Starfleet and its requirements

[McAvoy]

So I was having a small conversation about shipyards and the requirements needed for each slip for a specific ship. Such as a slip being big enough to build a cruiser or a battleship because they are of similar physical size. However that slip may not have strong enough foundations to handle the much greater weight of a battleship.

That led me to a thought. A dead end one, as a naval slip is much much much harder to build or upgrade than what Starfleet can do. They got a basic frame that wraps around a ship. Probably not much to them. Not much resources to make them.

Which leads to actually building ships. The Federation has practically unlimited resources to build a million ships and man them.

So what is the issue? Maybe ships require special resources only found in 1 in 100,000 planets. Maybe Starfleet has issues with manning like being in Starfleet isn't that glamorous.

[Graham Kennedy]

Back in the day Rick Sternbach used to post on a newsgroup I was on, so I had the chance to talk with him a little now and again. One of the things he suggested was that some elements of a ship are not replicatable, and are fiendishly difficult to manufacture.

An example he used was warp coils. The coils of a Galaxy class are huge, something like 60x35 meters. Sternbach suggested that the coils are not just lumps of metal, but rather are laminated structures with dozens of layers, each one of a different material, with all sorts of complex crystalline structures and exotic materials in the mix. His theory was that the coils need to be heated and irradiated in huge industrial complexes and then cooled off very slowly and precisely before the next layer is added and the process repeated - so manufacturing warp coils was an astoundingly expensive, difficult, and time consuming process.

This kind of thing, he said, was the major bottleneck in ship production, and the reason we don't see Starfleet produce ten million ships. I think it's pretty reasonable.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

That does make a lot of sense. Warp cores alone are almost certainly made of rare/exotic materials. There's also moving the stuff to the shipyards for the actual building. And training the people doing the actual construction's gotta be difficult, too.

[Tsukiyumi]

I like that explanation.

[McAvoy]

Well shit I hoping more than that.

Yes I had a similar conversation on TrekBBC back in 04 and 05 or 06.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Well shit I hoping more than that.

Yes I had a similar conversation on TrekBBC back in 04 and 05 or 06.

Sorry, McAvoy. Sometimes there really is a simple explanation for stuff.

[Captain Seafort]

There's also, at least in TOS, the issue of power generation. Until Scotty came up with the recomposition process in TVH, dilithium crystals were a major limiting factor in starship operations, given that they tended to break if you pushed the ship too hard, and were rare enough that at least two episodes focussed on significant efforts being devoted to obtaining the membership of dilithium-rich planets.

[Coalition]

I'd also see that structural requirements are important. A larger ship (all else being identical) that is twice as long/wide/tall, will mass 8* as much, but its structure will only be 4* stronger. This means that you can build a large ship, its acceleration capacity will steadily drop, unless you keep on bulking up the structural system (physical beams, structural fields, etc).

You also have fun moving the components, and making sure they line up properly. Larger components will take longer to line up, and will be harder to move around as well. You'll need stronger and just as precise structures to move them around properly, or take more time to assemble them.

As to it being a bottleneck, I'd expect that Starfleet can look at the bottleneck, and decide to build more warp core 'cookers'. If the rest of the ship takes 6 months to build, and the warp cores take 1 year to 'cook', build 2 warp core cookers for every yard. The coils still take a year to cook, but you have 2 sets coming off every year. To schedule things properly, you'd alternate the construction so a fresh set comes out of the 'cooker' in time for it to be installed. Once the ship is finished, another one is started, and the second cooker has its core come out just in time.

[Graham Kennedy]

I'd also see that structural requirements are important. A larger ship (all else being identical) that is twice as long/wide/tall, will mass 8* as much, but its structure will only be 4* stronger. This means that you can build a large ship, its acceleration capacity will steadily drop, unless you keep on bulking up the structural system (physical beams, structural fields, etc).

I wonder how much of an issue this really is, though. Frankly the structures don't need to be all that strong, given that most of the strength comes from structural integrity fields and most of the stresses put on them are nullified by the inertial dampers. I doubt a starship is very much stronger than a present day oceangoing vessel, and we're certainly capable of making those very large. Hell, the biggest constraints on ship size right now are things like how big canals and ports are - we're nowhere near the limits imposed by the strength of the materials, and all we're using is steel.

As to it being a bottleneck, I'd expect that Starfleet can look at the bottleneck, and decide to build more warp core 'cookers'. If the rest of the ship takes 6 months to build, and the warp cores take 1 year to 'cook', build 2 warp core cookers for every yard. The coils still take a year to cook, but you have 2 sets coming off every year. To schedule things properly, you'd alternate the construction so a fresh set comes out of the 'cooker' in time for it to be installed. Once the ship is finished, another one is started, and the second cooker has its core come out just in time.

Sure, but it's a bit simplistic to say that any given nation can simply double its output of a given resource by building twice as many factories. Is it possible, sure. But then you're taking away resources from other things, and that has consequences. Starfleet probably could double their ship production if they were given double the resources, just as America could probably double the size of its navy if it really wanted to. But that decision doesn't come without a lot of pain in other areas, one way or another.

[Coalition]

I wonder how much of an issue this really is, though. Frankly the structures don't need to be all that strong, given that most of the strength comes from structural integrity fields and most of the stresses put on them are nullified by the inertial dampers. I doubt a starship is very much stronger than a present day oceangoing vessel, and we're certainly capable of making those very large. Hell, the biggest constraints on ship size right now are things like how big canals and ports are - we're nowhere near the limits imposed by the strength of the materials, and all we're using is steel.

Ships on earth only need to deal with 1G acceleration from a fairly constant direction (gravity). Starfleet ships deal with hundreds of Gs of accelerations, plus have their structures sticking off to the side if you look at it from the perspective of the impulse engines. Imagine the torque on the warp nacelles when the impulse engine is going full thrust. You have a thin structure that is effectively being put under a twisting stress, rather than just acceleration stress. The neck has the thrust partly along the top, meaning all the saucer section is trying to flip backwards effectively, and the neck has to prevent that.

Sure, but it's a bit simplistic to say that any given nation can simply double its output of a given resource by building twice as many factories. Is it possible, sure. But then you're taking away resources from other things, and that has consequences. Starfleet probably could double their ship production if they were given double the resources, just as America could probably double the size of its navy if it really wanted to. But that decision doesn't come without a lot of pain in other areas, one way or another.

You could reduce it to 2/3 of each then, and still improve ship output. Instead of 1:1 assembly yard:core cookers, producing 1 ship per year, you make it 2/3 ship making and 4/3 core cookers, giving you one ship every 9 months.

The limit would be the trained personnel likely, but that is what happens when you discard 75% of the applicants (Coming of Age). This might not apply to more aggressive empires, so this isn't the only solution.

From the Particle Fountain episode, mining operations could be another limit for manufacturing ships. So raw materials mining and refining would still be a limiter on starship production.

There are several areas where ship construction limitations could occur, we just have to pick the ones that seem to fit our vision.

[Graham Kennedy]

Ships on earth only need to deal with 1G acceleration from a fairly constant direction (gravity). Starfleet ships deal with hundreds of Gs of accelerations, plus have their structures sticking off to the side if you look at it from the perspective of the impulse engines. Imagine the torque on the warp nacelles when the impulse engine is going full thrust. You have a thin structure that is effectively being put under a twisting stress, rather than just acceleration stress. The neck has the thrust partly along the top, meaning all the saucer section is trying to flip backwards effectively, and the neck has to prevent that.

But again, whilst the ships do hundreds of gees the inertial dampening fields mean that they don't actually experience hundreds of gees. Indeed, they don't appear to actually experience any acceleration at all, given that acceleration doesn't ever throw anybody around or cause them the slightest discomfort. So no, the ships don't have to cope with hundreds of gees, or even with one gee. The only strength they actually need is the strength to resist unexpected forces that the IDF isn't able to handle, like those weapon impacts that toss people around.

To judge from what we see that's not all that big a deal - staying upright in a ship isn't generally much harder than staying upright in a hard accelerating car would be. Since these ships are made from super materials of the future, and with structural integrity fields to reinforce that on top, then building ships far larger than those we see really shouldn't be much of a problem. Certainly ships two or three times the size of those we see would be achievable, probably ten times or more.

Hell, we even see Dominion ships of that kind of scale in the war, and Worf's giant flagship in the mirror universe. This kind of scale isn't a big deal.

You could reduce it to 2/3 of each then, and still improve ship output. Instead of 1:1 assembly yard:core cookers, producing 1 ship per year, you make it 2/3 ship making and 4/3 core cookers, giving you one ship every 9 months.

And again, who pays for that change? How are you going to convince the government to fund that (or reallocate resources or whatever the equivalent of funding it is in their moneyless economy), rather than funding something else instead?

From the Particle Fountain episode, mining operations could be another limit for manufacturing ships. So raw materials mining and refining would still be a limiter on starship production.

Could be, certainly.

[McAvoy]

Ok real world example.

Building big gun ships from the 1940's and before, armor plate and the turrets often took the most amount of time to build and assemble. Ship hulls along with their machinery didn't take as much time as you would think. During that time, armor and guns were severe limiting factors. How much armor plate could be produced domestically before buying it over seas for example.

The warp coils in the nacellea an excellent point and perhaps that is why nacelle designs seem to be reused even if for example the GCS nacelle design may be reused but at reduced scale and different proportions.

However it seems that they have stopped doing that as pretty much every new ship past First Contact has a new nacelle design. Which means new coil shape or design.

Unless of course they layer like fabric or plywood and then cut it.

[Graham Kennedy]

The warp coils in the nacellea an excellent point and perhaps that is why nacelle designs seem to be reused even if for example the GCS nacelle design may be reused but at reduced scale and different proportions.

However it seems that they have stopped doing that as pretty much every new ship past First Contact has a new nacelle design. Which means new coil shape or design.

Unless of course they layer like fabric or plywood and then cut it.

It could well be that the Dominion war gave them the impetus to build a whole new set of shipyards and production facilities.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

And seriously ramp up production on the older facilities. Along with taking a hard look at efficiency and whatnot.

[Coalition]

The Borg could have been the stimulus for that. Ent-D is introduced to one of their ships, and after they got back I'll bet the data was studied quite well. Estimates of their travel speed were made, and plans were set up to be ready by then.

Then Best of Both Worlds, with total loss at Wolf 359, and the collective sphincter tightening of everyone on Earth. Estimates of Borg capability were revised upward, and more ships were ordered.

Then you had the Dominion War start, and all those ships are finally coming off the assembly lines (plus refits sent out to the rest of the fleet), just in time to save the day.