Some ideas:

Range 40 becomes standard.

Increase arc from 120 to 180.

What if we just replaced the 4 standard photons with 4 megaphotons?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 01:17 am: Edit

Range forty for proxies, maybe...not standards, though.

Agree with arcs.

I'd prefer to see ships allowed to download to mini photons, if they like. Mega photons will be so expensive to arm that 2X DD's and other SC4 hulls won't be able to use them.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 01:24 am: Edit

What about an all purpose photon torpedo?

Changes:
At least 1 point of power each turn.
Anything with more than 6 energy in it is an OL.
No more than 12 energy (24 warhead) per torp.

Same as GW photons:
Two turns to arm.
Damage is 2x energy put in (not counting holding).
Holding is 1/4 the energy already in it.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 02:09 am: Edit

What about the idea I've been posting.

half size able to OL to 2/3 full but can fire twice. Load as separate torps but each tube can handle two torps.

For more detail see previous posts in main topic.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 02:24 am: Edit

X1 Photons already have a range of 40.

I like the idea of the fully variable photon. minimum 2 point power, max 12 power. anything over 5 power is an overload. Max charge of proximity warhead, 4 power. Damage is double energy. I'd like to see an increase in overload range to 10 or 12. I'd also like to see the to-hit chart move one to the right.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 02:30 am: Edit

Christopher,

Choose one of those changes. All of them are way, way too much. You're describing the X2 photon and it was boring as hades. It's a different weapon with the same name.

Loren's "shotgun photon" is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure what purpose it serves, except to make is harder to hit with all torps or crap out an miss with them all.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 02:34 am: Edit

Well, what I described is thge current photon with an lower minimum and a higher maximum.

Besides, I don't want the headache of keeping track of which of the 8 torps is loaded as what and when they started. And that is what Loren's idea would do.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 09:50 am: Edit

I agree. Mayb a photon with a damage range from 4-20, with anything over 10 being an overload, and max damage for a proxie as 5.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 12:35 pm: Edit

Cfant: That's a good point. I suppose that it would be natural to require that two in the same launcher would require identical loading. That way keeping track would be the same and now.

I could work on a better description of actual procedure. It should be able to keep track on a standard EAF if possible. Maybe a X2 EAF would be in order, having eight Heavy Weapons Rows, in any case.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 01:23 pm: Edit

the problem is that it breaks the Fed paradigm of being a one-turn slegehammer to being more disruptorlike.

A version of Lorens idea could be that a Fed can fire a "skim torp", consisting of only the OL portion of the arming energy.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 01:37 pm: Edit

"Skim" torp? Is that like a low-fat torp, or maybe a soy torp?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 01:45 pm: Edit

It's the Feds. It has to be soy.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 02:52 pm: Edit

Remamber, I balanced that with a new Disruptor design.

I figured that the mega Photon was too much to deal with safely and adding more launchers wouldn't work either. So, they scaled bach the photon so that each launcher could fire two. Being able to fire two 12 point OLs gives you a higher damage output. Game wise you have to split that fire up. But that could be a tactical advantage in itself. Each launcher must load both photons identically and could not fire then on the same impulse. (2 or 4 impulses between I think). They would still be a two turn arming weapon unless fast loaded, but then that would take a lot of power.

I was also thinking that a six point warhead shouldn't be considered OL. So you could arm it 1+1 for 4 pts (limited range 12?) or 1+2/2+1 for 6 (full range) or >2+>1 for OL up to 6 total power for 12 points. Double that for two shots from each tube.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 05:49 pm: Edit

But I think 8 torp shots would be too much. The Feds have had 4 torps since the early GW era and I would think they would stay with that. Besides, Fed ships are always going to be geared more towards science anyway. 4 torps that can dial as needed makes much more sense from the science point of view, as a tube launching more weapons will require more upkeep, and thus more time in dock. These guys are supposed to be out exploring and patroling the frontier no?

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 07:46 pm: Edit

Yes, the Feds have always put 4 torps on a cruiser, from YCA all the way to CX. But, in the CXX era, 4x16 points of damage is no longer "as much as needed".

The Feds need some sort of tehnological breakthrough that improves their torpedos and/or they are forced to put 6-8 regular photons on their cruiser in order to compete.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 08:20 pm: Edit

Compair the Photon Torpedo to todays nukes. There comes a point when more megatons yeilds less and less additional damage. So we developed merv warheads. Using smaller bombs hitting a wider area. I am submitting that a similar problem exsists with the Photon. When the explosion strength is dissapated exponentially, to yeild 24 points of damage with one photon torpedo would take a weapon three times the size. So in order to have that same damage potential come from one ship you create a smaller multi shot weapon.

Same comparison with a rifle. How big of a shell would you need to match a single burst from a M16? Pretty big I'll bet.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 09:28 pm: Edit

Jeff, the early CA had two photons, and they couldn't be either overloaded or proxied. The standard 0X CA has four, and can do both. The 1X CC has four, and can fast load. Following this pattern, I'd agree to some kind of upgrade for the photon, but not a huge one. A bit more damage, greater range, and that should do it, IMHO.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 09:43 pm: Edit

The Feds already have the equivalent of a mirv. There's no rule that says I can't fire photon A at a D7, photon B with a prox fuse at a F5, photons C and D at a C8.

Unlike nukes, one torpedo isn't enough, so for tactical reasons, all 4 are usually fired at the same target on the same impulse.

-----------------

In terms of game play, are there really any significant differences between these two systems:

System 1: 6 torpedos with 8 point warheads (standard) or up to 16 point warheads (OL)

System 2: 4 torpedos with 12 point warheads (standard) or up to 24 point warheads (OL)

If the Feds managed to make 6 photons work on the New Jersey (but with shock), a BCH, then they should be able to get a CXX to mount 6 photons and fix the shock problem.

Can they put 6 x 24 photons on the ship?
I think that would be something to keep in reserve in case the Fed CXX proves to be too weak against the Klink CXX or Rom CXX, and then only use the technobabble one way or another once we have the result.

------

The old X1 has the same 4 torpedos seen on the standard CA. The upgrade is the rapid-fire option, which gives them the same rate-of-fire as disruptors.

The CL23 change reduces the max 1 turn OL warhead strength from 16 to 12 and eliminates misfires.

What this means is that the X1 photon is a 1 turn weapon at standard energy.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, December 22, 2002 - 01:36 am: Edit

"The Feds already have the equivalent of a mirv. There's no rule that says I can't fire photon A at a D7, photon B with a prox fuse at a F5, photons C and D at a C8.

Unlike nukes, one torpedo isn't enough, so for tactical reasons, all 4 are usually fired at the same target on the same impulse."

Huh??

Is that how you read my post?? Seriously??

OK...

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Sunday, December 22, 2002 - 12:23 pm: Edit

Bear in mind that we're (AFAICT) aiming for only about +20% BPV over an X1 equivalent, so let's not go overboard.

I like the idea of the 1-12 energy warhead, and slightly increasing the 'standard' level to 5 or 6 energy.

Where the photon suffers is in the R9-22 range where the UIM disruptor is way better. The R9-12 break is far too small, and needs to be increased, say to 9-20.

The other problem with the photon is its all-or-nothingness, wherein luck plays such a huge part. As such, more photons rather than bigger would be wise from a pure gaming POV.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, December 22, 2002 - 07:48 pm: Edit

Is there any harm in eliminating altogether the overload range limitation? I'd rather do this than increase the warhead yield.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, December 22, 2002 - 07:52 pm: Edit

Increasing the overload range to 12 had a whole lot to do with breaking the original 2X, even with the same warhead size. I'd be very careful about going that route.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, December 22, 2002 - 08:28 pm: Edit

I'ld like to talk about THE VISION THING.


I see the Enterprise-B and the Excellcior as being the X2 ships of note.

I can see those ships having:-
2 FA Photons.
2 LF + L Photons.
2 RF + R Photons.
2 RA Photons.

I'm not trying to build 360 degree photons or reclaim the CENTERLINE as a Fed tactic.

I just think that there is evidence for rear firing Photons in these vessels and also that MORE Forward Photons would be one of the areas of advancement in the Fed designs.

I could see that Photon array mounted on these ships with 4 ( rather than 2 ) FA Photons, but perhaps I see 2X ships as being a bit too powerful.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, December 22, 2002 - 08:35 pm: Edit

The ADB cannot legally use the Excelsior-class starships in SFB. That way lies legal hassles for the ADB.

We are better off going in our own direction than trying to shoehorn SFB into the direction either the movies or the Franchise TV series went in.

Yes, I know X-ships are the rough equivalent of the refitted 1701 and 1701-A starships, but the key words are "rough equivalents."

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, December 22, 2002 - 08:36 pm: Edit

MJC,

That's all very true, and is indeed the direction that some folks want to go...not all, but a good many. The only problem with adding photons based on the franchise is that in the movies and later shows, photons were cheap to arm, because they had internal thrusters and a warhead. In SFB, they aren't...so adding scads of photons is going to be tough to do. The "draft" CCX that's floating about right now does have four forward photons, but the difference is that the firing arc is wider; 180, instead of 120. That gives the ship a bit more flexibilty and some opportunity for side shots it wouldn't normally have.