Starfleet Shipbuilding and old Crapbuckets in service...

[MKSheppard]

Because This thread was locked.... here goes...

I'm sure you all remember the fact that shitboxes that should have been retired long ago kept showing up with disturbing regularity in TNG and DS9; even during a massive war.

What follows are some random rationales I came up with last night in a discussion with Lonestar:

Rationale 1)
The UFP suffered a "wartime" glut -- a huge number of Excelsiors and suchlike were ordered when Kirk was retiring to face the klingon threat and were too far along to cancel when Khitomiter appeared and the Klingon threat totally collapsed. Since the Romulan threat never really did materialize until the time of TNG; a penny conscious UFP government has kept upgrading them along with other older ships.

Rationale 2)
It could be that Starfleet is a massive jobs program for the UFP's utopia to ensure 100% employment, and keeping older ships in service sucks up people who would otherwise sit around and do nothing.

Rationale 3)
The shipyards are also jobs programs too -- and they keep ordering proven designs that the shipyards are tooled up for or can tool up for with minor delays, like Flight V Excelsiors in the FY76 program have fairly modern bridges, warp drives etc in the spaceframe etc of the original design.

Rationale 4)
There were massive cost overruns on newer ships (the TNG Tech manual talks about how long and delayed the GCS design was); and the Federation Council cancelled a lot of projected hulls of the Ambassador class and follow on ships in favor of more Flight VI Excelsiors which were already in production.

Rationale 5)
The Federation Government simply got lax. This kind of craziness of keeping hundred year old ships in active service would never be tolerated in Kirk's time. But when Kirk has been MIA and presumed dead for 25-30 years; and the last of the "old guard" Starfleet personnel who were through the ending years of the Klingon Cold War have retired, along with the Federation Councilmembers of that period as well; there is a loss of institutional memory, and a rise of the "what we have is good enough" culture that pervaded through Picard's era.

Rationale 6)
Due to the fact that Starfleet seems now to carry every single damn thing from cargo to scientific expeditions to people travelling between planets; it could be that the explosion in ancillary missions for Starfleet sucked away shipbuilding and manpower funds from it's core mission.

To use an analogy, it would be like the US Navy suddenly finding by act of Congress, it had to own, operate, and construct every pleasure yacht, fishing vessel, cruise ship, and freighter that flies the U.S. Flag.

And this might a reason why so many older ships are in service -- Starfleet's shipbuilding budget never expanded to meet it's new mission -- and they have to keep every possible hull in service to fill these new roles -- like give a Miranda a FRAM IV refit so that it can continue in service as a short range warp capable cargo ship for another 50 years, because there's a huge backlog in the T-AK-1000 program that builds modern cargo ships for Starfleet.

This also neatly explains why hull numbers exploded between the TOS movies and TNG; because in TMP, a Travel Pod (or small craft of unknown type) is referred to in dialogue by a NCC number. So when Starfleet took over virtually all of the smaller private concerns, right down to the small orbital and inter-system craft, all these craft had to be assigned NCC numbers; in the same way the U.S. Navy must give a hull classification symbol to any ship it acquires.

[Nephtys]

The hull of the ship seems to be a lot less important than how fancy you deck out the ship itself. There's several instances of this. The first Defiant seems in itself by multiple cases of dialogue to be superior to later follow-up Defiants, especially of later Generations. Sao Paulo, the 'Defiant II' given to Sisko was commented not to handle as well, nor have as capable phasers.

During the Coup mini-arc of DS9, an upgraded Excelsior is sent by Admiral Jackass to stop the Defiant and ordered to attack without hesitation (Presuming that the Defiant was crewed by Changelings), and is considered to be more than a match. It would have been too according to dialogue, except for 'unexpected ablative armor' found specifically on the Defiant, which presumably is a non-standard upgrade, so they fight to a standstill with heavy damage to both ships.

So, if an Excelsior kept up to date isn't really that shabby, it doesn't seem unreasonable that upgrading all those Mirandas and such is seen as a cost-effective choice. Likewise, you see some later 'production' Defiants totally suck and get blown away in groups. Presumably, those didn't have all the fancy toys that the first-gen Defiants got.

[Alyeska]

Shep, there is an additional thing to consider. Starfleet Mothballs older ships. Remember that TNG episode where they visit a Federation boneyard? There were a number of Excelsior and Miranda class ships sitting in there. It is quite likely that with the nearing onset of Total War with the Dominion that Starfleet reactivated the older ships. Any ship is better than no ship, so to speak. They use the hull and upgrade what components they can. Think of it like what they did to the Iowa class battleships. Maybe a minor upgrade to the Warp Core. Improved phaser emitters of a relatively cheap price. Keep the old torpedo launcher but use newer torpedoes compatible with the launcher.

And then consider this. We saw a fair number of older ships in the fleet as the war began. But by the time of Voyager End Game, the Federation task force protecting Earth from the Borg was almost entirely new ship designs. And that was less then an hours warning. So they didn't send only their modern ships. It was whatever warning they had.

I would argue that the large number of older designs prevalent in the fleet in DS9 is a result of desperation. The more modern fleet Post-War reflect the newer designs being built in large numbers.

Now, the reason for these ships existing in the TNG era, you have very good ideas behind it.

[MKSheppard]

Shep, there is an additional thing to consider. Starfleet Mothballs older ships. Remember that TNG episode where they visit a Federation boneyard? There were a number of Excelsior and Miranda class ships sitting in there.

Then explain the wide prevalence of Excelsiors and Mirandas/Oberths whatever doing "Every day" roles as the E-D runs across them in their various travels. Same thing for DS9; we don't see "modernish" ships until the very late war years.

[Gandalf]

Perhaps because the everyday jobs don't necessitate any new ship designs, at least in the eyes of Starfleet? Those resources could be placed elsewhere, while refitting the Excelsiors/Mirandas/Oberths as needed.

Of course, when the Borg/Dominion appeared, it put the fire under their arse.

[Lord Revan]

Correct if I'm wrong but wouldn't most of the combat missions Starfleet would be involved be anti-piracy or anti-smugling anyway, with occational wars against opponents that you generally outclass (at least I got the impression from TNG and what little DS9 I watched that the cardassian fleet was rather badly out of date before the dominion war) and your main threats (aka the Klingons and the Romulans) seem to be using mostly late TOS era (aka movie era) equipment as far as the federation knew, so it might be hard to get the federation council to fund a fleetwide upgrade program when Mirandas and Excelciors are doing the job well enough.

sure they were upgrading (or at least seemed to be) but it was slow, well before as Galdalf said the Borg and Dominion came and said "hey wake up, your shit is out of date!"

[Stark]

Maybe because there's no reason to retire older ships? Excelsiors are old but they're not useless, and few later designs were built in large numbers. Hell, their reliance on energy-field structures might mean the basic ship remains viable for centuries (although most of the Excelsiors seen in TNG had high registries).

Obvious solution is obvious.

[Alyeska]

Maybe because there's no reason to retire older ships? Excelsiors are old but they're not useless, and few later designs were built in large numbers. Hell, their reliance on energy-field structures might mean the basic ship remains viable for centuries (although most of the Excelsiors seen in TNG had high registries).

Obvious solution is obvious.

Thats a good point I didn't consider. Use of technology like Structural Integrity Fields might have increased relative life exptency. The Excelsior as we know it in TNG might have nothing but basic shape in common with the Excelsior of TOS era.

[Stark]

What stresses would your average SF ship be under anyway? Drive stress, obviously, and whatever stresses warp travel introduces. Those are (apparently) covered by the SIF, so depending on the properties of the structure and the cost of regular maintenance it might be trivial to keep older ships in service until they're useless (like the Mirandas that were in mothballs until they got dragged out in DS9 to die a lot).

Regarding the Excelsior specifically, it seems to be a 'good size' for a ST ship, as other empires use ships approximately the same size widely. Ambassadors and Galaxies and D'deridexes are 'large' ships, which might be the kind of ships or designs that demand the highest performance, while 'mid size' ships take less demanding roles. Isn't the Vor'cha much smaller than a Galaxy?

[MKSheppard]

Maybe because there's no reason to retire older ships? Excelsiors are old but they're not useless, and few later designs were built in large numbers. Hell, their reliance on energy-field structures might mean the basic ship remains viable for centuries (although most of the Excelsiors seen in TNG had high registries).

Except there's more to aged ships than pure structural stress; like embrittlement of various materials under very high radiation intensities -- which would be a severe problem in the propulsion system and other various subsystems.

Then there's the fact that ships in the TOS era seemed to be solid state electrical distribution systems, while in TNG, they have the notorious EPS field sending plasma everywhere. What happens as the connectors and plugs in the EPS system age?

Do you have to rip out all the walls on an EPS equipped ship and replace several thousand miles of EPS piping every 25 years?

There's a point where ships become uneconomical to keep in service or refit.

[Stark]

So I guess you can show how that's relevant then?

Oh wait, you can't.

Turns out if they keep ships in service it's either economical to do so (or more economical than designing and building a new class) or they just don't care. Making shit up about ST materials nobody knows is a waste of time.

[Lonestar]

Dunno Stark, just like in real life, I can't imagine it's easy to keep upgrading systems within the same hull. Modernized Queen Elizabeth BBs looked much different than unmodernized ones, for example.

And anything kept in service for a hundred years is likely have to go through major work(reactor replacement, what have you) and they'll be a temptation to re-engine them, replaced the defelector dish, etc. There should be a lot more external differences after a hundred years.

I mean, the Enterprise-B and Lakota both had external differences, perhaps representing a Block IIIa or something that was built as the cold war with the Klingons was petering out and money for line ships was going away, thus needing a beefier "heavy cruiser" since the replacement class was being truncated

[Stark]

The E-B by itself is an example of them extending a design's life through mods; that an Excelsior is even able to be upgraded a hundred years later suggests that any routine maintenance is keeping them relatively up to date, at least as much as is relevant for second-tier units like that. Post TOS the tech stagnation probably means there isn't much to do in any case, since as examples show it's more about the guns and powerplant than the spaceframe anyway.

So either the basis of nearly every ST fleet is wrong and broken, or this is an efficient way to run a peacetime fleet. I wonder what the answer is?

[MKSheppard]

Making shit up about ST materials nobody knows is a waste of time.

In real life; radiation embrittlement, and the effects of high intensity radiation is a problem with nuclear reactors -- the biggest reactor in real life is about 4~ gigawatts of energy; and the intensity of the radiation inside their cores is a severe problem due to the effects it has against materials like metals, ceramics, plastics, glass, electronic components, etc.

This was also a severe problem for the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Project -- since due to the fact that shielding is heavy, nuclear aircraft would have to use distance to shield the crew; and that required some very advanced implementations of remote controls to control the reactor from several hundred feet away.

The reactor on a GCS outputs like 4 million terawatts at rough peak output according to Mike's rough calculations HERE.

Granted, the GCS is significantly more powerful than the older ships found in Trek; but we're still talking about orders of magnitude of increase in radiation intensities versus terrestial fission reactors with substantially older M/AM reactors.

As for the EPS system, it's essentially a pipe network that holds a energetic substance under high pressures and temperatures; and the seals that connect the EPS system together would erode under time.

While the main taps from the reactor to the nacelles themselves would be large enough in diameter and also short enough in run length to make welding or other methods that do not involve seals feasible; the thousands of miles of other EPS trunk lines and sub-trunk lines are too small in diameter and too numerous to weld/bond every single last conduit.

[Gandalf]

Considering the ease with which one can apparently divert "EPS flow", wouldn't it be easy to replace much of the non-essential piping throughout the ship on a somewhat daily basis? Replacement of more essential parts could of course be done in a starbase.

To some extent it'd explain what all of those ops and engineering do all day.

[Lonestar]

The E-B by itself is an example of them extending a design's life through mods; that an Excelsior is even able to be upgraded a hundred years later suggests that any routine maintenance is keeping them relatively up to date, at least as much as is relevant for second-tier units like that. Post TOS the tech stagnation probably means there isn't much to do in any case, since as examples show it's more about the guns and powerplant than the spaceframe anyway.

Except that most other Excels weren't similiarly modded. This tells me that the E-B and the Lakota were built at the tail end of the Excelsior program, possibly in response to budget restraints that truncated the next class.

So either the basis of nearly every ST fleet is wrong and broken, or this is an efficient way to run a peacetime fleet. I wonder what the answer is?

I don't think Starfleet is very well run.

[MKSheppard]

Dunno Stark, just like in real life, I can't imagine it's easy to keep upgrading systems within the same hull. Modernized Queen Elizabeth BBs looked much different than unmodernized ones, for example.

Deep modernizations are actually pretty rare in naval history -- they only occured when political limitations forced them to occur, due to the enormous cost of modernization; when you could just use the same money to buy an all new ship with better overall characteristics.

[Stark]

Except that most other Excels weren't similiarly modded. This tells me that the E-B and the Lakota were built at the tail end of the Excelsior program, possibly in response to budget restraints that truncated the next class.

Huh? The Lakota's extras were (I thought) additions as part of the recent refit, not from construction time. Anyway, the outer shape of the ship isn't hugely relevant, since Lakota herself shows you can upgrade 100-year old ships to be top-line if you want to. That upgrade was bagged, but its a stretch to say no such upgrades were ever performed, since we have no idea. Its irrelevant anyway since Excelsiors and similar were used either for second-line duty or in desperation, where 100 year old ships are clearly fine (after the apparently common bridge/computer upgrade Starfleet apparently performs).

I don't think Starfleet is very well run.

There are easier ways to prove it than making shit up. Seriously, Shep is just saying LOL I BET THEY HAVE TO STRIP OUT THE PLASMA CONDUITS AND THAT'S EXPENSIVE based on absolutely nothing (well, a simpleminded expectation that it's the same as his experience, anyway). Ships visually similar/identical remaining viable in ST is extraordinarily common, and it doesn't surprise me that until late TNG new mid-size classes were rare or short-run given the apparent swarms of still-usable Excelsiors they had.

BOPs have been basically identical for what, 200 years? Some of the really old ones even still fly and fight. Turns out spaceframes don't magically disintegrate. Oops.

[Lonestar]

Huh? The Lakota's extras were (I thought) additions as part of the recent refit, not from construction time. Anyway, the outer shape of the ship isn't hugely relevant, since Lakota herself shows you can upgrade 100-year old ships to be top-line if you want to. That upgrade was bagged, but its a stretch to say no such upgrades were ever performed, since we have no idea. Its irrelevant anyway since Excelsiors and similar were used either for second-line duty or in desperation, where 100 year old ships are clearly fine (after the apparently common bridge/computer upgrade Starfleet apparently performs).

Hmm, I'm not sure it was ever said the external modifications came about because of the refit. If the E-B looks exactly like the Lakota I suspect they might have been in the same flight. In which case the relative age may have been what allowed it to be upgraded to the point of being able to fight an extremely modern escort.

There are easier ways to prove it than making shit up. Seriously, Shep is just saying LOL I BET THEY HAVE TO STRIP OUT THE PLASMA CONDUITS AND THAT'S EXPENSIVE based on absolutely nothing (well, a simpleminded expectation that it's the same as his experience, anyway). Ships visually similar/identical remaining viable in ST is extraordinarily common, and it doesn't surprise me that until late TNG new mid-size classes were rare or short-run given the apparent swarms of still-usable Excelsiors they had.

BOPs have been basically identical for what, 200 years? Some of the really old ones even still fly and fight. Turns out spaceframes don't magically disintegrate. Oops.

BOPs are about the age of the Excelsiors. D7-types were around during the ENT era, but then at that point Klingon tech was very much ahead of Earthican tech, and slid downwards after the TOS era.

[Stark]

No, you're right; I think there are slight differences between E-B and Lakota, but E-B is out of universe later but in universe earlier so I got confused.

But if General Martok can drive around in his Defiant-BoP that looks the same as BoPs from STIV, obviously some upgrading isn't a big deal. I think in-universe new designs are better due to major changes (like shape, fuel, weapon placement, or whatever) rather than 'the nacelles look different now'. Lakota could obviously kick the shit out of Voyager, for instance, and they're similar size and tech level.

[Nephtys]

It's probably a matter of core systems being way more important than spaceframes. Install a new shield generator on a 100 year old ship, strip out those old phaser turrets for a new strip, replace those old photorp launchers with these shiny blue torpedo launchers, and blam. Really top-of-the-line Lakota.

Presumably really the main advantage of 'Large' ships (Galaxies, Warbirds, that giant klingon battleship thingy) over the 'medium' types everyone uses (Excelsiors, Keldons, Vorchas, Marauders) is more space for... stuff. Galaxies have more toys on board than an Excelsior, so you don't need as many. After all, if the Defiants, BoPs and Jem Hadar frigates are a threat to big ships, it shows that size matters pretty little as far as combat ability goes. Presumably the rest is for endurance and misc functions.

[MKSheppard]

There are easier ways to prove it than making shit up.

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, that proclaims due to the magic of the structural integrity field; absolutely no preventive maintenance needs to be done on the ship at all -- that components don't degrade over time, et cetera, even when subjected to intense operating conditions.

[Lonestar]

But if General Martok can drive around in his Defiant-BoP that looks the same as BoPs from STIV, obviously some upgrading isn't a big deal. I think in-universe new designs are better due to major changes (like shape, fuel, weapon placement, or whatever) rather than 'the nacelles look different now'. Lakota could obviously kick the shit out of Voyager, for instance, and they're similar size and tech level.

Yeah, but BOPs scale in size from Defiant sized to Constitution sized to "Is that thing as big as a Warbird"? size. The scaling is all kinds of screwed up for Klingon ships.

[MKSheppard]

If the E-B looks exactly like the Lakota I suspect they might have been in the same flight. In which case the relative age may have been what allowed it to be upgraded to the point of being able to fight an extremely modern escort.

Therin lies the rub. I think people are placing too much emphasis on the fact that the Lakota was able to fight the Defiant to a stand still -- and ignoring their relative sizes; the Defiant is only 500~ feet and four decks, while the Lakota is about 1,500 feet and 34 decks -- that doesn't say good things about the efficiency of the modernization programs conducted over the years in allowing older ships to maintain their position in the fleet.

[Temujin]

Dunno Stark, just like in real life, I can't imagine it's easy to keep upgrading systems within the same hull. Modernized Queen Elizabeth BBs looked much different than unmodernized ones, for example.

Deep modernizations are actually pretty rare in naval history -- they only occured when political limitations forced them to occur, due to the enormous cost of modernization; when you could just use the same money to buy an all new ship with better overall characteristics.

True, but this is TNG era Star Fleet and the Federation we're talking about, they don't always behave in the most rational way. If they do have a jobs program, its conceivable that they used it to justify the cost of bringing old ships up to standard. It could also explain why initially newer ships like the Galaxies took so long to build (6 initial ships) and than we see larger numbers quickly churned out for the war (War Galaxies); i.e., they could use automation and work 24 hrs straight, but instead they have one shift mandated with all sorts of rules for who has to what and how, resulting in a lot of people standing around with their thumbs up their asses.

As for the Klingon ships, a lot of them could be privately own by the various clans, and thus kept upgraded slowly bit by bit over decades. It would also explain why they seem to keep larger numbers of them in active service because aside from a small number, they're basically shit held together by spit and string that can be easily blown apart.