The enormous hangar bays could each accomodate one of these large machines - and the stripped-out decks could hold raw materials cubage (trititanium, dilithium, etc.), powerplants, and computer pattern storage.
Plus they'd need quarters for the construction engineers, and small hangar space for workbees.
Registered: Feb 2001
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That would give Starfleet the ability to do near major overhauls in deep space.... make colonizing easier...
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Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
I just re-read the section on industrial replicators in the DS9TM. The units mentioned in the series are also the ones illustrated on p.82, and they aren't terribly large. Sternbach suggests that the very largest replicators are only 50x72 meters large - this seems to imply that replication of stuff much larger than the household units gets really tough.
posted
164 feet by 236 feet.... that isn't very big.... 38,704 feet square....
most houses have 800 to 2000 square feet....
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
As for the "Mobile Replimat" idea regarding a stripped-down Miranda . . .
You'd probably have to design a whole new ship from the ground up, given the engineering requirements involved. The main thing that comes to mind would be the simple fact that you'd have to seriously upgrade the Miranda's engines and powerplant . . . not just to power the replicators, but also to move all the bulk material around. Most of the internal volume of a starship is empty space, but a dedicated mobile replicator would be quite a bit more massive, assuming a mostly-full load and the density of the materials involved for the duties suggested.
Just a thought
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posted
Oh, I dunno - we've gone over it before how there would be tons of space available in older starships now that crews for non-combat functions could be a mere handful. Just convert all the extra crew quarters into cargo space, add in a bunch of low-rez cargo transporters, another bunch of CFI replicators, and Bob's your uncle. You should easily be able to cart around whatever raw materials the replicators need in standard cargo containers, which are never that big in the Trek universe..
Mind you, there would be only so many uses for a replicator ship - I mean, if you were gonna replicate medical supplies, it'd probably make a hell of a lot more sense just to send a ship full of medical supplies instead. We're probalby talking about industrial-only usage - making construction materials and such over the short term, or perhaps even to create the infrastructure for a refinery that will do the work more efficiently. I imagine that making industrial stuff the old fashioned way is always going to be more efficient than replication, and that replicators are used only to help set up critical stuff faster - as in the case of Bajor, where they obviously needed the help in recreating their infrastructure following the Cardassian retreat.
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
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posted
That's not a bad idea for setting up colonies & the like. Perhaps that's why Enterprise was given the relatively humdrum task of helping to settle people at times--because she had the larger repcenters that could be used for things . She loiters in orbit a week or 2, zaps out a few things that are needed should they come up until the colony's power grid is 5-by-5...
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Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Certainly a ship (converted Miranda or not) that is able to convert local raw materials into supplies/equipment would be handy in colony set up.
Also disaster response, fleet deployment (don't ship stuff for a forward base, replicate it), terra-forming.
Now who's going down a couple of forums to draw us a picture?
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Registered: Oct 2000
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Registered: May 1999
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posted
It might have a beefed up or otherwise modified set of transporter emitters (assuming the TNG-era visible emitter technology), but other than that, no, no reason comes to mind.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
This idea of a "replicator starship" made me think of the current theory about self-replicating machines. (A theory by Van [Somebody]. I forget the name. Van Geldar? ) Where you use one replicator to set up the process, and it produces more machines that can continue the process. For instance, if a replicator starship can fabricate an industrial replicator to ship down to the planet, then that would make things a whole lot easier for a fledgling colony.
Or, as C-3PO put it, "Machines making machines... how perverse!"
I also thought about some of those really huge fleet tenders that the US Navy operates -- ships that can almost function as a floating dockyard for field repairs, as I understand it.
Hey, I just had an idea... if Starfleet used one of these replicator ship ideas, combined with the traveling dockyard, they might be able to field-repair some of the seriously-damaged starships during the war, for instance the USS Fredrickson in "A Time to Stand" or other ships with major structural damage.
Just no one bring up the USS Voyager, okay?!
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Registered: Nov 2000
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The BWC
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posted
Or if they coverted the shuttlebays into really huge transporters, cut the crew to a minimum, convert a couple dozen replimats, turned the bridge into transporter and replicator controls and a navigator, split it into manageable parts, shipped it to starbase, put it together and kept engineering and junk and was ready to go to the colonies.
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![[Wink]](wink.gif)
) Where you use one replicator to set up the process, and it produces more machines that can continue the process. For instance, if a replicator starship can fabricate an industrial replicator to ship down to the planet, then that would make things a whole lot easier for a fledgling colony.
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