For 10 points I wouldn't even bother...not using that beast of a ship. You have not a shield under 40, and if MJC is sticking to his guns, those batteries are 5 points. That's 25 points of reserve power you can use for reinforcing a given shield. With double the energy needed to move at max speed, you have power enough to move at speed 30, toss up max EW and still arm weapons. That ship is not a challenge to play. Balancing energy needs in SFB is a core concept of the game; you don't have to with that ship.

My only other complaint or concern is the number of planned refits. Three? That's overdoing it a bit. Keep it simple, if you must have them.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Sunday, December 25, 2005 - 12:26 am: Edit

MJC: That calculation requires the opponent actually being in a position to inflict internals. Does not always happen. I may not know exactly what new altered tactics may diverge from your expected pattern but they will happen.

The previous times designers built ships with excessive power to compensate for expected heavy consumption every turn have not turned out well once the players figure out when to leave the less useful components turned off. Happened when the Andros switched to minimal PA levels; happened when Lyrans determined ESGs are difficult to recharge; happened when Romulans decided not cloaking can be fun. When a design concept has produced unfortunate side effects multiple times, that concept may not be the best choice for basing a design around.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Sunday, December 25, 2005 - 12:30 am: Edit

MJC, were you part of the team that designed Supplement 2?

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Sunday, December 25, 2005 - 01:52 am: Edit

Jeff: Supplement #2 designs were nothing like MJC's concepts. Okay, they share an idea of increasing above the line expenditures; Sup2 increased shield and life support costs.

But otherwise, Sup2 featured underpowered designs reliant on stored power to do anything. The Sup2 Fed XCA only had 46 power not much more than late GW designs. The Romulan XFF only produced 14 power a turn; even backed by 20 points in the batteries, that did not go far with a ship that could pump 28 energy into weapons (plus 4 more into housekeeping). MJC's designs have very different flaws.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, December 25, 2005 - 09:19 am: Edit

Unfortunately I think X2 BTTYs will be three pointers and possibly there will be yet another refit to upgrade them to five.

I'm still not sure the-power-to-do minus doing yeilds power-to-ruin-the-game, theory holds water.
Isn't it fun that since a Romulan KR needs to plug 20 point of power into the Cloak that therefore she plays like a Gorn?

I think the power consumption is greater than the plugged in new power. The S-bridge being also a new cost (although only a single point).
If someone wants to plug that power into movement and avoid combat, that's okay, to actually kill a GW or X1 vessel of the same BPV they'll need to go to R8 and there they can get hit..and hurt...and might even regret not plugging power intot he ASIF.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, December 25, 2005 - 11:53 am: Edit

Richard,

In detail, you are right...they are not the same. In principal, however, they are exactly the same...broken, right away. Different reasons, but the same outcome.

MJC said:

---

Quote:

I'm still not sure the-power-to-do minus doing yeilds power-to-ruin-the-game, theory holds water.

---

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, December 25, 2005 - 12:16 pm: Edit

I hope galactic batteries never go to 5 points. Four points I could live with (unique to X2 which is good IMO), three is fine.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, December 25, 2005 - 12:24 pm: Edit

Three it should be. Consider, one of the things that broke Supplement #2, and nearly breaks X1, is that the massive reserve power allows one to decide Federation Commander style where to put their power. There is a reason SFB is designed around energy allocation; too much reserve power dumbs down the game.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Sunday, December 25, 2005 - 09:50 pm: Edit

If the # of batt boxes were brought down to GW levels instead of X1's, I can live with 3 or 4 for now in a preliminary design.

If there are an X1's number of battery boxes, then it would have to be 3.

Five is right out.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, December 25, 2005 - 10:31 pm: Edit

"Three shall be the number of points assinged to thou battery to hold, and the number of points shall be three. Four shalt thou not assign, neither assign thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Only the number three, being the third number, be assigned, and any, who, being naughty in my sight and wanting more than three, shall snuff it."

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, December 26, 2005 - 03:40 am: Edit

I might be willing to drop the extra boom warp. That way the cost of 10 ASIF plus 1 S-Bridge would only be paid for by 8 warp and that would make the vessels somewhat harder to play and "slower" than both GW & X1 vessels.
* That is, slower when doing "lots of things".

But again I still don't see what the problem is with an increase in power counterbalanced by more costly opperations and a high BPV.
If poeple want to plug that power into a regular system and forgo the special new stuff, great! Every captain must make choices in SFB!

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Monday, December 26, 2005 - 09:15 am: Edit

Uh oh, Mike. You might be in trouble. Doesn't Steve have a no-Monty Python rule for the board?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, December 26, 2005 - 12:10 pm: Edit

My thanks to Brodie for finally allowing me to determine what has been wrong with my XCL from the very begining. This new design will give us everything we need: XCL

I'm a little concerned about movement cost as I've always thought that an XCL should be a 0.66 mover, or maybe even a 0.50. I'm sure after everyone gets a chance to review it we will figure out if I should reduce the movement cost.

Mike, Michael, feel free to use this design as a basis and add anything you feel I may have missed. Following similar guidelines I'd love to see what happens when we scale this XCL up into an XCA, XCC, XBC and XBCH. I'm still not convinced that XDNL, XDN, XDNH, XBB and XBBH are necessary, but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Monday, December 26, 2005 - 12:14 pm: Edit

Leave me out of this...

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, December 26, 2005 - 12:49 pm: Edit

But Mike, in the other thread you asked for someone else to carry the ball. Something about banging your head against a wall or some such. It was your statement that inspired me to create the perfect XCL.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Monday, December 26, 2005 - 01:16 pm: Edit

That is a DN. Lets not kid outselves. At most a X2 CL should be equivalent to a BCH, if that much. THat this has 20 phasers on it. It could probably kill a SB by itself.

I would never buy or play with a product with that in it. IT's insane.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, December 26, 2005 - 01:58 pm: Edit

But if I change the movement cost to 0.66 it will be a CL again, right?

Welcome back Chris. Yes, this was designed to be over the top (sick, ain't it?) to illustrate that its much easier to go uber then it is to get it just right or not powerful enough. MJC's recent design (link above) goes beyond what I would consider appropriate for X2.

To get everyone (most?) on the same page I think we need to get serious about setting a reasonable target. What should the combat capabilities of X2 be? What existing GW ship should each class equal? What existing X1 ship should each class equal? Without agreeing in principle to some sort of target we will just keep chasing our tails.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, December 26, 2005 - 02:39 pm: Edit

CFant: Neither would I but that was the point; to illustrate insanity.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Monday, December 26, 2005 - 06:27 pm: Edit

So be it, Mike. If you will not join the uber side, then you will . . . be . . . BOOTED. (Blue disruptor bolts shoot from outstretched finger tips . . . or 24pt photons.)

Tos, I think if you wanted to be reasonable about this you should probably just go ahead and call that ship an XCA. If you do you could probably get away with MC1.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Monday, December 26, 2005 - 07:22 pm: Edit

I would call this ships a XBCH. IT is HUGE!

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Monday, December 26, 2005 - 07:50 pm: Edit

I would call it an XDN.

Seriously, though, it's clear that most of us don't want uber-ships. MJC's debates aside (though how anyone can seriously consider a move cost 1 cruiser with 60 points of powernot a problem is beyond me), there seems to be agreement; X2 doesn't have to be, and should not be, uber ships.

Now, take this SSD for an example. It is a version of the X2CA for the Feds I did some testing with. All in all, it worked pretty well. Not too bad, and at close range far inferior to the CX. It as some of the things SVC mentions in P6; the FX/RX phasers on the saucer, the "any system" box, etc. It has the photons I've been talking about for a while, the P5 we all agreed with (well, mostly...it does cost 1 to fire, which some of us agreed to and some did not).

Now, MJC might consider this ship (which I designed based on things he's lobbied for during our time in these threads) to be legit...I do not. It has too much power, those ridiculous 12 point photons, lots of phasers, and no true weaknesses.

Now, let's weigh in here. Who agrees that the first one is more palatable than the second? Not to say it should be accepted, but that the general design, level of power, level of "neato" stuff and proposed BPV are more like what we want to see?

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Monday, December 26, 2005 - 08:30 pm: Edit

As I see it, the MJC ship is obviously a BCH with X2 tech (or a CX with X2 tech). Mike's ship hearkens back to the pre-GW CC but with X2 tech.

Considering my philosophy is the post-OpU era will need pre-GW-type ships, I'd go with Mike's design.

But then I've stated as much (and posted as much) before so it really shouldn't be much of a surprise.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, December 26, 2005 - 09:35 pm: Edit

Ya know Mike, that's a pretty dang good design! I would submit that the Ph-6 should be Ph-5 though. The ship should have 8 phasers as the old CA did. A refit might add Ph-6's later. That would put six Ph-5's in the forward arcs and that's about right, IMO.

What are the boxes with the infinity sign?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Monday, December 26, 2005 - 09:51 pm: Edit

Loren,

The original CA, sans refits, had six phaser 1's. But, they didn't cover the same arcs as these. This one has the same six, but with better coverage (and, of course, better phasers). The P6's are the result of obvious learnings from the GW...you gotta have some dedicated attrition defense. The infinity symbol boxes are "any system" boxes. When played, they could be:

• hull
• cargo
• lab
• control (only to replace lost control spaces)
• transporters
• tractors

By Nikolaus Athas (Nycathis) on Monday, December 26, 2005 - 10:50 pm: Edit

Mike - thats mother beautiful!

My ONLY critisism again stems from lessons learned from the GW - Surely there should be TWO Drone racks? or none?

And the fact that it has a Flag bridge is that basically XCAs ARE the battle group/fleet leaders correct?

You wont be expecting to see massed Cruiser fleets.

I have to admit I dont really like the Any box concept - smells too much like a holodeck to me