Ambassador & Galaxy class

[Mikey]

The problem is that the SOTA vessel had a habit of blowing up for its first 20 years in service. Just think how the USN would handle matters if one of our Carrier went critical each year.

True, but irrelevant. The fact that the GCS had *ahem* growing pains with its power generation system cannot affect the prior decision to have designed and built the GCS. The decision to design nuclear carriers couldn't have been affected by a future problem with those carriers.

Also there is something said about interchangable parts. With the huge amount of different classes of different ages, with the exception of specialized components for the class, for the most part Starfleet should have common components. Otherwise it would be a supply disaster. The supply chain in itself for so many different parts would be a massive undertaking,

True, but not always feasible. If you were to enforce commonality between classes, you at the same time enforce a moratorium on the technology which you incorporate in your vessels. This sort of enforced commonality would mean that no ships would ever have quantum torpedoes, because some ships don't; no ships would have the most advanced sensors, because not all ships do; the Defiant-class wouldn't have pulse phasers, because they haven't been/can't be installed on every single ship in the fleet; etc., etc.

[Captain Seafort]

True, but irrelevant. The fact that the GCS had *ahem* growing pains with its power generation system cannot affect the prior decision to have designed and built the GCS. The decision to design nuclear carriers couldn't have been affected by a future problem with those carriers.

That would depend on the root cause of the problems. One possible cause I've seen proposed is that Starfleet laid down ramp-up and peak power requirements that were beyond UP's ability to safely design. The "solution" was massive excess reactivity, and the famous tendency to go pop if you looked at it sideways.

Something along those lines happened at Windscale - more plutonium was needed than the pile was designed for, so they cut down the cooling vanes on the rods so more could be crammed in. The unsurprising result was that they caught fire and spread radioactive smoke halfway across Cumberland.

[Tyyr]

True, but not always feasible. If you were to enforce commonality between classes, you at the same time enforce a moratorium on the technology which you incorporate in your vessels. This sort of enforced commonality would mean that no ships would ever have quantum torpedoes, because some ships don't; no ships would have the most advanced sensors, because not all ships do; the Defiant-class wouldn't have pulse phasers, because they haven't been/can't be installed on every single ship in the fleet; etc., etc.

If you take it to a ridiculous extreme yes. However if you handle commonality by generations and in a logical way you can reduce a lot of redundant spare parts. Every single ship doesn't have to be built exactly the same but say the Galaxy, Nebula, Cheyenne, and New Orleans should as a group share as many common parts as is reasonably practicable. Four classes all built in very similar time periods shouldn't be reinventing the wheel for every class.

[Captain Seafort]

If you take it to a ridiculous extreme yes. However if you handle commonality by generations and in a logical way you can reduce a lot of redundant spare parts. Every single ship doesn't have to be built exactly the same but say the Galaxy, Nebula, Cheyenne, and New Orleans should as a group share as many common parts as is reasonably practicable. Four classes all built in very similar time periods shouldn't be reinventing the wheel for every class.

To an extent you've already got that, given the similarities between the GCS and Neb in particular.

[Deepcrush]

To be fair they managed to fix that problem before the war broke out - the Galaxy herself took a pummelling at Chin'toka without blowing up, so they must have been refitted with a less explosion-prone warp core.

While true, that the did later fix the problems that doesn't take away that I wouldn't want such a ship operating in the fleet until said problems were resolved.

True, but irrelevant. The fact that the GCS had *ahem* growing pains with its power generation system cannot affect the prior decision to have designed and built the GCS. The decision to design nuclear carriers couldn't have been affected by a future problem with those carriers.

So you find it irrelevant for a ship designer to design a ship that won't explode at random??? Think about that and try again. We designed modern Carriers to NOT go off like a stack of nukes because its just a bad idea. So why is designing the UFP flag ship TO explode a good thing?

[Captain Seafort]

So you find it irrelevant for a ship designer to design a ship that won't explode at random??? Think about that and try again. We designed modern Carriers to NOT go off like a stack of nukes because its just a bad idea. So why is designing the UFP flag ship TO explode a good thing?

See the hypothetical I posted above. While the idea of prioritising speed and firepower above not blowing up if you give the core a hard knock is stupid (to put it mildly), can you honestly say you'd be surprised if the Pentagon refused to back down from their latest Good Idea^TM simply because someone who knew what they were talking about said it was a bad idea?

[McAvoy]

When I meant DS9 I meant the Defiant when Nog had to go trading random crap to get a part for O'Brian.

When I was talking common parts I wasn't talking about phasers, torpedoes etc. There are smaller stuff and even the big stuff is made from smaller stuff.

Hell the stealth fighter F-117 uses several components out of F-16, F/A-18 and I think the F-15. The F-117 sure as hell doesn't look like one of those planes. There is also alot of commonality between the planes as well. Engines, ejection seats, computers, oxygen systems and so forth.

Even USN ships use common components as well.

[Deepcrush]

So you find it irrelevant for a ship designer to design a ship that won't explode at random??? Think about that and try again. We designed modern Carriers to NOT go off like a stack of nukes because its just a bad idea. So why is designing the UFP flag ship TO explode a good thing?

See the hypothetical I posted above. While the idea of prioritising speed and firepower above not blowing up if you give the core a hard knock is stupid (to put it mildly), can you honestly say you'd be surprised if the Pentagon refused to back down from their latest Good Idea^TM simply because someone who knew what they were talking about said it was a bad idea?

I would accept that if you could find me a ship or fighter in our use that explodes from hitting water or taking off. Otherwise, we have a ship that according to Mikey is the superior because the "SOTA" tech involved... doesn't work? That just fails any form of thinking, critical or otherwise.

[Mikey]

So you find it irrelevant for a ship designer to design a ship that won't explode at random??? Think about that and try again. We designed modern Carriers to NOT go off like a stack of nukes because its just a bad idea. So why is designing the UFP flag ship TO explode a good thing?

That would be a good response if you'd read what I said. First, we don't know whether the GCS' early tendency to go boom was a result of the design of the core, poor software controls, inadequate failsafe design philosophy, or whatever. Second, what I said was that a problem that would manifest itself in the future can't be a valid reason to NOT make a ship, when that problem is unknown at the time of the design.

[McAvoy]

Actually... planes are fairly unreliable initially at least. Though those are the test planes.

Some of them like F-14A carries an engine with problems that restricted them. Unless you like egnines with the blades coming off in mid-flight. The F-14B and D had different engines that made a badass plane even more badass. One of the few planes that could outrun a catapult on a carrier in full afterburner. There are a bunch of other old tales about how badass the plane was. Like the afterburner could burn out the jet blast deflector on the catapult and push it down. Initial testing with the new engines snapped the tiedown chains etc.

Ahhh... good days.

/end rant.

[Mikey]

F-15 - tail stand FTW.

[McAvoy]

Pfft... F-15 was copied from the F-14 because the F-14 is so badass. Sadly, chances are you are shaving with F-14 metal...

[Deepcrush]

That would be a good response if you'd read what I said. First, we don't know whether the GCS' early tendency to go boom was a result of the design of the core, poor software controls, inadequate failsafe design philosophy, or whatever.

I did read what you said and it was just silly. If you do or don't know why your SOTA ship is exploding... its still a bad thing. Regardless of the causes if you can't field a safe ship then it shouldn't be fielded. As we saw just prior to the Dominion War the GCS had been refitted and seemed to operate well so we know they could fix the problem. SOTA is good for when it works, but if it spends more time killing you then it does helping you its no long SOTA but simply over complicated.

Second, what I said was that a problem that would manifest itself in the future can't be a valid reason to NOT make a ship, when that problem is unknown at the time of the design.

If you have a current class of ship that works and a new class of ship which explodes without reason... then thats a perfect reason to not build that class of ship. That is unless we go with the idea that none of the problems showed because they didn't test for them. It seems strange that they would build such a SOTA ship and not bother to test the reactor, engines, shield, holodecks, weapons, navigation systems, environmental controls and computer safeties. At that point again its not SOTA but simply someone begging for an excuse of calling it SOTA.

Regardless, the Ambassador class remains a clearly safer and more cost effective ship.

[Mikey]

If the tendency to go boom isn't one that's predictable from the design process, how exactly do you propose that the decision be made to scrap the project based on a fact that would only be evident in the future? As far as I can tell, SF didn't use either time travel or soothsayers in their R&D process. If you can find some piece of canon that says that the GCS' problem was one that definitely could be determined during the design process, then fine. I've never seen that canon.

Also, we don't know if the Ambassador could be efficiently adapted to 2360's + technology.

[Deepcrush]

If you're building a ship that is meant to go out into deep space... test it against the things you'll be expected to meet. We've seen the GCS destroyed by minor impacts against the hull. Why wasn't the hull stress tested before ship class became an active production line? We've seen that the Warp Core is so unstable that the ship can be destroyed if it shakes. Why wasn't the Warp Core tested against fatigue? We've seen infection can move freely about the ship because there's nothing to block the air flow. Why wasn't the ship sealed internally against atmospheric conditions?

Can you honestly say that you would sail aboard a ship that wasn't closed below the water line? Or isn't protected against salt? Or maybe that doesn't float? Or that has an engine that will spark its own fuel tank if it encounters rough seas? Is this SOTA ship better then one that has been proven effective?

As to if the Ambassador can be efficiently updated. Even if it can't, isn't it better to continue the current line of Ambassadors until the GCS problems can be corrected?