Topic: Star Fleet's Earlier Dreadnaughts and Battleships.

[Panzergranate]

There are lots of references, models, books, literatures and diagrams of Federation cruisers, destroyers, frigates, corvettes, etc. from the very beginnings of the United Federation of Planets BUT aparently Star Fleet had no dreadnaughts or battleships before the Federation class dreadnaught or Mars class battleships entered service.

Bearing in mind the hostile nature of some of the neighbours (Klingons, Romulans, Kzinti, etc.) plus other unknown possible threats, it appears that Star Fleet was hoping that, with fingers crossed, the various cruisers, destroyers and frigates that passed through service in the fleet, would be sufficient for defence.

It appears that in Fannon starship design, nobody has picked up on, say what a Federation dreadnaught or battleship from, say, 2220 or 2230 would look like.

There are plenty of online designs and renditions, in CAD, online and in books for TMP dreadnaughts and battlesships but nothing pre-TOS.

For the early 2200's pre-TOS the largest starship appears to be the Moskva class heavy cruiser, which is larger than a Constitution class, and pretty well armed for its time. It is more of a battlecruiser than a heavy cruiser.

So how abouts we all pool our modelling tallents and fill in this deficiency in Star Fleet's history.

Imagine that, given any Star Fleet pre-TOS time period, you were commisioned to design a new dreadnaught or battle ship using only the existing technology and doctorines of that period. Constrained to using the warp engines, impulse drives, weapons technology, design doctorines and other technological, and maybe budget, restrictions that would be imposed on the designers at that particular time in Federation history.

Such vessels would be unique one off prestige starships with obvious dip[lomatic, political and deterent values to Star Fleet. They would also be costly projects that the Federation council would have to approve and monitor.
`
If somebody is looking for a modelling project then this is a good direction.

[TAnimaL]

I know you're talking about a modelling project, which I much applaud, but to me, what goes in the ship/game is of much importance. What is an "early DN?" Ironically, I've been looking over the Early era in the last few weeks for a personal project, so I have some "data" to share on this matter....

Since SFC is based on SFB I think it only fair to "return to the source" for some of this. True, when the rules were first developed (I bought my first rulebook in 1979), there were no DNs or BBs prior to the General War (about 2268 to 2284 in SFC years). For whatever reasons, when Taldren et al adapted SFB into SFC they maintained this status, but as the SFB game developed, some of these ships started being revised to earlier. Eventually SFB came out with several "Early Years" Modules which covered just what a pre-TOS DN or BB would look like for al the races.

It should be pointed out here that in SFB, "Early Years" means from 2100 to 2220. In SFC, the Early era is everything prior to 2263, but all of the Early ships in the shiplist are from 2220 on, no earlier.  SFB Early ships come in 3 flavors - very early "sublight rules" ships with lasers and crude missiles; "Warp-refitted" ships from 2160 to 2180 and the "Y" ships from about 2170 to 2220. It's the Y-ships that have been most developed in SFB, since they (mostly) use the same tech as "regular" SFB, with just less.

SFB further revised the Fed, Klink, Gorn and (Mirak) so that there were DNEs, DNs available in 2250.

Because SFB tends to generalize and give all the races very similar ships (something I personally disagree with), there are archetypes for these early ships:

• YDN (in fact, all Y ships) have a top speed of 24, so they have about 36 warp and 4 Impulse, no APR. They have about 10 phaser-2s (no P-1s), 2 or 3 heavy weapons (no Plasma S or F) and shields are about 75% regular DNs.
• DNE (which includes the "Fed DN" in EAW/OP) can hit top speeds (31) but have weapons more like a cruiser - 10 Phasers, 4 Photons only, using the Fed DN as an example. Per SFB, these ships should be available around 2250, Early SFC era instead of Middle era.
• DNL or Light Dreadnoughts were fielded early in the General War as raiding ships. They were an improvement over the first DNs but weren't worth building in great numbers

For what it's worth, I've just been putting the final touches on "my universe's" Battlestar, created at a lost human colony for the Early era. It uses the 1.25 movement cost and has only 30 warp, so it's top speed is 24, but I gave it 6 Impulse and 12 APR. Shields are cruiser-sized, but it has 20+ armor. It has 6 P-2 and 10 Phaser-G (For you SFBers out there, these are not "true" gatling phasers, but a sort of "close-in defense kinetic railgun" a la the re-imagined series). It has 4 disruptors, plus 2 "Heavy disruptors." (This is techinically a Advanced era weapon, but it uses the same damage chart as the "disruptor cannon" found in the SFB Early Years race the Carnivons, a dog-like race wiped out by the Lyrans/Mirak). If you do the math on this battlestar, it won't measure up to General War DNs but would be very deadly if it got to close range. Along with it's fighter complement, it will be a dangerous opponent in the Early era.

Again, I realize that you're asking for design ideas and I'm not the modeller I wish I was, but if you're looking for ship data, I have more than just this...


 

[FoaS_XC]

Guh! Threads like this make me wish I had more time!

[Starfox1701]

There are lots of references, models, books, literatures and diagrams of Federation cruisers, destroyers, frigates, corvettes, etc. from the very beginnings of the United Federation of Planets BUT aparently Star Fleet had no dreadnaughts or battleships before the Federation class dreadnaught or Mars class battleships entered service.

Bearing in mind the hostile nature of some of the neighbours (Klingons, Romulans, Kzinti, etc.) plus other unknown possible threats, it appears that Star Fleet was hoping that, with fingers crossed, the various cruisers, destroyers and frigates that passed through service in the fleet, would be sufficient for defence.

It appears that in Fannon starship design, nobody has picked up on, say what a Federation dreadnaught or battleship from, say, 2220 or 2230 would look like.

There are plenty of online designs and renditions, in CAD, online and in books for TMP dreadnaughts and battlesships but nothing pre-TOS.

For the early 2200's pre-TOS the largest starship appears to be the Moskva class heavy cruiser, which is larger than a Constitution class, and pretty well armed for its time. It is more of a battlecruiser than a heavy cruiser.

So how abouts we all pool our modelling tallents and fill in this deficiency in Star Fleet's history.

Imagine that, given any Star Fleet pre-TOS time period, you were commisioned to design a new dreadnaught or battle ship using only the existing technology and doctorines of that period. Constrained to using the warp engines, impulse drives, weapons technology, design doctorines and other technological, and maybe budget, restrictions that would be imposed on the designers at that particular time in Federation history.

Such vessels would be unique one off prestige starships with obvious dip[lomatic, political and deterent values to Star Fleet. They would also be costly projects that the Federation council would have to approve and monitor.
`
If somebody is looking for a modelling project then this is a good direction.

Check the Starfleet Museum. There you have 4 classes from that period

http://www.starfleet-museum.org/index.htm

You have Hyperion-in service 2194
http://www.starfleet-museum.org/hyperion-thomas2.jpg

http://www.starfleet-museum.org/hyperion-thomas1.jpg

Asia-in service 2195
http://www.starfleet-museum.org/asia-old-logo.jpg

Lancaster-in service 2205
http://www.starfleet-museum.org/lancaster-jan1.jpg

http://www.starfleet-museum.org/lancaster-thomas-ortho.jpg

and Quetzalcoatl-Class Semidreadnoughts-in service 2215
http://www.starfleet-museum.org/quetzalcoatl.jpg

http://www.starfleet-museum.org/quetzalcoatl-roberto-3.jpg

[Terradyhne]

take a Baton Rouge cruiser add a third nacelle tot the top of the saucer and add more weapons to it and you will have a pre TOS Fed Dreadnought or do the same to the Mann class and it has the same effect.

[Panzergranate]

After cross referencing in service dates for all the ships in the master ship tables of SFB Commander's Edition, it transpires that SFC year 0 is actually 2246 and not the rounded up 2250 reckoned on in the game.

The Lancaster class cruiser we already have in the "library" for LAN games here plus the Al Burak class carrier, though these were probally in Star Fleet service during the 4 years war.

The Hyperion was also a cruiser though more geared towards replacing the Daedalus class in exploration than as a warship.

We also have tried out fighting skirmishes from the Romulan war using the various models based on the Star Fleet Museum pictures. Apart from the fact that nobody has made a model of the Romulan Cabbage class starship, lets just say that battles happen at a more pedestrian pace, lots of slow moving Drone A missiles flying everywhere and shields, if your ship is lucky to have any, are so weak that they simply reduce the amount of damage incured from a hit. Formation firepower seems to be the main tactic.

Federation limited to Phaser 3, Drone A, Disrupter 1 (substitute for Particla Beam Cannons). Defences are Radio Polarised Hull Plates (Shield 1 all around) or Shields up to 5 points all around).

Romulans limited to Plasma F, Disrupter 1 (2 later), Drone A. Defences Ablative Armour and good ECM. Also long range sensor deception and maskerade (using LOD 2 and LOD 3 on models in the game).

We've also tried out skirmishes in the post Earth - Romulan War period between the other neighbouring races of the Romulans. The Klingon annexation war, which dragged on for more than 15 years, saw a pre-anti-matter war technology Klingon Empire attempt to take advantage of a perceived defeated and weakened Romulan Imperial Empire.... which was doomed to failure as the Romulans, whilst lacking numbers, still had a technological advantage in both ships, training and weaponry.

The Klingons also relied on Neutronic and Sub Atomic Impulse powered warp technology that was, by everyone else's standards, gas guzzly and short ranged. The Klingons had to set up tanker way stations weeks and months in advance before moving warships into an area, giving advance notice to the Romulans, that trouble would be arriving.

For this Klingons had only Disrupter 1, Photon torpedoes and Drone A. Romulans Plasma F, Disrupter 2 and Drone A.

Back to the subject in hand....

The Mann class is a light cruiser so fitting a 3rd engine would only increase warp power at the increase of movement cost. It also has the same limitation for direct fire weapons though I guess some science labs coud be ripped out and replace with missile racks.

The Moskva class, generally because of its size and the number of phaser hardpoints (check out the Star Fleet Museum diagram!!) would be the most suitable basis a design for of a dreadnaught of battleship with probally a large secondary hull design but keeping the same elipsoid.

I was thinking something along the lines of the USS Iron Duke, though that is a TOS design. 4 x engines on a hull with a Moskva, Lincoln or spherical command section. That would be good for 2200 though it would probally be a unique ship. Maybe call it the Mellenium class if it was in service in time for the start of the 23rd century in 2201.

Engines, for 2220 to 2240, are probally 12 boxes in power, if one goes by the Texas Class CL, Kearsarge class NCL, Equniox, Horizon, Pytheus, etc. starships that were all commisioned during this period.

I generally allow a move penalty of 0.25 for evry warp engine added to a hull, based around the pod move cost penalty in SFB rules. We also run fleet battle tenders, which carry spare unpowered warp engines strapped to the hull for campaigns.

I formulated a system for relating the largest warp engine box maximum for Federation starships given a time period. Movement costs altered so that vessels can achieve speed 31 on full warp power, though speed drops drastically if just 1 warp box is taken out on earlier vessels. Note that possible armaments carried has to be proportional to the amount of warp power available to supply it. ( Stuffing the ship with APR isn't allowed!!)

Smaller ships of each period, such as frigates, would use a scaled down half size of engine, in warp boxes, of the largest engine available.

TNG 30 + 30 (Galaxy, Nebula, Freedom, etc.)
Pre-TNG = 30 (Ambassador, etc.)
Transwarp = 24 (Excelsior, Curnow, etc.)
TMP = 16 (Linear warp drive. Constellation class = 14 per engine)
Post TOS = 20 (X-Ships and Star Fleet's Advanced Circuferential Engine programme).
TOS = 15 (Includes SCNN Scarbak engines on the Endeavor CB).
2230 to 2245 = 14 (Asia, etc.)
2210 to 2230 = 12 (Moskva, Texas, Kearsarge, Confederation, Equinox, Horizon, Baton Rouge, Pytheus, etc.)
2190 to 2210 = 11 (Hyperion, etc.)
2170 to 2190 = 10 (Mann, etc.)
2160 to 2170 = 9 (Lincoln, etc.)
2150 to 2160 = 8 (Daedalus, Tiger, Discovery, etc.)
2140 to 2150 = 7 (NX class and Sweden class frigates, etc.)
UES Naval Fleet = 6
2070 to 2140 gradual learning curve increments as Earth masters warp drive technology.
2068 = 1

If one throws in movement penalties based on ship's total hull mass, in addition to warp engines, based on a total box count, some of the pre-Tos eras does present problems that simply cannot be solve by bolting on more engines, unless a slow but powerful warship is desired.

Similar but not identical increments could equally be applied to all the other races. For example, at what point did the Kzinti decide to go for a third engine in their design ethos??

For the Klingons there are only a few periods of warp and weapons technology. No phaser 2 before 2245 (4 years war), no phasers at all before 2200 and Disrupter 2 only from 2170, Disrupter 3 from 2200.

TNG = 30
pre-TNG = 20
2245 Late S-Graph = 15 (D6, D7, etc.)
2190 Middle S-graph = 12 (MAM powered technology D4, D5, etc.)
2150 Early S-Graph = 10 (Neutronic fueled technology. YD3, YD4, YD5, YD6, etc.)
1900's Neutronic = 5 (Also combined nachelles to give up to 8 boxes. W1 dreadnaught, Barges, some Freighters, etc.)
1800's Early Neutronic = 1 to 4 boxes.

Having seen some of the paper designs folks have cobbled together on some website, and then applied the above power available against the number of weapons bolted to the hull, on some of the TMP designs, it becomes clear that under SFB and SFC rules movement and / or charging all of the weapons would create some problems.

I've had to model some just to include into the LAN games because somebody insisted in trying it out. The USS New Hampshire is a prime example of "Didn't think it through" designing. It transpired that with only 2 x 16 boxes of warp, 2 x impulse and 2 x APR, attempting to recharge 8 x Phaser 4 turrets, plus 6 x Phaser 1's required the owning player to make distance from the battle and spend 2 or 3 minutes recharging with fingers crossed that nobody came after him. On the plus side it did slaughter a D7L in one go but was hounded so much that it never managed a chance to stop to recharge its weapons. Super Soyuz designs are always doomed to failure in battle.

[FoaS_XC]

Regarding dates.

I did some math on the SFB y-year thing. I actually had a thought part-way through that process that worked incredibly well: Don't assume that one SFB Y-Year is A Terran standard year.

Gregorian year = SFB Year * ( 5 / 4.9 ) + 2107

It only gets shaky around the time of First Contact - it works great with every other date that I used as reference points. The formation of the Federation (Y48 = 2155.98), The commissioning of the FCA aka: the Constitution class (y130 = 2239.65), First Contact with the Gorn (y157 = 2267.2, which is right in the middle of Kirk's first five-year mission).

This also works out if you can think of the Refitted Enterprise as an F-CAR (Y160 = 2270, near where the refit would've occured) - "But shouldn't TMP ships be X Ships?" Not necessarily - think about it: the F-CAI (y175 = 2286, right about when the Enterprise came out) - the F-NCL (assume its a Miranda for a moment) came out in Y170 = 2280 - enough time that the Miranda could've seen widespread use by TWoK, plus we all know how much of a workhorse it is - see how many variants of the NCL there are? - this makes too much sense to me.

btw: According to this we start to see X-Refits in 2305 and proper X ships in 2313 - more than enough time to introduce a proper F-DNX as the Ambassador class.

[Panzergranate]

By some coincidence we run the TMP Enterprise as the CAR, mainly because of the date of service. We also run a Curnow class tactical cruiser as the TCC (Think of a 3 engined overweight Excelsior that carries a large number of shuttles plus a few fighters).

The Miranda is run as a frigate (by definition a frigate is a small warship that carries a sizeable marine detachment as opposed to a destroyer, which does not).

We have the Oberon, which is a Miranda with heavier shields, Commanche, Hotspur (shorter hulled Miranda), Knox, Decisive, Soyuz and others in the family.

For TOS we have the pre-rebuilt classes that became the above such as the FR-1900 Quillen Class (SCNN warp engines, FR-1830 Surya class and FE-1230 Coventry class. The Coventry was rebuilt, in TMP, into the Sorroco class.

Regarding Phaser 4's on starships, generally this is how we see things here....

TOS - BIg weapons only mounted on starbases, ground instalation and seriously big defence satelites.

Early TMP - Technology allows Phaser 4's to be mounted on starships though weapon takes up a lot of hull space (see Miranda rear hull) and fire is limited in arc through pylon mounted phaser emitters.

TMP - Technology allows Phaser 4's to be mounted in turrets for improved fire arcs.

Just pre-TNG - Colonator Phaser 4 developed. Allows weapons to be placed deep inside the ship and fired from emitter colonators in excelent arcs of fire. Starships now have firepower that TOS commander only dreamed about.
 
We generally have no Federation ship before 2245 with Phaser 1 and no Federation ship before 2200 with Phaser 2.

Phaser 3's (read Phase cannons) pretty much clearly defined in cannon as appearing in 2156.

Photons are a bit loose on introduction. We know from ENT that Star Fleet learns that (A) such weapons are possible and (B) the Klingons already have them. It is debateable on how long it would take Star Fleet to set up a feasability committee, commence a research and development programme, conduct trials and eventually have a weapon in wide spread service.

Deck plans of the Daedalus class still show Photonic missiles (Drone A) in use from 2160 onwards, though the Mann class, launched decades later, carries 22 Photon torpedoes in its magazine. where as the Mann has 4 x Phaser 2 mounts, the Daedalus only mounts 4 x Phaser 3.

As a dreadnaught or battleship is primarily a large deployable weapons platform, depending on when it enters service will determine what it will be expected to carry. On earlier starships with low power availibility, high movement costs, etc. drone missile based weaponry is convenient. For that period a speed 12 Drone A missile will easily catch and significantly injury a typical slow moving enemy starship.

The possibility is that Star Fleet introduce Photons when it became all to clear that Photonic missiles could no longer keep up with their targets.

I kind of agree with TAnimal about capital starships being costly and built in limited numbers. We found that in both a Klingon - Lyran war campaign and a Klingon - Kzinti war campaign, the latter dragged on being played for nearly a year and a half, that for the cost of one battleship, 2 or 3 frigates could be built.

Apart from prestige, blockading star systems under seige, leading major space battle fleet actions, etc. they were pretty much doing nothing. It was the lighter ships, such as frigate and destroyers, which saw the most action and which were the most active throughout the campaign.

Out of the two battleships we fielded at the start of the campaign, we lost one B10K battleship and never bothered to replace it. The other one sat on a blockade for most of the game and saw little serious action. We prefered to use C7 heavy battlecuisers and D7 battlecruisers in the same role, usually backed up by a couple of DWs or frigates.

By the end of the campaign both sides had run out of enough BPV to do anything other than skirmish and raid each other. Basically trench warfare. The campaign became so stagnant that we decided to abandon it.

Clearly Star Fleet would only construct perhaps one dreadnaught or battleship every decade or so. The old UES Romulan War capital ships would also have probally been refitted and retained in service until at least 2170, though they obstelete by 2160, most being pre-MAM warp drive technology. Perhaps models of MAM upgrades and refits of some of these vessels might be interesting as a modelling project.

 

[FoaS_XC]

I'm really not that keen on the miranda mega-phaser idea, myself. I still prefer to see the Miranda as a Light Cruiser instead of a frigate - but we've gone through both debates enough times - Same with Phaser-4s and Photons - nothing new there.

But regardless, good thoughts there

[Starfox1701]

The way I see Mega phasers is early prototyps of what would later become the Colmenated strips. From Reliants first strike it is clear the these weapons have a much greater arc then would be expected of a cannon style weapon like thoughs found on a BOP. As to wheather she is a Frigate or Light Cruiser this is really semantics and rest purly on how you personally define both type in your fleet. After all an 18th century Frigate and 20th century Light Cruiser share a great deal of comminality in mission profile. Miranda fits well in either classifacation. Personally I prefer CL over FH but thats because I prefer 20th century classifacations for there greater veriaty and flexability.

[FoaS_XC]

In regards to Phasers, I follow Smiley-Lich's Revised-tech stuff.

1x-revised Cruiser
http://www.smileylich.com/sfb/ssd/fed-rvcx.gif
Notice that they still use phaser-1s and phaser-3s, just more of them

2x-revised Cruiser
http://www.smileylich.com/sfb/ssd/fed-rvxc.gif
New phasers introduced, unlike those found in SFB

3x-revised Cruiser
http://www.smileylich.com/sfb/ssd/fed-rv3c.gif
More new phasers introduced. Now smiley-lich did make rules for phaser arrays, but this particular ship doesn't have them as he made it a point to avoid his usual TNG rules *shrug*

[Kreeargh]

There are lots of references, models, books, literatures and diagrams of Federation cruisers, destroyers, frigates, corvettes, etc. from the very beginnings of the United Federation of Planets BUT aparently Star Fleet had no dreadnaughts or battleships before the Federation class dreadnaught or Mars class battleships entered service.

Bearing in mind the hostile nature of some of the neighbours (Klingons, Romulans, Kzinti, etc.) plus other unknown possible threats, it appears that Star Fleet was hoping that, with fingers crossed, the various cruisers, destroyers and frigates that passed through service in the fleet, would be sufficient for defence.

It appears that in Fannon starship design, nobody has picked up on, say what a Federation dreadnaught or battleship from, say, 2220 or 2230 would look like.

There are plenty of online designs and renditions, in CAD, online and in books for TMP dreadnaughts and battlesships but nothing pre-TOS.

For the early 2200's pre-TOS the largest starship appears to be the Moskva class heavy cruiser, which is larger than a Constitution class, and pretty well armed for its time. It is more of a battlecruiser than a heavy cruiser.

So how abouts we all pool our modelling tallents and fill in this deficiency in Star Fleet's history.

Imagine that, given any Star Fleet pre-TOS time period, you were commisioned to design a new dreadnaught or battle ship using only the existing technology and doctorines of that period. Constrained to using the warp engines, impulse drives, weapons technology, design doctorines and other technological, and maybe budget, restrictions that would be imposed on the designers at that particular time in Federation history.

Such vessels would be unique one off prestige starships with obvious dip[lomatic, political and deterent values to Star Fleet. They would also be costly projects that the Federation council would have to approve and monitor.
`
If somebody is looking for a modelling project then this is a good direction.

LS created the Tos Galaxy the best option of a battleship for the game. 
No 3rd warp on an existing  design that dont make a dn. 3 warps the useless warp is for more power to other systems. 
A true DN has alot of armor and more guns than a man has toes and fingers.  I made a tmp era theme model of the Tos Galaxy but public blew it off back then. All just ideas.

[Panzergranate]

I spent a few hours knocking up this last night.

The design ethos is on a parallel with the Wasp class heavy cruisers Star Fleet had introduced in the later quarter of the 2100's. Designers and engineers generally all go with the, "We know this tried and tested methodology will work", approach with everything. Just look at the evolution of fighter aircraft through the 20th century.

Aircraft are always designed around the engines. A new and better engine comes out then the engineers first build new aircraft using tried and tested design, then they design newer and more radical aircraft to exploit the many new possibilities and capabilities that the new engine offers.

This is my take on a imagined Star Fleet initiative and specification to replace the aging UES fleet capital ships, which have reached about as far as their hulls can be modified with upgrades.

The basic specification:

A warp 6 capable battleship to replace the existing warp 3 - 4 capable old Romulan War era UES battleships and warp 5 capable still retained in front line service.

To mount a minimum of 12 of the new technology Phaser banks (Phaser 2).

To be capable of launching a salvo of 8 Photonic missiles (Drone A) and to retain a large magazine of reloads for the launching racks.

To carry a complement of at least 8 shuttlecraft.

Assigned Naval Experiment (NX) 373 USS Jutland (Named after the first ever Earth naval battle between dreadnaughts).

Launched 2196.
Naval Call Code issued in 2198.
Used in numerous Star Fleet exercises and maneuvers to explore fleet dynamics in support and operating with large capital starships.
Deployed in numerous border tensions against the Klingons, Kzinti and Lyrans as a deterent and show of Federation resolve.
Moved to capital starship training in 2219.
Decommissioned, landed and placed on display at Memory Alpha in 2233.

Crew 370.

Armament:

2 x Phaser 2 paired emplacement, LP / RP, 4 x Phaser 2 quad emplacements LS / RS.
8 x Photonic missile launchers (Drone A) in 2 x quad batteries.

Featured the dual intermix chambers feeding the warp engines in each of the four nachelles. Lessons learn from the three engined Wasp class cruisers influenced this inovation. The large secondary hull is all dedicated to the warp drive and anti-matter fuel supply. Also the giant aft mounted extending pad for planetary landing.   

Spherical command section detactable from engineering section and capable of independant flight, power atmospheric landing / takeoff and propelled by dual 3 Impulse engined drives, with or without secondary hull attached.

This model does fit in with the Star Fleet design style expceted in the 2190's.

I shown it in an encounter with Klingons amongst the Haemeroid Asteroids around Uranus.

For those interested, yes I did the model of Uranus, though the rings around it aren't quite right.

So what do you think??

[Panzergranate]

On the subject of Mega Phasers, I regard them a solving the problem and desire to mount starbase and ground based Phaser 4 weaponry on starships.

it is a bit like modern tanks, such as the M1 Abrams or even more heavily armoured Challenger II, both mount what was regarded as a long range heavy artillery howitzer during WW2 and the Korean War. Back then such a large gun would have exceeded the weight limits, powerplant, turret and  stress limits plus supension capabilities.

The evolution appear to be straightforwards, regarding Phaser 4 deployments....

So large as to be only placed in ground based instalations.

Sized reduced so as to be mountable on large space stations and platforms.

Size reduced again so as to mountable on starships in restricted arc pylon emitters.

Size reduced again so as to be mounted in fully of partially rotatable turrets and batbettes.

Colonator emitter rings and tracks with remote feed from multiple Phaser 4 banks.

Whether the Miranda is a heavy frigate or a light cruiser is a matter of role. It has a large hangar facility, typical of a vessel intending to be capable of deploying and supporting reasonable marine actions, such as raids, etc.

The New Hampshire is regarded as a cruiser, though it shares the same hull minus the torpedo rail or torpedoes.

The Swazey is a patrol cruiser and carries a small number of fighters.

The Ford is a PT destroyer.

Heavy frigates can be and are sometimes more heavily armed than a light cruiser or destroyer.

The thing with naval vessels is that the name relates to the deployment and role, not size or firepower, when dealing with non-capital warships.

For instance a sloop is similar to a frigate except it has less armament, carries no marines, is used for coastal and territorial patrols but does not take long voyages. A typical sloop will never be at sea (or in space) for more than a week.

Removing the Photon, Drones, etc. from a Burke class fleet frigate and adding a couple of cargo boxes in their place would convert it into a sloop.

I like Kreeargh's post TMP DN..... it has the warp nachelle switching thing that Star Fleet had been experimenting with, since the 2240's, for sustained high speed cruising. The TNG Galaxy et all have the combined dual engined nachelle that is the culmination of 140 years of Federation fast starship warp technology.
 
Yep, it fits nicely into the evolutionary tree.

The hull looks radical and inoventive as would be expected for something new.

This is what I'm pointing out, that for the various eras of Star Fleet starship design, there are distinct styles of ship design with evoulutionary increments within them that lead to the next radical change.

There are quite a few throwbacks and freaks out there in the diagrams and illustrations that don't seem to make any sense at all, but some do, such as the Daedalus, Lincoln, Moskva, Baton Rouge, Wasp, Asia, etc.

A typical battleship or dreadnaught, for whatever era, would reflect the engineering thinking and style of its time. Starships in the UES for the Romulan War all have a distinct style becuase of their requirements to carry fuel for their Fusion powered warp drive.

The Comet and the Fireball are both the start of the MAM powered warp era though they are still built to a similar style to the Fusion powered ships because that's how the engineers are thinking still.

Then the Daedalus starts the style for the next generation of engineers. Larger starships are designed and built to the spherical command section - engineering in the secondary hull theme mainly because of the desire to mount sizable weapons on them. Note that smaller vessels are beginning to use saucer command hulls based on the pre-war NX class frigate as it offers better warp streamlining.

By 2290's the need for faster large starships leads to elipsoid command sections followed by saucer command sections.

Then the evolution of saucer design starts....

[TAnimaL]

Very nice ship and specs. While I personally don't accept the Starfleet Museum's fanon history or designs, they are very well thought out and your ship makes a good match. What was it's power curve, warp/imp/apr? And shields? Presumably you play this in Early era with slow drones?

A small quibble over the whole notion of DN's and BBs, particularly Feds. Why insist on 3 nacelles? I've grown to loathe the FJ cut-and-paste designs over the last 36 years; it was a cheat then and it's been all but outlawed "officially" (yes yes, I know about the future Galaxy in "All Good Things...", but that was mostly an in-house joke IMHO). It's probably too hard to separate SFC from it's SFB roots and the multitude of 3-engine ships within, but if this thread is all about designing afresh why not avoid that "slap another nacelle on" approach? Panzergranate's design does it nicely, and you're right. Kreaargh, that TMP Galaxy is one of my favs, especially with the side-by-side 4 nacelles, but I've always preferrred the TOS version with rounded nacelles. (hmm, only pic I have currently has the hardpoints all over the image. will find that later)

My 2 cents on that, but  I like the Jutland very much. And Uranus, too, but only in a manly sort of way.

[Panzergranate]

The whole Joseph "cut and paste" design does fit into a period design ethos and policy.

If you examine the "clumps" of unique and varied classes of non-standard starship that Star Fleet was introducing into service during the first quarter and early middle 2200's you can see potential logistics, servicing and repair problems.

So many varied hulls, warp engines, etc. introduced into service over a two decade period.

Star Fleet, in 2241, would have gone into battle against the uniform Klingon Deep Space Fleet with a mismashed collection of starships, some capable of warp 6, others warp 7 and a few newer technology warp 8 starships. For such a mixed battlefleet to assemble and move in formation would be akin to WW2 convoys having to move at the speed of the slowest ship.

The Franz Joseph standardised fleet is just a solution to this problem.
 
Some ships are rebuilt or converted to this design ethos, such as the Avery class, and incorporated into another class in a different role. Some are just relegated to cadet training or scrapped.

If Henry Ford built starships it would be like that.

You can have your starship in any colour you want but it must be US Navy Ghost Grey.

From McCoy's brief statement in TOS "The Trouble With Tribbles", this may have been the reason Star Fleet did not resolve the Four Years War and the conflict over Sherman's Planet with an outright victory, incurred unneccessariliy large losses of starships and personel and substaitially weakened the fleet millitarily.

The FJ ships are produced in earnest from 2245, the final year of the war, and could be likened to the WW2 mass production of US warships in order to rapidly bolster the fleet's numbers.

They are neither good or bad in design, just adequate for purpose. They are more interesting than 80% of the TNG starships, though once again, Star Fleet still has some conformity with warp nachelles and other systems on ships for maintainance reasons.

However, it is the period before TOS and the Four Years War that is the most interesting, as it is similar to the period between earth's world wars where tank and millitary aviation tried all kinds of new, radical, occasionally strange, sometimes pointless and always adventurous in the search for the next technological breakthrough in a new branch of engineering and science.

With the Jutland the engines are the latest development for 2190.... warp 6 capable engines. Some technolgical breakthrough has allowed a big increase in warp field size and strength, which makes all previous engines obstelette, along with the starships they are attached to.

The NX 374 Moskva class cruiser is already undergoing trials and the engines will be refined over the following decades and evolve to be used on the Baton Rouge, Al Burak, Lancaster, Hyperion and other later ships, in one form or another.

Lesson learn from these will be incorporated into the following generation of PB series engines favoured by TOS during the 2200's.

As for early battles, it requires different tactics as power is at a premium and speed is low.

The usual tactic is for team players to try to stay in formation to maximise the lack of firepower and everybody concentrates fire on the same target at the same time. Missile salvoes are similarily fired.

Weapons are usually charged right at the last possible moment as speed drops drastically. Everything that can possibly be offline when not in battle is made so when moving to milk every ounce of speed out of the ship.

Shuttles are essential for checking out if the enemy is hiding behind planets, etc. They also contribute more to point defence.

Firing a few missiles at an enemy might cause his meagre amount Phasers to be wasted on point defence during an attack run, thus reducing his direct weapon firepower. Note that this does not work on races yet to introduce Phasers but as a plus bonus, they have no point defence apart from targeting their own missiles on you salvo.

We were cunningly caught out with this once in a LAN Romulan War game. The Romulan players started their attack run with their Crackers once they had dropped to near stationary and charged their disrupters.

Our Armarilloes stayed in a tight formation and we decided on which ship to concentrate our fire onto. Just before they came into range they fired a pair of missiles from each ship. Everybody on our side, out of routine, had set point defence to "Online". All of our ships fired at the missiles, as our opponents had intended, and we discharged both Phaser 3 weapons on all of our cruisers. We frantically loosed off our missiles but these were dealt with by drone on drone fire with their unfired missiles. The Romulan players continued to make their attack run without incoming fire and all of our ships were badly damaged by disrupter fire. As we were so badly damaged, their next pass and missile salvo finished us off.

Disengagement by accelleration isn't always possible, as some ships merely gain momentum, or so it seems sometimes.

As for three or four engined ships, sometimes it is to overcome the feeble power outputs of the engines give a time period, though this can cause problems with the mass increase to movement and turning radius. Another reason can be constant high speed starships that use nachelle switching to maintain maximum velocity for long periods of time, such as the Cheetah, Constellation and some of the TOS period experimental designs and high speed couriers.

There is the TOS Advanced Circumferential Engine which would be a 20 box warp engine and would mean two engines would produce a warp field capable of coping with a larger hulled starship. According to one or two sources, it was a design dead end and warp drive moved to the Scarbak SCNN linear warp concept, followed by the Avaline linear warp nachelles and warp core concept in TMP.

I keep meaning to have a go at an ACE warp engine sometime, though no pictures or diagrams exist for them, just various mentions in books, etc.

   
 

[Starfox1701]

An alternate explanation for 4 warp engines is that they could be used in alternating pairs to allow for longer duration warp runs.  The TNG tech manuall talks about the different componets in a warp drive and there maintanace requierments and at hi speed operations tend to burn up operation time on several of the Necelle componets like the coolent system and plasma injectors. I would think that older systems would have even more tight operating concerns. This would make quads even more  attractive.

[Panzergranate]

An alternate explanation for 4 warp engines is that they could be used in alternating pairs to allow for longer duration warp runs.  The TNG tech manuall talks about the different componets in a warp drive and there maintanace requierments and at hi speed operations tend to burn up operation time on several of the Nachelle componets like the coolent system and plasma injectors. I would think that older systems would have even more tight operating concerns. This would make quads even more  attractive.

Yep, Star Fleet had been playing with that idea for some time.

The Saladin class destroyer, USS Hamilcar NCC-518, spent a period as a test bed for alternate pairing of warp engine using using 4 x PB-40 warp nachelles. It was eventually converted in a Jhengis class destroyer, along with all the other Saladin class destroyers. Yep, I found the illustration and have even modelled it.
 
Possibly this would have been around 2268.

There may have been experiments even earlier than this.

It was designated as a fast cruiser concept test bed.

However, with 4 engined BBs, such as the Mars or Yamato classes, all the engines are required to move the ship at high warp speeds and also to project a good subspace field capable of reducing the vessel's apparent mass when on Impulse drive (Cheating the law of relativity as Chief O'Brien does with DS9).

There are some laws of physics issues with SFB's take on starship speeds and some weapons.

For instance in SFB speed 27 is 27c or Warp 3....

Whilst a Photon Torpedo, Hellbore, Plasma Torpedo or Drone are all warp capable, a Phaser shot, Disrupter bolt, Fusion Beam discharge, etc. all travel at light speed, 1c or speed 1. Because of this starships should not be able to fire in any forward direction when at speeds greater than 1.

Also how can a targeting system cope with targeting at that speed??

Note that in ENT, TNG, DS9 and Voyager, ships drop to sublight to fire Phasers and only fire torpedoes if at warp speed.

I go with the idea that as the speed of light equals just over 300,000,000 kilometres per second, speed 30 equals that speed or 1c. It makes more sense in SFC and also fits more into the actual scenarios on the TV shows.

Also the fannon concept that all vessels can achieve 0.99c on Impulse drive seems to have holes in it as in one Voyager episode Harry Kim points out that the pursuing Nebula class cruiser is a lot faster than their Runabout in sublight Impulse drive.

Again it makes more sense as large ships with feeble warp drives cannot project a decent subspace field when travelling under Impulse drive. Typical of this is the SFB / SFC small freighter. It also makes sense that older and earlier starship designs would have poor sublight speeds and maneuverability when compared to later technology designs.

In the case of the Jutland it needs alll four warp engines both to achieve warp 6 and also to reduce the vessel's apparent mass under impulse power.

In SFC I gave it a move cost of 2 so it would have problems with just two engines. It would also fall over when it landed tail first....

[TAnimaL]

well, Panzergranate, not to sidetrack an otherwise productive thread, no.

I get what you're saying and it's a very logical progression with real-world analogies, but still, no.

The FJ designs and the designs from Starfleet Museum are not "real," much less real than the rest of Trek. I know using the word "canon" elicits a certain response, but it's the right word.
Three engine ships don't exist in Trek. Ships have 2, or 4, or sometimes unseen nacelles, but not three. One example in 45 years (ok, 3 if you count the JJ-verse), otherwise, 1-nacelle/3-nacelle don't exist.

Of course the FJ designs are "standardized." They took a profile picture of the Enterprise and put a nacelle where the secondary hull was. An X-acto blade and 3 minutes time and, voila, the DD! And the Scout, for no extra cost! Sloppily uncreative. I know it's a matter of taste but I don't see how these lazy designs can be thought of as better than the Galaxy and Nebula, the Ambassador and Pastuer, the Intrepid and Defiant.

Sorry, it's the festering 35 years resentment speaking here, the disappointment of a 12-year old, excited over a Technical Manual that turned out to be cobbled together from previous diagrams and a re-worded copy of the U.N. Charter.

I can't help reacting to your insistence that the Moskva and Amarrillo are agreed-upon, accepted Starfleet designs, or that the Four Years War or PB engines are The Way Things Were. Personally, it seems to be a bunch of fan and third-party histories strung together to me, and while it's an admirable job of making it make sense, a sizeablle chunk of it is invalidated by "Enterprise." While there are plenty that would disavow it's existence, it actually fits SFB history better than FASA.

Look, what I'm trying to say here (and I'm sure there's an adage about not posting about starship dsign after a bottle of wine) is to me, Henry Ford didn't build starships; to extend the anaolgy, the Vulcans were building Peugots and the Andorians Mercedes long before the Earth Model T. Correct me if I;m wrong, but this thread seems to be a way to break the mold, putting DNs and BBs in a time frame that they're not. Other than which weapons and engines sizes are available, I can't see any reason why the United Earth couldn't have built a NX-01 style BB the size of a Galaxy class, so let's see some more big early ships!


addendum after reading the last post.
Again, it's late so maybe that's why its's bugging me, but some of this seems presented as "official" when it's conjecture. The manual (ds9, for the record) does talk about 4-engine ships being used in pairs to extend hi-speed ranges. A valid notion, so perhaps it's true of some ships, and in others, big ships like the Mars just need it to balance out the size. To me, the discrepancy comes from that in SFB/SFC, the nacelles are engines that produce power, whereas in Trek, perhaps more realistically, there are M/AM engines that make power that can go to the nacelles for movement. However, changing that would be beyond the scope of SFC, and a can of worms I would not want to see opened.

Although historically and ship design the game is so much like SFB, the first thing that has to be thrown out is that "1 hex = 30000 km" idiocy. Using the game at speed 7, a "hex' is 9.6 million km. Combat is sublight, period. There are only a few (6?) combats in TOS and only 2 or 3 at warp. Best to consider them "unique situations." Full impulse would be less than .5c (maybe .4) to prevent time dialation effects and  Warp 1 is when ships are disengaging at speed (150?).

[Starfox1701]

Three engine ships don't exist in Trek.

Really Well the Federation Class is Cannon Quotes from Memory Alpha

The Motion Picture originally contained a voice-over in the beginning of the film for the dreadnought USS Entente, NCC-2120. This was a direct reference to the Technical Manual and its entries for Federation-class. (The manual was heavily used as a reference for the first film.) While this line of dialog remains intact on the laser-disk, VHS, and Beta releases of the film, the Director's Cut DVD explicitly muddles the track, making the line difficult to hear.

Though Gene Roddenberry personally signed off on the Federation-class in 1973, by the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation, he was adamantly opposed to the "militarization" of Starfleet

And what about the Niagra Class, Freedom Class, and the Galaxy X?

 To Quote a friend "Cannon isn't even Cannon either" The Scope of the TV shows and movies is way to narrow to incompass the whole of this Universe so you must take into account other things. It is wise and logical to start that search with the expanded universe material. This is Panzergranate's project and therefore his version of the universe. It WILL NOT conform to the contradictory and narrow view of the film and TV.

Don't be a hater man; worlds got too many of thoughs already.