Put another way, Grant:

Welcome aboard. You're already thinking along the same lines as most of us there.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, April 22, 2004 - 11:15 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

I would prefer that X1 and X2 stay in a very close BPV area to each class of ship. The CX is a ship killer, while the XCA is back to being the good old (Federation anyway) explore and anti-piracy and can also fight, being more efficient for all three, but not the best at anything.

---

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 12:19 am: Edit

MJC:Why do you insist on using 40 million meters when the game is based on hexes? Just say 4 hexes.

Perhaps to non-SFBers that's cool sounding but to us experienced SFBers (your intended audience) it's a total waste. And IIRC both SVC and SPP ask you not to write your term papers that way, why would you presist that here?

It doesn't read cool to me at all.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 03:35 am: Edit

I don't recall ever being asked that by either Steve.

You know forty million metres is 4 hexes at a moments glance so why does it matter!?!


I wrote it because it sounded cooler than simple gamespeak, we are after all talking about something much more essorteric and arcaine than tactics...ship design philosophy so we don't need to stick with game speak nearly as closely as one would with termpapers.


And before you bring it up, "48 and 83 points of damage" should be "240 and 415 terrajoules of plastic deformation" repectively but that would have lost readers rather quickly so that's why I used "points of damage".

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 10:15 am: Edit

MJC: I apologise. Whatever your intentions I shouldn't have said anything. I had a very bad and sad day yesterday and should not have made such a comment.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 10:32 am: Edit

Loren, to be fair if he's going to pull people's chains like that (and Aussies do) he should be prepared to take the heat.

By Mike Fannin (Daelin) on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 10:37 am: Edit

I do not make the instant mental jump from 40M meters to 4 hexes. 10M meters == 1 hex is a piece of trivia that I do not need to know (I am not an SFB fiction writer) and do not care to retain. It's just one more reason to ignore the post.

IMO.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 11:50 am: Edit

In truth it is something that gets my goat.

20 million metres is fine for two hexes.
20 megametres is fine for 2 hexes.
20 thousand kilometres is bad because it creates room for people to assume ( particularly when spoken ) that the sender really meant 20 kilomtres or 20 thousand metres.

People say that 20,000 kilometres is easier for people to relate to...I think 20 million metres is just as easy to relate to as 20,000 kilometres and I think 20 megametres is just as easy for people to relate to...they're all so esorteric and arcane that any one of them is right, but using whatever prefix to the standard of measure that allows you to list the measurement with a number betteen 1.0 and 999.9' is best, so technically 2 hexes would be 20 megametres.


Would it be better if I listed each hex as being 6215 miles and multiply up from there???


L.K.:

Sorry if you had a bad day, I just had a lot of classes teaching me to never say 20,000 kilopascals or 15 million kilonewtons such that I would rather say 20 million metres in my SFB posts than use the official diction.


M.F.:

How magnaminous of you to put in you two cents' worth.

By Mike Fannin (Daelin) on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 12:07 pm: Edit

Any time.

And since you asked, it would be better if you just used '# hexes', like most posters do when dealing with game-releated (rather than fiction-related) material. It is faster to type, easier to grok, and requires no translation into game terms.

By Robert Cole (Zathras) on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 12:17 pm: Edit

When I'm talking to people at work I don't tell them an item for 5 million pennies rejected... or 5 hundred thousand dimes... or 2 hunderd thousand quarters... I tell them an item for 50 thousand dollars rejected.

It's a matter of scale, and when you are dealing with this many individual units you generally use the smallest available measuremnt. It's polite. It's easier on the ears (or eyes in this case).

You may be discussing ship design, but you are talking about ship design within a game.

Hope you like my 2 cents.⁴²

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 12:57 pm: Edit

If we all throw our 2 cents onto MJC, is it possible that he would be crushed under about 400 million cents?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 01:10 pm: Edit

All levity aside. If you want to be clearly understood, you speak to your audience in the way the expect...not how you prefer. When I see something like "40,000,000 meters" or whatever, I stop reading right then and skip the rest.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 04:28 pm: Edit

When I see stuff like that routinely, I start to make a habit of skipping.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 06:18 pm: Edit

MJC should write to his audience's level. We can't all be geniuses like him.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, April 24, 2004 - 03:51 am: Edit

No, I think you all must be genii because you've all missed the central point of the arguement...and it seems deliberate.


The Fed CA stomps on the Klingon D4 in Y130 through to the withdrawal of the D4 from service ( Y135? ) and the Fed CX stomps on the D7W so this idea that we should build XCAs to fight on a slightly worse combat footing than a CX just doesn't hold water.


You don't have to be an impotent and unarmed vessel to be a "ship of peace".
There's an old african saying;" Talk softly and carry a big stick."


XCAs should have the firepower to get themselves out of trouble and "get themselves out of trouble" means they can fight an ISC CCX, Romulan D7X, Hydran LBX or Orion CX, if it has to and have a pretty good chance of winning.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, April 24, 2004 - 05:26 am: Edit

Consider the Y122 and two battles, one between a Fed YCA and a Klingon D4 and the other between a brand new Fed CL and a Klingon D4.

At first glance the CL seems nothing special.
2 more impulse boxes and the same number of warp engine boxes, paper thin shields, the same number of phasers ( better arcs and better phasers but still the same number ), 6 EW doesn't allow you to get a +3 shift but does cost more power to run, armour that isn't nearly as effective as sheild boxes and the same number of photons ( overloadable and proximity fuse capable but still the same number ).

The real advantages are in the overlapping synergies of the technological advantages.

The YCA simply must got to R3 to deliver it's alpha strike or else it just won't break the shields of the D4.

The CL can generate in an oblique at R4 some 16 points of phaser damage and even if she only arms 12 point photons an additional 16 points of Photons damage. That 32 points of damage at R4 is enough to pull down the D4's facing shield and do serious internal damage.

The CL can also use her transporters at R4 making her immune to Klingon H&R if she stays at that range or longer whilst still being able to perform her own H&R out to R5 ( if for some reason her facing shield is lowered ) and can also tractor type YV ( or are they V at this stage ) drones at R2 ( her doubling of BTTY over the YCA helps in this such that she is far less likely to need to sideslip to get and R1 shot on an incomming drone followed directly by a sideslip to avoid jumping range to R3.

Even R5 attacks with mere 10 point warhead will rupture the Klingon shields.

The YCA will be making a battle speed of 14 but the CL will be making a battle speed of ( assume 4+2 Photon arming and 4 ECM and 2 ECCM ) 20 ( 15 warp ) making it quite easy for the CL to visit R4 without risk of and R3 counterstrike.

Indeed if the CL reaches R3 but has a +1 shift to protect it'self even if it is fired at under a perfect oblique, the armour and paper thin shields will couple together to make the event less earth-shattering...

...through a +1 shift at R4 the D4 is looking at delivering about 7 points of damage to the CL so the thin shields really don't matter at that range.


8 years latter when the Fed CA comes into service the D4 has to retire because by the standards of the YCA the CA treally is a ship killer.


The big question you should ask yourself is this.
Is the Fed CL a ship-killer or is it "a ship of peace"?


My answer is that it is a ship of peace...that just happens to have the finest weapons "modern" science can devise and thus can really put the kybosh on older vessels.


8Ph-5s is about as good as 12Ph-1s so let the XCAs sit down with weapons equal to the X1 ships but lots of extra padding from the non-war equipment and systems she carries to be just a touch ahead ( equal to the best of the X1 ships ).

By Dan Doulas (Magnum357) on Saturday, May 27, 2006 - 07:55 pm: Edit

Hi, I just wanted too bud in on this Discussion of "Standard" (I guess they are suppose to be Standard) Phasers for X2 ships. I tried looking back in old archive files, but it doesn't seem to indicate why everyone calls these Phasers "Type 5 and Type 6 Phasers"?

I'm not really complaining about the names, if SVC decided to call them these Names I don't have a problem with it. But in my personal opinion, the numbers make it seem a bit misleading to new players. Actually, I never could understand why they called Earlier Phasers "Type 1 through 4" where Type 4 Phasers are the Most powerful yet the next powerful Phaser is listed as Type 1. Now with these "Type 5 and 6 Phaser" proposals, it is sightly confusing as these Phasers have higher numbers but are still not quite as powerful as a Type 4.

Instead of Calling these new X2 Phasers by Number, how about calling them by a letter? Like if there are to be 2 types of X2 Phasers, how about calling them Type A and B? This way, they wouldn't be confused with the older Numbered Phasers in the past. Has anyone ever proposed a Phaser Name like these before? The Archives don't seem too indicate this.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, May 27, 2006 - 08:20 pm: Edit

It was the lack of convention that lead to Type-5 and Type-6 being convetional.

By Dan Doulas (Magnum357) on Sunday, May 28, 2006 - 12:31 am: Edit

I'm not sure if I understand you Loren. What do you mean by "lack of convention"?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, May 28, 2006 - 04:28 am: Edit

The thing to do with Phaser conventions is just be not worry and then follow.

If you say to youself that the phaser names were added to the system by say Federation scientists making a list then you can order them in order quite correctly.

Ph-1s	The main phaser we use
Ph-2s	The main phaser our enemies use (if they don't use a Ph-1 )
Ph-3	The Point Defense Phaser found on ships
Ph-4	Oh...that's right...bases have their own funky phaser

Why the Ph-G is not a number I have no idea.

If you then assume that the labeling convention had been finalised before the advent of X2 tech ( say Y125 ) then it just follows that the next phaser (which follows the order will be the Ph-5 and be a main phaser and the one after that will be a point defense phaser and be a Ph-6 ).

Type VII & VIII & IX drones are probably much easier to follow but then they're really wierd as there should really be 5 X1 drones instead of 3.
The naming conventions of the general era Phasers date back to before the game was standardised. So if the new conventions are more standardised but follow still retaining some of the feel then that's good. And what we aimed for.


Having a type A & B phaser to cover X2 phasers losses feel with respcet to other names...and also implies that you can't down fire as Ph-1/2/3s which is something many of us would like to keep.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, May 28, 2006 - 08:59 am: Edit

There's some debate as to whether the X2 Ph-4 analog should be called the Ph-8 or the Ph-7.

I think we should have a better Ph-5 table (which only improves R15+ that goes all the way out to R100) but we could easily have the Ph-G analog getting the Ph-7 slot or skip it in some oddball, "they guess at what would come when they generated then names and guessed wrong" kind of thing.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, May 28, 2006 - 11:10 am: Edit

I was sort of messing around but it is true. Since phasers are numbered powerful to weakest and then most powerful (1-3 then 4) there seemed no issue with just using the next umbers in line.

Indeed, discussion had it that the X2 Base Phaser (Heavy) might be numbered 7 or 8.

Everyone liked the name of the Phaser Five too. With the "F" sound at the begining of each word it justs sounds cool. Phaser six isn't all that special but fits the sequence.

I strongly feel that phasers for the Alpha races should follow this convention and that phasers of other areas (Omega, LMC, M81) use other names such as letters (if they are practically different).

The Phaser-5 was the first success and finest developement of the X-files and those involved are pretty proud of it and the process inwhich we produced it (a prime example of how BBS developement should be). I can't speak for the others but I'd be hard pressed to agree to want to change it.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Thereplicant) on Sunday, May 28, 2006 - 11:59 am: Edit

However, this is all just the thoughts and opinions of the people discusing X2. SVC himself has not made any decisions or approved of anything yet.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, May 28, 2006 - 12:24 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

I think we should have a better Ph-5 table (which only improves R15+ that goes all the way out to R100)

---

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Thereplicant) on Sunday, May 28, 2006 - 12:39 pm: Edit

However, this is all just the thoughts and opinions of the people discusing X2. SVC himself has not made any decisions or approved of anything yet.