Shuttlebay Size

[AdmiralACF]

Is there any way to determine how big a shuttle bay is on a ship in comparison to its size? For instance, would a large ship, say size 9 or 10, like a Romulan Warbird, be able to carry or capture a small size 3 vessel, like an Oberth or a Defiant?

[ghosty]

I think shuttle bays should have only enough space to accomadate a ship's assigned shuttles with some extra space for visitor ships etc. Even the largest shuttle bays should be able to contain only a size class 2 ship max with very little space to spare.

The truth is that it is dangerous for a ship to put a captured vessel inside its shuttle bay you never know if some pesky self-destruct mechanism would go off inside you ship.

[Dan Gurden]

Shuttlebays are an odd thing... The only ones we know about in canon terms are the Intrepid, Constitution, Galaxy, Defiant and the Akira.

The Intrepid and Constitution have roughly equal sized shuttlebays, but in both cases they are designed with Tardis technology, being far more volumous than they should be...

Hell, the Intrepid has about 4 times as many shuttles than it should plus both Neelix's ship and the Delta Flyer (Both of which should be Size 2 ships)

The Galaxy has 3 shuttlebays, one huge cavernous shuttlebay and two far smaller ones. And according to the tech manual its enough for 30-40 odd shuttles.

The Defiant only has enough for 1 shuttle and 2 shuttlepods and barely that!

The Akira, we know has a large 'Through Deck' shuttlebay, which is why many consider it a carrier. If any ship could take on a size 3 vessel it would be the Akira...

[Mig1]

Can anybody help me out with a couple questions?

How many shuttles can an Intrepid carry - canonically speaking?

Where is the shuttle bay on the Akira class? Is it the thing on the rollbar?

Where is the aft torpedoe tube on an Akira?

Thanks all!

[Cmdr Powers]

Glad to be of service! Commander Powers here, chief Flight Operations officer onboard USS Vanguard, Akira-class.

The Akira-class has a three-tube fighter launching bay at the front of the saucer on deck 9. Fighters (and shuttles) may be retrieved and launched through two doors at the rear of the saucer. The remainder of the hangar bay extends between these two areas with maintenance and flight operations in the middle. The hangar bay is up to 3 decks high and is surrounded by an observation catwalk at deck 7 level. Normal complement of auxiliary craft would include up to 15 Starfleet Attack Fighters and an assortment of Type 6, 7, 9, and 15 shuttles as well as Workbees.

The Akira-class has three torpedo tubes at the front of the ship just above the main deflector, two tubes port and starboard on deck 8, four torpedo tubes facing forward and four tubes facing aft in the weapons module, and- perhaps- three quantum torpedo launchers below the photon launchers in the module and one quantum torpedo launcher below the main deflector facing forward. Whew! what a lot of torp launchers.

Hope that helps.

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"The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank" -Montgomery Scott

[Dan Gurden]

Originally posted by Mig1:
Can anybody help me out with a couple questions?

How many shuttles can an Intrepid carry - canonically speaking?

Where is the shuttle bay on the Akira class? Is it the thing on the rollbar?

Where is the aft torpedoe tube on an Akira?

Thanks all!

Speaking in Canon... The number of shuttles seems endless, they keep trashing them and still have more. Speaking technically, Voyager was down for only a a small number of shuttles, I think 2 Type 8 and 2 Type 9's.

They have far surpassed that number however, even taking shuttle recovery and repairs into account, something several websites keep track of...

They have also added to the number, with 2 quite large ships, Neelix's freighter and the Maquis Flyer.

As for the Akira, if the fighter launch tubes mentioned above dont gel with your universes canon, such as in a combat minimal game, where fighters are rare. Like mine.
I personally use the production notes that the 3 shuttlebay doors located at the front of the Akira's saucer section can open seperately or at the same time revealing a large 'through deck' shuttlebay between the front and rear of the saucer section...

[Mig1]

Thanks for replying to my message.

Good god. That is a bunch of torpedoe tubes.

And the LUG book only allows for 1 forward and 1 aft? What's your take on that?

I was just browsing the Daystom Inst. web site ( http://www.DITL.org )

Whoever runs that site lists 36 fighters as the normal... ?

How do you guys handle the stats? I speak mainly looking into a relatively combat heavy campaign.

[Cmdr Powers]

Yup, that's a lot of tubes. These are tubes that were put on the CGI model by Alex Yaeger, the ILM designer of the Akira-class. IMHO, LUG chose to downplay this aspect of the ship in the name of playability (as did the designer of the Red Alert! game). If you think about it, there are an awful lot of phaser turrets on Constitution II and Excelsior-class vessels and you rarely see all of them in action at one time. My guess is that most of those tubes rarely see action-with most of the action being the forward saucer and module tubes-just as we saw in First Contact. The tubes are there so the Akira can cover all firing angles. You could deliver a hell of a torpedo salvo- once, maybe twice- then what? In my opinion, you should allow torpedo fire in all directions from an Akira, but limit the fire to the single weapon per area as shown on the specs in the sourcebook.

As for fighters- those forward bays are awful small, but a SFA Fighter will fit through them- as will most of the other small craft carried. In our ongoing game, we've launched the ready fighters twice and each time it was really, really difficult to keep track of what was going on with all those ships flying around- most of them NPC ships so more burden on the GM! My guess is that if an Akira is not going to war, it probably carries a minimal force of small craft- enough for patrols and flanking and such- maybe 3-6 Starfleet Attack fighters.

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"The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank" -Montgomery Scott

[SIR SIG]

But since torps are essentially able to track the target they can be launched in one direction to go in another one. Albeit much slower and the target has a better chance of evading but...

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SIR SIG a Aussie TREK Narrator

[THE KID ADMIRAL]

I have the blueprints for the 1701D. The shuttlecraft bay is quite larg and has quite a bit of shuttles on it. I once counted them and came to nearly two hundred, but I can't remember the exact number. I'll have to count them again later.

[SIR SIG]

I think its more in the 30-40 mark of assorted shuttles and pods

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SIR SIG a Aussie TREK Narrator

[com_data]

I dont know but intresting thougth

[billy135]

Star Trek The Magazine had an article on the Akira that stated 14 photorp launchers. The only purpose for this would be for a rapid salvo for bombardment. Each launcher with a spread of ten, 140 photorps is a high rate of fire, but only carrying 275 you could do this only twice. While in a fleet battle with each torp self tracking and each one targeted to seperate vessel 1 Akira could effectivly disable a dozen vessels rather quickly.

How many shuttlecraft are on a vessel is hard to tell. The Galaxy-class could hold a fleet in its main hanger. A vessel like voyager will always have a full compliment of shuttles. With the sensor, transporter, and replicator technology the can recover any crashed shuttle and salvage its materials to simply build another. The question is what poor ensign was picked for this job.

[calguard66]

Originally posted by Mig1:
Can anybody help me out with a couple questions?

How many shuttles can an Intrepid carry - canonically speaking?

Thanks all!

"Canonically" an Intrepid can create as many shuttles as it needs, even when cut off from normal supply channels... how many it can wedge into it's hull at any given time, I have no idea...



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"I'd rather die standing than live on my knees..."
Shania Twain

[Cmdr Powers]

Originally posted by billy135:
Star Trek The Magazine had an article on the Akira that stated 14 photorp launchers. The only purpose for this would be for a rapid salvo for bombardment. Each launcher with a spread of ten, 140 photorps is a high rate of fire, but only carrying 275 you could do this only twice. While in a fleet battle with each torp self tracking and each one targeted to seperate vessel 1 Akira could effectivly disable a dozen vessels rather quickly.

The STM article definitely said 15 launchers and I did limit the Akira to around 2 major salvoes for pretty much the purpose you discuss (see "Starting up an Akira" in Spacedock).

As Steve has pointed out in Spacedock, torpedoes are a dramatic device in Star Trek, not necessarily a realistic one. I still wince when I remember a photorp screeching past the Enterprise, just barely missing it yet not exploding, in one of the movies.
Torpedoes, like shuttles, can be replaced by that 'poor ensign' working all night at the industrial replicator, so the actual number of photorps or shuttlecraft is pretty flexible IMHO.

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"The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank" -Montgomery Scott