Prometheus Class Question

[Vinkula]

Hey guys, sorry for being inactive, but I intented to be more active again on the forums

So I have a question about my second favourite ship class of the fleet... What's the correct layout of deck 1? Is there any speculation (drawing, deck plan...?)? I'd like to know the place of Captain's ready room, observation / briefing lounge and other things on deck 1. And deck layout list would be nice (on which deck is what).

Thank you

 

[Vinkula]

Sorry double post, but I have a second question...

Where's the aft torpedo bay of the Prometheus? I am sure it has one, but where?

 

[Timo]

Well, the Prometheus was firmly established to have a crew of four. No real need for a Ready Room there!

Really, the ship seems to have been built in order to remove the crew from the equation. Just four people in the command section to run the show (and indeed just four people in the entire Starfleet trained to operate that command section!), and then two mighty droneships to do the actual fighting. A logical compromise between the dangers of letting an M-5 control everything, and the immorality of sending innocent young humanoids in harm's way.

It would make little sense to provide the interiors of the droneships with anything beyond the most basic access tunnels, as there would be few mission types where those sections would carry crew or passengers. The upper drone seems to carry the ship's shuttlebay, though, so one might postulate shuttle maintenance shops and perhaps Marine barracks there, too.

The command section might have facilities for alternate "conventional" starship operations, but the prototype vessel probably wouldn't be equipped for those yet. The sickbay appears fully automated, although later on it might be provided with live medical personnel for "extended operations", and with capacity for more than four people. Similarly, there might be a galley waiting for the cooks and their ovens to come aboard, sonic shower stalls that don't have any sonic showers installed yet, and so forth.

On the aft torpedo tube issue, a drone swarm might not really need one. One drone's forward tube could be covering another's rear arc.

(Welcome back to active status, BTW! That's what summer holidays are for... )

Timo Saloniemi

 

[backstept]

Well, the Prometheus was firmly established to have a crew of four. No real need for a Ready Room there!

Really, the ship seems to have been built in order to remove the crew from the equation. Just four people in the command section to run the show (and indeed just four people in the entire Starfleet trained to operate that command section!), and then two mighty droneships to do the actual fighting. A logical compromise between the dangers of letting an M-5 control everything, and the immorality of sending innocent young humanoids in harm's way.

It would make little sense to provide the interiors of the droneships with anything beyond the most basic access tunnels, as there would be few mission types where those sections would carry crew or passengers. The upper drone seems to carry the ship's shuttlebay, though, so one might postulate shuttle maintenance shops and perhaps Marine barracks there, too.

The command section might have facilities for alternate "conventional" starship operations, but the prototype vessel probably wouldn't be equipped for those yet. The sickbay appears fully automated, although later on it might be provided with live medical personnel for "extended operations", and with capacity for more than four people. Similarly, there might be a galley waiting for the cooks and their ovens to come aboard, sonic shower stalls that don't have any sonic showers installed yet, and so forth.

Timo Saloniemi

judging by the description, Prometheus should have been smaller than the Defiant, but it's about 3 times the size with 92% less crew!
why all that extra space?
judging by the windows I'd say Prometheus could comfortably hold 200

 

[Vinkula]

But U.S.S. Prometheus was a prototype. I am asking (= speculating) the rest of the ships. I am sure Prometheus class can carry 150-200 crewmembers and have somekind of aft defence.

 

[Mr Silver]

But U.S.S. Prometheus was a prototype. I am asking (= speculating) the rest of the ships. I am sure Prometheus class can carry 150-200 crewmembers and have somekind of aft defence.

Well Voyager's crew was around 150. If we look at Prometheus its considerably smaller than Voyager, add to that the "multi-vector" systems which likely required extensive room for computer systems and communication arrays (so the three parts could work independently). Even still, the Prometheus is larger than the Defiant, which had a maximum crew of 30 (and that required sharing of quarters and the lack of a ready room).

From what we know from the technical jargon in "Message In A Bottle", Prometheus was designed to be operated by a minimum crew (4 people) and was, although no "clearly" stated, likely a ship designed for battle. I'd imagine if the going got tough, Prometheus could accomodate 20 or so people. I also have a feeling that ship has only one habitable deck (the area that contains the bridge, engineering and sickbay) and the rest are, like I said designed to house the technology necessary for its "multi vector assault". That would probably mean that the seperating parts are merely drone ships, with the only crew friendly areas being maintenance shafts or maybe a control room or two.

As for your queries about the aft defence. The whole ship as I said was pretty much a battleship designed for tactical missions, its likely the entire outer hull was crawling with weaponry. Its just that when we saw the ship attack, the aft weaponry wasn't required because all 3 parts were going into formation around the Romulan Warbird and attacking from the front.

 

[Saquist]

Well, the Prometheus was firmly established to have a crew of four. No real need for a Ready Room there!

Really, the ship seems to have been built in order to remove the crew from the equation. Just four people in the command section to run the show (and indeed just four people in the entire Starfleet trained to operate that command section!), and then two mighty droneships to do the actual fighting. A logical compromise between the dangers of letting an M-5 control everything, and the immorality of sending innocent young humanoids in harm's way.

It would make little sense to provide the interiors of the droneships with anything beyond the most basic access tunnels, as there would be few mission types where those sections would carry crew or passengers. The upper drone seems to carry the ship's shuttlebay, though, so one might postulate shuttle maintenance shops and perhaps Marine barracks there, too.

The command section might have facilities for alternate "conventional" starship operations, but the prototype vessel probably wouldn't be equipped for those yet. The sickbay appears fully automated, although later on it might be provided with live medical personnel for "extended operations", and with capacity for more than four people. Similarly, there might be a galley waiting for the cooks and their ovens to come aboard, sonic shower stalls that don't have any sonic showers installed yet, and so forth.

On the aft torpedo tube issue, a drone swarm might not really need one. One drone's forward tube could be covering another's rear arc.

(Welcome back to active status, BTW! That's what summer holidays are for... )

Timo Saloniemi

Amazingly....
I'm going with Timo at least this far.

Timo Saloniemi

judging by the description, Prometheus should have been smaller than the Defiant, but it's about 3 times the size with 92% less crew!
why all that extra space?
judging by the windows I'd say Prometheus could comfortably hold 200[/QUOTE]

But U.S.S. Prometheus was a prototype. I am asking (= speculating) the rest of the ships. I am sure Prometheus class can carry 150-200 crewmembers and have somekind of aft defence.

Federation crews of the 24th century are so small compared to the 23rd. The crew should be around 300 for 24th century norms and around 700 for 23rd century norms.

Well Voyager's crew was around 150. If we look at Prometheus its considerably smaller than Voyager, add to that the "multi-vector" systems which likely required extensive room for computer systems and communication arrays (so the three parts could work independently). Even still, the Prometheus is larger than the Defiant, which had a maximum crew of 30 (and that required sharing of quarters and the lack of a ready room).

Prometheus has always been scaled as larger than Voyager...in the 400 range. Some say 414m others 440m.
Defiant also had a regular complement of 50.

From what we know from the technical jargon in "Message In A Bottle", Prometheus was designed to be operated by a minimum crew (4 people) and was, although no "clearly" stated, likely a ship designed for battle. I'd imagine if the going got tough, Prometheus could accomodate 20 or so people. I also have a feeling that ship has only one habitable deck (the area that contains the bridge, engineering and sickbay) and the rest are, like I said designed to house the technology necessary for its "multi vector assault". That would probably mean that the seperating parts are merely drone ships, with the only crew friendly areas being maintenance shafts or maybe a control room or two.

Prometheus was obviously fully "habital" as it had a sickbay and multiple decks worth of holoemitters for the holographic program also note the exterior lighting showing the decks and apparently crew quarters or other habitats. Prometeus though seems to have far less than say the Galaxy or Sovereign which are riddled with windows top to bottom.

 

[Vinkula]

Some schematics says Prometheus has 16 decks. It's hard to believe that there is that many extra space just for MVAM systems. I am sure the MVAM can be operated from bridge and engineering. Since in Message in a bottle was said (or was it...), Prometheus were designed for deep space exploration, it's hard to believe only about 20-30 people are it's crew.

And as what for USS Prometheus, only 4 people were trained to operate the prototype for the test run which was happening on Message In A Bottle. I am sure it needs 100+ crew to operate normally, but a systems test run doesn't need that much. I am sure Prometheus' systems will be nowaday technology to whole Starfleet and all Starfleet personnel can operate the Prometheus class.

 

[Timo]

For the record, this is how the ship introduces herself when queried by the EMH:

Prometheus: "USS Prometheus. Experimental prototype designed for deep-space tactical assignments. Primary battle systems include regenerative shielding, ablative hull armour, multi-vector assault mode-"

It should be noted that the computer has little flair for the dramatic, so e.g. "regenerative shielding" need not be a property unique to the Prometheus - every Starfleet vessel ever built might have regenerative shielding, considering that every shield we have ever seen has regenerated at some point or another. Out of the list of attributes the computer rattles out, only the MVAM attracts the attention of the EMH as being unfamiliar and possibly novel.

Of the internal layout, we know that the ventilation systems are controlled from a deck "five decks up" from Sickbay. The bridge seems to be on top of the ship, as usual, so for some reason Starfleet saw fit to install at least four decks between the bridge and the sickbay. Rather inconvenient if the sickbay only serves the four people on the bridge...

(Or then we could argue that the sickbay and all other creature comforts are buried deep within the ship, and are surrounded by deck upon deck of machinery necessary for running the droneships.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Saquist]

Some schematics says Prometheus has 16 decks. It's hard to believe that there is that many extra space just for MVAM systems. I am sure the MVAM can be operated from bridge and engineering. Since in Message in a bottle was said (or was it...), Prometheus were designed for deep space exploration, it's hard to believe only about 20-30 people are it's crew.

And as what for USS Prometheus, only 4 people were trained to operate the prototype for the test run which was happening on Message In A Bottle. I am sure it needs 100+ crew to operate normally, but a systems test run doesn't need that much. I am sure Prometheus' systems will be nowaday technology to whole Starfleet and all Starfleet personnel can operate the Prometheus class.

If the ship was only designed to operate with 4 people think how easily defeated that ship would be. Disregard to the drone ships and just concentrate your fire power on the Saucer section and the other sections would be come useless.

(MVAM is pretty useless anyway. It's just 3 ships...why design a whole ship to do what 3 ships can do with the exact same resources? The Drone sections need to be smaller more efficient...like slightly larger than runnabouts and be capale of swarming the target...but then...that's what carriers are for...)

For the record, this is how the ship introduces herself when queried by the EMH:

Prometheus: "USS Prometheus. Experimental prototype designed for deep-space tactical assignments. Primary battle systems include regenerative shielding, ablative hull armour, multi-vector assault mode-"

It should be noted that the computer has little flair for the dramatic, so e.g. "regenerative shielding" need not be a property unique to the Prometheus - every Starfleet vessel ever built might have regenerative shielding, considering that every shield we have ever seen has regenerated at some point or another. Out of the list of attributes the computer rattles out, only the MVAM attracts the attention of the EMH as being unfamiliar and possibly novel.

No star fleet vessel has ever regenerated it's shields as fast as the Sovereign Has. Within minutes...4 to 5 Sovereign was back at full shield strength. It's never been said on screen but this is effectively regenerative shields.

 

[Timo]

The idea that drones need to be smaller than their controlling entity is needlessly conservative thinking. Small drones are weak - bigger is better if you intend to win wars. And the smaller the control ship, the less chance there is of it getting hit.

No need for a separate carrier when big engines are already an integral and vital part of the combat drone concept. The non-combatant section only provides supervision, and some accommodation for the maintenance and repair crews that tend to the drones when the ship flies in combined form. Which is better than a loose formation of three ships for various reasons: it makes possible the elimination of cruise engines on the command section, and it allows for more efficient repairs on the drones.

The command section won't be vulnerable if the enemy never gets to fight it. The fight is with the drones; the command section can stay out of it. Although the inexperienced Romulans didn't use the MVAM quite that way...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Saquist]

The idea that drones need to be smaller than their controlling entity is needlessly conservative thinking. Small drones are weak - bigger is better if you intend to win wars. And the smaller the control ship, the less chance there is of it getting hit.

No need for a separate carrier when big engines are already an integral and vital part of the combat drone concept. The non-combatant section only provides supervision, and some accommodation for the maintenance and repair crews that tend to the drones when the ship flies in combined form. Which is better than a loose formation of three ships for various reasons: it makes possible the elimination of cruise engines on the command section, and it allows for more efficient repairs on the drones.

The command section won't be vulnerable if the enemy never gets to fight it. The fight is with the drones; the command section can stay out of it. Although the inexperienced Romulans didn't use the MVAM quite that way...

Timo Saloniemi

No matter how you look at it drones this size are excessive. If you use the same tech you merely put it in a smaller package say 100 meters length instead of segments 200 plus meters long. Same power, same fire power same shield strength, no unnecessary space, materials and you can make more of them. I think the real problem is the warp engines and core. Warp cores are still unstable. I would get rid of them and research high capacity energy storage for the drones that would create warp plasma from the batteries and those batteries would recharged by the Primary Ship.

 

[krovikan]

The ship is for Deep Space Tatical Assignments... Im guessing starfleet thought NVAM could be useful in that type of mission...

Also, the ship is suppose to have a normal sized crew (prehaps 150-200) however it can be run by as few as 4 ppl)... It was still being tested when the romulans took it over (although i have no idea why the federation would send it so far out with only 4ppl on it)

Vinkula: im pretty sure that the "star trek: fact files" magazines have what you want... i used to collect them... still have them but they are at my mums pls n i couldnt b f**** to try n find it

 

[Timo]

If you use the same tech you merely put it in a smaller package say 100 meters length instead of segments 200 plus meters long.

Won't work. The defining factor in segment size here is warp nacelle size: if you try to build smaller drones, you end up equipping them with smaller and thus weaker warp engines, which makes your drones weaker.

If you want to build a tank combat drone out of a crewed tank today, you don't give the drone a 40 mm cannon. You skimp on everything else, but you retain the 120 mm cannon so that the drone can take on regular tanks. You may get a slightly smaller profile when you eliminate the crewed spaces in the gun turret, but the overall drone vehicle won't be a miniature tank - it will merely be an uncrewed one.

There may be (usually) unnecessary space in the MVAM drone design, but it probably doesn't come with a penalty, as it's mainly just emptiness between walls you're going to need anyway.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Saquist]

Won't work. The defining factor in segment size here is warp nacelle size: if you try to build smaller drones, you end up equipping them with smaller and thus weaker warp engines, which makes your drones weaker.

We have torpedo casing that can maintain warp 9.6 with a human being inside...I don't think there should be problem sustaining a superior warp factor if you can pull that off in that small of a package.

 

[Timo]

If that were true, the engines of a Galaxy would be the size of half a torpedo. They are not.

Obviously, the Prometheus isn't designed to be a swarm of expendable drones of inferior but affordable design. It's designed to be a pair of top-of-the-line starships that can be operated without endangering even a single crew member. We don't know if that's its sole or most important design attribute, but we know for sure that it is a design attribute, because we see it up close and in action in the DS9 episode. And we know what a top-of-the-line starship looks like. It does not look small, not even when designed purely for combat (say, the Galaxy battle section or the Defiant).

If Starfleet were in the business of building small drones of inferior design, it would surely first and foremost create uncrewed versions of the fightercraft we see in DS9. We know that no such effort is made, though: the craft continue to be crewed right to a point where the future of the Alpha Quadrant depends on the pilots giving up their lives, in "Sacrifice of the Angels". Small drones are not a Starfleet doctrine (and those would probably be redundant in comparison with photon torpedoes anyway).

Yet large drones have repeatedly been a target of SF interest. The M-5 was supposed to turn a Constitution into one; a less independent arrangement was implemented with the Prometheus.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Saquist]

If that were true, the engines of a Galaxy would be the size of half a torpedo. They are not.

Don't ask me to explain it.
When Trek wants efficient engines and Tech it gets it instantly that why they have pocket transporters...whether or not it makes sense.

Obviously, the Prometheus isn't designed to be a swarm of expendable drones of inferior but affordable design. It's designed to be a pair of top-of-the-line starships that can be operated without endangering even a single crew member. We don't know if that's its sole or most important design attribute, but we know for sure that it is a design attribute, because we see it up close and in action in the DS9 episode. And we know what a top-of-the-line starship looks like. It does not look small, not even when designed purely for combat (say, the Galaxy battle section or the Defiant).

If Starfleet were in the business of building small drones of inferior design, it would surely first and foremost create uncrewed versions of the fightercraft we see in DS9. We know that no such effort is made, though: the craft continue to be crewed right to a point where the future of the Alpha Quadrant depends on the pilots giving up their lives, in "Sacrifice of the Angels". Small drones are not a Starfleet doctrine (and those would probably be redundant in comparison with photon torpedoes anyway).

Yet large drones have repeatedly been a target of SF interest. The M-5 was supposed to turn a Constitution into one; a less independent arrangement was implemented with the Prometheus.

Timo Saloniemi

It's a pretty senseless design.
I've researched it up an down and with all due respect to Rich Sternbach and the limited time for the project it's one of his worse Federation productions. No life pods on the ventral stardrive an insufficient integration clamps to the Saucer section...shearing along should take this ship out. No aft launchers on any section. No aft phasers at all. The Ventral stardrive has no short range sensors to speak of. The Dorsal section has only one forward sensor array on the front. You say that the engines "have" to be that size but the saucer engines of Prometheus are 1/5 the size of the Stardrive's main engines. The ship seems to have a bunch of excess room but no auxialary shuttle bays on the other two sections.

And the MSD is a colossal MESS. Landing struts? For what? And out of what surface are the coming from? Shuttles sitting bellow the separation plane? A shared Warp Core between the Ventral and Dorsal stardrive...(how does that work?) If not where the heck is the dorsal warp core? And why is there a turbo lift running through the front of the Dorsal bow and no hard point for it?

Prometheus is merely a "look-what-I-can-do" project.

 

[Timo]

No need for lifepods if there's no crew. No need for aft weaponry if the purpose is to attack in a swarm, with one section covering for the other. No need for big engines in the saucer because it doesn't participate in combat (the crew sits there). No need for multiple shuttlebays when there aren't multiple shuttles, because there aren't multiple shuttle users. It's a lean and mean design, omitting most of those things that are unnecessary for the drone-fighting mission, and only making small concessions to more general duties.

Agreed, though, that the MSD is a real mess.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Saquist]

Well, where they are habital areas there should be escape pods.
A whole section with out them is an inexcusable safety problem.
It's like not putting seat belts in the rest of the passenger seats because you rarely drive with anyone else.

And it's not so much that the other sections need shuttlebays.
It's that they don't do anything else with all that space. Prometheus has a lot volume for what it does.

(I'd love to redo this ship as it should be one day)

 

[Timo]

No life pods on the ventral stardrive

What do we count as lifepods?

Alpha section seems to have 14 fairly obvious yellowish structures, the largest number among the sections:

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans/stmagazine/prometheus-alpha.jpg

Beta, or dorsal drone, is the one where we don't see these structures. There are ten smaller yellow trapezoids beneath the phaser strips, though. These could be docking clamps, but there are no counterparts in the Alpha underside, so they're more likely to be pods:

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans/stmagazine/prometheus-beta.jpg

Gamma, or ventral drone, again has Alpha-style pods, eight on the fat part of the hull:

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans/stmagazine/prometheus-gamma.jpg

Sounds rather fair, considering that Beta also has the fewest portholes and carries the shuttlebay.

Timo Saloniemi