The Design of the Intrepid Class

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Re: The Design of the Intrepid Class

Post by Bryan Moore »

Forgive the lazy c**t question, but my browser is being really goofy and searching forum archives is somewhat of a pain... Graham - your coalition ships - do you have a certain "Crew : Square Meters" ratio or anything? I know you have absolutely massive ships with massive amounts of armament, etc. I can imagine you have tens of thousands on some?
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Re: The Design of the Intrepid Class

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Captain Seafort wrote:
Graham Kennedy wrote:Was it you who suggested that for the Badlands mission the science staff was probably omitted, at least most of it? I'd be happy to take 140 as a base crew, and say that in addition there is a standard science staff of about another 200 or so. 350 would still be absurdly low for a ship Voyager's size - hell, 3,500 would be low - but at least it would be more believable.
And yet when Voyager had a couple of hundred passengers (the Klingons in "Prophecy") the sense was of an overcrowded and strained ship. In "Friendship One", transporting five and a half thousand people from one planet to another was stated to require "at least" seventeen trips, indicating a total capacity of closer to 450 than 500. The numbers don't make sense, but they're consistent.
If 5,500 people can be transported in 17 trips then a figure of around 320 would be the maximum, which seems reasonable to me.

Maybe worth noting that Voyager isn't necessarily capable of everything a standard Intrepid would be. Who knows what state their life support systems are in after years without real maintenance, after all.
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Re: The Design of the Intrepid Class

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Graham Kennedy wrote:Was it you who suggested that for the Badlands mission the science staff was probably omitted, at least most of it? I'd be happy to take 140 as a base crew, and say that in addition there is a standard science staff of about another 200 or so. 350 would still be absurdly low for a ship Voyager's size - hell, 3,500 would be low - but at least it would be more believable.
If I said that I don't remember. Or maybe you are directing that question at me.

Also how many crewmembers died when they got transported to the Delta Quadrant? So between that and maybe not having a full complement could indicate that the ship was meant for a larger crew. Like 350.

I haven't watched the episode lately, did they indicate life support systems couldn't handle it? Or maybe the energy consumption couldn't handle it?
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Re: The Design of the Intrepid Class

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Graham Kennedy wrote: Maybe worth noting that Voyager isn't necessarily capable of everything a standard Intrepid would be. Who knows what state their life support systems are in after years without real maintenance, after all.
It has suffered so many hull breaches that it should look like a patchwork of pieces and welds, but it is always perfect as new. (the real reason is clear ...)

I don't dare to think in what state should be its internal systems, especially the less vital ones ... as for me should be the scientific laboratories.
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Re: The Design of the Intrepid Class

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bladela wrote:
Graham Kennedy wrote: Maybe worth noting that Voyager isn't necessarily capable of everything a standard Intrepid would be. Who knows what state their life support systems are in after years without real maintenance, after all.
It has suffered so many hull breaches that it should look like a patchwork of pieces and welds, but it is always perfect as new. (the real reason is clear ...)

I don't dare to think in what state should be its internal systems, especially the less vital ones ... as for me should be the scientific laboratories.
Make it look pretty but behind it all its held together with gum and gravity.

Tomcats in last years were like that. When I worked on them, during their last years, parts were not being made anymore and broken parts were repaired as much they could and put back in service even if they wouldnt last long. Brackets holding the parts in the place were long gone and you had to wire tie it the frame of the plane to stay in place. Blown ducts were not replaced but patched and covered in high temp sealent.

Hell, just to get to the scrap yard, my work center used a Pringle can that had the same diameter. We coated thd inside of it with high temp sealent, wrapped it several times in wire ties, duct taped it and then wrapped it in wire again and then duct taped it. Spray painted it black and put it in the plane. All from a Pringle can.

So Voyager could look shiny and nice but the ship is being held together with duct tape behind those panels.
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Re: The Design of the Intrepid Class

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You know, of all the Trek shows before Discovery, Voyager was the one that wasted so much of its potential.

When it came out it was sold as "this isn't the Enterprise, the ship is smaller, it will lack a lot of the comforts." Except, no, it didn't. I can't think of a single significant thing that we ever saw on the E-D that Voyager didn't have.

And as people have said, there was no real degradation over time - on its last day the ship was just as fast, just as combat capable as it was on its first day. Christ, they even said they had 38 irreplaceable torpedoes and then went on to fire over 120 of the things.

And "the crew will be mixed Maquis and Starfleet, there will be a lot of friction and conflict." Hell, the Maquis was invented specifically for Voyager for that purpose. How'd that work out? They never did much of significance with them.

This is not to say that Voyager was a terrible show, it really wasn't IMO. There were good episodes, great episodes, and good and great characters.

But man oh man, this show could have been SO much better.
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Re: The Design of the Intrepid Class

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Graham Kennedy wrote:You know, of all the Trek shows before Discovery, Voyager was the one that wasted so much of its potential.

When it came out it was sold as "this isn't the Enterprise, the ship is smaller, it will lack a lot of the comforts." Except, no, it didn't. I can't think of a single significant thing that we ever saw on the E-D that Voyager didn't have.

And as people have said, there was no real degradation over time - on its last day the ship was just as fast, just as combat capable as it was on its first day. Christ, they even said they had 38 irreplaceable torpedoes and then went on to fire over 120 of the things.

And "the crew will be mixed Maquis and Starfleet, there will be a lot of friction and conflict." Hell, the Maquis was invented specifically for Voyager for that purpose. How'd that work out? They never did much of significance with them.

This is not to say that Voyager was a terrible show, it really wasn't IMO. There were good episodes, great episodes, and good and great characters.

But man oh man, this show could have been SO much better.
I totally agree. Voyager should have been pretty much BSG. Ship was good for awhile but battle damage or whatever wore down the ship. Ship was repaired as much as it could. Since there was aliens in Trek as opposed to BSG, you could have had added things to the ship they acquired from alien races whether it was a new weapon or hell green plated hull armor they acquired off of a derelict. Stuff like that.

Early seasons we should have seen alot of friction between the Maquis and Starfleet. Chakotay serving as a inbetween all the time between the two always having to choose sides. Later on maybe seeing the crew in general starting to lose morale.

Neelix could have been an alien scout or trader helping out as much as he can getting the ship supplies and whatnot.

Janeway could have been a captain consistently striving to be a Starfleet captain but eventually wearing down to trying to get her crew home. So she would have to make tough decisions.

Nope we got TNG 2.0. How many episodes did we get where it could have easily been the crew of E-D? Quite a bit. Not to mention the inconsistent writing of the characters and a lack of respect for continuity. Even small things like photon torpedoes.
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Re: The Design of the Intrepid Class

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Graham Kennedy wrote:You know, of all the Trek shows before Discovery, Voyager was the one that wasted so much of its potential.

When it came out it was sold as "this isn't the Enterprise, the ship is smaller, it will lack a lot of the comforts." Except, no, it didn't. I can't think of a single significant thing that we ever saw on the E-D that Voyager didn't have.

And as people have said, there was no real degradation over time - on its last day the ship was just as fast, just as combat capable as it was on its first day. Christ, they even said they had 38 irreplaceable torpedoes and then went on to fire over 120 of the things.
the point is that the voyager of the last seasons should have been a mix of technologies, repairs on the field ... enough to be hardly recognizable as a stellar fleet ship

that does not mean inferior ... some of the acquired technologies (eg borg) could also have it enhanced (especially in the defensive systems I imagine, that personally in that situation together with the engines I would have considered a priority).
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Re: The Design of the Intrepid Class

Post by Graham Kennedy »

They even played with that idea now and again - remember the Isokinetic cannon? Used in one episode, never seen again.
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Re: The Design of the Intrepid Class

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Graham Kennedy wrote:They even played with that idea now and again - remember the Isokinetic cannon? Used in one episode, never seen again.
for the real reason of having to redo all the scenes already rendered I imagine... or because they are too lazy to remember the previous episodes
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Re: The Design of the Intrepid Class

Post by 00111010 01000100 »

That’s pretty funny! I was just thinking about the 200+ Klingons they took on board and how everyone had to buddy up in quarters because of it. As an engineer that’s been responsible for atmospheric control equipment in an enclosed environment, my thought during that episode was, “how in the heck are they processing out all that CO2”? “Those atmospheric processors must be rated to handle upwards of 300% capacity!”
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Re: The Design of the Intrepid Class

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00111010 01000100 wrote:That’s pretty funny! I was just thinking about the 200+ Klingons they took on board and how everyone had to buddy up in quarters because of it. As an engineer that’s been responsible for atmospheric control equipment in an enclosed environment, my thought during that episode was, “how in the heck are they processing out all that CO2”? “Those atmospheric processors must be rated to handle upwards of 300% capacity!”
There has been mention from time to time that ships are rated to carry far more than their usual crew numbers for exactly that kind of situation. I believe the E-D could carry up to fifteen thousand people.
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Re: The Design of the Intrepid Class

Post by 00111010 01000100 »

Btw. Since you’re also up and on the forum. Some technical notes of interest regarding size/crew capacity. In my line of work, the ships have an internal area of over 200k ft3, yet equipment and structural configuration consume around 60-65% of this space. The total crew capacity is standard at 136. While this can be increased to upwards of 200+, it can only be for limited periods of time. The ship however can also be operated with a skeleton crew of about a 1/5 of the designed manning. Having 136 means most watch stations are in a 6 hour/3 section rotation/18 hour day. Some of the higher ranks can operate in a 6 hour/4 section rotation as well. When discussing the intrepid‘s dimensions and her small crew size, it made sense to me at least that they are operating on a partial crew. Something else to consider is the “Oooh” neural gel packs that might have reduced the required crew size by eliminating the need for additional people.
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Re: The Design of the Intrepid Class

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Coming back to the life support question about Voyager. While it was nice to have a limitation placed on the ship in how many they can carry it just makes no sense.

The ship is far bigger than a Connie and apparently can't hold the crew complement of the Connie.

I wonder if what they use in Star fleet ships are actual mechanical units that can only process so much per hour. Doesn't matter how much energy they have or how big the ship is, but having a physical limitation on what the units can do.

After all, the Galaxy class is a huge ship and can hold only 15k. The Galaxy can hold much more due to their mission of jack of all trades Master of all type of profile. Designed to hold large amounts of people if necessary short of dedicated people mover ships.

I can imagine Scott getting annoyed with constantly changing the filters on deck 5 because of the knuckle dragging enlisted.
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Re: The Design of the Intrepid Class

Post by Graham Kennedy »

What are the limiting factors going to be?

Not space, for sure. You could fit ten people into any given crew quarter we've ever seen in TNG-era Trek.

Ability to scrub CO2 from the atmosphere? That's not a hard task, we do it now. All you need is scrubbers with the right chemicals in them and a system to circulate the air. Hell, you could probably replicate a simple unit with a big air scrubber and a fan on it, scatter them around the ship.

Dumping the waste heat doesn't seem to be an issue. Trek goes on the idea that space is cold and you need to heat the ships, which is nonsense mostly, but they sure have plenty of power available for heating.

Food? They have space to carry millions of ration packs, they have replicators. They can stop off and forage on habitable planets, there usually seems to be one around.

Water? Again, replicators.

So... why only 15,000 on a GCS? Why not 50,000? More?
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