So, how does Starfleet build its starships?

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Graham Kennedy
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Re: So, how does Starfleet build its starships?

Post by Graham Kennedy »

BigJKU316 wrote:The core of the ship would be a highly armored, nearly self-contained and pretty smallish volume that houses the command and control sectors, powerplants, main weapons and the impulse engines. I would concentrate nearly all my armor in that section to protect those critical systems that enable me to fight. The vast majority of battle-stations for the crew would be there as well.
Yes, that would be lovely. And if I built the hold of a 747 out of steel armour plate 40 inches thick, terrorist bombs wouldn't do squat to it when they went off in the luggage. But damage resistance isn't the only or necessarily the main consideration in building a 747 or a warp core.

Not directed at you or anybody in particular, but the whole "it would be so simple to eject a core if they knew what they were doing" is stupid. The core is not an isolated thing. It's part of a system that extends right from the antimatter fuel pods through to the nacelles - and possibly back again. And bear in mind, we have only the fuzziest, most basic idea of what's even involved along the way. But just from what we know, to eject the core this is what I'd expect that you have to do (the following is a slight modification of something I read on the net, long ago, not my original thinking) :

Shut down the antimatter flow.
Shut down the matter flow.
Continue the reaction within the core until all matter/antimatter in the core is exhausted, OR open vents within the core to remove and safely dispose of the remaining reactants.
Vent plasma from the core, most likely through the power transfer conduits.
Seal off the power transfer conduits from the core and disconnect them.
If there is a conduit to return plasma to the core, seal this off and disconnect it.
Seal off the antimatter fuel lines and disconnect them.
Seal off the matter fuel lines and disconnect them.
Possibly, charge the IDF/SIF fields so they last long enough to eject the core. (Might skip this if the ship is not at warp / maneuvering heavily)
Charge the containment fields / lower the physical barriers around the core.
Disconnect the power supply to all these various systems.
Disconnect the computer's ODN links to these various systems.
Release the physical connections -presumably explosive bolts - holding the core in place.
Jettison the cover plate under the core. Presumably more explosive bolts.
Drop / propel the core out of the ship.

That's the minimum. Now it gets arbitrary.

Voyager's core, for example, produces residual antimatter which is then processed in a transkinetic chamber, where it's broken down on the subatomic level. It also produces Theta radiation which is absorbed by a series of radiometric converters ("Night"). It also requires tellerium be introduced into the core to make the reaction work properly ("Resistance"). Warp cores also produce trilithium resin, a substance so unstable and dangerous that simply carrying around a container holding half a gram of it can cause a detonation which blows a whole ship to pieces. So there's equipment needed to keep that safe and stable.

What equipment is involved with this? How is all of it connected to the core? How difficult and time consuming is it to disconnect it? If you disconnect it in too much of a hurry, does it make a warning light bleep, or does it blow the ship into little itty bitty pieces? We don't have one single clue in canon, and since it's made up science and technology, there's not one person on the face of this Earth who is qualified to say a damn thing about it with any level of confidence.

The idea that all of this can obviously be designed to automatically pop out the bottom of the ship like some demented jack-in-a-box anytime there's a problem is stupid, and the idea that the only possible explanation for it not being that way is that "those designers must be morons!" is fucking retarded.
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Re: So, how does Starfleet build its starships?

Post by BigJKU316 »

GrahamKennedy wrote:
BigJKU316 wrote:The core of the ship would be a highly armored, nearly self-contained and pretty smallish volume that houses the command and control sectors, powerplants, main weapons and the impulse engines. I would concentrate nearly all my armor in that section to protect those critical systems that enable me to fight. The vast majority of battle-stations for the crew would be there as well.
Yes, that would be lovely. And if I built the hold of a 747 out of steel armour plate 40 inches thick, terrorist bombs wouldn't do squat to it when they went off in the luggage. But damage resistance isn't the only or necessarily the main consideration in building a 747 or a warp core.
While I agree with much of what you are saying I don't think you were reading for context there. By "core" I don't just mean the warp core of the ship. What I am speaking to is more of an overall design concept that would pack the weapons, propulsion, controls and powerplant in as small of area as possible to maximize the amount of armor I can have around critical components. Rather than having to run power to a phaser array in the saucer of a Galaxy Class I would configure the ship in such a way as to get the same coverage from an array much closer to the power source and leave the saucer (which would be mostly crew quarters, labs and other such things) basically unarmored.
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Re: So, how does Starfleet build its starships?

Post by Mikey »

I do understand both points here; but JKU, that last one was a bad example. If you do that, then not only do you limit your arcs of fire... but you place your saucer and associated labs, quarters, etc., in the arc of fire of your phasers!
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Re: So, how does Starfleet build its starships?

Post by BigJKU316 »

Yes, you would have to reconfigure the shape of all your ships if you were Starfleet. As built it basically dictates that you have to protect the saucer and arm it or you have huge blindspots.

But it is much more applicable to say a Klingon ship, or a Romulan ship, though even those would be designed quite differently.
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Re: So, how does Starfleet build its starships?

Post by Reliant121 »

While I like the concepts you've put forward, there is one disadvantage to having the under-armoured areas around the ship. A ship is not exactly going to be that effective if the crew quarters are blown off whenever a shot bleeds through your shields.
I like the armoured "sarcophagus" in the centre of the ship. But I think the outer areas still need to be armoured, just a little bit less.
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