Star Trek warship designs

seanrobertson · Post by **seanrobertson** » 2002-08-31 01:20pm

Hiya.

This isn't a versus thread in the ST-SW sense; it's more of a rambling
list of observations and guesses as to why some of the main races
in Trek go the routes they do in designing "warships."

Federation:

Except for Defiant-class ships, Starfleet's ethos--exploration,
diplomacy, various mushy things--seems to be evident at a mere
glance of any capship. The most vulnerable parts of the ship,
the nacelles, stick out like sore thumbs. It seems as if at various
points in "history," Starfleet tried armoring capship nacelles (an
Ambassador appears to have selectively armored areas
between the bussard collector and the aftmost tip of ea/ nacelle),
but it seems to compromise top warp speeds, as is the case
with Defiant's largely integrated nacelles ("The Sound of Her
Voice").

My guess is that the Federation values higher speeds over nacelle
protection for at least one of two reasons: first, their territory is
too big for Starfleet's britches, so extremely fast ships are valued
for their ability to quickly respond to threats; and second, Starfleet
heavily emphasizes shield power to protect their ships in combat.

Klingons:

The Bird of Prey attempts to integrate its nacelles (the shoulder-pad
looking baffles) into the hull, or close thereto. This is probably because
the ship itself isn't very well protected, by shields or armor (though
it does have thin armor plating). Its primary weapons are far away
from the primary hull of the ship itself, perhaps a compromise to
allow atmospheric flight and/or to minimize damage to the primary
hull if one of the disruptor cannons blows up.

Doesn't seem very Klingon. Obviously, Birds are made for quick
strikes...as Michael once said, a ninja ship: decloak, blast an
enemy with the fixed axis guns, then recloak (adios, Grissom).
The supposedly huge Bird variants of 300m or so in length (B'Rel, K'Vort) usually work in groups when attacking a top-of-the-line enemy vessel,
but don't use the same tactics. Perhaps this is indicative of a power
shortage: Kruge's small BoP was able to decloak and fire within
a few seconds (? 5?), but the larger K'Vorts decloaked long before
approaching the E-D in "Yesterday's Enterprise." The larger the
ship, the more power intensive it is to cloak--perhaps so much so
that takes quite a long time to juice up the disruptors.

Oddly enough, these huge Birds don't have any weapons beyond
what the scouts carry: two big disruptors, and one torpedo tube,
with apparently no aft coverage whatsoever (Kurn's Bird fleeing
two others in "Redemption pt. 2"). Is the design scaled up
with intimidation more in mind than actually improving the damn thing?

D7-style battlecruisers: nacelles are somewhat underslung--not
at least quite the targets of Fed counterparts' nacelles. However,
it has a very long "neck." Here again we have an instance of
a Klingon ship keeping its most-frequently used weapon away
from the engineering hull.

Vor'cha: prominent nacelles, seemingly inspired by Federation designs.
I would say it follows a similar design philosophy: speed and shields
over hull strength. It does improve on the D7's vulnerable neck
somewhat, with a much beefier midsection.

Negh'Var: lots more armor, with nacelles partially integrated into the ship's
body (they're not very far in, but they're a vast improvement on previous cruisers). Another ship that seems to be so big that it might have
trouble launching a surprise decloak-fire attack. Takes elements from
all previous ship classes: Vor'cha's large disruptor cannon, Bird of
Prey's wing-mounted disruptors, etc. Hardly ever seen, so must
be terribly expensive and/or suffers from short-comings we're not
aware of. (One might be that it's simply not that great in a DS9-style
fleet battle. Jem'Hadar bugs might do to it what the mirror Defiant
did to Regent Worf's ship?)

More later, I hope.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2002-08-31 04:24pm

While high warp velocity may indeed be a primary factor in the decision to mount the engines in external nacelles, another reason is that it makes for easy repair and upgrading. If you can swap a functional warp engine for a defective or damaged unit simply by swapping modules, it means considerably less turnover time then if you had to do all the work on the ship or even partially dismantle the hull to get to the engine components and tie the ship up for weeks in the repair dock. Instead, your ship might be able to return to the line the next day if the yardmaster has replacement nacelles ready for installation.

The Klingon BOP (at least the smaller B'rels such as Kruge's ship) may achieve the modular advantage with an plug-in engine module which can be removed from the spaceframe whole, but I imagine that this would be somewhat more difficult to build in larger ships for various reasons of stress survivability.

Outboard engines also appear to be integral in their technology to the shaping of the warp envelope, which enables their ships to squeeze out those extra warp-factors (the example of the relatively poorer performance of the Defiant against other Federation starship classes may be instructive here).

The Negh'var-class battleship appears to have a quick turnaround interval between decloak and weapons firing, given what was observed in the attack on the hospital ship USS Pasteur in the final TNG episode "All Good Things"; an advantage not shared apparently by the K'vorts or Vor'chas.

seanrobertson · Post by **seanrobertson** » 2002-08-31 04:44pm

Patrick Degan wrote:While high warp velocity may indeed be a primary factor in the decision to mount the engines in external nacelles, another reason is that it makes for easy repair and upgrading. If you can swap a functional warp engine for a defective or damaged unit simply by swapping modules, it means considerably less turnover time then if you had to do all the work on the ship or even partially dismantle the hull to get to the engine components and tie the ship up for weeks in the repair dock. Instead, your ship might be able to return to the line the next day if the yardmaster has replacement nacelles ready for installation.

Patrick! I've seen your posts around here; I always enjoy them.
Glad to have you onboard in this one...after posting a few new
threads across various websites (mostly non-scifi related), I
was starting to think I smelled bad or something

This is a good thought, about repair/upgrading. Indeed, we do
hear a good bit about "damaging the engines" when Starfleet
ships push the speed envelope, and having the nacelles mounted
as they typically are would definitely expedite repair.

As for upgrading, after I remembered some of the Frankenstein kitbashes
from DS9, this seems even more plausible an explanation.

The Klingon BOP (at least the smaller B'rels such as Kruge's ship) may achieve the modular advantage with an plug-in engine module which can be removed from the spaceframe whole, but I imagine that this would be somewhat more difficult to build in larger ships for various reasons of stress survivability.

Yes, definitely.

Outboard engines also appear to be integral in their technology to the shaping of the warp envelope, which enables their ships to squeeze out those extra warp-factors (the example of the relatively poorer performance of the Defiant against other Federation starship classes may be instructive here).

Agreed.

The Negh'var-class battleship appears to have a quick turnaround interval between decloak and weapons firing, given what was observed in the attack on the hospital ship USS Pasteur in the final TNG episode "All Good Things"; an advantage not shared apparently by the K'vorts or Vor'chas.

I'd forgotten that. IIRC, those ships were actually opening fire
on Pasteur *before* they'd fully decloaked.

Of course, that was sometime around 2405 vs. the standard 2376
w/ which we're left after VGR, and those ships were a little bit
different than the class ship Negh'Var (lacking those ventral-mounted
disruptors or torpedo launchers sported by N'V herself in "WoTW,"
plus a few very superficial differences). But it's a fine point.
I doubt power generation varied all that much in a couple of decades.

That'd leave us with the conclusion that Negh'Vars aren't really
intended for fleet combat, perhaps an explanation why we don't see
them during all of those melees in DS9 (other than, of course,
lazy FX guys recycling footage). That's a potential hasty generalization--if
I was Graham Kennedy I'd color-code it as speculation

, LOL--
but it does fit with how that "Mirror universe" Regent's ship performed.
At range, it was great; but up-close, it got reamed by a single Defiant rip-off.

Doomriser · Post by **Doomriser** » 2002-08-31 05:59pm

Good explanations so far. But how are you going to explain the Romulan Warbird?

BTW I tested various ST and SW ships against my BB gun.

I wanted to do an informal- study on the attributes of St and Sw hull design. So I took out an old non-automatic breech-loading BB gun and put my Micro Machines to the ultimate test.

I placed the targets at about 15-25 feet, a moderate distance to simulate the dampening effect of a shield. (At close range, at which I tested the Excelsior, it was blown to pieces, so I thought that a little bit inaccurate and unfair. After all, I wanted to test the hull strength, not the plastic's strength!)

Now the Micro Machines targets were certainly not to scale, so for example when the BOP was hit, it would be a simulation of a medium turbolaser blast while the Warbird would have been hit by a large
turbolaser. (The shells obviously remain constant in size!) Also note that all ships were made from the same material by the same company, so only the hull designs differed.

The type of ammunition used was the flat-head wad-cutter round made out of pewter, the weakest round avaliable.

Target Shots to hit Result
Romulan Warbird ~2-3 Head broken off at neck section. Oddly, I don't even think I hit it there.
Miranda-class ~2-3 Medium-sized chunk clipped off saucer
Klingon D-7 -1- Still finding the pieces!
Romulan BOP ~2 Wing/arm blown off
Ent-nil -Missed - didn't have the heart to shoot it again
Klingon BOP -Unknown - Neck broken off
Slave-1 -Many- Command compartment separates from passenger compartment, wings go their own way
ISD (unsure of type) -2- Flew off the target zone, verifying a
hit, but the paint wasn't even scratched!
Corellian Corvette -3- Half-pea sized chunk blown off main
hull. (Similar to ANH battle damage)

So in conclusion, here is a ranking system devised by me.

Reliable Space Transit:

-ISD (took no damage)

Strap In

-Slave 1 (Pilot Ok, Frozen passengers Ok, ship - not so okay)
-Miranda
-Corellian Corvette

You might want to take a look at our insurance policy

-Romulan BOP
-Klingon BOP

I've got a bad feeling about this!

-Romulan Warbird (There were extra bracings holding the body together -
it's a miracle only the head was blown off. Note the design is so weak
that I didn't even hit the warbird on the head when its head blew off!
First and only hit, as in every case!)
-Klingon D-7

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2002-08-31 06:12pm

Why the devil did you do that?

RayCav of ASVS · Post by **RayCav of ASVS** » 2002-08-31 06:18pm

Doomriser wrote:
snip

My God, Doomriser, what the fuck did you do that for? That was honestly the most retarded exercise I have seen from you! Do you have any idea what those micro machines (would have been) worth now?

seanrobertson · Post by **seanrobertson** » 2002-08-31 06:28pm

RayCav of ASVS wrote:
Doomriser wrote:
snip

LOL. I thought it was pretty funny

From what I can tell, Star Trek Micromachines are plentiful. It's the very
rarely produced model kits that are going for insane prices these days.

Say...anybody got a Tsukuda Excelsior or Klingon BoP? I'll play handsomely for either

Doomriser · Post by **Doomriser** » 2002-08-31 07:47pm

First, I was never planning on selling them. Secondly, [and I regret this since I really wanted to but ironically thought it would be a waste of money] I never bought any of the valuable ones - in particular the Consitution refit.

Anyway, I think I still have a few of them lying around such as the Borg Cube and probably a few others.

Ah, I got more satisfaction shooting at them than just having the chunks of plastic lying around. They're worthless to me.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2002-09-01 12:38am

He probably did it after watching a particularly bad episode of trek, and had to do something with all those negitive emotions. As to the original question of the thread, I always thought that the Federation relied to heavily on shield technology. The Defient was the first Fed ship I can remember having aromour even mentioned with the vessel. Perhaps you trekies know of others. So when you have an over relience on the shields, tactical arrangment of critical systems takes on a secondary role to other considerations. They also seem to like SIF's to hold ships together instead of designing ships that can bear their own weight, or in this case mass, let alone stresses on the spaceframe created by flight or manuvers. Complex designs based on form not function. But hey perhaps Im wrong.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2002-09-01 01:39am

In regard to nacelle placement, I think GR said that he wanted nacelles to be away from the main body of the ship to signify that the warp field generated by the nacelles was actually harmful in some way so the engines were kept away from the ship. He also insisted on no odd numbered nacelles, he didn;t like the look of them and said that nacelles should always work in pairs.

I happen to like the look of the Defiant, in my opinion it is one of the best looking Federation ships since the Constitution refit. (hands down best looking ship in sci fi ever). I've always noted that Federation ship design seems to favor defense (strong shields, tough ships) vs. Firepower (ie. Klingons) although phasers seem to pack more of a punch than disruptors but lack the rate of fire.

The Defiant proves that if the Federation really wanted to build a warship it certainly could build a kick ass one, see the Sovereign as a step in the right direction.

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2002-09-01 04:05am

The poor micromachines.
They're my favorite collectibles and I love them dearly, even the ST ones.

Ok now, on to serious things:
When building a warship, the nacelles must either be heavily armored, or hidden iside the hull. Who cares if the warp field is hazardous to the crew?
With ST's medical tech they probably can cure that anyway of find a way to do it within one hour.

The Defiant proves that if the Federation really wanted to build a warship it certainly could build a kick ass one, see the Sovereign as a step in the right direction.

At least for ST's standards. Since the Federation seems to be the scientifically most advanced of the Alpha Quad races, I've always wondered why they don't use this to their advantadge.

Asdeed · Post by **Asdeed** » 2002-09-01 05:42pm

Now what if all the Alpha Quadrant powers got together at the end of the Domninon wars and discussed this very subject, to come up with a new ship design they could all use to defend the quadrant.

Clearly this could never actually happen in trek, but IF it did, what kind of new ships do you think they'd come up with?

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-09-01 09:07pm

They would probably come up with a hybrid ship that was as large or larger than the Sovereigns and D'Derix class ships. They would likely equip it with forward firing disruptors and phaser strips, a cloaking device, and quantum torpedo launchers. Beyond that, it is difficult as the comparative technology levels of the different races in ST appear to be so similar.

Asdeed · Post by **Asdeed** » 2002-09-01 09:33pm

Good point.

But what if they formed a think tank from all the allies, analyzing the entire war from a strategic and tactical analysis, with the goal of improving their performance?

Do you think they could come up with some new fleet practices, combined fleets or otherwise, to make them a more serious opponent?

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-09-02 12:05am

They would probably combine the Klingon and Romulan fleets, as they operate with cloaking devices. The Federation fleet would likely be ordered to patrol the borders, with small Klingon and Romulan ships, while the remainder of the Federation fleet was combined into a single group designed to directly attack any incursions by the Borg or whoever else. The other fleets would be used to add additional firepower, or to launch RIF incursions and pre-emptive strikes on distant shipyards and critical installations.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 2002-09-02 11:53am

In reply to this statement:

So in conclusion, here is a ranking system devised by me.

Reliable Space Transit:

-ISD (took no damage)

I agree that the capital ships in SW are more are generally sturdier than the capital ships in ST. However, before anyone gets too confident, the entire bridge section of a SD was destroyed by an asteroid that wasn't too big in comparison to the SD's bridge section. SW's capital ships are good, but they aren't invincible.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-09-02 12:07pm

This has been dealt with many times before. An unshielded ISD was damaged by an asteroid that was moving at a very high relative velocity and had considerable mass associated with it.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 2002-09-02 12:36pm

Can you direct me to the source that says the ISD was not shielded? Is it the novelization of the movie. I'm not doubting you, I would just like to know.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-09-02 12:43pm

It is implied from the EU that the ISD was not shielded at the time, because hyperspace transmissions require ships to lower their shields (ref. Heir to the Empire).

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 2002-09-02 01:13pm

That ISD was not transmitting into hyperspace. The captain was speaking with Darth Vader. That was just a simple ship to ship communication. If he had to lower his shields to do that I would hate to think of how Imperial commanders would communicate in a fleet battle if they had to lower their shields.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2002-09-02 01:35pm

Commander LeoRo wrote:That ISD was not transmitting into hyperspace. The captain was speaking with Darth Vader. That was just a simple ship to ship communication. If he had to lower his shields to do that I would hate to think of how Imperial commanders would communicate in a fleet battle if they had to lower their shields.

It was holonet, not simple ship-to-ship

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 2002-09-02 01:51pm

If the ISD Captain could have reported to Darth Vader using a communication system without having to lower his shields that would have been the intelligent thing to do. Lowering the shields to give a report in a dangerous asteroid field was pretty damn stupid. Chalk another one up for Imperial incompetence and stupidity.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2002-09-02 01:56pm

Commander LeoRo wrote:If the ISD Captain could have reported to Darth Vader using a communication system without having to lower his shields that would have been the intelligent thing to do. Lowering the shields to give a report in a dangerous asteroid field was pretty damn stupid. Chalk another one up for Imperial incompetence and stupidity.

Vader probably did it.

starfury · Post by **starfury** » 2002-09-02 01:57pm

If the ISD Captain could have reported to Darth Vader using a communication system without having to lower his shields that would have been the intelligent thing to do. Lowering the shields to give a report in a dangerous asteroid field was pretty damn stupid. Chalk another one up for Imperial incompetence and stupidity.

Lord Vadar has the nasty habit of strangling those who dare disobey his orders or even to delay it for simple reasons, Skywalker's capture was Very high piority.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 2002-09-02 02:06pm

If Vader could have received a report from the ISD captain without forcing the SD to lower its shields that would have been the intelligent thing to do. We have two choices here. We can believe that Darth Vader and/or the ISD captain was a complete idiot, or we can believe that SD's have to lower their shields to transmit messages to other ships. Then again, maybe that SD did have its shields up...

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Star Trek warship designs

Star Trek warship designs

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Re: Logic of ST ship design

I can dream right?

Hmmm