Carl, look at Switzerland. They are an excellent example of a neutral entity who buys arms from others. Just because planet X buys an old D6 hull from the Klingons doesn't mean they are allied with them, anymore than the LDR is allied with the Lyrans because they use Lyran hulls. As far as building their own goes, no way. These are all planets in the neutral zone, right smack in the middle of where the heaviest fighting took place. No shipyards to be found, I'm certain, and probably not the resources and know-how to build a ship. It's much easier just to buy one.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, June 04, 2005 - 02:47 pm: Edit

You also find them being used as political bribes. If you sign a contract to sell us Iridium at a fixed price for ten years, we'll sell you two cruisers at bargain basement prices, including training, maintenance, and spare parts.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Thereplicant) on Saturday, June 04, 2005 - 03:14 pm: Edit

Mike, yes, but there will be political implications to consider.
But it's not like we disagree really

(BTW you know my country was 'neutral' during the cold war?)

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, June 04, 2005 - 03:45 pm: Edit

Yes, I know! I even recall the "S" tank; built with no turret so as to seem more defensive than offensive in nature. In any case, it would help to know; what is the nature of the Organian involvment in the Era of Tranquility?

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Thereplicant) on Saturday, June 04, 2005 - 04:05 pm: Edit

Mike, luckily we have lots on our plate all ready with all that is happening post OpU
I think we can concentrate on that a bit before getting to EOT.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, June 04, 2005 - 04:33 pm: Edit

Does anyone remember the old Bargantine campaign?

Independent systems will make arrangements for their own defense.

It's already happened.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Thereplicant) on Saturday, June 04, 2005 - 04:56 pm: Edit

It was in a playtest mod, right?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, June 04, 2005 - 06:34 pm: Edit

Carl, it happens directly after Op U; Y204.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Sunday, June 05, 2005 - 01:29 am: Edit

Have you all noticed the past few days' discussion hasn't even mentioned X2-tech ships? As SVC just alluded above, there's so much potential during the X2 period that X2-tech is only one component.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, June 05, 2005 - 07:17 am: Edit

In the same way that some of the effects of WWI still linger on today, so too the years immediately post the end of the general war will be strongly influnced by the GW.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Thereplicant) on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 01:40 pm: Edit

Mike, k. I also saw info on that in the Gurps Klingons.

When does the O declare EOT???

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 01:41 pm: Edit

Y204.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Thereplicant) on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 03:01 pm: Edit

Tnx

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 11:03 pm: Edit

I was thinking about the war porduction hulls and how they are built with a shorted expected life span in order to generate some of the efficiencies that drive their increased capasity.


Maybe there should be a rule that all DWs and CWs that have been bought by neutral worlds, just don't have access in the trade wars period to the kind of heavy industry ship yards and the like that only a major empire can provide, to keep those ships opperating at peek performance.
Thus one should subtract Y205 from the YIS of the scenario and then multiplie that number by the move cost of the vessel ( rounding up ) to determine the number of systems that have worn out and run down such that they need to be recalibrated ( under G30.0 ) which costs 1 CDR point to recalibrate and doesn't count towards the limits.
The system losses are applied as a single volley on the DAC but the phaser directional rule does not apply (although the phaser priority rule does).


This could be a good way to show that the galactic powers sold off ships they knew would be less able to fight off the GP fleets when the ecconomies ripened for expansion.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 02:17 am: Edit

It got quiet around here.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 11:49 am: Edit

QUIET

QUIET

quiet

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 09:46 pm: Edit

It's a quiet riot!

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 12:47 pm: Edit

[crickets]

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - 02:27 am: Edit

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - 07:48 am: Edit

24 Point PHOTONS!!!!

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Thursday, June 23, 2005 - 07:56 pm: Edit

I've been away for a few months, and will be going away again soon. So here's everything I have to say about X2.

History

Galactic situation in Y130
There are no openly declared wars.
Empires are trying to expand into neutral territories.
Most of the races don't want a hot war, but don't trust their neighbors.
Ships are designed for durability, with service lives measured in decades.
Combat was usually single ship duels and the occasional squadron, but the destruction of a CA was a huge loss to an empire.

Differences between Y205 and Y130
Not many, except the memory of the last 40 years.
Half the time was spent fighting each other.
And half the time was spent fighting as allies or co-belligerants against the Andros and ISC.
But the empires are all nearly broke.
So ship building has to switch back from the wartime "it won't survive more than a couple years anyway" philosophy to the peacetime "it has to last for a couple of decades" philosophy.

Also, the neutral zone races were receiving war-surplus ships as part of trade deals.

Y205 ship design philosophy
Durability,
Strategic speed,
We don't know how many Andros are still out there.
Enough firepower to deal with the war-surplus ships.

To be continued...

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Thursday, June 23, 2005 - 08:00 pm: Edit

My thoughts on X2 (page 2)

General systems
The Special Bridge (Designed by Loren)
Once the RTN was discovered, there was suddenly a need for a scout channel on as many capital ships as possible. During the war, the Kzintis built the SSCS, specifically as an Andro hunter-killer.

Since full blown special sensors were expensive, but tactically useless on a ship during heavy combat, the Galactics looked for a cheaper method of searching for RTN nodes.

The result of the research was improvements to the ship's sensors, which gave each X2 ship limited scout functions.

The phaser-5 (designed by too many people to mention)
The phaser has always been the most flexible weapon in the game, serving both offensive and defensive roles. The phaser-1 has been in service for over 100 years, and it was only a matter of time before it was improved upon, rather than just slapping more of them on a hull.

The ph-5 had been available earlier, but since 1 ph-5 took up the same amount of space as 3 ph-1s, nobody used it. In Y204, a breakthrough was achieved that allowed ph-5s to take up the same hull space as 1 ph-1 for 50% more cost. (This is how everyone wound up with the same ph-5 for X2)

Some races (such as the Feds) used all ph-5 for their new construction, while others (such as the Klingons) went with a mix of ph-5s and ph-1s.

The ph-5 should appear in numbers similar to the count of ph-1s on Y130 hulls.

Structural Integrity Field

All of the races were looking for ways of improving the durability of their ships (particularly the capital ships).

My vote for the key decision is the ASIF-shielded DAC.

Shields
A picture is worth a thousand words, so here's mine to describe my shield proposal:
My Fed XCA proposal which was submitted to Vorlon in Sept. 2003

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Thursday, June 23, 2005 - 08:17 pm: Edit

My thoughts on X2 (page 3)

Race-specific Systems

Drones

Key points
• More drones
• Better drones

My idea: do both, but not on the same race.

Klingon drones
The Klingons have had the philosophy of using drones as a secondary weapon, and it was not worth sacrificing disruptors to add drone racks. Therefore any research on drones would be dedicated toward better individual drones.
• Type XI and XII drones

Kzinti drones
The Kzintis have always had the philosophy of using drones as their primary weapon. But since the Gx rack became universal in X1, the Kzintis worked on how to get more drones in flight.
• Cxx rack (fires 3 X1 drones per turn)
• Triple drone control

Fed drones
The Feds decided that drones were a wartime-only gadget for them. Sure they improved the firepower of the ship, but were a logistical nightmare. Even ADDs needed resupply.
The Feds abandoned drones completely for their smaller ships, and only put a couple of X1 Gx-racks on their capital ships, relying on the ph-5 as their primary drone defense.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, June 23, 2005 - 10:29 pm: Edit

Good point about Fed drones. Besides, if war breaks out the NWO's could be replaced with hard fixed drone racks as the NWO's would no longer be needed on full time warships. The Admiralty found this a worthy compromise.

Yes, that is how it shall be in my own designs too.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, June 23, 2005 - 11:49 pm: Edit

I would disagree about Fed drones.

GX racks at da bomb when it comes to launching probe drones and lets face it, if the Feds could get a probes worth of scientific information out of a probe-drone at R35 and didn't even have to pay an arming cost for it, they would be much happier than pumpinmg power into it and then moving to R6.
I'ld argue that the Fed had drones on their smaller vessels in relatively greater numbers ( E.g. all Fed ships have 2 GX racks irrespective of size...or maybe one with a refit for one more ) due to the fact that 1) it's harder for a small vessel to find 6 points of power for 6 ECCM to study yonder space monster and 2) loading up the Probe as an antimatter bomb will cut deeply into warp power ( as will Photons ) and thus opperating at longer range ( R35 instead of R6 ) will mean they need to put less power into nmovement because they are less likely to be surprised by something.