Which ship could become the backbone of the Modern Starfleet

[Teaos]

Just because someone refitted a old design into a newer model with the Lakota doesnt mean its practical.

It could very well, and most likely was a test.

"Hey could we refit a old design with new tech...?"

Well yeah they can, doesnt mean its practical.

They could just build a new ship and now have two ships, one new and advanced, one older that can do all the shity jobs you dont want to waste a new ship on.

Hotrods are a perfect example, it is perfectly possible to get cars going on a hundred years old working well, working better than some modern cars. But it is expencive as hell to do, hard to do, difficult to do. And kind of pointless except for the coolness of them.

[Deepcrush]

But we aren't talking about building a hotrod. We have the Sov's for that. The Neb would have to be a JoAT ship but there isn't any reason we can't upgrade what she's using for the JoAT role. Building a new ship means a great deal of time and effort. A minor upgrade is a lot more simple. Plus the true shit jobs will be falling on the older ships like Excelsior, Miranda and Ambassador.

[Teaos]

The Sov by definition cant be a hotrod, its a purpose built new design.

Building a new ship does take more time/effort, but it also leaves the old ship out there working the whole time while also giving you a new ship.

So the increased investment of resources is far more productive than upgrading old designs.

Minor upgrades over time are fine, but as has been discussed, ripping out old phaser arrays and putting in new ones would be a hard job.

[Coalition]

I suppose it would depend whether the pulse phasers could be mounted in turret form.

I wouldn't see why not. The DS9 Technical Manual shows the Pulse phasers to be a linear accelerator (of sorts), so you could turret mount it like modern warships do. You won't get 360 firing arc coverage (spinning it around might cause the power network to stretch too far, the weapon can't fire lower than the front of the hull (otherwise you would be shooting through the ship), and vertical would be difficult as well (unless you allow the accelerators to extend outside the weapons pod, which leaves them vulnerable to damage).

Off-hand, you might get 30 degrees to either side of forward, with only 10 degrees coverage above and below. So if the Captain sees an enemy ship trying to climb above, her first instinct should be to roll the ship to keep them in the firing arc, rather than pitching up.


Pulse phasers are likely better because of the hammer blow effect they have on enemy shields, allowing more of their damage to penetrate the shields. The disadvantage of the pulse effect is that you get constant surges throughout the phaser emitters, doing wonderful things to them that need engineers to check on and fix later. If you try that with a strip phaser, that means you need crew to go EVA to check and repair the damage, depending on the power used.

Figure two phaser emitters. Both of them are fed from a 1 MW power supply, and have managed 75% efficiency. The continuous beam phaser (seen on Ent-D and countless others) is putting a constant 750 kW on the target. The Pulse emitter is firing pulses that are .1 seconds long, meaning each pulse is effectively 7.5 MW, but only for that .1 second.

Both are doing the same damage in Joules, but the Pulse emitter is more likely to punch through the shields.

Of course the Pulse emitters need to be designed to handle the higher power loads put through them, meaning they have tighter construction requirements initially and higher maintenance later on. So Defiant might be able to do a lot of damage in combat, but O'Brian will be busy afterwards, checking the systems, and making sure there are no cracks in them.

As always in design, there are tradeoffs.

[Praeothmin]

If you want Type-XII Phasers on a Nebula, it would be easier to redesign the Phaser arrays on paper, and simply build the newer ones with these new designs.
Just like the Connie was redesigned, except it's even easier, because you simply perform a slight change on the main Phaser strips, before you build it, and those changes are easier to incorporate in a newly constructed ship then in an old one.

[Sionnach Glic]

I don't think anything that would stop you shoving pulse phasers on the pod. Mount them on turrets, and you'll fix the problem of having to face the target.

[kostmayer]

Just thinking alowed, but was the Lakota refitted under the Admiral's orders specifically to aid in his attempt to retake Earth? If so, could it have been refitted 'off the books' as it were, even though it wasn't effecient with regards to resources, as it would have been impossible to just obtain a more powerful ship.

[Sonic Glitch]

So are we looking at a Constitution-type refit for the Nebula class?

[Mikey]

I doubt it - there's enough space to work with in the extant Nebula, and there don't seem to be the leaps in propulsion in TNG+ times as there were from TOS to the movie era - leaps which would necessitate reworking a la TOS Connie to movie Connie.

[Mark]

At the MOST, replacing the weapons pod with an uprated version......and MAYBE replacing the nacelles with newer ones. MAYBE

[Aaron]

If they ever make another TNG era series, then it will likely be whatever vessel has the most stock footage in storage.

[Mikey]

That's about the size of it. Maybe it'll be an Intrepid that says, "Voy- Pegasus."

[Deepcrush]

The Sov by definition cant be a hotrod, its a purpose built new design.

Guess you've never looked up the definition of the word then have you...? My father had a hodrod... a 1962 Grand Prix 357 muscle car. That was purpose built for power...

Building a new ship does take more time/effort, but it also leaves the old ship out there working the whole time while also giving you a new ship.

Well first, think I covered this though I could be wrong. There's no reason that the Nebula couldn't be out working during the upgrade. You're only shutting down two of the eleven phaser banks. Plus if you're giving the Neb's new and upgraded pod with the extra two phasers and quad QTLs then you're still not losing and combat ability.

So the increased investment of resources is far more productive than upgrading old designs.

I don't think so. Sounds like a great deal of waste. You have new classes of ships rolling off the line. If you're looking for a new mass produced cruiser to fill your ranks you need one that is tried and tested. Minor upgrades keep the ship up to date with the current fleet while still keeping the ship simple and cheap to build. By building a new design and running production and process trials you are in fact leaving yourself open. You have a ship that meets the overall needs. Now you're saying that the best use of resources is to ignore the most productive manner in which to meet the need?

Minor upgrades over time are fine, but as has been discussed, ripping out old phaser arrays and putting in new ones would be a hard job.

Voy, ENT, Lakota, GCS (class as a whole) and Defiant all went through upgrades greater then what I've recomended for the Nebula and none of them seemed to have trouble doing so. The current Nebs would be upgraded while the newer ones would just come with the upgrades as standard. Simple, cheap and effective.

If you want Type-XII Phasers on a Nebula, it would be easier to redesign the Phaser arrays on paper, and simply build the newer ones with these new designs.
Just like the Connie was redesigned, except it's even easier, because you simply perform a slight change on the main Phaser strips, before you build it, and those changes are easier to incorporate in a newly constructed ship then in an old one.

Agreed.

I don't think anything that would stop you shoving pulse phasers on the pod. Mount them on turrets, and you'll fix the problem of having to face the target.

What puts out more damage though? A pulse phaser or a pair of type Xs? My guess would be the Xs.

So are we looking at a Constitution-type refit for the Nebula class?

God no... that would defeat the purpose of a baseline cruiser. You want simple upgrades that keep the ship fleet worthy but without running up the cost for any of the future hulls being layed out.

At the MOST, replacing the weapons pod with an uprated version......and MAYBE replacing the nacelles with newer ones. MAYBE

The pod would be the simple part. The Nebs don't even have to be there while the new pods are being built. They just need to come in and trade out. The nacelles I wouldn't touch. The Nebs don't seem to have any trouble getting around. Plus that means new warp core which means new power systems throughout the whole ship. Thats just asking for trouble!

................

I think people are getting to happy about ideas that would require a total connie style refit if not just a new class. When you're looking for a ship to fill this role you need quick, cheap, simple but effective. Mods to the ship have to be able to be made away from drydock. Other then the pods that would be built seperate then just added on later.

[Captain Seafort]

Well first, think I covered this though I could be wrong. There's no reason that the Nebula couldn't be out working during the upgrade. You're only shutting down two of the eleven phaser banks. Plus if you're giving the Neb's new and upgraded pod with the extra two phasers and quad QTLs then you're still not losing and combat ability.

What!? There's no way in hell the ship could be kept operational through a refit. It's been pointed out before that you'd have to rip out the arrays, and their entire power feed to perform this refit. That isn't something that could be done on the fly - it's a major dockyard job.

[Deepcrush]

What!? There's no way in hell the ship could be kept operational through a refit. It's been pointed out before that you'd have to rip out the arrays, and their entire power feed to perform this refit. That isn't something that could be done on the fly - it's a major dockyard job.

With most of the work being internal there isn't any reason the ship couldn't remain on station while committing the upgrades.

With only 1/10th of the ships weapons down for the refit and no other systems being impacted what would make this a 'major' dockyard job?