Snoopy's GCS fanboyism

[Tsukiyumi]

Wow a 15 degree turn, I'm impressed.

If you've got something better than post it.

Edit: And with that I'm off for the night. Futurama won;t watch itself.

Woo hoo! Enjoy.

[Mikey]

Wow a 15 degree turn, I'm impressed.

You should be, as it still tops the GCS.

Anyway, you're getting all defensive and confusing semantics with intent. The GCS is not a failure at being a multi-role ship as such; it's just that a multi-role ship cannot be as good at any one of those roles as a purpose-built ship for that role. Normally, I'd say there was a voncession to be made, and optimum across-the-board efficiency would be acheived with a single multi-role ship which was adequate in all roles v. a single-role ship which was excellent in one - a viewpoint you seem to hold, M52. However, we are talking about situations in which large numbers of lives are at stake - and in those situations, "adequate" does not justify saving resources when "optimal" could have been available.

[Sionnach Glic]

Jesus Christ, how the fuck did this explode by another five pages while I was asleep?
Anyway, I'll get my reply up in a little while.

[Aaron]

Jesus Christ, how the f**k did this explode by another five pages while I was asleep?
Anyway, I'll get my reply up in a little while.

I'm sure we can chalk up at least a page of that to nickerson's refusal to provide evidence of his claims.

[Sionnach Glic]

Right, going back a bit:

Because the Genesis device was a scientific tool, not a military weapon.

You're right. Conceded.

Those were only examples of some of the problems you have pointed out. So if the fact that the weapons and shields were powerful does not have anything to do with measuring the success of the design how can those other components? They can't.

Of course they're relevant when discussing the design. Why? Because they failed consistantly. The phasers and shields didn't fail (well, we did see them losing all weapons to a single shot on a few occasions, but let's ignore that for now), but that merely means the weapons and shields did what they were expected and designed to do. That two individual components of the ship achieved their design specifications is relevant, yes, but does not cancel out the other glaring flaws in the design.

To measure the success of the design we need only look at if the ship could fill the roles it was designed, not used, to do.

The success of a design =/= how good a design it is.

So then you must think that any ship that carried civilians was failure.

No, I consider it a major flaw of all those ships. That in and of itself does not make a design a failure. Why? Because you can't just pick out one or two components and say "this proves the ship to be good/bad". You must look at the ship as a whole.

Shocking as this may be to learn, wars aren't fought in one on one battles in the middle of empty space. They're fought in fleet actions, defending or attacking planets or outposts. As such, a battleship would not only need to be able to go toe-to-toe with another ship, but take on multiple ships and come out on top. A dedicated warship would be able to perform this role infinitely better than the GCS.

Question, if bigger is really better why are the pure warships produced by the Federation smaller? Could it be that at some point you get to the point of diminishing returns. Why not make Starbases mobile? They have greater fire power then 100 Galaxies.

What? What the hell does that have to do at all with my point. I point out that simple one V one comparisons are a bad way of seeing how a ship performs.....and you respond by going off on a tangent about the size of the ships?

Despite that, I'll respond to your point anyway. I never said bigger = better.

Or it would be a large floating target, to slow to bring all of it's weapons to bare.

If it has the same mass of a GCS, and the same propulsion systems, then it will have equal speed.

And the speed is an utter red herring, anyway. Battleships are not designed to speed into battle. They're designed to be what amounts to floating fortresses, pouring out firepower in every direction. A competantly designed battleship could easily cover every concievable angle of aproach with numerous weapons, making speed irrelevant in battle.

Your example does show how a pure warship is better at war then a multi-role ship. Now when it comes to exploration, and diplomacy, like making sure your example never happens, your war ships are worthless.

I'd disagree with your claim that it could not conduct diplomatic operations. There's no reason you couldn't shove a bunch of diplomats and ambassadors on board. Hell, Japan's surrender in WW2 was signed on a battleship.

Point on the exploration, but here's the thing: it's not designed for that. And so it shouldn't be. You can construct a far smaller ship to cover those operations far better than a GCS could, without worrying about the civillian personel aboard getting killed in battle.

Starfleet is not equivalent to a modern military. They are responsible for so much more.

Correct, Starfleet is not the same as most modern navies, as they do not habitualy go on exploration or scientific research missions.
That, however, does not mean that Starfleet isn't a military. It's primary role is defending the UFP against outside aggressors. In addition to this, it also has the role of exploring planets and space, and conducting scientific operations.

That doesn't mean, however, that every ship in Starfleet should be designed to conduct every single role the organisation has. What they should have done is build some ships devoted purely to S&E operations, and other ships devoted purely to military operations. Your organisation may be responsible for both operations, but that doesn't mean you should combine the operations themselves.

[Reliant121]

I'd have to agree with Rochey personally. I think that you should expend more resources on specific designs for a specific purpose, maybe even introducing ALOT more ships, if each ship is going to perform much better at its role. You'd have less losses, theoretically at least, meaning you would have to expend less resources in the end. Less losses means less deaths of experienced crew members. Overall, the advantage is that your ships will survive longer, your crew will survive longer, and you would have to expend less resources in the long run. Pay early, and get late rewards. Yes, i will concede that individual ships may not be suited to a certain task, E.G: Science ship being called to assist in defense of an outpost. But expending more resources, and building more ships, would ideally mean SF has a "warship double", a counterpart to that science vessel. Each ship will perform its task far more competently, and would likely limit losses.

[Mikey]

As I mentioned, if all other things were equal, I'd probably be induced to side with multiple capabilities. But all things are not equal. In addition to the loss of lives of crew a/o embedded civilians, when war is at stake you're talking about the lives of countless simple planetary residents - of the citizenry of the Federation. I'm willing ot forego efficient use of resources in order to better my chances of protecting those people.

[Reliant121]

I suppose its a matter of opinion, each has great advantages and relatively strong disadvantages.

[Graham Kennedy]

Klingons and Romulans aren't morons. Both have been aboard Federation starships, including the Enterprise, many times. Both no doubt have a good idea of what the result would be if they ripped out all those decks of science labs and holodecks and accommodation and replaced them with weapons and shield generators.

There is of course a valid reason to have a smaller warship: smaller target profile. That said, the Federation's enemies and aliies really seem to go in for massive ships.

Target profile is only really an issue when people miss, which ships in the Trek universe do relatively rarely, especially when you exclude special circumstances like anomalies, nebulae, battle damage and such.

It's generally been true in Trek history that ships get larger over time, and larger ships are faster, have more powerful shields, more powerful weapons, etc. But that's a trend that has started to reverse lately. Look at all the new Starfleet ships we've had during the course of TNG, DS9, and Voyager. Literally dozens of them, including a few new builds, but not one is larger than Galaxy class. Me, I like big ships. My greatest lament regarding the Sovereign class is that it wasn't three times the volume.

[Aaron]

Target profile is only really an issue when people miss, which ships in the Trek universe do relatively rarely, especially when you exclude special circumstances like anomalies, nebulae, battle damage and such.

There is no reason to tempt fate though.

[Graham Kennedy]

Target profile is only really an issue when people miss, which ships in the Trek universe do relatively rarely, especially when you exclude special circumstances like anomalies, nebulae, battle damage and such.

There is no reason to tempt fate though.

If making a ship half the height gives half the shields and weapons, but makes you 10% more likely to be missed by any given shot, then it's not only not useful, it's actively weakening your ship.

[Aaron]

If making a ship half the height gives half the shields and weapons, but makes you 10% more likely to be missed by any given shot, then it's not only not useful, it's actively weakening your ship.

Seeing as we have absolutely no way to determine that, we may as well just leave it be.

[Deepcrush]

I'm so sorry I had to miss so much stupidity on a single topic. To avoid to much trouble I wont use names. If you did something stupid, you know even if you're too chicken shite to admit it.

Starfleet does everything... S/E and combat. So it is both the USGS and USN in one. Get over it.

The JoAT idea is the staple of the UFP. Doesn't mean I want a GCS with an unprotected warp core or computer system. This is the problem with the design. Poor use of space and ability. There are many roles that the GCS would be "BETTER" at with some simple work. This makes it a poor design, not a failed one. There is a lot of room for improvement which "IS" the problem.

ANSWER THE F***KING QUESTIONS AND STATEMENTS THAT ARE POINTED TO YOU! It pisses me off that the standard lately is to dodge or just pretend it never happened. If that's your play plan, the go the hell home. (Or just jump off the nearest high building, I wont miss you.)

We aren't talking about other classes... this is about the GCS, read the topic. IS the GCS a good design, poor design or a failed one. Thats it! Pick one and stick with it. If you can't support it then shut up.

The GCS had the best of everything but in smaller amounts then a pure warship or S/E ship would have. So, having a GCS built around a either field (combat or S/E) would be a poor use of resources since a much smaller ship could fill the role. Like say a Nebula Class, the master of JoAT.

The Miranda was a combat ship in her day. Having one scouting planets on YOUR ENEMIES BORDER isn't the best place for a science ship.

Starbases DON'T MOVE LIKE SHIPS. If they did then they wouldn't be Starbases.

A Single Negh'var could take on a pair of GCS on its own, not the other way around.

If the UFP built a force of pure warships, the KE wouldn't care to much due to being allies now. Then again, no one else could do crap about it.

If a warship is smaller, it also has a smaller sheild area. The size of the ship is based on the uses that ship will see.

If it happens IU then it is cannon. Doesn't matter to what ship or for what reason. If we see ANY GCS suffer from the same problems over and over again then it is a DESIGN FAULT!

Thank you for your time and I'm free all week too take up my old job here at DITL. 8)

[Sionnach Glic]

Just like old times, eh Deep?

Only really spotted one thing that I think was launched in my direction:

A Single Negh'var could take on a pair of GCS on its own, not the other way around.

I know. I just picked a random ship off the top of my head to illustrate my point.

[Mikey]

Good to see that nothing happened to Deep while he was away.

having a GCS built around a either field (combat or S/E) would be a poor use of resources since a much smaller ship could fill the role.

True. My point, at least, was that such a smaller ship, dedicated to a single role, would be a better use of resources dedicated to that role than a big jack-off-of-all-trades. In addition, I'll reiterate: efficient use of resources isn't my primary concern when the outcome of a battle or war - or the lives of my citizenry - are at stake.