Didn't see it listed on 'New Product Development', but it might be interested to discuss some X2 thoughts here (yeah, it's on the auto reject list, but 'ask us in 1994' sounds like it's good to rehash by 2003...)

SO, for the new rule...my first suggestion.

Keeping in mind, I think the goals of X2 now are to make another generation of 'fleet' ships, not experimental, but post war cruisers and such. Hence, no uber tweaking. And I tire of all the X1 rules, so I'd like to make them powerful in a simple way:

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The SSDs (at least, to start) are identical to non refitted standard ship class SSDs (IE., DN, CC, CA, DD, FF)

X2 ships, rather than using a 32 impulse 'turn', use a 16 impulse turn. (IE., two 'turns' pass for an X2 ship every 1 turn for a non-X2 ship).

That applies for EVERYTHING. X2-Photons are armed just like X1 photons - 2 turns, although that means they will have gone through their entire arming cycle as fast as an X1 disruptor could charge.

They don't even need more warp boxes, as an X2 ship travelling at 'speed 16' is moving every impulse (remember, only 16 impulses in an X2 turn). The ability to have another energy allocation phase in the middle of a non-X2 ships turn also gives them massive amounts of tactical flexibility.

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As I mentioned above, the point of this suggestion is to make the X2 ships ridiculously more powerful than non-X2 ships, without making them harder to 'fly'.

Not sure how interesting this would be if it were the ONLY difference, though, as this would make X2 ship vs X2 ship battles rather...mundane.

Just a shorter turn.

Thoughts?

By David Kass (Dkass) on Tuesday, December 17, 2002 - 11:51 pm: Edit

As has been pointed out before, tinkering with the number of impulses in a turn is a nightmare from a rules pov. The current rules assume 1/8 turn = 4 impulses, 1/4 = 8 impulses and the like. Thus one has to ask how long such delays take, eg is 1/8 turn 2 impulses or 4? Does it matter what text was actually used and the fact that the two versions are sometimes used in the same rule...

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 03:05 am: Edit

I not sure that this would work well but Xanders idea is not complicated at all. Basically his X2 ships reallowcate every sixteen impulses. Only arming cycles are changed. 1/8 turn, 1/4 turn delays all stay the same. No need to redefine the "Turn". So an X2 ESG could stay up for 32 impulses(over two X2 Allowcation phases). Some rules would have to be written for an instance like this to say "You can't start arming a weapon while it is in use."

It doesn't have to be complicated. It would make X2 ship uber powerful. personally, I want to see new ship designs and new historys etc.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 03:23 am: Edit

SO the Hack and Slash tactics occours over the Impulse 16-17 break and all that X-power from the engines goes straight into Sheild reinforcement.

Here's a few questions for the unelightened ( as this rule only seems simple ).

Does a 2X ship get one Mid Turn speed change per 1/4 turn as 4 impulses or 8?

Can a 2X ship double it's speed in the turn or Impulse 1-16 and then again in impulse 17-32?

Does an X-ship get to do 4 points of CDR in one 32 impulse turn or one 16 impulse turn and why?

Do deck crews take 32 impulses to perform deck 1 crew action or do they take 16 impulse?

Can I repost Guards every 16 impulse or every 32...and why?

Can I raise Militia in the 1-16 turn and the 17-32 turn...and why?

Can I use my Transporters twice in a turn?
Can I roll 2 T-bombs out my shuttle-bay in one turn?
Can I build 36 point warheads with my Suicide shuttles or just an 18 pointer in 48 impulses!?!
Can I build a WW in 0ne turn!?!
Can I tractor two objects in one 32 impulse turn?
Why would the clocking divice of the 2X ships get worse than the 1X ships?

Using full impulse, how many hexes will I move in a turn?
Do I orbit faster?
How do I move at speed 21...or any odd speed for that matter?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 04:03 am: Edit

When I said it's simple I meant it should be kept simple. You don't have to go through all that. You just have double the power (vurtualy) and allocate the second half on impulse 16. Weapons firing rates double (effectivly). Crew actions, mid-turn speed changes, shuttle stuff, transporters, tractors etc should stay the same. Impulse is 1xC so only one hex per full turn. Orbits are not an X2 technology so they stay the same.

Speed 21. Uh, apply power to move 11 hexs in phase one and realocate power to move 10 more in phase 2. Maximum move per phase is 15 plus one impulse at the end of phase two. Make a rule that you must allocate that impulse the entire turn, half impulse plus half impulse.

Hey, I'm not really for this and I'm not sure why I'm defending it but it's not all that complicated. The reason I'm not for it is because it changes the core game mechanics. That doesn't feel right to me. For me, I want X2 to be a unique class of ships. Bigger, meaner, scarrier, longer ranged and tactically dynamic.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 08:54 am: Edit

RE: the crew stuff, et al.

Could just be explained away that by X2 intra-ship transporting becomes standard. Deck crews work faster because primitive replicators are in use, etc.

Essentially, you are just redefining a 'turn' to be 16 impulses instead of 32 - everything stays the same. 1/4 turn is still 1/4 turn, it's just 4 impulses instead of 8.

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Yeah, I'd like to see new ship classes myself, this was just an idea to get a radically new feel to X2 ships when fighting pre-X2 ships.

By Charles E. Leiserson, Jr. (Bester) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 10:11 am: Edit

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Quote:

Speed 21. Uh, apply power to move 11 hexs in phase one and realocate power to move 10 more in phase 2. Maximum move per phase is 15 plus one impulse at the end of phase two. Make a rule that you must allocate that impulse the entire turn, half impulse plus half impulse.

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By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 11:01 am: Edit

No, I (and, I *think*, ADB) consider X1-tech as a one-time thing. GW era technology pushed to its absolute limit - in many cases, just shovelling more power into engines, bigger phasers, etc.

X2 would be an evolutionary change - a new generation of tech, basically. (Besides, as a Romulan, I would quite look forward to chucking an R torp out every turn and a half, thank YOU)

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 11:05 am: Edit

In other words, X2 vs X2 are no diferent than MY vs MY, but X2 just smears prior gen ships? Sounds...boring.

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 11:15 am: Edit

Well, it would be an opportunity to put together a new set of SSDs (I'm assuming starting from the GW-era ships SSDs, but that is hardly required).

Otherwise, aside from new SSDs, no, not much WOULD change - like I said, X2 vs X2 *would* be a tad mundane. Just a shorter turn, is all.

Course, that allows ADB to make X2 an entirely new product, which, I guess, WOULD be the goal if X2 was really to be a new generation of tech.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 11:29 am: Edit

Whatever form X2 takes new SSDs are pretty much a given (as those are the tasty bits that drive new module sales).

I fail to see how this change would make a "new" product. Does the X2 turn play out as 32 impulses in a standard 16-mpulse period, or do you just do 16 impulses and then do an EAF? How do you write the rules to interface the two (especially with regards to rebalancing X2 seeking weapons under either scheme)? Of course, such rules aren't really necessary, as you can sum them up as "(XX1.0) X2 ships kill pre-X2 ships dead."

As for X2 on X2, how does a shorter turn make it more exciting. Since each side is scaled ontot he same turn length, it all washes.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 11:49 am: Edit

I'm going to back out of this with this last statement. If you make an X2 "Turn" be 16 impulses while the ships it is fighting uses 32 there is no way that could work. Are X2 ships in a time warp? What about an X2 ship makes the crew hop into the Transporter faster or toss and bolt on a drone on a fighter faster? I was suggesting that when I said "Would stay the same" all those things would still be based on a 32 impulse turn. I mean, if a computer ship can't load a fighter faster why could an X2 humanoid crew be able to.

It might be fun to experiment with a "16 impulse allocation cycle" where weapons loading cycles are also doubled. But most other things should still be based on a standard turn. Otherwise you're looking at a real mess of contradictions and nonsensical time warping.

By Charles E. Leiserson, Jr. (Bester) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 11:53 am: Edit

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Quote:

No, I (and, I *think*, ADB) consider X1-tech as a one-time thing. GW era technology pushed to its absolute limit - in many cases, just shovelling more power into engines, bigger phasers, etc.

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Quote:

Besides, as a Romulan, I would quite look forward to chucking an R torp out every turn and a half, thank YOU

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By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 12:01 pm: Edit

X2 ship makes the crew hop into the Transporter faster or toss and bolt on a drone on a fighter faster

Well, no, the crew doesn't change - the technology does. They don't load the transporter faster, it just takes less time to dematerialize and rematerialize them. It works twice as fast.

The crew uses vastly improved equipment to load drones - like I said, primitive replicators help in many areas, too - repairs, etc.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 01:40 pm: Edit

I'm one of those that's chomping at the bit to see X2 come out, but I think it's a tough proposition. To get it right, the 2X ships have to be better than anything else out there, but not super powerful (like the ones that appeared in Supplement #2). To avoid that, I'd think that the modifications to the existing X rules should be fairly minor. For example, if I were to change the photon in some way as a 2X weapon, I'd maybe add a range 0-1 number for standards, and make them a bit more flexible; say, dowloading as an option for a mini torpedo, or perhaps a modest increase in firing arcs. But nothing like what was seen in Supplement 2!

I guess it all depends on how much better a 2X ship is supposed to be than a 1X, and that's up to ADB to decide.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 02:44 pm: Edit

I agree.

X1 is already a quantum leap ahead of the apex of standard tech. A BCH vs a CX is heavily weighted in favor of the CX.

While it feeds the "Tim Taylor" urge for more power, I think we want to look at deepening X1 tech rather than trying to create a second quantum leap.

Besides, the X1 rules (IIRC) state that XBCHs and other kinds of X-ified late-GW ships are the realm of X2.

Let's play with that.

We can do things like selectively restore some of the advantages X1 lost with the recent revision, such as OL phasers.

Most weapons evolved through the MY years, gaining more diversity of function. We can play with that too.

We can give plasma torps a certain amount of "phaser armor" that ignores, say, the first 10 points of warhead loss inflicted on it.

We can retread some of the old X2 concepts like "double-overloads", say allowing the photon to push into megaphoton (module P5) damage range.

Perhaps different races can use different subvarieties of disruptor. Maybe a X2-CA can either carry 6x x1-style disrs or 4x double-overloadable disrs and some disr-races go one way and some go the other. This can add a little diveristy to the disr/drone side of the board.

One problem I noticed with old-X2 was that driving a starship's alpha strike much higher than X1 levels means that you get an insta-cripple against the ship you're fighting. This is, I think, part of the reason that X1-ships were ratcheted back a notch in power.

We need new ways for a starship to take and handle damage.

One idea I had was an actual "7th shield" that acted as a dividing line between columns on the DAC. Say for a X2-CA, you can take Col-A damage normally, but the first 10 time damage tries to jump to Col B or deeper, the damage falls on that part of the 7th shield, then another 10 before Col C hits, etc. This would add to the durability of starships without excessively padding them with hull or armor. The shield repairs like any other shield.

I know this isn't the first time I've floated this concept. I'd swear we had this discussion somewhere else...

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 02:48 pm: Edit

I support the option that X1 pushed technology to its limits and as stated required an outstanding crew to operate. X2 could actually be a detuned X1 where each race focuses on a few specific things they can master (economic cost and crew competence). X2 in my universe is the mass market of certain racially flavored X1 tech.

Lets take batteries as an example. GW tech is 1 point per bat. X1 is 3 points, but requires massive expense and an outstanding crew to maintain. X2 could be 2 points per bat, built inexpensively and maintained by an average crew.

Now lets look at it racially top down. Different races may find different X1 technology too difficult to maintain fleet wide. The Gorns might abandon X-Aegis to save money. The Hydrans may abandon the ability to put up 8 EW. The Kzinti and Tholians may drop their UIM projects. The ISC might drop ship based attrition units due to the complexity of maintaining expedition supply lines. Perhaps the Feds feel they only need range 30 photons fleet wide.

Advantages are that a mixed battle between GW, X1 and X2 wouldn't have to be one sided. It would be perfectly reasonable to use a GW Carrier Group (with more advanced fighters launching X drones), a GW Commando ship, an X1 CC as flag and a few X2 combat ships to fill out the battle. I don't want to see a module of X2 commando ships when existing GW era ships can do the job.

Looking bottom up we have the option of refitting GW ships with X2 tech, again with racial options. Lets say the Roms have a history of being good with batteries and engineer a way to retrofit their GW ships with X2 bats. The Klingons design a non-burnout UIM compatible with their GW ships. The Hydrans retrofit ST-X into GW ships. Feds GW ships can now use up to 8 EW.

There are lots of things we can do to X2 that need not make it incompatible with the existing universe. If you want an incompatible universe Omega and LMC await you. Remember, X2 is supposed to debut in Y205.

Brought to you by the committee to save the Alpha Quadrant from itself.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 03:17 pm: Edit

In a way, it sounds like the modern navy. We've dropped some things (big guns, atomic-powered cruisers, etc) but have focused and excelled at other things (carriers, EW, etc), with the net result being a far more cohesive and effective force.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 03:22 pm: Edit

And just a thought, by the way: Y205 is timed just about right for the Galactic Powers to start to take advantage of some of the nifty things they find at the end of Operation Unity. Picture, for example, a dynamic defense system involving shields and a few power absorbers, with one or the other engaged depending upon the situation (as they can't be used at the same time). You use the power absorbers when damage is expected to be minimal, such as long-range sniping, to keep it from sand-papering your slow-to-repair shields. You switch to shields when you expect a large amount of damage that would probably overwhelm your handful of expensive power absorbers.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 03:50 pm: Edit

Interesting idea. The one problem is that it moves some aspects of Andro tech into general play.

I'd prefer something like armored shields that ignore the first X points of damage done ot them in any attack.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 04:01 pm: Edit

I'd like to see some sort of self-repairing shield. Not much, mind...a few points, at best. But such a thing would be an indicator of radically advanced tech, but not overkill. I'll second the notion of bringing back overload phasers, and perhaps making conjectural tech from P6 (megaphasers, etc) "real" 2X tech. In my 2X games, we also had double strength APR and AWR, reflecting the advancements made in reactor technology. They were expensive, and had a high repair cost, but weren't unreasonable.

By Andy Vancil (Andy) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 05:58 pm: Edit

I would like to see X2 break the speed-32 barrier. You would still have 32-impulse turns, but start getting units that move multiple hexes in an impulse.

The ground has already been broken with the plasma sabot. You could move from that to speed-40 drones, speed-48 plasma, etc. At a certain point, these developments get scaled up to allow ships to go faster, exceeding the 30-warp points per turn rule. Initially, simply allow hot warp ships to use all of their warp for movement, so the CW (X2-movement refitted) can go 37. Later, improvements in the efficiency of tactical warp result in a lower move cost - say 2/3 for your CX2. This lets ships achieve the higher speeds without having too much power at lower speeds.

Trans-32 movement is already defined in the rules. You don't need a new impulse chart - if a unit is going speed s (s between 33-64), then it moves every impulse plus an extra hex every time speed s-32 moves. For speeds 65-96, units move 2 hexes per impulse and 3 when speed s-64 moves, etc.

I suppose you would need to extend the turn mode charts, but you wouldn't need to change existing SSDs since the higher brackets would only apply to X2 units.

You get units that are tactically a quantum leap ahead of older units, but without changing the rules for most systems.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 07:07 pm: Edit

There's so many different ways to go with this.

I think we should set up a separate X2 thread with subthreads for each of the various systems.

Otherwise, we'll end up with a big jumble of ideas.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 07:15 pm: Edit

Seems like enough interest to do so.

By Jonathan McDermott (Caraig) on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 07:16 pm: Edit

I had never considered X2 to be 'X1 mass-produced' but I find myself growing interested in the idea. You really can get vastly different flavors of ships in this manner when the shift is not only towards higher technology but newer *doctrines* to use that technology. X1 ships are normally fought like really powerful and expensive GW ships. Perhaps doctrinal change comes about when the various empires' militaries take a look at what X1 tech they can develop, and change their fleets to match.

I can see the Feds keeping R40 photorps, and adapting some point-defense-oriented technologies to combat drones and plasmas, making a departure from drones and attrition units themselves in favor of 'small combatants' (*NOT* PFs; PFs are attrition units. Perhaps something closer to corvettes, however, or the patrol cutter.)

Klinks, though, just might be the wild and crazy try-any-tech-once-twice-if-we-like-it guys that make their ships multirole nightmares. =)