Carriers in Star Trek

[Alyrium Denryle]

We see Romulans and Klingons debating this topic on screen in TNG and DS9, though.

They debate it. They conclude otherwise. I dont remember the exact circumstances though, if I am honest. I do however seem to recall rational minds (as opposed to cultural contempt, which is what causes them to debate it in the first place) tend to win out.

Yes. So? It's a warship which happens to have sensors which are capable of scientific tasks (or some scientific tasks). What's the problem if teh ship cannot do everything a cruiser can?

Because the technobabble solutions the cruisers are capable of work as a force multiplier. I am not sure that is the correct term, but similar concept. They cannot do the combat oriented things that a cruiser can. Need to counter romulan or klingon cloaks? We have seen cruisers do that repeatedly.

... if you ignore that a Defiant is smaller and hence is harder to hit. Birds of Prey and Dominion bug-ships stick to the same concept, and they seem to be efficient.

They also get swatted out of the void like flies (the only things that get destroyed at similar rates are some of the formerly mothballed century-old UFP ships). Efficient maybe, but only if you are willing to sustain ridiculous casualties, which in fairness, both the klingons and dominion are.

Smaller ships are harder to hit, yes. But these are civilizations that can target small subsystems on other ships. I am presuming that there is pretty heavy jamming going on, which accounts for misses at even ridiculously close ranges. But there are trade-offs.

When small, you cannot absorb damage. Why do you think consoles explode when ships get hit in Star Trek? Out of universe it is a cheap way to show damage. In universe, it probably some kind of feedback through the power system. The shield takes a hit and some of the energy surges back through the power system. Some circuits cannot handle the load and when the breakers...break... it is pretty energetic. Best I've got, that... Worse of course when the naked hull is hit. At that point there is impulse shock, and a larger ship can potentially take those hits without damage to critical systems, and the physical space means impulse shocks propagate through a smaller proportion of crew spaces.

Smaller ships have less circuitry to act as a buffer, and are more vulnerable to catastrophic hits when their shields go down, which is why lethal console explosions seem to happen rather frequently on defiant class ships compared to other larger vessels (which might also be a result in part to the fact that their power systems are already in a state of barely controlled overload).

Come on, we can argue if it is a good idea to have more Defiants or not, but I don't buy that the Defiant is a bad warship, not from what I saw on screen

It is not bad. It is sub-optimal given the strategic mission and tactical doctrine of starfleet, and it has serious downsides that prevent it from being acceptable for large-scale production.

Look at it from the perspective of a Starfleet officer in procurement.

You have ships that are relatively safe, perform just as well in terms of throwing energy around, and can perform the full range of duties expected of a starfleet vessel but is larger and more expensive to produce.

vs

A ship that is hell on wheels in terms of damage per tonne, but is unsafe to operate, and does not have a mission when a war is over and will just sit around gathering stray hydrogen atoms--in peacetime situations where it would be useful, it probably cannot get there in time because its engines are slower.

Can you cite the according episode? I'm not talking about technobabble solutions here, show me an episode where an Intrepid performs better in battle than a Defiant.

Unimatrix Zero. The Voyager survives protracted battle, alone, with a tactical cube. The Defiant class (discounting First Contact for a moment, because we dont know other parameters) cannot match that. Next most comparable is a dominion battleship in Valiant, wherein a defiant class ship by that name starts getting bridge crew killed out from under it, and significant internal structural damage before they even lose shields.

However, they lost.

Yes, but for your argument to work, the circumstances matter.

The Federation doesn't seem to have produced that much ships in the Dominion war, see my answer to Simon above.

They obviously have. The Akira is a new ship class, produced in the 2370s during the time of the Dominion War, and they are rather common.

Martok's Bird of Prey doesn't seem to be much weaker than the Defiant...

Which marks it as distinctly different from other ships of its class. Glass cannons describe them pretty well.

No, they won by divine intervention.

Granted (which is one of those instances of groan-worthy writing), but even then the war was not a foregone conclusion.

I think it's 5 km³

Ok. Even at best possible speed over distance it takes a very fast feddie ship (say, an Intrepid) a year to make 1000 ly. Which means they can make about 19.23 ly a week. That is an average (because they dont spend that entire time at warp 9.975). At that speed it takes 8 years to cross the federation. They can probably do it faster if they REALLY have to, warp 9.975 is pretty close to 10,000 c for example, it is still going to take 9.6 months to cross the federation. Now that is end to end, and a lot of their borders are closer, the romulan neutral zone is 800 light years from earth, 8 months at average warp, a month at max warp for an Interepid class. For a defiant, it would take at least double that.

Space is vast.

You wonder why the UFP often does not have a lot of ships in range AND why a reserve of defiants would not be useful? That is why.

The incident with the romulan plot to suborn the klingon government you mentioned earlier? Defiants could not have done that job, even if they were available. Yeah, the UFP had to scramble together ships on short notice (some of which were in end-stage construction or in need of repairs at the time) but it was short notice space is kinda huge.

This is actually a good point. But still, we also see regular cruisers perform cargo duty within Federation territory in TNG, so I assume it has some effect. Of course we can hardly calculate the exact numbers, so it's speculation.

They are used in emergencies, yes. Medical relief supplies etc. But last I checked they are not used for regular cargo runs to bring apples to vulcan.

We never actually see an independent Federation freighter in the Federation as far as I remember, they all are government-owned.

Government owned is different from Starfleet. They have a civil service.

[BabelHuber]

They debate it. They conclude otherwise. I dont remember the exact circumstances though, if I am honest. I do however seem to recall rational minds (as opposed to cultural contempt, which is what causes them to debate it in the first place) tend to win out.

When you need to debate something, it is not as clear as you state. Otherwise there would be no debate.

Because the technobabble solutions the cruisers are capable of work as a force multiplier. I am not sure that is the correct term, but similar concept. They cannot do the combat oriented things that a cruiser can. Need to counter romulan or klingon cloaks? We have seen cruisers do that repeatedly.

Point me to a single occasion on screen where somebody complained about the sensors of the Defiant.

You can't? Well, then the Defiant's sensors are fine!

They also get swatted out of the void like flies (the only things that get destroyed at similar rates are some of the formerly mothballed century-old UFP ships). Efficient maybe, but only if you are willing to sustain ridiculous casualties, which in fairness, both the klingons and dominion are.

Bullshit. Birds of Prey like Martok's ship are tough as nails.

Smaller ships are harder to hit, yes. But these are civilizations that can target small subsystems on other ships. I am presuming that there is pretty heavy jamming going on, which accounts for misses at even ridiculously close ranges. But there are trade-offs.

When small, you cannot absorb damage. Why do you think consoles explode when ships get hit in Star Trek? Out of universe it is a cheap way to show damage. In universe, it probably some kind of feedback through the power system. The shield takes a hit and some of the energy surges back through the power system. Some circuits cannot handle the load and when the breakers...break... it is pretty energetic. Best I've got, that... Worse of course when the naked hull is hit. At that point there is impulse shock, and a larger ship can potentially take those hits without damage to critical systems, and the physical space means impulse shocks propagate through a smaller proportion of crew spaces.

Smaller ships have less circuitry to act as a buffer, and are more vulnerable to catastrophic hits when their shields go down, which is why lethal console explosions seem to happen rather frequently on defiant class ships compared to other larger vessels (which might also be a result in part to the fact that their power systems are already in a state of barely controlled overload).

Please just stop this ridiculuous speculations! The DS9-show i have seem shows the Defiant in a completely different light:

The Defiant destroyed/ damaged Cardassian ships left and right when the Riker-clone stole the ship. Dukat said something like "You tell me that terrorists have stolen the heaviest armed ship in the sector?"

When the minefield on the wormhole was laid, the Defiant sat there like a sitting duck, with shields disabled and full of mines, performing a mission she wasn't designed for.

And what happened? She took the hits, performed the mission and did not suffer damage worth speaking of.

And why - probably because of the ablative armor it had. You know, the armor that people regularily talked about in the show and which helped her to survive hits with her fucking shields down!

Not to speak of all the other battles in which the Defiant performed very well. Even when she was destroyed by the new Breen weapon, the Defiant managed to destroy one Breen ship at least!

So you can argue all day about your weird theories, but they are not supported by what we see on screen. Hence they are worthless.

It is not bad. It is sub-optimal given the strategic mission and tactical doctrine of starfleet, and it has serious downsides that prevent it from being acceptable for large-scale production.

Look at it from the perspective of a Starfleet officer in procurement.

You have ships that are relatively safe, perform just as well in terms of throwing energy around, and can perform the full range of duties expected of a starfleet vessel but is larger and more expensive to produce.

It kicks ass when in a battle, and this is exactly what a warship should be capable off. It is no designed to haul around cargo or to perform a 5-year-scientific mission, and it doesn't need to.

A ship that is hell on wheels in terms of damage per tonne, but is unsafe to operate, and does not have a mission when a war is over and will just sit around gathering stray hydrogen atoms--in peacetime situations where it would be useful, it probably cannot get there in time because its engines are slower.

No mission in peace time at all? What about patrolling the neutral zone? What about showing the flag? What about forming a reserve, so threats can be countered without removing regular cruisers from their missions?

And provide proof that a Defiant is slower than a Galaxy or a Nebula or STFU! I can buy that a Defiant is slower than a Souvereign or Intrepid, since these ships seem to be the fastest ships Starfleet has, but I don't remember any episode where it couldn't keep up with a Galaxy, Excelsior or Nebula.

Unimatrix Zero. The Voyager survives protracted battle, alone, with a tactical cube.

Which other Federation ships fought a tactical cube? I don't know any other, so what should this tell us?

Look, when an Intrepid can handle a tactical cube, so can a Galaxy, Nebula and Souvereign.

Can an upgraded Excelsior like the USS Lakota handle such a tactical cube? I don't know. Do you?

So this is basically a worthless observation.

Yes, but for your argument to work, the circumstances matter.

No. It shows that the Federation isn't invincible to the threats it faces, it can lose.

They obviously have. The Akira is a new ship class, produced in the 2370s during the time of the Dominion War, and they are rather common.

No they are not. Rewatch the DS9 battles, you have the same ships in the fleets at the beginning of the war and at the end of the war.

Shouldn't the Federation have produced a shitload of Souvereigns, Intrepids and Akiras according to your theory? Where are they on screen?

I cannot see them, I see lots of Mirandas, Excelsiors, Galaxies and Nebulas instead, with the occasional Akira in between. But not in big numbers. And since we saw the really important battles, we can savely assume that your phantasy mighty fleets of Akiras would show up if available. Where are they?

Sorry, but the show doesn't support your theory.

Which marks it as distinctly different from other ships of its class. Glass cannons describe them pretty well.

Yes, like the Federation uses old Mirandas as cannon fodder, the Klingons have old Birds of Prey for this task. Newer versions seem to perform well. Like newer Federation vessels.

Granted (which is one of those instances of groan-worthy writing), but even then the war was not a foregone conclusion.

Had the Dominion fleet of 2,800 ships gotten through the wormwhole, the Federation would be in deep shit. And most probably more reinforcements would have arrived to make matters even worse.

Heck, even Weyoun explicitely stated that the Dominion performed better after Dukat "closed" the wormhole, so probably the Prophets were interfering all the time!

Blabla ... a month at max warp for an Interepid class. For a defiant, it would take at least double that.

Proof that an Intrepid is at least twice as fast as a Defiant, or STFU.

The incident with the romulan plot to suborn the klingon government you mentioned earlier? Defiants could not have done that job, even if they were available. Yeah, the UFP had to scramble together ships on short notice (some of which were in end-stage construction or in need of repairs at the time) but it was short notice space is kinda huge.

So a reserve of ships near the neutral zone wouldn't have helped? I call this bullshit! A mission-ready reserve fleet of warships would mean that the Romulans would have thought twice about trying to interfer in the first place. They thought they can pull this of because the Federation did not have much ships in this area!

What do you think would have happened when the Federation caught wind of the Romulan's activities and they would have a reserve ready? Oh right, they would send some ships to the neutral zone. No, this wouldn't help them at all!

They are used in emergencies, yes. Medical relief supplies etc. But last I checked they are not used for regular cargo runs to bring apples to vulcan.

We don't see much Federation freighters at all. They have to exist in numbers, but obviously they don't have enough of them, otherwise they wouldn't have such "emergencies" on a regular basis.

Government owned is different from Starfleet. They have a civil service.

So what? She still has a Bajoran license, not a Federation one

[Prometheus Unbound]

Defiants are slower than other ships like the Galaxy etc. IIRC it caps out at Warp 9.5 - and that's super pushing the engines.

[BabelHuber]

Defiants are slower than other ships like the Galaxy etc. IIRC it caps out at Warp 9.5 - and that's super pushing the engines.

If I recall correctly, the Galaxy-class has also a top speed of Warp 9.5 (Data stated this in the episode where they hunted a smuggler where Picard also was on board (and later Riker)).

Where did you get this info about the Defiant - do you remember the episode?

[Prometheus Unbound]

Defiants are slower than other ships like the Galaxy etc. IIRC it caps out at Warp 9.5 - and that's super pushing the engines.

If I recall correctly, the Galaxy-class has also a top speed of Warp 9.5 (Data stated this in the episode where they hunted a smuggler where Picard also was on board (and later Riker)).

Where did you get this info about the Defiant - do you remember the episode?

Enterprise D can do Warp 9.8 (Encounter at Farpoint, Q Who) and is happy zipping around at 9.6 and 9.65 vs the Borg (Q Who, TBOBW).

Defiant's top speed was mentioned in "The Sound of Her Voice" - and they had to push the engines to get 9.5 out of her.


Defiants are not slow by any means; just their top speed does not match that of a Galaxy class or Intrepid class. Which is not surprising at all - they're built for combat not drag racing.

[BabelHuber]

Enterprise D can do Warp 9.8 (Encounter at Farpoint, Q Who) and is happy zipping around at 9.6 and 9.65 vs the Borg (Q Who, TBOBW).

Yes, emergency speed seems to be higher than Warp 9.5, which makes sense.

It's like some ships in WW2, which could push their turbines to 20% overload or so. But you wouldn't do this until it's really necessary for the mission or your survival.

Defiant's top speed was mentioned in "The Sound of Her Voice" - and they had to push the engines to get 9.5 out of her.

Thanks.

Defiants are not slow by any means; just their top speed does not match that of a Galaxy class or Intrepid class. Which is not surprising at all - they're built for combat not drag racing.

Of course, I completely agree. This also makes sense regarding the design of the Warp nacelles, which are basically part of the hull in the case of the Defiant.

So we have the Enterprise at Warp 9.8 and the Defiant at Warp 9.5. Fine.

[Prometheus Unbound]

9.8 and 9.5 as "Top emergency speed". Defiant is happy warping at 9.0 for extended periods, same as the Galaxy of course. And both normally seem to cruise around warp 6/7 - which the Defiant has absolutely no issues with for any length of time.

[Lord Revan]

I'm guessing the "top emergency speed" puts undue stress to the space frame (it's implied in TUC but not stated outright) so they'll avoid flying at those speeds for extended periods of time if it can be avoided.

while the regular Cruise speed of Warp 6/7 for TNG era ships is probably to conserve fuel when they're in no particular hurry to get somewhere.

[Simon_Jester]

Enterprise D can do Warp 9.8 (Encounter at Farpoint, Q Who) and is happy zipping around at 9.6 and 9.65 vs the Borg (Q Who, TBOBW).

Yes, emergency speed seems to be higher than Warp 9.5, which makes sense.

It's like some ships in WW2, which could push their turbines to 20% overload or so. But you wouldn't do this until it's really necessary for the mission or your survival.

The conclusion remains, though, that evidence suggests the Defiant-class has a lower cruising speed AND a lower sprint speed in warp than many of the Starfleet 'cruisers,' which is not a surprise; cruisers are built to cruise, while small gunships usually aren't. Both these factors reduce the value of the Defiants or anything like them as a strategic reserve for the Federation.

Also, as others have mentioned, especially Alyrium, it is completely impractical for the Federation to maintain such a reserve in a centrally placed location where it can reinforce any part of the frontier. Most crises will either be over before a central reserve can even arrive, or will require a Federation-wide mobilization of all available ships and go on for months or years in any event. Therefore, using warships as such a strategic reserve just means they get extra double-plus wasted.

If the reserve is deployed close to areas where conflict seems likely (e.g. the Romulan neutral zone), it is not a 'reserve' in that it is already committed to be used on a single front. At which point there is no benefit in not expecting the ships to pull their weight during peacetime operations, so they should be able to do so... except they can't, so they're actively less useful than a multirole cruiser.

[Prometheus Unbound]

I'm guessing the "top emergency speed" puts undue stress to the space frame (it's implied in TUC but not stated outright) so they'll avoid flying at those speeds for extended periods of time if it can be avoided.

while the regular Cruise speed of Warp 6/7 for TNG era ships is probably to conserve fuel when they're in no particular hurry to get somewhere.

It's even mentioned at least twice - The Baryon Sweep in Starship Mine (?) was due to the accumulation of "baryonic particles" on the hull due to lots of warp stress.

In The Chase, at the end Picard's closing log statement mentions they are going off to a Starbase for the warp coils to get a going over, due to the stress of high warp factors being used quickly and continuously over the course of the episode.

[Prometheus Unbound]

The conclusion remains, though, that evidence suggests the Defiant-class has a lower cruising speed AND a lower sprint speed in warp than many of the Starfleet 'cruisers,' which is not a surprise; cruisers are built to cruise, while small gunships usually aren't. Both these factors reduce the value of the Defiants or anything like them as a strategic reserve for the Federation.

I dunno man, slower sprint speed certainly, but cruising speed is normally Warp 6 - Defiant has no issues with that as far as I know. I may have missed a line somewhere but I'm fairly sure it can cruise along just fine - even Runabouts can reach warp 7 and cruise at warp 5.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Interesting case in "The sound of her voice", where the Defiant had to steal power from something called the "phaser reserve" to reinforce the structural integrity. It's probable that such a reserve is only kept during wartime when weapons were going to be used far more often than during peace.

The toughness of B'rel BOPs is debatable. During the attack on DS9 in "The way of the warrior", several of them were one-shotted by the stations phasers when they were fired.

The Dominion war was about 3 years long, so it makes sense that a lot of the Federation fleet was comprised of Sabers, Steamrunners, Akiras (but infamously not the Norway!) at the time. Given the long construction times of larger ships, it stands to reason that had the war dragged on for a few more years we would have seen Sovereign-class ships turn up in far greater numbers.

I think from the way it was portrayed, the Prometheus class is limited in just how far the three sections can operate from each other. Given that the warp nacelles on the saucer section are relatively small and extend/retract, we can infer that the ship is going to spend the vast majority of its time integrated together, with the small nacelles only being suitable for correspondingly short trips, with the rest of the time the four larger engines bearing the lion's share of the workload. Something that I've wondered about that ship is how the shields are configured when the ship is integrated- is each section independently shielded, resulting in each section having individually weaker shields? Or do they integrate in a similar way to the rest of the ship, with the entire ship having 3 times the shield power but when it does lose shields it loses them all at once?

In many ways it's a similar story with the phasers- when integrated, does the ship have 3 time as much power to feed each individual array, resulting in fewer but stronger shots compared to each section on its own?

[Simon_Jester]

The conclusion remains, though, that evidence suggests the Defiant-class has a lower cruising speed AND a lower sprint speed in warp than many of the Starfleet 'cruisers,' which is not a surprise; cruisers are built to cruise, while small gunships usually aren't. Both these factors reduce the value of the Defiants or anything like them as a strategic reserve for the Federation.

I dunno man, slower sprint speed certainly, but cruising speed is normally Warp 6 - Defiant has no issues with that as far as I know. I may have missed a line somewhere but I'm fairly sure it can cruise along just fine - even Runabouts can reach warp 7 and cruise at warp 5.

Maybe it depends on your definition of 'sprint' and 'cruise.' I'm defining 'cruise' in terms of 'can keep it up for several days' and 'sprint' as in 'can keep it up for several hours.'

Interesting case in "The sound of her voice", where the Defiant had to steal power from something called the "phaser reserve" to reinforce the structural integrity. It's probable that such a reserve is only kept during wartime when weapons were going to be used far more often than during peace.

From an engineering point of view that is debatable.

Remember, the Defiant is designed to deliver an alpha strike from the (fixed forward) main battery, against a ridiculously tough target that will probably adapt to the attack afterwards. A target that has enough firepower to blow any one ship out of space in short order. So you may well only get one burst of phaser fire, and you had better make it count.

This lends itself to intense, high-power weapons that draw power faster than the ship's reactor can supply it... which in turn rewards you for designing capacitors that can trickle-charge from the reactor, then be dumped into the main guns for extra power at the moment of firing.

Moreover, the Defiant-class is also designed to fire, swoop away from the target, and then turn back for another firing pass. It's only got a weapon pointed at the target a small fraction of the time. Whereas a Galaxy or other similar ship is designed to be able to keep the enemy under fire more or less 100% of the time. So, again, if you want to maximize the total amount of energy from the reactor that can be output through the pulse phasers in a short time, you need capacitors to take surplus reactor power during times when the weapons don't bear on the target, and store it for the short periods when they do bear.

Therefore, I would be actively disappointed if there was NOT a 'phaser reserve' battery system designed to store extra energy to enable longer sustained bursts of maximum-intensity firepower from the Defiant's pulse phasers. And that would just be a routine part of the design. You might deliberately leave the phaser reserve uncharged during peacetime, as a way to prolong component lifetime. But you'd still have it.

[Prometheus Unbound]

The conclusion remains, though, that evidence suggests the Defiant-class has a lower cruising speed AND a lower sprint speed in warp than many of the Starfleet 'cruisers,' which is not a surprise; cruisers are built to cruise, while small gunships usually aren't. Both these factors reduce the value of the Defiants or anything like them as a strategic reserve for the Federation.

I dunno man, slower sprint speed certainly, but cruising speed is normally Warp 6 - Defiant has no issues with that as far as I know. I may have missed a line somewhere but I'm fairly sure it can cruise along just fine - even Runabouts can reach warp 7 and cruise at warp 5.

Maybe it depends on your definition of 'sprint' and 'cruise.' I'm defining 'cruise' in terms of 'can keep it up for several days' and 'sprint' as in 'can keep it up for several hours.'

Yup same here.

Warp 6 seems about right for the Defiant... I don't remember them mentioning there was an issue with cruising speed - just that getting to warp 9.5 took some rejigging and wasn't sustainable.

I don't see why the cruise velocity of ships (which is around Warp 6 IIRC) would be an issue for the Defiant to sustain.

[Formless]

I think from the way it was portrayed, the Prometheus class is limited in just how far the three sections can operate from each other. Given that the warp nacelles on the saucer section are relatively small and extend/retract, we can infer that the ship is going to spend the vast majority of its time integrated together, with the small nacelles only being suitable for correspondingly short trips, with the rest of the time the four larger engines bearing the lion's share of the workload. Something that I've wondered about that ship is how the shields are configured when the ship is integrated- is each section independently shielded, resulting in each section having individually weaker shields? Or do they integrate in a similar way to the rest of the ship, with the entire ship having 3 times the shield power but when it does lose shields it loses them all at once?

In many ways it's a similar story with the phasers- when integrated, does the ship have 3 time as much power to feed each individual array, resulting in fewer but stronger shots compared to each section on its own?

The way the writers portrayed it in Message in a Bottle, it seemed like they were thinking a few things:

1. this is similar to splitting the saucer section of the Enterprise, only where the Enterprise did it to protect the civilians (in theory), the Prometheus does it to kick ass.

2. the Prometheus first does this during an engagement at warp to destroy a Nebula class starship, so clearly the three sections have pretty similar warp engines. Notably, the saucer section (which strikes me as having a pretty similar spearhead shape to a Star Destroyer...) has two nacelles on the "wingtips" that are hard to see in the episode, and a third pop-up nacelle somewhere near the main bridge (above or behind it, again its hard to tell). Three nacelles could be a way of helping the saucer section keep up with the lower two sections at warp.

3. the ship has enough automation for a handful of Tal-Shiar agents to hijack the thing, or just two EMHs fumbling around with the controls. This obviously facilitated the story they had in mind, but moreover it must be remembered that this was the secret prototype for the class. Presumably, once fielded they could modify the ship to have a couple of battle bridges like the Enterprise if they wanted it to give the sections more autonomy. Its certainly big enough for a much larger crew (in fact I must confess an error-- in looking at some size comparisons, the 3 sections must each be the size of a Nova class, not a Defiant). Also, even though the ship was seen again in the Voyager finale when they escorted Voyager back to earth, and once more during ENT far in the future (meaning that it must be as solid a design as the Miranda class if it lasted that long), we never again see the MVAM in action. Unless we count STO, of course.

4. in the episode we only ever see the MVAM used to concentrate firepower on a single target at a time, whether from one angle of attack or three angles. So this must mean that in the writer's heads at least, the ship's phasers were no stronger in Cruiser mode, but also that its easier to concentrate firepower with phasers when two or more ships are there to do so. Admittedly, the arrangement of phaser strips on most Federation ships isn't optimized for a hard hitting alpha strike, they are optimized to defend against attacks from as many directions as possible, so this might make some sense. But then, that also calls attention to the advantage of phaser cannons like on the Defiant or the future Enterprise. And also, other "attack patterns" might involve splitting up to engage multiple targets as well. We just don't know.

5. I think they did say something about the advanced shielding on the Prometheus in the episode, but it was technical gibberish as usual. Maybe it was some kind of overlapping shielding, or maybe it was a prototype for the hull hugging shields seen in Nemesis. Although that idea might not be supported by the effects in the episode.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

The structures on the edges of the Prometheus' saucer section are impulse engines- the warp engines are in a pair, the ventral nacelle is on the opposite side to the dorsal one and is enclosed when the ship is integrated.

The Nebula Class was the USS Bonchune, and it actually survived because it was one of the ships in the Sol system during the events of Endgame.

The tactical systems it was listed as having were, in addition to the Ablative armour which the Defiant-class possesses, is something called "Regenerative shielding"

It would make concentrating firepower easier as it means more phaser strips are able to hit the same target at the same time- it didn't take long to overwhelm a D'Deridex-class warbird.

Link

[Tribble]

I wouldn't call the Defiant class a failure given its intended role: in STFC it had a running battle with the Borg Cube all the way from the initial fleet engagement to Earth, and even with shields down and previous battle damage it still took two hits to completely disable while other ships were being one-shotted.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I wouldn't call the Defiant class a failure given its intended role: in STFC it had a running battle with the Borg Cube all the way from the initial fleet engagement to Earth, and even with shields down and previous battle damage it still took two hits to completely disable while other ships were being one-shotted.

It's just a shame no-one thought to deploy the warhead for the following reasons:

• [1] The Defiant was close enough to the Borg cube that a hit was all but guaranteed
  [2] A payload carrying six quantum toepedoes is going to inflict considerable damage on an already-damaged Borg Cube
  [3] The Defiant was also within visual range of Earth, so the crew wouldn't have to deal with the loss of the navigational deflector
  [4] Since Worf was already planning to ram the cube, sending the warhead would have had a similar effect

Of course, had all the quantum torpedoes already been expended then firing the warhead won't do shit!

[Crazedwraith]

Also the fact the warhead isn't canon and is only seen in the tech manual...

[BabelHuber]

The conclusion remains, though, that evidence suggests the Defiant-class has a lower cruising speed AND a lower sprint speed in warp than many of the Starfleet 'cruisers,' which is not a surprise; cruisers are built to cruise, while small gunships usually aren't. Both these factors reduce the value of the Defiants or anything like them as a strategic reserve for the Federation.

True. But how big is this effect?

Let's go with a sustainable top speed of Warp 9.5 and an emergency top speed of Warp 9.8 for the Galaxy

The Defiant has a top emergency speed of Warp 9.5. What's the sustainable top speed? Warp 9.0? Warp 9.2? Warp 9.3?

So the question is: How probable is it for a Defiant that she can't reach a destination in time, while a Galaxy can?

On top of it, Galaxies are not your standard Federation cruisers. In lots of cases, you may only have a Miranda or an Excelsior at hand. How does the galaxy comnpare with those ones?

Also, as others have mentioned, especially Alyrium, it is completely impractical for the Federation to maintain such a reserve in a centrally placed location where it can reinforce any part of the frontier. Most crises will either be over before a central reserve can even arrive, or will require a Federation-wide mobilization of all available ships and go on for months or years in any event. Therefore, using warships as such a strategic reserve just means they get extra double-plus wasted.

If the reserve is deployed close to areas where conflict seems likely (e.g. the Romulan neutral zone), it is not a 'reserve' in that it is already committed to be used on a single front. At which point there is no benefit in not expecting the ships to pull their weight during peacetime operations, so they should be able to do so... except they can't, so they're actively less useful than a multirole cruiser.

Actually, it's not so easy:

A "centrally placed reserve" of course doesn't mean that all ships are in this central location. Let's say the Federation has 7,500 ships you could use in a war against a serious opponent, 375 of them are Defiants (5%).

Let's say we want to keep 200 near Earth/ Vulkan. Then we have 175 to patrol turbulent boarders like the neutral zone, show the flag, protect trade etc.

A cruiser on its mission mission, e.g. on patrol near the neutral zone, has to abandon this mission when it has to do "something else". A Defiant probably cannot do "something else", so it can continue its actual mission.

If a cruiser regularly has to switch missions, the Federation has a problem anyways, and this should be addressed.

Now the question is: How much does a Defiant cost, let's say compared to a Galaxy? Also, how much does a freighter cost? How much a cheap frigate?

Perhaps the Federation could build 3 Defiants instead of one Galaxy? Perhaps 4? Or 3 Defiants and 5 cheap transports to haul around cargo? Or 2 Defiants and 3 cheap frigates? Or is a Defiant really expensive because of its pulse phasers and ablative armor?

Unless we don't know this, we can hardly determine which shipbuilding strategy means the best allocation of ressources. The Federation seems to think that having a few Defiants at hand isn't bad, otherwise they wouldn't have built an unknown number of them. On the other hand, we don't see that many.

As comparison, We have the Klingons, who mostly use Birds of Prey with a few battlecruisers in between, while the Romulans focus on very big ships only with their fleet of Warbirds. The Federation is in between, using cruisers of various size, most of them being bigger than a Bird Of Prey and smaller than a Romulan Warbird.

The Cardassians have another approach with mostly medium-sized cruisers like the Galor, we don't see Galaxy-sized Cardassian vessels. The Dominion seems to focus on small bugs and huge battleship-like types, with almost nothing in between.

[Simon_Jester]

True. But how big is this effect?

Let's go with a sustainable top speed of Warp 9.5 and an emergency top speed of Warp 9.8 for the Galaxy

The Defiant has a top emergency speed of Warp 9.5. What's the sustainable top speed? Warp 9.0? Warp 9.2? Warp 9.3?

So the question is: How probable is it for a Defiant that she can't reach a destination in time, while a Galaxy can?

Warp factors in excess of nine are logarithmic, so a difference of .3 or .4 in warp factor may well correspond to a speed difference of a factor of two or more. I'm not sure; there's no well-defined mathematical function for that part of the curve because some bozo just sketched it in by hand.

On top of it, Galaxies are not your standard Federation cruisers. In lots of cases, you may only have a Miranda or an Excelsior at hand. How does the galaxy comnpare with those ones?

The Miranda and Excelsior classes are not new construction in the TNG era; no one is building more of them so far as I know. If you're going to talk about whether the Federation should build a fleet of Defiants, you should be comparing them with other competitive ship designs of the same era that might be built instead of those Defiants. At which point comparing them to Galaxies (or a hypothetical 'trim' version of the Galaxy that keeps the multirole equipment but reduces the luxurious accomodations and civilian population) is appropriate.

Comparing them with Mirandas built a hundred years earlier is unfair, because of course Defiants look like the good option when the alternative is a ship built so long ago beehive haircuts were in fashion.

Actually, it's not so easy:

A "centrally placed reserve" of course doesn't mean that all ships are in this central location. Let's say the Federation has 7,500 ships you could use in a war against a serious opponent, 375 of them are Defiants (5%).

Let's say we want to keep 200 near Earth/ Vulkan. Then we have 175 to patrol turbulent boarders like the neutral zone, show the flag, protect trade etc.

I already covered this. If you disperse your reserve and commit it to certain theaters, you're just forward-deploying ships that are useless in the area they're deployed to. Building a comparable number of normal ships would give you ships that are useful for operations other than war, and just as capable of responding to a local emergency.

A cruiser on its mission mission, e.g. on patrol near the neutral zone, has to abandon this mission when it has to do "something else". A Defiant probably cannot do "something else", so it can continue its actual mission.

Are you telling me it's better to have a ship that can't do other missions because if it does another mission, it might be interrupted to deal with an emergency?

[BabelHuber]

Warp factors in excess of nine are logarithmic, so a difference of .3 or .4 in warp factor may well correspond to a speed difference of a factor of two or more. I'm not sure; there's no well-defined mathematical function for that part of the curve because some bozo just sketched it in by hand.

Exactly. That's why we both merely speculate here: Is the sustainable speed of a Defiant Warp 9.0 or Warp 9.4? Huge difference!

We could answer this if we knew...

The Miranda and Excelsior classes are not new construction in the TNG era; no one is building more of them so far as I know. If you're going to talk about whether the Federation should build a fleet of Defiants, you should be comparing them with other competitive ship designs of the same era that might be built instead of those Defiants. At which point comparing them to Galaxies (or a hypothetical 'trim' version of the Galaxy that keeps the multirole equipment but reduces the luxurious accomodations and civilian population) is appropriate.

Comparing them with Mirandas built a hundred years earlier is unfair, because of course Defiants look like the good option when the alternative is a ship built so long ago beehive haircuts were in fashion.

Yes, it's unfair. But it's valid: If the 70%-case is that a Miranda or Excelsior is sent somewhere in emergency cases (because newer ships aren't available), then... we still don't know the max sustainable speed of a Defiant as comparison

I already covered this. If you disperse your reserve and commit it to certain theaters, you're just forward-deploying ships that are useless in the area they're deployed to. Building a comparable number of normal ships would give you ships that are useful for operations other than war, and just as capable of responding to a local emergency.

You say they are useles, I say they aren't. When a Defiant flies somewhere to show the flag, it is as good as a cruiser (since a cruiser also can only fulfill one mission at a time, so when it shows the flag it cannot do other tasks at the same time).

Also, you evade the point about resource utilization: Not a few Defiants which sit around and wank during peace time, but a diversed fleet with lots of cheap transports, corvettes, frigates, dedicated warships and cruisers.

Example: When you chase pirates (or the Maquis), you can use a single Miranda. This is an old, but complex ship. It requires lots of engineers who all have studied at the academy, have a science crew, require maintenance and refits etc.

A small corvette or frigate can be mass-produced, thereby utilizing economies of scale. It can have a simple Warp engine which doesn't need engineers to run it. Technicians are enough to handle this. So what if Warp 8.5 is the max speed? This is enough for the tasks at hand.

For the cost of a single Miranda, I can have a few of these little ships. One ship can only be at one place at a time, multiple smaller ones can be spread out or used together.

So I'd rather use such ships for the task, thereby saving valuable resources which can be used somewhere else.

When the threat is too big for the little ships, then we can use cruisers/ warships. A freighter captain in a quite remote area might not see a single cruiser or warship during his whole career.

Are you telling me it's better to have a ship that can't do other missions because if it does another mission, it might be interrupted to deal with an emergency?

No, I'm telling you that a ship which can't do everything is less likely to have its mission changed. If you e.g. have some cruisers patrolling the neutral zone, they are more likely to be sent away because they are capable of hauling around cargo with high speed.

Is this good for the planet which receives its medicine? Probably yes. Is it good for the safetely in the neutral zone, where the Romulans surely try tro track Federation activities? Probably no.

[Simon_Jester]

Warp factors in excess of nine are logarithmic, so a difference of .3 or .4 in warp factor may well correspond to a speed difference of a factor of two or more. I'm not sure; there's no well-defined mathematical function for that part of the curve because some bozo just sketched it in by hand.

Exactly. That's why we both merely speculate here: Is the sustainable speed of a Defiant Warp 9.0 or Warp 9.4? Huge difference!

We could answer this if we knew...

There's a fairly persistent pattern of maximum sustainable speed being at least .4 to .5 warp factors below emergency maximum, with cruising speed being a good deal below that.

Yes, it's unfair. But it's valid: If the 70%-case is that a Miranda or Excelsior is sent somewhere in emergency cases (because newer ships aren't available), then... we still don't know the max sustainable speed of a Defiant as comparison

But in that case the logical approach would be to build something other than a Defiant, something even faster and considerably more versatile.

The Federation isn't stuck with the options "build Defiants" and "rely on obsolete ships."

I already covered this. If you disperse your reserve and commit it to certain theaters, you're just forward-deploying ships that are useless in the area they're deployed to. Building a comparable number of normal ships would give you ships that are useful for operations other than war, and just as capable of responding to a local emergency.

You say they are useles, I say they aren't. When a Defiant flies somewhere to show the flag, it is as good as a cruiser (since a cruiser also can only fulfill one mission at a time, so when it shows the flag it cannot do other tasks at the same time).

There is not a lot of evidence of Federation ships being sent around for pure 'flag-showing.' The closest they come is diplomatic missions and the like. For those, a Defiant could do about as good a job as another ship... but from the point of view of the Federation it would send entirely the wrong message to send their envoys aboard a lean, mean, fighting machine.

Also, you evade the point about resource utilization: Not a few Defiants which sit around and wank during peace time, but a diversed fleet with lots of cheap transports, corvettes, frigates, dedicated warships and cruisers.

My argument is that the specific resources utilized on the dedicated warships could more efficiently be used on the cruisers. Or, for that matter, light multirole frigates.

Example: When you chase pirates (or the Maquis), you can use a single Miranda. This is an old, but complex ship. It requires lots of engineers who all have studied at the academy, have a science crew, require maintenance and refits etc.

If the science crew is a problem, just stop putting science crews aboard the ship.

A small corvette or frigate can be mass-produced, thereby utilizing economies of scale. It can have a simple Warp engine which doesn't need engineers to run it. Technicians are enough to handle this. So what if Warp 8.5 is the max speed? This is enough for the tasks at hand.

It may well be that a ship which does not require trained engineers to operate will have performance so low that it is effectively useless. There's no point in building a pirate-chaser that is too slow to catch the pirates, or too weak to beat them when it catches them.

For the cost of a single Miranda, I can have a few of these little ships. One ship can only be at one place at a time, multiple smaller ones can be spread out or used together.

So I'd rather use such ships for the task, thereby saving valuable resources which can be used somewhere else.

We don't actually see much evidence of Mirandas being in use except after the emergency war mobilizations of the late TNG and mid-DS9 era. In which case I see no reason to assume the Mirandas ARE in regular use- but in a war emergency they have to be brought out of storage and recrewed. Sure, a frigate design might be better in some ways, but not in others, and you'd have to build those ships, whereas the Miranda hulls are already sitting around waiting to be used.

Are you telling me it's better to have a ship that can't do other missions because if it does another mission, it might be interrupted to deal with an emergency?

No, I'm telling you that a ship which can't do everything is less likely to have its mission changed. If you e.g. have some cruisers patrolling the neutral zone, they are more likely to be sent away because they are capable of hauling around cargo with high speed.

Is this good for the planet which receives its medicine? Probably yes. Is it good for the safetely in the neutral zone, where the Romulans surely try tro track Federation activities? Probably no.

Why would the Federation council give up being able to decide whether it is more important to deliver the medicine or secure the neutral zone, by removing the choice from their hands by reducing the size of their multirole fleet?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

It should be noted that the Defiant was captured on its first mission into the Gamma Quadrant. It cannot be overstated just how much intel the Dominion would have gained from that one action alone.

[SpottedKitty]

Warp factors in excess of nine are logarithmic, so a difference of .3 or .4 in warp factor may well correspond to a speed difference of a factor of two or more. I'm not sure; there's no well-defined mathematical function for that part of the curve because some bozo just sketched it in by hand.

<nod> Although I thought the curve for TNG and later was all logarithmic. I have a vague memory I got this from one of the tech manuals rather than an episode, so canonicity might be suspect.