Starfleet Troop landing craft

[Graham Kennedy]

As well as the twin rows of Type Vs on the spine there are three arrays; two on the saucer flanking the bridge and one on the ventral engineering hull, all Type VIIIs. Not much firepower there; an Intrepid or BoP could toast one of these easily. But that kind of fight is not their role. If you are in a position where BoPs are hitting these things, then you have a lot more to worry about already because your whole battle plan is FUBAR, and likely a good deal of your fleet is already in flames.

[McAvoy]

The Hornet is an interesting case, because it was one of the first fighters that was truly multi role, equally good at both air to air and air to ground. But even there, it is not as good at air to air as it could be if they removed the attack role, and not as good at attack as it could be if they removed the air to air role.

It's still better at either than most people's aircraft just because the US has a lot of money and technology to throw around, but to an extent it's a jack of all trades - and therefore master of none.

From personal experience, Hornets and their larger brothers are pieces of crap. I liked working on Tomcats than on these computerized giant lawn darts.

As well as the twin rows of Type Vs on the spine there are three arrays; two on the saucer flanking the bridge and one on the ventral engineering hull, all Type VIIIs. Not much firepower there; an Intrepid or BoP could toast one of these easily. But that kind of fight is not their role. If you are in a position where BoPs are hitting these things, then you have a lot more to worry about already because your whole battle plan is FUBAR, and likely a good deal of your fleet is already in flames.

Oh didn't know you already had phasers on there. I thought that phaser array on the bottom was the Type V.

Why so many of them Type Vs? Targeting computers should be able to react and be accurate enough to have maybe half of what you got there.

[Aaron]

From personal experience, Hornets and their larger brothers are pieces of crap. I liked working on Tomcats than on these computerized giant lawn darts.

I haven't heard many flattering things about them but ours are almost as old as I am.

Oh didn't know you already had phasers on there. I thought that phaser array on the bottom was the Type V.

Why so many of them Type Vs? Targeting computers should be able to react and be accurate enough to have maybe half of what you got there.

Sometimes volume of fire is more important.

[McAvoy]

I had to fix some Canadian Hornet once when it did a emergceny landing in NAS Oceana. The ECS turbine took a dump. I was not very happy about Canada that day.

So Graham, when are you going to draw the landing craft itself?

[Tyyr]

I'm honestly not that wild about the exposed landers. I'd prefer a more traditional primary hull hollowed out into a giant hanger. Probably have to use a few landers but just not wild about the way it looks currently.

[Graham Kennedy]

I'll try and get a photoshopped version of the basic shapes worked up this weekend.

The Type Vs are the rows of blobs along the spine. I went for a lot of them mostly so that the ship could support various engagements in different places simultaneously. The ship might be landing troops and laying down supporting fire in two different continents at the same time, or indeed in several places in each of two different continents. The idea is very much to use them as close in support for the infantry; an infantry guy might call shots down on a target just fifty yards away from himself, so what we want is large numbers of little bangs, not some great big city-destroying boom.

[McAvoy]

If this was a larger ship, I would say semi-enclose the landing cfraft somehow. I guesstimate if those landers are 50 meters long, than the saucer is around ~150 to ~160 meters is diameter and the overall hull length being around ~400 to 420 meters. In other words, slightly smaller than a Excelsior class.

I would also guess those landing craft also wouldn't make very good structural points, so I am guessing the ship has a low end top warp speed of maybe Warp 7?

[Graham Kennedy]

The completed version is going to have clamps on the wingtips of the landers, I think, which should help. But this certainly isn't intended to be a speedy ship. The W/F will depend on the era I settle on. I'm leaning towards 2350s, in which case it will get Galaxy nacelles and a cruise of Warp 6, top speed maybe Warp 8 for short bursts.

[McAvoy]

Nice. At first I was going to ask you why did you make the nacelles so small, it looks unbalanced. Then I saw that the the last ones would barely miss the nacelles already, maybe that was your intention?

[Mark]

The "drop ships" GK, what are you estimating each one could deploy? Also, will the drop ships have any small weapons themselves (such as able to act as artillery support) or even in some kind of command or even medical capacity?

[Graham Kennedy]

Rendered in photoshop, with 2350s nacelles. Not sure about nacelle placement yet, and there is still lots of refining work to do but this is the basic layout. It's worked out to 16 decks and 440.5 metres long.

[Tsukiyumi]

Sweet. I'm digging it, GK.

[Mikey]

Not that you have any reason to accept my opinion, but it just looks like the the pylons intersect the nacelles a little farhter forward than should be.

*EDIT* Hmmm, then they might interfere with the rearward landers. Maybe the nacelle pylons should have an old-school upward angle to avoid that?

[Tsukiyumi]

I'd say they could move forward a few meters without any trouble.

[Graham Kennedy]

I like the nacelle placement from above, but not from the sides. They are indeed too far back. I can shift them forward somewhat, but not too far or they obscure the aft landers. What I might do is angle them down, like on a Nebula class, so they are out of the same plane as the landers altogether.