Archive through October 21, 2003
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board: The "X" Files: OLD X2 FOLDER: X2 Playtest Reports: Archive through October 21, 2003
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 08:32 pm: Edit

Quote:

We can go back further. The HMS Dreadnaught, and then other Dreadnaughts during the WWI period. These Queens of the Sea would probably lose a fight against a state of the art WWII advanced Heavy Crusier(Like the Japanese crusiers), but would still be able to put up a fight for a while.


Funnily enough those cruisers would have massively greater displacement than Dreadnought.


I still think the X2 ships should all shift a size class up ( with the exception of the PFs and maybe the POL, which are unlikely to be in X2 ).


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Oh, and shunting phaser caps to shields is a bad idea, as we would be creating monster ships that could take a huge beating. Even without phasers, I would bet that the X2 ship with this ability to crush a ship with its heavy weapons and not take a scratch because of that reinforcing ability.


Well some people might think that, but shunting damage to shields is an even stronger capasity, with 50 shield boxes and the ability to shift 10% of the damage to an adjacent shield ( both adjacent shields if you've got them ) the first 50 points of damage creates 40 points of damage on a shield, and 5 points ot each adjacent shield, then the next five points creates a point to one adjacent shield, then the next five points create a point to the other adjacent shield and then the next two points bring down the shield.
That's 62 points of damage to bring down the sheild.

If you take the first damage on the shield #2 and the second on the shield #6 you'll be able to do that twice.

On the other hand, if You have 8Ph-5s ( or 12Ph-5s after the refit ) and you fire of 6 of them ( or 9 after the refit ) then you only have 15 points of SSReo ( or 22 after the refit bring those same 50 boxes to stopping 65 points of damage ( or the total protection from shields and Caps-toSSReo up to 72).
The Disadvantage ( or player discission part ) is that you can only do that once before you must recharge your phasers indeed you must recharge your phaser before you can fire them again.

The slight advantage in protection one gets from the action is far outweighed by the fact that the poower is much better used in firing your phasers at the enemy.


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And MJC, it isn't nice to insult folks. You could jsut state your point without all the flamewar stuff added to it.


Telling people they stand on shakey ground is such an insult...I I have an attitude of selfdefense it is because other people glide along close to the boarder of starting flamewar and I want them to pick up on the warning signs before things actually get heated.


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Fred is supposed to be a 2 turn ship. If we dont up the photon crush, we use phasers and fastloaded photons, and its a klink with a different turn mode.


The DNH has a HET ( even if not reliable ) and phasers and Drones, I think the fastloading X2 Cruiser will get stopped on right back by the DNH, you'll get two very crippled ships comming out, which would be right for the Feds and what they do when they fight each other.
I'm still thinking 12 point fastloads might be a better idea than 16 to create a reason to have the racial flavour, but after this X2 ships dumps 32 points of her 48 Warp & 4AWR into arming the Photons, she isn't going anywhere in a hurry, and even damaged the DNH if it doesn't arm it's photons ( or even if it just arms them as standards ) will make a pretty good battle speed and control the range.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 08:39 pm: Edit

If we put a 32 impulse restriction on firing a photon after a critical overload, I could potantially deal with going as high as 24.

That may not wash in playtest (to stay on-topic) however.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 08:42 pm: Edit

I'd be open to trying it. The question is can you begin putting power in the tube, or do you have to complete wait?

Example: I toss out a 24 point photon. Do I have to wait a full turn before I can begin arming? Or can I begin arming but not fire on the subsequent turn? I'd say the second option is better, as it prevents that next turn follow up I'm worried about.

On the other hand, I'd hate to be limited to 16 point overloads or forced to wait a turn. Have to try such a thing to see how it works.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 08:57 pm: Edit

How about this.

Overloaded Photons greater than 16 point warhead need to cool down a lot to be refired.
It'll take a little bit of record keeping ( although alpha strikes will be easier ).


For every point of warhead over 16 that any one Photon is armed with the double broadside penalty is increased by one impulse for the Phot-tube.

Consequently if one fire a full 24 point Photon from a photon launcher, that tube would take a full 16 impulses ( 8 usual plus 8 extra points of warhead ).

That should make the follow up damage far less likely, especially since your opponents are running around with a regular 8 point penalty and can therefore take some of your weapons away from you.
It'll get a little hard to remeber, you firied a 20 pointer on inpulse 28 and an 18 pointer on impulse 29 and a 23 pointer and a 24 pointer on impulse 32...it'll take a little bit of record keeping, but will avoid all the messing around with TURN long penalties.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 09:00 pm: Edit

It's a novel concept, but a bit to complicated IMHO. I'd just say stick with one turn, to keep it simple. Don't fusion beams have a 1 turn cool down period, regardless of what mode they fire in?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 09:05 pm: Edit

Not since X1.

They can fire standards every turn, and with the -1 shift rule yiou can make weapons that make disruptors look lacking...but no matter.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 09:42 pm: Edit

But we could use that rule as the model.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, May 22, 2003 - 10:00 pm: Edit

Yeah a simplified form would be pretty good.


Any Photon fired with more than a 16 point warhead will require slightly more cooling down period than regular X1 fastloads.
The table below shows the length of the Double Broadside penalty for each Photon launcher when it is fired with those higher level warheads.
From To Double Braodside Penalty
8 16 8 Impulses as per usual
17 20 12 Impulses
2124 16 Impulses



.


That should cover it without getting too much detail and record keeping, people already theoretically have to do some record keeping for the 8 impulse double broadside rule already, but since most people alpha strike ( or have one mizia after the alpha ) the record keeping is pretty intuitive.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Friday, May 23, 2003 - 01:29 am: Edit

Mike. Just try this the next time you fight a playtest.

If a photon is fired with a warhead of greater than 16 points, the tube may not be fired again for 32 impulses. This represents the cooldown period for the tube.

Arming energy can be applied to the photon tube during the cooldown period.

So, if I fire on impulse 16 of turn 2, I cannot fire again till impulse 17 of turn 3. That will prevent the 20(or 24)+16 hipshot that we wish to avoid, while still giving the Fed a possible overrun deterrent in the later half of the next turn.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, May 23, 2003 - 02:11 am: Edit

We can be as restrictive as saying that the tube may not be fired at all on the following turn (but can accept new arming energy) it would break down:

damagerecycle
8-16normal
17+can't fire next turn


We could also do

damagerecycle
8-16normal
17-2016 impulses between firings
21-24can't fire next turn


We could also set a "must fire within 8 impulses or before turn is over, whichever comes first" restriction for OLs above 16 to practically insure that the energy to go above 16 will come from reserve power.

The question is whether 24 is just too •••• powerful. If you test 24-pointers, Mike, try adding shield-shunting as well.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, May 23, 2003 - 09:34 am: Edit

I don't think the full turn restriction is all that warreented, even if you can arm, you are putting players on a treadmill as soon as they build 17 point warheads that they must continuously arm two turn weapons or miss out on arming to the MAX, we're just trying to avoid the Double broadside effects that 24 pointers followed up by fastloads will produce.

Just say 12 and 16 impulse Double broadside penalties and that should be mopre than enough, I mean what ship can't get a fresh sheild facing within 16 impulses!?!

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Friday, May 23, 2003 - 12:39 pm: Edit

um a Jindarian DN:) or even worse the Nancy:)

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Tuesday, June 10, 2003 - 02:50 pm: Edit

Anyone besides me active on SFBOLv3?

It's one way to playtest ships. But it is limited to text effectively for bystanders.

Since these aren't official ships they cant be uploaded to the library. But the ship def could be emailed to other playtesters.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Tuesday, October 07, 2003 - 09:41 pm: Edit

I just did a quick and dirty Playtest on Mikes Fed vs 2 fed NCA's.

With 20point Photons. At R7 Both NCA's fired off a combined 8Photons+12p1's. Through a -1 shift. Even with 4 16 point photons hitting at a 1-2 chance they only scored relatively minor internals. Compared to a pretty much gutted NCA with 2 20's hitting. And slightly above average P5 hits.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, October 19, 2003 - 08:10 am: Edit

I did an X2 Play test today.

A Fed DDX & CX Vs XCA.

The XCA had an ASIF ( which didn't get used because by the time Tony thought it might be worth using his HULL was gone ) a Bridge as special thingy which ( didn't get used probably because Tony wanted to power movement ( he went quite quickly )), 24 point Photons ( although my CX only got hammered with 20 pointers ( three of them at R8!!!), 12Ph-5s ( post refit ship ), five 5 point BTTYs ( Post refit ships ), type X drones, 48 warp, 40 all round shield ( except #1 ) and some extra boxes.


We started at WS-I with the Phaser caps and BTTYs fully charged at a range of 48 to me and 50 to Justin.

The First turn was pretty uneventful although Justin's "slow" Type VII drones did save my ship from firing early in the first turn ( we ended at R9 which was handy because the X1s were able to build 16 pointers that way.

Second turn was pretty bad...for me...and then For Tony but Justin got through without a scratch.
I launched four Photons and hit with three and scored a lot of damage with the four 16 pointers and 9Ph-1s but left Tony with just one Sheild Box on his #2.
I on the other hand took 34 internals from his Photons & Phaser which he descided afyterwards had been quite effective at R8...quite effective indeed.

Tony and I turned in on each other to get our non-facing weapons to bear and both Tony and I needed to shoot incomming drones.
His Rapid pulse Ph-3 trios from his Ph-5s went through my drones which had gotten into arc of his side phasers ( the ones he was looking for to use against me ( apparently he felt that destroying me was the paramount step to winning ).
I had to fire on his drones at R2 and knew that I needed to fire a Ph-1 on each drone ( I had 3 Phaser unfired and bearing ), so my plan was to roll well and then roll just enough damage from rapid pulsed Phasers at R2 to push the drones over the edge...I rolled poorly and so killed one (with 2Ph-1 shots ( the other drone took one Ph-1 shot but damaged drones don't count )) Type X and took the other on the chin...24 points of damage against 40 shield boxes looks worse than it is.

Then Justin, who for some reason had descided to make his destroyer GO HARD got to R4 and hurled out Four 16 pointers and 6 bearing Ph-1 with a minus one shift.
At this point Tony knew he should have powered up the ASIF as he lost his one shield box on #2, used up the last of his BTTY and lost all of his hull.


Then in a vain attempt to use his other phasers, Justin got even closer but his mid turn speed change dropped his speed so he used up one point of BTTY ( he was the only one of us with BTTY boxes left ) to tractor the XCA at range 1.


On turn 3 and Impulse 1, Justin was at R1 with his little DDX facing the Shield #1 of the XCA.
Tony didn't have the power to move ( he still wanted to chase me down ) and charge 16 point Fastloads and so it was three 12 point Fastloads and centerlining Phasers against 6Ph-1s and Four 12 point Fastloads.
Tony launched a Drone.
Both ships Fired.
Sure enough both ships exploded!
Although if Tony had organised all his movement into SSReo instead, things would have been different.


I was going to do a Poorman's HET and plaster the XCA with three 12 pointers of my own but it seems the DDX is a heck of a lot more deadly in the X2 period than people give it credit.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, October 19, 2003 - 08:12 am: Edit

I won't say that this definatively proves that the fully refitted XCA can be beaten half the time by a Fed CX & DDX combo, but the but it is food for thought.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Sunday, October 19, 2003 - 01:54 pm: Edit

Would you chalk that up to not using the XCA to its full potential or would you say it was tech v. tech parity?

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Sunday, October 19, 2003 - 03:07 pm: Edit

12 ph-5, 24 point photons, 5 point batts, rapid pulse ph-3 trios. I think this is more than anyone else would include in an XCA proposal.

I also notice that you had three players, you, Tony, and Justin. Were there teamwork problems between the CX and DDX players? There should have been at least one impulse in the battle where they fired eight photons at the same time.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, October 19, 2003 - 10:06 pm: Edit

Quote:

Would you chalk that up to not using the XCA to its full potential or would you say it was tech v. tech parity?



An interesting question.

The failure to use the XCA's ASIF to it's fullest did cause a lot of greif for the XCA ( it wouldn't have exploded even if it had been running the ASIF on low power on the turn that the DDX fired at R4 ) and it didn't generate nearly enough ECCM to stop the CX and DDX getting the colossal and critially important ( for the X1 ships ) -1 shift on the "to hit" with the Photons...but the CX was only badly hurt ( it still had; 3LS, 4FH, 2(360) & 1RS, Ph-1s, 3Photons and a G-rack to fire), so maybe if the XCA had been used to it's fullest the XCA would have popped due to the CX explosion...so I'ld say there was tech-parity even though the XCA wasn't used to the fullest.


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12 ph-5, 24 point photons, 5 point batts, rapid pulse ph-3 trios. I think this is more than anyone else would include in an XCA proposal.


Yeah I wanted to prove ( if only to myself ) that the BIG BAD everything in X1 numbers but with X2 technology cruiser that everybody feels is BROKEN, actually isn't and is indeed equal to about a CX & DDX combined.

I dare say that some of the XCA proposals arn't going to be much motre than 330 BPV.

Quote:

I also notice that you had three players, you, Tony, and Justin. Were there teamwork problems between the CX and DDX players?


No, Justin and I were in a team and we just walked outside and had a 2 minute chat.
When he heard my idea ( I'll fire at R8 and turn off to make Tony follow me ( I wounde up turning in ) and you use a mid turn speed change to charge on in to R4 ) he thought; "I'll give it go" and charged on in quite willingly...there's a bit too much of a Rugby player in him!

I would have made Justin's DDX pull out after the primary fire point where as Justin went looking to get his other Phasers to fire so I guess you could say there was a lack of communication.


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There should have been at least one impulse in the battle where they fired eight photons at the same time.


Oddly enough there wasn't one single impulse when 8 Photons were fired...I think Tony guessed he'ld be left with a Shield box when I fired and so he waited for the impulse after even though we were using the ME-TOO fire method.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Sunday, October 19, 2003 - 10:53 pm: Edit

Quote:

I dare say that some of the XCA proposals arn't going to be much motre than 330 BPV.



Which is right where I, for one, want it to be. But we've all been down that road before.

But it does look like you had a worthwhile playtest, as well as a fun game.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 12:19 am: Edit

Yeah...it was fun...I typed up on my 086 ( TRS-80 ), a programme for rolling # lots of 2D6.
It took me about 45 minutes to write ( damm tape recorder wasn't working! ) but since there were two hits of over 80 points of internal damage ( it's horrid what ships can do at R1 ) it probably turned a total of about four hours of damage allocation into 15 minutes...it would've been really teadious otherwise.

It was fun but bloody quick...turn 3, Impulse 1 is pretty short for the destruction of two ships...still it took about four hours to play.
Pretty good all up.


I think I'll look to an XFF Vs CCH Duel next time.
Smaller numbers will make for a faster battle.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 12:23 am: Edit

Quote:

Which is right where I, for one, want it to be. But we've all been down that road before.


Well I want the XCAs to start in the 300-330 range but I also want refits and I think that is were we differ.


Or maybe we only differ in how "hard core" the refits should be.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 11:29 pm: Edit

I think that's it. If you're talking about refits after the Xork invasion and 300-330 in The Trade Wars, I'm with you.

My only arguement is that The Trade Wars ships can be designed now, since they are following lessons learned from the General War, ISC War, and Andy War, but the "refits" or post-Xork ships should be designed after we know something about the Xorks. There could be RPS issues, and in fact the Galactics would want that. Their scisors to the Xorks paper.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 01:17 am: Edit

For me the post Xork ship of the line would be to Battlecruiserize the XCC and a war cruiser design of the XCL or XCM.

I would think the races might come up with some sort of super weapon that mounts on a specialized ship sort of like the mauler is during the GW.

Possibly a XDD with two MegaPhasers and a couple Ph-Gs. A Fleet would have a Mega-Phaser wing. This unit would have no place until after the Xorks kick the snot out of the Alphas.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 11:25 pm: Edit

I'm not sure about Refits having a Rock-Sissors-Paper problem when dealing with the Xorks.
I see it as...I have a way of making hammer bigger, the problem might not need a hammer but if the hammer is the only thing I've got in my tool box, then I am going to see where making my hammer bigger gets me...it might solve the problem and is something that can be done without much trial & error.

I'm not sure if the Refits come at the end of the trade war period ( as a responce to the fact that the trade wars are breaking down 0 or if they come during trhe Xork period but I think that since they can be done and the new threat frees the hands of the Admirals to no longer use limited numbers of weapons that the old blue prints will be pulled out and the extra weapons added.

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