More effective internal power management and saving energy is different than external energy hitting a panel and being absorbed in the batteries. So I don't think what I was proposing "smacks of andro".

The long range sensor mode seems more workable than the suggested passive mode as a way of improving special sensors. The current GSX and GVX use the same GW sensors. As we move toward X2 both this type of ship and its sensor systems would improve due to more advanced X technology.

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 03:49 pm: Edit

Jrc: I think I'm with Kludge. That would let you use a point of power twice. Once you've powered a channel, the power's gone (in SFB terms).

Far better IMHO just to let X scouts use reserve power to arm channels. If you wanted to add a lot of flexibility, you could e.g. allow then to switch missions (perhaps requiring being reactivated out of reserve power).

Hmm. An interesting thought occurred to me. What if an X2 channel could break multiple lockons (only 1 per impulse, of course) by paying 1 point of power each time?

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 04:01 pm: Edit

Thanasis,

I see what you and Kenneth are saying now. I did not explain in my earlier post that I had come to a similar conclusion as you just stated. The accounting for the energy would be to complex.

Your last two suggestions are interesting. Before X2 ships are produced I figure X1 ships with improvements will be produced (X1R?).

By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 04:07 pm: Edit

RE: The discussion regarding move costs vs. size classes

The thing to remember is that MC is not determined by the amount of warp power a ship has, it is determined solely by the (physical) size of the hull. Ship designers then try to cram the largest possible warp engines into that volume. Unfortunately, it took until the mid to late GW before advances in power output alowed 'fast' ships that had increased warp power in the same volume.

To delve (briefly) into the realm of Technobabble to illustrate the logic behind this statement, consider that in real (modern) physics, it takes more energy to maintain a given field strength at a greater distance from the source of the field, as evidenced by the inverse square law. Double the distance, and the field strength drops by the inverse of the square, in this case 1/4 strength.

As hull volumes increase, maintaining a warp field of a given strength around the hull becomes less and less efficient, because the inverse square (or its equivalent in warp physics) takes effect. This effectively limits the movement costs of certain hull size classes. SC 5 is pretty much limited to 1/5, SC4 to 1/2, SC3 to 1.

Internal box counts, (I'm sorry, but I can't remember who posted it) one needs to remember, are a measure of ship ability, not hull volume and susceptability to damage. An XFF may have the internal box count of a DD or CL to reflect its capabilities, but still truck along at a MC of 1/3.

Just my $0.02 CDN

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 04:51 pm: Edit

Mike: The problem is that MC isn't really connected to physical size except only vaguely. Docking Points directly describe the ship's physical size.

Take a look at the Fed MSC. The following are all 6-DP ships:

CL: MC3/4, SC3
NCL: MC2/3, SC3
HDW: MC2/3, SC4
DD: MC1/2, SC4

(And the DP don't really take into account hull form, either; the Klingon ships, with their spindly booms and wings, take up the same or less DP than more compact ships like saucer-only Feds or slab-form Hydrans).

I agree, BTW, about box-count; however, there does seem to be a pretty tight correspondence between number of SSD boxes and MC -- much more than there is between number of SSD boxes and physical size (docking points).

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 05:47 pm: Edit

Mike,

I'm not sure that's true.

Compare the F5L and the F6. Adding the third engine *did* drive up the ship's move cost.

The Fed NCL is agreat case for adding engine power changing both MC and SC, considering itsd relationship to the unbuilt NDD. A 15-warp NDD woul be SC4, MC 1/2. Push it even to 18 and you get the same answers. After than point, something has to give.

Hot Warp allowed a ship a bit more "wiggle room" in the amount of warp power you could stick onto a ship, but it went from 32 to 36 on a MC 1 hull.

X1-tech engines change that limit again to about 42.

X2 is an open question.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 09:40 pm: Edit

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Quote:

First, if the example shows an XCA overloading 24 pointers then it sure as hell ought to be going slow. Further, I disagree about the CX not having any more affect with his 16 point photons than a BC. You are forgetting that nifty +1 shift the CX gets, and with that excess power it has from not fastloading, it can play very nice EW games. It will, in short, hit more often from farther away with those photons. It is not the same as a BC.

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Quote:

Far better IMHO just to let X scouts use reserve power to arm channels.

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Quote:

I'm not sure that's true.

Compare the F5L and the F6. Adding the third engine *did* drive up the ship's move cost.

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By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 11:26 pm: Edit

Mike D, let's see, that would be about $0.01531 USD.

By Roger Dupuy (Rogerdupuy) on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - 07:25 pm: Edit

The X2 Module (if I may be so bold) will be in 2 parts: The Trade Wars & The Xorkalien Invasion. This will only cover part 1 which is the trade wars part.

Part 1: The Trade Wars

1. All races have shattered economies-but higher technologies.

2. Generally, ship design takes a smaller but better quality approach.

3. Each major race develops better, more efficient warp design.

4. The most numerous ship class is a size 4, move cost 0.25 'multirole' ship with a BPV of almost 130. It was economically mandated to have these small ships assume the traditional roles of the CAs of the y130-50 era. They need to perform multiple roles: 1) patroling & scout duty, 2)minesweeping, quick strike commando raids et. al., 4) and move cargo like a tug.

5. There is an attempt to simplify construction. A kind of modularism approach. The 'Any Box' is developed. It can perform 1 of 3 starship functions in any given turn. These functions are: a lab, a transporter, or a tractor beam. Its function must be allocated duming EA.

Starship Construction efficiency is very important and is applied by each race with different results.

The Federation do this by designing a single warp engine design.

The Klingons do it by designing a single 'boom' to be used by all classes.

And <insert race here> do it by <insert idea here>.

Trade
Trade is one of the main features of this era. There is a rise in local national merchant fleets. Rigelians, Alpha Centauris-you name it, we'll see these and other races strutting around in purchased GW ships or their own clever designs. The major races will not be able to meet the demand for trade ships hence the 'national races (or previously subjugated races) will be filling the gap.

The protection of goods traveling back and forth is the highest priority. Therefore, these small ships are equipped with special tractor links to tow priority cargo modules. Ships often towed these modules and protected them with ferocity if attacked.

These modules will differ depending on certain racial tendencies, but the overall function is similar. First, to carry 25-60 cargo boxes, and to act as a emergency defense platform-freeing up the cruiser to engage the enemy attackers. They have shield generators with 25 box shields, impulse power, apr, temporary positional stabilizers and even armor. Implications: a X2 Patrol Ship carries 1 or 2 cargo modules, get attacked by GW Cruiser or X1DD, the attacker can go for the Cargo Modules, or the X2 Patrol Ship.

That's it so far...


The following are ideas I totally agree with by Shannon N. , Jeff T., Mike R. , Aaron G., Loren K.

By Shannon Nichols on 2/4/03
"Increasing warp engine power By 50% is too much.Your flying dreadnoughts at that power, not cruisers. Remember X-1 was too hard to mass produce in 205. So in 215 2X is going to be mass produced. Not very likely. Efficiency is a better way to go. Reduce the movement cost of the ships. Reduce the cost of EW. Make heavy weapons more effective By increasing damage out for power in. Reduce the powering cost of phasers.Or make them more powerful. But also reduce their number. By 205 the races will have had 25 years to get it right. If the 2X ships are not over powered it will give 0X ships a chance. An make it easier to balance the various generations of ships against each other."

By Shannon Nichols on 2/5/03
"Also if we go with smaller size/power 2X ships, it allows for easier future expansions. Selling SSD books is part of picture to."

By Jeff Tonglet on 2/6/03
"Is it a cookie cutter to have everyone else the same BPV? No.
Is it cookie cutter if everyone has 10 ph-5, 4 heavy weapons, 15 C Hull, and 48 warp? Yes."

Mike Raper on 2/6/03:
Seriously, though, camp C is the most appealing to me as it provides new ships that are more flexible than 1X, but also somewhat more powerful... not By virtue of being bigger, but By being better. The same or less weapons, but better ones; that kind of approach."

Aaron Gimblet on 2/12/03
"Hey, its a thought. Currently if you look at the SSDs, smaller ships are just like their larger cousins, only individually less capable. What if we made them functionally different?"

Loren Knight on 2/13/03
"I'm hoping for a new challenge in the new X2. There should be new ways to fail miserably and new ways to win gloriously."

I know it's a long post, but I hope it sparks some discussion..

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 12:18 pm: Edit

X-ships were hard to mass-produce because of (to borrow from F&E) the relative scarcity of X-econ points (I assume another way of saying this would be a realtive scarcity of factories that were configured to produce X-grade equipment)

According to SVC, regular econ points slowly shade to X-econ points from Y180 to Y205. Thoughout the Y180s X-econ points are a relatively small percentage of the total, so I assume the shwitchover picks up in the Y190s and 200s.

In 205, the entire economy is X-based, meaning that governments, in fact, WILL be mass-producing X-tech freely. It's just a matter of how big the budget is.

To be honest, I find no good utility in trying to assert that the "workhorse" unit of the time will be smaller than a traditional frigate. Nobody's THAT bad off. What's more, there will be massive fleet attrition the next time shooting starts and bigger hulls are produced en masse.

And in the SFU there's always some shooting going on. If you send a squadron of little ships out against a space dragon (for example), not al of them are coming back. Send the same amount of BPV as a single large hull out, it is more likley to come back, albeit damaged.

X-tech was at one time intended to come back around to the heyday of the cruiser, similar to the way MY was. Given that war/light cruisers are mre in vogue than they used to be, the workhorse units would more likley be be a mixed bag of destroyers, light cruisers and full cruisers. I don't think you can define a single workhorse unit.

By Roger Dupuy (Rogerdupuy) on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 01:46 pm: Edit

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Quote:

To be honest, I find no good utility in trying to assert that the "workhorse" unit of the time will be smaller than a traditional frigate. Nobody's THAT bad off. What's more, there will be massive fleet attrition the next time shooting starts and bigger hulls are produced en masse.

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By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 04:00 pm: Edit

Roger,

While it's slightly more math, I prefer leaving the ships their actual size and making the warp drive more efficient.

Say 1 point of warp expended for movement gives you 1.5 point's worth of movement. that would give a full-CA an effective 2/3 move cost.

This may be a holdover from my dislike of the Jindos whose supermassive rock ships have MCs smaller than most galactic ships for the same class.

By Roger Dupuy (Rogerdupuy) on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 06:55 pm: Edit

I don't have the Jindo stuff, but is there any justification for it?

You would agree, if we took the entire corpus of ships published and analyzed them in regards to size class and MC, there would be 'inconsistancies'...

Maybe the Jindo rocks are not as dense, they may be large, but have lower mass?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 09:13 pm: Edit

Unless you make all expenditures cheaper by the same amount, which serves no purpose, all reducing the movement cost does is make it easier for ships to run around at max speed. This is undesirable for game dynamics.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 09:28 pm: Edit

Unless you reduce warp power also.

By Roger Dupuy (Rogerdupuy) on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 09:33 pm: Edit

A bpv 130 ship with 14 total warp, 21 total power.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 09:44 pm: Edit

won't have any power left over to arm weapons.

Consider, do you put 4-5 power into a photon or move 20-25 hexes?

Also, by reducing the warp you exacerbate the eggshell problem.

By Roger Dupuy (Rogerdupuy) on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 11:04 pm: Edit

Tos, check out the SSD in X2 SSDs very recently submitted. It can fire weapons and have power to spare. The LMs take one point to power.

Your concerns of the eggshell are also my concerns, I am aware of that, but I am working on some X2 tech to limit this. It's a challenge, but I'm willing to try to work things out

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Sunday, April 17, 2005 - 07:57 pm: Edit

As am I.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, April 18, 2005 - 01:49 pm: Edit

I still like the ASIFs for adding durability, but that's natural since I authoried one of the proposals.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, April 18, 2005 - 05:00 pm: Edit

Yes, an ASIF is the way to go, larger hull or not.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, April 18, 2005 - 05:09 pm: Edit

BTW, John Trauger, I wanted to point out something to consider regarding your ASIF system. As it relates to the DAC directly this will be a problem for those people who want ot use BD:CR and possibly that new system using dice that SVC was musing about in those threads.

That has been the little thing that has been nagging at me about that ASIF system from the get go but I couldn't pin it down. There are other reasons too but I really think that whatever system is used it needs to be independant of any game system tools such as the DAC.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, April 18, 2005 - 06:05 pm: Edit

But there's no reason why every race would need to use ASIF. Every race would need something to make their ships more survivable. But maybe some races use ASIF (but not necessarily identical forms of ASIF) while other races use something else.

There's already been a lot of discussion that Klingon disruptors at X2 might be different from Kzinti disruptors, which in turn would be different from Lyran disruptors, and so on. Similarly, various people have suggested that Gorn X2 plasma torpedos not be identical to Romulan X2 torpedos. There's no reason something similar couldn't be done with defensive systems.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, April 18, 2005 - 06:06 pm: Edit

Or interface with that system properly.

Your system IS independent becuase it's effectively energy-charged armor.

I think my ASIF could function in an alternate damage-allocation environment. There would need to be rules to cover it.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, April 18, 2005 - 06:29 pm: Edit

John: Yes, it would require aditional rules for other damage systems.

Please remember that with my ASIF absorbing damage hits is only part of the system. My system protects STRUCTURE. I don't think an ASIF should protect electronics systems. Although my systems doesn't protects such systems it dose to a degree by protecting the hull (and cargo which is effectively hull with large open spaces). But beyong protecting hull and cargo it aids in various repair processes and protects the contents of hull, cargo and shuttle bays (it doesn't protect shuttle directly since there is considerable electronics in a shuttle bay but it does keep the hull plates and girders off the shuttle inside. That is, once a shuttle box is repaired the shuttle that was in it has 1 point left and can be repaired.)

Also, I think it's important that the protective qualities be spread through out the damage as it is applied. Something that your's does do to a degree. That's why I went with absorbing the first of every fourth hull/cargo hit (1 per 3 for reinforced levels). That way it self adjusts to the level of damage that comes in.

This then lengthens the survivability curve which is what my primary goal was.