Starfleet Command's Worst Decisions

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Re: Starfleet Command's Worst Decisions

Post by BigJKU316 »

Sionnach Glic wrote:The Defiant is also capable of taking on vessels many times its size, indicating that there's some seriously powerful weapons and generators built into it, comparable to much larger ships. The cost of not just building those, but also miniturising them enough to fit into such a small hull can't be low.

Really, there are only two realistic reasons as to why Starfleet never built more Defiants. Either because of mass stupidity (and as one of Starfleet's more vocal critics on this site, I'd have no problem believing that), or because there was some other factor preventing their production. In this instance I'm willing to give Starfleet the benefit of the doubt.
Miniturising and what not would all be a development cost though, more than a production cost. Once you have done it once you are not getting the money (or whatever it is they use to measure economic expenditures) back. Assuming you need specialized equipment to make it, be it replicators or machine tools, you have to create them to make the first one and they are still there when you are done. Once all that is created you just have the cost of raw materials, time and energy running it all.

I would tend towards the mass stupidity angle honestly. They started building them in numbers once the Dominion War got going. Simply put I think they fell into the trap the US Navy has fallen into post Cold War. They get enamored with ships that can do a bit of everything and fail to see the value of something that just does one thing really well.
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Re: Starfleet Command's Worst Decisions

Post by Tyyr »

I would say Archer but he was pre-Starfleet.
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Re: Starfleet Command's Worst Decisions

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Tyyr wrote:I would say Archer but he was pre-Starfleet.
No he wasn't, he was pre-UFP.
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Re: Starfleet Command's Worst Decisions

Post by Deepcrush »

Cost for building Defiants isn't about money. Its about time, resources and manpower. Fact is that a ship like that has to be a tough build. The amount of firepower can be explained simple enough. Kira stated that they have it set so that the warp core dumps raw power right into the pulse phasers. We've also seen the downside of this where they burn through parts like crazy.

While I do believe that SF should have put the Defiant class to mass production. I also agree that we have to accept there was reason why we didn't see them all that often. This could be due to cost, troubles in construction or just time since SF may not have started a truly military build up until the war started. By which point, the war was almost over by the time they were really turning this class out at any rate, which of course would have ended when the war ended.
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Re: Starfleet Command's Worst Decisions

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Sionnach Glic wrote:The Defiant is also capable of taking on vessels many times its size, indicating that there's some seriously powerful weapons and generators built into it, comparable to much larger ships. The cost of not just building those, but also miniturising them enough to fit into such a small hull can't be low.

Really, there are only two realistic reasons as to why Starfleet never built more Defiants. Either because of mass stupidity (and as one of Starfleet's more vocal critics on this site, I'd have no problem believing that), or because there was some other factor preventing their production. In this instance I'm willing to give Starfleet the benefit of the doubt.
Didn't the Defiant have structural problems when it was first deployed, due to its overpowered engines? That would be a good reason to halt full production, until the problems in the prototype were worked out. Once that problem is solved, you then have a ship that is uncomfortable to live on, goes through spare parts like Fat Albert at a buffet, has no secondary mission, and only exists to kill things. Those are all excellent reasons not to build another one, because there is no real need for them.

Now when you suddenly have a higher tech neighbor that has plans to conquer you, it is amazing how quickly your priorities change.

For the miniaturization costs, I'd say that once you have developed the technology, it still exists. I.e. you can apply it to other ships as necessary/wanted, o other engineers can see if/where it is useful. Suppose there is a conduit that is tough to squeeze throug due to a computer node in the way. You miniaturize the node, and presto, easy access. Upload that idea to the Starfleet engineer-web, and future designs can incorporate that idea. Or an older ship is running out of room for upgrades - make the upgrades smaller, and you've gotten a few more decades of useful service out of it.
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Re: Starfleet Command's Worst Decisions

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Maybe they managed to apply some of the miniturisation techniques to the Runabouts - which explains who Odo was able to one shot a Bug that a Starship couldn't previously take down.
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Re: Starfleet Command's Worst Decisions

Post by Atekimogus »

Deepcrush wrote:This could be due to cost, troubles in construction or just time since SF may not have started a truly military build up until the war started. By which point, the war was almost over by the time they were really turning this class out at any rate, which of course would have ended when the war ended.
Or maybe the Defiant class - powerful as it was - was not that practical all around. I am not thinking of production costs but maybe those ships where almost unacceptable high in maintance, fuel and supply costs.

True, we never really saw one of the Enterprises stopping frequently at the nearest gas-station but on the other hand there are many instances where they seem to give at least thought to how much antimatter they are burning. Cruising speed seems to be warp 4-6 which seems to be the effieciency sweet spot, they are not constantly on red alert etc. .

So maybe the defiant - though powerful - was also inefficient as hell and rather a pain in the ass maintanance-wise (thinking of those phaser-technobabble thing they needed to replace after each mission). This coupled with low range and warp speed might well be the reason we didn't saw more of them. (iirc they needed to use up their phaser reserve power to reach warp nine-ish, something other trek ships seem to reach without draining their reserves).

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Re: Starfleet Command's Worst Decisions

Post by McAvoy »

Traditionally it is much cheaper per ton to build a larger ship. Which is one of the reasons why naval ships have gotten larger over the years to the point that modern destroyers are as large as WW2 heavy cruisers.

The Defiant may need specialized parts and probably is maintaince heavy. After all the Defiant was tearing herself apart. While we may not hear anything past that but perhaps O'Brian fixed it to a point but still requires regular maintaince.
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Re: Starfleet Command's Worst Decisions

Post by Lighthawk »

The list so far...
1) Putting children on warships
2) The TNG-era Prime Directive
3) Signing off on the design for the GCS
4) Aiming the full-scale test of the soliton wave at an inhabited planet ("New Ground")
5) Putting Sisko in charge of hunting down Eddington ("For the Cause", "For the Uniform")
6) Promoting Janeway to Captain
7)No body armor.
8)No protective gear on away missions.
9)Putting Archer in charge of humanity's first true inter-stellar starship.

Possible stuff...
No dedicated warships until later on.
Ship security and the Federation's ground forces.
Not building Defiants in as large of numbers as possible as soon as the design was finished.
This would seem to be more a case of political policy than military decision.
Phasers which are impossible to aim.
No ground vehicles worth anything.
No Air superiority vehicles such as fighters.
And then let's not forget holodecks which are incredibly unsafe.
Every ship in the TNG era.
Wouldn't all these be more R&D issues than actual command problems?
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Re: Starfleet Command's Worst Decisions

Post by stitch626 »

They weren't just astetically horid, they were not practical. In an interview with... now for some reason I can't remember who, but anyway, they said that in order to use the restroom, you needed to remove the entire uniform and have someone assist you.
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Re: Starfleet Command's Worst Decisions

Post by Tyyr »

You seem to forget that in the future no one has an anus.
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Re: Starfleet Command's Worst Decisions

Post by stitch626 »

:laughroll:
Well, there was a head on the bridge of the E-D.
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Re: Starfleet Command's Worst Decisions

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You ever been on a boat for all of a day or more? Rule #1 - no shittin' in the shitter. The head's for doing #1 and washing up.
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Re: Starfleet Command's Worst Decisions

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Small enclosed space that gets hot and is humid.

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Re: Starfleet Command's Worst Decisions

Post by Captain Seafort »

Lighthawk wrote:
Phasers which are impossible to aim.
No ground vehicles worth anything.
No Air superiority vehicles such as fighters.
And then let's not forget holodecks which are incredibly unsafe.
Every ship in the TNG era.
Wouldn't all these be more R&D issues than actual command problems?
The actual designs would be R&D issues. Accepting them into service was stupidity on the part of SC.
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