I ment to bring the "Green Crew" rule in at the beginning of X2 for all X ships.

X1 ships were limited for more reason that crew shortage, though that is a main reason given. Also, there were not a lot of ship yards equiped to build them. The first X-ships took special care, which is another reason for the specialized crews. In later years as systems became more stabilized this problem of special crew requirements was diminished. Still, they were advanced systems and required at least some breaking in.

In these years new X2 Cruisers were Crewed with 25% Experienced Officers, 50% moderately experienced crew, and 25% green personel streight from the Acadamy. I usually took at least six months to shake down the crew.

I'll work on the limitations at another time.

By Marc Remaley (Skawpya) on Wednesday, December 25, 2002 - 07:34 pm: Edit

In addition to the Xorkellians showing up, there is the matter of the magellanic races.

While there likely wont be any tech trading, I would see the magellanics looking to acquire the old dreadnaughts of the galatics for conversions. In addition, depending on how the Xorkellian Invasions plays out the magellanics might end up serving to prop the galatic's economy up a bit during their own long recovery from the andromedan domination of the LMC. For the LMC races, keeping the galatics supported reduces the chances that they will again be conquered by some outside force.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 07:08 am: Edit

GREEN CREW.

Green Crew isn't really a descriptions of the morale of the crew but rather their experiance.

You would need to have three categories.

GREEN
VETERIAN
ELETE

They would work independantly of the moral issues of POOR, REGULAR and OUTSTANDING.
So you could get an Elete group that had a POOR status and thus opperated for the most part like a regular crew but in someways differently.

OR you could get an OUTSTANDING ELETE crew and blow your enemies away before they can get into effective range ( for them ).

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 11:29 am: Edit

There is a discussion in the Speed Limit topic. Lets first nail down the speeds we are talking about since they will affect everything else.

So go in and put your Opinion/reasoning in and we can nail this sucker down flat pretty quickly. So go put your vote up.

***Sorry multiple post.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 12:43 pm: Edit

I think that a "Green Crew" should be a condition of a newly built X2 ship for the first six months (F&E) to reflect the complexity and newness of X2-Technology. I have figured that in F&E a new X2-ship would have it's combat factor split so it's attack factor would be reduced by one but it's defence would stay the same. Additionally, a "Green Crewed" X2-ship would have none of the X2-Ship benefits save for the speed 7 Operational Movement.

I haven't worked on how a "Green Crew" affects a X2 ship in SFB yet, mostly because the actual ships are still in developement.

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 06:09 pm: Edit

Don't bother overcomplicating things with crew rules. Most people don't use crew at all.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 07:42 pm: Edit

The "Green Crew" thing would fill a part that is missing in established rules. i.e. Early X ships had trouble getting crewed with the right level of quallity crew. BY the X2 era, will there be enough crews at all? There must be some explaination as to how they got these even more complex ships out of space dock with a crew.

Green crew would be a very short rule to explain how. Just because people don't often use that rule it still must be considered. It's in the book and for a reason.
I use "Crew". Everyone I've ever played uses "Crew" (though that's hardly a nation wide sampling I'll admit).

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 09:33 pm: Edit

I'm with Jim on this one. Expect crew quality rules to be used sparingly if at all.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Friday, December 27, 2002 - 01:41 am: Edit

I have used Crew quality in less than 5% of all my games. (Poor & Outstanding) And most of those have been SH scenarios where the Crew is stipulated on a D6J for example.

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Friday, December 27, 2002 - 07:26 pm: Edit

If you want a reason, just use the above as flavour text.

It's like modern computers. 20 years ago, 1% of the population could use a computer. Now it's 40% (depending on your definition of "use"). The people haven't become smarter, but the computers are simpler to use and the people better trained.

As time goes on, the equipment becomes more reliable and the manuals better (so you don't need 3 PhDs to fix it), the controls more automated, the spare parts more available (so your 3xPhD engineer isn't always jury-rigging fixes) and so on.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 01, 2003 - 09:02 pm: Edit

I found a timeline clue in R2.201. Apparently the Feds built one CX/year from Y181 to Y193. After Y193 they increased production. Assuming increased production means 100% increase we have the following total CX hulls converted:

Y181 1
Y182 2
Y183 3
Y184 4
Y185 5
Y186 6
Y187 7
Y188 8
Y189 9
Y190 10
Y191 11
Y192 12
Y193 13
Y194 15
Y195 17
Y196 19
Y197 21
Y198 23
Y199 25
Y200 27
Y201 29
Y202 31
Y203 33
Y204 35

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, January 01, 2003 - 09:10 pm: Edit

And I don't imagine all that many were destroyed so that means maybe 28 or so flying about in year 205? Maybe a few were retired after 15 or 20 years in service after the refit. So 20-24 then.

Interesting.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 01, 2003 - 10:23 pm: Edit

In every topic we keep hearing the same story. X2 is this, no X2 is that. Bigger is better, smaller is better. Everyone is sticking firmly to their vision and contrary to some assertions consensus seems but a dream.

I think I’ve got a compromise that will be to people’s liking. Everybody gets everything they want. It’s all a matter of fitting everything into the timeline and settling on a nomenclature to represent each period.

Here are the periods I have identified:

Y168-180: (X0) The dawn of the Dreadnaught and fast warp spark the General War. The War provides fertile ground for the evolution of military technology.

Y181-193: (X1) The X ships are introduced and converted from existing hulls. The temperamental bleeding edge technology requires an exceptional crew, limiting production to approximately one cruiser per year. X1 ships were self-limited to about 10% of each fleet.

Y186-204: (X1B) X1 tech is extended to variant hulls starting with the Fed GSX (R2.204).

Y194-204: (XP) X-Tech begins to trickle down as the technology stabilizes. Partial-X (XP) conversions begin on X0 hulls. X1 production increases (R2.201).

Y205-214: (X1R) Technological breakthroughs in hull design have reduced movement cost significantly and operating cost substantially yielding a new crop of more efficient and faster ships. At the same time X-tech maintenance is simplified to the point where fleet wide deployment can commence, except for the benefits received from the fancy crew used to staff X1 ships. With the Andro threat eliminated and large quantities of X1 cruisers filled with outstanding crews acting in command roles (35 Fed CXs have been produced by Y204) the fleets begin this era of construction by concentrating on their smaller, older, less efficient ships first.

Y215-230: (X2) The Xorkellian invasion begins and the races rush to extend their well-rounded Y205 designs to larger hulls capable of battleship level firepower. X0 and XP ships are ineffective against the invaders.

If we can get everyone to buy in or tweak this tech progression we can stop arguing what should be in and instead argue when it should be in.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, January 01, 2003 - 10:41 pm: Edit

Y215-230: (X2) The Xorkellian invasion begins and the races rush to extend their well-rounded Y205 designs to larger hulls capable of battleship level firepower. X0 and XP ships are ineffective against the invaders.

Might could add this:
These ships, however, made exellent battle escorts for X2 hulls.


And specifically regarding:

X0 and XP ships are ineffective against the invaders.

Of course that would be a provisional statement until we find out what the Xorks are really like.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 01, 2003 - 10:48 pm: Edit

“These [X0/XP] ships, however, made excellent battle escorts for X2 hulls.”

I don't think so. The reason I hypothesized X0 and XP were no longer viable, but chose not to publish above, is their reduced strategic speed. They quite simply couldn’t catch a Xork or run away from a Xork ambush. These X0/XP ships were limited to the convoy/base/planet escort role.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, January 01, 2003 - 11:05 pm: Edit

Oh, well, I thought that X2 stratigic speed wouldn't be faster that X1 stratigic speed because 8 operational movement would be too much. X2 would have priority advantages. X2 could choose not to engage X1 and could not be pursued by X1. Oh wait, I just answered myself.

So X1/XP would be relegated to bases, policing and internal matters.

That's kind of sad.

Hmmm, but not for the ISF! Whoo hooo! We finally got a ISF CCXJ!

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 01, 2003 - 11:11 pm: Edit

Loren, check your stats. I was discussing X0/XP, you quote the X1/XP. Which do you mean?

I'm assuming from a strategic speed perspective that X0=XP, X1=X1B=X1R, X2=Undefined.

"That's kind of sad."

But what do you think of the proposed timeline?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, January 02, 2003 - 12:45 am: Edit

It generally works for me. Detail are details and are not so important at this moment, right.

So what I ment was I agree X0 will be inneffective against about everything at that time. Given the lay out of your timeline there should be little or no GW ships left by X2 era. But there will be lots of X1 (Oh I just realised I skimmed over the XP def. Oooops. I was thinking XP was normalized X-tech. My bad).

So X1 should manage in a diminished capacity in the X2 era.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Thursday, January 02, 2003 - 03:54 am: Edit

Tos, the timeline you proposed is the 'X2 is the same as X1, just extended to the entire fleet' camp

there are people who believe that X2 ships should be able to easily beat an X1 ship of the same class. that's not compatable with your timeline.

unfortunantly for this discussion SVC doesn't have time to decide which is the case, and if it's like other projects we will probably find out his decision when the product is announced :-)

also just from a marketing point of view, if X1 is published and X1R contains the partial refits and smaller Xships then what's left to publish in X2? you have one paragraph that explains that now these are the only ships in the fleet then you explain the Xorkellion fleet for the rest of the product. why will alpha quadrent players buy it if it doesn't add any new ships for them to play?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, January 02, 2003 - 04:47 am: Edit

SVC has provided us all the guidance we need.

His Dec 23 post in this topic reads, in part,

Assume that Module X2 is Second Generation X-Technology, new hulls and new gizmos. Could be improvements of the existing (probably still have phasers) but could be whole new things.

Module X1R might be considered a reinforcements package for the existing X1 and hence would just be more of what was in X1 and, I presume, not part of your conversation.


So there is a definite definition of X2 as "the next quantum leap in tech." End of story.

X1R is therefore the generalization of X1-tech to fleets and since EY and MY both include grades of development, X1R could include the X1- ships Tos is interested in before full-blown X-tech appears in fleets later.

By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Thursday, January 02, 2003 - 04:53 am: Edit

David, what I gather from Tos' timeline is that X2 is from Y215 on, and would be the new, larger designs that were purpose built to fight off the Xorks.

Good work on the timeline Tos!

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 02, 2003 - 09:41 am: Edit

"Tos, the timeline you proposed is the 'X2 is the same as X1, just extended to the entire fleet' camp"

David: I don't see that. The statement 'X1 is the same as X1R, just extended to the entire fleet' is much more accurate. What I did was push X2 back 10 years to allow for X1R. Perhaps you are confusing X1R with X2. They are two seperate time periods.

X2 is still the quantum leap that allows us to fight off the Xorks. X1R is the decade of peace between the fall of the Andros and the rise of the Xorks, often referred to as the period of the trade wars.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 02, 2003 - 09:58 am: Edit

This is what I envisioned would be the largest Fed ship produced within the X1R period, click on the XCM link:

http://sfbfog.iwarp.com/SSD/Federation/

This web host won't allow direct linking to images, sorry.

The XCC would have been designed but there was little reason to build it. Click on the XCC link.

Most production would focus on FF/DD/CL sized ships using the more efficient hull design (i.e. Reduced movement and maintenance costs).

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, January 02, 2003 - 11:02 am: Edit

I've made a recent change to the above XCM to make the BPV 245. Due to web server caching your copy may or may not comply.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, January 02, 2003 - 12:05 pm: Edit

I didn't catch that. I should have. Tos, you want the Trade Wars to be handled by exsisting X1 type ships?

While the Trade Wars does not have to be the same story as before, and it would have to be significantly changed to have X1 do the job, I reather liked the setup for the original story. It made for a good scenario base with small squadrons or single ship combat. Each with a goal other than combat for combats sake. (and that's not to say you couldn't play what ever, I'm talking historical).

When the Xorkellians come, if all that is available is slightly advanced X1 tech. then we are going to get slaughtered. If the situation is that we don't get slaughtered (i.e. X1 is powerful enough) then X2 will slaughter them. (No fun). Or X2 will be little more than normalized efficiant X1 (because the Xorks won't be much more powerful that X1). And X2 will be Combat oriented line ships.

I was really hoping to see X2 ships be Powerful representatives of their Empires capable of multi-roll missions. More capable than their Special Variant predecessors in Combat, trade/treaty negotiation, and science/exploration.

X2, IMO, should happen some time before the Xork invasion. After the opening of Xork invasion then the Empires would unleash their secret weapons they have developed using the X2 technology but the Galactic arena hadn't called for it yet. These would be medeum size hardcore bad ass combat ships designed in the days of the Trade Wars to implement alternative plans but then used against the Xorkellians. The Ace up the sleeve for the Alpaha Quad.