacity for something? Get together a bunch of smaller science ships. Need protection? Add a few dedicated warships to the mix. Going where the UFP has truly never gone before? I'm sure we can spare a few factory ships and tankers. Going to war? Mothball the science ships and free up personnel for dedicated warships.

 

[Deckerd]

Why were there never any small one-man fighter units? They were ubiquitous in SW and BSG (and others). The first time I recall ever seeing fighters was at the very end of DS9.

 

[Santaman]

Enterprise D isn't really that large a ship for what its supposed to do and you will need a gargantuan fleet of specialised ships to cater to whats needed at a certain time so in this case a few big ones might be far more economical not to mention safe a hell of a lot of manpower and time.

A large size is also an advantage in battle, if I blow a 20x20 meter hole right through the saucer of the Ent D or do the same with the Defiant will make a heck of a difference in case of the Ent D Laforge would be annoyed and start plugging the hole, as for the Defiant, I guess you'll be looking for a new one..

 

[Timo]

One might also bring forth the Trek fact that only big ships can be fast and long-ranged. Small ships (from the same technological generation) suffer from low top speed and probably from low cruising speed as well.

Hence, a fleet of small ships cannot do the same job as one larger vessel. OTOH, it becomes quite practical, then, to scout out the unknown with huge explorers, and then send slow and small science "barracks" to support longterm studies if anything interesting is found at location X.

It might also be practical to haul those "barracks" to location X aboard a big and fast mothership, but we seldom see this happen. Similarly, it might be practical to deploy small fighting units to the battlefield aboard a large carrier vessel - but there we run into a different set of limitations. Apparently, very small fighting units are worthless because they don't possess the threshold strength to do harm to their biggers. Trek "fighters" are not analogous to aircraft armed with hard-hitting antiship missiles. They are analogous to sailing-era gunboats, with significantly smaller and fewer guns than the large sailing ships, and without any sort of superweapon that could do serious damage to a large ship.

Whether it would make sense to deliver medium warships to the battlesite aboard a large and fast carrier (say, this Galaxy-docked Defiant) is debatable. Perhaps Starfleet tried something like that with the Prometheus class, which has the engines and speed of a large vessel, but fights as three small vessels, at least one of which seems patently incapable of high warp speeds when flying solo. We don't know if they were satisfied with the results or not. Certainly they don't seem to have found satisfactory the idea of a dedicated carrier vessel before the late 24th century, since none have been seen in action.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Santaman]

One might also bring forth the Trek fact that only big ships can be fast and long-ranged. Small ships (from the same technological generation) suffer from low top speed and probably from low cruising speed as well.

What do you consider to be a small ship?
I'm asking because for some reason I always assumed that the Oberth must have been a very fast vessel.

 

[Romulan_spy]

I suspect that the dedicated science ships probably have better and specialized scientific equipment like sensors. A science ship can have the very best of every possible scientific instrument whereas an explorer like the Ent-D would need to have a little bit of everything (sensors, labs, weapons etc). Also, science ships would probably have the right personnel too, people that are more experts in each field. A ship like the Ent-D probably has some good experts but maybe not the very best in a particular field. So if you want to do a special, in-depth study of something, a science ship would have the right kind of equipment and people for the task.

 

[The Badger]

Why were there never any small one-man fighter units? They were ubiquitous in SW and BSG (and others). The first time I recall ever seeing fighters was at the very end of DS9.

It might be that they've only recently developed technology small enough to fit in a fighter yet capable of having a significant combat effect.

 

[Longinus]

Not to mention that fighters are death traps. One half decent phaser blast from any capital ship and the fighter is gone. Sure you could attempt to overwhelm a capital ship with so many fighters that it would have no time to blast them all, but that would be little consolidation if you were a pilot of one of those several fighters that were destroyed. It just doesn't seem like a position the Federation would like to put their personnel into.