Ideas for new classes of starships

[Teaos]

Exactly. This design is far far more suseptable to enemy fire than a 2 nacelle configuration is.

Its not balance. We gained a little bit of speed but it is still slower than most other ships. Hardly a good trade.

[Lt. Staplic]

true, as a battle ship though, it doesn't have to be the fastest. We can use Battle cruisers to run them down.

to go back to the example, we'd have Akira, Promi's, Sovereigns, harassing the borg all the way from their entry point to sector 001. The Paladin would be waiting there to blow what ever of the cube was left away.

the extra set of nacelles does add a fair amound of redundancy, they're more battle exposed, but their still survivable, if the defiant's nacelles ever got hit with a good shot they'd be dead in the water with our second set we avoided this. Their more exposed, but the enemies still going to have to do some pretty good maneuvering to get to all four.

The idea was brought up before about retractable nacelles, i agree it wouldn't work with all four, but maybe just the secondary set?

Or maybe put the secondary set up close to the hull rather than at med distance?

[Teaos]

We're not changing the design, just talking about it. And as a general rule, moveable nacelles = fail.

[Captain Seafort]

Exactly. This design is far far more suseptable to enemy fire than a 2 nacelle configuration is.

Its not balance. We gained a little bit of speed but it is still slower than most other ships. Hardly a good trade.

You're seriously overestimating the vulnerability of four nacelles vis a vis two. Look at the battles in "Generations "and "The Jem'Hadar". Both the Odyssey and the E-D took repeated hits to their nacelles. The thing are huge targets and regardless of how many you have they'll get hit in a fleet action - the only useful defence is in escorts, point defence batteries, and good shields, not in trying to hide them. Moreover, by having multiple nacelles you add redundancy - if a GCS lost a nacelle, its mobility would be serious affected, probably to the point of it being incapable of warp. If a Prommie (or a Paladin) lost a nacelle it would be probably be slower, but it would be able to keep going. Belt and braces is the way to go.

[Lt. Staplic]

i didn't think we were i was just throwing the idea out there.

understood
movement = bad

[Teaos]

Exactly. This design is far far more suseptable to enemy fire than a 2 nacelle configuration is.

Its not balance. We gained a little bit of speed but it is still slower than most other ships. Hardly a good trade.

You're seriously overestimating the vulnerability of four nacelles vis a vis two. Look at the battles in "Generations "and "The Jem'Hadar". Both the Odyssey and the E-D took repeated hits to their nacelles. The thing are huge targets and regardless of how many you have they'll get hit in a fleet action - the only useful defence is in escorts, point defence batteries, and good shields, not in trying to hide them. Moreover, by having multiple nacelles you add redundancy - if a GCS lost a nacelle, its mobility would be serious affected, probably to the point of it being incapable of warp. If a Prommie (or a Paladin) lost a nacelle it would be probably be slower, but it would be able to keep going. Belt and braces is the way to go.

Maybe but they are still by in far the most cunerable bit of the ship.

I originally saw this as vaugly Norway shape with the two Nacelles pulled under the ship. The only angle of attack would be from directly under and behind the ship.

4 Nacelles throws that design out the window and doesnt offer any even remotly good alternatives.

Tsu's design while good offer massive profiles for attack. Not only that the sets of nacelles are close enough together that if one goes if stands a good chance of taking out the other one above or bellow it.

Sure the latter generation nacelles did have better survivability than GCS ones but they are still the weakest bit on a ship. And now we have 4 of them sticking out of the ship.

[Lt. Staplic]

what he's getting at is no matter where we put them, they're still going to be the target every chance they get, and they will attack so they can. with four, if designed effectively they'll have to do much more maneuvering before they're all hit, by wich time we should be able to take them out.

[Mark]

Nevertheless, they have to get in past our weapons, then get past our shields, then penetrate the armour. I voted for 4 nacelles and I stand by that. This ship was DESIGNED to take a licking and keep on ticking.

[Teaos]

then penetrate the armour

What armour? The Nacelles don't have any. (Or much if you look at the Sov ones)

[Mikey]

Seafort's got the right of it - granted that 4 v. 2 may offer somewhat more vulnerability, but as he said even 2 are vulnerable enough, so I don't think the increase is as dramatic as has been stated. Further, you're not giving up survivability for redundancy - that redundancy of itself increases survivability.

[Lt. Staplic]

Here's a first impression of the ship i've drawn out, I took the saucer idea from the Norway, and the drive a variation off the Sovereign, with the way it rolls back then arc's back up in the aft.

The I have a phaser array on the front of the ship, three on top giving 360* cover, one on the ventral side of the saucer, one on the dorsal side of the drive section, and two on the ventral of the drive section.
*Note, the curved line above were it reads "USS Paladin" is not a phaser array it is the raised section of the hull that will shine light on the name. Nor is the U looking thing at the bow of the ship, It is anothercaved in section.

I positioned the primary nacelles to fit behind the saucer and give them coverage there, the second set, I kind of tucked into the ship a little more and curved them with the hull to hopefully give them a litte more cover but as Teaos put, It's hard to find a covered spot for that pair.

Hope you like, I can redraw anything I messed up.

[Mark]

Uh.........I can't see it

[Lt. Staplic]

the whole thing or just the part it cut off at the top?

just noticed that my self.

I used photobucket, just like all of my other ships, it should show up.

[Reliant121]

I can see it. I dont think its a bad design, but simply put, the nacelles are Far far FAR too short.And On the point of nacelle armour.

They must have at least something. I mean, in previous example of the Odessey, she took alot of hits to the nacelles before she finally went under, and that was because a portion of the Jem'Hadar ship slammed into it. Even then, it only did a tear to the front. I think you are seriously over dramatizing just how weak they are. There is no question that they are the most vulnerable part of the ship: Fine, dandy and agreed. But they are nowhere near as vulnerable as you seem to think they are. It's not like a single disruptor blast is going to rip them off.

[Tsukiyumi]

I'm having trouble seeing anything short of a Dominion Battleship getting close enough to do any serious damage. I guess if a number of Dom fighters kamikazed it...

Even then, I can see the pulse phaser turrets blasting a bunch of them to bits before they could impact.

If someone snuck up from behind with cloak, it could be a problem, but thanks to Reliant's torpedo config, they'd still eat a lot of photons.