Prometheus class

posted on October 25th, 2013, 2:35 am

I'm not sure if there is already a topic for this but I'm going to post it again. It would be nice if the federation got a capital ship that could be mass produced and not have a limit. The Prometheus would be a great addition, make it have multi-vector phasers and torpedos or something.

posted on October 25th, 2013, 6:39 am

There have been plenty discussions about the Prometheus, and they mostly ended up like "that ship doesn't make any fucking sense"
(also there a quite a few Battleships to chose from, without a cap, that make overall way more sense)

posted on October 25th, 2013, 6:41 am

Defiants.......nuff said.

posted on October 25th, 2013, 8:28 am

Defiants.......nuff said.

you've gotta stop saying that in every thread. just because you like them so much doesn't mean you should poison others with bad strategy. defiant spam (it's hard to even type that) is ridiculous. the defiant is a very specialised ship. it's a scalpel in fleetops, not a cudgel. there are specific times to build lots of them, just like many ships in fleetops.

the sovvie is the more generalised late game ship for the feds. although like always in fleetops, spamming the same ship every game is terrible strategy.

eg enemy spams torp assimilators (don't ask me why he's doing this late game), fed shouldn't spam sovvie, they aren't great against long range (ablative passive), and the e2 is a cheaper (also doesn't require teching like the sovvie) torp spam, and for once the e2 isn't slower than the enemy.

posted on October 25th, 2013, 8:45 am

Defiants.......nuff said.

you've gotta stop saying that in every thread. just because you like them so much doesn't mean you should poison others with bad strategy. defiant spam (it's hard to even type that) is ridiculous. the defiant is a very specialised ship. it's a scalpel in fleetops, not a cudgel. there are specific times to build lots of them, just like many ships in fleetops.

the sovvie is the more generalised late game ship for the feds. although like always in fleetops, spamming the same ship every game is terrible strategy.

eg enemy spams torp assimilators (don't ask me why he's doing this late game), fed shouldn't spam sovvie, they aren't great against long range (ablative passive), and the e2 is a cheaper (also doesn't require teching like the sovvie) torp spam, and for once the e2 isn't slower than the enemy.

I was responding to beserene's statement about other battleships that were available. This isn't a thread about strategy its about the Prometheus. Frankly against the AI nothing beats Defiant spam. I have tried all the other ships and while I tend to lose more Defiants than other ships once some of them get the quantum torpedo upgrade I can destroy bases and stations in mere seconds and those annoying S 7 Defenders that the AI loves to spam melt like butter when attacked with Defiants versus other Fed ships.

It's also the only ship that I bother to micro with because I leave one fleet with the special weapons on manual and I can cycle through that fleet and completely neutralize the weapons of any ship or base I encounter. It is bar none the best special in the entire game as far as I am concerned. I have literally taken out small fleets of enemy ships with barely any hits on my ships because I just cycle through and keep their weapons disabled. Yes its weaker against some enemies but that doesn't mean squat if they can't fire their weapons.

And more importantly Sisko was way better than Picard.

posted on October 25th, 2013, 8:54 am

This isn't a thread about strategy its about the Prometheus.

then let's get it back on topic

posted on October 25th, 2013, 9:29 am

This isn't a thread about strategy its about the Prometheus.

then let's get it back on topic

Then no, the Prometheus is the most awful Fed ship idea ever and, not surprisingly, came from Voyager which was the worst series. It's ugly and the multi vector thing was pretty lame. I know I am a broken record on the Teutoburg since its my favorite model, but I really like that that is supposed to be a heavy hitter in the next update although I can't remember if they are keeping it as a warpin or buildable.

And...................................................its not the Defiant.

posted on October 25th, 2013, 7:41 pm

And more importantly Sisko was way better than Picard.

Your argument was almost convincing, but then I saw that.


Back to the Prometheus. I looked up some information on Prometheus class on Memory Alpha, and it looks like they were relatively rare. I agree that the Feds need a mass producible capital ship/heavy cruiser, but I'm not sure that the Prometheus is a mass-producable vessel.


It would almost make more sense for an entirely new heavy cruiser/capital type ship to be created for this purpose. The Federation needs something between the Sovereign and Excelsior. Perhaps it could be based off of the Parallel Universe Enterprise D from Yesterday's Enterprise.

posted on October 25th, 2013, 9:10 pm

I thought that sort of, mass produced cruiser, would be the Akira?

posted on October 26th, 2013, 3:34 am

Cruisers would be: Intrepid / Akira / E2 (no cap), most WarpIns.
... maybe Nova as Heavy Destroyer / Light Cruiser, Remore as Cruiser, etc ...
Battle- / Capital ships: Sovereign / Defiant (no cap), Avalon / Phalanx (cap limit of 6 each )
And a shit ton of other vessels - plenty to chose from?

...
It would almost make more sense for an entirely new heavy cruiser/capital type ship ...

A capital ship isn't really a cruiser anymore, though, well, the Defiant, nvm.


At least it seems everyone agrees the Prometheus is definitely not wanted

posted on October 26th, 2013, 3:49 am

Mini rant but, I do wish people would refrain from calling the Defiant a Battleship. Yes, it's a ship designed for battle, but that does not make it a Battleship by any other definition. It's a warship certainly. It's a Destroyer or a Frigate, depending on your view (some definitions have Frigates between Destroyers and Cruisers, others have the term as an alternative for Corvette)

The Sovereign is probably the ship most like a Battleship. A Battleship is a Capital ship for one, so a Defiant certainly doesn't fit the term.

Sorry, rant over and agreed, the Prometheus isn't required. It's more of a "technology demonstrator" anyway, rather than a series production design.

posted on October 26th, 2013, 7:26 am

the classification of ships into destroyers/cruisers/battleships is meaningless in space.

the term battleship came from "line of battle" which is completely irrelevant in space combat. naval battleships would be large and not manoeuvrable, and would have weapons for killing other capital ships. in space even a big ship is rather manoeuvrable, and they have omnidirectional beam weapons which mean they can take out fighters. also the "biggest" weapon is the photon/quantum torpedo, and those are carried by big and small ships alike.

i can recall only two cases where small ships outmanoeuvred big ones (mirror defiant vs scaled up neghvar, and that shuttle in voyager that stole the doctor), and i though they were both stupid.

all we can do is misapply the terms as a scale of either "size" or "fighting power". with destroyer being smallest/weakest then cruiser in the middle, then battleship up top.

compared on size to a dominion v15, the sovvie isn't even allowed in the line of battle. only 1 can be a battleship as it's pointless labelling ships if the label only applies to one race. also the defiant completely breaks this as it is small but has loads of fighting power.

the terms lose most of their meaning in space and shouldn't be set in stone. the defiant has lots of fighting ability, on the top end of the scale.

posted on October 26th, 2013, 7:49 am

Small, but overpowered in sense of weaponry, I think that would most likely cover a Gunboat or a Monitor.

We've had this discussion many times, and whilst you say using such terms is inappropriate, it's also inappropriate to use term battleship for a small, manoeuvrable ship like the Defiant. You cannot simply redefine terms because you claim all use of such terms is wrong.

"Oh well, we call it a tank even though it's got wheels, and anyway we don't think we should use any of those terms" . It's just confusing.

Perhaps a better system to use then would be a ratings system, like Napoleonic times. That way different strengths of battleship could be defined.

posted on October 26th, 2013, 8:36 am

Small, but overpowered in sense of weaponry, I think that would most likely cover a Gunboat or a Monitor.

We've had this discussion many times, and whilst you say using such terms is inappropriate, it's also inappropriate to use term battleship for a small, manoeuvrable ship like the Defiant. You cannot simply redefine terms because you claim all use of such terms is wrong .

you didn't read what i said.

i'll repeat it. the classifications can't be applied properly. therefore we have to approximate in one of 2 ways:

1: destroyer/cruiser/battleship = small/medium/big.

or

2: destroyer/cruiser/battleship = weak/medium/strong

neither is perfect, but they are the only ways we can use these words imperfectly to refer to spacecraft. under scheme 2 the defiant could be called a battleship.

the terms have to be freshly defined, as they don't just move from the naval context to space context. it isn't "redefining", it's just defining.

the terms gunboat and monitor fit even less in space combat, as they were often defined by coastal/river bombardment actions. there is no analogue of coasts/rivers in space combat.

i don't think a class system like that is needed. fleetops is doing away with the current (obfuscated) classification of destroyer/cruiser/battleship. hopefully over time these terms can be consigned to the dustbin where they belong.

posted on October 26th, 2013, 9:10 am

Is Defiant really that small though? I think I read somewhere that it was 150 meters or so in lenght and the Sovie is around 700 I believe. That seems like alot but the Defiant takes away all the supurfluous stuff that the Sovie has like decent sick bays, additional hangar bays, multiple holodecks, ten forward (whatever its called on the Sovie), hair salon, battle bridge and of course the part that takes up the most area of all the living quarters for the substantially larger crew.

Get rid of all that and you probably end up with something about the size of the Defiant which is why I tend to think that it could easily match a much larger ship in regards to firepower. Its a smaller ship so the shields could also be just as strong since they cover a much smaller area as well. Plus Defiants have ablative armor to boot. I just don't know how much size even matters in that regards. There is a ton of non-combat stuff on Sovies and other large cruisers.