Ok, this is a direct offshoot of the Ferengi thread. The thread kind of turned into a series of debates about which ships beat which etc etc etc.

Colione expressed a desire to have further debates to gain opinion on ship capabilities. I also think this is a great idea, partly as the stats will have to eventually be decided, (both for official release and mods), also as these kind of debates can be fun.

I'd like to debate things like shields etc, weapons, as well as sensor ability, speed, fuel consumption. As well as role, type, AGE , types of weapons.


Best to begin with Federation ships, although any debate is of course welcome.

REMEMBER- Nobody is right or wrong here, unless we see one ship defeat another on the show, or at least face similar opponents it's hard to judge. Any speculation is welcome, although I promise to eat the heart of anyone who claims any fan site or computer game to be a canon source of info.

Any chance of a sticky guys?

I have posted this in the Ferengi Forum so to continue with the debate here:

A thing everyone should consider is that at the end it has to be translated into the game. If the Defiant is that strong or not isnt really the question the question is should it be that way in the game too.

Following questions arise if the Defiant becomes a megaship:

-how do you counter its massive bonus?

As there is hardly any maintainance to pay (are there even credits?) apart from the Deuterium. Thereby it cant be done this way
Making her a ship that needs many officers is just out of question as we know its the exact opposite.
It has to be a rare sight ie has very long building times. This might be an option but why would she have a long building time. Its meant to be a small ship that trades luxury for smaller size so you probably would need a shorter period of time to build a Defiant class than a larger vessel. Isnt the perfect option either.

-Why even bother and build other larger ships in the game?

The game in the end centers around conflict. As rewarding as exploration might be in the end you will always have to fight to win. So where is the point in building a fleet of other ships if a handful of Defiants are just able to do this job much better. Where would be the point to build Intrepids, Akiras or Nebulas if the Defiant just renders them obsolete.

Show and Game:

Why do we see things in the show like the Odyssey beeing destroyed by 3 Attack ships. Because its part of the plot to show us that the Dominion is just the overly mighty badass empire that can kill the mightiest and most trusted shipclass the Feds can field (and which power the fans know from TNG). Its the same reason you wont see the main characters be killed together with their ships. Its a show after all. And to take the show into too much account will just lead you to get stuck within the many incontinuities (spelling?) of the same.

I was just thinking this may be easier to start with a template and work from there. That way all ships can be compared to this one and be measured accordingly. Of course the entire debate shouldn't focus on these set values, but having a template may help.


GALAXY CLASS STARSHIP- INITIAL BATCH, NO REFITS

SHIELDS- 1000
HULL- 250
PHASERS- 65 (14 phaser hits to deplete shields?)
SPEED- 3
SENSOR RANGE- 3 hexes
BUILD TIME- 20 turns (on average)
TORP SPREAD- 6
We'll assume the photon in use does 85 damage?

OK, so I need other opinions, could a Galaxy destroy another one's shields in 14-15 phaser hits? Is around 11 torps ok?

I'm basing torpedo spread on how many the ship can fire per turn providing she has a clear shot lined up.
I've not included phaser amounts as they won't be fired at once, a ship will merely fire the nearest phaser bank every couple of seconds.

Whilst at first glance it appears the battle between 2 Galaxies would take 3 turns at best, after turn one it will be more difficult to line up for a torpedo shot, so the full spread may not be used.

Does this need a big rethink?

This is of course all helpful, and give some ideas about what's what. The problems lie in the fact that much of this is contradicted in other episodes. For example,
"Way Of The Warrior" shows a Defiant can disable or destroy a BOP in one hit, yet "Sons And Daughters" has a BOP take as many as 10 to 12 hits from various Jem Hadar fighters and survive. That would mean the Jem Hadar vessel is useless. It can be destroyed in a couple of hits from some ships, yet has around 1/10 the firepower of a Defiant.

I'd say the Generic points we can take from your analysis are.

1/ The Jem Hadar attack ship, the BOP, and Hideki have very heavy firepower (around Defiant standard), yet virtually no defence.
The Defiant has similar firepower, yet far superior shielding/hull.

2/ Galor class ships, (presumably most Cardie ships) have a forward weapon that's twice the power of their secondary beam weapons. It would appear the Galor has an equal forward weapon the the Hideki, (and incidentally the bop, jh, and defiant). It seems these smaller vessels have similar forward firepower to the large cruiser counterparts, just less coverage and far less shielding.

3/ Miranda class ships have similar shielding to the BOP etc, yet presumably far less firepower.


Objections.

1/ I don't believe the Galor was disabled or destroyed by the fighters, it merely had some explosions from torpedo impacts around it's dorsal shield. It could have been fine.

2/ I'm not convinced that the Vor'Cha pulses are in fact pulse weapons and not torpedoes, not am I convinced they came from the Vor'Chas and not the accompanying BOPs. In WOTW, a Vor'Cha fires a susteined beam weapon against the Defiant which seems to do very little damage, if they had the incredibly powerful pulse weaponry it seems odd they wouldn't use it given the circumstances.



I think at the end of the day, Zell's right. We need to be debating how these ships can be transferred to the game and come up with an acceptable generic shiplist. I'm constantly biting my tongue about how much weaker the ship is in game compared to the show, but a compromise is needed to make a playable game. I'll probably mod it later, but this needs to be a generically acceptable shiplist.

INITIAL FEEDBACK

Replacements-

*As Discussed before, I believe the Daedalus should be the early science ship. I'd have it pop up around 50 turns after NX. I'd have the original series type Miranda as the 2nd destroyer, replacing the Intrepid at the time the Constitution replaces the NX.

*Daedalus can then be in service as a science vessel until the launch of the Oberth. I'd have that sometime after the constitution, but before the movie refits. I know Oberth registrys have been low, but this fits with the appearence of the ship. If it slightly predates movies refits, it will look like refit technology is based off Oberth design, fairly consistent.

*I'd have Steamrunner buildable at least as early as Galaxy, then you wouldn't have a ship as old looking in the build list alongside Galaxies.

*I don't believe production of the Nebula would be affected by the Prometheus. I think the Prommie is seperate.

All in all, ship progression is pretty good. I think the main thing is that there's a clear visual distinction between ships of the;
NX type
TOS type
Movies type
pre TNG and TNG type
post TNG type

It's important that no ship from an era verstays it's welcome too much, the build list should always look consistent with itself, ie several ships from the same era for different purposes.


Strengths-

*Again, pretty good. I don't want to sound like a stuck record but I think the Defiant's far too weak in comparison to ships like the Intrepid. Perhaps the Intrepid and Defiant could swap places in terms of effectiveness, in order to maintain the balance. This would work well as the Intrepid is very fast like a scout ship, the Defiant is much slower yet more poweful. If the build times were swapped, I think it would actually make more sense as the Intrepid is far more capable in the role the Defiant seems to fill here.


Additions-

*Sabre. Would make the perfect Miranda replacement around the time of the Galaxy. I'd have the Steamrunner replace the Constellation, and the Akira replace nothing.

*Danube. Buildable around the time of Defiant. Replaces nothing. Stupidly cheap, short range, slow, weak. Ideal for stations which don't warrant being assigned their own starship.


As I said, I think this is a fine shiplist. I'm still getting my head round which refit ships will be on by the time new ships are launched etc, but as said very good. The Intrepid so needs to swap places with the Defiant in terms of overally battle capability. This would make the Intrepid the ultimate light scout as I said.

EDIT- In my botf mod I changed the name of the Edward colony ship to Frontier class. I just think it's such an appropriate name for the type of ship.

I converted the shipprogression to html too.
The main table aint very chronological and cant be as easily changed in excel as it would **** up the calcs for everything else.

So here goes (chronologically ordered with all Refits):
http://members.kabsi.at/zelsspace/shipprog.html

ENT to TOS progression
As in an earlier discussion with MajorDiarr we both agreed that because of the extremly low regestry numbers of some Oberths you may get it very early on and have it progress until the TNG era.
The Daedalus therefor comes a bit later on. It seems the Deadalus is this far a bit overpowered though. I will halve her torpedo launchers to 1 so the bonus from the first Photons wont make her an early Defiant compared to the Constitution.

I would introduce the Miranda with the first Constitution Refit. Representing the advance of technology the Constitution gets all the nifty things that were introduced during the Miranda development.

I quite like the Miranda being introduced at the same time as the Cons refit. That also explains why it's buildable later than the cons.

Are you keeping the Daedalus as a destroyer?

I'll check out the progression thing, should clear things up a little.

~This isn't a problem, this is just the way the ship is, a very weak mass produced ship, used for "human wave" tactics. The Dominion is designed for the submission of already submissive groups as used by leaders who consider all but them selves to be disposable. The weakness of the ship should come as no suprise. The BoP being disabled easly fits with it being an old vessel and a more Klingon stance of going all into the attack, despite what the Bat'Leth requires.

Here is what I derive from our information:
--------Attack---Defence
Bug---02-------40
BoP---10-------25
Def----10-------80
Hid----??-------50

25 defense for the BoP because it was disabled but not distroyed. Presuming that another set of shots could destroy it. 80 Defiant defense based on the four hits to the hull, doubled to include a lower limit for shields. It's probably even higher, maybe 120. Hideki defense based on it actualy taking five sets of Defiant shots. No telling what it's fire power is like but it's probably right between Def/BoP and the Dominion Bug, so maybe 5, leaning up though. That would give us the power for the secondary weapons of the Galor which would be half or less for ~2.5. That in turn means the Federation Fighter rates a 5 in defense on this little scale which fits back into the Bug fire power because there is a fly by of some FF at one point in "SoA", a blue beam is firing on one of the fighters for about a second for no apparent damage.

1/ Accounted for in above.
2/ We would need to see a Hideki taking on a shot at the nacelle of a Miranda to be sure or through a logical connect the dots as with above. The Galor probably has better main weapon firepower through size alone, anything else is absurd, especialy for a game.
3/ examples please

Rebut
1/ The Galor imidiatly starts listing after being strafed, just as the other does after being struck by the two Galaxy Class ships. The Galors being disabled by the seperate attacks is most likely, by what I remember, ships in Star Trek only list once disabled.

I just rewatched the part. The Hidekis are definatly the "Cardassian Attack Ships" Miles O'Brian refers to because they are the only Cardassian ships that break off in the previous combat scene.

2/ Throughout all of Star Trek, torpedo weapons are extremely distinctive with their rotating halos and generaly have a round shape. There are only two examples that break the round shape, yet they still have round glows even though the centers are elongated torpedo casing shape or torpedo shaped. All of the shots fired were long steady shots, indicitive of pulse weapon fire. Some of these shots came directly from the bows of the two Vor'Chas present. The Vor'Cha has been shown to fire pulses in an episode of TNG. Variable fire between pulses and beams has been shown with Federation phaser rifles and Dominion Attack Ships.


The Daedalus is fine as a pure science ship in that at that time, all powers within the Federation except Earth would be extremely well armed and would probably not be ready yet for the Federation's Starfleet to be armed even with it being part of the treaty. In the mean time the common defense would be handled by the ships present in the indivigual group's fleets. Just as back ground explanation as to why the Daedalus can be pure science without difficulty.

Interesting idea, have it so you can build Earth, Andorian, Vulcan, and Telerite ships in the beginning. I know it starts with the Brith of the Federation, so forget it. Order of ships should be Deadalus, Oberth, Miranda, Constitution. New thought, the Daedalus has to have a reasonable armement, otherwise it will have to be imidiatly replaced by the Oberth. This way it can compliment the Constitution and Miranda untill it's replaced.

The Oberth's registry isn't just low, it's the lowest registry known after the NX-01 Dauntless, not doubt for a Dauntless Class of ship at the very beginning of the Federation. If I'm not mistaken, the Daedalus is just the name of a ship wich people think relates to the model that Sisko had. It's more likely the actual class of ship was the Dauntless Class, not Daedalus Class. The name should be changed... FOR THE SAKE OF CANON! CHANGE IT!

The Defiant should definatly kick Intrepid meterphorical ass. The Intrepid is just a science ship that happens to be well armed. The Defiant is a warship that happens to be well scienced.

Big question, how many classes per era and how many upgrades per ship? Are their weapon, defense, speed, fuel, experience based tech upgrades that near spontaniously add them selves to ships, add at any base, or add at creation? What about the idea that an NX registry ship is created automaticaly on the completion of a new ship class research? Once I have answeres to the first two questions I can make a list because I want to know how big the list should be and I want the Oberth to be available untill the post-TNG era. This will let me know how much filler the alien ship lists need, as well. Thanks.

I thought it was stated by the devs that fighters were out of the game or was that only the carriers.

@Son of Mogh
I would have the Deadalus as a Destroyer because with the Oberths early introduction we would end up with two science ships.

@Diarr
The upgrade process has been already discussed and i was under the impression that ships will be able to be refited at shipyards only. After the refit has been made available you can only build refitted ones or no new ships at all if the class had become obolete by that time. New ships or their refits will be made available after certain tech has been researched (whatever that is techlevel or individual techs I dont know as that hasnt been stated)

Slowly I realy come to the conclusion that you didnt even take a look at what I came up with, as most of your questions are answered in the two tabloids that I created. I dont say that those are perfect but its a good start and if someone makes a good point with them I am gracious to inlcude new better data. .

There's a lot to answer there so I'll prioritise...

*I'm going to totally disregard the debate about Sacrifice for now. I believe most of your arguments are backed up anyways.

*On occasion the Defiant has taken many more than 4 hits from a Jem Hadar ship. It's hard from the evidence to suggest a defence value.

*I feel the need to correct you on something... The designation Daedalus class is completely canon. It's stated that the Archon lost a few hundred years before the TNG episode Power Play was Daedalus class. You are completely right that the model in Sisko's office could be anything at all. I don't mind that being the Daedalus if it's a science ship, but if it were a cruiser it must have looked different

*I don't personally want Earth, Andorian, Vulcan ships buildable at start. In the timeline of the game you're not guaranteed to meet them at all, that's what keeps it interesting. You'd have to have pre set members for all empires, very messy. Could make a good mod, a canon mod, but in terms of the game you'll have one system and start with the early ships.

*I've thought for some kind there must have been a Dauntless class, the first Federation vessel. However there's no need to have it in the game, it would require a new design that's not canon, when we already have so many canon ones.

*Defiant would possibly benefit from the target practice, but otherwise there's no need to even discuss that battle.


*Your last point about how it works, I know you're not an old BOTF pro so I'll start at the beginning. It is quite a bit different anyway.


Ships per era- Not set, eras aren't that clearly defined. As the Constitution is researched, it's pointless building NX's. As a result the NX disappears from the build list when the Constitution is ready.
There's no transition between the 'eras' there needs to be at least one Explorer/Destroyer/Science/Colony etc per era, plus other types of ships added in.

Experience- Will have no bearing at all on any set measurable statistic of a vessel. Experienced ships in BOTF fired weapons with more accuracy and dodged enemy fire more effectively.

Refits and Upgrades- When a new version of a ship is researched the following happens;
-The old design is replaced in the build list by the new one, the old configuration is no longer buildable.
-All existing ships of that class remain exactly the same in every way, however they can be refit up to the new specifications.
-Any refits must be done at an appropriately sized shipyard, or spacedock. They will take X amount of turns depending on the benefits, and will also have a cost.

Nothing will pop out of thin air and attach itself to ships in deep space. Refitting a vessel means pulling it off it's current mission.

Experience will be one number, it affects only battle performance.

Old ships like the Oberth will be buildable until a newer vessel makes them obsolete. In all current shiplists you can carry on building Oberths right until the Nova is ready. That is, you can build the most current version of the Oberth.

I completely agree having the research project culminate with the launch of each new prototype would be cool, however this would mean tying a shipyard into the research project as no ship will be build from nowhere.

Hope that helps.

Beaten to it...

There will be no fighters, they will be no carriers. Anyone who doubts the seriousness of this statement will be subject to jigalypuff's foul language. It has already led to one very annoying individual going missing with no leads and lots of suspects.

I mean the Federation Fighter (peregrin). It's warp capable. It's just about the only way they could have got anywhere without a carrier, other than Galaxy Class ships. Really it has to be, enemies would be able to just warp away from them if they were the only weapon around because they could be used for system defense in that case. I want a pre-TNG era Fedeation Fighter for system defense, it'll have almost no range. Then a refit with decent range so it can go from system to system at least. Then it'll be replaced by the craft used by Data in Insurection, that thing just screams fighter to me. Really they're more like torpedo boats. That reminds me of something I made several years ago, an actual torpedo boat.

Anyway, I'll go make my list now.