Observational Analysis of Utopia Planitia Shipyards and shipbuilding assessment.
In the Voyager episode “Relativity” we are shown a fairly good view of the Utopia Planitia Shipyards (UPS) and the various aspects if consists of. On screen we see approximately 2 dozen skeletal and spider frame type ship berths as well as 3 large space stations in the background. The size of these space stations is not directly discernable from the screen shots.
You can see in the back ground three oddly shaped space stations with dome like elements to them. For the purpose of this essay they will be referred to as the primary shipyards.
Reference shots for Spider and Skeletal frame ship berths.
In order to first determine the ship building capabilities of UPS we must first determine how many ship berths they have. This will give us the start of a capability to determine total ship building capacity in a single year. As part of the reference we know that early Galaxy class construction and design work was done at UPS and that Leah Brahms worked on the project from an office at UPS. A holodeck recreation of her office shows that it has a window looking over ship construction capabilities within an enclosed space station.
This is either the USS Galaxy prototype under construction or the USS Enterprise. This is from approximately the mid point of Galaxy design and construction. The primary frame appears to have been decided upon but the warp core and M/AM reactors had not been fully designed and installed at this point.
Thanks to “Relativity” we know that UPS has three large space stations that could possibly enclose a ship the size of the Galaxy class. Looking at CGI shots of this very same space station as shown in the Star Trek Magazine and the Ships of the Line 2004 calendar we see that these stations have 8 primary doors in the frame. When you consider that a known Galaxy class starship has been inside of one of these stations you can begin to estimate the size of the station.
Star Trek Magazine CGI shot of station for reference.
This station appears to be split into several elements that can be designated.
The station is separated into 4 primary sections.
Section 1: Half Spheres
This section appears to be the primary ship building section of the station. It has 4 obvious space doors on each half sphere along with 4 other possible space doors for possible resource transfer or movement of oddly shaped starships.
Section 2: Domes
This section appears to be similar in design to Section 1, but on a smaller scale. Given its general size and appearance I would hazard a guess that it is primarily for construction of shuttle and utility craft size vehicles. Such as Shuttles, Runabouts, Tac-Fighters, and work bees.
Section 3: Central Core
This section connects the whole station together. Its possible that habitat areas are in here, but it would be more appropriate as an onsite manufacturing location of raw materials into needed finish products to be built as part of a starship. This is possibly were assembly of starship sections is connected. It would also be the storage area of various raw and finished materials.
Section 4: Habitat Area
Judging by the design of these sections it would appear to be the primary habitat on the station. Administration, housing, and recreation most likely occur in these sections.
Now that we have defined the sections of the station we need to get a general feel for its size to properly estimate its ship building capability.
For the sake of simplicity I am assuming the station is directly facing me with its doors. I know there is going to be an error rate, but it will be close enough for our purposes.
One of the main doors comes out to 20 pixels wide. This is a shipyards so its logical to assume the doors are made fairly large in case of bigger ships that might some day be produced. For arguments sake we will assume the doors are 50% wider then the saucer section of a GCS class ship. This puts a GCS saucer at being 2/3 the width of this door. Call it 13 pixels to the width of a GCS saucer. That works out to 470 meters (saucer width) divided by 13 pixels. Thats 36.15 meters per pixel.
The station from very top to very bottom is 469 pixels. That works out to 16,954 meters tall.
Now lets look at this station from a very conservative perspective. The station can just barely fit in a Galaxy class ship. 19 pixels to 470 meters. Thats 24.74 meters per pixel and the station works to be 11,603 meters tall.
Lets get some more dimensions. Going by 37.15 meters per pixel we get the following.
Now that we have established a size for the station we can begin to estimate its internal capacity.
Given the size of the station and the internal volume I would estimate a limit of no more then 32 Galaxy class size ships being built at one time. 16 per half, 4 per door section (provided each section is isolated). With 3 of these stations we have a total capacity of 96 large frame ships. Knowing how large the Galaxy class is, we can safely assume that these stations have the capacity to work on several smaller ships in the same area. So if UPS wanted to churn out Sabre class destroyers, they could probably do 3 times as many, 3 small frames per large frame. Call it 288 small frame ships.
So what of the skeleton and spider frames? Do we assume they can handle ships from the very start? I am inclined to say no. I think the main stations build the basic frame and from there they can be sent to one of the exterior stations if they wish. This clears up another berth and effectively increases the shipbuilding capacity. If you have an equal number of exterior births to interior births, you have double the capacity almost with a fraction of the materials expense because you don’t need 6 massive stations, just 3. Judging by the size of the stations I would say they easily produce more manufacturing then they can use.
Now given what we did see of Utopia Planitia and that we saw some spider and skeleton frames near some stations in some frames and not others we can conclude we have seen parts of the base. We have seen a minimum of two dozen exterior facilities in just one shot, but we can easily conclude more exist. For the sake of making an estimation of ship building capacity I am going to assume a total of 4 dozen exist. Judging by the size of these frames it would appear that roughly 1/3 of the spider and skeletal frames can handle large frames. All frames can work on small and medium frame ships.
UPS has a total estimated capacity of 96 large frame ships in the stations and another 16 in exterior frames. A total of 112 large ships can be constructed all at once. However, this is unlikely to occur because it would use up all station berths and prevent small and medium frame ship construction. Total small frame construction is going to be 288 from the stations and another 48 from the frame stations. This totals out at 336 small frame ships being constructed at any one time. Medium frame ships while significantly smaller then large frame ships still have rather large external volume and will not be able to fit into large frame berths as freely as small frame ships do. To simplify things I will estimate that the interior capability of 96 large frame ships will be multiplied by 1 2/3. This gives us a total medium frame capacity of 160 ships in the stations and another 48 in exterior stations. A total medium frame capacity of 208 ships at one time.
Now that we’ve determined ship berth capacity, lets look at ship construction times.
Well we have some information that might shed light on this. The Alternate Universe was able to build a Defiant class ship in no more then 4 months time without use of proper ship building facilities. Conservative estimates put it at 3 months construction in a very limited base in the bad lands with using DS9 for another month of final fitting. DS9 was critical to finishing the Defiant because it had facilities the rebels needed to build the ship. This means for whatever they did for the previous 3 months it was limited. Even still DS9 is not a proper ship building asset. Assuming proper ship building assets can cut the construction time by ½ that gives us a build time of just 2 months for a small frame ship.
With a small frame capacity of 336 frames and a 2 month construction time UPS can build 2016 small frame ships in a single year. Going for a more conservative estimate of 4 months construction time based on the AU incident with the Defiant gives us a total of 1008 small frames. A mid ranged estimate of 3 months nets us a total capacity of 1344 small frames.
What about large frame ships?
The time frame between Generations and First Contact is just 2 years. Several months after the destruction of the Enterprise-D Worf did not see or know of another Enterprise being built. By the time of First Contact the Enterprise-E was a year out of construction and finished with shakedown. Also after the loss of 39 ships at Wolf 359 it was said it would only take a year to replace the lost ships. Some of those ships were large frame ships (Ambassador and Nebula).
Assuming a 12 month build time on a large frame ship we get a total capacity of 112 large frame ships in a single year. However to use a more conservative estimate scaling up from a small frame ship being built we can use a 24 month build time. Assuming staggered construction UPS would be able to complete 56 large frames in a single year.
The Federation fleet couldn't even open a fuckin' hole in a Dominion-Cardassian formation that, as we've all agreed, is "mostly attack ships." They couldn't get even one ship through until the Klingons sent reinforcements.
