Starship Prometheus

[SpyOne]

Sojourner, i think your overestimating the amount of maintenance the Prometheus will need. Sure it's maintenance will be higher than normal for a ship it size, but I'm pretty sure that is not a big problem. I hope we all are thinking the bulk of the maintenance on the Prometheus will be due to it's MVAM. I don't really see that as a problem as starfleet clearly make it a practice to use predictive maintenance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_maintenance). I don't imagine that MVAM will be used very often, so there is no real need to do constant maintenance on it. That would just be a waste of time and labour.

Around here we have a highway tunnel under a river that has watertight doors in case the river floods: if the water rises high enough to flood the tunnel, they close the doors and wait for the flood to subside.
They would check the motor that moves the doors to make sure it was working a couple of times a year (maintenance on that motor), but decided not to check the actual doors themselves since doing so would require closing the tunnel to traffic for about an hour.
A few years ago we had a hurricane hit us, and the guys who were sent to close that door discovered that the door would not set into position properly because some of the parts were jammed with decades of grit. They kept trying, and nearly lost their lives trying to get that door closed (they were rescued, but the current swept their truck down into the tunnel). It took weeks to pump the water out, then to clean the debris and check for damage.

Any system that has moving parts needs maintenance, whether it is being used or not. Often not being used is worse than being used, as it lets little problems turn into big ones without being noticed.

I agree that a science ship will have a different crew than a warfighter, but that all balances out: the Prometheus probably carries the same crew compliment as any ship of similar size with a similar role. And the same crew could be distributed among three smaller ships, either each capable of all the same mission or separated into specialist ships. The reason to build the bigger ship is that it costs less, and does some things more efficiently. But if you build a big ship that can split into three (which is the same as three small ships that can merge into one), it not only doesn't cost less, it costs more. You need to derive a major benefit to make it worthwhile.

And I did not mean to suggest that I thought that only one section of the Prometheus carried crew. Others had expressed that possibility, and I agree it is possible. I wanted to point out that it changes nothing: the ship needs the crew it needs, and it doesn't matter to the overall ship if all of their quarters are in one place or not.

 

[Timo]

One might argue that the Prometheus was built in three parts (original Paramount ideas went up to five!) almost solely because she was supposed to fight as a "swarm" of drones, under remote control. The overseer crew would control the battle from the lightly armed and propelled central section, leaving the two larger sections with their bigger engines to do the actual fighting without risking human(oid) lives.

If the ship indeed is this specialized, it probably follows that maintenance needs are greatly reduced: there are no five-year missions, probably not even two-week ones, because the ship can do nothing else but drone-fight. The great speed is an important factor there, allowing the ship to reach the battle sites even though never engaging in "patrols". She'd instead sit moored to a starbase pier for 98% of the time, her drone components being supervised by starbase personnel.

This interpretation would fit several aspects of the ship: the demonstrated ability to fight with minimal or zero crew, the demonstrated willingness of Starfleet to test the apparently quite operational ship with minimal crew, the demonstrated lack of people trained to operate the ship in the sense of flying her (only four of them in the entire Starfleet!), and the imbalance between two badass sections and one wimpy one.

The areas where the fit is less than perfect? Well, the ship has lots and lots of portholes, for no good reason if only four people are expected to be aboard, all of them crewing bridge stations. But we could argue that the ship normally fights with four crew, yet can carry hundreds of passengers/troops in atypical (but still short-duration) missions.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SpyOne]

The problem with that is that there is no reason why the merged ship would be faster than the individual components, so there is no reason for the swarm of drones to dock with the mothership.
Unless there is an advantage to merging I haven't thought of. As I said above, the only advantage I can see is the ability to cover large distances more quickly than a normal ship.

It is (deliberately) vague how much maintenance the warp engines need, but as I said if you include the comments in the DS9 Tech Manual, apparently even "sustainable cruising" speed requires one hour of maintenance for every two hours of use, and the maximum continuous use before maintenance is something under 8 months. The higher sprint speeds can only be maintained for short periods (generally 12 or 24 hours), and one would assume they require longer periods of maintenance (or they'd just sprint-and-park and save time).
A Galaxy Class ship covers about 2.6 lightyears sprinting at warp 9.6 for 12 hours. At normal cruise it could cover that distance in 14 hours. That is not a big deal.
But if you take a faster ship, like Voyager .... Voyager cruises at 9.75 and sprints at 9.975. According to the warp calculator I found at http://www.ussdragonstar.com/utilitycore/warpspeeds.asp, which may or may not be accurate, that means Voyager can sprint in 12 hours a distance (8.3 lightyears) it would normally take 30 hours to cover. If it were possible for the ship to sprint again within 18 hours, there would be little point in using "cruising" speed at all*. So we have to assume that sprinting takes a toll on the engines, and requires a lot of downtime to fix.

But, like I said, even cruising speed requires that the engines be taken offline after a while. Suppose it is every two weeks: after 2 weeks of continuous use, the engines have to be shut down for a week. At warp 9.75, that's about 100 lightyears. So a ship could cover 90-100 lightyears in 2 weeks, but 110 lightyears would take at least 3 weeks, due to the need to shut down for maintenance. Covering 150 lightyears would take a month. But a ship with 2 warp cores and 4 nacelles could cover that distance (150 lightyears) in just 3 weeks. But if you reduce its cruising speed to 9.6, it is now only the same speed as the conventional ship.

I suspect that Starfleet ships can go for more than two weeks between shutdowns, but it did seem like Geordi took every opportunity to do a little work on the engines, so maybe not.

* Unless you happen to be Voyager, as it is established that higher speeds use more fuel per distance.

 

[Deks]

I don't really find it convincing the Warp engines would have to be turned off for maintenance for a week after a short period of use.
That just strikes me as an inefficient design ... especially since these ships were meant for continuous use/warp travel in deep space for months or years.

Look at the NX-01 itself ... 200 years before the Intrepid or Prometheus.
It was flying at Warp 4.5 toward the Delphic Expanse for 7 weeks. Just over a month and a half at it's 'top cruising speed' (which was maximum sustainable speed for the ship at the time so it doesn't get torn apart).

'Top cruising speed' for Voyager was stated to be 9.975.
This indicates, the ship would be able to travel continuously for long periods of time under such speeds.
The only thing that comes to mind would essentially be that the ship has to slow down to lower Warp speeds so maintenance could be conducted on the go (and we've seen it done several times on-screen), not stopping altogether.

I also recall Voyager was operating for just over 6 years in the D.Q. before setting down on a planet and conducted ship-wide repairs/refits ('Nightingale' episode).
The crew essentially conducted their own major refit cycle for the ship ... although it was probably about a year overdue already (which the dialogue indicated).

The writers usually messed things up with top cruising speeds, and maximum sustainable speeds.
In Voyager's case, they messed it up even further because they wanted to convey a message that the ship was stranded decades from home (and they had to rewrite the Warp scale again for that to be effective).

 

[Timo]

The problem with that is that there is no reason why the merged ship would be faster than the individual components, so there is no reason for the swarm of drones to dock with the mothership.

Hmh? It sounds perfectly reasonable to me that the combat drones would have nice, big warp engines that would drag along the command section which only needs midget ones.

The combined ship isn't any faster or slower than an individual droneship. But combined flight gives the command section a free ride to the combat area, and combined flight allows the maintenance-wise rather helpless drones to be tended to until they are called to action.

Furthermore, the configuration of the Prometheus eliminates the need for a separate propulsive section that would drag the drones to the battle zone; it's nicer to have proper warp drives on the drones themselves, since warp sometimes is an asset in combat (in TOS, it always was).

(My angle here is that the droneship concept is already a sufficient reason for the fancy multicomponent system, and there is no need to demand any sort of "superior performance" from that system with regard to propulsion, defense, offense, endurance or anything else. It suffices that the multicomponent design keeps live people out of harm's way in space combat, while still featuring a manned control component just in case.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SpyOne]

I don't really find it convincing the Warp engines would have to be turned off for maintenance for a week after a short period of use.

Well, note that it doesn't have to be very short.
Using Voyager's 9.75 cruising speed and that pesky comment that no ship has covered 1000 lightyears in a year, and .... Voyager could cruise for 21 weeks out of the year. But apparently Voyager needs about 3 hours of downtime for every 2 in operation.

Now, note that Voyager doesn't spend all of its time at warp. One can assume that any time they are orbiting a planet, some of the engineers are taking things apart and cleaning them.
Yes, she set down for some major work on a planet once, but more routine stuff was being done all the time.
If you accept that bit from the DS9 technical manual, you are left with two alternatives: either Starfleet has no ships that are designed to remain at warp for more than several months, or such ships are much slower than the ships we have seen. I have no problem with either, really. Yes, the Galaxy Class carries enough fuel for three years, but I don't think that means the engines were designed to run continuously for three years: modern nuclear powerplants have enough fuel to run for years, but are still shut down periodically to do maintenance on the various parts. For example, they might have three steam turbines to generate power: periodically one is shut down for work. The goal is to never have to shut them all down at once, but ... most starships don't have more than one warp drive, so they have to shut it down when it needs any work that can't be done while it is running.

So the NX-01 could run for 7 weeks. All that proves is that the amount of time after which the engines would have to be shut down was more than 7 weeks. (It doesn't actually prove even that: perhaps the dialog reference was glossing over brief periods at impulse for maintenance). And one might presume that future ships can do better.
Well, they probably can. As I said, the upper limit for the Galaxy Glass appears to be about 8 months. That's 8 months at continuous warp. Further, there is every indication that going faster makes the shutdown periods more frequent and longer, suggesting that if it kept the speed below Warp 8, a ship in the TNG era might be able to run indefinitely.

In Voyager's case, they messed it up even further because they wanted to convey a message that the ship was stranded decades from home (and they had to rewrite the Warp scale again for that to be effective).

Actually, that's the one thing they usually got right: At the top speed she could maintain for more than a day, she was something like 28 years from home, and I believe they always gave numbers bigger than that. The problem comes with that comment from the DS9 Tech Manual, which puts Voyager at least 70 years from home at the start.

 

[SpyOne]

It sounds perfectly reasonable to me that the combat drones would have nice, big warp engines that would drag along the command section which only needs midget ones.

That has some merit. It does mean that in a battle at warp, the command section would fall behind the other sections, but it fits what we saw pretty well: the section that has crew has tiny nacelles.
I do wonder a bit about tractor beams, though: we have seen it is possible to tow a ship at warp, so is there a need for a physical connection? Or rather, is a physical connection better than tractor beam towing? Yeah, it probably is (tractor beams use power, can be disrupted intentionally or by natural phenomena, ... wasn't there something about tractor beams and shields?).

On maintenance: I can beam people over to do maintenance on the drones. We don't need to be physically connected.

My angle here is (was) that if I am positing warp capable drones capable of interstellar travel, is there any reason they need to be in physical contact with another ship ever? And if mating two ships together adds complexity to both ships (docking parts, maintenance on those parts, all that), then there has to be an advantage to doing it or it isn't worthwhile to build in the capability.
So the droneship idea isn't enough, because that works just fine if we send the commandship and the drones out separately. (Except for your idea that it allows the warp drive in the command ship to be smaller and weaker, since the drones can tow it to battle. Not sure that's worth it, but at least it would work.)

 

[Timo]

On maintenance: I can beam people over to do maintenance on the drones. We don't need to be physically connected.

I guess a physical connection would still be easier and more secure - plus it would facilitate sharing of other resources besides manpower. Secure dataways, power loops, perhaps even life support so that the drones wouldn't need proper life sustaining gear, just something to keep the maintenance crews alive on attached mode.

In terms of dramatic analogues, the past naval wars are rife with examples of "motherships" sending "special craft" to perform specific missions - typically amphibious assault. Those missions where the landing craft were towed tended to end in disaster; those where the mothership carried the mission craft on her deck had better odds of success, both in delivery and recovery.

Similarly, drones are often used in minesweeping and minehunting; those setups where the drones initially ride on the control vessel are operationally preferable to those where the drones have to propel themselves. And this is an interesting application in that the control craft in minesweeping often has to do with substandard engines because the acoustic and magnetic signature of proper engines would trigger the mines - but the droneships can have more substantial engines since they are expected to trigger the mines anyway, although preferably at a distance. In theory, then, the drones could propel themselves, but the logistics still favor stowing them away for transit.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[USS Jack Riley]

I agree that you could treat the separated sections as drones. Similar to UAVs today. I just read an article that posited a scenario in which an F-35 pilot has 3 armed UAVs and the pilot orders the UAVs to attack specific secondary targets (or radar installations that may detect the F-35) leaving the pilot free to go after the main target.

On maintenance: I can beam people over to do maintenance on the drones. We don't need to be physically connected.

Why do you need people to beam over and do the maintenance? Wasn't there an episode of Voyager that had the EMH visiting his maker and the maker lamenting that the EMH's particular program was a failure (but hinted that later versions were okay)? He said that the failed EMHs were now relegated to mining operations where it was too dangerous for humans to work. Why can't Star Fleet program the holographic crew to engage in maintenance and repairs. After all, while in combat, the crew is going to need to make repairs on the fly.

 

[Timo]

That was actually SpyOne commenting...

I'd argue that the Prometheus drones would still require human attention in case the holo-mechanics broke down - but certainly the ship is explicitly equipped with holo-emitters throughout the ship, unlike, say, the E-D or the Voyager.

As for combat repairs, the rationale of drone use would probably be that Starfleet would skimp on survivability of the ship (i.e. the ability to shrug off battle damage) since this would allow them to improve survivability of the personnel (i.e. no live repair personnel aboard). The two drones of the ship wouldn't be "expendable" or "cheaply replaced" or anything, but it's quite possible their survivability would be reduced. Whether holoworkers would be used as a compromise... Is unknown. But certainly it sounds like those would be needed if the ship only has four live crew members!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Badger]

I'm still not convinced as to the validity of the design, but there have been some interesting supporting arguments over these last few pages.

An idea came to me last night as to why Star Fleet 'needs' multi vector attack mode. Suppose that, following the M-5 debacle (The Ultimate Computer, TOS), fleet command decreed that no combat vessel should ever be placed completely under autonomous control. In this case the 'drone' sections of the Prometheus are an attempt to bypass the regulations. Rather than being starships themselves, they are officially considered to be components of a much larger vessel.

 

[Timo]

Quite an interesting idea! Not only would the Prometheus be a secret weapon to be kept hidden from foreign powers, but also a shady project not to be exposed to the UFP public, at least not without putting a proper spin to the ship's defining qualities...

That would certainly explain why the Voyager crew would be ill informed on the existence of this starship, even though they were just half a decade out of synch with UFP and Starfleet research. (Of course, it could be that Janeway and Tuvok and Kim and Paris knew and only the Doctor didn't, but the Doctor has shown surprising knowledge of Starfleet facts at other times.)

It would also explain why only four people were suitably trained for this ship type even though an actual spaceframe had already been built, fully equipped and launched. The ship appeared to require four operators; surely Starfleet would train at least forty initially, so that they could be rotated through the test flight program or whatever. Unless there was a good reason to keep very low profile...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SpyOne]

In terms of dramatic analogues, the past naval wars are rife with examples of "motherships" sending "special craft" to perform specific missions - typically amphibious assault. Those missions where the landing craft were towed tended to end in disaster; those where the mothership carried the mission craft on her deck had better odds of success, both in delivery and recovery.

I had actually thought of that as an example of a situation where there is advantage in the "merger": landing craft are too small for the open ocaen, and can't carry enough fuel for long journeys, and the landing ships that carry them can't get close enough to shore. The big ship could not do the job alone, and neither could the little ships.
If the landing craft were able to safely cross the ocean under their own power, the landing ship that carries them becomes less useful.
Similarly with modern drones: they do not carry enough fuel (or batteries or whatever) to operate for long periods, and the ship that carries them burns almost no extra fuel for having them aboard. If the drone were the size of a destroyer, I doubt they'd be designing a gigantic ship to carry it.

On maintenance: I can beam people over to do maintenance on the drones. We don't need to be physically connected.

Why do you need people to beam over and do the maintenance? (snip) Why can't Star Fleet program the holographic crew to engage in maintenance and repairs.

They could. I was trying not to bring new elements into the discussion: since there is no evidence that Starfleet has used holographic engineers, this could rapidly turn into a discussion of whether or not they could, or should. I'd be happy to have that discussion (and in fact did, over in Trek lit in a thread about the EMH MkXI), but here is not the place: the only known holographic crewman on the Prometheus is the EMH.

 

[Timo]

Actually, I'd think the optimal way to provide the ship with a holographic crew would be to omit the humanoid shapes altogether. Those are only needed for the EMH, who must appear friendly and reassuring to the patient.

The holographic engineering crew would probably consist of wrenches spinning through empty air on their way to a rendezvous with nuts and bolts; stretches of pipe that materialize where the all-important GNDN line has just burst; and assorted boxes flying in formation with the wrenches so that they can deliver items that are difficult to replicate on the spot or to simulate with forcefields, such as the rodinium-duranium pipe for that temporarily holo-repaired GNDN line. There would be no arms, legs or heads in the mix, as those would only get in the way of the repairs...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DonIago]

In the future, Starflet vessels will simply be collections of holoemitters!

 

[USS Jack Riley]

Timo - Sorry about the mistaken attribution. It was a quote within a quote. completely my mistake.