posted
I would agree with the idea of larger fighter/gunboats. The purposes of carrier based fighters today are to extend the range of a ship and also provide a fast attack capeability. This would be negated by the speed/manouverability of Trek starships. I think their would probably be two types used by Starfleet at this time: 1) A system defence craft, with limited warp capeability; these would be about the same size as the Minotaur fighters on the Starfleet Museum and carry a mixed bag of photon torps (or nukes) and phasers/lasers (upgrades?). These would be assigned to fixed defensive stations inside federation systems that are near borders or known areas of pirate activity and their primary purpose would be to defend the system and incoming transports and civilian ships from pirate attack or to delay incoming hostile capital ships until Starfleet capital ships could arrive. About 30 would be assigned to a system in the roskier areas of space. Each would have a crew of around 3. 2) A ground attack craft; this would be carried on board a starship and accompany planetary landing attempts. They would be capeably of atmospheric flight but not warp speed (imagine a matter- antimatter reactor going up on a planet). Their primary purpose would be to destroy ground based installations and troop concentrations that are either in an area inaccessable to starship weapons or where precision targeting is needed that cannot be attained by starship weapons. Also they could counter airbourne threats to UFP ground troops. These would be closer in size to modern day fighters.
[ March 01, 2002, 12:41: Message edited by: Wraith ]
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posted
Look at it this way: fighters can still attain the same function that they do today in the Trek universe -- that is, projecting and expanding upon the weapon range/capabilities of the mother ship -- in that multiple fighters can use multiple attack angles and provide multiple targets for the enemy ship to have to deal with. THAT is the primary strength of the fighter strategy -- a bunch of bees stinging the enemy.
Of course, bees can rarely take down a bear on their own -- but wouldn't a bunch of bee stings make it easier for another bear to attack the first bear?
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posted
Yes but a bee sting on lets say a 300 lbs 7 foot pure muscle matter to him/her? Yes, if he/she is sensitive.
I got bee stung three times in a row at the same time. It does not hurt and later it made me itch. However later I did pour oil down their holes (they had three, I plugged two up with baseballs and put dirt on top).
Anyway, it seems in 22nd century technology (if Enterprise does not have shuttles with warp capability) then I doubt with 10 years they will develope smaller warp drives because if they did, then the 20-30 years thery spent on trying to get up to Warp 5, seems abit shitty. Of course if you plan on having the Vulcans lend technology along the way.
By the way, just a tip, I would suggest begin slowly integrating Enterprise info. Meaning that the Vulcans finally did this and that and so on.
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Actually its something you are supposed to think about. Because when you think about it, and have an idea on what I wrote, then in part you took ownership of the sig. So after you read, you felt that you got something from it. Mentally the is what they do with art.
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quote:By the way, just a tip, I would suggest begin slowly integrating Enterprise info. Meaning that the Vulcans finally did this and that and so on.
Oh boy, Masao is gonna hit the roof now!
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posted
#*@%$&!!!!!!
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Rogue Starship
Ex-Member
posted
Hey, I just thought of this. One advantages I see to having a squadron of fighters on a Lancastor or Siegfrid(sp?) is better fire range. It would be like having two ships. If a Lancastor engaged a 2 Klingon D6's and it had a squadron of fighters(8-12 ships) w/two twin typeIII phaser cannons, it could attack one ship while the "Mothership" attacks the other. The recharge rate of a fighters weapons is far less than that of a capital ship. So w/mutiple ships continuously diving on one target; its going to get ripped to shreads.
Also, another reason to have fighters is that they cost less to build than capital ships( duh!) And they can get fitted with newer tech as it comes out at a lower cost than doing that to capital ships.
You also might want to consider adding torps to the fighters or even micros?
posted
Unfortunately, Masao really had his little heart set on warp-capable, pre-TOS fighters. What you're suggesting is more TMP-era, Starfleet Command (game) kinda thing. That's probably how fighters should work in Trek, but that's not what he wanted.
[ March 07, 2002, 00:19: Message edited by: David Templar ]
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OK. My concepts are starting to firm up with your guys' help.
How large do you think a ship needs to be to be warp capable? If you think that a TOS shuttle is warp-capable, then we can get as small as 7 m, which is pretty damn small. F-14s and F-15s are about 20 m long and weigh about 30 tons. The A3D Skywarrior was even larger. If planes of this size can operate from aircraft carriers, I'd think that starships can handle fighters at least as large, if not larger, since we don't have to worry about take-off weights and landing at high speeds. I'd think that a 20-m long ship should be warp capable, even in the pre-TOS period, as Phoenix was only 20 m long.
Fighters of this size look like insects compared with a starship. I also wonder if they could carry beam weapons strong enough to seriously damage a full-size, fully-shielded cruiser. So, I'm leaning towards fighters carrying some sort of large torpedo with a larger warhead than a standard cruiser-launched torpedo. But, they still might be too easily shot down.
Fighters are also useful in situations where large ships can't use their speed or where they are too large to go safely. This would include sublight regimes, such as asteroid fields, orbit, etc. I'd also use them against pirates, since pirate ships probably carry weapons sufficient only to rob or hijack ships, not to destroy them, or against technologically inferior enemies.
Fighters could also be used as scouts, pickets, and defenders for a fleet.
Carriers themselves would stay out of trouble by keeping well away from the battle zone. Fighters would use their warp drive to go somewhere, fight (either at warp or sublight), then return to the carrier. Carriers would carry relatively little armament, except light defensive armament, and would have to be shielded by escorts.
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posted
What about fighters as support ships of a Starbase, like the Runabouts were to DS9. They could do things like patrolling the Earth Outposts near the RNZ, defend Starbase X from badass Kzinti and more like that.
posted
I think that's a job for a second tier of fighters. There are uses for warp-driven small craft, but point defence isn't one of them. I'd suggest using sublight, short-range fighters in B5 style to defend installations and sublight ships and formations, and separate warp-capable craft for the missions Masao envisages. Replace the warp engines with more, better or heavier weapons in the sublight craft...
Or even build modular fighters, in the "killer bee" style. Engines could be separate modules (one for warp, one for impulse-only), while the cockpit/weapons combo could be another. The idea of an engine/weapons combo and a separate cockpit is a silly one IMHO, though. Unless you can launch the engine and weapons unmanned. Which is a neat idea, actually.
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
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posted
quote:Originally posted by Timo: I think that's a job for a second tier of fighters. There are uses for warp-driven small craft, but point defence isn't one of them.
Unless he goes the route that he did with his Archer & Curran classes & makes them in-system warp-capable only, which seems a good idea.
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Unless he goes the route that he did with his Archer & Curran classes & makes them in-system warp-capable only, which seems a good idea.[/QB][/QUOTE]
This is what I was saying above; I think that Starfleet would be likely to have several specialised classes of small ship/fighter for different purposes. A ship carried fighter would probably be useful as a kind of 'multi vector attack ship' and, while the warp drive may not need to be too large, the weapons embarked would cause an increase in the size of reactor and size of the fighter, particularly if it is carrying large nukes/photon torps. Correct me if I'm wrong but TOS shuttles had no weapons; taking this into account I would say that TOS shipbourne fighters would be about the same size as modern fighters, although probably a little deeper.
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posted
The Pheonix was an engine with two warp nacelles attached, a warp-capable fighter's probably quite a bit bigger because of all the other equipment it needs.
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