err.... not it isn't. Not last I knew at least. It's an enlarged PC hull that represents the largest single ship they can produce without welding hulls together. And it's overtaxing for them to do it apparently.

Can you point me to where your basing your statement off of?

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Sunday, October 03, 2004 - 03:39 am: Edit

Deleted.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, October 03, 2004 - 12:58 pm: Edit

John: I think you meant the CW. The DD is pretty much a maxed out PC hull. Disruptors are probably in little domes welded onto the hull etc. The PC is 1/3 while the DD is 1/2.

DKT: Change DD to CW in Johns post and you will better get his point.

Also, this is X2 we are talking here. There are advances in warp and hull technology so there need not be a hard fast rule where there once was.

Consider the C7 and the D6. There is a very wide discrepancy in internals there but both are MC1 ships. A 2xCW CA-Style hull can easily be MC1. That is probably the very top end but it is reasonable, IMO. (For an X2 ship.)

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, October 03, 2004 - 04:44 pm: Edit

Loren,

I thought sure the DD was a combo hull. I thought that cam out in our Tholian DW conversation.

But I can't find anything that says it, so I defer to your research.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, October 03, 2004 - 05:19 pm: Edit

Check the SSD. It's was also an issue of sorts in some discussions with Petrick.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, October 03, 2004 - 06:22 pm: Edit

I don't need to check the SSD.

I know it's a PC plus very little more than 2x Disr (or Photon) and 4x warp.

makes me wonder about the rationale for going to MC = 1/2 for the thing. Seems like the warp drive itself must carry a certain amount of density and more warp tends to drive a ship to the next MC.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, October 03, 2004 - 06:29 pm: Edit

I would certainly be also about warp dynamics. Sure the bigger engines are heavier and a few disruptors are added weight but perhaps there is a dynamics issue too.

That makes game level inconsistancies livable anyway.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Monday, December 13, 2004 - 07:22 pm: Edit

Has anyone proposed another new squadron showing up for the Tholians in order to justify X2 Tholians? It's almost as cheesey as the "Bobby Ewing Dream Sequence" as it's pretty convenient. Even so, what would be wrong with the idea?

One idea: some squadron or group or what-have-you settled in another part of the Galaxy. Then the Xorks showed up where they were, so they fled and found the "Alpha" Tholians. Would the Tholians pass on the warning the new ones bring or would they keep it for themselves?

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, December 13, 2004 - 07:48 pm: Edit

Brodie,

I'm not sure what the purpose of the second squadron is. What technology would it have that the 312th didn't already have? The Tholians didn't deploy X-ships in the Home Galaxy according to the published background material and the 312th ships seem to be as modern as anything this new squadron might have. The background material makes pretty plain that it was the combination of Archeo- and Neo- capabilities that allowed the Tholians to deploy X-ships. But once that combination is achieved I don't see any reason why Tholian R&D couldn't continue to the X2 level. They would presumably still have difficulties building large ships, and their largest X2 ship might be smaller than other races' largest X2 ships. But how would this second squadron change that?

By David Lang (Dlang) on Monday, December 13, 2004 - 08:06 pm: Edit

a second squadron could assist (more R&D experts, more larger hulls, possibly including the BB, etc) but unless it included a disassembled shipyard to give them the ability to build Neo-style hulls it's not going to be anything revolutionary, just an assit

although ifone or more additional convoys/squadrons show up the andros may change their stance.

they could need additional space

they could decide to start building and deploying squadrons of ships to go and assist these lost convoys (and may demand free passage through everyone's space to do so, which could result in 'interesting' situations )

they could try and hunt for additional selt fleets rather then waiting to be found

they could start a 'hundred year plan' to recapture the old galaxy (you see, after facing the selts they have realized that they aren't going to be allowed to live in peace......)

and then the Xortks show up ...

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Monday, December 13, 2004 - 11:01 pm: Edit

There are bastions of Tholians hidden away from the Seltorians across several galaxies. Additional Tholians could come from any of them. I'm not sure there ARE any Tholians LEFT back in the home galaxy.

I'm all for the advancement of Tholian tech. I'm not sure we need an outside infusion to achieve the higher X-tech. Tholians now can have legendary enegineers after the arrival of the 312th so I don't find the idea of advancing tech that hard to credit. The Tholians would probably come up against the same hull limitations but bottom line considering the purposes of the Tholian fleet was first and foremost defense the hulls they had served quite well with a few Neo-Tholian innovations thrown in.

After the pressure of Operation Nutcracker, the ISC Invasion, the Setlorians, the Andromedan Invasion and the Trade Wars. After all that I don't see the Tholians resting on their laurels for CENTURIES. They'd be crazy too and when it comes to matters of defense the Tholians are rarely crazy.

Further the Tholians KNOW the next wave of Seltorians is coming, they KNOW the Klingons will harrass them. They don't know WHAT the ISC will do next. And who knows whether the Andromedans had another wave coming?

So I do not see the Tholians slacking off in the X era.

regards
Stacy

By Gary Bear (Gunner) on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 01:05 pm: Edit

I've never interpreted the Tholian prohibition on the Legendary Engineer as the Tholians can't have somebody that is of Legendary Engineer quality. It's just that they would never let him/her/it on a ship going into combat. Therefore, you can't buy one for a SFB battle.

Said genius of engineering would be working on things like production problems, reverse-engineering original Tholian tech, improvements towards the web efficiency rating, etc. These problems are much more important than having the LE optimize some cruiser's engine room.

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 01:49 pm: Edit

Gary
That's precisely my point Gary. The only reason the 312th made it to our galaxy was because the 312th had legendary engineers. After their arrival they were immediately put to work overhauling the 312th and upgrading the exisiting Tholian fleet.
regards
Stacy

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 03:40 pm: Edit

Another Tholian squadron would contribute convertable Neo-hulls first and foremost, but other than that, I tend to stifle a yawn at the prospect of another Tholian squadron.

Been there, done that.

Contact with another Tholian enclave, say Xork slaves or HQed in an out of the way corner of the LMC could be interesting.

What Id really like to see for X2 is the Tholians finally being able to construct Neo ships themselves. They're forever refugees if their dependent on their forges and otherwise helpless to create viable hulls.

They become residents when they can fend for themselves.

By Gary Bear (Gunner) on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 03:50 pm: Edit

But how does that change anything, Stacy?

Those LEs from the 312th would be put to work on the R&D and construction side, and still not allowed to deploy on combat vessels.

Even with the 312th bringing the know-how for WebCasters, etc, there is still the forging problem for making larger uni-hulled ships. Plus the topic of this thread....upgrading Tholian tech PAST what was available in the Home Galaxy to X1, X2, and beyond.

So why did the arrival of the 312th suddenly make LEs something that they can risk in combat?

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 04:15 pm: Edit

A comment on Tholian Legendary Engineers - there is a rule (I don't remember its number so let's call it G23.xyz) that says that Tholian ships can't have Legendary Engineers and that Legendary Captains on Tholian ships can't perform the Legendary Engineer function. But G23.xyz itself includes two exceptions. Neo-Tholians can have Legendary Engineers and Tholian X-ships can have Legendary Engineers.

John Trauger - I don't entirely agree with you about "viable hulls", though I do partially agree. The Tholian CCX and CPX at 220 and 225 BPV are a bit weaker than their counterparts from other races. But they are very efficient designs. I regard them as being at least the equal of the 240 BPV Fed CX and 250 BPV Klingon DX in terms of combat-power-per-BPV. I don't know whether that dynamic would carry over to X2-tech or not.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 05:31 pm: Edit

So the problem with the Tholians is they haven't been able to unlock their technological potential because they've been focused on surviving in our Galaxay? It seems to me if they brought an entire Dyson sphere with them, some computer(s) somewhere in it must be carrying some technical data. The proposition being when the galactic wars die down they might finally have the opportunity to dig through the archived databases and find some high-tech secrets from their civilization.

On a side note, I've always thought of the Tholians as being living computer circuits (not exactly sure why). Basically I've seen them as clones made of crystalline substances. If they need a spacecraft designer, they build one and program him (it?). The Alphas started out mostly as police officers, security types, and probably politicians. Lately they've needed warriors so that's what they've grown. Maybe now they can focus on infrastructure and technology clones?

$0.02

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 06:20 pm: Edit

Brodie, having the plans is only a small portion of the problem of producing the ships.

in the real world we have all the blueprints for the Iowa class battleships (we even have existing copies to examine), but it would take many years to build another one becouse there is not a foundry in the world that can forge armor in the sizes nessasary to produce battleships.

and this is with many of the people who built those ships available to help design the new foundries!!

Imagine taking any state capitol and planting it down on a new planet and see how long it would take before they are able to build some of the things we take for granted (battleships, computers, airliners, etc)

that's about the situation that the tholians are in.

for refrence there's a sci-fi series with the first book titled 1632 that is the story of a small town that gets transported back in time to 1632 from 1999 and the fun they have surviving. they have a huge advantage that the tholians are missing (history books), but it's a good book for thinking about this sort of thing (not to mention just a good series in itself )

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 06:54 pm: Edit

Greg
Why don't you go back and read what I wrote again? No where in there did I discuss deploying Legendary Engineers to Fleet duty.
regards
Stacy

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 07:09 pm: Edit

Yes but a state capitol building isn't a Dyson sphere. There's a matter of scale. With that much "land" you can hide or lose all kinds of things. Maybe nobody went with them who knew where "the stuff" was. This is all conjecture, but I think there's some merit.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 08:47 pm: Edit

I'd rather not see X2 Tholians, in the traditional sense. If they exist they should be something unique.

Build me a SC=1 MC=4 Battlesphere and we'll talk.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 09:44 pm: Edit

Brodie, I'm not saying a state capitol building, I'm sayign the city that is the state capitol (or take the whole county, and if it's from here in california PLEASE take the whole county )

in a city that's a state capitol you have a lot of legal type folks (lawyers, politions, lobiests, etc), a lot of buracrates, but you useually don't have that much heavy industry, and even if you do it's useually dependant on something else to prepare the raw materials that it needs, in any case you meed to reinvent a bunch of specialties before you can even consider starting production of major items

Tos, but even your battlesphere will need escorts

By Derek Myers (Exile) on Friday, July 08, 2005 - 09:16 pm: Edit

On a purely conjectural note: what if the Tholians were able to secure a shipyard? Say, for example Orion Pirates were building a shipyard in an asteriod field at the edge of Tholian space and thought the Romulans wouldn't be able to get it, and hidden from the Tholians. Say the Tholians monitored it's progress and sent in a large fleet, maybe even use a Neo-DN for once, to secure the prize!! Say the year is 190....gives them time to move it to the Dyson Sphere and a few years to work out the kinks to make Neo-Tholian ships. Still a limit on WC's but at least have some warship hulls to play with.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, July 10, 2005 - 09:42 am: Edit

I don't think the problem is the Tholians lack a shipyard. I think they lack the knowledge of how to operate one.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, July 10, 2005 - 11:41 am: Edit

It's not that Tholians don't have a ship yard and they certainly could operate one if they had one but that was left behind because it wasn't mobile.

The Tholians have automated equipment inside the sphere that can turn out PC hulls and PC engines and such. Welding things together is not beyond Tholians but the base manufacturing processes are all handled by the Autotron (just making this name up for this discussion). This is the ability they lack that most ship yards have. Given time the Tholians could relearn ship building techniques but the Autotron is in their hands now and they dare not tinker with it for it is their only means of ship building. Better to tinker with the product that is output than the Autotron itself.

It is pressure that keeps the Tholians from focusing efforts into other ways of ship building. They need ships now to protect the Holdfast and the only immediate way to do that is to use the Autotron. The Tholians do have a shipyard of sorts but its more like an assembly and modification yard that a true shipyard. It's considerably easier to recreate should it be destroyed but it's not something that can be done just anywhere either.

I imagine that if pressure was let up on the Tholians they could, in about 100 years of research, relearn how to build ships from scratch. But since they arrived and through the end of recorded history there has been no such lack of pressure.

I also imagine there are actually two Autotrons that were owned and operated by what were the local security forces in the old galaxy (e.g. police). One built PC hulls and the other build Police Cutters (see module R9 (R7.52)). It was the police cutter Autotron that was used to build PF's and Command section replacements for Neo-Designs. The large Autotron could build either class but PC hull size was the maximum capacity.

To get the larger design ships (CA, D, NCA etc.) functioning, the main parts are brought to the assembly yard and finished there.