Shuttle compliment

[Meste17]

So I have noticed one thing that I would like to see as it is if particular interest to me: how many shuttles could say a Galaxy class ship carry?

I'd like to see that in the starship specifications.

[Graham Kennedy]

TNG Tech Manual, Page 158 :

Standard complement of shuttlecraft includes ten stan- dard personnel shuttles, ten cargo shuttles, and five special- purpose craft. Additional special-purpose shuttles can be provided to a starship as necessary. The Enterprise also carries twelve two-person shuttlepods for extravehicular and short-range use.

Operating rules require that at least eleven shuttle vehicles be maintained at operational status at all times. Cruise Mode operating rules require one standard shuttlecraft and one shuttlepod to be at urgent standby at all times, available for launch at five minutes' notice. Four additional shuttlecraft are always available on immediate standby (thirty minutes to launch), and an additional six vehicles are maintained for launch with twelve hours' notice. Red Alert Mode operating rules require two additional shuttles to be brought to urgent standby, and all nine remaining operational vehicles to be maintained at immediate standby.

[Mikey]

Considering that the Tech Manual is as canon as my toilet paper, I actually prefer the Kennedys' assertion that - in the TNG+ eras, at any rate - shuttles are kit-built a/o fabricated on demand and to mission-specific parameters within standard type templates. This allows for the proliferation of one-offs in the TNG movies; the heretofore unknown shuttle type berthed on the Defiant; the ease of build of the Delta Flyer; et. al.

At least, I thought it was one or both of the Kennedys who wrote that. I may have read it somewhere else.

[McAvoy]

That is the general thought throughout Trek after Voyager.

I think though the shape doesn't matter as much as the parts being interchangeable. As in easy to replicate on different ships.

[Graham Kennedy]

No, that was me. My answer to Voyager's infinite shuttle supply was that the Type 9 was essentially a "Kit version" of a shuttle, designed to be easily assembled in a couple of days from parts small enough to be replicated on any reasonably sized starship. Anything not replicatable would be stored on mass - so for example I imagine there's a room somewhere on Voyager where a couple of hundred warp coils about the size of a car tyre are sitting in big stacks.

But I didn't peg that as being something a GCS could have done in season 1-7 of TNG. More something that came along later.

[Teaos]

While people say that there is rom for 300+ shuttles easily fitting in some ships. There just arent pilots, or mechanics enough for that many. Nor is there a need. While huge ships could literally have hundreds, I think a dozen sounds a lot.

[Graham Kennedy]

Depends. Trek ships are HUGE compared to moden day ships - Voyager isn't a big ship, but it's significantly larger than a US carrier - use the size charts on DITL to put it next to the USS Enterprise, see for yourself. If they configured an Intrepid as a carrier it could probably carry a hundred plus shuttles easily, and a Galaxy class six or seven times that.

But of course they aren't configured as carriers. With the hangar space they have, half a dozen is probably as high as Voyager could go, and twenty or thirty as high as a GCS probably goes.

[McAvoy]

Let's keep in mind that aircraft carriers carry at least half of the airwing on the flight deck. The way the ship is designed also you need a long deck to catch the plans coming in and launching the planes from catapults.

Trek ships while they do not need long run ways to launch their fighters or shuttles they still have to operate within the ship. Which means the size of an aircraft carrier doesn't count but the size of the hanger itself.

Also shuttles appear to much smaller than the modern military plane and have the virtue of being boxy which makes it easy for packing them in tight.

[Mikey]

But I didn't peg that as being something a GCS could have done in season 1-7 of TNG. More something that came along later.

While maybe a handier capability for a ship of the Intrepid-class' intended mission, I'd think it would fit more within the capabilities of a GCS.

[Graham Kennedy]

GCS would certainly have more bulk storage, quite possibly bigger replicators able to replicate larger parts.

In fact I see no reason you couldn't have a massive replicator that replicated an entire shuttle in one go. Maybe those industrial scale replicators they mentioned in DS9 could do something like that.

[Meste17]

GCS would certainly have more bulk storage, quite possibly bigger replicators able to replicate larger parts.

In fact I see no reason you couldn't have a massive replicator that replicated an entire shuttle in one go. Maybe those industrial scale replicators they mentioned in DS9 could do something like that.

Hmmm, good point.

[Bryan Moore]

GCS would certainly have more bulk storage, quite possibly bigger replicators able to replicate larger parts.

In fact I see no reason you couldn't have a massive replicator that replicated an entire shuttle in one go. Maybe those industrial scale replicators they mentioned in DS9 could do something like that.

I'm not sure the "replicate the whole shuttle" idea is quite what I'd have in mind, but it is certainly reasonable.

I somewhat picture the shuttle crafts having numerous disassembled parts stored in the vast areas of storage modern star ships seem to have. You could probably quite easily carry hundreds of Type 6 or Type 9 nacelles in a Galaxy Class without even knowing they were being stored, the hull could probably be assembled from another dozen or so relatively flat pieces, etc., with the smaller parts being replicated as needed. NASCAR stock cars can essentially be built from the ground up from pre-existing parts in a few days - I'd have to imagine the same thing could be said about shuttles a few hundred years from now.

[Mikey]

This idea seems to fit more with the old canon saw about warp coils and round pieces of metal being incapable of being replicated.

[Graham Kennedy]

GCS would certainly have more bulk storage, quite possibly bigger replicators able to replicate larger parts.

In fact I see no reason you couldn't have a massive replicator that replicated an entire shuttle in one go. Maybe those industrial scale replicators they mentioned in DS9 could do something like that.

I'm not sure the "replicate the whole shuttle" idea is quite what I'd have in mind, but it is certainly reasonable.

I somewhat picture the shuttle crafts having numerous disassembled parts stored in the vast areas of storage modern star ships seem to have. You could probably quite easily carry hundreds of Type 6 or Type 9 nacelles in a Galaxy Class without even knowing they were being stored, the hull could probably be assembled from another dozen or so relatively flat pieces, etc., with the smaller parts being replicated as needed. NASCAR stock cars can essentially be built from the ground up from pre-existing parts in a few days - I'd have to imagine the same thing could be said about shuttles a few hundred years from now.

That's exactly what I suggested for the Type 9 up thread.

[Meste17]

GCS would certainly have more bulk storage, quite possibly bigger replicators able to replicate larger parts.

In fact I see no reason you couldn't have a massive replicator that replicated an entire shuttle in one go. Maybe those industrial scale replicators they mentioned in DS9 could do something like that.

I'm not sure the "replicate the whole shuttle" idea is quite what I'd have in mind, but it is certainly reasonable.

I somewhat picture the shuttle crafts having numerous disassembled parts stored in the vast areas of storage modern star ships seem to have. You could probably quite easily carry hundreds of Type 6 or Type 9 nacelles in a Galaxy Class without even knowing they were being stored, the hull could probably be assembled from another dozen or so relatively flat pieces, etc., with the smaller parts being replicated as needed. NASCAR stock cars can essentially be built from the ground up from pre-existing parts in a few days - I'd have to imagine the same thing could be said about shuttles a few hundred years from now.

That's exactly what I suggested for the Type 9 up thread.

Seems logical.