Players are divided... three ways, not suprisingly...

School 1: Fusions are an albatross around the neck of the Hydran Navy, and should have been removed a week after the introduction of the Hellbore.

School 2: Fusions. Yumm. Range 1 Hydran Love.

School 3: We will ~not~ forget the Fusions, even though they suck.

Which direction do we want to go for X2? Chunk them entirely? Turn them into a viable, real-mans weapon system? Make sure they are basically junk that players WISH werent on the hulls, but too useful to ignore, since they are?

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 03:50 am: Edit

Triple overloads; incinerates not only the weapon, but the rec deck, galley, massage parlor, and disco as well. Crew moral is delivered a fatal blow; throw for mutiny as per Klingon rules. Not that said ship must have at least one operational sauna to avoid this.

Quadruple overloads; acts as a default firework display for the local principality and enemy fleet. On a 1-5 a succesful Bluff is made, and both opposing fleets grab a spot of grass in the local park to watch the show.

Quintuple overloads?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 08:20 am: Edit

Actually I wouldn't mind if the Designers of the new Fussion beam took a leaf out of the Fighter's book and extended the range of the fussion beam.


Think about it, the fusion beam as the only weapon with overloads that reach beyond range 8 !!!

I was thinking about a tripple damage fussion ( for 10 power ), it could be called ther HOMOCIDE OVERLOAD as it'll destroy the beam and one other box and costs an ungodly ammount of power to arm.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 03:58 pm: Edit

There are two fusion proposlas, embedded in the PPD and Hellbore topic. One is By Loren and One is by me.

Loren proposes using fighter fusions to create a kind of "gatling fusion beam".

I proposed two alternate firing modes: A "narrow beam" mode where the fusion became a hit/miss weapon with a flat damage and the other where the fusion is fired wide-angle, doing a moderate amount (at most 4-5 points) of area-effect damage in a hex next to the ship and in its hex to all units off the shield facing the hex.

By Dave Morse (Dcm) on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 04:06 pm: Edit

To me fusion beams never work the way I expect. I expect them to get out there and "fuse" some ships. Like you fire it at a pair of tholian PCs, and if it hits the two PCs are replaced by a tholian heavy cruiser.

By Aaron Gimblet (Marcus) on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 04:17 pm: Edit

Hmm... maybe Loren will be-bop in here and give us some more discussion on how he sees Gatling Fusions working...

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 06:11 pm: Edit

Fusions are great secondary weapons with the Hellbore as main armament.

Unlimited overload range
Capacitors for standard loads
Holding cost for overloads
Every turn fire (overload or standard)
There are lots of ways they can be subtly improved as long as all Hydrans use the mixed armament standard of X0 command ships.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 07:57 pm: Edit

A repost of my fusion proposal:

NEW TECHNOLOGY: Hydran Focused Fusion Beam

Unable to improve the power of the Fusion beam, tradition-minded hydran researchers only managed to add ECCM-shift targeting technology until they hit upon an additiona component: They added a magnetic focus to the beam, which gave the Fusion two new firing modes.

To use either of the new firing modes, the Fusion beam must be allocated a third point of power either at EA or from reserve power. That point of power may not be used to overload the Fusion beam or do anything besides power the magnetic focus.

Tight-Beam Firing Mode
The Fusion becomes a hit/miss weapon whose damage is equal to a roll of a "2" or "3" at the apprpriate range. EW affests the roll to hit, not damage.

Range	0	1	2	3-8	9-10	11-15	16-30
Hit	(1d6)	6	5	4	4	3	3	2
Damage	(Std)	10	7	5	3	3	2	1
Damage	(OL)	15	10	7	4	0	0	0

Wide-Focus Mode
The beam is dispursed, autamatically hitting all units in any single range-1 hex the fusion can fire into and any units in the fusion ship's hex that are off the shield corresponding to the hex, but at a great reduction in damage.

Use the 3-10 bracket to figure range-0 damage
Use the 11-15 bracket to figure range-1 damage

range	0	1
1	4	3
2	3	2
3	2	1
4	1	1
5	1	0
6	0	0

If the narrow salvo rules are in play the fusion player may choose to roll one die and use the result for all units hit, but must roll for each fusion fired. Otherwise, a separate damage die roll is required for every unit hit each time it is hit by a Wide-Focus Fusion.

Example: The fusion ship fires into the Hex in direction F from it. All units in that hex are hit, as well as any units in the Fusion ship's hex that are off the fusion ship's Shield 6.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 08:39 pm: Edit

John T.: Quote:"I proposed two alternate firing modes: A "narrow beam" mode where the fusion became a hit/miss weapon with a flat damage and the other where the fusion is fired wide-angle, doing a moderate amount (at most 4-5 points) of area-effect damage in a hex next to the ship and in its hex to all units off the shield facing the hex."

I read that and was reminded that I considered a similar thing for a heavy phaser. What if, instead of a sweeping weapon, a planetary based phaser was a hit or miss weapon. The weapon I designed was the Phaser Howitzer. I'll post it some time. Not really meant for the Galactics but might be a Xork thing. Dunno.

The Fusion Gatling. Basically it is a rotating barral with fighter type fusion pods mounted on it. You can fire up to all four shots, lmited in range like a fighter, or double up the shots, again like a fighter, to get extended range. You can only fire shots that are loaded and there is no holding cost.
With as many hit points as X-drones can have this might work well for the Hydrans.

An alternative, if this is too powerful (and it might be), is that you turn two up to the firing position once per turn. Possibly loading the other two while they are in the non-firing position. This allows you to fire up to two short ranged shots per turn or one R10 shot. You could load all four and hold them for no power cost.

Oooops, gotta go. I'll be back later!

By Aaron Gimblet (Marcus) on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 09:01 pm: Edit

Hmm... Fusion Gatling sounds interesting, and might help back-up the PHG for defensive purposes, since we probably dont want to up the number of PHGs on vessels in any significant way.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 09:48 pm: Edit

The Omega Sector has hit/miss phasers. I forget which variety it is.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 09:49 pm: Edit

Microphasers. They also shoots plasmas real goods like.

By Jim Cummins (Jimcummins) on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 10:33 pm: Edit

Another option is to drop the fusion beam as an old technology, and pick up something different. I mean the Hydrans, went from Nova Cannon, then Fusion Beam, then the Hellbore, and along the way developed the fighter.

They seem to be willing to deploy new weapons. Why not take them on a different road. Maybe a seeking fusion warhead, or shooting stationary fusion warheads that act like temporary fusion mines. Letting the Hydran's create terrain. Or maybe a Mauler-Hellbore cross, and forget about a second heavy weapon. Just load up on fighters.

By Jim Cummins (Jimcummins) on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 10:38 pm: Edit

opps should have read further up, looks as though the drop the fusion idea was already proposed. sorry.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, February 12, 2003 - 11:00 pm: Edit

It's the fusion that allows the Hydran to load up on fighters.

No fusion, few fighters.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 12:23 am: Edit

We have the following evolution of the Hydran short range weapon:
EY Nova cannon,
X0 Fusion beam,
X2 Nuclear blaster (My proposal)

Nuclear blaster
The fusion beam had been designed to the limits of available metallurgical tolerances. New technology allowed for new alloys, which allowed an even bigger tritium fusion-based weapon.

The nuclear blaster is a monsterous short ranged weapon, but with an improved range over the fusion beam.

It can only be built on Hydran new-construction X2 ships or Pirate Option Mounts.


Normal arming cost is 3 power, and requires a turn to cool down.
Overload arming cost is 6 power, and requires a turn to cool down.
Banzai arming cost is 10 power, and destroys the launcher, plus causes 2 random internals.

Normal	0	1	2	3	4	5-12	13-20	21-30
	21	14	10	7	5	4	3	2
	19	13	9	6	4	3	2	1
	17	12	8	5	4	2	1	1
	15	10	7	5	3	1	1	0
	13	8	5	3	2	1	0	0
	11	7	4	3	2	0	0	0
OL	0	1	2	3	4	5-8
	31	21	15	10	6	6
	28	19	13	9	6	4
	25	18	10	7	4	3
	22	15	10	7	4	2
	19	12	7	4	3	1
	16	10	6	4	3	0
Banzai	0	1	2	3	4	5-8
	42	28	20	14	10	8
	38	26	18	12	8	6
	34	24	16	10	8	4
	30	20	14	10	6	2
	26	16	10	6	4	2
	22	14	8	6	4	0

Replaces a fusion beam on a 1 for 1 basis.
If the range is too long, we can eliminate the range 4 column and replace "5-12" with "4-12"

If placed in an Orion option mount (of whatever X-gen-tech)
A standard shot would cause a random internal,
An OL shot would destroy the beam, destroy one heavy weapon in the same option mount, and cause 2 extra random internals.
A Banzai shot would destroy the beam, all heavy weapons in the same option mount group, 15 internals from a single volley, and roll for breakdown on 5-6.

By Aaron Gimblet (Marcus) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 12:42 am: Edit

Boy, you REALLY dont want the Orions to use these...

How do you see them holding? Like Fusions?

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 12:52 am: Edit

I figure a Hydran X2 ship would be specially designed to handle the blast from this weapon, while the Orion ships wouldn't.

If a pirate fires it in Banzai mode, half his ship is going to melt, not to mention what happens if he cracks off all 4 at once.

I would guess the hold cost would be similar to fusions.
My apartment's being renovated and I can't get to my SFB stuff.

What's the hold cost on a fusion? 1?

By Aaron Gimblet (Marcus) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 12:55 am: Edit

Normals hold for 1, or half the charge cost.

OLs cant be held, IIRC. (I always just bumped my norms to OLs from Batts if I needed em. Gawd... think of it... 'And ill turn my 4 normal Nuclear Blasters to Banzai's from Batteries on Impulse 1, check to see if you get your shuttles away...'

Im scared of what well be able to do with batteries in 2X

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 01:57 am: Edit

---

Quote:

Another option is to drop the fusion beam as an old technology, and pick up something different. I mean the Hydrans, went from Nova Cannon, then Fusion Beam, then the Hellbore, and along the way developed the fighter.

They seem to be willing to deploy new weapons. Why not take them on a different road. Maybe a seeking fusion warhead, or shooting stationary fusion warheads that act like temporary fusion mines. Letting the Hydran's create terrain. Or maybe a Mauler-Hellbore cross, and forget about a second heavy weapon. Just load up on fighters.

---

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 01:09 pm: Edit

Jeff T. Your Nuclear Blaster title gave me an idea.

What about a weapon that does around double that damage of a fusion beam at all ranges. Can be OLed. Then you split the damage in two as two separate vollies. The first vollie is real perminant damage. The second (rolled after all other damage that impulse) is caused by a huge directed EMP blast as part of the firing. These damage hits are temporary and last 32 impulses. They cannot be loaded or used. Hull hits are basically free hits where the lights go out. All temporary EMP hits can recieve regular damage hits during their "Out" time. The EMP blast does damage shields on a 1:1 basis.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 01:24 pm: Edit

oh gods........NO NO NO.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 01:51 pm: Edit

Why?

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 01:56 pm: Edit

Recordskeeping nightmare.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 01:57 pm: Edit

Sure........this box is detroyed, this box is just cooked for a turn, this box is destroyed, this box is cooked for another 12 impulses...


GACK!