So, how does Starfleet build its starships?

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Really the Yamato one is the one that bothers me least. Yes the system isn't fail safe. So what? What says it even can be?

Never had a problem with the Yamato either. The Iconian technology seemed close to magic, there. Maybe it was a semi-sapient computer program loaded into the Yamato?

[Atekimogus]

Doesn't change the case that the very fact that the computer could override the antimatter venting (the immediate cause of the Yamato's loss) is idiotic. The ship had no failsafe.

Doesn't bother me that much because if you have a vessel the size of a GCS with only 1000 personell onboard (with only a fracture of them actually employed running the ship) I would suspect a high level of automatisation and computer control. So when the magical alien virus of the week messes with those systems.....

The warbird was almost lost to a self destruct. A case of something working perfectly at the wrong time, not badly designed safety systems failing to work.

Need to watch it again sometimes, I think I remember shoots of their bridge looking like during a battle indicating that they were pretty bad off regardless of the self-destruct system. But it really has been a long time, might be wrong here.

And held together. If both the bug and the Odyssey had exploded on impact I wouldn't have a problem with it, but the ship held together for several seconds afterwards, indicating that power to the core and antimatter pods wasn't immediately lost.

I don't know how long it takes for an AM reaction to build up to a criticel level sufficient to blow up a ship the size of a GCS but just maybe she was already gone, even if she lived on for a few seconds. Holding together isn't the same as, holy shit more than a quarter of the most important engineering section is suddenly gone and nothing functions as it should anymore.

The E-D was nearly lost to pod containment failure in "Disaster" and jammed AM injectors in "Hollow Pursuits". Worse, pod containment failure was the scenario that destroyed the ship in Troi's command test in "Thine Own Self". Starfleet knew about the problems and simply trained it's personnel in workarounds rather than fixing it.

Need to rewatch those episode before I really can comment on this. What I can say is that prior to coming to this board I never really gave much thought to the GCS warp reactor beeing faulty, I always just accepted it as a cheap method to build up tension. Even on Generation it didn't bother my that much that the warp core blew up, I was more angered by the ridicoulos battle and stupid Troi crashing the saucer on the planet (I mean how the hell did she do THAT?).

[Graham Kennedy]

For that matter the E-D loss didn't bother me too much. We can argue whether they should have fought back harder (they should), or tried to warp away (one of the early hits is to the nacelle) or whatever... but as a demsontration of how feeble the GCS design is? They took something like fifteen or twenty direct disruptor and torpedo hits at point blank range, unshielded, and still the design functioned well enough to get the entire crew away without loss, and then survive the subsequent crash landing with what Picard described as minimal casualties. In TOS we saw unshielded Constitutions virtually destroyed by a few phaser hits!

Put 15 torpedoes into the side of an Iowa class battleship in the space of a few minutes, and I would bet that she would sink like a bloody stone with virtually everyboard aboard. And that's WITH her armour intact.

[Mikey]

We also saw a refit-Connie get holed right through the saucer and keep on tickin'. The survivability of a ship in 'Trek - especially a hero ship - is so dependent on plot requirements that it hardly bears any sort of logical analysis.

[BigJKU316]

We also saw a refit-Connie get holed right through the saucer and keep on tickin'. The survivability of a ship in 'Trek - especially a hero ship - is so dependent on plot requirements that it hardly bears any sort of logical analysis.

This has always created the question for me of just how a starship should, for lack of a better term, die.

Space confers a few advantages that we don't have on earth naval ships.

1. You can't sink so a hole is really only a problem to wherever the next airtight door is in the structure. Sucks for everyone in that room but it won't put you under or anything if you build a ship with proper compartmentation.

2. You can't burn very eaisly. If someone opens up a hole in your ship you really can't have a fire in the traditional sense. There is nothing to cause combustion and it would seem the simplest fire fighting technique for critical fires would be to simply pump out the air or stop pumping it in.


Logically one should build ships very differently than they are in most sci-fi series I would think, much more along the lines of the US Battleships of the 1915-1920 era where they basically heavily protected the powerplant, weapons and command and control and everything else was pretty much unarmored in favore of protection of critical spaces.

[Reliant121]

Fires always seemed to me to be this new ideal of "plasma fires".

[BigJKU316]

Fires always seemed to me to be this new ideal of "plasma fires".

Yeah, I don't know enough since to know if that makes sense. Regardless proper controls would allow you to cutoff the plasma flow and re-route it, eventually killing the fire I would think.

On Earth the big killer of ships is water intake and fire. Those are not nearly as big of issues in space so I could see ships being very durable. Logically at least to me it makes sense to have a much smaller but very well armored section with critical systems if given the choice between armor all over or a lot more of it around my power plant, weapons and command and control. If you blow away my crew quarters we can sleep on the floor of the bridge after all.

[Reliant121]

Indeed. The only two things I can really see being that much of a problem are either the volatility of power distribution systems (conduits etc.) and or how explosive decompression maybe. Airtight sealing bulkheads would solve the decompression issue.

[Mikey]

While it is true that sinking isn't an issue and fire should be a minimal threat, there are other factors to consider. Power distribution is a terribly important, and ubiquitous, issue on a starship. How many "power lines," to say nothing of the famed ODN conduits, would be damaged by the aforementioned hole in the saucer? In addition, the strutctural integrity of the ship must be degraded dramatically. While this may not be an issue in space if the ship stands still, it could be ahuge factor if you need to try and move.

[BigJKU316]

While it is true that sinking isn't an issue and fire should be a minimal threat, there are other factors to consider. Power distribution is a terribly important, and ubiquitous, issue on a starship. How many "power lines," to say nothing of the famed ODN conduits, would be damaged by the aforementioned hole in the saucer? In addition, the strutctural integrity of the ship must be degraded dramatically. While this may not be an issue in space if the ship stands still, it could be ahuge factor if you need to try and move.

That is why I am suggesting building ships differently.

Essentially what I would propose is this.

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.

Obviously the warp engines would need to be connected to this area strongly if possible as well.

As for the rest of the ship you build it as light as possible, essentially hanging it around the central protected area. In essence you can just design it to be shot away in a fight if you strip non-essential systems out of it. None of those sections would be essential to the strength of the primary, armored core. They would be built as light as possible to serve as crew housing, shuttle bays, science labs ect and still remain attached to the ship during manuvering.

[LaughingCheese]

While it is true that sinking isn't an issue and fire should be a minimal threat, there are other factors to consider. Power distribution is a terribly important, and ubiquitous, issue on a starship. How many "power lines," to say nothing of the famed ODN conduits, would be damaged by the aforementioned hole in the saucer? In addition, the strutctural integrity of the ship must be degraded dramatically. While this may not be an issue in space if the ship stands still, it could be ahuge factor if you need to try and move.

As for the rest of the ship you build it as light as possible, essentially hanging it around the central protected area. In essence you can just design it to be shot away in a fight if you strip non-essential systems out of it. None of those sections would be essential to the strength of the primary, armored core. They would be built as light as possible to serve as crew housing, shuttle bays, science labs ect and still remain attached to the ship during manuvering.

Pretty sure engineers try to design things as light as possible in general.

Also, I think your idea about housing the rest of the facilities elsewhere is how the Galaxy is designed already, which is why the saucer module is desgined to separate from the stardrive.

Unfortunately separation is a little slow, and there are still quarters in the star drive.

[Mikey]

Hmm. Sort of like just housing the non-C&C systems on a pressure hull? I could buy it, but (while I don't agree with the Roddenberry Rule of having the bridge as exposed as possible) I think that a degree of remoteness between the bridge/briefing area/etc. and the thing with the greatest propensity to go boom is a good thing. The core needs to be protected to be sure; but it also needs to be positioned to be eject-able.

[Sionnach Glic]

Preferably mounted to some sort of non-powered ejection system, just in case things go downhill quickly.

[Mikey]

Preferably mounted to some sort of non-powered ejection system, just in case things go downhill quickly.

Yeah, I think the speed of propagation of an uncontrolled M/AM annihilation falls under "quickly." You're right - the ejection system should be a negative option or "dead-man's trigger."

[BigJKU316]

Hmm. Sort of like just housing the non-C&C systems on a pressure hull? I could buy it, but (while I don't agree with the Roddenberry Rule of having the bridge as exposed as possible) I think that a degree of remoteness between the bridge/briefing area/etc. and the thing with the greatest propensity to go boom is a good thing. The core needs to be protected to be sure; but it also needs to be positioned to be eject-able.

Well, if the warp core goes boom you are dead no matter where the thing is. Even if it is half a boom the ship is still combat ineffective which is the main concern here rather than keeping people alive. The best way to give my ship the longest life in combat is to have as think of armor as possible. The best way to get the most armor is to armor as little surface area as possible.

If I concentrate my weapons, powerplant, impulse drive and C&C in one armored box for lack of a better term and put housing, cargo, shuttlebays, science labs, meeting rooms, rec facilities ect all outside of that armored box I am better off. I still need that stuff for normal operations certainly but in a combat situation I would rather have more protection for the few things that matter than have a bit of armor over crew quarters.

The built US battleships like this back in the 1910's and 20's. Essentially they encased enough volume to float the thing and critical parts in as much armor as they could and the rest was basically unarmored and designed to be shot straight through.