Archive through December 22, 2002
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
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Major X2 tech changes...:
Archive through December 22, 2002
Mike I like it.
But instaed of basing it off the CA. Maybe X2 Cruisers should be based off the BCH's. I mean they mentioned in X1 somewhere that they couldn't solve the hull stress problem of BC's and X-tech until X2 came about.
Movecost 1.25 sems tp be fine. Ship sizes keep increasing. But what if the ships are actually staying the same size (mostly). And it is simply that the increased Tech allows the systems other than Hull/cargo to take up less actual space. So a new warp engine produces 20 power but doesn't take anymore space than the old 15's. If SVC goes with that as the basic concept MC1.25 would seem to be a step back in efficiency.
***Note: just playing Devils advocate here.
Also see my comments on Phasers in the Phaser thread.
Ken,
Well, that's what this is all about! Making everyone step back and think a bit. Basing the Fed CX2 off a BCH makes sense; it's simple matter of changing the phaser arcs to RS/LS. I do think that the ships will just continue to get somewhat larger, though, and that helps justify the extra move cost.
When we're ready, I'll put the Fed up again, along with the klingon 2X BC on the same post...then we can compare and contrast a bit.
As to size.
I think some races should get larger ships ( such as the Enterprise B and the Excellcior ) whilst other should get different systems.
If the Romulans got Orion Non damaging engine doubling, Sheilds like every other race, ubercloaking and Stealth Hulls, they could still make effective battle against the MC1, BB number of boxes:- Federation X2 ships; on an even footing.
And in having those different manners to create the same BPV, we will get RACIAL FLAVOUR.
What if we replaced the ph-1 with a megaphaser, but kept the same number of phasers as the BCH or the CX?
That's some pretty significant damage, though. At range 0, a Fed CCX could dish out 200 points of phaser damage with perfect hits. The average would be something like 160, by the chart. By contrast, even the hefty phaser array on the conjectural CC2X I put up would max out at 208; and that's with overloading. The average would work out about the same. The problem is, in my mind, that having less phasers would leave the ship more vulnerable to internal damage (less boxes to destroy) and drone/fighter attack. Just my thoughts, at first glance.
If it's impossible to hit a CXX with a drone wave, then there's no point to using drones. In terms of playability, I still want a chance of something getting through.
If you get to range 0 of any race's CXX, you deserve to get your ship blown out from under you.
In both versions of X1, a non-OL ph-1 can be split into 2 ph-3 beams, as long as both are fired at small targets.
Lets be careful not to creat a scene where the game is the same with more check marks on the SSD and bigger numbers. If ships can dish out mega damage but they are built to take it the it's the same old thing but will just take longer.
I'm not saying that where we are going, rather lets keep an eye on avoiding that.
I suggested increasing range in the phaser topic to address the issue Loren brings up. It belongs here too.
X1 broke because the tactics with overloaded phasers became 'go to range 5 and roll better than your opponent'. We don't want to repeat this mistake.
I propose we considerably lengthen weapon ranges and reduce the damage spike found in a point-blank battle pass. The P4 does this well by having ranges 0-3 do identical damage and can reach out to range 17 with an auto-hit. We can't mount P4s on ships but we can have a phaser with a similar range/damage curve (figure same range but 50% damage).
Heavy weapons would follow suit, expand the sweet spot while limiting the advantage of a point-blank battle pass. Flatten the damage curve.
Okay, how about this. A new, heavier X-2 only phaser, not quite as powerful as the Phaser-4. Mounted in smaller quantities (say about the same as a standard CC or BC), that can be fired as one shot or as three seperate phaser-3 shots. For the Hydrans, a new Phaser G, with a bit longer range and slightly better damage (this from the conversation in one of the other threads about Hydran advances). Maybe something like these?
Potential 2X New Phasers
Just a sample, to provide some visual aid and a real chart for the number-crunchers to play with.
That's a bit much. The extreme ranges are too good I think. I would find the Type-H table acceptable if you shifted the whole table one to the left (eliminating the R0 column) and made the extreme range bracket 1,0,0,0,0,0. Then reduce the next bracket to 2,1,0,0,0,0. Also, I think the max damage potential should be 12 but if these were reduced in number even more (Like the FH group on the Fed or the Wing Phasers on the Klingon for a maximum of four on one ship and the rest be X1 style) then I would leave it as is. But a ship with All Heavy Phasers (8 to 12) is too much, IMHO.
The PG-II is clearly an offencive weapon with this chart. Take those long range columns and times them by six (or is this one still at four? Even then...). I would use this weapon out to 15 normally. At four shots that column reads 8,8,4,0,0,0 for one point of power. Rather better than a photon or a disruptor. So I would say that's too good as well. It should only have offencive potential to R8 which is a lot better than the GW-PG.
As always, those are just my own thoughts. One voter speaking out. 
Can we move the phaser discussion to the phaser discussion?
Re the hull itself, I can't see why a CA would have a move cost of 1.25. After all:
A W-era CA has an MC of 1.
A YCA is MC1.
A Middle-years CA is MC1.
A GW CA is MC1.
An NCA is MC1.
A BCH is MC1.
A CX is MC1.
Taking a weighted average of all the above and doing a lot of complicated mathematics detailing warp field interactions, subspace dynamics, Kaluza-Klein eigenfunctions, M-theory and the like, I calculate that the 2X CA would have a move cost of approximately:
1.000 +/- 0.002.
By the same logic, I deduce that an X2 DNL would have a move cost of approximately 1.25.
You are welcome to check my calculations.
The phaser discussion has the chart in it, now.
Jim, the move cost is based on two lines of reasoning. One, the 2X ship, if it follows the pattern set by EY-0X-1X, will have the size engines depicted; about 50 points of warp, total. That's too much for a MC1 ship. But, having the extra warp also reflects a larger, more damage resistant engine; something that seems a popular choice. So, a MC of 1.25 is a reasonable way to offset the extra power. Besides, the 2X ship is a bit larger than a regular cruiser; maybe not quite as large as a DNL, but still bigger than a cruiser. Besides, Move cost isn't an exact science. This is just an example and starting point, though, and any comments are useful. So far, most people posting seem okay with the extra move cost, though.
Okay, here's some more to look at, and do some compare/contrast. Again...I don't necessarily advocate this as the 2X answer, but it gives us something to work with. There are two ship SSD's, and a weapon table with some possible phasers and heavy weapons.
Federation 2X CC
Klingon 2X BC
2X Weapon Tables
Mike, can you add a 50% P4 table next to your PH and a P2 table next to your PG2?
50% how? Damage, or range? I can add it easily enough.
50% of the damage at the same ranges, round down.
Mike, sorry I didn't get my comments to you in time but I just sent them.
That Klingon is way cool lookin'. And Ba-aa-d ass!
It's there. Call it Phaser 5, for now. Had to round up in places, though, or it would have had too many 0's in alot of columns.
Mike, I compared your 2X CC with the failed supplement #2 XCA. Here are the results:
Your ship is significantly more powerful with +8 warp, +6 AWR, +4 Impulse and +1 Bat5.
Both have the same weaponry with practically the same arcs but your ship has +2 drone racks.
The Sup2 ship has 6 of something called Hold, +6 cargo. Your ship has +4 Hull and +2 Control.
Even the front shields are exactly the same (I didn't bother to count the others).
Unless there are some funky rules in Sup2 I've forgotten that broke it I'm going to vote that your ships are far too big. Take the ‘5’ out of the battery boxes and I would assume your design was simply an alternative X0 DN. I think a paradigm shift is needed for X2. New weapons, new abilities, longer ranges. Not simply more of the same but bigger.
p.s. Stunning artwork as always. It looks great, but I'm trying not to allow my appreciation of your art to sway my opinion.
Tos,
Well, don't think of it so much as "mine"...I don't approve or disaprove. I just want to give us somewhere to start. The reasoning behind the basic design is all posted above, but I will say this in defense of this sort of ship for X2. The thing that broke 2X before was the weapons, and the funky rules (like shield reinforcement). The original 2X photon, for example, was almost a no-miss weapon...ditto the 2X super disruptor (which had capacitors, and could be double overloaded!) The ships I posted do indeed have more power, but they also cost more to move; so while they're bigger and have more goodies, they still have a less effective power curve than 1X does of 0X.
Here's my reasoning for posting what I have so far. So far, we've all been whitsling in the dark, with about 10 different threads all going in different directions. My thought is that if we can nail down the two most basic, archetypal races in the game - the Feds and Klingons - the rest can be hammered out alot more easily. Does that make sense at all? I'm doped on Ni-Quil right now, so I don't know how coherently I'm writing.
Oh, and thanks for compliment on the work!
Mike, I'd like to tweak the P5 table a bit, it came out with more damage than I expected.
Range 0-3, 10/10/9/8/7/7
4-5, 10/9/8/7/6/5
6, 10/7/6/5/5/4
7, 7/6/5/5/4/4
8, 6/5/5/4/4/3
9, 5/4/4/4/3/3
10, 4/4/3/3/2/2
13, 3/3/2/2/1/1
17, 2/2/2/1/1/0
25, 2/1/1/0/0/0
40, 1/1/0/0/0/0
75, 1/0/0/0/0/0
Done.
THAT's a P-5 table I could deal with. The tables that gave a max damage of 13 - 18 seemed excessive for a "workhorse" phaser analogous to the P-1
Uh, neither of the tables Mike put up have a max of 13 damage. Could you clarify your point?
Mike did post the Phaser-H table elsewhere, and Jeff Tonglet has posted a P-5 table in the P-1 topic. Both are in the 13-18 bracket and I'd swear both were presented as P-1 replacements. I may have misunderstood Mike.
There's so many topics (and the conversations are still so tangled) that it's hard to remember what got posted where.
