By X2 era is what I meant. X0 could be Nat Guard ships but most would be converted to XP. With X2 in full force X0 ships would be way too out matched and probably scrapped. X1 ships (like the old CL) would slowly go to mothballs as they were replaced by X2. (Not scrapped because these are still resonably powerful ships and you never know what might happen!)

I can see some X0(by now would be XP) ships going to National Guard Duty.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 11:01 pm: Edit

Even by X2, X1 would still make up most of the fleet. You won't have an all X2 fleet over night. Figure the operational life of a CX is 30-40 years. Maybe more.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 11:15 pm: Edit

The Trade Wars may be the relative peace between Y205 and Y(Xork).
Border skirmishes and such.
Or, the Pirates may be the Big Bad Guys after all the Galactic powers, being economically exhausted, sold them too many warships. Who knows?

One impression I'm getting is that in X2 there won't be any distinction between "heavy cruiser" and "command cruiser". Is everyone else seeing this?

---

Quote:

When X2 starts to get into full production I think all remaining X1 ship would begin to be mothballed and all but the very best XP ship would be scrapped (maybe one or two made into a museum). All X0 ship would be scrapped (except those that are already museums).

---

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 11:29 pm: Edit

I think I heard that the Trade Wars more or less integrate Star Fleet Empire into continuity.

Megacorps buy war-surplus GW ships as they stake and defend claims to areas of the Greater Megallanic Cloud for development.

That would be a time of relative peace in the Alpha Sector (they use quadrants in TNG. WE use sectors) but war in the GMC.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 11:31 pm: Edit

Jeff: I think that is a misinterpritation of SVCs post. I think he ment that the BPV system must allow them to fight each other given equal BPVs. He didn't say anything about the history having or not haveing the two (X2 and X0) face each other. He started by saying some people think a X2 ship should be able to beat an equal BPV of X0 ship and that wasn't what was going to happen.

I think X2 cruisers should all be Flag Ships.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 11:31 pm: Edit

I have a hunch the Xorks will finally be gotten rid of by a full scale galactic powers invasion of their homeworld, followed by a peace treaty between the Xorks and galactic powers.

I can actually see DNXX leading the invasion fleet(s) so I think DNX will come to pass at an earlier stage, if only because the Klingons like dreadnoughts so much.

---

Quote:

One impression I'm getting is that in X2 there won't be any distinction between "heavy cruiser" and "command cruiser". Is everyone else seeing this?

---

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 11:38 pm: Edit

I don't think you mean that XP will be scrapped starting Y205. XP conversions will probably be occuring between Y194-204, meaning that XP ships are still being built and converted in Y204. Selling them as scrap a year later isn't likely, particularly since in Y205 XP will make up about 50% of the fleet.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 11:42 pm: Edit

You know the Xorks might no be all heavy weapons, fast and nearly indisructable ships. They may be a whole bunch of troop ships with hard core warriers is stasus ready to beam onto your ship one hundred at a time an then take your ships. Then brain wash your crews and turn them against your Empire!

The Xorkellians may be a swarm of fist sized viruses that warp through space on their own and take over your ships. We could be fighting our selves.

The Xorkellians could be....anything!

In fact they could be MJC! Give him an Empire and I'll guarantee you'll be facing something big and bad ass!

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 11:46 pm: Edit

"Megacorps buy war-surplus GW ships as they stake and defend claims to areas of the Greater Megallanic Cloud for development."

I think you are remembering the background behind the PBM game star fleet warlord. I doubt that is considered 'official' history.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 11:46 pm: Edit

Tos,

I don't think XP ships would ever be built so much as converted.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 11:47 pm: Edit

a X1 DN should be the rough equiivalent of the B-10, but will be MUCH cheaper to build (in F&E a CC has a compot of 9 and costs 9 to build, a DN has a compot of 12 and costs 16 to build, the B-10K has a compot of 24 (with fighters, 20 without) and will cost ~40 to build (over several years)

given the increase in cost for X ships I would be VERY surprised to see a BBX, but I can easily see the races trying to get something equivalent to a B-10. in two full fleets the side with the BB/DNX effectivly has a extra ships worth of firepower compared to the other side. overall it's not as efficiant as smaller ships, but when you need the maximum firepower you can get there just isn''t any other way to get as much.

as for command cruisers.

during the general war CCs tend to be just enough tougher then CAs to have a better survival rate, add to that the ability late in the war to replace all CA production with CC production and the fact that no unit has a command rating higher then 10 (CX, BCH, DN, BB, SB are all equal) there is no command rating need to build anything larger then a CX, if X2 adds +1 command rating compared to X1, then a XCA will join that group. as such the only reason for anything larger is more ccapibility per ship, so a heavy cruiser hull is just that, there's nothing except fireepower to differentiate between a CA and a CC so why build two different classes? you then build the DN hulls for more firepower

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 11:48 pm: Edit

I'd like to see the Xork cruisers mount something like a Spd 12, non-WW, PL-R seeking weapon. Let a Xork get you in a tractor beam and you die. If you can't move faster than 12 you die. If you are a Battlestation you die.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 01:42 am: Edit

Everyone has been having fun creating SSDs. I know I have. I started with a single design, the Fed saucer, and hypothesized what it would look like with various rear hulls. Then I started pondering the BPV. I was surprised at how quick the BPV climbed beyond our target zone.

As X2 goes I’m probably more conservative than most so when I say my designs missed the target it should highlight how far off the more creative ideas are. Now I know the Xork war-refits will be difficult to define but we should be able to figure out pre-Xork BPV.

Some common political themes throughout the pre-Xork era are economic exhaustion, cold peace, trade wars and possibly a Treaty of Washington limiting ships in service. Generally these early X2 ships are designed to be more well rounded ships compared to the dedicated warships of the X1 era. X2 ships cannot be a stand alone era incompatible with X0/XP/X1.

I would propose that an X2 ship is ½ class up from an X1 ship. That is for BPV purposes a CA(X2) = CB(X1) or DD(X2) = DW(X1). This gives us room to grow these base hulls into war classes once the Xorks show up. Put another way CA(X2) ~ 250 BPV, a far cry from the 500 BPV monsters that are showing up in the SSD thread (most SSDs I’ve seen seem to have a BPV estimate 20-25% lower then they should IMO).

For X2 to be successful I believe the trade wars must be an interesting mix of multi-generational conflict. Once X2 ships get into the 400-500 BPV range things break. By limiting our pre-Xork enhancements we maximize compatibility during the trade wars while leaving us the necessary room for expansion. We can still build the monsters with the fancy new tech, just not until after the Xorks come.

This is going to take significant restraint on everyone’s part. It is a lot of fun to beef up our SSDs into killing machines, but I fear if we continue unabashed the designers will have more fun then the players.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 08:48 am: Edit

I agree in this.

Let's see where the FFXXs and the DDXXs take us before we actually start making CCXXs, becuase it's these smaller ships that will see the most cross generational action and thus are the ones we must try hardest to avoid building a pitfall for.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 09:26 am: Edit

MJC: That's a good compromise.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 10:06 am: Edit

From the SSD thread:

Tos said:

---

Quote:

I think your line of reasoning puts the cart before the horse. I'm sure Steve's intentions will be to have the Xorks historically balanced. Specifically, the Xorks will be better then what we have to initially defend with, equal to what we will have when we max out X2 tech and crank up production, and less then what we will have when we finally push them back. Following that line of reasoning the Xorks will be balanced against what the traditional races have, not the other way around.

---

---

Quote:

First, Tos Crawford has no idea what the Xorkellians will be or what their technology will be or how the war with them will go. He is fabricating his own history based on his own ideas with no concept of what SVC might intend.

---

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 10:51 am: Edit

Mike, I think you misinterpreted my point. All I said is that the Xorks will come with intentions of conquest, they will eventually be stopped and then they will be repulsed. Unless you envision the death of the core races I'm not sure how you can disagree with this chain of events.

The thing I find odd is I agree with your point that X2(Y205) should be developed based on XP/X1/Trade War mixed generational era. You then go into discussing fleet build limits, something I refer to as the Second Treaty of Washington. Are you in support of a treaty forcing a rapid reduction in warships?

I also wasn't advocating no cruiser development. Limited deployment, sure, but F&E tells us production of cruisers has always been tiny compared to the smaller ships. What I am advocating is that the first X2 introduced in Y205 be starships, not warships. This gives us somewhere to expand when the need arises.

I hope this clears things up a bit. If we still are in disagreement on a point please point it out.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 11:00 am: Edit

No, I don't envision the core races being wiped out. I'm sure Steve will make clear what happens to everyone, and how. What I mean by fleet build limits isn't something caused by a treaty; it's more the technical limitations imposed by a broken economy and a need to build back up to pre-Andy strength. X2 ships will be expensive and hard to produce, so I imagine each race will be building them pretty slowly, at least at first.

If i've misunderstood the no cruiser deployment, I apologize. I guess my point about cruisers is that they should be the easiest to develop first, and then we can develop down or up for the other ships. I think starting with a Frigate will be hard to extrapolate out, that's all.

I also agree that the first X2's not be pure warships, but more multi purpose. The cruiser, again, seems to fill this roll the best to me. That's one reason I don't advocate "bigger" ships, i.e., ships with a half-dozen or more heavy weapons, 18 phasers, etc. Better weapons, yes...many more, no.

Hope that helps!

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Eagle) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 11:16 am: Edit

Tos, also there need to be BPv room for new systems, like my proposed one shot ESG.

By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 12:04 pm: Edit

Just to throw another opinion in the hat, I'd suggest that the serious design effort for the early-X2 ships focus initially on the CLXXs. It seems to me, as an outside observer (lurker) that the concensus is that the CLs will be the real workhorses, doing a lot of the day to day patroling missions originally performed by GW CAs. The Cruisers would be fairly rare, intended to led squadrons of ships in more serious operations and augment patrol in peacetime (with one CC acting as the command ship for an entire section of the border.

Thus, the 2X CLs should, IMHO, have comparable non-combat capabilities to a GW CA. Also, as they will have BPVs closer to 1X CCs, it will be easier to playtest these ships in a one on one engagement. Pretty much the only way to test a 2X CC in a duel against an existing benchmark will be to pit against a BB or a large Andro ... hardly realistic as these opponents won't even exist in X2 (at least not the ships we know today).

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 12:48 pm: Edit

Disclamer: This is all just how I see things and mearly my own oppinion.

The areas between the Core of the Empires will likely be fragmented. To a degree the borders will be "Understood to be" the same as before but they really wont. The abilities of the Empires to maintain the outer reaches of their empires will be streached to their limits and the Core planets will demand to be secure first. Add the Orions and oppertunity to renegotiate terms and you have a situation where the Empires will have to work at rebuilding their Empires from the inside.

Hence the Roll of the XCC. Fly the flag and reassert the strength of the Empire. Provide a deterent to other Empires and Pirates. And Negotiate new agreements of trade (Ambassadors on Flag Bridge). Bring something to offer, like medicine or what have you (Cargo). Be ready for various missions (NWO used as shuttle for large rescue missions or barracks to retake a colony or more cargo. Or lab to reserch that anomally in the neutral zone. Or what ever.) These ships will opperate alone most of the time. Once the primary mission has been accomplished a XCL will move in to continue the mission for the long term. The XCL will also have the roll of maintaining security within the Empire (or Federation) and to Patrol the borders. So the XCCs main job will be to rebuild the Empire. The XCL will hold on to the empire. The XDD will back up and supplement the XCL. The XFF will tie the Empire together.

BPV: We simply have to keep from going to high. The system starts to get qwirks in it when you have non-box special abilities and high BPV. But ultimatly a lot of playtesting will be needed. We can mitigate some of that by keeping our goals lower. 300 ish is a good target IMO.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 02:03 pm: Edit

We may need to go up a little.

As I mentioned elsewhere, 300 will be about the BPV of a X1 BCX.

Still, the Cruiser is the core of SFB and even if the historical emphasis is elsewhere, the cruisers ought to come first in our development order.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 08:29 pm: Edit

Am I close with this:

Y205 CA: 325-375 350-400

Y205 CL: 275-325

Y205 DD: 250-300 200-250

Y205 FF: 150-200 125-175

But there really is no way to look at an SSD and calculate the BPV. Once we've got the ships that might work, playtesting is the only way to be sure they're playable and in the BPV ballpark.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 08:31 pm: Edit

Sounds close; maybe a bit low on the CA, and a bit high on the FF/DD. You're right, though, that it can't be figured out just from the SSD. Sounds like a reasonable start, though.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 08:42 pm: Edit

Maybe it's better now?