Your Favorite Federation Starship Class

[Captain Seafort]

You could bolt a launcher on easily and believably. The problem comes when said launchers are both a) directly above the docking port and b) multi shot.

[Mark]

I can't say why it looks proud. Her color, the straight diag lines of her nacelles, the light glinting off of her hull.....many things.

[Deepcrush]

As to the Connie-Refit, I'd say it looks proud in the way an old soldier does in uniform. You can see in it the glory past and the pride thats never lost.

As to the Excelsior, its more like the line backer in a brand new suit.

[Graham Kennedy]

You could bolt a launcher on easily and believably. The problem comes when said launchers are both a) directly above the docking port and b) multi shot.

I prefer the Galaxy class idea, where a torp launcher is a big 50 or 60 metre long piece of hardware with supporting gear, not something one can just stick on as an afterthought pretty much anywhere. If it's that easy to install a torp launcher, then why not have twenty of them, or fifty, or two hundred for that matter?

[Captain Seafort]

If it's that easy to install a torp launcher, then why not have twenty of them, or fifty, or two hundred for that matter?

Absolutely - if a T-class sub could accept half a dozen, a starship could take hundreds, or even thousands. My point is that there's nothing inherently objectionable about the design.

[Atekimogus]

I prefer the Galaxy class idea, where a torp launcher is a big 50 or 60 metre long piece of hardware with supporting gear, not something one can just stick on as an afterthought pretty much anywhere. If it's that easy to install a torp launcher, then why not have twenty of them, or fifty, or two hundred for that matter?

I agree but maybe it is a range thing? Now I know torps are self-propelled to a degree but maybe the 50-60 metre piece of hardware on the Galaxy is just there to give them a good exit velocity (higher impact speed on closer targets and longer range).

Comparativly the small launchers on the Sovereign are basically glorified mine-layers with the torpedoes relying almost entirely on their own speed. It seems consistent with what we see (at least I thought that the torps in Nemesis were rather slow moving) and would explain why most of the strapped on mine-layer mini-launchers are facing back. (Or at least I think they do...not sure here.)

[Tyyr]

Even the big piece of kit you see in the TNG techmanual for the torp launcher isn't really that big in comparison to a starship. I've said it many times before but with a torp launcher being the size of a large tour bus and a basketball court sized room being able to hold about 2,000 torps there's no reason you can't have starships with a dozen torpedo launchers and more than enough ammo to fire all day.

I agree that some of the Nemesis torp launchers are on the small side though.

[Atekimogus]

there's no reason you can't have starships with a dozen torpedo launchers and more than enough ammo to fire all day.

There is no reason not to have 2000+ torpedocasings lying around thats true. But arming them? Afaik they are only infused with AM prior to launch (which makes sense) and the AM must come from somewhere. Since it is not produced on the ship you have a limiting factor right there.
So maybe you can have 300, 400, 500 or more torpedoes but at some point you would start to seriously dig into your energy reserves and since the engagements are rather limited, where one ship alone would spend her odd 300 torpedoes at once there is little reason to have that many.

[stitch626]

but with a torp launcher being the size of a large tour bus and a basketball court sized room being able to hold about 2,000 torps

The launcher itself does not hold the torps till the prefire stage. The torps are stored in the torpoedo bays (like cargo bays, but specific to torpedoes). And those can be as big as the area of the ship they are in.

[Tyyr]

There is no reason not to have 2000+ torpedocasings lying around thats true. But arming them? Afaik they are only infused with AM prior to launch (which makes sense) and the AM must come from somewhere. Since it is not produced on the ship you have a limiting factor right there.
So maybe you can have 300, 400, 500 or more torpedoes but at some point you would start to seriously dig into your energy reserves and since the engagements are rather limited, where one ship alone would spend her odd 300 torpedoes at once there is little reason to have that many.

You actually just proved why it's stupid to not carry a few thousand around with you.

Let's just take a look at the Ent-E in Nemesis. They ran out of torpedoes. The ship hadn't run out of anti-matter. I'm willing to bet the crew really wished they had some additional torpedoes on hand. If anything the fact that you don't arm them with anti-matter until you're ready to fire them makes the fact that you don't carry a ridiculous number with you at all times all the more ludicrous. There's literally no reason not to. You don't waste precious anti-matter arming them, they don't take up any appreciable amount of space, and until they are armed to pose little threat to the ship that's carrying them. Not having excess casing on hand is all the more stupid for exactly the reasons you outlined.

What's more important to the Ent-E in the battle with the Scimitar, that they have torpedoes to shoot, or that they don't dip too far into their anti-matter reserves and jeopardize their ability after the battle to putter around exploring deep space for another four years?

but with a torp launcher being the size of a large tour bus and a basketball court sized room being able to hold about 2,000 torps

The launcher itself does not hold the torps till the prefire stage. The torps are stored in the torpoedo bays (like cargo bays, but specific to torpedoes). And those can be as big as the area of the ship they are in.

Uhh, yeah. That's what I said. The launcher isn't that big and a relatively small room can hold a ton of them.

[Mark]

You know, GK made this really cool scale pic of how to store torps for maximum effect, just to give you a perspective of how many you realistically could carry.

And in other news...the Refit Constitution Class has won as the overall favorite with a stunning 27%! We're a pretty eclectic group.

[stitch626]

Uhh, yeah. That's what I said. The launcher isn't that big and a relatively small room can hold a ton of them.

Oops.. reading comprehension fail.

[Graham Kennedy]

You know, GK made this really cool scale pic of how to store torps for maximum effect, just to give you a perspective of how many you realistically could carry.

And in other news...the Refit Constitution Class has won as the overall favorite with a stunning 27%! We're a pretty eclectic group.

You mean this one?



Standard size basketball court with 660 standard sized photon torpedoes sitting on it. As you can see there is ample room to truck them in and out or get at them for maintenance, too.

Whilst I hate the idea of the little tiny compact torpedo launchers, it's absurd to give starships the torpedo stocks they have. Voyager, for instance, could EASILY put a room like this behind EACH of it's four torpedo tubes, for 2,640 torps in total. Seriously, I scaled it out, the torp storage wouldn't even be significant in terms of internal volume taken up at that level. Torp levels one hundred times those stated in canon wouldn't be at all unrealistic for these ships.

And if you're worried about antimatter storage... well have you seen how big the antimatter pods are in comparison to the ship? They're TINY! You could increase that hugely as well.

We just don't really "get" how big these ships are. We think of Voyager as a small ship... it's not. It's several times the size of a US aircraft carrier - a ship which carries a crew of over 5,000 and literally thousands of bombs and missiles. A GCS is the same with everything ramped up to 11 and beyond.

[Atekimogus]

I am not saying that it isn't possible to store such huge amounts of torpedoes, obviously storage space isn't a limiting factor.

What I am saying is that there probably is something else which limits the use of torpedoes to a point were - altough possible - it isn't really necessary or feasible to carry them in the thousands. Now one could say that is because of pacificst UFP politics frowning on ships carrying enough weaponry to level planets with ease and being used with absolute ease by their captains. (Which to me, would be a very good point, a Captain like Janeway should never be able to shoot something out of the tubes other then sensor drones)

On the other hand we never see more agressive cultures, like Klingons and Romulans, with arguable a similar tech-level using more than a few torpedoes at a time. No I do NOT know really what the limiting factor is here, obviously it is not storage space, but since we never saw one of the more battle-like empires using starships (even in alternative universes when at war) which are shooting 10+ torpedoes per salvo every few seconds we must assume that there is something which limits the effectivness of the weaponsystem to a point where the designer decided that during peacetime a stock of about 250 torpedoes should be sufficient for every possible engagement. Writing it down to UFP pacifist stupidity doesn't really work in this case.

And if you're worried about antimatter storage... well have you seen how big the antimatter pods are in comparison to the ship? They're TINY! You could increase that hugely as well.

Well if we are arguing that we could also question why the maindeflector is so big, why the warp drive glowes in blue etc. Now I am not sure about the AM-storage pods on the Enil, klingon ships etc. but roughly all the mayor equipment scaled pretty much with the size of the ship (with warp nacelles getting smaller for a time) so let's just assume that inuniverse there is a pretty damn good reason they are of that size even if we cannot think oou of a good one. (Maybe energy efficient containment is a limiting factor which would have repercussions on the size of the warp core, which would effect the most efficient size of the vessel etc. let's be creative here.)

[Graham Kennedy]

I am not saying that it isn't possible to store such huge amounts of torpedoes, obviously storage space isn't a limiting factor.

What I am saying is that there probably is something else which limits the use of torpedoes to a point were - altough possible - it isn't really necessary or feasible to carry them in the thousands. Now one could say that is because of pacificst UFP politics frowning on ships carrying enough weaponry to level planets with ease and being used with absolute ease by their captains. (Which to me, would be a very good point, a Captain like Janeway should never be able to shoot something out of the tubes other then sensor drones)

I could go with that.

On the other hand we never see more agressive cultures, like Klingons and Romulans, with arguable a similar tech-level using more than a few torpedoes at a time. No I do NOT know really what the limiting factor is here, obviously it is not storage space, but since we never saw one of the more battle-like empires using starships (even in alternative universes when at war) which are shooting 10+ torpedoes per salvo every few seconds we must assume that there is something which limits the effectivness of the weaponsystem to a point where the designer decided that during peacetime a stock of about 250 torpedoes should be sufficient for every possible engagement. Writing it down to UFP pacifist stupidity doesn't really work in this case.

I wonder if the Khittomer accords don't have some of the same sort of rules as the Washington treaty did. We know there are whole classes of weapons which are forbidden - isolytic subspace weapons for example. Perhaps there are treaty limits on the size and number of weapons which can be deployed on their ships as well.

And if you're worried about antimatter storage... well have you seen how big the antimatter pods are in comparison to the ship? They're TINY! You could increase that hugely as well.

Well if we are arguing that we could also question why the maindeflector is so big, why the warp drive glowes in blue etc. Now I am not sure about the AM-storage pods on the Enil, klingon ships etc. but roughly all the mayor equipment scaled pretty much with the size of the ship (with warp nacelles getting smaller for a time) so let's just assume that inuniverse there is a pretty damn good reason they are of that size even if we cannot think oou of a good one. (Maybe energy efficient containment is a limiting factor which would have repercussions on the size of the warp core, which would effect the most efficient size of the vessel etc. let's be creative here.)[/quote]

I'm happy to say the deflector is as big as it needs to be and the nacelles glow blue because that's warp physics for ya. But the size of your fuel tank is likely to be pretty arbitrary. You may well have to have a deflector which is basically as big as it can sensibly be made for tech reasons, but with fuel it's surely just a matter of what endurance you want the ship to have.