So, basically, the Defiant from Deep Space Nine? Or the perimeter action ships from the FRS corner of the universe. either way, works for me and wish we'd seen more of its like on-screen.
Refit Dreadnought.... Question?
- Thread starter KirkTrekModeler
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So, basically, the Defiant from Deep Space Nine? Or the perimeter action ships from the FRS corner of the universe. either way, works for me and wish we'd seen more of its like on-screen.
^ Is that expressly what "ablative armor" means? I was wondering if maybe it could imply that the Federation was investing its time and effort into newer hull technologies/materials that would simply be more impervious to incoming weapons fire than traditional hull would be. (Maybe developed from the Kalandans' diburnium-osmium alloy or something like that.)
Kinda - I used the tops of two Reliants for this:
http://www.inpayne.com/models/kitbash/trekpage_lion.html
Schematic:
http://www.inpayne.com/models/wallpapers/wallpapers-1920/wallpaper-jep-1920-021.jpg
Would be funny if it only has one bathroom.
^ And it's waaaaaay at the back, like a jet.
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Since the Dreadnought is of the Frans Joseph Universe I wish cautiously float an opinion which may not fly here. I'll base my comments in SFB fleet management since it is platformed on the back of FJ. Since the FJ dreadnought was the pinnacle of non-X class technology, when the X-class technology was rolled out in the TMP refit the dreadnoughts were deemed to new and too expensive to be worthy of the X-class upgrade. ( But the DN hull still saw the DN+ and the DNG upgrade to address it's initial design shortfalls.. ) With the X-class technology making old cruisers more powerful to where a Fed CA now with the warp and weapon's amplification now can match a dreadnought and smaller ships can now deliver the same performance. In other words old worn out hulls the Star Fleet can afford to gamble with on an experimental refit will get the upgrade while top of the line risky to gamble with reliable front line status would not.
I'm of the opinion that the FJ Dreadnought would not be upgraded due to the expense of upgrading the most valuable expensive hull class when the next marginally smaller new class with newer technology can match the capability of the Fed DN. Newer is cheaper to build for the capability than totally overhauling a top of the line in service unit while on active duty that would not match the capability of the newer X-class technology for the capital expenditure. One less sentry guarding the front line if you do, and a whole lot more expensive if you do exercise the option. Double loss. FWIW...
I'm of the opinion that the FJ Dreadnought would not be upgraded due to the expense of upgrading the most valuable expensive hull class when the next marginally smaller new class with newer technology can match the capability of the Fed DN. Newer is cheaper to build for the capability than totally overhauling a top of the line in service unit while on active duty that would not match the capability of the newer X-class technology for the capital expenditure. One less sentry guarding the front line if you do, and a whole lot more expensive if you do exercise the option. Double loss. FWIW...
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Actually, what you are saying is a very logical approach that fits well with STAR TREK cannon. In TMP, the refit Enterprise was called "an almost entirely new" ship. Years later, the new NX-2000 Excelsior was called "the Great Experiment". If upgrading to a heavier platform with more bulk, weapons, and nacelles was the answer to bolstering the Federation fleet militarily, why wouldn't the new Enterprise or Excelsior adopt the dreadnought philosophy... unless the refit Enterprise and NX-2000 Excelsior were the virtual dreadnoughts of their respective days in the first place?
I'm not dismissing the possibility of the Federation deploying a limited-production warships, but if Sisko's Defiant is any indication, a Federation warship of the TMP/pre-TNG era would likely be a relatively small, simpler design. So maybe the Federation's idea of a battlewagon would be more like a suped-up destroyer-like ship. (Kirov with armor?)
Well yes in a nutshell. What I laid out boils down to being more efficient with less. It does not necessarily follow that it would lead to bigger, but fielding such smaller ship in the face of an opponent's bigger damage sponge ship, they would need to bulk them out to absorb more damage and to take the greater stress the stronger engines would place on the hull. Having a more compact hull with engines up against the hull.....with the newer stronger engines would be smart for hull strength( if a stronger warp field up against the ship doesn't fry everyone on board first...) , but would kill you in a more sluggish turn mode in the tradeoff due to less leverage the engines would have on the hull. (downside....less tactical maneuverability...bad news in a close in toe to toe knife fight...downside you have to burn way more power to keep parity in manuveurability in a close in fight....not smart with larger hulls that are more sluggish....) Compact would be the way to go with maxed out shield capabilties. But to cram that much more power int oa hull means you have to compromise and going up in size in that early an era is gonna be near impossible to avoid. So your idea of a Kirov would be feasible if it weren't for the fact that at looking at the picture it would most likely also not qualify for the upgrade due to it sporting the DN secondary hull which kicks it up into a larger size class which would disqualify it as a DN hull. ( Although it more qualifies as a Fed CVA / CS strike carrier with a smaller power curve since it lacks the 3rd warp engine. ) The Kirov pictured here is pretty but would most likely be passed on the upgrade due to being too big and being too valuable unit to pull out of service for the upgrade. That is why ( I believe ) the in the FJ SFB universe the Fed BCH and variants ( New Jersey, Montana, Kirov, Shri Lanka, etc.... ) filled the vacuum of the lack of DN's and CVA's till the cheaper CX conversion came online in the TMP refit. ( CX<DN cost )
Whereas the Fed CA to CX TMP conversion is flirting with that sort of upgrade, the Excelsior is out of the box bigger and designed to dish and take more than the CX frame plussed out could. THe Excelsior would more qualify SUPERCEDING a true FJ dreadnought in size and in power despite a smaller size ship with the newer technology could match parity with a DN which would be less. Or in simpler terms....a Excelsior is > CX upgrade due to the disporportionate leap of superiority designed / built into it from the start. ( a simple force multiplier scale for comparison.....CA=1, BCH= 1.4 DN=1.5, CX=1.75, 2nd gen CXX+ tech{ Excelsior}=2.75 )
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Whereas the Fed CA to CX TMP conversion is flirting with that sort of upgrade, the Excelsior is out of the box bigger and designed to dish and take more than the CX frame plussed out could. THe Excelsior would more qualify SUPERCEDING a true FJ dreadnought in size and in power despite a smaller size ship with the newer technology could match parity with a DN which would be less. Or in simpler terms....a Excelsior is > CX upgrade due to the disporportionate leap of superiority designed / built into it from the start. ( a simple force multiplier scale for comparison.....CA=1, BCH= 1.4 DN=1.5, CX=1.75, 2nd gen CXX+ tech{ Excelsior}=2.75 )
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I'll throw in another of my own tech notions from 20 years ago to further complicate the picture. I used to participate in a postal-mail-based fandom tech- and art-based roundtable back before the internet was available for the masses. (Imagine that!)
The rounded Federation nacelles on the TOS era (which fandom since labeled PB-32 "circumfirential" warp drive) was the "original", basic subspace warp technology that any FTL spacefaring civilization in the TOS Universe would be expected to use. In my TOS-derived "worldview" that I submitted to the roundtable, this classic warp technology used a single set of coils in each of the ship's two warp nacelles to form the warp-field, enabling "third-power" FTL velocities per warp factor.
But the Klingons developed a more elaborate technology, using rectangular nacelles with smaller, more compact coils arranged in two sets per nacelle. What fannon called "linear warp drive" arose from a crude Klingon attempt to get two sets of warp fields to intersect on the axis of motion, producing "fourth power" FTL velocities. The Federation saw the strategic potential and tried in haste to catch up with the Klingons, and ultimately both powers perfected linear warp drive. So when the refit Enterprise finally got over its wormhole problems and get underway at Warp 7, Linear Warp 7 would be seven times faster than the older single-subspace Warp 7 seen in TOS. (This also explains Picard's four-nacelle Stargazer, if we assume that each pod has only one set of coils.)
Transwarp was attempted with Excelsior, trying to use three sets of coils per nacelle to produce a "fifth-power" stardrive, but balancing the three sets of coils proved to be beyond Federation engineering abilities. So Excelsior wound up being just a newer, improved generation of super-heavy cruiser with "fourth power" linear warp drive.
The mathematics of it would be that even though a TOS-era Connie could strain itself to sprint at Warp 8 and risk explosion to go Warp 14.1, a linear-warp-driven refit of the same ship could cruise on by at Linear Warp 5 or sprint at Warp 7.3.
So the technology in the nacelles, borrowed from the Klingons, was the real "arms race" in the TMP era. The key was getting more FTL speed per warp factor, rather than more nacelles for higher warp speeds.
The rounded Federation nacelles on the TOS era (which fandom since labeled PB-32 "circumfirential" warp drive) was the "original", basic subspace warp technology that any FTL spacefaring civilization in the TOS Universe would be expected to use. In my TOS-derived "worldview" that I submitted to the roundtable, this classic warp technology used a single set of coils in each of the ship's two warp nacelles to form the warp-field, enabling "third-power" FTL velocities per warp factor.
But the Klingons developed a more elaborate technology, using rectangular nacelles with smaller, more compact coils arranged in two sets per nacelle. What fannon called "linear warp drive" arose from a crude Klingon attempt to get two sets of warp fields to intersect on the axis of motion, producing "fourth power" FTL velocities. The Federation saw the strategic potential and tried in haste to catch up with the Klingons, and ultimately both powers perfected linear warp drive. So when the refit Enterprise finally got over its wormhole problems and get underway at Warp 7, Linear Warp 7 would be seven times faster than the older single-subspace Warp 7 seen in TOS. (This also explains Picard's four-nacelle Stargazer, if we assume that each pod has only one set of coils.)
Transwarp was attempted with Excelsior, trying to use three sets of coils per nacelle to produce a "fifth-power" stardrive, but balancing the three sets of coils proved to be beyond Federation engineering abilities. So Excelsior wound up being just a newer, improved generation of super-heavy cruiser with "fourth power" linear warp drive.
The mathematics of it would be that even though a TOS-era Connie could strain itself to sprint at Warp 8 and risk explosion to go Warp 14.1, a linear-warp-driven refit of the same ship could cruise on by at Linear Warp 5 or sprint at Warp 7.3.
So the technology in the nacelles, borrowed from the Klingons, was the real "arms race" in the TMP era. The key was getting more FTL speed per warp factor, rather than more nacelles for higher warp speeds.
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Awesome, and entertaining. Great ideas.
The artist who called himself justicar did some toolkits with a flatter version of the octagonal saucer that seemed more streamlined. Instead of having the flat face forward, having a pointy end leading would also round that Diane Carey design out more. Having a photon torpedo pay at each facet might not be a bad thing--perfect for firing arcs in games.
Now Aridas version was just the TMP saucer on a Balson class secondary hull--a bit longer than the standard probert secondary hull. A nice side view of the Balson secondary hull with nacelles omitted for clarity would be nice. I've seen those on toolkits but Aridas version is a bit less flat on the bottom.
