Agreed.

Racial flavor comes out when you give a little emphasis to the heavy weapons, who are not as power-to-damage-efficient as phasers.

We might even want to change the P-5 table so the sweet spot is at range-7 in deference to GW and X1.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, January 21, 2003 - 10:33 pm: Edit

Range 7, range 5, what's the difference? The way to balance heavy phasers is to 1) Put less heavy phasers on a ship 2) Make them cost more energy to fire 3) Give X2 ships disposable energy similar to X1.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, January 21, 2003 - 10:42 pm: Edit

Unfortunately, that doesn't make sense for a new revolution in starship technology.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Tuesday, January 21, 2003 - 11:03 pm: Edit

Ya know, it does say that X1 was not entirely successful. X2 could finally be the entirely successful advance. Doesn't have to be a complete revolution in technology.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, January 21, 2003 - 11:20 pm: Edit

Actually, it kinda does.

We have X1R for filling out X1. That's what it's there for.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, January 22, 2003 - 12:03 am: Edit

X1R would be the ships that fill out the fleets. XP would be what they use in the mean time.
R modules aren't really a forum for new rules. The has been but R's are for ship descriptions, scenarios with those ships and SSDs (and counters of course). So X1R wont be improvements on X1.

I mean, IMHO. I sure things can be flexable. The new Plasma rules are comming in R10 soon.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Wednesday, January 22, 2003 - 12:03 am: Edit

X1R is varients of X1 ships, not new tech.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, January 22, 2003 - 12:39 am: Edit

Cfant: Jinx! Gottcha!

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Wednesday, January 22, 2003 - 10:24 am: Edit

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Friday, January 24, 2003 - 04:48 pm: Edit

The more I look at the X2 disruptor, the more I think keeping it a 1-turn weapon isn't going to work.

The X2 photon is now a one-turn weapon,
X1 allowed 12 point OLs in one turn
I don't see how X2 photons couldn't allow 16 per turn.

A once-a-turn disruptor vs. a once-a-turn photon looks like a mirror match.

Disruptor tactics have been based on firing faster than the opponent, and flexible arming.

X2 disruptor rifle proposal

A disruptor may have up to 8 points of energy allocated to it. Hold cost is half of what was left over.

There are four firing modes:

• small (2 power per shot)
• medium (4 power per shot)
• large (6 power per shot)
• mega (8 power per shot)

By Mark James Hugh Norman (Mnorman) on Saturday, January 25, 2003 - 09:15 am: Edit

This will basically give unlimiter range overloads, which I think is a bad thing. Using 8 power could fire 4 light shots at range 30 doing an average of 4 damage, while the prox photon at the same range would only average 2. At that range the time delay in firing will not be a problem for an X2 ship, and 8 impulse delay, on the other hand could well stop the ship firing at the same range all turn. apart from that looks good.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, January 25, 2003 - 01:09 pm: Edit

What would work pretty well is something simpler that says disruptors can hold up to--what?

4 points of power?

6 points?

And can fire off standards every 8 impulses or wait and cut loose with overloads, which always uses whatever energy is in the weapon.

Gives it a Particle Cannon-like function but with decent chances to hit.

You would need to make a rule limiting energy throughput, saying that 4 or 6 points of power is the max the disrutpr can process in a turn, regardless of when it gets the energy: energy held from the previous turn, energy from EA, energy from reserve power.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Saturday, January 25, 2003 - 01:57 pm: Edit

For lack of a better term, I'll call it a disruptor rifle (to distinguish from a bolt or cannon).

At range 30, the 4-shots-a-turn disruptor rifle would have totally outclassed a 1-shot-a-turn prox torp, so I eliminated DERFACS from it. Four shots a turn still makes it an improvement over a derfacs-enhanced bolt.

How about this:

• Each disruptor rifle has a capacitor that holds up to 8 energy. Energy can come from any source.
• The energy cost to hold is equal to half the energy in the rifle's capacitor at the end of the turn.
• Each disruptor rifle may fire no more than 8 points of energy in a turn, whether from one mega shot or four small shots or any other combination
• A distruptor rifle may not fire twice within 8 impulses.
• At the moment of firing, the amount of energy used in the rifle shot is declared, and must be exactly 2,4,6, or 8 points of power.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, January 25, 2003 - 02:03 pm: Edit

That is similar to what I proposed a wile ago. Except I said the individual shots could not be OLed (same as yours) and if OLed it fires a third shot. Actually, I like yours better. If the Photon gets a real improvement the up the damage of the Disr. to base 6. Holds power to fire and can use that to fire multiple shots or fire OLed. I like it. In effect it gives the Disr. unlimited OL range but spreads out the damage over a minimum of eight impulses and some of the damage might not hit at all.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, January 25, 2003 - 09:47 pm: Edit

I think that since we already have a Rapid attack weapon, the X Phaser, that we should consider a different direction for the heavy weapons.

I'ld rather go with a Spearfish faculty added to the disruptor than a gatling disruptor and I hate the idea of a spearfish style disruptor.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Saturday, January 25, 2003 - 09:58 pm: Edit

The X phaser is not rapid attack. If you're shooting at ships, you only get one shot a turn. Only in defensive mode do you get multiple shots.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, January 25, 2003 - 10:13 pm: Edit

How about this. For the Klingons, give the disruptor a capacitor system of 4 points per disruptor mounted on the ship. Then let the disruptor fire off up to 4 shots in 32 impulses; one overload shot, or 2 standards with an eight impulse delay. That means you can fire off standards, overloads, or two standards in one round. With capacitors, you can alleviate the power drain to some degree and still maintain high battle speeds. Toss in a non-burnout UIM (that can still be destroyed by H&R) and you have a nice, new disruptor that gives some interesting tactical choices.

For the Kzin, I think a re-vamped disruptor cannnon might be cool. Old tech of the Carnivons revisited by the Kzin, and bumped accordingly. Loren is working on something like that, and so am I. We'll put up specifics later.

I don't know about the Tholians and the Lyrans; maybe they'd copy the Klingons, maybe not. If the Tholians get something really cool, maybe their 2X ships wouldn't even use disruptors.

Thoughts?

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Saturday, January 25, 2003 - 10:34 pm: Edit

Maybe if both the Klingons and Kzintis get the X2 disruptor rifle with an 8 point capacitor, but only the Kzintis get the ability to fire the mega shot.

The Klingons are dancers, and would benefit more from multiple shots. The Kzintis are looking for one shot crunch to go with the anchor.

The mega shot is a double-overloaded disruptor bolt, which is the firepower you'd get if you could single-overload a disruptor cannon.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, January 25, 2003 - 11:04 pm: Edit

I would think the Lyrans would use the Klingon version and the Tholians would use the X1 Disr. and get their X2 goodie on something else. We should look to the Web Caster for the Tholians.

I like the Sticky Web Fist. For two more power when it hits for normal web fist damage it envelopes the target (only) with a web that forms instantly for one point of web for each point damage of the fist. Lasts 8 impulses.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, January 26, 2003 - 12:12 am: Edit

The Tholians should get a particle cannon / disruptor mix. The capacitors from the PC, the weapon is the disruptor. I think it could be rapid pulse balanced with an 8-impulse delay.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, January 26, 2003 - 12:33 am: Edit

Said like a true Klingon.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, January 26, 2003 - 04:51 am: Edit

---

Quote:

The X phaser is not rapid attack. If you're shooting at ships, you only get one shot a turn. Only in defensive mode do you get multiple shots.

---

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Eagle) on Sunday, January 26, 2003 - 11:10 am: Edit

I think it's pretty stupid to shorten the arming cykles for weapons: If the photons can do it in one turn, the then other races need to catch up and we are back to square one.
It's all the Feds fault!!!

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, January 26, 2003 - 11:22 am: Edit

I'd agree with that if it weren't for the fact that the primary disruptor races all got a nice 50% increase in the number of disruptors they mounted on their cruisers. So, the photon had to be improved some way, and that was the choice ADB made. So, it's the Klingons fault!!

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Sunday, January 26, 2003 - 11:27 am: Edit

Lazy game designer's?

MJC, if you don't think any of our ideas are worth anything, then why don't you write up the whole X2 module, playtest it, and mail it to SVC.

To everyone else:

I think the X2 design should be based on the following:

same phaser for everyone
Rapid arming phasers mean everyone can use the same type of phaser. It's flexible enough for offense and defense.

Reduced number of systems.
The X2 ships should be designed for increased cruising range. Rather than looking like the upgunned X1/BCH/CCH, the X2 ships should be similar in size to the Y140-Y165 era ships. They get more firepower from better systems, not more systems.

one turn photons - full strength
We can't turn back the clock on the photons. 12 point one-turn weapons are here to stay. I don't think it's unreasonable that 16 point one-turns would show up in the X2 era.

Faster disruptors
This is more for playability than technobabble. One turn photons vs. one turn disruptors = too close to a mirror match to be enjoyable.