Build talk:Construction Rules
Operation Next Step
- Star Trek: Discovery (2256-2258) Campaign Guide (p. 114, Modiphius)
After the Earth-Romulan War, the newly formed Federation had many issues to deal with that kept the priority away from unifying and modernizing Starfleet. Starfleet was technically a unified service, but it only saw Human-built vessels and a scattering of member worlds’ older designs. By the end of the 22nd century Starfleet was stagnating while the member worlds’ own fleets continued to see new vessels commissioned for service. Starfleet Command saw that something needed to be done, both about providing a unifying force to the Federation, and to help ease the strain on its own fleet, comprised of aging Daedalus-class vessels.
Operation Next Step began in 2190 with the primary goal of designing starships that used both the newest technological developments of the Federation and components from all the member worlds. A secondary goal was to design vessels capable of being constructed at any of the member worlds’ drydocks and fleet yards, allowing each member world to contribute to a unified and standardized fleet. Many of the vessels designed for Operation Next Step were technological dead ends or designs that were difficult to maintain. However, the lessons learned while engineers from across the Federation worked together on these projects were invaluable.
Two separate events combined to be the end for the technological and cooperative leaps forward provided by Operation Next Step. The first was the invention of duotronic computers in 2241. Prior to this, all Next Step starships had last-generation semiconductor computers installed inside their processing cores. These massive pieces of hardware were highly linked into the vessels’ power and cooling systems, and as the decades progressed they only became larger as they had to deal with increasing amounts of data processing. Equivalent computing power in a 1st generation duotronic system was only 5% of the volume of the older systems, but replacing all of the shipwide semiconductor systems on any spaceframe would require months, or in some cases, years. This made refitting older vessels less of a priority than new construction, such as the Constitution, Saladin, and Hermes-class multi-role cruisers and destroyers.
The second event would be the devastating Federation-Klingon War of 2256–57. At the beginning of the war, the vast majority of the fleet consisted of Operation Next Step vessels. While newer-construction duotronic-equipped vessels also fought, those spaceframes were more advanced and fewer in number, accounting for only 5% of Starfleet’s losses during the conflict. Few Next Step vessels would survive the war, and those that did were quickly moved to system defense and support duties.
- Walker class multirole explorer (2195)
- Shephard class light cruiser (2195)
- Magee class science vessel (2198)
- Cardenas class fast cruiser (2202)
- Hoover class destroyer (2209)
- Malachowski class destroyer escort (2210)
- Engle class fast response vessel (2224)
- Nimitz class command cruiser (2235)
- Hiawatha class medical frifate (2235)
- K class border outpost (2238)
- Strongpoint class fleet logistical station (2253): each of the six stations is no closer than 20 lightyears from one of the founding systems
- Crossfield class science cruiser (2255)