This is an excuse/explanation for a technical design that's been wandering around my head for a while now. It has no real context or point, I just found myself typing rather than jobhunting.
"So what am I looking at?"
"These are the images captured by the Gorget of that new Galaxy variant that hit the Gideri III picket. Our own people have gone over them extensively, but we wanted an unbiased expert to check our findings."
"Hmmm... All right, give me a few hours."
*hours later*
"Overall, this new model of yours is an impressive piece of work. I'd estimate a three or four-fold improvement in combat power over the older design, while still using less than ten percent 'new design' components."
"That's a higher degree of commonality than our own initial analyses had gotten."
"Hmm, it doesn't look it, does it? But here, see, the spacing of the new primary hull phaser arrays from the basic model? The underlying structural members are laid out concentrically and further components built onto them, of course, and both sets of new arrays are at precisely the same relation to the nearest beams as the original was to its own nearest.
"The secondary hull, what we've seen of it - notice how the new forward half is vertically symmetrical as well as laterally? I'd bet you dinner it's no more than a lightly altered mirroring. The lengthwise stretching is almost exactly fifty percent - I think that they inserted 'straight' sections into the skeleton after every two of the original curved ones. And, again, the new phaser arrays line up with the inner structure in the same way as the old ones.
"The powerplant, though we can only guess at the actual configuration, is running close to exactly four times what we have for their 'new model's' output - I think that they've found a way to synchronize the powerplants and then duplicated them for this class. It'd require internal reworking, but they'd have to tear down that hull almost completely anyway in order to do what we can see they've done.
"The nacelles - they look like a completely new design, don't they? But look at the efficiency figures, here. That wobble in the power curve? I think it's a temperature difference between coils. Rather than having each coil perfectly tuned for its place in sequence, they're running matched pairs, one a little cold and one a little hot, and adapted their new model cruiser housings to fit around them. They lose a little reserve and some operating time doing it that way, but for practical purposes they pick up more by having four of the things rather than two. The mounting pylons aren't new components either - from ahead, that curve matches up with - here. They just ran more of the structure beams and assembled them differently.
"The sensors, the torpedo launchers - essentially just remountings of their known top-line systems, though from putting the turrets there, port and starboard dorsal and ventral superstructure, we know that they've moved the computer cores.
"The deflector system is a new model, though, to leave room for the new torpedo launchers outboard of it, and I doubt they'll use it anywhere else. Their 'new design' battleships are too small for it. The roll bar pod is new, though I expect them to get more use out of it. The defensive screens aren't - new, I mean - but there are certainly a lot of them.
"Overall, I'd say that the speed increase would 'only' let it keep up with a Sovereign, and maneuver speed might actually be down, depending on the exact specs of the new RCS system - but I make it at least three times the beam firepower and eleven torpedo turrets rather than two linear launchers, along with what I'd eyeball at a fourfold improvment in defense. Not a brilliant or elegant design, but a well-thought out and very formidable one."
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
"So what am I looking at?"
"These are the images captured by the Gorget of that new Galaxy variant that hit the Gideri III picket. Our own people have gone over them extensively, but we wanted an unbiased expert to check our findings."
"Hmmm... All right, give me a few hours."
*hours later*
"Overall, this new model of yours is an impressive piece of work. I'd estimate a three or four-fold improvement in combat power over the older design, while still using less than ten percent 'new design' components."
"That's a higher degree of commonality than our own initial analyses had gotten."
"Hmm, it doesn't look it, does it? But here, see, the spacing of the new primary hull phaser arrays from the basic model? The underlying structural members are laid out concentrically and further components built onto them, of course, and both sets of new arrays are at precisely the same relation to the nearest beams as the original was to its own nearest.
"The secondary hull, what we've seen of it - notice how the new forward half is vertically symmetrical as well as laterally? I'd bet you dinner it's no more than a lightly altered mirroring. The lengthwise stretching is almost exactly fifty percent - I think that they inserted 'straight' sections into the skeleton after every two of the original curved ones. And, again, the new phaser arrays line up with the inner structure in the same way as the old ones.
"The powerplant, though we can only guess at the actual configuration, is running close to exactly four times what we have for their 'new model's' output - I think that they've found a way to synchronize the powerplants and then duplicated them for this class. It'd require internal reworking, but they'd have to tear down that hull almost completely anyway in order to do what we can see they've done.
"The nacelles - they look like a completely new design, don't they? But look at the efficiency figures, here. That wobble in the power curve? I think it's a temperature difference between coils. Rather than having each coil perfectly tuned for its place in sequence, they're running matched pairs, one a little cold and one a little hot, and adapted their new model cruiser housings to fit around them. They lose a little reserve and some operating time doing it that way, but for practical purposes they pick up more by having four of the things rather than two. The mounting pylons aren't new components either - from ahead, that curve matches up with - here. They just ran more of the structure beams and assembled them differently.
"The sensors, the torpedo launchers - essentially just remountings of their known top-line systems, though from putting the turrets there, port and starboard dorsal and ventral superstructure, we know that they've moved the computer cores.
"The deflector system is a new model, though, to leave room for the new torpedo launchers outboard of it, and I doubt they'll use it anywhere else. Their 'new design' battleships are too small for it. The roll bar pod is new, though I expect them to get more use out of it. The defensive screens aren't - new, I mean - but there are certainly a lot of them.
"Overall, I'd say that the speed increase would 'only' let it keep up with a Sovereign, and maneuver speed might actually be down, depending on the exact specs of the new RCS system - but I make it at least three times the beam firepower and eleven torpedo turrets rather than two linear launchers, along with what I'd eyeball at a fourfold improvment in defense. Not a brilliant or elegant design, but a well-thought out and very formidable one."
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."