www.ditl.org

Ok here is an idea I've had for awhile now.

I thought it might be fun to build DITL's ideal starship.

Every week I'll start a new thread to work on a different part of the ship such as size, roll, power supply, layout of the ship, basic hull shape, weapons, ect ect ect.

There is really no point in this. We're not going to use it in a game or anything, but I though it could be interesting to see what comes out of our collective thoughts. See if we can design something that is both practical and realistic. Undoubtedly we're not going to agree on thing so we'll just go with majority rules and build each step independently.

So to start off we'll do the size and roll of the ship.

We'll set this ship somewhere around 2370-2390. Basically in the time frame of the end of the latter trek series and movies.

Now this ship can either be a totally new ship to fill what you may think is a whole in the fleet, or a replacement ship for what you think is a poorly designed existing ship.

So what size and type of ship do you think Starfleet needs most? I'm making the polls so you can change your vote if someone makes a point you agree with.

Small ship will get around 200 units built, Medium would be around 100 and large would be about 20ish. If we decide on a massive ship we could have a production run of only five would be a massive ship though.

Now to make this more realistic I'm giving us a budget. If we decide a smaller ship is more useful you get more of them if we decide bigger you get less.

So Starfleet command has given our project 75,000,000 tons of resourses.

For example here is the weight of different size starships.

Nova 127,000

Defiant 355,000

Intrepid 700,000

Akira 3,055,000

Sovereign 3,500,000

Galaxy 4,960,000

Id say large. Te Feds have at leeast one fairly competant warship in otherr catagories, but even the Sovereign leaves qite a bit to be desirred. A dedicated battleship by the Feds would be virtualy unbeatable.

I'll go with something the size of the Nova or Defiant, it's easier to do a large vessel and pack everything in. A small one presents a challenge in deciding what trade offs we need to make to accomplish our vision.

SF seems to have a large number of medium to large ships, so I picture a scout type that is sent into unexplored regions to map things out before the big boys come in. And seeing as this is SF, it would double as a recce vessel in time of war. So an excellent sensor suite and low emmissions are more important than heavy firepower and shielding.

I voted medium. While I agree that a large ship is needed as a deterant and the Galaxy and the Sov both have their problems I think the issue in the time frame set (2380's) is not major defence as thing look pretty good at the moment but size. I would rather have around 100 ships of a good build to build up fleet numbers and spread out across the vast Federation than a couple of bug ones who would be rather limited.

Agreed - the Defiant gives the Feds a useful destroyer, the Prommie fills the light cruiser role, and the Sov's a battlecruiser. What they need now is a proper battleship, as big and as strong as can be built, with speed subordinated to protection and firepower. 8)

Dusk is going to have a fit when he sees this thread.

The reason I dont like the large ship is because while the Sov and Galaxy arent perfect they more than fill the needs Starfleet has for the forseeable future.

The Dominion are gone and are now on the other side of the wormhole. The Borg... well they seem crippled but even if they do attack I dont think a few battleships would do more good than more smaller ships. Especially since only one or two of the large ships could only reach that location in time.

So SF kind of have the big ship department covered. I think build numbers are more important after the war.

I'm going to agree with Kendall - a small, potentially numerous picket/recon/outrider ship is something we've seen lacking - Intrepid-class is a little bigger and apparently more expensive, and New Orleans-class is built aa a pure picket/torp boat.

I voted large. I think theres a gap for a Nebula sized equivalent for the Sovereign.

I went with medium for the heckuvit.

Reliant121 wrote:I voted large. I think theres a gap for a Nebula sized equivalent for the Sovereign.

I'm kinda going with the idea of an updated Nebula myself.

colmquinn wrote:

Reliant121 wrote:I voted large. I think theres a gap for a Nebula sized equivalent for the Sovereign.

I'm kinda going with the idea of an updated Nebula myself.

I had thought of that, but it says it must be a completely new design. Perhaps we can model the new ship on a nebula, but use the new fancy Architecture of the Sovereign.

One question, do we need to fit all of our members in the ship?

Anyway, I would vote for medium sized, larger than Voyager, but smaller than an Ambassador.

One question, do we need to fit all of our members in the ship?

This isnt a ship for us. Its a ship we're designing to fill a gap in the fleet.

So it looks like large is winning. But some people seem to want it to be a battleship and some want a work horse like the Nebula... Personally I can see the benifits in both, but as I said I see little need for a Battleship at this point.

This isnt a ship for us. Its a ship we're designing to fill a gap in the fleet.

Oh ok.
Then I would say that it should be a medium to large size ship that suffitiently replaces the Nebula.

Since battleship seems to be a popular option at the moment why would you prefer it to be just large and not massive?

Surely with the larger design you could fit in the multiple back-ups you guys are so fond of and even have a bunch of fusion reactors thrown in. If its a deterant you dont need lots of them. Just a few near the boarders and a few in the core.