Ambassador & Galaxy class

[DarkMoineau]

Enterprise Class is the Constitution Refit OR the NX-01.

Anyway, many fans have found the Galaxy has a serious problem.

[Graham Kennedy]

Many fans have decided the Galaxy has a serious problem. There's a difference.

[DarkMoineau]

Not false

[Mikey]

It would be just as valid as that cap which DM provided to link to a website stating that the E-D was actually made of gingerbread and commanded by two young ensigns named Hansel and Gretel. There is no canon "Enterprise-class," GK pointed out another factual error, and by the definition of 'Trek canon that's as far as one can get. I could just as easily publish something which included some balderdash backstory about how the SS Raven was the finest, most combat-worthy vessel which the UFP ever fielded.

[DarkMoineau]

Hey! The SS Raven IS the finest vessel of the fleet

[Deepcrush]

WTF is this crap?

[Mikey]

WTF is this crap?

Apparently, it's some fanfic regarding the GCS project.

[Deepcrush]

What does fanfic have to do with the values between the Ambassador and GCS again?

[Mikey]

What does fanfic have to do with the values between the Ambassador and GCS again?

Umm... because... oh look, a bunny!

[Deepcrush]

Jerky with dinner fol...

You sonofabitch...

[Captain Seafort]

While I agree that the GCS "Mk 1" had many flaws, failure in the degree of RBM was not one I remember. Please provide the ep or movie in which the material RBM was the issue with the ship.

Force of Nature:

DATA: We are within the distortion wave ... hull stresses exceeding tolerance.

WORF: Structural integrity fields failing on decks ten through sixteen ... switching to backups.

GEORDI: Captain, we're separating from the distortion wave ... I'm attempting to compensate.

PICARD: How much longer until we clear the rift?

DATA: Approximately twelve seconds ... hull stress is now one-hundred twenty percent above maximum.

WORF: Structural breach is imminent.

(they escape the rift)

DATA: We have cleared the rift. Hull stresses have returned to normal.

PICARD: Cancel red alert.

And the professional analysis:

Design: If the ship was about to experience a "structural breach" at 120% of "maximum stress" (which we can take to mean its design limits, as suggested by Chris Provencal), then this would mean that its ultimate tensile strength is only 1.2 times its rated stress limits. Since UTS is typically well over 1.2 times yield stress, we have two possibilities:

1. The ship's rated maximum stress level is actually higher than the yield strength of its materials. This would indicate astounding incompetence on the part of its engineers. An engineer exhibiting such incompetence would be summarily stripped of his license in real life.
2. The ship is constructed out of extremely brittle materials, for which failure occurs shortly after exceeding the yield point. Once again, no competent engineer in his right mind would design a warship out of such materials.

Even if we take the second possibility, we are still forced to acknowledge extreme incompetence on the part of their engineers, since it implies little or no engineering safety factor. Although the Trek writers obviously think otherwise, engineering safety factors are not simply intended to give the engineer leeway to make himself look good when he coaxes more out of his design than it's supposed to give. They're intended to compensate for variability in manufacturing and operating processes, as well as the consistency of materials, the possibility of poor quality control in component manufacture, random nature of fracture mechanics (particularly in fatigue failures) and myriad other factors which work to produce unpredictability.

Moreover, the ship's engineers seem blissfully unaware of the effect that exceeding yield stress (which almost certainly happened in this case, if structural integrity had already failed and they were looking at breaches) causes permanent microstructural damage in the metal, thus reducing its ductility in future.

holodecks failsafed

Judging by similar incidences in DS9, I'd say that was an issue with the technology in general rather than the GCS' systems.

Whether or not it was the technology in general that had the problem or the design specifically used by the GCS is irrelevant - it was downright dangerous, and should therefore never have been deployed.

warp core insulated

Indeed, a horrible flaw. Again, evidence of either negligence or a poor SOP, but not a basis for an allegation of malfeasance.

It certainly is if they knew it was dangerous and commissioned the class anyway.

control panels treated against (C4) plasma leaks

A problem which is common to every ship ever shown in 'Trek, whether Fed or alien. I can't fault the GCS for an issue which affected every ship in the history of ever (in 'Trek.)

The propensity of the stern structure to collapse, jamming the rudders, was common to all WW2 German heavy warships. This does not mean the Bismarck-class gets let off the hook for that weakness.

primary computer core not protected against any form of intrusion

Again, a glaring problem; again, not one which can be definitely ascribed to the GCS design process. Given the lack of surprise by the ease of infection which the crew exhibited, poor IT safeguards seemed to have been the norm for Fed ships. That of itself is an awful failing on the part of the UFP's SOP, but not necessarily an indictment of the GCS itself.

See above - the fact the flaw was a common one does not excuse it in the GCS.

[Mikey]

In general: yes, so? We aren't debating whether the GCS was unsafe, independent of its peers. We are discussing whether that failure to be safe is a result of incompetence a/o negligence, or a result of willful malfeasance. The only so-called "evidence" anyone has provided for such malfeasance - including your statements above - contain an awful lot of "ifs" which aren't answered positively in the show. Even the quote from Mike Wong makes an unsubstantiated assumption: "maximum" could as easily mean "maximum" as it could mean "top end of our spec, but not maximum." In that (more likely) case, resistance to stress of 120% of the heretofore-thought maximum shows incredible resiliance, not poor resiliance.

(BTW, Deep's comments seemed to indicate shearing force - I mentioned RBM specifically, not tensile strength.)

[Graham Kennedy]

It really bothers me when people complain that it was easy to kill the E-D. One can certainly complain that they didn't fire back much, and I'm fine with that. But watch the battle, people. It opens with two torpedo hits straight into the E-D deflector, which means warp drive is unlikely. The next shot we see is a twin disrupter hit to a nacelle, which means warp drive is likely impossible. Count the visible hits and bangs we hear and the ship takes something like fifteen or twenty disrupter and torpedo hits. Yet it still survives long enough to evacuate the entire crew to the saucer and separate.

All this without shields. We've never seen ANY ship stand up to anything like that.

[Deepcrush]

The battle in "ST:Generations" right, about eight years after the Ent-D was first on screen and about ten years since she left UP. However up to that point we've seen the Ent-D suffer an ungodly number of issues. Even then it doesn't seem to be just the Ent-D but the whole of GCS batch I's.

[DarkMoineau]

It really bothers me when people complain that it was easy to kill the E-D. One can certainly complain that they didn't fire back much, and I'm fine with that. But watch the battle, people. It opens with two torpedo hits straight into the E-D deflector, which means warp drive is unlikely. The next shot we see is a twin disrupter hit to a nacelle, which means warp drive is likely impossible. Count the visible hits and bangs we hear and the ship takes something like fifteen or twenty disrupter and torpedo hits. Yet it still survives long enough to evacuate the entire crew to the saucer and separate.

All this without shields. We've never seen ANY ship stand up to anything like that.

The GCS was the first Federation ship with 9cm of armor, so the countrary would be a bigger problem.

Voyager (without armor but it's the ridiculously strong Voyager ^^), Defiant (20cm ablative armor) and Soveregin (10cm ablativ armor) against the Scimitar have suffer more damages than E-D without have a warp core compromised.