Most of your files are right about 100, but one was more like 256.

If you can squeeze what you're doing into the standard tourney SSD size of 1050 x 800, your file sizes should take care of themselves. Your usual stuff is about half again that size in both directions.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, October 02, 2007 - 09:01 pm: Edit

Yeah...basically I scanned the pages of the XCA and XFF at 200 DPI and then when it was explained that they were MASSIVE, I went down to 150 DPI.

I'm not entirely convinced that I could work at 100 DPI (the boxes are hard to pick up at 150 DPI) so I think I'll stick with the 150 for any further scanning.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, October 02, 2007 - 09:45 pm: Edit

You can probably drop to 75 DPI. Standard for the web is 72, for some strange reason.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, October 02, 2007 - 11:01 pm: Edit

MJC,
do you run Windows XP?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, October 03, 2007 - 03:59 am: Edit

This one runs Vista. The one I've got the SSDs on runs Win95.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, October 03, 2007 - 12:56 pm: Edit

The vista machine should give you the ability to edit image files rather than scan.

I built a library of SSDs to work from by downloading the tournament cruisers and Star Fleet Times SSDs that are posted right here. Form there, I merely stole SSDs from Loren, Mike and Jeremy Gray when I found something I like. (I don't steal from PhD because they have their own look and format)

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, October 03, 2007 - 01:30 pm: Edit

MJC: Check to see if Vista has an applet called "Image Resizer". To do this Right Click the image ICON and it should appear in the resulting context menu. If it is not there then you can go here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

scroll down to Image Resizer (that actual download link should be on the right).

Now, I don't know about the other applets like TweakUI which is great for XP but I can't imagin it working for Vista, but there should be no problem using Image Resizer.

How it works once installed: Right click the image icon and click Resize Image from the context menu. A dialog box comes up with various options that are self explainatory. Use this utility on ALL pictures you send to anyone for simple viewing. You can now work with images in whatever resolution you want then resize it to say, 1024x768 which will ensure that 98% of the viewers will see it in full on their screen. You could choose 800x600 to save even more bandwidth of the persons site who is giving you free hosting.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, October 03, 2007 - 01:35 pm: Edit

I suppose that VIsta might have this functionality already somewhere. You might go to WIndows Help and type in "Resize Image". This should let you know if it has been built into Vista.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, October 03, 2007 - 01:58 pm: Edit

Just dump the image into MSPaint, and re-size it from there. Just open the image with paint, and go to the top toolbar. Select "image", and one of your options is "stretch/skew". Enter a percentage you want to reduce the image by in both the horizontal and vertical "stretch" windows, and hit okay. Bing-bang, your image is now resized.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, October 03, 2007 - 02:16 pm: Edit

Paint is an acceptable editor if you want to try making SSDs instead of scanning them. As long as you have the hull outline you should be fine.

Pain can even make a few simple line changes.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, October 03, 2007 - 02:34 pm: Edit

I do all my SSD work with MS Paint so long as I have a basic ship to begin with. It's selection and copy/paste tools are excessively easy to work with. I have made major modifications to SSD's with just Paint.

Resizing was less than satisfactory for me though. Image resizer really does a clean job of it.

MJC: Remember to always finish with making your image a JPEG. You can do this before using Immage Resizer.

All you people out there using XP you should get this PowerToy. It produces great results for everything including photos, line art and whatever. It's free too.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, October 03, 2007 - 04:50 pm: Edit

Actually, GIFs are slightly better for B&W.

JPEGs are better for color.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, October 03, 2007 - 05:09 pm: Edit

John is right. Most SSD's are best as GIF. My mistake.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, October 03, 2007 - 05:18 pm: Edit

I mostly use paint, though I'll use SSDPrint sometimes to get a hull shape right. Once you get used to using it, it's a breeze. I also have an "SSD tool kit"...a bunch of BMP's of all the charts, move cost diagrams, firing arcs, special notations, fighters, shuttles, crew counts, etc. you'd use to make SSD's. It's a handy thing to have.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, October 04, 2007 - 06:47 am: Edit

I think I've got the resize function to work in MS paintbrush...I've resent the Fed XCA and XFF .gif files to vorlonagent and if they've come trough alright I'll look to do the same with the XFS.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, October 04, 2007 - 02:23 pm: Edit

I did. They're up. I took care of the other big offenders myself.

See if you can get comfortable cutting and pasting SSDs. You will find your work will appear cleaning and clearer and it may turn out to be easier with a little practice.

I use paint shop pro 7 only because it will tive me a background grid that let me line things up exactly right.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, October 04, 2007 - 11:46 pm: Edit

Thanks for the other big offenders...but I need to actually list the plus refit cost of XFF some time so I'll get round to that some time.

By Joseph Justice (Kromarg) on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 - 10:18 pm: Edit

I saw on another board that SVC mentioned a DS9, which he described as the scout version of the klingon D9 X-ship. I was wondering when we might see the SSD for that.

By Joseph Justice (Kromarg) on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 - 10:27 pm: Edit

I saw on another board that SVC mentioned a DS9, which he described as the scout version of the klingon D9 X-ship. I was wondering when we might see the SSD for that.

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Tuesday, September 09, 2008 - 10:55 pm: Edit

It was a joke. Making reference to parts of the non-1960s Star Trek franchise is outside the scope of ADB's material. To SVC, DS9 doesn't exist.

By Todd Warnken (Toddw) on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 07:43 am: Edit

The D9 and D9C were in the old Supplement #2. They are no longer valid ships since the Supplement #2 was just a bad dream.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 12:06 pm: Edit

It occured to me that back in fall 2004, I said I was going to post these, and I don't think I ever did...

Federation 2X Advanced Cruiser (CXX): Experimental Second Generation X-Cruiser. Special rules not evident on the SSD:
S-bridge - limited scout functions if powered like a special sensor.
Shield Regenerator – powered for 1 point of power per turn in EA, repairs up to 6 damaged shield boxes at the player’s choice during EOT of the same turn.
Unless otherwise noted, ship uses the same rules as a first generation X-ship.

Klingon D-10X 2X Advanced Cruiser (D10X): Experimental Second Generation X-Cruiser. Special rules not evident on the SSD:
Shield Shunt – powered for 1 point of power per turn in EA, allows up to 10 points of damaged shielding to be swapped with undamaged shield boxes from other shields.
Unless otherwise noted, ship uses the same rules as a first generation X-ship.

Romulan Praetorhawak 2X Advanced Cruiser (PHXX): Experimental Second Generation X-Cruiser. Special rules not evident on the SSD:
PL-X - Powered for 2+2+6. Cannot be held. Can be held as a PL-S, can be hastily repaired as a Pl-R.
Unless otherwise noted, ship uses the same rules as a first generation X-ship.

I never got beyond these three ships in my own little X2 project. The general idea was to restore/enhance "uniqueness" between the races. As a result, while the Ph-5 is commonly available (and the ph-1 is the new defacto Ph-2/3), the rest of the technology is largely unique:

- The Feds get HUGE (12/24) photons, the S-bridge, and a shield regenerator.
- The Klingons get hybrid of particle cannons and disrtupors (using tech from the now "dead" Selts), an available SFG refit, advanced ADDs, and a shield shunt that lets them shift shields from one facing to another.
- The Roms get the "mother-of-all-torpedoes", and integrated mauler tied to fewer batteries but with higher damage output, an advanced cloak decoy as standard equipment, and integrated mine racks.

I had plans to do the rest of the major races, but never got around to them. Some other thoughts were some sort of super-drone for the Kzintis, enhanced ESGs for the Lyrans, "Carronade Cannons" for the Gorns, etc. Maybe one day.

There are a lot of details buried in the SSDs. Who should get what tech is obviously debateable, but the basic idea is that everybody is way different. Toys like the S-bridge are not common to all races. In terms of size and power, the ships are not much bigger than X1 cruisers, and what little power they have in addition to the X1 standard is going to get sucked up by all the new gizmos. BPVs are pure swag - balancing these beasts would obviously take some playtesting.

By Richard Sherman (Rich) on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 12:59 pm: Edit

Pretty creative stuff there, Jeremy. Nicely done.

Some quibbles...

I would've made the advanced ADDs range 5, not range 6 (range 4 is 1-3, range 5 is 1-2, range 6+ is -). And I think both the Feds and the Klingons should use the same table.

Fed phaser arrangement seems a bit unusual, with the 360 bank being the weakest one. Not sure the Feds would do that...

Would the SFGs on the Klingon be hit on FLAG, like the security stations? If so, maybe too many flag hits?

That Romulan would be one tough hombre, especially with those mine racks. The mauler's a nice touch, just not too sure about it. What's the shock rating? Seems kinda of a dangerous system to put into an X2 RPW-type ship.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 01:24 pm: Edit

Concur. I like the concept of making the mauler standard. These designs are all too powerful and under BPV'd of course, but very creative.

Given that the Rom has NWO, I would expect the Mine racks to be redundant.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 01:32 pm: Edit

Rich, thanks...

AADDs - really two issues here. First, I want the AADD-only rack to have some sort of edge over the GX rack (otherwise not much need for them). So, in my view of things, only the AADD rack can fire them - GX-racks have to live with conventional ADDs. Second, I wanted to widen both the max range and the "sweet-spot" for the AADD, which lead to the max range of six. Either a max range 5 or max range 6 weapon would work I suppose, but I guess we would need to see that Kzinit "super-drone" first.

Fed Ph-1 360s - I absolutely hate the idea of the big X-phaser battery on a 360-mount. Reminds me too much of ST:TNG ...[gag]. I don't think I put any ph-5 in a mount bigger than FX or RX on any ship. I'd rather force people to manuever a bit to get the most out of their ph-5s. I didn't want the Fed the have an all Ph-5 armament considering the big photons either, which left me with the phaser arangement on the ship. I did widen the phaser arcs of the Ph-5s (a nod to the folks that want that in an X2 ship), but I was trying to not go whole-hog.

SFGs - They would he hit on phaser hits like all other SFGs. Presumably, you would put the Ph-5 below the SFG in the order of precedence list for phaser damage, so it really would not be any better protected than on many of the existing X1 or GW SFG ships. The alternative is to make a seperate, specialist D-10XA, giving up a couple of Ph-5s like the DXA gave up Ph-1s. Part of my thinking was that the SFG was eating up two of the NWOs I gave the other two ships, so the Klingons give up some other flexibility to have the option of a 2X ship with a SFG.

Romulan Mauler - I never settled on a shock rating. Two possible trains of thought on this one. One, make the shock rating high, which would allow frequent, longe-range shots with the mauler. This gives the Praetorhawk some added DF punch in what is otherwise a seeking weapon-heavy ship. Two, make the shock rating really low, on the rationale that the mauler is a really a last-ditch kind of weapon to be used only in the most dire circumstances (like when that Fed CXX is about the run you over with 4 juiced megaphotons). The ship really doesn't have that many batteries (only 6 3-point bttys), so it isn't some kind of monster anchor beast compared to the X1 maulers. Basically, just an option to take your normal reserve power and fire it down the enemy's throat.

The Rom mine racks - definately a powerful device, particularly combined with the cloak. I personnally hate fighting mines, but I recognise how central they are to Romulan cloak tactics. If its any compensation, just like any other ship equipped with them, the mine racks do not come loaded with mines. The mine rack loads have to be paid for out of the force BPV or commanders options. So while its possible that the ship could be hauling around 8 NSMs, it will likely bump the BPV of the ship up to around 400 BPV. Or more - as TOS says, these things are under-BPVed at present. Pretty steep. In any case, of all the "goodies" on these ships, I'm the least attached to this one.