Cost cutting space ships

[Riedquat]

the point about voyager i was referring to was what chuck was pointing out that the ship is a mess from its holodeck power supply not working with anything else to the gel packs getting infected to the ship having numerous issue with things failing from everything neelix puts in his kitchen. The only piece of hardware on the ship that works is the EMH and they have to run that thing far past its normal specs

Simply that there's drama in things going wrong I suspect.

[chaos42]

yes but there are other ways of doing drama. Take the issue of supplies the writers had a good chance to make the ship really feel like it was part of the story more than just the setting, when they blow a console out or something gets damage they don't exactly have a bunch of spare consoles in another room. What if over the years new pieces of hard ware had to be integrated into voyager so it looked a lot different from the pilot. Say during a battle that ops is blown out and destroyed (killing harry or at least wounding him) they realize that because of all the stuff they go through they need to improve it so they take some alien tech and upgrade that station so it uses some sort of holo interface or something like that. or have them adding new weapons like that one time they tried buying a better gun and the doctors hypnosis on 7 messed that up, or have them rebuilding a section of the ship in to a ore processor so they can mine ores transported aboard for dilythum or other metals they can't make with replicators or just producing raw matter that the replicators use. Supply problem and other issue and them solving them similar to the way battle star galaxtica did there are great options instead everything on voyager gets reset at the end of an episode. yet its never improved, and astrometrics doesn't count thats a new set for 7 to have her own space to work because she was a focus character, same as the doctor

[Nealithi]

the point about voyager i was referring to was what chuck was pointing out that the ship is a mess from its holodeck power supply not working with anything else to the gel packs getting infected to the ship having numerous issue with things failing from everything neelix puts in his kitchen. The only piece of hardware on the ship that works is the EMH and they have to run that thing far past its normal specs

Making me defend Voyager. I am sad. The Voyager was not cheap, she was out of her element. The power supply of the holodeck being different and disconnected with the ships main grid, I believe, was an attempt to make the thing safer. How many times did some random hit to the power grid on the Enterprise lock the doors and turn off the safety protocols? Why are the gel packs so fragile and vulnerable to the kitchen? First they are a first functional attempt at using biotech in this manner. Voyager was not meant to be on the other side of the galaxy. But in or near Federation space. So failures and spares would be readily available. Add in that a full kitchen was not in the ship specs at all. And growing bacteria not a consideration because starships are essentially clean rooms. None of that was what the ship was built for. If the Voyager is cheap for doing things it was not designed to do. You must compare garbage trucks on F1 circuits and Ferrari's for their capacity to haul loads of dirt. They are simply not built for a task you plan to use it. Does not mean it is cheap or even bad at what it is for.

[chaos42]

the point about voyager i was referring to was what chuck was pointing out that the ship is a mess from its holodeck power supply not working with anything else to the gel packs getting infected to the ship having numerous issue with things failing from everything neelix puts in his kitchen. The only piece of hardware on the ship that works is the EMH and they have to run that thing far past its normal specs

Making me defend Voyager. I am sad. The Voyager was not cheap, she was out of her element. The power supply of the holodeck being different and disconnected with the ships main grid, I believe, was an attempt to make the thing safer. How many times did some random hit to the power grid on the Enterprise lock the doors and turn off the safety protocols? Why are the gel packs so fragile and vulnerable to the kitchen? First they are a first functional attempt at using biotech in this manner. Voyager was not meant to be on the other side of the galaxy. But in or near Federation space. So failures and spares would be readily available. Add in that a full kitchen was not in the ship specs at all. And growing bacteria not a consideration because starships are essentially clean rooms. None of that was what the ship was built for. If the Voyager is cheap for doing things it was not designed to do. You must compare garbage trucks on F1 circuits and Ferrari's for their capacity to haul loads of dirt. They are simply not built for a task you plan to use it. Does not mean it is cheap or even bad at what it is for.

You do have a point but lets face the fact that the holodeck issues are more tied to how badly they are programed more than a power supply, and lack of continuity with the writing staff. Also making secondary power supply ok that is a good idea, but doesn't work with anything else on the ship, as stated in the 1st episode after the pilot, when they say that they where trying to use the holodecks reactors to help with their power issue.

The gel packs are an entirely different issue as one they have limited spares. and i hate point this out that they are way too few, and getting infected with a virus, is dumb, how is even an airborne virus getting into a seal container?? The issue i have is that the idea is the gel packs work better than standard iso chips but from where i stand they are being tested on voyager and its a MAJOR failure, they cause a lot of problems. Plus tech like this should be run through an entire battery of tests and they didn't plan for viral infection as a possibility when their using organic components?

Next is the ship itself its a science ship and star trek has a bad happen of making science ships kind on the crap side as their usually whats sending out the sos of the week (along side miranda classes) right before the enterprise find the entire crew dead.

I just don't see this ship as anything other than a ship that was a cheaply made test bed for some new tech that wasn't built up to code because it wasn't going to be used for long. (or if the psyco janeway theory is right it was an attempt to get her killed) the only thing that saves the ship a lot of the time are the shields their what are keeping it going, regenerative shield matrix on the voyager is the one system that isn't a total botch job.

[Nealithi]

the point about voyager i was referring to was what chuck was pointing out that the ship is a mess from its holodeck power supply not working with anything else to the gel packs getting infected to the ship having numerous issue with things failing from everything neelix puts in his kitchen. The only piece of hardware on the ship that works is the EMH and they have to run that thing far past its normal specs

Making me defend Voyager. I am sad. The Voyager was not cheap, she was out of her element. The power supply of the holodeck being different and disconnected with the ships main grid, I believe, was an attempt to make the thing safer. How many times did some random hit to the power grid on the Enterprise lock the doors and turn off the safety protocols? Why are the gel packs so fragile and vulnerable to the kitchen? First they are a first functional attempt at using biotech in this manner. Voyager was not meant to be on the other side of the galaxy. But in or near Federation space. So failures and spares would be readily available. Add in that a full kitchen was not in the ship specs at all. And growing bacteria not a consideration because starships are essentially clean rooms. None of that was what the ship was built for. If the Voyager is cheap for doing things it was not designed to do. You must compare garbage trucks on F1 circuits and Ferrari's for their capacity to haul loads of dirt. They are simply not built for a task you plan to use it. Does not mean it is cheap or even bad at what it is for.

You do have a point but lets face the fact that the holodeck issues are more tied to how badly they are programed more than a power supply, and lack of continuity with the writing staff. Also making secondary power supply ok that is a good idea, but doesn't work with anything else on the ship, as stated in the 1st episode after the pilot, when they say that they where trying to use the holodecks reactors to help with their power issue.

The gel packs are an entirely different issue as one they have limited spares. and i hate point this out that they are way too few, and getting infected with a virus, is dumb, how is even an airborne virus getting into a seal container?? The issue i have is that the idea is the gel packs work better than standard iso chips but from where i stand they are being tested on voyager and its a MAJOR failure, they cause a lot of problems. Plus tech like this should be run through an entire battery of tests and they didn't plan for viral infection as a possibility when their using organic components?

Next is the ship itself its a science ship and star trek has a bad happen of making science ships kind on the crap side as their usually whats sending out the sos of the week (along side miranda classes) right before the enterprise find the entire crew dead.

I just don't see this ship as anything other than a ship that was a cheaply made test bed for some new tech that wasn't built up to code because it wasn't going to be used for long. (or if the psyco janeway theory is right it was an attempt to get her killed) the only thing that saves the ship a lot of the time are the shields their what are keeping it going, regenerative shield matrix on the voyager is the one system that isn't a total botch job.

The gel packs I have to go back to two previous points. New tech and clean room. Hate to quote Enterprise for it, But Malcolm wanted to know how he caught a cold in a sealed environment like a starship. So it is not impossible to be overlooked. How does it get in? It is alive, doesn't it need air? Probably a screwy idea in a ship that could be exposed to vacuum on the inside. But not impossible to to again be overlooked.
As to why science ships are always the derelict of the week. I point to a show called Eureka. They had a mortality rate twice that of the national average. "Big science, means big risks."

[Riedquat]

The gel packs I have to go back to two previous points. New tech and clean room. Hate to quote Enterprise for it, But Malcolm wanted to know how he caught a cold in a sealed environment like a starship. So it is not impossible to be overlooked. How does it get in? It is alive, doesn't it need air? Probably a screwy idea in a ship that could be exposed to vacuum on the inside. But not impossible to to again be overlooked.

It should be very unlikely to be overlooked. Sure, bad designs get through and people get lumped with them but any time we get the impression that an in-service ship is flying around with untried technology I wince unless it's explicitly being a testbed (and even then many of the issues should've been ironed out in the lab) - and such technology shouldn't be something the ship relies on. Problems on Voyager caused by extended running without proper servicing are fine; more should've been made of trying to keep the ship running without it. Most others - well, whilst serious lemons have gone in to production throughout history it's an iffy path to go down and probably needs the background to it thoroughly set out in the first place to justify it.

[Madner Kami]

The gel packs I have to go back to two previous points. New tech and clean room. Hate to quote Enterprise for it, But Malcolm wanted to know how he caught a cold in a sealed environment like a starship. So it is not impossible to be overlooked. How does it get in? It is alive, doesn't it need air? Probably a screwy idea in a ship that could be exposed to vacuum on the inside. But not impossible to to again be overlooked.

It should be very unlikely to be overlooked. Sure, bad designs get through and people get lumped with them but any time we get the impression that an in-service ship is flying around with untried technology I wince unless it's explicitly being a testbed (and even then many of the issues should've been ironed out in the lab) - and such technology shouldn't be something the ship relies on. Problems on Voyager caused by extended running without proper servicing are fine; more should've been made of trying to keep the ship running without it. Most others - well, whilst serious lemons have gone in to production throughout history it's an iffy path to go down and probably needs the background to it thoroughly set out in the first place to justify it.

Voyager is the second of her class, so it can be assumed that there is prior knowledge of the performance of the design and her components. Also, her initial mission is a simple recon mission into the Badlands, not a fancy five years deep space mission or frontline service in the Dominion War. Using her as a testbed isn't out of the question, given she's still on friendly territory and operating near a major hub area (Deep Space Nine).

[Riedquat]

Voyager is the second of her class, so it can be assumed that there is prior knowledge of the performance of the design and her components. Also, her initial mission is a simple recon mission into the Badlands, not a fancy five years deep space mission or frontline service in the Dominion War. Using her as a testbed isn't out of the question, given she's still on friendly territory and operating near a major hub area (Deep Space Nine).

Any technology it's a testbed for shouldn't be something the ship absolutely relies on, certainly not if the ship is engaged in active service even for relatively simple missions. IIRC Voyager wasn't ever supposed to be a purely experimental vessel.

[Nealithi]

Voyager is the second of her class, so it can be assumed that there is prior knowledge of the performance of the design and her components. Also, her initial mission is a simple recon mission into the Badlands, not a fancy five years deep space mission or frontline service in the Dominion War. Using her as a testbed isn't out of the question, given she's still on friendly territory and operating near a major hub area (Deep Space Nine).

Any technology it's a testbed for shouldn't be something the ship absolutely relies on, certainly not if the ship is engaged in active service even for relatively simple missions. IIRC Voyager wasn't ever supposed to be a purely experimental vessel.

It should also be pointed out that after a certain point you have to put things in the field for testing. Because labs are totally controlled environments. And maybe the gel pack have basic immunization versus problems from the alpha quadrant. How well does a piece of the ship handle something from the delta quadrant? Someone gets sick, the doctor whips up a hypospray to give to the crew. Who told him to treat the ship at the same time? It took them a while before they even thought to bring the 'technology' to the doctor. Probably the original chief engineer knew something. But how would Torres know? It does still fit. She got her job for being the most qualified. . . of who they had on board.

[Mercury01]

In one of the Trek sourcebooks (I forget which one), there's a paragraph explaining that during the Dominion War, many Starfleet vessels were rushed into production and sent out.

Some of the ships were mostly empty hull, with only engines, weapons, and enough life support for a skeleton crew. I think they didn't even have official names, just numerical designations.