Archive through December 27, 2002
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
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X2 Speed Limit:
Archive through December 27, 2002
Cfant: If that is the way we will go (i.e. X2 ships must be able to move faster) the 31+1 is the way. It's the only way I would want to play. If I have to deal with speed 48 ships and such...forget it. I'll stick with GW and X1.
31+1 requires drones break 32 or a drone whose booser concks out will never hit a X2 ship.
Even going from 31 to 32 opens a can of worms
frankly if ships can routinly go 31 then speed 32 drones/plasmas are not going to work either
X0 ships can go 31, but only if they don't do much else and it's already enough of a problem that something like the plasma sabot is needed
while looking at the top speed of ships don't forget to watch the combat speed as well, as it climbs it will break things as well, even if it doesn't break 32
Quote:There used to be a speed 8 and 16 impulse chart. If no one was going faster that one of those speeds then you used that chart. And it screwed everything up.
No the system was great until Walter Mizia came along and suddenly everyone wanted every impulse avaible to fire.
Quote:So you pay (on MC1) 30 warp to move 30. One Impulse to move to 31 and 4 additional to hold the ship at the transitional speed of 32. The ship is then under the resrictions and effects of EM.
This extra cost is required to enter the speed 32 bracket, even during Mid-Turn Speed Changes.
I know this will be asked. "Loren, would you then apply the effects of EM to plamasa and speed 32 drones?"
No, ships and seeking weapons are different things. The speed 32 effects and EM are not physically the same thing but in game terms the result is the same.
It's funny how confussing it gets when someone says, suffer the penalty of and everybody else thinks you mean gain the advantage of as well.
How's this.
To move from 31 to 32 cost 10 * MC points of warp power.
X1 ships couldn't do it.
The 10 points of power barrier breaking is what PAN WARP is all about.
No ECM gained or lost, just so frigging much power that there's few tactical reasons to do it.
Eventually some X1 ships got refitted to be able to do it.
Quote:6A2 Super Movement
No. We can not have a Sequence Of Play change to offset the fact that we don't want to change the Impulse Chart.
If that were to happen Aegis capable ships could already fire in the Super Movement step at a Plasma Sabot.
Quote:What is a base to do? With Plasma Sabot you will be able to position your self so that your plasma will always jump from 2 to 0 every shot. This doesn't work for me and would be really, really dangerous if drones get to do that.
Reguardless of whether or not we have speed 33+ ships, we will needed to extend the Point Defense Weapon sweetspots ( Ph-3s and ADDs ) simply because the plasma Sabot DID get invented.
Once that's done, Bases will get pretty good chances of destroying incomming drones and plasma.
Pre X2 bases may "just go the way of cast iron railings".
Not that I have a clue what most of you are saying, but most of what you say is likely irrelevant.
If we presume that seeking weapons will move at least as fast as targets, then the problem is not the seeking weapon speed. The problem will be if you are playing on a fixed or floating map. If we presume a fixed map, as long as the speed of the plasma is as fast as the ship speed, there is no problem. If on a floating map, then the plasma speed must be much greater.
there are two problems here
1. seeking weapons have to be fast enough to hit ships. (even on large/open maps)
2. seeking weapons need to have a reasonable chance of being shot down.
My take:
DO NOT CHANGE WHAT ISN'T BROKEN.
There is no need to re-write the entire rules book by going past Speed 31 people! By proposing speeds in excess of 30+1, you are in fact saying, let's rip up the old impulse chart, which is the entire underpinnings of the game. If you do that, then you have also invalidated countless term papers and made current tactics unworkable.
KISS! The way that Plasma Sabots and the proposed DBPs allow seeking weapons to hit targets at the edge of the currently established envelope does not imbalance the game -- what you are proposing by allowing ships the same trans-31 speeds *will* imbalance the game by making it impossible to be hit by a seekeing weapon.
M.D.:
Are you really saying that a speed 32 ship can not be hit by a speed 32 Type VIII drone?
Now it seems to me that an X1 and her Type VIII drones should need to apply the same kind of tactics ( the anchor in particular ) to getting hits on an X2 ship that a D4 and her Type V drones would need to use against an unrefitted Fed CA.
As for scraping the current Term Papers.
I think Maybe X2 should have it's own Tactics and it's own flavour.
If you want X2 to be a BIGGER AND BADDER GW SHIPS then BUY R5.
Mike Dowd: “There is no need to re-write the entire rules book by going past Speed 31 people! By proposing speeds in excess of 30+1, you are in fact saying, let's rip up the old impulse chart, which is the entire underpinnings of the game.”
Re-read 12/26 4:49pm and explain to me how it will break the game or require a significant rewrite.
"If that were to happen Aegis capable ships could already fire in the Super Movement step at a Plasma Sabot."
The Sabot rules are in playtest. If we made a case that the SOP change was the right way to make X2 and X3 work then it wouldn't be much of a stretch to adapt the Sabot rules to cooperate. In the general war your pretty much only talking escorts and this ability doesn’t seem remotely unreasonable for them to have. Perhaps a better question would be why can’t a ship with full Aegis get shots at range 1 with the existing rules?
Here’s the rub, if we don’t allow movement faster than 32 then some of the SSDs that have been presented are patently unworkable. One of the popular proposals has enough warp to move the ship a theoretical speed 61. That much excess power guarantees ships will move at max speed 100% of the time. Boring, and it practically requires that all seeking weapons get a significant speed boost. Either the speed barrier needs to be broken or we have to get serious about limiting our ship designs.
I wont fight against speed 32 for ships if it is costly. I liked adding the effects of EM because it is about as much a penalty as a benefit. While going 32 you couldn't launch anything or tractor and all your fire would be shifted. You couldn't use scout functions either.
10 * MC would be pretty expencive as well and so acceptable to me.
The only a speed 32 drone isn't going to catch a speed 32 ship is if the ship is enduring the penalties and is flat out running from it. Which might be the desired effect.
X2 will have it's own tactics and term papers but it needs to be compatable with GW and X1.
The funny thing is that many of the things that have been proposed are already in Module X.
MJC:
"Are you really saying that a speed 32 ship can not be hit by a speed 32 Type VIII drone?"
What I am saying is that if you allow trans-32 units, you have the opportunity for ships to avoid seeking weapons all together. Remember when you faced Speed-20 drones? If your ship was sufficiently quick, you could, even on a closing course with the drones, maneuver around them and still close with the target vessel. And I won't even state the obvious about any drone on an oblique or pirsuit course with a ship.
Tos:
"Re-read 12/26 4:49pm and explain to me how it will break the game or require a significant rewrite."
At this point of looking at it, it won't, but if you look at my next comment, you will be able to see where I am coming from.
"Here’s the rub, if we don’t allow movement faster than 32 then some of the SSDs that have been presented are patently unworkable. One of the popular proposals has enough warp to move the ship a theoretical speed 61. That much excess power guarantees ships will move at max speed 100% of the time. Boring, and it practically requires that all seeking weapons get a significant speed boost. Either the speed barrier needs to be broken or we have to get serious about limiting our ship designs."
Where is all of this snowballing going to end? We're churning out designs with more power, more speed, more offensive firepower, heavier shields, 48-impulse charts, 64-impulse charts -- what's next? A 256-impulse chart?
Maybe the solution is to look at energy efficiency in weapons designs as opposed to more raw ship power. It would certainly cut down on the size of the SSDs and large numbers to crunch. We need to keep battle speed relatively constant, not keep increasing it, since that is where I feel that we are going massively off-track here...
Stop a moment and think about the implications if heavy weapons cost 25% less energy to arm. What about a 33% reduction in required energy? Try a 50% reduction.
Now put those on an X1 hull and what happens to your battle speed? It will go up. We don't need to add massive amounts of power to hulls to make them more combat effective -- all we need to do is tweak the energy efficiency of the heavy weapons systems.
Mike Dowd: Then will X2 be a paragraph at the end of a XR1 module?
Tim: Think of X cruisers as a WYN Aux without the manuver restrictions and you begin to get the idea. With Fed/Klink etc standrd (Or superior) weaponry.
I prefer 31 myself but could be persuaded to 32. But it shouldn't cost an inordinant amount of power.
Who says the X2 warp engines have to be bigger than an X1 warp engine?
What if we took a basic X1 SSD, added about 10 shield boxes all around, replaced half the ph-1 with ph-5, and about 4-5 rules changes?
Jeff T.: Then will X2 be a paragraph (or two) at the end of a XR1 module?
No Loren.
There's no reason that we can't increase the defensive abilities of 2X, nor is there a reason why we cannot introduce new technologies.
The big problem as I see it is that we seem to be falling into the endless spiral of "Bigger is Better". While ADB is in Texas, where everything is big, we can't allow this to cloud our thinking.
Remember that advances in technology can be not only bigger, heavier and more powerful, but can be smaller and more efficient too.
If you want more energy for maneuver you can either slap on more power generation systems or you can increase the efficiency of your shipboard systems to free up more of the existing energy.
One of the problems I found with Module X1 was that there were so many minor changes that it was impossible to remember them all.
Stuff like "(XC6.4) POST DECELERATION PERIOD for X ships last only 12 impluses" or "(XD3.33) The minimum shields on X ships are 10 boxes in each direction."
Do we want to go in that direction again?
Well I have subscibed to the idea that X2 would be a little bigger (X2 ships modeled on BCH and eliminate DN class) but with much finer technology. I want 15 box engines on X2 but wich can generate 1.5 times the power during combat. Give these ships a structural integrety field to protect Hull and cargo. Phasers have greater output but fit in the same space so they are actually smaller. My version of the Torpedo for Feds and D&D races is scaled back weapon that fires more often. I subscribe to the smaller and better view but these ships have to be more effective. There is always an arms race going on. None of the races can afford to alow another to gain superiority for fear of total annihilation.
I said it before: X2 should be the result of the lessons learned from 30 years of war.
Compaired to remembering the rest of the game, module X was a breeze.
Short of a displacement device or stupid tractor tricks, no X ship of any kind should travel more than the standard 3o hexes of warp movement + 1 hex of impulse movement in 1 turn. imo.
"Maybe the solution is to look at energy efficiency in weapons designs as opposed to more raw ship power."
While this is the first I can recall anyone seriously advocating changing the weapons cost (mostly due to the problems of remembering as you switch between ship generations) there has been a noticable trend toward reduced movement costs, to the tune of about -25%.
"what's next? A 256-impulse chart?"
Using the SOP change format it would be fairly easy to add a phase between each Aegis phase for movement resulting in virtual speeds of 32*4=128. Then again I suppose the number of Aegis phases could always increase if you insist on having units capable of 256.
Didn’t the Scud have some sort of faster than 32 travel and a rule allowing you to fire at one range even if it closed through multiple hexes? Or was it an Omega torp? The SFB equivalent to en-passé.
Loren: Can you explain why the 1.5 power thing is needed again? It borders on an auto-reject idea and I can’t grasp why it would be necessary.
I’m not hearing people object to a few themes:
10 EW max
Speed 31/32 max
House Keeping = standard cost
Weapons = standard cost
Even if you do object use these assumptions for this following exercise.
If we assume overloaded weapons and phaser caps comparable to a X1 and no EW, how much spare power should be available at speed 30? How much spare battery power?
I’m of the opinion that we shouldn’t build ships with so much power that they can overload all weapons, move max speed and generate max EW without tapping reserves.
MC should increase if we have another boost to engine size/efficeincy.
MC 1.25 * 30 move = 37.5 power.
If 2X engines get boosted to an average of 50warp. (By engine increase, doubling etc.) That will leave 12.5 more Warp. Giveing 2X cruisers only 2.5 more Warp to play with over 1X cruisers.
TOS: No problem. First let me say that this is one possible course to take, that's all. If taken some other things need to be addressed to balance the ship as a whole. It is not very comlicated when viewed in the big picture of what I'm planning. Not to say that what I'm planning is anything better. 
OK, the Warp Engine part is that in an effort to generate more power engineers ran into the problem that the new engines would be the size of Gorn DN types. Far to unwieldly for a cruiser to deal with. So they took a step back and developed a new approach. The result was engines more the same size of the GW era ships but able to generate considerabley more power when needed. Each engine box can generate 1.5 points of power. This could be achieved without the engine degradation of Orion doubling but rendured the engines more suseptable to damage (Double damage while generating the extra power). You can choose not to generate the extra power and not face the double damage problem. The choice as to when to use this and when not to is a tactical choice. Obviously, until the ship starts taking damage the choice is clear.
This model needs options to protect the ship from being redured powerless too fast. I have increased shielding backed by a good reserve power system and good repair ability. Additionally I have come up with a reenforcable Structural Integrity Field that protacts Hull and Cargo.
Basically at a power cost (two for now) the SIF takes the first hull and cargo hits on the DAC (I'm not sure how much but I'm thinking for cruisers it will be 6 or 8). This is raised each turn. The SIF opperates as long as there is one hull or cargo box on the ship (it is destroyed with the last hull/cargo). It can be reeforced on a one point of power for one damage basis. It is repaired seperatly after at least one hull or cargo is repaired.
There are other protections as well and which combinations you use and when will be critical to your plans success. The situation is that your ship will be tough and more battle worthy longer but when it starts to go it goes quick. The same thing happens to GW ships but the curve is more of an even slope. GW ship lose their effectivness gradualy through out the battle. This X2 paridigm will increase the battle effectivness time but ends about the same. I expect the general doctrine for all races to be disegagement before destruction. (which has always been good but during the Trade Wars these things aren't worth the destruction of a Capitol ship. The Xork invasion may well change this doctrine but these ships cannot be designed for something that hasn't happened yet.)
That's one of the things which play behind the scenes in the number of enine boxes a ship has. The engines both produce more power and are more durable.
But more boxes doesn't mean they're physically larger or more massive that GW-tech engines.
I can see having one engine box produce more than ne point of power. i.e. the engines are more powerful, not necessarily more massive, and not any more durable.
The question is how much warp power and how many boxes?
It might be intereting to make the engines a step backward in boxes (to, say 30 or 36) and them do the 1.5x thing.
I almost seriously suggested pulling back to late EY and 24 double-power boxes but that would make 2x ships too fragile. After hull, the engines determine a ship's durability. Depending on what Loren has up his sleeve, it could work...