Archive through December 31, 2002
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board: The "X" Files: OLD X2 FOLDER: X2 drones: Archive through December 31, 2002
By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, December 30, 2002 - 07:02 pm: Edit

The Aux Box or Orion would have worked just as well. They also tend to spend a lot of time at high speed.

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Monday, December 30, 2002 - 07:29 pm: Edit

For drone ships to be competitive, we have 3 options:

1) More drones See SPP's comment about the C8V group. IMHO, that's already plenty, thanks.
2) Faster drones Rules get complex, though some some of the booster options can get round this.
3) Bigger drones Of course, a drone that never hits is no threat, and a speed 31 ship with a tractor beam can deal with such a thing already, so it needs to be more like a tachyon missile than a drone. Dunno if we want to go there.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, December 30, 2002 - 09:01 pm: Edit

Quote:

MJC: I have never been considering any relationship between X2 and GW as far as Trans-32 drones go. But rather X2 vs. X2 problems. And perhaps X1 vs. X2.

Do you, as a non-drone thrower, want your enemy to be able to affect your plans so easily for no power cost? You suggested way to deal with trans-32 drones but most of them are fairly drastic counters to such a cheep offense.



Drastic!?!

OKay so what is are we looking at in terms of drone toughness.

I assume we shall have the same shift as X was over GW so...

Type X will be 2 points tougher than type VII for a total of 8 points of damage.
Type XI will be 2 points tougher then Type VIII for a total of 10 points of damage.

NOW.
If I fire R3 Ph-1s ( using my X-aegis ) I can have a minimum damage of 3 points. So a Type X will be destroyed by a trio of Ph-1 shots and a Type XI has one chance in 216 of not being destroyed by a trio of Ph-1s.

Since an X-cruiser can easily bring 8Ph-1s to bear through the FA arc and we are talking about moving onto it or else we would be talking about an even closer range shot.
We would say that the Type X is attacked by 2Ph-1s with 1Ph-1 held in aegis reserve and that a Type X is attacked by 3Ph-1s with 1 Ph-1 in aegis reserve.

It'ld be easy for an X-destroyer to defend it'self from the drones of a CCXX or D7XX...forget about it being a nightmare, it's just a good portion of your avaible phaser fire.

As to tractoring...it's just all the BTTY POWER stored in one X1-Battery.

As to moving, it's just one side slip and you'll get that R1 shot.


NOW.
If we take the booster option of 33+ drones having fighter-like booster packs that when carried by the drone will cause the drone to take double damage, then we actually get a change in the number of phasers fired, ( half rounded up ) such that fewer Ph-1 shots will be needed to bring down X2 drones than listed.

How many drone racks will the Drone users have?
As many as they have now!?!
50% more?
Double???
We can look at the non kzintis having 2 on a cruiser or maybe 3.
So if the X2 cruiser is double the BPV of an X cruiser and 50% more drones, then about the entire phaser array that can be brought to bear by one of the X-ships is used to defend them and the other has it's entire phaser array free to fire ( not counting Tractor, ESG or your own drones ) unless we take double damage from boosting in which case it even fewer phaser shots.

In the same way that Y-ship and MY Klingons have to learn to deal with the fact that Ph-2s don't garrenttee a kill at R1 against a Type I drone, so too, X1-captains will just have to deal with the fact that occassionally through his own mis-action, the X1 vessel must put a large number of her Ph-1s into drone defense.

Quote:

A completely erroneous conclusion if I ever saw one. See above re: fruit comparisons.



Geoff Conn.
This and other statements lead me to believe that you are not trying to help but merely to hinder.
Go and enjoy your holidays in the great outdoors.

'Though to comment on what you said.
Quote:

If you don't have prepared drone defences NOW you will be meat against a good heavy drone user! And those defences are based around being able to deal with drones in particular range brackets; >15 (move away, either breaking lock on or setting up next turn to deal with them)
<15 (scout channels, counter seeking fire)
<8 (non-target defensive fire/tractor/labs, prepare to weasel, setup tbomb transport/drops) ~3 (add fire)
~2 (labs, early target defensive fire, final counter seeking launch)
1 (tractors, final defensive fire, sneaky movement)

This is standard stuff that all experienced fleet players use. All of this is thrown out the window if the drone moves faster than 32.



>15 (move away, either breaking lock on or setting up next turn to deal with them)
You'll still be able to turn around ( assuming you want to put in the power to go faster than the enemy ship, pull outside of R35 of the enemy. And you can also set up you motion to skip pull those drones into an R1 shot.
<15 (scout channels, counter seeking fire)
No one is talking about speed 480 drones so there will be more than one occassion inside the R15 bracket to use scout channels against drones.
<8 (non-target defensive fire/tractor/labs, prepare to weasel, setup tbomb transport/drops)
You will get one chance at least to slap on a tractor....maybe your CVA group should use Aegis Equiped escorts to identify drones at 4+.
~3 (add fire)
If you manouver correctly, you'll get the chance to do this.
You will get atleast 1 chance to Fire at least one ADD round at the incomming drone...so ADDs won't be useless..`though Loading Type VI drones in your ADDs may be a better move.
~2 (labs, early target defensive fire, final counter seeking launch)
Okay...you do know that X1-ships get a Lab bonus making them effective at ranges other than 2!?!
Early defensive fire...slap on a tractor and then use 1 shot per impulse...use your MUCH VAUNTED X1 Aegis.
1 (tractors, final defensive fire, sneaky movement)
Use your tractors at R2 or R3...it's not like you can't use tractor rotation to bring it into R1 and pay less whilst you wait for the Endurance to run out.
Use your sneaky movement to get that R1 shot.

All you've really managed to say with this is that "If player's can't just apply ALL the tactics from the Tactics Manual that apply to GW ship to defending against X2-drones then the players have every right to have a cow".
And that's just silly.
X2 should invoke NEW TACTICS.


S.P.P.:

If there's one thing your expression has show; it's that a CVA group can probably defend it'self against all the drones that a Kzinti X2-squadron could hurl at it.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, December 30, 2002 - 09:07 pm: Edit

Quote:

By michael john campbell

I just thought of how to deal with ADDs.

A New design philosophy, brings about a new weapon.

The X2E-rack.
It can launch Type XII ( the Type VI X2 Analog ) drones at a rate of one per impulse.

Consequently X-ships didn't mount ADDs but instead X2E-racks.


X2G-racks might get to fire Type XIIs at the same rate as a regular E-rack or maybe one per 6 impulses or some such, to avoid them becoming completely useless.



Quote:

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent)


Launching a drone, even a mini-drone is a powerful advantage over an ADD.

For most purposes, you're proposing something just short of a never-miss ADD.

I'd perfer to extend the ADD's range a hex and make the X2 ship roll a dice.




Ways to make it chancy that the X2E-rack won't destroy an incomming drone automatically.

1) Give X2-drones chaff.
2) Escort X2-drones with Octopus drones.
3) Allow X2 Swordfish, Stingray, MW and Starfish drones to be ordered inflight to target a particular target ( the incomming type XII springs to mind ).

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, December 30, 2002 - 09:12 pm: Edit

You know...nobody says that; dropping your Shield #1 and beaming out an R5 Tbomb to eliminate that incomming flight of drones from a scatter pack, IS TOO DRASTIC.
BALLZY mayhaps...but not drastic.

For a GW ship, three X2 drones should be about as much bad news as two scatterpacks.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, December 30, 2002 - 10:18 pm: Edit

Well I'm convinced. X2 drones need to be expensive and move very fast, well over 32.

By Andrew Harding (Warlock) on Monday, December 30, 2002 - 10:33 pm: Edit

MJC, please don't shout.

Why do you say that three X2 drones should match two scatterpacks? What BPV do you think a Kzinti CXX should be, how many drones should it be able to launch per turn, how many reloads should it carry, what options should be available for the drones, what non-drone armament, defences, power supply and other characteristics should it have?

If you have a clear idea about all of those, pick an opposing force non-X force from a neighboring race of equal BPV and we can play it out online. Since you'll have defined both sides, I get to choose which to run, naturally.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, December 30, 2002 - 10:44 pm: Edit

Personally, I don't think much of anything has been defined. it's been a series of parry-riposte (pardon the pun) all day.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, December 30, 2002 - 11:12 pm: Edit

T.C.:

Exactly gaining 1 hex per turn over the target vessel, even with an endurance of 5 turns isn't going to do anything other than clog up the drone controllers control channels.


A.H.:

There's an old saying...kick a Vic.
You're just being petulant.
I'm shouting because people are ignoring my basic comment, that since R3 Ph-1 shots have the same minimum damage as R1 Ph-3 shots that therefore the defense against a combination bad timing and high speed drones is to use R3 Ph1 shots in place of the usual R1 Ph-3 shots and that that tactic is a workable defense...it's not like X1s are short on Ph-1s.

Why do you say that three X2 drones should match two scatterpacks?
It's the Vibe..it's marbo...it's the Constitution...No, no...it's the Vibe.


J.T.:

Don't take this the wrong way but...right on.

Drone speed isn't actually going to go anywhere unless we have an idea about ships speeds.
Speed 36 ships will have a greatly different set of drones attacking them than speed 41 ships.

By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 12:05 am: Edit

MJC, your post of 30-Dec, 9:01

"If we take the booster option of 33+ drones having fighter-like booster packs that when carried by the drone will cause the drone to take double damage, then we actually get a change in the number of phasers fired, ( half rounded up ) such that fewer Ph-1 shots will be needed to bring down X2 drones than listed."

This example is erroneous. The proposal for the DBP was that if the drones take damage during the boost phase, then and only then would they be subject to increased damage.

And for Hades' sake Mike, calm down -- the world isn't out to get you...

By Andrew Harding (Warlock) on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 12:34 am: Edit

MJC, please lay off the personal insults. I was seriously wondering why you think three drones should be as dangerous as two non-X scatterpacks - you've posted an astonishing number and length of posts in these topics, implying serious thought on the subject and therefore a pretty clear idea of what a 2X drone using ship would look like.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 12:43 am: Edit

Andrew,

It seems a funny thing that *I'd* be supporting MJC at all, but we are talking about two major jumps of tech power here.

GW->X1->X2.

It might be excessive for 1 X2 drone to be equal to 4 GW drones, but at the very least 1 X2 drone should at least be equal to 2 GW drones. Maybe 3.

perhaps not in all ways such as damage and difficulty to kill but in some overall weighing of advantages it should be at least 1 = 2 or 3.

By Andrew Harding (Warlock) on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 01:10 am: Edit

John

Maybe we are and maybe we aren't; I'm in the "X1 is strong enough, just make X2 wider deployment using purpose built hulls" camp.

Even assuming that X2 in general is a further leap of tech beyond X1, I'd like to know what else the ships have in order to have some idea of how good an X2 drone is relative to the improvements in other systems.

As an aside, I consider X1 drones to be, individually, around twice as good as general war drones. They have a larger warhead (18 vs 12) and are more durable (6 vs 4), which together are probably about a 50% improvement - a little better than that against phaser defences, a little weaker than that against tractors, ADDs and mines. More importantly, they move faster (speed 32 rather than 20 - there are only a couple of years where Fast drones are available and X1 drones are not) and at close ranges are self guiding.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 02:49 am: Edit

You know guys you are making a mountain out of a molehill. X2 is not THAT different from X1 at all. It is in fact the very same technology. The only difference is that X2 ships were built to use the tech from the hull up, whereas X1 ships were refits of existing ships.

All this talk of X2 being a second generation of technology removed from GW tech is wrong. The X2 SHIPS are 2 generations removed from GW.

This is straight from the Xtech background.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 02:54 am: Edit

MJC;

All you've really managed to say with this is that "If player's can't just apply ALL the tactics from the Tactics Manual that apply to GW ship to defending against X2-drones then the players have every right to have a cow".
And that's just silly.
X2 should invoke NEW TACTICS.

Good grief. You've missed the point entirely. The game is BALANCED based on drones moving in certain ways and defences being able to react at certain points and layers.

Drones that exceed speed 32 will shorten or reduce those defence layers or in some areas eliminate them entirely!

THAT is a balancing nightmare. You cannot just destroy that balance and then say 'develop new tactics'. THAT is silly.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 08:51 am: Edit

Quote:

Andrew,

It seems a funny thing that *I'd* be supporting MJC at all, but we are talking about two major jumps of tech power here.

GW->X1->X2.

It might be excessive for 1 X2 drone to be equal to 4 GW drones, but at the very least 1 X2 drone should at least be equal to 2 GW drones. Maybe 3.

perhaps not in all ways such as damage and difficulty to kill but in some overall weighing of advantages it should be at least 1 = 2 or 3.



Thanks.

Okay Andrew.
What can we Guess that X2 drones will be like.
The same shift in extra damage over X1.
The same shift in damage taking over X1.
A speed of 40 ( possibly 48 ).
We'll compair based on single space drones.

So instead of the GW ( Y177 ) drones of 12/4/20.
We'll have drones of 24/8/40.
That's double damage, double toughness, double speed.
In my book it's easy to say, one X2 drone is worth four GW drones.
If the drones we're type XI and the two scatterpacks stayed the same, we'ld get a even high relative value.


I mean, I can't say for sure.
Heck. I don't even know what X2 drones will look like.
But I'ld say that X2 drones should be a lot of trouble in comparison to GW drones.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 08:59 am: Edit

Quote:

you've posted an astonishing number and length of posts in these topics, implying serious thought on the subject and therefore a pretty clear idea of what a 2X drone using ship would look like.



The minor drone users will have 2 G-analog racks, unless there is a uniform 50% increase in which case three, for the minor drone users ( Klingons and Feds ).

How many and what type the Kzinti have, is not within my ken.
But enough to overwhelm the drone based defenses of both the Fed ( even though their allied ) and the Klingons.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 09:15 am: Edit

Quote:

Good grief. You've missed the point entirely. The game is BALANCED based on drones moving in certain ways and defences being able to react at certain points and layers.

Drones that exceed speed 32 will shorten or reduce those defence layers or in some areas eliminate them entirely!

THAT is a balancing nightmare. You cannot just destroy that balance and then say 'develop new tactics'. THAT is silly.



Good grief. You've missed the point entirely. The game is BALANCED based on drones moving in certain ways and defences being able to react at certain points and layers.

Drones that exceed speed 32 will shorten or reduce those defence layers or in some areas eliminate them entirely!

Well.
In an X2 ship defending against an X2 drone, we'll have certain situtions that are likely.
Tractor range will likely be extended, so instead of having an R3 divice to protect you from a possible 2 hex jump in range, you have an R5 divice to protect you from a possible 3 hex jump in range...that's better that the Y-years R1 divice to protect you from a possible 2 hex jump in range.

You will probably have an sweetspot extention ( and a mild damage increase ) in your defensive phaser suite.

You will likely gain FULL AEGIS as a natural progress, the Aegis tech will get cheaper and thus full Aegis will likely be mount on X2 vessels.
With that you'll get a massive increase in the RANGE at which you can identify drones, making the supossed lab problem less of a problem.

ADDs may get extended range or be raplace with an X2E-rack.


THAT is a balancing nightmare. You cannot just destroy that balance and then say 'develop new tactics'. THAT is silly.

Well.
That's one of the problems with creating a new technology level. Balancing becomes a night mare.
Remember Y-Kzintis!?! They either overkilled the enemy after reaching R1 or never got to strike their targets because the ships were actually faster if they had fewer heavy weapons and could overload.
The fact that Y Tbombs had R0 detection radii doesn't mean their useless or hgame breakers, it means they're less of an exspence with reguard to the BPV of a ship it's placed on.

Once we have the new tactics, rather than just letting our X1 ships die, we can then adjust the BPV of X2 ships to reflect the value that X2 ships will have over X1-ships.
If it takes a BCHX and a CCX using their best tactics to just break even with a CCXX, then we'll know where to set the BPV.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 12:29 pm: Edit

MJC: Pardon my if I'm being plane dense but do you have Module X?

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 06:56 pm: Edit

I'm with MJC here (strange but true). Provided that we don't make drones too good, there's nothing that'll break the game. I don't think that 3 2X drones should be quite as good as 3 SPs of 1-X-F, but they should be pretty mean.

Geoff: I should point out (from X1, 1994 printing, p3, X0.0 3rd para): "After Y205, many ships were built from new designs using even more advanced technology. These were known as "Second-generation" designs..." So here we are discussing the next tech advance that has to give an X1 ship a problem. If you want X1 tech, there's already a module X1 that describes it, and an X1R thread for new ships.

IIRC, we're aiming for something like +20% BPV over an X1 ship of the same size, so about 320, or 270+drones for an XCC. I think MJC may be aiming a bit higher (400ish?). IMHO, that's going to make things difficult to balance, though it may not break anything.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 09:01 pm: Edit

I would agree with that.

I'm not particularly interested in 400-point mosnter cruisers, but the high 200's to 320 sounds good.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 09:20 pm: Edit

Listen. I actually like Tos' History idea.


That the 400+ monster X2 cruisers didn't get built until the Xork invasion.
And that the ecconomies could only afford to build DDXX to replace the obsolete NCAs and FFXX to replace the obsolete destroyer based carrier escorts, SCs and NSCs.


If we work on the idea that the DDXX were made to replace the NCA and CX vessels then we won't have many of the CCXX can't be busted by a full fleet of X1s until after that full fleet of X1s will have a handful of DDXX and FFXX thrown in and indeed after the X1 cruisers get speed 32+ ( if we use every point of warp movement costing 5 times usual, then we'll get, about 10 years after the X2s get developed; the ability to travel at speed 33 with them ).

Now a 250 to 320 BPV DDXX...that's a ship I'm willing to fly.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 09:35 pm: Edit

A 320 point destroyer?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 09:52 pm: Edit

The recalculated Fed DDX is 170 BPV, so it only an 88% increase.

A 50% increase on the current Fed DDX will generate 255 BPV, so that's okay.

If we push out the sweetspots of the phasers and possibly the Heavies AND give a power boost AND make it exceed speed 32 AND give it more sheild boxes, we'll have trouble not blowing out past an 88% increase. It'ld be all too easy to winde up with a 382.5 BPV X2-destroyer.

Still, we should really try to keep it down around 300 or less.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, December 31, 2002 - 10:04 pm: Edit

yeah.

*cruisers*

if DDXX's shouldn't go past 200, 220 at the most.

Administrator's Control Panel -- Board Moderators Only
Administer Page | Delete Conversation | Close Conversation | Move Conversation