"Until the Refit for the Xork repulsing...when the Admiralty will want REAL warships."
Agreed.

"Since the Ph-4 is a single space weapon, it would be hard to justify 6Ph-5s having the ability to take 12 A column PHASER hits...unless you'd like to go with some thing along the lines of the Stereo Phaser, last put forward in the Ph-1 topic."
You missed my point. A PL-S/PPD/ESG take 2 Orion option mounts (2 spaces) and take 1 damage to kill. I am proposing the P5 be similar, 2 spaces, 1 hit. In Annex #8B the P4 is listed with the same notation as a PL-R, that it can’t be mounted in an Orion under any circumstances. That could be argued to mean that the P4 is physically larger than a 2-space weapon. If you accept that argument then a 2-space P5 is a reasonable compromise.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, February 08, 2003 - 02:36 pm: Edit

Tos, A P4 can't be mounted on an Orion because it can't be mounted on any unit withough positional stabilizers.

te P-4 is IIRC a 2-space weapon, even though it only takes one hit to kill.

I'm confused though.

What IS the point here? Are we talking about making phasers multiple hits to destroy again?

Some other system?

Something else?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, February 08, 2003 - 03:47 pm: Edit

"the P-4 is IIRC a 2-space weapon"
Let me know if you find a reference that confirms this. My research only documented that it could not be mounted in an Orion or WYN and did not make explicit reference the size. There may be an unofficial source that defines a size.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, February 08, 2003 - 07:16 pm: Edit

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Quote:

You missed my point. A PL-S/PPD/ESG take 2 Orion option mounts (2 spaces) and take 1 damage to kill. I am proposing the P5 be similar, 2 spaces, 1 hit. In Annex #8B the P4 is listed with the same notation as a PL-R, that it can’t be mounted in an Orion under any circumstances. That could be argued to mean that the P4 is physically larger than a 2-space weapon. If you accept that argument then a 2-space P5 is a reasonable compromise.

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Quote:

Tos, A P4 can't be mounted on an Orion because it can't be mounted on any unit withough positional stabilizers.

te P-4 is IIRC a 2-space weapon, even though it only takes one hit to kill.

I'm confused though.

What IS the point here? Are we talking about making phasers multiple hits to destroy again?

Some other system?

Something else?

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By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, February 08, 2003 - 07:22 pm: Edit

I'm not opposed to large numbers of P5s post Xork, I just want to start out low; kinda like the Klingons did with the K refits. I also favor one of the heavier damage P5 options so in my proposals you get fewer but bigger guns. If the final P5 we think is balanced is one of the weaker suggestions then allowing more of them makes perfect sense.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, February 08, 2003 - 07:24 pm: Edit

There isn't any need to make the P-V a "bigger" weapon than the P-1. The P-1 was an improvement over the P-2, and is still the same size. Making the P-V some sort of multi-spaced weapon serves no real purpose, and doesn't make sense, either.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, February 08, 2003 - 07:34 pm: Edit

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There isn't any need to make the P-V a "bigger" weapon than the P-1. The P-1 was an improvement over the P-2, and is still the same size. Making the P-V some sort of multi-spaced weapon serves no real purpose, and doesn't make sense, either

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By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, February 08, 2003 - 08:04 pm: Edit

The chart was based on the mega-phaser. The developement by the players was based on the mega-phaser. With in the game the Ph-V has nothing to do with the mega-phaser. The mega-phaser never existed.

I have no problem with whet ever size the Ph-V is be it 1, 1.5 or 2 spaces. But like a phaser-4 it should be represented by ONE box.

"Heck the thing requires 1.5 points of power to fire, so it can't just be a super accurate Ph-1."

I agree.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, February 08, 2003 - 08:32 pm: Edit

The only size that makes sense is 1. A plasma S, the second largest plasma torpedo in the game, isn't even 1.5. Keep it simple, and keep it one space. Making it larger will just make a mess.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, February 09, 2003 - 02:09 pm: Edit

Agreed.

Didn't we already trash the idea of phasers that take more than one hit to kill already?

Like in the P-1 topic?

Let's all look over the archives and remind outselves why it's a bad idea.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Sunday, February 09, 2003 - 02:43 pm: Edit

JT, I think the multiple-hit phaser is dead. Most of you saw the first SSD I put up with 2 box ph-5s, and everyone who saw it hated it.

As to whether a ph-5 is "bigger" than a ph-1, it doesn't make any difference. X2 ships are newly designed hulls, not conversions of existing hulls. So if an X0 CA is 500 feet long and an X2 CA is 550 feet long, it could have "bigger" phasers yet the same number of boxes. 6 on the saucer of a Fed CA, for example.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, February 09, 2003 - 05:47 pm: Edit

They may be "bigger".

So what?

I've read stuff like thinking they they're bigger so they can't be mounted in side-by-side mounts or they'll torch each other.

Yeah, right.

If bases can mount P-4's in groups of two and expect them both to have the fully swing through the arc, let alone mount P-1's in groups of 4, we can do P-5's the same way. Even if they're bigger than P-1's they're not going to be prohibitively bigger.

The alternative is requiring every phaser on an X2 SSD be a singular mount and connect no phaser boxes.

I would really like someone to explain why I shouldn't think this is a very silly--not to mention pointless--topic.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, February 09, 2003 - 07:31 pm: Edit

2/7 8pm MJC said:
"2) Since under X1 you can already fit 12 Capital Phasers on an MC1 SC 3 ship, that therefore an MC1 SC3 or worse still MC2 ship should also be able to easily fit 12 capital phasers aboard the vessel."

That started the current discussion. I followed up by stating just because you could mount 12 P1 on a CCH(X1) doesn't mean you can mount 12 P5 on a CA(X2). Having the P5 be a larger size than a P1 just provided a convenient excuse.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, February 09, 2003 - 07:38 pm: Edit

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I followed up by stating just because you could mount 12 P1 on a CCH(X1) doesn't mean you can mount 12 P5 on a CA(X2).

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By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, February 09, 2003 - 08:10 pm: Edit

Has anyone taken any notice of these facts.

Phaser	Throughput	output
Ph-5 R8	2.33'	3.5
Ph-1 R8	2.16'	2.16

Now taking into account that ships that use the Ph-1 as the Ph-2 analog, the Klingons and Hydrans, and stating that those ships will get the same number of Phasers as the previous cruisers, for want of a better reason because the designers knew it could be done.
Then each pair of Ph-1s will save one point of power, now with that power going to BTTYs or with it being put into SSReo or with the basic idea of Caps-to-SSReo, we can generate at range 8, with a pair of Ph-1s:- 4.33' points of damage an 1 point of SSReo.
A pair of Ph-5s can generate 7 points of damage.

If we take 12 x ( 4.33 + 1 ) / 7 we get 9.14 which would be the number of phaser-5s to attain parity at that range.

Let's have about 9Ph-5s ( say 8 ) and leave it at that with no actual explaination in the technobable.

So:-
9Ph-5 at range 8 against 6 points of SSReo yeilds:-
9 x 3.5 - 6
25.5 points of damage.

And 12 Ph-1s at range 8 against no SSReo yeilds:-
12 x 2.16'
26 points of damage.


The ecconomically exhausted races that built the Ph-5 didn't see any need during peace time to give the vessels an offensive capasity that was horrendously more powerful than the X1s had been and thus only put the fewer number of Phasers aboard the vessels.

When the Xorks invaded, that meant that there was a reason to mount more phasers and since X1 cruisers could mount 12 Capital Phasers it wasn't much of a step to mount 12Ph-5s on the X2 cruisers.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, February 09, 2003 - 08:30 pm: Edit

OK, so you're looking for a rationale for limiting P-5 deployment.

New Design, hard to produce, shortsighted bean-counters...we can spin any number of reasons.

It easily sense that the first implementation of X2 might be limited, say phasers as a mix of P-1s and P-5s. Maybe these EX2 ships didn't have the full warp power implementation either, so maybe they hve 50 or even the X1 base of 40 warp.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, February 09, 2003 - 09:16 pm: Edit

We'll I'ld rather split the X2 power generation into several groups, say, some have a lotta Warp Boxes, some have 1.5 power per box and some have Orion warp Doubling ( I'ld love to see the Roms with Orion Warp doubling ). Re writting that as several different generation levels per race based on refits might get a lot more difficult to keep easy to play.

I'ld also rather have some X2 things be a constant capasity, say, the A.S.I.F. should just be one set of rules, rather than several sets of rules based on refits at various years.

Actually that creates some other problems, For example, it'ld be cool to have the Orions pays 1.5 times the regular power for cloak when doubling both engines and the regular cloak cost for doubling only one engine.
But it'll also be cool at some stage to let the Orion cloak pay the regular cloak cost whilst doubling all the Engines.
And yet it'ld be difficult to have both capasities without the refit information become confussing.

Perhaps in that respect it'ld be better just to say that X2 cloaks, cloak at the regular cost reguardless of Engine Doubling.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Sunday, February 09, 2003 - 09:55 pm: Edit

Let's take a step back before it flames up.

The question is "how many ph-5 can you fit on a starship"

Technobabble about "size" shouldn't be the determining factor for boxes on an SSD.

If 8 ph-5 playtests to be the right number of phasers for the BPV we want, then 8 ph-5 go on the ship. If it takes 10, 12, or 20 to make it work, then that's what it takes.

Let the technobabble take care of itself. For every technobabble arguement about "bigger" phasers, I can counter with a technobabble arguement about "improvements in miniaturization" to make a ph-5 the same size as a ph-1.

I put 10 on my Fed XCA design for asthetic reasons. I wanted a Y205 ship to look and feel like a Y165 CA. But with better gizmos, not more gizmos.

Until someone sits down and designs an X2 starship (and a number of us have tried), and PLAYTESTS it, then we're just going in circles.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Sunday, February 09, 2003 - 10:11 pm: Edit

Please answer the 2X poll I have started. It may help focus debate and start the first round of playtesting.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, February 09, 2003 - 10:27 pm: Edit

I'm going to base my designs on 8 to 10 heavies and a few lights. The Klingon for instance gets four in the nose, two in each wing and four Ph-1s on the waist. 12 mounts total.

The Fed gets 8 in the suacer and two RH with four P-6s 360°.

This is based on the BCH layout. Note that is module X it is stated that the BCH was unable to incorporate X-tech. due to many problems. However these problems were eventually solved and became X2.

That why I feel the XCC should be based on the GW BCH. It's the next progression. These, with the new technology, would be as or more powerfull than Drednaughts, thus taking over their role. CL will be as powerful as BCHs so they take on the workhourse role. DD backing up every one.

FF by their nature of small size will no longer be able to be effective in front line combat. I'm going to present multiple classes of Frigates to serve as support ships. As anything from LTTs (and Fast resupply) to DB and Scouts and even Heavy Policing ships. There would be multi-mission ships and perhaps pure reaserce vessals (with a hospital version). There will be no main line combat class of Frigate.

Classes would be Heavy, and Standard size. Standard size would include the various non-combat variants and police. The heavy would include LTTs, DB and Scouts.

I will present no tugs. I have a solution for elimiating the tug in general but I'm not ready to present it yet.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Monday, February 10, 2003 - 12:05 am: Edit

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That why I feel the XCC should be based on the GW BCH.

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By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, February 10, 2003 - 12:46 am: Edit

Jeff: Sure, I agree with that. Weapons lay out is what I'm thinking of. These ships would, as new hulls, be a little bigger than the old BCHs.

Multi-Role. Well, I don't know if that is actually the best definition (in my book anyway). A wider mission parameter seem more fitting to me.

The XCC.
The Flag Carriers.
Showers of strength.
Makers of deals. Breakers of deals. Negotiators and protectors.
The hand of the will of the Empire (Or Star Fleet Command).
The XCC.
The Mighty... XCC.

LK

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, February 10, 2003 - 12:56 am: Edit

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I have to disagree. The BCH and the CX were dedicated WARships. The Y205 ships will be more multi-role in nature.

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By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, February 10, 2003 - 02:47 pm: Edit

We may want a multi-role XCL and a combat-optimized XCC.

That way, everybody would be happy.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, February 10, 2003 - 08:07 pm: Edit

So long as the CL has an MC of 1, otherwise you'll get the "cruisers are SFB" sayers bugging you.

I think the CL being refitted into the CA would be the best move...and thus having the same MC of 1.

The CC is a completely different ballgame in that is role is much more specific.