Interesting topic, but it seems to me as though a number of opinions here aren't thinking big picture enough. I was told a story once by a man who served aboard USS Intrepid, an Essex class aircraft carrier commissioned during WWII. This former sailor, though, served on board during the late Vietnam war, and some time afterwards as well.. The story is as such: when running active ops in the war, it ticked the other carriers off to no end that little ol' Intrepid was able to launch aircraft at a substantially faster rate than newer carriers like Forrestal, Kitty Hawk, Constellation, and even CVN 65 Enterprise. The way they did this was simple: the captain simply streamlined the operations and motivated the crew to put their backs into getting their aircraft launched and on their way before the bigger carriers could.
"Better," and "more powerful" are largely subjective. IN the case of the Galaxy, it is a very large, modular ship. Galaxies fighting in the DW may not have looked a lot like they did prior to the war on the inside. The schools, theaters, etc. that were there might have been retrofitted to handle more equipment, etc that would help it be more combat effective with the fleets. Entire rows of quarters might have been replaced since families would not be on board any longer while the ships went into war. Weapons systems might have been replaced, engines and thrusters upgraded. Moreover, these changes would not necessarily have been unilateral across all Galaxy's.
In the end though, the Galaxy was designed as an explorer yes, but more to the point as a ship that would offer maximum versatility so that it could operate on it's own for extended periods of time in a variety of circumstances. Depending on the equipment, this may have meant less overall firepower than ships that were pressed into service as the Borg threat continued to grow and the DW seemed more and more evident. Not to mention increased hostility growing behind the scenes on the Cardassian front, the maqui, continued tensions on the neutral zone, etc.
The ships changed to mirror the needs of the fleet. The wider versatility may have taken a back seat to perceived other, more basic concerns. The overall design of the Sovereign over the Galaxy may have lent certain advantages over the Galaxy, but that is not to say those advantages would have displaced any advantages the Galaxy might have itself. And then, there is the fact of was a shrewd captain with a good plan to streamline operations and a motivated crew could do.
"Better" is highly subjective. The Galaxy may be better in some areas, weaker in others, but the franchise didn't specify very well to show us what those areas were, and how they played out overall. Is the Galaxy more suited to fight than a sovereign in one "terrain" vs another? On situation vs another? Could be. Seems to me there are a lot more variables here worth considering.
I agree with this. Reading this thread really lends me to believe that most people on both sides of the argument are missing the point and their descriptions of 'better' are highly relative. The comparisons between very little cannon evidence and in game mechanics is funny to read but ultimately a useless discussion. I encourage them to keep bickering though, like I said it is entertaining.
I find the GCS is represented as accurately as portrayed in cannon, which to say the comparisons with other ships is minimal. Have fun though ladies and gents
parasitic loss? we arent talking about electricity and copper wires here, we are talking about high energy plasma held in conduits with a magnetic field. the only time there could possibly be parasitic loss is on the viable moveing charge effect, that takes a split second, before the shot is fired. that process, at the very most might bleed off 1/10 of the emitters stored power, more likely 1/100, still making it exceptionally efficient. they would not have made arrays if they dumped more then half their energy in the form of waist heat and light like you seem to be implying. i have a real problem assuming starfleet weapons engineers are TRIBBLE.
1 large capacitor and 1 large emitter has a plethora of drawbacks compared to an array. 1 point of failure for each as apposed to 200. thats why modern ships dont have come with ball turrets anymore. first and foremost would be packaging. the array sits partially submerged in the hull, and not only is it the weapon itself, but also the capacitor. only the plasma conduit pipeing would take up any large amount of space on the ship. an array is scalable as well. just daisy chain more emitters and the arrays gets more powerful. they would presumably be easy to hot swap out for repair, replacement or upgrading. you can make small arrays to cover blind spots, and a large array to actually use for offense. the emitter is designed to fit in all ships, its just a question of how many you can fit in a line. this also gives unlimited fireing arc, with anything the array has line of sight with. there is no gun barrel limiting fireing arc. the most powerful weapon does not have a forward only fireing arc drawback like cannons do. cannons on a modern starfleet ship are a compromise measure for a ship to physically small to mount adequate length arrays. arrays only dont have a packaging advantage on the smallest ships.
I understand how the arrays work, I also know how energy works, be it electricity or plasma, even at a 1% degradation per emitter the power loss through transfer down the array would be exponential, if the powers getting passed down each emitter to the final one many of those thousand emitters are around the 1% power loss from that emitter to the hundreths power as it gets channeled to the firing point. My point is, no matter what the manuals say, longer arrays don't mean more powerful shots when focused, but more sustainable for repeated fires.
and would undo the entire point of a phaser array by causing you to need to dedicate a larger area of the ships internal volume to that capacitor, while ignoring heat something admitted to being an issue in yesterdays enterprise.
with your single large cap & single large emitter you loose the ability to move the discharge point, avoiding melting your weapon.
I never said that large emitter/capacitor didn't have drawbacks, I said that transferring power from the power grid to a bunch of caps to emitters to other emitters creates a less powerful blast than having that energy directed through one cap/emitter.
I also mentioned that beam arrays advantage was increased firing arcs, survivability (including from sustained fire overheats). Maybe if the blast was from a few emitters and not thousands would it make more sense for increased damage from the blast, but passing the power through the whole array to one point is just asking for power bleed.
Except, again, in the actual context of the actual quote, "Advanced" is referring to the ability to face down the borg. Also, many phones of today have a more powerful CPU than my desktop from 8 years ago - I'm quite sure they are theoretically capable of running most games, but don't because it's not what they were designed for. Just like the Galaxy wasn't designed for combat, but the Sovereign WAS.
Who said that the Sovereign was built to face the borg and that the GCS wasn't designed for combat.
You are just assuming things without ANY canon hint or proof.
For the size thing. Once again, size does not matter here. At all. Not even the littlest teenest tiniest itsy-bitsest bit. ZERO. This is for two reasons: First, none of the engineering in Star Trek is real, nor does it make sense based on what we currently know, thus making attempts to extrapolate based on current science a fool's errand. Second, and more importantly, the "science" of the show was always secondary to the narrative requirements of the show - narratively, the Sovereign was presented as a more powerful, sleeker upgrade to the Galaxy class. Thus since Star Trek is a story first and foremost, and not at all an intellectually rigorous treatise on "real" starship design, we should privilege the story, and ignore the "science" when it conflicts with our narrative needs (just like the actual writers do).
Two things:
A bigger reactor means more power, correct?
More space to place a bigger reactor into means the ship can draw more power than from a smaller reactor.
That has nothing to do with Trek being real or not thats just simplest common sense, i'm sorry if that overstraines you.
As you have ASSERTED above, the Galaxy may have been able to be upgraded, but there's no reason that only goes one way - there's no reason rapid torpedo launchers couldn't be installed on other ships, or that ships designed for combat couldn't be built to maximize phaser strip length (Like, why not make a tight spiral to improve strip length without needing to build a bigger hull?). But according to you, they weren't and thus (again) narratively your position makes absolutely no sense.
Yes there is a problem in installing a big huge piece of equipment on a smaller ship.
There is not enough space on board a smaller ship for that, very simple.
Have you seen a fancy shaped phaser strip on a Sovereign? I didn't.
You still (and here I'm speaking to the collective 'you' that think the Galaxy is a superior warship) have yet to provide a single compelling reason why the Federation would bother building warships when the Galaxy is already better at that job. Cheaper won't cut it, because the Federation is a post-scarcity economy. They don't have to worry about the material costs of building starships, because industrial replicators and nearly unlimited energy supplies mean that for all but the small amounts of unobtainium that goes into ships (namely dilithium), there's really no economic benefit to going smaller.
The Defiant was much faster to build, less complicated to maintain and needed much less crew.
It was designed to put as much firepower as possible into a very small ship. This doesn't mean this where more FP than a much bigger ship like a Nebula or GCS has.
Because canon isn't actually a thing? Because I know that if the plot demands that a Defiant class or an Excelsior have more or less firepower, that's exactly what will happen? Because I don't interpret things the same way you do? Because I would rather just enjoy the narrative of the show, instead of having to resort to tortuous logic to explain why the things characters say and do don't actually match up with the "science" of the show?
No, because your "arguments" are just emotional and just don't make sense.
I would love to continue but my sense of humor has been depleted for today.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
Except, again, in the actual context of the actual quote, "Advanced" is referring to the ability to face down the borg. Also, many phones of today have a more powerful CPU than my desktop from 8 years ago - I'm quite sure they are theoretically capable of running most games, but don't because it's not what they were designed for. Just like the Galaxy wasn't designed for combat, but the Sovereign WAS.
For the size thing. Once again, size does not matter here. At all. Not even the littlest teenest tiniest itsy-bitsest bit. ZERO. This is for two reasons: First, none of the engineering in Star Trek is real, nor does it make sense based on what we currently know, thus making attempts to extrapolate based on current science a fool's errand. Second, and more importantly, the "science" of the show was always secondary to the narrative requirements of the show - narratively, the Sovereign was presented as a more powerful, sleeker upgrade to the Galaxy class. Thus since Star Trek is a story first and foremost, and not at all an intellectually rigorous treatise on "real" starship design, we should privilege the story, and ignore the "science" when it conflicts with our narrative needs (just like the actual writers do).
As you have ASSERTED above, the Galaxy may have been able to be upgraded, but there's no reason that only goes one way - there's no reason rapid torpedo launchers couldn't be installed on other ships, or that ships designed for combat couldn't be built to maximize phaser strip length (Like, why not make a tight spiral to improve strip length without needing to build a bigger hull?). But according to you, they weren't and thus (again) narratively your position makes absolutely no sense.
You still (and here I'm speaking to the collective 'you' that think the Galaxy is a superior warship) have yet to provide a single compelling reason why the Federation would bother building warships when the Galaxy is already better at that job. Cheaper won't cut it, because the Federation is a post-scarcity economy. They don't have to worry about the material costs of building starships, because industrial replicators and nearly unlimited energy supplies mean that for all but the small amounts of unobtainium that goes into ships (namely dilithium), there's really no economic benefit to going smaller.
Even with things like Dilithium, we know that ships built for combat have larger, more powerful warp cores relative to their size, so the gains there are probably negligible at best. Heck, if you want a perfect example of this, look at Voyager - a single ship, tens of thousands of light-years from the Federation, and yet it was still economically powerful enough to make trade agreements with entire civilizations, was able to manufacture it's own spare parts to keep itself in repair, and was even able to (evidently) manufacture additional weapons and support craft (complete with miniature warp cores!). Given that kind of economic strength, it makes no sense that inferior ships would be built to 'save resources'.
Because canon isn't actually a thing? Because I know that if the plot demands that a Defiant class or an Excelsior have more or less firepower, that's exactly what will happen? Because I don't interpret things the same way you do? Because I would rather just enjoy the narrative of the show, instead of having to resort to tortuous logic to explain why the things characters say and do don't actually match up with the "science" of the show?
I don't hate the Galaxy class, I just don't see a need to make it into something it never was. You want it to be a warship because you want to feel powerful and cool, but you don't like ships that are actually designed to perform that role (for reasons explicable and relevant only to you), and you feel like the game should reflect those preferences. I disagree, and think if you want to fly the Galaxy, you can do so, but you shouldn't expect to be a better warship than the actual warships in the game. I'm sorry there aren't more missions where the capabilities of the Galaxy really shine - maybe someone should make a foundry mission where you ferry civilians around from one dangerous situation to another, for no good reason at all, because the Galaxy is definitely tops for that.
Edited to add:
Honestly, this really just circles back to people feeling like the point of STO is to blow things up, exclusively, and being unwilling to accept that it isn't a "punishment" to no do as much damage as the next guy, as long as you're having fun playing. People can and should play whatever ship they want, but if you feel like the Galaxy class playstyle isn't fun for you because it's too slow and doesn't kill things fast enough, I suggest it is you, and not me, who have missed the point of what the Galaxy class stood for in TNG.
I don't know if I'm supposed to laugh or be sad that people who claim to be Trek fans think that the ship Gene Roddenberry intended to be a paragon of peaceful exploration and the triumph of intellect is somehow also a bad-TRIBBLE super battleship, when nothing in the plot requires or really suggests it. The Galaxy was not a warship. The Federation was eventually, reluctantly, pulled into multiple wars, and they started making ships that actually WERE warships. You might hate DS9 for it, but the story there was one of the Federation losing it's utopian lustre, and then (arguably) slowly regaining it's better nature.
Wow. I haven't been on this thread in a long time, and it's clear that absolutely NOTHING has changed.
My friend, unfortunately you or anybody else will ever change the minds of these GCS fans no matter how much logic that you use. Whenever a point is presented to them that doesn't jibe with their train of thought or beliefs, they will use the usual mantra of "it's the writer's" fault", while conveniently ignoring the fact that EVERY plot, result, battle, etc., was also "the writer's fault".
It's bizarre. When the GCS ship does badly, "it's the writers' fault", but when the ship does ok, then no longer are we apparently watching a tv show, and instead, we are apparently peering into an "alternate universe" where these events are somehow independent of those same writers' input that these GCS fans criticize when it goes against what they believe.
As far as this phaser length argument is concerned, this is clearly a non starter. DS9 was shown to completely vaporize ships with one shot ("The Way Of The Warrior", "Call To Arms") by using significantly "shorter" array emitters/phaser bars. But I'm sure that many will claim that this result was somehow "the writers' fault" too.
Also, no matter how much they banter about the "modularity" of the GCS, there has NEVER been a ST game in 17 years where the battle abilities of the GCS was even close to, or could be adapted to being close to, the Sovereign class ships. The Intellectual Property Licensor (Paramount/Viacom/CBS) has either mandated, or at the very least, signed off on to the various Licensees (Activision, Atari, Cryptic, etc.) the premise/mandate that the Sovereign class ships will ALWAYS be more powerful battle wise, than the GCS. Many of you may not like that fact, but that's just the way that it is.
They (Paramount/Viacom/CBS) CLEARLY don't care about what section(s) that the GCS fans can cite from the "TNG Technical Manual", nor do they hold that manual in the same reverence as the CS fans on this board do, nor have they cared during the 17 years of ST games about that Tech Manual.
They (Paramount/Viacom/CBS) didn't change their strategy for the people that have complained for the last 17 years about this, and it's extremely unlikely that they will change that approach for the GCS fans on this board. Trying to tear down other ships (Sovereign, Defiant, Promethus, etc.) in order to put forth their beliefs has clearly not won them any fans or converts. EVERY ship that has come out in the last year has better battle capabilities than the GCS, including the RISA (pleasure planet) ship.
That being said, I don't think that it would be unreasonable to add another tac console and to modify the BO setup. However, as history has shown, the GCS will NEVER be more powerful than the Sovereign. This will NEVER happen.
I'm not debating if the Galaxy class needs love. It may well need some.
What keeps its capabilities from going too far in that pursuit of that love?
What is to say it deserves more or less love than the Defiant class? The Negh'vhar? The SteamRunner? Or any vessel loved by a portion of the fanbase above all others?
The thread has waxed and waned many times in and out of exhibiting reasoning driven purely by the love for the vessel that is sometimes beyond what may be true. The recent Phaser emitter strip debate has some of those ins and outs.
So while the GCS may need some love don't let that love for it make it become a plot vessel.
We all want our favorite vessel to be the paragon but we can not let that love blind us that there is always something bigger and tougher than our favorite, and given the inconsistencies of Star Trek its easier to fall down that slipper slope.
That's all I'm saying.
Roach, that is exactly the point I have been trying to make, especially by bringing up the phaser strip and modular design points that a degree of reason has been stretched. The whole canon argument is almost moot because of the over fluidity of what is or isnt canon that we haven't seen since the 3rd-6th century Christian Churches doctrinal consolidation.
The fact is that there never has and is no real solid means set up by the franchise that makes sure that any material is consistent between shows , much less episodes. The reason why the most stats and effort was put into the Galaxy class was to explain and make sense of all of the techno-babble used in that series as plot devices to get them out of trouble, in place of good plot and writing, especially the earlier seasons. By the time DS9, Voyager and the movies came out, most of the techno-babble had been minimized, so there was less need for technical work to be worked out.
Also Roach, as far as love for KDF ships, until they KDF stops acting like disgustiods disguised in Klingon bodies, taking beautiful womens ears and putting them in buckets while part of the giggle-loop, there will be no love for them, there just not in-the-window. Face it Mariella Frostrup cant even save you guys!!! :D:D
The sovereign is not a warship.
It was never stated as such, nor was it ever hinted at. It is pure fan speculation.
There is no cannon that says it was even designed to combat the Borg.
I have given you cannon evidence to support my claims.
Yes, cannon. Actual on-screen footage to which, you say. I think that's dumb.
Awesome argument there.
Your claims can't be backed up by anything.
You even somehow think that it is my job to find evidence for you, instead of finding your own to back yourself up. How fitting.
First, you mean "canon". Single "n".
Second, there is no such thing. Sorry. Despite what many, many hardcore Trek fans want to believe, there has never been a set of definitive 'rules' about what can and cannot happen in Star Trek - in fact, that was sort of explicitly the whole point of the show! Star Trek has always been about being a sandbox for telling all sorts of different stories, and writers have never had any qualms about changing whatever they wanted to suit the needs of the plot.
Unfortunately, some people can't accept that, and think that their slavish devotion to the minutiae gives them the right to claim that this or that "fact" is the "true" canon, as if the show was "theirs". It isn't. The show isn't the property of the fans, and they aren't entitled to any special treatment by the writers, nor do they have the responsibility to "protect" Star Trek. In fact, the show's not even really for those fans at all. The show is for the much larger mainstream audience that just wants to watch a fun, cool, (possibly thought provoking) show for an hour or two and then be done with it.
Here's a great example: Remember how warp engines were damaging subspace? Whatever happened with that? We never really hear about that again - some have suggested that the variable geometry nacelles on the Intrepid were in part to fix that problem, but then why weren't other ships retrofit with the same technology? At the very least, why wasn't it included on all future designs? Or why didn't ships limit their speeds except in an emergency?
Give up? Because the writers decided that idea was too limiting for the series, so they just ignored it. Fans assume there must have been some sort of solution found, but that's them retconning in details to make the "science" work, just like people are attempting to do with the Galaxy's theoretical firepower. The writers never cared to come up with a solution, because from their perspective, the episode had served its purpose ("Hey, think about environmental damage!"), and the needs of the show required ships to zip around at high speeds again.
So, no, I don't accept your on screen evidence, because above and beyond the fact that I simply don't think it shows what you say it does, I recognize that it DOESN'T MATTER, because the show is always contradicting itself, so such evidence is dubious at best. Instead, I go with the story that makes more sense to me - in this case, that the Galaxy was a successful multi-role cruiser that could fill many functions, but ultimately was replaced in specific roles by more specialized ships.
Similarly, when LaForge says (in the context of taking the Enterprise E to face the Borg) that it is the "Most advanced ship in the fleet", I take that as the writers intended - as a statement that the Ent E has some special capabilities that make it superior for that type of mission. No other interpretation makes sense to me, and I'm not so dedicated to the notion of "canon" that I am willing to force myself to go through the logical contortions necessary to conform the "facts" of First Contact (that the Ent E is a powerful, capable starship - seemingly an upgrade over the old Galaxy class) with the "facts" of the Tech Manual.
(...)I don't hate the Galaxy class, I just don't see a need to make it into something it never was. You want it to be a warship because you want to feel powerful and cool, but you don't like ships that are actually designed to perform that role (for reasons explicable and relevant only to you), and you feel like the game should reflect those preferences. I disagree, and think if you want to fly the Galaxy, you can do so, but you shouldn't expect to be a better warship than the actual warships in the game. I'm sorry there aren't more missions where the capabilities of the Galaxy really shine - maybe someone should make a foundry mission where you ferry civilians around from one dangerous situation to another, for no good reason at all, because the Galaxy is definitely tops for that.
(...)
I suggest it is you, and not me, who have missed the point of what the Galaxy class stood for in TNG. (...)
I'm sorry to jump into your conversation here, but I think you misunderstand the premise of all of that. Nobody wants the Galaxy Class Starship to be a "warship" or a "battlecruiser". We have stated many times that we are fully aware that Sarfleet does not build warships. Defiant and Prometheus were both prototypes with many many flaws that have very special purposes. Even if they would mass produce both ships you would not use them as a substitute for the Galaxy or the other way around. The Galaxy cannot do what a Defiant or Prometheus can and vice versa. A Sovereign Class Heavy Cruiser behaves differently in combat than a Galaxy Class so eventually it depends on the scenario wether one of those ships is "better" at what is asked.
The point is that the Galaxy Class ship has a lot of firepower. That is based in it's very premise, even Picards diplomatic representative Ent-D has a lot of firepower to be able to defend herself on the edge of known space against whatever it faces. On the show alien people have been intimidated by the firepower of that vessel multiple times that it even hindered a smooth first contact. Yet despite the tactical systems the ship had it was never questioned that you use those as a last resort only. That is entirely possible and plausible. You seem to be (sorry if I misjudge you) one of those people thinking "When you have big guns, you use them." and confuse the Enterprise-Ds mission and philosophy with a inability to survive enemy encounters for whatever reasons. Just because it is not a warship does not mean it is "weak".
And that is the point: The Galaxy is an explorer first and foremost, but features the room and tech for lots of firepower. Yet, in this game which is based around shooting stuff it features less damage potential than it's 200 years old predecessor, in fact both it's predecessors, even it's weird alternate reality dreadnought counterpart features less firepower than the "regular" 200-year-old excelsior part. And it's BOFF abilities trip over each other greatly hindering to unfold it's potential. These are problems resulting from the age of the ship game-wise (being pre-F2P and stuff) and the development the game experienced. WHY does the Galaxy, as a payship even, has less tactical consoles than the Excelsior and the Ambassador? Just give it 3 tac consoles and a universal ensign (better: fix ENG boff powers altogether) to get it on the SAME level as it's predecessors - I think this is the least we can agree on in this thread. Nobody wants it to outperform the super badass warships.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Actually, if you watch the show,the Defiants design was a P.I.T.A.S. to maintain.
Don't forget that the Defiant was still the prototype.
Sure for a crew of 20+ O'Brien it was problematic. But a federation Starbase shouldn't have a probelm to maintain a whole squadon of them without a problem.
Counter Question:
Where did the Sovereign perform better than a GCS would have?
Sovereigns Firepower compared to a GCS?
Sovereigns Torpedo Power compared to a GCS?
Sovereigns Shields compared to a GCS?
Did the Soveregin perform better than a GCS would have been?
ST8? hardly
ST9? neither
ST10? Sov got it's A$$ kicked even with support of two ships.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
Who said that the Sovereign was built to face the borg and that the GCS wasn't designed for combat.
You are just assuming things without ANY canon hint or proof.
LaForge said it. The ship is the most advanced in the fleet. The context was in relation to facing the Borg. The entire way First Contact was written and shot is designed to lead one to believe this. Plus, again, narratively it makes more sense, and since Star Trek is a story first and science/engineering class a distant second (or third, or fourth), the story needs trump the previously established "canon".
Put another way - YOU have no "canon" either, because there is no such thing, or if there was, it was overwritten by the more recent material.
Two things:
A bigger reactor means more power, correct?
More space to place a bigger reactor into means the ship can draw more power than from a smaller reactor.
That has nothing to do with Trek being real or not thats just simplest common sense, i'm sorry if that overstraines you.
It doesn't overstrain me at all, it just doesn't help you unless you posit that the difference in interior volume and mass between the two ships is largely made up of things like increased reactor size, and not, say, getting rid of the spacious two-room apartments for every crewmember, dropping the preschool, eliminating the large lounge/bar area, cutting back on the science labs, eliminating the massively over-sized main shuttlebay that strangely never got used because the set for it would've been too expensive to make... etc.
The Defiant has a Warp core that is very nearly the same size as the one in a Galaxy class - it is described on screen as having a warp/power signature much larger than is typical for a ship its size. It probably also had fewer non-combat demands on that power, so could dedicate a higher percentage of that power to weapons. It also was designed to fight. All these are reasons why it might have been a better warship, and all of them make more sense than yours.
Yes there is a problem in installing a big huge piece of equipment on a smaller ship.
There is not enough space on board a smaller ship for that, very simple.
Have you seen a fancy shaped phaser strip on a Sovereign? I didn't.
How much space does a phaser strip actually take up? I mean depth wise? I have the Ent D blueprints - I can tell you that it's not very much. They are mostly a surface installation - there's no reason room couldn't have been found in the make believe starship for the make believe phasers to fit, and if the intent was always to have longer arrays mean longer power, there are plenty of ways (such as zig-zags and spirals) to get greater length on a more compact hull. Yet we don't see that - why? Because it would look stupid, so the writers and artists simply ignored that little nugget, in the same way they ignored the fact that going over Warp 5 is supposedly destroying the universe.
The Defiant was much faster to build, less complicated to maintain and needed much less crew.
It was designed to put as much firepower as possible into a very small ship. This doesn't mean this where more FP than a much bigger ship like a Nebula or GCS has.
Really? It was faster to build? How long did it take to build the respective vessels? In your answer, be sure to take into account the fact that the Federation could use industrial-scale replicators to fabricate large sections of the ship wholesale, as well as using industrial transporters to move them into position.
No, because your "arguments" are just emotional and just don't make sense.
I would love to continue but my sense of humor has been depleted for today.
My arguments aren't emotional at all, they are actually the exact opposite. It's actually this simple - The Tech Manual isn't real. Star Trek isn't real. There is no real science going on here, and there is no real engineering basis for any of the claims being made. The only thing that matters is the needs of the plot, and from a plot standpoint we have always been presented with the idea that the Galaxy class was an explorer, while the Defiant and the Sovereign were presented to use as more focused warships.
Ok and the D got destroyed by a 20 year old BoP. The Odyssey couldn't stop 3 Jem'Haddar fighters that later in the war were as effective as cannon fodder Mirandas.
Sovereign Mk XII phasers > galaxy Mk X phasers
Quantums > photons
Logically speaking Sovereigns Shields > galaxy's shields
Computer Sovereign bio-neurol gel packs > galaxy isolinear
Only a full upgraded Venture refit Galaxy class could be considered equal to the Sovereign class. They're both Starfleet ships and would share technology advancements and upgrades. But the Sovereign as a base platform > the Galaxy.
Based on?
The Sovereign had only ever bested an unsheilded target.
And your analysis on the ventral array length of the sovereign is incorrect.
I'm sorry to jump into your conversation here, but I think you misunderstand the premise of all of that. Nobody wants the Galaxy Class Starship to be a "warship" or a "battlecruiser". We have stated many times that we are fully aware that Sarfleet does not build warships. Defiant and Prometheus were both prototypes with many many flaws that have very special purposes. Even if they would mass produce both ships you would not use them as a substitute for the Galaxy or the other way around. The Galaxy cannot do what a Defiant or Prometheus can and vice versa. A Sovereign Class Heavy Cruiser behaves differently in combat than a Galaxy Class so eventually it depends on the scenario wether one of those ships is "better" at what is asked.
The point is that the Galaxy Class ship has a lot of firepower. That is based in it's very premise, even Picards diplomatic representative Ent-D has a lot of firepower to be able to defend herself on the edge of known space against whatever it faces. On the show alien people have been intimidated by the firepower of that vessel multiple times that it even hindered a smooth first contact. Yet despite the tactical systems the ship had it was never questioned that you use those as a last resort only. That is entirely possible and plausible. You seem to be (sorry if I misjudge you) one of those people thinking "When you have big guns, you use them." and confuse the Enterprise-Ds mission and philosophy with a inability to survive enemy encounters for whatever reasons. Just because it is not a warship does not mean it is "weak".
And that is the point: The Galaxy is an explorer first and foremost, but features the room and tech for lots of firepower. Yet, in this game which is based around shooting stuff it features less damage potential than it's 200 years old predecessor, in fact both it's predecessors, even it's weird alternate reality dreadnought counterpart features less firepower than the "regular" 200-year-old excelsior part. And it's BOFF abilities trip over each other greatly hindering to unfold it's potential. These are problems resulting from the age of the ship game-wise (being pre-F2P and stuff) and the development the game experienced. WHY does the Galaxy, as a payship even, has less tactical consoles than the Excelsior and the Ambassador? Just give it 3 tac consoles and a universal ensign (better: fix ENG boff powers altogether) to get it on the SAME level as it's predecessors - I think this is the least we can agree on in this thread. Nobody wants it to outperform the super badass warships.
I'm not saying the Galaxy class didn't have some warfighting capability, I'm saying that capability was never its primary function, and it doesn't make sense to say that it would perform that specific role better than ships which WERE designed for it. Like the Defiant, the Sovereign, and the Prometheus. Arguing that it had MORE firepower than the dedicated warships is illogical, and is based pretty much entirely on an outdated technical manual written by someone who was trying to Mary-Sue up the new Enterprise so people would like it. None of the "facts" from that manual ever seem to have made it into the show, nor to the later ships in the series seem to be following those design rules, especially with regards to maximizing phaser strip length. So, much like the "Warp 5 kills subspace" and "Warp 10 turns you into a lizard" things, the writers just ignored them.
Don't forget that the Defiant was still the prototype.
Sure for a crew of 20+ O'Brien it was problematic. But a federation Starbase shouldn't have a probelm to maintain a whole squadon of them without a problem.
Counter Question:
Where did the Sovereign perform better than a GCS would have?
Sovereigns Firepower compared to a GCS?
Sovereigns Torpedo Power compared to a GCS?
Sovereigns Shields compared to a GCS?
Did the Soveregin perform better than a GCS would have been?
ST8? hardly
ST9? neither
ST10? Sov got it's A$$ kicked even with support of two ships.
How are you counter questioning me when there was never a question to begin with? All I said that the Defiant was actually harder to maintain? Secondly, where does the Sovereign come in when I mentioned Defiant? But to another point, how much screentime did the Sovereign have vs the Galaxy?
How are you counter questioning me when there was never a question to begin with? All I said that the Defiant was actually harder to maintain? Secondly, where does the Sovereign come in when I mentioned Defiant? But to another point, how much screentime did the Sovereign have vs the Galaxy?
Sry, i wasn't alking to you in the ower paragraph.
Ok and the D got destroyed by a 20 year old BoP. The Odyssey couldn't stop 3 Jem'Haddar fighters that later in the war were as effective as cannon fodder Mirandas.
Sovereign Mk XII phasers > galaxy Mk X phasers
Quantums > photons
Logically speaking Sovereigns Shields > galaxy's shields
Computer Sovereign bio-neurol gel packs > galaxy isolinear
Only a full upgraded Venture refit Galaxy class could be considered equal to the Sovereign class.
All GCS are to be considered as up to date as a Venture or Sovereign.
The point is (as many others have written over the past weeks) the GCS was modular in design, that means all newer Phasers and other equipment could be installed on a GCS as well.
Btw. do you seriously think a Sovereign, would have performed better with a incompetent Crew + no shields against a attacking enemy?
The odyssey performed comparable well if you consider that its shields wheren't effective and the Jems did a Kamikaze attack against it. Someone show me another Starfleet ship capable to survive that.
It's strange, when it comes to the GCS everyone seems to be crazy about finding reasons why it CANNOT be a effective or strong combat ship, just because other ships are either newer or look "cooler" (in their eyes).
But when it comes to the Prometheus, Sovereign or Defiant the same peope agree that these ships are the greatest things ever made for space combat. Even thinking the Sovereign being a heavier ship than a 3 times as massive GCS.
As angrytarg said, you shouldn't let yourself blind by the harmless look or the more peaceful approach of the GCS, in war it is the heaviest starfleet ship (in canon).
But on the other side, why discuss this in the first place?
Cryptic is on your side!
Cap. Gecko is exactly the opinion as you, they made the GCS is the most boring ship in STO, congratulations!
They have made the GCS exactly as YOU want it to be.
Can't you see? You guys have already won, the GCS is the worst and teethless Cruiser in the Game, so be happy and fly your Excelsiors, Sovereigns or silly little escorts, but leave the GCS alone. (i am sure no one of you use the GCS or is a fan of it.)
So why care about a ship that is already as you want it to be, and you wouldn't fly in the first place?
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
I'm not saying the Galaxy class didn't have some warfighting capability, I'm saying that capability was never its primary function, and it doesn't make sense to say that it would perform that specific role better than ships which WERE designed for it. Like the Defiant, the Sovereign, and the Prometheus. Arguing that it had MORE firepower than the dedicated warships is illogical, and is based pretty much entirely on an outdated technical manual written by someone who was trying to Mary-Sue up the new Enterprise so people would like it. None of the "facts" from that manual ever seem to have made it into the show, nor to the later ships in the series seem to be following those design rules, especially with regards to maximizing phaser strip length. So, much like the "Warp 5 kills subspace" and "Warp 10 turns you into a lizard" things, the writers just ignored them.
It wasn't the primary function of the Sovereign either.
Yes, the GCS would out perform the Defiant and Prometheus. But those ships are kings in their weight class. If they were in the same weight class, yes, they would hand the GCS over on a platter every time.
The tech manual didn't Mary Sue anything. It followed the show as it was written by the same people. And many of the "facts" did make it into the shows. And seeing as the subsequent ships continued to use the same tech, they also followed the tech manuals.
Okay, why has this thread derailed so much into Galaxy vs. Sovereign now?
This pointless discussion for this thread has to be droped now. Personally, I don't want the Galaxy in STO to be better than the Sovereign.
Back to the topic:
The Galaxy being one of the most iconic ships in Star Trek does not deserve to be the worst cruiser, or as many say - the worst ship in general in STO.
How can this be fixed:
- By making Dontdrunkimshoot's Galaxy 3-pack proposal.
- By redefining, enhancing and correcting the engineering Boff skills in game.
- My personal favourite - bringing back the role of the cruisers in STO. This is my favourite because it would benefit all cruisers and the health of the game in general. If the role of tank is brought back and becomes relevant again in STO, the Galaxy would be an awesome ship even with the current setup and layout. It was suposed to be the best ship in her role, but then Cryptic lost the compass of game balance. Same goes for science ships.
This is a link to a page where John Eaves, the guy responsible for designing the Sovereign class starship, gives his thoughts.
"The Midway?s massive changes were the core inspiration for the Enterprise-E?s retrofits as well. Script changes for the three films that featured the E were the basis for a lot of the major changes and personal reasons were behind the minor ones. The ?E? was designed for the 1996 Star Trek film, First Contact, and the written description of the ship was that it was the battle bird of Starfleet with the sole purpose of battling an inevitable attack from the Borg! Thus the design of the ship followed a different path more towards the aggressive rather than the peaceful ?D? that Andy designed."
The guy who designed it based on the written description from the script. It was built for fighting Borg.
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It wasn't the primary function of the Sovereign either.
Yes, the GCS would out perform the Defiant and Prometheus. But those ships are kings in their weight class. If they were in the same weight class, yes, they would hand the GCS over on a platter every time.
The tech manual didn't Mary Sue anything. It followed the show as it was written by the same people. And many of the "facts" did make it into the shows. And seeing as the subsequent ships continued to use the same tech, they also followed the tech manuals.
It's the same FX guys all around.
The warp issue was specifically addressed in TNG.
No, it specifically wasn't. It was specifically swept under the rug. And no, later ships didn't follow the same design rules, because they have much shorter phaser strips than are "necessary" for the shape of the hull, which makes no sense, especially for the purpose built warships.
The Sovereign was presented on screen as a warship. The intent of the writers and designers of First Contact was always that the viewer would assume the Ent E was a more powerful upgrade to the Galaxy. That is how it has been presented in all following licensed material (such as video games, comics, etc) as well. Since that was the intent, and since there are no actual really real rules that dictate otherwise, that is, in fact, what is "true", at least until another writer comes along and changes it again.
And please, for the love of everything, please, explain to me how it can be true that phaser strip length determines firepower, yet ships designed for war don't take steps to maximize that length.
It's just simpler to ignore the tech manual like all the writers did.
That hole in the side of the Borg Cube that the Fleet put there AFTER Picard showed up and told them where to fire.
That hole is Smaller than any of the three holes that the Galaxy punched into a Borg Cube solo.
That's not really relevant as since this was the first time the Borg encountered Federation Phaser weapons, and had had any time to adapt. Later in the EXACT same episode; once the Borg Cube began repairing itself - the 1701-D couldn't touch (IE further damage that Cube AT ALL -- in fact in the final scene before Q snaps his finger; they fire salvo after salvo, couldn't damage the Cube; and are about to fire (and commit suicide - as evidenced by Data's comments as Picard is about to order another torpedo salvo); when Q appears - has the exchange with Picard, and warps them back.
^^^
And this is the issue I have with a lot of the folks trying to use 'canon' to back their arguments; as they often pick and choose stuff out of context.
In fact, if anything the fact the Sovereign Class COULD damage a Borg Cube in First Contact (after the events in "Q-Who" and "Best of Both Worlds" - IE the Borg have now adapted to a lot of Fed weapon tech); if anything proves the Sovereign does have more powerful weapons then the Galaxy Class 1701-D.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Ugh. Really? Okay, so, I guess the QE II is a more powerful warship than an Iowa class battleship? It is slightly longer, after all. Just look at the mental hoops you're going through to try to justify the Galaxy being a warship - size matters? That's where we are now?
Sheesh.
One ship was designed to ferry diplomats and school children around from (evidently) one spatial anomaly to another, while one was designed to actually fight. I honestly don't care which one you prefer, but please, just stop pretending there is any reason to believe they are equally powerful.
this is funny. the galaxy is the iowa, and the soverign is a cruiser class launched 8 years later. and your convinced that cruiser has more firepower, and would do better in a navel battle then the actual battleship thats 8 years older, but has had dozens of refits and upgrades in those 8 years. its an absurd notion that only a total sov fanboy would cling to in the face of overwhelming canon evidence to the contrary, you even have to ignore common sense.
yes yoda, size does maters. starfleet appears to arm their ships with weapons relative to their size. thats why the galaxy's guns are at least twice as large as the sovereign's. after 80 pages, we are still mouth breathing that the galaxy was designed for peace and kindergarten? thats instantly proven false as soon as you crack open the tng tech manual, a text that has almost nothing contradicting anything it said in any later canon or texts.
the ship was designed to have 70% of its interior hot swappable and modular. with an industrial transporter they could beam the entire preschool section out and replace it with a fireing range. they could build and customize a galaxy class anyway they saw fit. and they set up the enterprise to be a flying embodiment of federation ideals, a gilded flag ship, a parade float, commanded by a diplomat. the E-D was set up to by a long term explorer, with comforts to minimize crew fatigue. they would not have put children and families on board if they thought they thought the ship could not protect them. with a refit removing all of that, it could be set up to be a battleship the klingons would admire. it was designed to be an enormase battleship, an enormaoius science vessal, or anything in between that.
then during literal war time, they were launched as mostly empty shells, they could run with that 70% of their interior unused and the fleet gets 1 more set of huge arrays and torpedo launchers that can fire 10 torps in a second. potentually even more then that before having to reload the huge launchers. the best the sovereign and intrepid launchers were seen doing was bursts of 3 or 4 before having to reload.
If people were right that the Defiant was an inferior combat vessel, why would the Federation make more of them explicitly for that purpose? This is the perpetual problem people have, and no one has come up with a single compelling answer. If the Galaxy is so great, why did the Federation replace it? If ships like the Sovereign are so inferior to the Galaxy, why build them in the first place? And once you do build them, why make one the flagship of the fleet?
I just cannot understand why people are so willing to do mental gymnastics to say that the ship we all know was intended to be a warship is still somehow worse at that job than the ship designed for exploration, when the opposite conclusion makes so much more sense, and simply requires dismissing the nonsense from the Tech manual.
Love the Galaxy for what it was/is - a large, versatile platform for exploration and science. Not a warship.
i cant comprehend the state of mind you would need to even ask such an TRIBBLE backward question. why are their different ship classes, that come in all different sizes, and have different purposes? is that what your asking?
I understand how the arrays work, I also know how energy works, be it electricity or plasma, even at a 1% degradation per emitter the power loss through transfer down the array would be exponential, if the powers getting passed down each emitter to the final one many of those thousand emitters are around the 1% power loss from that emitter to the hundreths power as it gets channeled to the firing point. My point is, no matter what the manuals say, longer arrays don't mean more powerful shots when focused, but more sustainable for repeated fires.
your in denial. no mater how much parasitic loss you insist takes place, the cumulative energy from some or all the emitters does create more powerful shots. other wise there would be no reason for their to ever be that visible moving glow effect on the array, were the emitters combine their power. they would just fire 1 emitter shots, if the power loss was SO BAD that it wouldn't be worth combining some or all the emitters power.
whats on screen and written in canon tech manuals>parasitic loss that is so bad that it fits your opinion.
LaForge said it. The ship is the most advanced in the fleet. The context was in relation to facing the Borg. The entire way First Contact was written and shot is designed to lead one to believe this. Plus, again, narratively it makes more sense, and since Star Trek is a story first and science/engineering class a distant second (or third, or fourth), the story needs trump the previously established "canon".
Put another way - YOU have no "canon" either, because there is no such thing, or if there was, it was overwritten by the more recent material.
saying most advanced in that shot always sounded like they were playing it safe there. they didnt say most powerful, they didn't say its the flag ship, they said its most advanced. its got the most advanced holographic doctor, most advanced computer core, most advanced weapon systems, etc... they didn't flat out say the sum of those most advanced things means its the most powerful. or they would have said its the most powerful. that feels like a carefully choosen word to me.
there is such thing as canon, and that seems to be the difference bewteen us and the galaxy haters. we dont exclude any valid source of information, wile you hand wave 90% of it.
The Defiant has a Warp core that is very nearly the same size as the one in a Galaxy class - it is described on screen as having a warp/power signature much larger than is typical for a ship its size. It probably also had fewer non-combat demands on that power, so could dedicate a higher percentage of that power to weapons. It also was designed to fight. All these are reasons why it might have been a better warship, and all of them make more sense than yours.
HAHAHAHAHA. no, its more like the warpcore out of a saber class or something, a ship twice the defiant's volume. its a big core for a ship its size, but its only 4 decks tall. useing the warp core as a litmus test i dismiss at this point though. traveling at warp 9 would use infinitely more power then any thing the ship could be doing at sublight. including combat. the sovereign's impulse reactors were what it used in the nemisis fight, and it was running without performance loss till the ship literally burned through all its deuterium.
How much space does a phaser strip actually take up? I mean depth wise? I have the Ent D blueprints - I can tell you that it's not very much. They are mostly a surface installation - there's no reason room couldn't have been found in the make believe starship for the make believe phasers to fit, and if the intent was always to have longer arrays mean longer power, there are plenty of ways (such as zig-zags and spirals) to get greater length on a more compact hull. Yet we don't see that - why? Because it would look stupid, so the writers and artists simply ignored that little nugget, in the same way they ignored the fact that going over Warp 5 is supposedly destroying the universe.
array length in nearly ever ship example it pretty proportional to the ships size. it proboly has a lot to do with how powerful an array the ship could suport at a certain rate of fire without the warp core supplying plentiful power. these are just my observations, there might be no zigzaps because power would have more trouble flowing through kinks then a slight curve.
After further analysis of the phaser arrays of the Sovereign and Galaxy it appears that the Sovereign phaser array on the bottom of the saucer section may be equal or close to the length of the galaxy's main arrays.
The array on the sovereign in question is much closer to the edge of the saucer than the array on the top (dorsal) side. When using overlapping images the array of the sovereign creates a larger oval than the galaxy's arrays. Not by much but is noticeable. Now the gap in between the aft sections where the strip end also appear on be equal in length.
The whole "bigger guns" argument making the galaxy have more firepower is null and void bc they both have the "big guns".
I contend that only a fully upgraded Venture refit Galaxy class could be considered equal to the Sovereign class in terms of combat effectiveness. They both are Starfleet ships and would share technology advancements.
lol no. if the ventral arrays weren't split, they might be almost as long as the shorter ventral galaxy array. the sovereigns whole saucer circumference is only about the same cercumfrance as a galaxy class's dorsal array. the wraparound dorsal sovereign array is longer then ether of the 2 split ventral.
on another note, the akira class's dorsal array is actually longer then the sovereign's! hope it dont get mkXII emitters too, oh wait it will without a doubt. well at least the sovereign's better at launching torpedoes then an akira, oh wait its not. well at least the sovereign has 1.7 times more volume then an akira.
the sovereign's firepower per volume beats the galaxy, but the galaxy has more then twice the volume. but the akira's firepower per volume is not only higher then the sovereign's, its firepower is literally higher as well.
the sovereign being a borg murdering battleship is a fantasy. its a general propose explorer meant to replace all the old mid size general purpose cruisers like the ambassador, niagara, new orleans, cheyenne and excelsior. with firepower proportional to its size, +. the akira though is a fricking gun boat that out guns it, but a sovereign would still proboly beat one in a fight with its superior size given damage soak potential.
its funny how different ships are presented, and after just a minimal mount of observation and research you see how totally backward the presentation is. the galaxy is a toothless cruise ship, the sovereigns the most powerful star fleet ship ship ever, and the defiant kicks everything TRIBBLE.
in reality the galaxy has an arsenal and flexibility without pear, the sovereign is a new large cruiser that is part of the trend to make ships more heavily armed for thier size, and the defiant is a match for an 80 year old light cruiser and only ever poped bops and bugships.
Okay, why has this thread derailed so much into Galaxy vs. Sovereign now?
This pointless discussion for this thread has to be droped now. Personally, I don't want the Galaxy in STO to be better than the Sovereign.
Back to the topic:
The Galaxy being one of the most iconic ships in Star Trek does not deserve to be the worst cruiser, or as many say - the worst ship in general in STO.
- By redefining, enhancing and correcting the engineering Boff skills in game.
This would be my secon fav. sollution. But this would mean a lot of work not just for the devs but much more to discuss and a LOT of confusion, so i would rather see something more simple.
- My personal favourite - bringing back the role of the cruisers in STO. This is my favourite because it would benefit all cruisers and the health of the game in general. If the role of tank is brought back and becomes relevant again in STO, the Galaxy would be an awesome ship even with the current setup and layout. It was suposed to be the best ship in her role, but then Cryptic lost the compass of game balance. Same goes for science ships.
Please no!
Star Trek ships and especially Starfleet ships (cruisers) are not just tanks. They are much more than just tanks and healboats. I would hate if Cryptic would degrade them back to that job.
In my opinion the (un) holy trinity just doesn't work with Star Trek ships, not even in a MMORPG (or whatever this is). I think the trinity is just a lazy and stupid game mechanic that should never have left strategy games.
Just for example would you like to play a pawn or a rook in a RPG? (If strategy games where like chess)
What helps to simplyfy things in a Strategy game doesn't have to work in a RPG IMO.
this is funny. the galaxy is the iowa, and the soverign is a cruiser class launched 8 years later. and your convinced that cruiser has more firepower, and would do better in a navel battle then the actual battleship thats 8 years older, but has had dozens of refits and upgrades in those 8 years. its an absurd notion that only a total sov fanboy would cling to in the face of overwhelming canon evidence to the contrary, you even have to ignore common sense.
.... (snip, length)
its funny how different ships are presented, and after just a minimal mount of observation and research you see how totally backward the presentation is. the galaxy is a toothless cruise ship, the sovereigns the most powerful star fleet ship ship ever, and the defiant kicks everything TRIBBLE.
in reality the galaxy has an arsenal and flexibility without pear, the sovereign is a new large cruiser that is part of the trend to make ships more heavily armed for thier size, and the defiant is a match for an 80 year old light cruiser and only ever poped bops and bugships.
THANKS!
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
Star Trek ships and especially Starfleet ships (cruisers) are not just tanks. They are much more than just tanks and healboats. I would hate if Cryptic would degrade them back to that job.
In my opinion the (un) holy trinity just doesn't work with Star Trek ships, not even in a MMORPG (or whatever this is). I think the trinity is just a lazy and stupid game mechanic that should never have left strategy games.
Just for example would you like to play a pawn or a rook in a RPG? (If strategy games where like chess)
What helps to simplyfy things in a Strategy game doesn't have to work in a RPG IMO.
Yeah, but bare with me for a while now:
I hate the "trinity" as well to begin with.
But at this point we either have the option to try and persuade Cryptic to bring back anything resembling a balance within their own designed trinity or leave the game mechanic completely borked and broken, while witnessing every single following ship being installed with Cmdr. or Lt.Cmdr Tact, Dual Heavy Cannons and simply put more dakka on top od the dakka. Because that's what's going on lately.
Because, let's face it - Cryptic will never change their position on the "trinity" and their game design. They wont endeavor in erasing the trinity model from STO, no matter how borked it is atm, they're just not that type of a studio.
So, we can either keep mumbling for them to fix their own design so it works as intended or we can "talk to the hand" and keep saying how utterly wrong we feel it is, with noone listening. What would mean leaving the cruisers in no man's land and leaving science vessels with completely confusing roles.
Look at it from any angle you want - we're not getting rid of the trinity. Cryptic will not get rid of the trinity. If that's the game we want to play, we'll have to wait for another Star Trek game. Take it from the man himself - read dStahl's interwiev with Mog Nation and and you'll realize a lot of things.
I hate the "trinity" as well to begin with.
But at this point we either have the option to try and persuade Cryptic to bring back anything resembling a balance within their own designed trinity or leave the game mechanic completely borked and broken, while witnessing every single following ship being installed with Cmdr. or Lt.Cmdr Tact, Dual Heavy Cannons and simply put more dakka on top od the dakka. Because that's what's going on lately.
Because, let's face it - Cryptic will never change their position on the "trinity" and their game design. They wont endeavor in erasing the trinity model from STO, no matter how borked it is atm, they're just not that type of a studio.
So, we can either keep mumbling for them to fix their own design so it works as intended or we can "talk to the hand" and keep saying how utterly wrong we feel it is, with noone listening. What would mean leaving the cruisers in no man's land and leaving science vessels with completely confusing roles.
Look at it from any angle you want - we're not getting rid of the trinity. Cryptic will not get rid of the trinity. If that's the game we want to play, we'll have to wait for another Star Trek game. Take it from the man himself - read dStahl's interwiev with Mog Nation and and you'll realize a lot of things.
I think they changed their minds a while ago.
Just look at all the Lockbox "cruisers" and the Regent for example. The change that allows AtB builds for cruisers, i think all this shows that they are no longer see the trinity as STOs basic game balance.
Look at the Lockbox ships, the more firepower they have the better they sell, including cruisers.
I think only a small part of the playerbase want to fly a healboat that can't do any noticeable damage. And to be honest, the idea to have cruisers only as healboats and teethless tanks would make me stop playing this "Star Trek" game in an instant.
In my opinion modern MMO games tend more and more towards a more flexible class system.
I think less people want to play just the role of a DD or Tank anymore and Cryptic has noticed that. (a good step IMO)
A strict seperation of Tank/Damage Dealer/Wizard is just antiquated and should have dropped long ago in my humble opinion.
Having Classes more flexible and versatile is a advancement of a aging system that put players into simple positions that wasn't very innovative, and completely unrealistic.
Personally i am glad more and more games get rid of it.
Sorry for the typos i'm in a hurry.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
I think they changed their minds a while ago.
Just look at all the Lockbox "cruisers" and the Regent for example. The change that allows AtB builds for cruisers, i think all this shows that they are no longer see the trinity as STOs basic game balance.
Look at the Lockbox ships, the more firepower they have the better they sell, including cruisers.
I think only a small part of the playerbase want to fly a healboat that can't do any noticeable damage. And to be honest, the idea to have cruisers only as healboats and teethless tanks would make me stop playing this "Star Trek" game in an instant.
In my opinion modern MMO games tend more and more towards a more flexible class system.
I think less people want to play just the role of a DD or Tank anymore and Cryptic has noticed that. (a good step IMO)
A strict seperation of Tank/Damage Dealer/Wizard is just antiquated and should have dropped long ago in my humble opinion.
Having Classes more flexible and versatile is a advancement of a aging system that put players into simple positions that wasn't very innovative, and completely unrealistic.
Personally i am glad more and more games get rid of it.
Sorry for the typos i'm in a hurry.
I agree with this and I certainly hope you're right about it. I must admit, to me it seems just like power creep at least for the time being, with just adding more dakka to everything that can't be good in the long run. Once again, I do hope I'm wrong and you're right about this, as I'd prefer it that way myself.
Comments
I agree with this. Reading this thread really lends me to believe that most people on both sides of the argument are missing the point and their descriptions of 'better' are highly relative. The comparisons between very little cannon evidence and in game mechanics is funny to read but ultimately a useless discussion. I encourage them to keep bickering though, like I said it is entertaining.
I find the GCS is represented as accurately as portrayed in cannon, which to say the comparisons with other ships is minimal. Have fun though ladies and gents
I understand how the arrays work, I also know how energy works, be it electricity or plasma, even at a 1% degradation per emitter the power loss through transfer down the array would be exponential, if the powers getting passed down each emitter to the final one many of those thousand emitters are around the 1% power loss from that emitter to the hundreths power as it gets channeled to the firing point. My point is, no matter what the manuals say, longer arrays don't mean more powerful shots when focused, but more sustainable for repeated fires.
I never said that large emitter/capacitor didn't have drawbacks, I said that transferring power from the power grid to a bunch of caps to emitters to other emitters creates a less powerful blast than having that energy directed through one cap/emitter.
I also mentioned that beam arrays advantage was increased firing arcs, survivability (including from sustained fire overheats). Maybe if the blast was from a few emitters and not thousands would it make more sense for increased damage from the blast, but passing the power through the whole array to one point is just asking for power bleed.
You are just assuming things without ANY canon hint or proof.
Two things:
A bigger reactor means more power, correct?
More space to place a bigger reactor into means the ship can draw more power than from a smaller reactor.
That has nothing to do with Trek being real or not thats just simplest common sense, i'm sorry if that overstraines you.
Yes there is a problem in installing a big huge piece of equipment on a smaller ship.
There is not enough space on board a smaller ship for that, very simple.
Have you seen a fancy shaped phaser strip on a Sovereign? I didn't.
The Defiant was much faster to build, less complicated to maintain and needed much less crew.
It was designed to put as much firepower as possible into a very small ship. This doesn't mean this where more FP than a much bigger ship like a Nebula or GCS has.
No, because your "arguments" are just emotional and just don't make sense.
I would love to continue but my sense of humor has been depleted for today.
Wow. I haven't been on this thread in a long time, and it's clear that absolutely NOTHING has changed.
My friend, unfortunately you or anybody else will ever change the minds of these GCS fans no matter how much logic that you use. Whenever a point is presented to them that doesn't jibe with their train of thought or beliefs, they will use the usual mantra of "it's the writer's" fault", while conveniently ignoring the fact that EVERY plot, result, battle, etc., was also "the writer's fault".
It's bizarre. When the GCS ship does badly, "it's the writers' fault", but when the ship does ok, then no longer are we apparently watching a tv show, and instead, we are apparently peering into an "alternate universe" where these events are somehow independent of those same writers' input that these GCS fans criticize when it goes against what they believe.
As far as this phaser length argument is concerned, this is clearly a non starter. DS9 was shown to completely vaporize ships with one shot ("The Way Of The Warrior", "Call To Arms") by using significantly "shorter" array emitters/phaser bars. But I'm sure that many will claim that this result was somehow "the writers' fault" too.
Also, no matter how much they banter about the "modularity" of the GCS, there has NEVER been a ST game in 17 years where the battle abilities of the GCS was even close to, or could be adapted to being close to, the Sovereign class ships. The Intellectual Property Licensor (Paramount/Viacom/CBS) has either mandated, or at the very least, signed off on to the various Licensees (Activision, Atari, Cryptic, etc.) the premise/mandate that the Sovereign class ships will ALWAYS be more powerful battle wise, than the GCS. Many of you may not like that fact, but that's just the way that it is.
They (Paramount/Viacom/CBS) CLEARLY don't care about what section(s) that the GCS fans can cite from the "TNG Technical Manual", nor do they hold that manual in the same reverence as the CS fans on this board do, nor have they cared during the 17 years of ST games about that Tech Manual.
They (Paramount/Viacom/CBS) didn't change their strategy for the people that have complained for the last 17 years about this, and it's extremely unlikely that they will change that approach for the GCS fans on this board. Trying to tear down other ships (Sovereign, Defiant, Promethus, etc.) in order to put forth their beliefs has clearly not won them any fans or converts. EVERY ship that has come out in the last year has better battle capabilities than the GCS, including the RISA (pleasure planet) ship.
That being said, I don't think that it would be unreasonable to add another tac console and to modify the BO setup. However, as history has shown, the GCS will NEVER be more powerful than the Sovereign. This will NEVER happen.
Roach, that is exactly the point I have been trying to make, especially by bringing up the phaser strip and modular design points that a degree of reason has been stretched. The whole canon argument is almost moot because of the over fluidity of what is or isnt canon that we haven't seen since the 3rd-6th century Christian Churches doctrinal consolidation.
The fact is that there never has and is no real solid means set up by the franchise that makes sure that any material is consistent between shows , much less episodes. The reason why the most stats and effort was put into the Galaxy class was to explain and make sense of all of the techno-babble used in that series as plot devices to get them out of trouble, in place of good plot and writing, especially the earlier seasons. By the time DS9, Voyager and the movies came out, most of the techno-babble had been minimized, so there was less need for technical work to be worked out.
Also Roach, as far as love for KDF ships, until they KDF stops acting like disgustiods disguised in Klingon bodies, taking beautiful womens ears and putting them in buckets while part of the giggle-loop, there will be no love for them, there just not in-the-window. Face it Mariella Frostrup cant even save you guys!!!
First, you mean "canon". Single "n".
Second, there is no such thing. Sorry. Despite what many, many hardcore Trek fans want to believe, there has never been a set of definitive 'rules' about what can and cannot happen in Star Trek - in fact, that was sort of explicitly the whole point of the show! Star Trek has always been about being a sandbox for telling all sorts of different stories, and writers have never had any qualms about changing whatever they wanted to suit the needs of the plot.
Unfortunately, some people can't accept that, and think that their slavish devotion to the minutiae gives them the right to claim that this or that "fact" is the "true" canon, as if the show was "theirs". It isn't. The show isn't the property of the fans, and they aren't entitled to any special treatment by the writers, nor do they have the responsibility to "protect" Star Trek. In fact, the show's not even really for those fans at all. The show is for the much larger mainstream audience that just wants to watch a fun, cool, (possibly thought provoking) show for an hour or two and then be done with it.
Here's a great example: Remember how warp engines were damaging subspace? Whatever happened with that? We never really hear about that again - some have suggested that the variable geometry nacelles on the Intrepid were in part to fix that problem, but then why weren't other ships retrofit with the same technology? At the very least, why wasn't it included on all future designs? Or why didn't ships limit their speeds except in an emergency?
Give up? Because the writers decided that idea was too limiting for the series, so they just ignored it. Fans assume there must have been some sort of solution found, but that's them retconning in details to make the "science" work, just like people are attempting to do with the Galaxy's theoretical firepower. The writers never cared to come up with a solution, because from their perspective, the episode had served its purpose ("Hey, think about environmental damage!"), and the needs of the show required ships to zip around at high speeds again.
So, no, I don't accept your on screen evidence, because above and beyond the fact that I simply don't think it shows what you say it does, I recognize that it DOESN'T MATTER, because the show is always contradicting itself, so such evidence is dubious at best. Instead, I go with the story that makes more sense to me - in this case, that the Galaxy was a successful multi-role cruiser that could fill many functions, but ultimately was replaced in specific roles by more specialized ships.
Similarly, when LaForge says (in the context of taking the Enterprise E to face the Borg) that it is the "Most advanced ship in the fleet", I take that as the writers intended - as a statement that the Ent E has some special capabilities that make it superior for that type of mission. No other interpretation makes sense to me, and I'm not so dedicated to the notion of "canon" that I am willing to force myself to go through the logical contortions necessary to conform the "facts" of First Contact (that the Ent E is a powerful, capable starship - seemingly an upgrade over the old Galaxy class) with the "facts" of the Tech Manual.
Actually, if you watch the show,the Defiants design was a P.I.T.A.S. to maintain.
I'm sorry to jump into your conversation here, but I think you misunderstand the premise of all of that. Nobody wants the Galaxy Class Starship to be a "warship" or a "battlecruiser". We have stated many times that we are fully aware that Sarfleet does not build warships. Defiant and Prometheus were both prototypes with many many flaws that have very special purposes. Even if they would mass produce both ships you would not use them as a substitute for the Galaxy or the other way around. The Galaxy cannot do what a Defiant or Prometheus can and vice versa. A Sovereign Class Heavy Cruiser behaves differently in combat than a Galaxy Class so eventually it depends on the scenario wether one of those ships is "better" at what is asked.
The point is that the Galaxy Class ship has a lot of firepower. That is based in it's very premise, even Picards diplomatic representative Ent-D has a lot of firepower to be able to defend herself on the edge of known space against whatever it faces. On the show alien people have been intimidated by the firepower of that vessel multiple times that it even hindered a smooth first contact. Yet despite the tactical systems the ship had it was never questioned that you use those as a last resort only. That is entirely possible and plausible. You seem to be (sorry if I misjudge you) one of those people thinking "When you have big guns, you use them." and confuse the Enterprise-Ds mission and philosophy with a inability to survive enemy encounters for whatever reasons. Just because it is not a warship does not mean it is "weak".
And that is the point: The Galaxy is an explorer first and foremost, but features the room and tech for lots of firepower. Yet, in this game which is based around shooting stuff it features less damage potential than it's 200 years old predecessor, in fact both it's predecessors, even it's weird alternate reality dreadnought counterpart features less firepower than the "regular" 200-year-old excelsior part. And it's BOFF abilities trip over each other greatly hindering to unfold it's potential. These are problems resulting from the age of the ship game-wise (being pre-F2P and stuff) and the development the game experienced. WHY does the Galaxy, as a payship even, has less tactical consoles than the Excelsior and the Ambassador? Just give it 3 tac consoles and a universal ensign (better: fix ENG boff powers altogether) to get it on the SAME level as it's predecessors - I think this is the least we can agree on in this thread. Nobody wants it to outperform the super badass warships.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Sure for a crew of 20+ O'Brien it was problematic. But a federation Starbase shouldn't have a probelm to maintain a whole squadon of them without a problem.
Counter Question:
Where did the Sovereign perform better than a GCS would have?
Sovereigns Firepower compared to a GCS?
Sovereigns Torpedo Power compared to a GCS?
Sovereigns Shields compared to a GCS?
Did the Soveregin perform better than a GCS would have been?
ST8? hardly
ST9? neither
ST10? Sov got it's A$$ kicked even with support of two ships.
LaForge said it. The ship is the most advanced in the fleet. The context was in relation to facing the Borg. The entire way First Contact was written and shot is designed to lead one to believe this. Plus, again, narratively it makes more sense, and since Star Trek is a story first and science/engineering class a distant second (or third, or fourth), the story needs trump the previously established "canon".
Put another way - YOU have no "canon" either, because there is no such thing, or if there was, it was overwritten by the more recent material.
It doesn't overstrain me at all, it just doesn't help you unless you posit that the difference in interior volume and mass between the two ships is largely made up of things like increased reactor size, and not, say, getting rid of the spacious two-room apartments for every crewmember, dropping the preschool, eliminating the large lounge/bar area, cutting back on the science labs, eliminating the massively over-sized main shuttlebay that strangely never got used because the set for it would've been too expensive to make... etc.
The Defiant has a Warp core that is very nearly the same size as the one in a Galaxy class - it is described on screen as having a warp/power signature much larger than is typical for a ship its size. It probably also had fewer non-combat demands on that power, so could dedicate a higher percentage of that power to weapons. It also was designed to fight. All these are reasons why it might have been a better warship, and all of them make more sense than yours.
How much space does a phaser strip actually take up? I mean depth wise? I have the Ent D blueprints - I can tell you that it's not very much. They are mostly a surface installation - there's no reason room couldn't have been found in the make believe starship for the make believe phasers to fit, and if the intent was always to have longer arrays mean longer power, there are plenty of ways (such as zig-zags and spirals) to get greater length on a more compact hull. Yet we don't see that - why? Because it would look stupid, so the writers and artists simply ignored that little nugget, in the same way they ignored the fact that going over Warp 5 is supposedly destroying the universe.
Really? It was faster to build? How long did it take to build the respective vessels? In your answer, be sure to take into account the fact that the Federation could use industrial-scale replicators to fabricate large sections of the ship wholesale, as well as using industrial transporters to move them into position.
My arguments aren't emotional at all, they are actually the exact opposite. It's actually this simple - The Tech Manual isn't real. Star Trek isn't real. There is no real science going on here, and there is no real engineering basis for any of the claims being made. The only thing that matters is the needs of the plot, and from a plot standpoint we have always been presented with the idea that the Galaxy class was an explorer, while the Defiant and the Sovereign were presented to use as more focused warships.
Based on?
The Sovereign had only ever bested an unsheilded target.
And your analysis on the ventral array length of the sovereign is incorrect.
I'm not saying the Galaxy class didn't have some warfighting capability, I'm saying that capability was never its primary function, and it doesn't make sense to say that it would perform that specific role better than ships which WERE designed for it. Like the Defiant, the Sovereign, and the Prometheus. Arguing that it had MORE firepower than the dedicated warships is illogical, and is based pretty much entirely on an outdated technical manual written by someone who was trying to Mary-Sue up the new Enterprise so people would like it. None of the "facts" from that manual ever seem to have made it into the show, nor to the later ships in the series seem to be following those design rules, especially with regards to maximizing phaser strip length. So, much like the "Warp 5 kills subspace" and "Warp 10 turns you into a lizard" things, the writers just ignored them.
How are you counter questioning me when there was never a question to begin with? All I said that the Defiant was actually harder to maintain? Secondly, where does the Sovereign come in when I mentioned Defiant? But to another point, how much screentime did the Sovereign have vs the Galaxy?
All GCS are to be considered as up to date as a Venture or Sovereign.
The point is (as many others have written over the past weeks) the GCS was modular in design, that means all newer Phasers and other equipment could be installed on a GCS as well.
Btw. do you seriously think a Sovereign, would have performed better with a incompetent Crew + no shields against a attacking enemy?
The odyssey performed comparable well if you consider that its shields wheren't effective and the Jems did a Kamikaze attack against it. Someone show me another Starfleet ship capable to survive that.
It's strange, when it comes to the GCS everyone seems to be crazy about finding reasons why it CANNOT be a effective or strong combat ship, just because other ships are either newer or look "cooler" (in their eyes).
But when it comes to the Prometheus, Sovereign or Defiant the same peope agree that these ships are the greatest things ever made for space combat. Even thinking the Sovereign being a heavier ship than a 3 times as massive GCS.
As angrytarg said, you shouldn't let yourself blind by the harmless look or the more peaceful approach of the GCS, in war it is the heaviest starfleet ship (in canon).
But on the other side, why discuss this in the first place?
Cryptic is on your side!
Cap. Gecko is exactly the opinion as you, they made the GCS is the most boring ship in STO, congratulations!
They have made the GCS exactly as YOU want it to be.
Can't you see? You guys have already won, the GCS is the worst and teethless Cruiser in the Game, so be happy and fly your Excelsiors, Sovereigns or silly little escorts, but leave the GCS alone. (i am sure no one of you use the GCS or is a fan of it.)
So why care about a ship that is already as you want it to be, and you wouldn't fly in the first place?
It wasn't the primary function of the Sovereign either.
Yes, the GCS would out perform the Defiant and Prometheus. But those ships are kings in their weight class. If they were in the same weight class, yes, they would hand the GCS over on a platter every time.
The tech manual didn't Mary Sue anything. It followed the show as it was written by the same people. And many of the "facts" did make it into the shows. And seeing as the subsequent ships continued to use the same tech, they also followed the tech manuals.
It's the same FX guys all around.
The warp issue was specifically addressed in TNG.
This pointless discussion for this thread has to be droped now. Personally, I don't want the Galaxy in STO to be better than the Sovereign.
Back to the topic:
The Galaxy being one of the most iconic ships in Star Trek does not deserve to be the worst cruiser, or as many say - the worst ship in general in STO.
How can this be fixed:
- By making Dontdrunkimshoot's Galaxy 3-pack proposal.
- By redefining, enhancing and correcting the engineering Boff skills in game.
- My personal favourite - bringing back the role of the cruisers in STO. This is my favourite because it would benefit all cruisers and the health of the game in general. If the role of tank is brought back and becomes relevant again in STO, the Galaxy would be an awesome ship even with the current setup and layout. It was suposed to be the best ship in her role, but then Cryptic lost the compass of game balance. Same goes for science ships.
Pick your poison. :cool:
This is a link to a page where John Eaves, the guy responsible for designing the Sovereign class starship, gives his thoughts.
"The Midway?s massive changes were the core inspiration for the Enterprise-E?s retrofits as well. Script changes for the three films that featured the E were the basis for a lot of the major changes and personal reasons were behind the minor ones. The ?E? was designed for the 1996 Star Trek film, First Contact, and the written description of the ship was that it was the battle bird of Starfleet with the sole purpose of battling an inevitable attack from the Borg! Thus the design of the ship followed a different path more towards the aggressive rather than the peaceful ?D? that Andy designed."
The guy who designed it based on the written description from the script. It was built for fighting Borg.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
No, it specifically wasn't. It was specifically swept under the rug. And no, later ships didn't follow the same design rules, because they have much shorter phaser strips than are "necessary" for the shape of the hull, which makes no sense, especially for the purpose built warships.
The Sovereign was presented on screen as a warship. The intent of the writers and designers of First Contact was always that the viewer would assume the Ent E was a more powerful upgrade to the Galaxy. That is how it has been presented in all following licensed material (such as video games, comics, etc) as well. Since that was the intent, and since there are no actual really real rules that dictate otherwise, that is, in fact, what is "true", at least until another writer comes along and changes it again.
And please, for the love of everything, please, explain to me how it can be true that phaser strip length determines firepower, yet ships designed for war don't take steps to maximize that length.
It's just simpler to ignore the tech manual like all the writers did.
That's not really relevant as since this was the first time the Borg encountered Federation Phaser weapons, and had had any time to adapt. Later in the EXACT same episode; once the Borg Cube began repairing itself - the 1701-D couldn't touch (IE further damage that Cube AT ALL -- in fact in the final scene before Q snaps his finger; they fire salvo after salvo, couldn't damage the Cube; and are about to fire (and commit suicide - as evidenced by Data's comments as Picard is about to order another torpedo salvo); when Q appears - has the exchange with Picard, and warps them back.
^^^
And this is the issue I have with a lot of the folks trying to use 'canon' to back their arguments; as they often pick and choose stuff out of context.
In fact, if anything the fact the Sovereign Class COULD damage a Borg Cube in First Contact (after the events in "Q-Who" and "Best of Both Worlds" - IE the Borg have now adapted to a lot of Fed weapon tech); if anything proves the Sovereign does have more powerful weapons then the Galaxy Class 1701-D.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
this is funny. the galaxy is the iowa, and the soverign is a cruiser class launched 8 years later. and your convinced that cruiser has more firepower, and would do better in a navel battle then the actual battleship thats 8 years older, but has had dozens of refits and upgrades in those 8 years. its an absurd notion that only a total sov fanboy would cling to in the face of overwhelming canon evidence to the contrary, you even have to ignore common sense.
yes yoda, size does maters. starfleet appears to arm their ships with weapons relative to their size. thats why the galaxy's guns are at least twice as large as the sovereign's. after 80 pages, we are still mouth breathing that the galaxy was designed for peace and kindergarten? thats instantly proven false as soon as you crack open the tng tech manual, a text that has almost nothing contradicting anything it said in any later canon or texts.
the ship was designed to have 70% of its interior hot swappable and modular. with an industrial transporter they could beam the entire preschool section out and replace it with a fireing range. they could build and customize a galaxy class anyway they saw fit. and they set up the enterprise to be a flying embodiment of federation ideals, a gilded flag ship, a parade float, commanded by a diplomat. the E-D was set up to by a long term explorer, with comforts to minimize crew fatigue. they would not have put children and families on board if they thought they thought the ship could not protect them. with a refit removing all of that, it could be set up to be a battleship the klingons would admire. it was designed to be an enormase battleship, an enormaoius science vessal, or anything in between that.
then during literal war time, they were launched as mostly empty shells, they could run with that 70% of their interior unused and the fleet gets 1 more set of huge arrays and torpedo launchers that can fire 10 torps in a second. potentually even more then that before having to reload the huge launchers. the best the sovereign and intrepid launchers were seen doing was bursts of 3 or 4 before having to reload.
i cant comprehend the state of mind you would need to even ask such an TRIBBLE backward question. why are their different ship classes, that come in all different sizes, and have different purposes? is that what your asking?
your in denial. no mater how much parasitic loss you insist takes place, the cumulative energy from some or all the emitters does create more powerful shots. other wise there would be no reason for their to ever be that visible moving glow effect on the array, were the emitters combine their power. they would just fire 1 emitter shots, if the power loss was SO BAD that it wouldn't be worth combining some or all the emitters power.
whats on screen and written in canon tech manuals>parasitic loss that is so bad that it fits your opinion.
saying most advanced in that shot always sounded like they were playing it safe there. they didnt say most powerful, they didn't say its the flag ship, they said its most advanced. its got the most advanced holographic doctor, most advanced computer core, most advanced weapon systems, etc... they didn't flat out say the sum of those most advanced things means its the most powerful. or they would have said its the most powerful. that feels like a carefully choosen word to me.
there is such thing as canon, and that seems to be the difference bewteen us and the galaxy haters. we dont exclude any valid source of information, wile you hand wave 90% of it.
HAHAHAHAHA. no, its more like the warpcore out of a saber class or something, a ship twice the defiant's volume. its a big core for a ship its size, but its only 4 decks tall. useing the warp core as a litmus test i dismiss at this point though. traveling at warp 9 would use infinitely more power then any thing the ship could be doing at sublight. including combat. the sovereign's impulse reactors were what it used in the nemisis fight, and it was running without performance loss till the ship literally burned through all its deuterium.
array length in nearly ever ship example it pretty proportional to the ships size. it proboly has a lot to do with how powerful an array the ship could suport at a certain rate of fire without the warp core supplying plentiful power. these are just my observations, there might be no zigzaps because power would have more trouble flowing through kinks then a slight curve.
lol no. if the ventral arrays weren't split, they might be almost as long as the shorter ventral galaxy array. the sovereigns whole saucer circumference is only about the same cercumfrance as a galaxy class's dorsal array. the wraparound dorsal sovereign array is longer then ether of the 2 split ventral.
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8792/3axissizecompare.jpg
on another note, the akira class's dorsal array is actually longer then the sovereign's! hope it dont get mkXII emitters too, oh wait it will without a doubt. well at least the sovereign's better at launching torpedoes then an akira, oh wait its not. well at least the sovereign has 1.7 times more volume then an akira.
the sovereign's firepower per volume beats the galaxy, but the galaxy has more then twice the volume. but the akira's firepower per volume is not only higher then the sovereign's, its firepower is literally higher as well.
the sovereign being a borg murdering battleship is a fantasy. its a general propose explorer meant to replace all the old mid size general purpose cruisers like the ambassador, niagara, new orleans, cheyenne and excelsior. with firepower proportional to its size, +. the akira though is a fricking gun boat that out guns it, but a sovereign would still proboly beat one in a fight with its superior size given damage soak potential.
its funny how different ships are presented, and after just a minimal mount of observation and research you see how totally backward the presentation is. the galaxy is a toothless cruise ship, the sovereigns the most powerful star fleet ship ship ever, and the defiant kicks everything TRIBBLE.
in reality the galaxy has an arsenal and flexibility without pear, the sovereign is a new large cruiser that is part of the trend to make ships more heavily armed for thier size, and the defiant is a match for an 80 year old light cruiser and only ever poped bops and bugships.
Best sollution, ever. period.
This would be my secon fav. sollution. But this would mean a lot of work not just for the devs but much more to discuss and a LOT of confusion, so i would rather see something more simple.
Please no!
Star Trek ships and especially Starfleet ships (cruisers) are not just tanks. They are much more than just tanks and healboats. I would hate if Cryptic would degrade them back to that job.
In my opinion the (un) holy trinity just doesn't work with Star Trek ships, not even in a MMORPG (or whatever this is). I think the trinity is just a lazy and stupid game mechanic that should never have left strategy games.
Just for example would you like to play a pawn or a rook in a RPG? (If strategy games where like chess)
What helps to simplyfy things in a Strategy game doesn't have to work in a RPG IMO.
THANKS!
Yeah, but bare with me for a while now:
I hate the "trinity" as well to begin with.
But at this point we either have the option to try and persuade Cryptic to bring back anything resembling a balance within their own designed trinity or leave the game mechanic completely borked and broken, while witnessing every single following ship being installed with Cmdr. or Lt.Cmdr Tact, Dual Heavy Cannons and simply put more dakka on top od the dakka. Because that's what's going on lately.
Because, let's face it - Cryptic will never change their position on the "trinity" and their game design. They wont endeavor in erasing the trinity model from STO, no matter how borked it is atm, they're just not that type of a studio.
So, we can either keep mumbling for them to fix their own design so it works as intended or we can "talk to the hand" and keep saying how utterly wrong we feel it is, with noone listening. What would mean leaving the cruisers in no man's land and leaving science vessels with completely confusing roles.
Look at it from any angle you want - we're not getting rid of the trinity. Cryptic will not get rid of the trinity. If that's the game we want to play, we'll have to wait for another Star Trek game. Take it from the man himself - read dStahl's interwiev with Mog Nation and and you'll realize a lot of things.
Just look at all the Lockbox "cruisers" and the Regent for example. The change that allows AtB builds for cruisers, i think all this shows that they are no longer see the trinity as STOs basic game balance.
Look at the Lockbox ships, the more firepower they have the better they sell, including cruisers.
I think only a small part of the playerbase want to fly a healboat that can't do any noticeable damage. And to be honest, the idea to have cruisers only as healboats and teethless tanks would make me stop playing this "Star Trek" game in an instant.
In my opinion modern MMO games tend more and more towards a more flexible class system.
I think less people want to play just the role of a DD or Tank anymore and Cryptic has noticed that. (a good step IMO)
A strict seperation of Tank/Damage Dealer/Wizard is just antiquated and should have dropped long ago in my humble opinion.
Having Classes more flexible and versatile is a advancement of a aging system that put players into simple positions that wasn't very innovative, and completely unrealistic.
Personally i am glad more and more games get rid of it.
Sorry for the typos i'm in a hurry.
I agree with this and I certainly hope you're right about it. I must admit, to me it seems just like power creep at least for the time being, with just adding more dakka to everything that can't be good in the long run. Once again, I do hope I'm wrong and you're right about this, as I'd prefer it that way myself.