I wasn't thinking of it as a restriction, more of a target. What I found was its very difficult to hit the target. My ships are easily 10-20% above where I wanted them to be, but that's where they ended up.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 08:20 pm: Edit

I think new tactical challenges is a good thing but clearly it has to work with everything else. We can't really make X2 it's own game.

I think X2 should show a logical progression of technology. I also think that survivability would be a new design paradigm, as well as multi-role systems. It could be very interesting to have ships that aren't as agressive as X1 but more defensive and physically tougher. They'd compete well with X1 because they fight longer and later refits make them even more dangerous in time of war. I mentioned way back in the beginning of the X-files that X2 ships perhaps should be designed with war time refits in mind.

Unfortuately, although this is a logical progression of design, this is also a game, and players don't want longer games. Look at the success of FC to see that fact in action.

I wonder if the new generation of players wouldn't WANT a close-and-hose paradigm. Supp.2 failed because the players of the time were more discriminating and patient. Supp.2 might have been a lot more popular today. Of course, I hope it wouldn't, but I do wonder.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 09:22 pm: Edit

X2 isn't for the new generation of SFB players, if there are any.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 11:42 pm: Edit

One way (and this goes along with what Jeremy suggested when he posted the SSDs that restarted the discussion) to introduce new systems without making X2 ships too much more powerful than their X-ship counterparts is to give each empire some of the tech improvements, but not all of them. Basically, no one, not even the Feds, had the R&D capability to develop all the promising new technology after the wreckage of the preceding decades. So one (or perhaps two, especially if they are trusted allies who would tend to share technology) of the empires gets ASIF. A different empire gets efficient shield regeneration. Still another empire developes the "S-Bridge", and so on. This allows a lot of new systems to be introduced without X2 ships becoming too overwhelming. It also strengthens differentiation between the empires, which was weakened by X1, at least for some empires.

One problem with this approach is that it will make balance a bit harder. But, speaking only for myself, given the choice between playing a game that is perfectly balanced, but dull, or one that is balanced 60-40 but has lots of interesting possibilities to explore for both sides, I would choose the latter without hesitation.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 12:43 am: Edit

The ASIF, in my view, is the very thing that makes X2 possible (technology wise). It is the system of devices that enables the hulls to withstand the stresses of X-tech and go further than X1 could.

Starships MUST have some form of structural integrity system, even the most simple ships from the earliest EY era. No material can withstand the stresses of the way these ships move and most certainly the people on board cannot.

Advances in starship SIF's have been mainly in the background and refelcted by simply better ship designs.

I think in X2 we have an opertunity to use the SIF as a way to introduce interesting new capabilities and shows an interesting new advancement.

This does not mean that ALL empire's ASIF's need to offer the same benefits, but they should have the same basic functions and some obvious basic benefits. Come around Y200, everyone is on the same basic level of starship design, differing only in combat philosophy and general needs of the crew and empire.

I think the ASIF would be an obvious technological advance everyone would independantly make.

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 01:37 am: Edit

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Quote:

One way (and this goes along with what Jeremy suggested when he posted the SSDs that restarted the discussion) to introduce new systems without making X2 ships too much more powerful than their X-ship counterparts is to give each empire some of the tech improvements, but not all of them. Basically, no one, not even the Feds, had the R&D capability to develop all the promising new technology after the wreckage of the preceding decades. So one (or perhaps two, especially if they are trusted allies who would tend to share technology) of the empires gets ASIF. A different empire gets efficient shield regeneration. Still another empire developes the "S-Bridge", and so on. This allows a lot of new systems to be introduced without X2 ships becoming too overwhelming. It also strengthens differentiation between the empires, which was weakened by X1, at least for some empires.

One problem with this approach is that it will make balance a bit harder. But, speaking only for myself, given the choice between playing a game that is perfectly balanced, but dull, or one that is balanced 60-40 but has lots of interesting possibilities to explore for both sides, I would choose the latter without hesitation.

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By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 10:11 am: Edit

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Quote:

Players expect a cruiser to at least incorporate the MY cruiser paradigm: 4 heavy weapons and the equivalent of 6 to 8 heavy phasers.

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By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 03:05 pm: Edit

X2 must, IMO, break some old paradigms. If it does not then it will be "same ol', same old."

I could see the Feds, for instance, having a Heavy Photon on bigger ships, but mounting them 2xFA + 1xRA (the HPhot being roughly the equivelent of twice as powerful). Destroyers may still just use X1 photons but mount four.

A Xorkaelien War refit might be two dorsal mounted X1 photons.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 03:26 pm: Edit

I agree that X2 need to be different. You guys'll find my proposals and SSDs are some of the farthest out there from same 'ol, same 'ol.

Apologies if this comes off as rude. It isn't intded personally.

Subtracting a heavy weapon is not "different". It's a ship that doesn't take internals as well.

Shifting a heavy weapon to the rear arc is not "different". It is a ship that can't employ all of its heavy weapons across any kind of combined firing arc.


Difference is nice but also remember:

Bizarre tech leads to RPS. RE Andros, Jindos and the early days of the ISC.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 03:34 pm: Edit

Can we adopt a goal that each race has *something* unique to it that NO OTHER RACE has?

Ideally: No Feds getting tech slosh from Gorns. No Lyrans getting tech slosh from Klingons

There may well be a common tech base. there will probably need to be in order to minimize RPS. But everybody has *something* that's theirs only.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 04:12 pm: Edit

John,

What I suggested was not simply subtracting a heavy weapon and having a rear firing photon IS pretty different tactically. Some epople advocate a 24 point photon, and I think this is not a good thing. (Along you lines I could just say making a photon more powerful isn't "different".)
Having three tubes of heavy photons is actually more powerful that four forward X1 photons. So balance it by making it two+one (FA/RA). But this isn't an isolated change either. This is a change on an X2 ship. Doing that on an X1 ship wouldn't be all that "different", but most of the technologies discussed for X2 means that X2 ships will take damage better, so the reduction in internals won't mean a ship that doesn't take internals well.

Anyway, I was just proposing different ways of approaching things. What REALLY isn't different is going with the old standard of four photons. Two heavy photons will have VERY different tactical implications than four X1 photons. A rear firing heavy photons changes things even more. Suddenly, Federation ships are under less liability for their poor maneuvering.

But four FA heavy photons is just insain, IMHO. It would be a complete game breaker.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 09:12 pm: Edit

"epople"?

•••• Loren, you must have had more to drink tonight than the rest of us!

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 10:13 pm: Edit

Nope, that's just my fingers playing trick on me again. Of course, my wife is starting not to believe that anymore.


Or no wait, it's a new race I'm working on. Their main weapon is the Hopton Dorteepo.

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 10:31 pm: Edit

I think the "common technology" base could be the ring-firing phasers (as mentioned in CL# 37 page 25 under: After That-SFB Module X2). Then there is the new style of SSD, which may be able to depict a ring-firing phaser.

I mentioned that the X2 cruisers could be analogs of the Fed CA and Klingon D7 etc. What I was referring to was mission not ship design, technology, or weapons. That could be an XCL level ship rather than an XCA. The XCA would be in the CX and DN class as a fleet flag ship. The XCL would be the work-horse cruiser filling a simlar role to the pre-GW CAs.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 11:02 pm: Edit

Okay, I give up. What's a "ring-firing phaser"?

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 11:16 pm: Edit

Alan,

The phasers fire from a 360 ring mount rather than a point mount with a fixed firing arc.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 11:27 pm: Edit

Joe,

But SFB already has phasers with 360° arcs. But they are usually omly a small percentage of the ship's total phasers. How do "ring-firing phasers" differ from the current 360° phasers?

If the answer is that an X2 ship can fire all its phasers (or even most of them) in a full 360° arc, my strong preference would be not to go down that path. It makes the game less interesting rather than more.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, September 12, 2008 - 11:45 pm: Edit

I thought the "ring" phaser was an attempt to introduce a TNG style phaser.

One thing suggested by SVC was ships with larger banks of wide arc phasers. For instance, a Fed XCA with eight FX phasers in the saucer. I personally think this is NOT what ship designers would do since it removes a major defense factor in directional damage for phasers. With the big hits X2 ships will put out, losing all of your phasers will happen MUCH quicker.

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Saturday, September 13, 2008 - 01:51 am: Edit

I have avoided reference to the TNG collimating phaser that cascades around the ring and fires a beam.

The ring-firing phaser's operation is conjecture on my part. I posted earlier that the system could fire a salvo (narrow?) of 4 phasers in one impulse and up to 6 separate shots per turn or some combination (or what ever number represents the total the array system can fire per turn). The damage would happen just like they were phasers on the DAC (the system would have 6 phasers for damage purposes).

I don't see this as that complex. The ring-firing phaser is an offensive system. The defensive phasers would be some number of PH-1s with limited X-aegis; that are single mounts with that race's standard firing arcs.

The heavy weapons, shield regeneration, ASIF etc. is what would create racial uniqueness.

By Joe Gallagher (Draxdreadfeare) on Saturday, September 13, 2008 - 02:07 am: Edit

The phaser emitter could be a seperate system from the weapon itself. In regular SFB the phaser capacitor, generator and emitter are all depicted by a single box on the SSD. Maybe an X2 ship has seperate boxes for the emitters on the collimator ring and the actual weapons (which would be a block of boxes in the middle of the ship somewhere).

For example, my X2 ship has 8 FX phasers. I take a bunch of damage through the #6 shield and lose the emitters on that arc. So now I have 8 FA+R phasers. This limits my tactical options, but I'm still in the fight. This makes the phasers on X2 ships a little harder to kill instead of easier to kill as Loren was concerned about. Obviously there would need to be a way to destroy the actual phaser systems themselves. Maybe every 3rd hit knocks out an actual phaser instead of just an emitter, similar to what SFB does now with the "phaser quality" rule. Or maybe it's hit on another line like battery. This defensive improvement is balanced by the much higher amount of damage X2 ships can pump out, and by keeping the number of phasers firing through the collimator reasonable.

This could apply to all X2 ships, or just Feds (Maybe they were motivated to focus more heavily on phaser technology after the post-GW photon hit-rate studies were leaked to the media.)

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, September 15, 2008 - 01:56 pm: Edit

Loren,

I'd agree that 24-pt photons aren't "different". Nor are P-5s. Nor are monster plasma torps.

The flipside is: Unless we're rewriting the game, we'll need to keep the heavy weapons/phaser paradigm just so the player base knows what they're looking at. I am game for proposals further afield but they will need to be strongly KISS-oriented.

The further we go from "normal" SFB, the more likely we are to incur mistmatched-tech RPS, anyway so there will be a push-pull struggle here. We are gambling that we can find a middle ground that adequatly satisfies both. there's a msall part of me that wodners if such a space exists.

JoeG's idea of phaser emitters *is* different.
i have posted his idea to the X2 P-1 topic. We might want to discuss his idea there.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, September 15, 2008 - 02:06 pm: Edit

One thing to note is that the heavy photons already in the game (for the FRA) are currently limited to SC2 units and to bases - no cruiser may mount it (barring some 'unique experiment', should one ever occur).


When it comes to working out new directions for Alpha X2-tech, what if some ideas learned from the experience of the Unity forces filtered back to Alpha - or, for that matter, the post-Y214 data acquired from Omega?

We've seen that kind of idea go the other way - with the FRA adopting Omega-native technologies, such as tachyon missiles - and it's at least theoretically possible that some post-Unity ships built by the surviving Magellanic Powers would at least be inspired by tech seen on Alpha X-ships.

Perhaps some ideas could go in the opposite direction?


Oh, and speaking of photons - what if an X2-tech launcher could be made to fire both standard and light torps, or in the case of SC2 ships or bases, light, normal and heavy torps?

Further, what if the Aurorans were the ones to develop such systems for their x-ships, and the UFP considered it post-Y214 with the information exchange?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 11:54 pm: Edit

I'm trying a new picture site. Let me know if you can't access this.

This X2 Klingon is designed to be a fair match for a pair of Kzinti CM on a 2x2 map. Consider this a test mule SSD, not a formal proposal.

http://s362.photobucket.com/albums/oo64/morefog/?action=view&current=XD4.gif

Disclaimer: This is not the X2 ship you were expecting. This is significantly weakened to the point where a pair of Kzinti CMs might be able to catch and kill it.

The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate how weak we have to make X2 for the BPV to be balanced against a pair of GW era ships.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, September 19, 2008 - 03:34 pm: Edit

I see nothing on that ship to warrant a 266-point price tag.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, September 19, 2008 - 03:34 pm: Edit

duplicate