TNG- 11001001

[TGLS]

My first question is, why does the Enterprise need an upgrade after only being in service such a short time.

Moore's law in action I guess.

[drewder]

My first question is, why does the Enterprise need an upgrade after only being in service such a short time. Does Starfleet contract out the OS to Microsoft? Also, given its duties, it's one hell of a risk that the Enterprise would be available within the window the Bynars needed. Its upgrade could have been delayed/cancelled for any number of diplomatic, military, scientific, or natural emergencies.

It's not that odd, modern navy ships will come in about every 18 months or so for maintenance and upgrades. You generally won't do software updates at sea because you don't want to risk the ship failing so almost all such work is done in port.

[McAvoy]

My first question is, why does the Enterprise need an upgrade after only being in service such a short time. Does Starfleet contract out the OS to Microsoft? Also, given its duties, it's one hell of a risk that the Enterprise would be available within the window the Bynars needed. Its upgrade could have been delayed/cancelled for any number of diplomatic, military, scientific, or natural emergencies.

It's not that odd, modern navy ships will come in about every 18 months or so for maintenance and upgrades. You generally won't do software updates at sea because you don't want to risk the ship failing so almost all such work is done in port.

Well, naval ships really come during that time frame mainly because they did work ups (training) which lasts up to a year, in and out of port. Then they go on deployment. During that time, things break or get worn down.

For example, on all three of my deployments, the carriers came in with some major components either barely working or not at all. I think it was the Eisenhower that completely lost the starboard bow catapult (Cat 4). The Roosevelt, barely had her aft starboard (El 3) working. Not to mention every single carrier would need a new paint job, new non skid on that giant flight deck.

Not to mention upgrades. My first carrier the George Washington still used the older style racks (bunks) where as even the two older carriers I was on had the newer styles.

This seemed to be a relatively minor thing for the Enterprise. Some down time, shore leave whatever. It's not like they were pulling the computer core out of the ship.

Best I could describe this as, is a aircraft carrier pulls into Dubai for example for four days. This is always done for Carrier groups anyway when they do donuts in the Gulf. Sailors go out see Dubai and get shit drunk in the Sandbox.

Anyway, during that time frame, the Navy sent out specialists with new computers for the nuclear reactors on board. Already extensively tested, and it's a matter of setup. Doesn't take too long.

[drewder]

My first question is, why does the Enterprise need an upgrade after only being in service such a short time. Does Starfleet contract out the OS to Microsoft? Also, given its duties, it's one hell of a risk that the Enterprise would be available within the window the Bynars needed. Its upgrade could have been delayed/cancelled for any number of diplomatic, military, scientific, or natural emergencies.

It's not that odd, modern navy ships will come in about every 18 months or so for maintenance and upgrades. You generally won't do software updates at sea because you don't want to risk the ship failing so almost all such work is done in port.

Well, naval ships really come during that time frame mainly because they did work ups (training) which lasts up to a year, in and out of port. Then they go on deployment. During that time, things break or get worn down.

For example, on all three of my deployments, the carriers came in with some major components either barely working or not at all. I think it was the Eisenhower that completely lost the starboard bow catapult (Cat 4). The Roosevelt, barely had her aft starboard (El 3) working. Not to mention every single carrier would need a new paint job, new non skid on that giant flight deck.

Not to mention upgrades. My first carrier the George Washington still used the older style racks (bunks) where as even the two older carriers I was on had the newer styles.

This seemed to be a relatively minor thing for the Enterprise. Some down time, shore leave whatever. It's not like they were pulling the computer core out of the ship.

Best I could describe this as, is a aircraft carrier pulls into Dubai for example for four days. This is always done for Carrier groups anyway when they do donuts in the Gulf. Sailors go out see Dubai and get shit drunk in the Sandbox.

Anyway, during that time frame, the Navy sent out specialists with new computers for the nuclear reactors on board. Already extensively tested, and it's a matter of setup. Doesn't take too long.

Oddly enough I work on the other side of it, developing software and systems for navy ships. From our perspective it can be years between a system being developed to when it is physically on board. No doubt there were many systems that were 90% ready when the enterprise left port and now they're finally being deployed.

[chaos42]

plus there are other advances -think how often you get a update patch on your computer. Im sure that there are new updates for every minor system and you don't want to do that in the middle of deep space.

Plus you could even make the point that the holodeck tech is new at this time, before we had either simple programs, minuet is more adaptive and riker and picard think its the new upgrade. so that could be another thing they are adding more long term entertainment facilities and other things to help people deal with the mission, after all this ship is designed to stay out on the edge of explored space for long periods. So having it do a few months of actual missions then have it drop by a dock to fix any minor issues and resupply it fully, spares more crew, any long term science teams, several more chief engineers to be fired later, and more recreation facilities is a good idea.

[Frustration]

There may have been other things which needed fixing - fresh supplies of materials that it's cheaper to keep in storage than replicate, replacement of components you don't want to have to replace when the ship is operating. Maybe even memory allocation tasks. The ship can probably function for years without regular maintenance, but would anyone want to try it if they didn't have to?

[Deledrius]

Oddly enough I work on the other side of it, developing software and systems for navy ships. From our perspective it can be years between a system being developed to when it is physically on board. No doubt there were many systems that were 90% ready when the enterprise left port and now they're finally being deployed.

That was my thought as well. It makes sense to get a final system patch here as a new ship for things which were almost ready but not sufficiently crucial to hold back the launch.

[Madner Kami]

*looks at multi-gigabyte day 1 patches for newly released software, looks back at this conversation, shrugs*

[McAvoy]

My first question is, why does the Enterprise need an upgrade after only being in service such a short time. Does Starfleet contract out the OS to Microsoft? Also, given its duties, it's one hell of a risk that the Enterprise would be available within the window the Bynars needed. Its upgrade could have been delayed/cancelled for any number of diplomatic, military, scientific, or natural emergencies.

It's not that odd, modern navy ships will come in about every 18 months or so for maintenance and upgrades. You generally won't do software updates at sea because you don't want to risk the ship failing so almost all such work is done in port.

Well, naval ships really come during that time frame mainly because they did work ups (training) which lasts up to a year, in and out of port. Then they go on deployment. During that time, things break or get worn down.

For example, on all three of my deployments, the carriers came in with some major components either barely working or not at all. I think it was the Eisenhower that completely lost the starboard bow catapult (Cat 4). The Roosevelt, barely had her aft starboard (El 3) working. Not to mention every single carrier would need a new paint job, new non skid on that giant flight deck.

Not to mention upgrades. My first carrier the George Washington still used the older style racks (bunks) where as even the two older carriers I was on had the newer styles.

This seemed to be a relatively minor thing for the Enterprise. Some down time, shore leave whatever. It's not like they were pulling the computer core out of the ship.

Best I could describe this as, is a aircraft carrier pulls into Dubai for example for four days. This is always done for Carrier groups anyway when they do donuts in the Gulf. Sailors go out see Dubai and get shit drunk in the Sandbox.

Anyway, during that time frame, the Navy sent out specialists with new computers for the nuclear reactors on board. Already extensively tested, and it's a matter of setup. Doesn't take too long.

Oddly enough I work on the other side of it, developing software and systems for navy ships. From our perspective it can be years between a system being developed to when it is physically on board. No doubt there were many systems that were 90% ready when the enterprise left port and now they're finally being deployed.

It was just an example. The ships I was on never had to make an emergency port call to fix something. Usually for the most part you can get those parts on board either by plane or with undersea replenishment.

[Archanubis]

They may not. Remember the episode when the Enterprise computer gets flaky and it takes Data nearly being killed for Geordi to come up with the groundbreaking idea of "restore from backup and reboot"?

To be fair, that's because the Enterprise caught a computer worm. Because apparently, no one in the entire Federation has heard of a firewall and anti-virus.