Archive through February 15, 2003
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board: The "X" Files: OLD X2 FOLDER: X2 drones: Archive through February 15, 2003
By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, January 02, 2003 - 03:28 pm: Edit

Cool. I'll keep that in mind.

I just never got around to picking up R6 or R7. I'm behind on my Captain's Logs, too. :)

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, January 02, 2003 - 03:29 pm: Edit

Wel I don't know about it being the best. But I liked it even with the fact that I HATE CV battles. (I consider them way to much bookkeeping to be fun.)

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, January 02, 2003 - 03:59 pm: Edit

I was delighted with the approach to somethings. A lot of time I have already thought of something similar and it's nice to see but not a big surprise. J2 had really fresh stuff in it and it really made my gears start turning.

J1 was a very nice organization of the fighter rules but had very little new ideas. Many of the R modules have expected designs with one or two ships that get me excited.

By michael wheatley (Mike_Wheatley) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 05:21 pm: Edit

Quote:
"Well I don't know about it being the best. But I liked it even with the fact that I HATE CV battles. (I consider them way to much bookkeeping to be fun.) "

I am sure you are not the only one. I fact, you are probably the majority.

Proposal:
Lets try and design X2 systems that not only make the system better, but also easier to play. (Less bookkeeping.)
I for one would really like Russian-style uber-drones, as they use fewer counters!

Example:
All drone control channels in an X2 fleet count as a single pool. Advanced computers automatically transfer drone control between ships as needed, with all drones getting the ECCM of the ship with the highest ECCM, when they impact.
a) Less paperwork. (Better for players.)
b) It applies even if more drones hit their targets (at once) than could be controlled by just the one ship. I.e. it is better in game as well.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Monday, January 20, 2003 - 01:30 pm: Edit

What will the standard X2 drone look like?
Speed 32? 40? 48? 64?
Warhead strength?
Damage to kill it?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, January 20, 2003 - 02:00 pm: Edit

I think that the drones should basically be the same as the X1 drones. Add technology via modules. Drone Booster Packs would be useful.

For the Kzintis I proposed the "Heel Nipper Drone" in "Major X2 Changes..."

NEW PROPOSAL:

How about a Matter/Anti-Matter Warhead Module that explodes in the hex doing 6 points to everything. Sort of a half T-bomb on a drone. IT cannot be abused en'mass because all M/AM drones explode sequentualy and would be destroyed by the first one to explode. M/AM drones would only take 4-6 to kill due to their fragile nature and would take the entire payload space available. Can be targeted on a unit or balistically or on a hex. (Note, this could be a Cloak hunting device, though albeit, you would have to be very lucky to guess the hex correctly. If one was able to retain lock-on to a cloaking ship it would be very useful, however unlikely. Hmmm, against a cloaked base this would be very deadly, maybe too deadly.)

If used as an Anti-drone weapon you would fire them to soften up the wave and finnish them with pulsed Ph-3s.
Due to the dangeous nature of a M/AM warhead this drone can only be launched from a specialized Seeking weapon drougue(holds two M/AM drones). You can carry as many as you can carry drogues.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, January 20, 2003 - 02:58 pm: Edit

Uh, Loren,

I think you need to look at the auto-reject list.

Area-effect weapons are at the top.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, January 20, 2003 - 03:45 pm: Edit

Well, maybe during X2 era....

Ah hell, there is no real need. It was part of an excersize to relate what I think could be done with drones instead of just making the statistics bigger.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, January 20, 2003 - 05:28 pm: Edit

Area-effect drone warheads aren't the way.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, January 20, 2003 - 09:06 pm: Edit

I'm OK with that. John, that's fine. But you got to admit it was creative and that was my point.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, January 20, 2003 - 09:27 pm: Edit

True.

Having drones take damage as shuttles would be a start for changes in drones. then ADDs and other drones aren't auto-kills.

Do something like that, you don't need so many.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, January 20, 2003 - 10:09 pm: Edit

I say drones would have a radical change, in the basic warhead, not just a more warheads on the same 1 space drone but better damage from those warheads., so each have space of warhead would inflict 8 instead of 6 points of damage.


The speed of the drone depends on two effects.
1) The speed of ships and 2) the tactical developments of higher speed drones.
Speed 48 drones may have the advantage of chasing down fleeing speed 37 ships reasonably well, in conmparison to speed 40.

Personnally I see speed 40 as the prefered speed as it will eventually strike the fleeing vessel and with an expanded Endurance, that's fine by me.

SO I see them as follows:-
Type WARHEAD TOUGHNESS ENDURANCE SPEED
X 1.5 spaces 8 points 8 40
XI 2.5 spaces 10 points 8 40
XII 10 points 5 points 2 40


The Type XII drone inflicts 4 poinys of damage against ships, 6 against PFs, the listed 10 against fighters and auto kills drones.

I'ld like to see the Type X & XI get an the ability to be switched at klaunch a poundal drone setting and thus the Endurances drop to 5 turns each but the drone can move at speed 40 with external modules.

I'ld also like to see some restrictioons on drones removed, such as ( and this may take a second drone control channel ) drones being able to fire their Swordfish warheads at targets that are selected mid-flight.


I don't mind if the drones reach speed 40 through the use of some warp booster pack that doubles any damage they take or even both doubles the damage they take and forces them to strick their target using the table in G13.37 and dropping the booster pack two impulses before the impact to avoid having the table but that's only if X2s don't have great drone defenses which I think they might.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 08:22 pm: Edit

The two major drone users in the game, the Klingons and Kzintis both need improvements for X2.

My suggestion was to have the Klingons develop better drones and keep the same number of racks, while the Kzintis develop better racks and keep the same type of drones.

Ideas/comments/suggestions?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 08:26 pm: Edit

I could see that, given the Kzinti predeliction for tossing out large waves of drones. Maybe more and better racks would be more economic for them, while the Klingons could possibly afford to have fewer, but better, drones. Makes sense to me.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 08:38 pm: Edit

Jeff I agree.
Klink=Few Top preformance drones.
Kzinti=Many Slightly lower quality drones. But more of them.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 09:28 pm: Edit

Bear in mind we have two X2 drone topics.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 09:29 pm: Edit

I disagree to some extent.

It'ld be much better to simply make a note in the X2 R-section about the Races and their diffent Philosophies to drone uses.

Let's say that the X2 drones have a switch and can just be SWITCHED to POUNDAL MODE.

Since the Klingons see their drones as a COUPE DE GRACE weapon with phaser absorbing capasities, the Klingons have a penchact for building double space drones of which the ones they launched early in the battle had External Armour and the switch, flicked to poundal mode.
Once the Klingons built ECM warhead that could be mounted on two space drones that also had armour modules ( and later both external and internal armour modules ) the Klingon penchant for two space drones was solidified.

Since the Kzintis saw their drones as wave of offensive power designed to overwhelm the defenses of the enemy they chose to launch lots of one space drones rapidly from their X2C-racks, not bothering to invest in the 0.25 and 0.5 BPV needed to add external armour.


These drones aren't different, they're the same drones ( in the same sence that Type VII & VIII are the same drones in that both the Kzintis and Klingons can freely use both on their X1 ships ), we'll just make comments about how the different races use them in different ways and with different numbers and different modules to have different tactics...and mere comment should be enough.

Besides the real difference between the Kzintis and the Klingons SHOULD be the Kzintis forrest of X2 Point Defense phasers.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 11:59 pm: Edit

The Kzinti Heel Nipper Drone.

In: Major X2 Changes...

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, February 15, 2003 - 09:35 am: Edit

Aegis. Full Aegis makes it very difficult to hit a target with a drone. Particularly with Full Aegis' ability to ID drones. There will be those who answer ‘we need stronger drones’, but stronger drones may be unbalancing to X0. Furthermore I can see X0 having a very tough time getting a drone hit on a full-aegis X2 ship. All of this leads me to the opinion that X-Aegis(X1) is adequate for the task. Particularly since we are not lacking for upgrades that add yet another 10% to the cost of a ship.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, February 15, 2003 - 03:17 pm: Edit

Agreed. We don't need to upgrade every last aspect of a ship with X2.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, February 15, 2003 - 09:34 pm: Edit

Quote:

Aegis. Full Aegis makes it very difficult to hit a target with a drone. Particularly with Full Aegis' ability to ID drones. There will be those who answer ‘we need stronger drones’, but stronger drones may be unbalancing to X0. Furthermore I can see X0 having a very tough time getting a drone hit on a full-aegis X2 ship. All of this leads me to the opinion that X-Aegis(X1) is adequate for the task. Particularly since we are not lacking for upgrades that add yet another 10% to the cost of a ship.


Okay:

Firstly, Full-Aegis will be old technonolgy by the time X2 comes out so it would be logical that full Aegis would be easy to mount of X2 ships.

Secondly, to ID a drone isn't the same thing as to destroy it. Look at what we can say an X2 drone will be like in an X2 duel:-

Early in the X2 period the Type VII & VIII drones might be in use still, so lets look at where they take us and we'll assum a Klingon with 2 X2G-racks.
The Klingon uses 2 Type VIII drones from her racks and launches a X2-Admin shuttle craft that runs as well as an MRX shuttle and so it carryies 4 Type VIII and Two Type VII drones.

The Federation Cruiser has 8 Ph-5s of which it can get 6 to bear on these drones and can rapid pulse as 2Ph-2s, 2Ph-6s and 3Ph-3s. It also has 2 X2G-racks with which to fire ADDs.

Assuming the Racks and the SP create different waves, that's 2R3 ADD shots plus 2R1 ADD shots for the destruction of 2 drone, plus another 2R3 ADD shots plus 2R1 ADD shots at another two drones ( these from the SP ), leaving 2 Type VII and two Type VIII ( assuming all the drones, or atleast enough to figure out what's going on ) which must be shot down.
The Fed Cruiser can fire pairs of Rapid pulse Phasers at the incomming drones and destroy all the incomming drones, but, that takes 4 Ph-5s to generate and thus the Fed cruiser will only have 2 facing Ph-5s availible this turn to fire and attempt to match the offenses of the Klingon.
This all assumes that the Fedartion vessel will be effective enough wityh his ADDs and BALLZY enough to use them. I would expect the Fed to have used type IX drone and ganrentteed the destruction of one drone ( rather than gamble at 2 per rack ) but then have fired all 6 facing Ph-5s.


Latter when the ships are more deadly we look at what is going on. Since the drones are moving at speed 40, the Fed chooses to load Type XII (X2 Dogfight) drones into the X2G-racks but also has 12 Ph-5s.
The Klingon loads up on 4 Type XI (X2 double space ) drones that are 40/10/40 on his SP and launches two Type XI drones from his 2 X2G-racks.

Again they run as two seperate volleys.
The Fed launches Type it's XII drones to destroy 2 incomming drones, and the Phaser fire on the remainder.
If the phasers fire on the remainder at range one, then the Ph-5s would have to fire as three Ph-3s and have a 26/27 chance of generating the ten of more damage needed to derstroy the Type XI drones. Thus 4 of the bearing 8Ph-5s would be consumed.
If the Phaser were forced to fire at Range 2 then it would have to fire 6Ph-5s as some 12 Ph-2 shots to also have a 26/27 chance of destroying each drone.
The ships will still have 4 1/27 chances of taking 40 points of damage or some 5.9 pointas of damage on average, and would therefore need to kick in even more phasers if it's captain wasn't prepaired to gamble.
Thus 6 of the bearing 8Ph-5s will be consumed in defending the vessel from the drones and thus not able to be used to counter the offsense of the Klingon.


For the Kzinti the situation will change little.
Assuming 2 X2C-racks plus 2 X2B-racks Plus 2X2G-racks.
In the Earlier years the Kzinti can put 4 Type VII and 4 Type VIII drones and the Federation ships can destroy 4 by using her X2G-racks as ADDs or 2 by using her X2G-racks as Type IX launchers.
The Fed will then be dealing with 2Type VII and 2 Type VIII drones which can be destroyed at range 1 by rapid pulsing a pair of Ph-3s at the Type VII and a Pair of Ph-6s at the Type VIIIs, taking some 4 of the 6 facing drones out of the equation.

Later when the drones are speed 40 the Fed choose to destroy the drones with Type XII dogfight drones, destroying the leading 2 Type X drones and also has 12 Ph-5s of which 8 can be brought to bear.
The following 2 Type X and 4 Type XI could be shot down at range one and thus the two type Xs will take 2R1 Ph-6 shots to destroy and they Type XIs shall be destroyed 26/27 of the time by 3Ph-3 shots so the vessel fires 4Ph-6 and 12Ph-3 shots from 5 of her facing 8 Ph-5s.
If because the vessel is firing at Range 2, then the pair of Type Xs sill be destroyed by either a pair of Ph-5s or a triplet of Ph-2s fired in rapid pulse form those Ph-5s or by a pair of Ph-2s with a 26/36 chance of destroying the drone.
It fires pairs of Ph2 shots at the Type X drones and trios of Ph-2 sahots at the Type XI drones with a 26/27 chance of destroying the drones...this consumes of 8 of the 8 facing Ph-5s and has will inflict on average some ( 2 x 10/36 x 24 + 4 x 1/27 x 40 ) 19.259 points of damage on the ship through failing to destroy all the drones.

And I didn't mention that if X2 drones have a poundal switch then one quater of the Kzinti drones coukld have been moving at speed 24 and carry one space of external armour which may add 4 or more points of protection to drone costing even more phasers to stop it.

This Kzinti damage assumes that the Kzinti doesn't get X2C-racks that can hold 6 or 8 spaces of drones, which would make the Kzinti drone attack much more deadly.


.


So it seems to me that the fact that the X2 cruiser can ID 4 drones with the Bridge works as a limited special sensor plus can ID 6 drone through Full Aegis, has little effect on the balance of the game.
Even with all 8 drones I.D.ed, the Kzinti can still swam the defenses of the "fully maxed out" XCC and cause every facing phaser to be used in defense and still have a pretty good chance of inflicting some damage through.


About the only good thing about fighting GW ships is that if you can move at more than 32 you might have a chance, but dealling with a BCG, CARa+ and an NCA or a C7 + D7D + D6D would cause the X2 cruiser to have to deal with some 7 Type IVF drones upto some 14 Type IVF drones. Which would be some 14Ph-3 shots ( 5Ph-5s ) through to 28Ph-3 shots ( 10Ph-5s ( 9.33) which is problematic in that the 480 BPOV XCC only has 8 it can brig to bear ) assuming that the Racks were used for offsensive purposses or we're not employed for some othe reason.

Quite simply the fact that Bridge as Special Sensor gives you some 4 chances of 2/3 to ID a drone at R15 or closer and Full-Aegis 6 automatic chances at range 3 or less, and perhaps another 3 ( one Lab is used up by the special sensor ) to 7 ( but much more likely 3 ) Labs to ID drones, does not in anyway, cause the X2 cruiser and her very limited defenses to destroy more drones, but rather it mere destroys drones more efficenetly.

And all these defenses assume that the X2 Phasers can rapid pulse 3Ph-3 shots, which is something most people on this board are pretty leary about.

If you take Full Aegis out to save on BPV you make the already limited Defenses of the X2 ships less efficent which in my veiw going to be less fun...We are building X2s with great defenses and pretty great offenses in a subconscious attempt to offset the fact that X1 was about eggshells with slegehammers, lets not further limt our defenses that are based on our very limited offenses.
You can always pray that the other guy is lazy and doesn't use his capsity to ID drones.
X2 drones defenses are going to be ( it seems to me ) like CL-20 Page 61 point 81.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, February 15, 2003 - 10:06 pm: Edit

Quote:

then one quater of the Kzinti drones coukld have been moving at speed 24 and carry


Should read drones could and speed 40 respectively.


Quote:

problematic in that the 480 BPOV XCC only has


Should read BPV.


Quote:

but rather it mere destroys drones


Should read merely.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, February 15, 2003 - 11:12 pm: Edit

MJC, the point of my whole assertion was how will it interact with X0/X1/XP. Your entire response ignores this except for the one sentence where you admit a CA(X2) without full aegis might have trouble dealing with a squadron consisting of a scout, a cruiser and a BCH backed by 14 drone racks. Duh.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, February 15, 2003 - 11:37 pm: Edit

Quote:

MJC, the point of my whole assertion was how will it interact with X0/X1/XP. Your entire response ignores this except for the one sentence where you admit a CA(X2) without full aegis might have trouble dealing with a squadron consisting of a scout, a cruiser and a BCH backed by 14 drone racks. Duh.


Don't you dare misquote me.

You know just aswell that I said the ability to ID drones is not the same thing as being able to kill them.


If we go along the premise that the XCC is equal to a CX plus a DDX then it'll be at 480 BPV.
For that kind of BPV you can buy a BCG, a CARa+ and an NCA.

These three GW ships can hurl some 7 Type IVF drones at their target.
With 8 to 12 ( depending on the year ) Ph-5 to hurl at the target ( or 12 Ph-1s to 12 Ph-5s depending on the year ) with only about 6-8 of these able to be brought to bear on the drones.

Using just the Phaser at range one and assuming the Phaser can only fire 2 Rapid pulse Ph-3s, then the 7 Type IV drones ( assuming none carry armour ) will take some 14 bearing Ph-3 shots or some 7 of the availiblwe 6-8 Ph-5s.
Assuming the X2 Phasers can fire as three rapid pulse shots then the 7 Type IVF drones ( assuming no armour ) can be shot down by 14Ph-3 shots which consumes 5 of the 6-8 facing Ph-5s ( or 5 of the 8 facing X3Ph-1s ).


And then along with come some 12 Photons.


Quite simply a GW task group can consume a huge amount of the XCC's phaser capasity without even beginning to use one SP!

In some ways GW ship task-groups will be harder to defeat than X2 cruiser for an X2 cruiser because of the fact that they can control and launch so many drones that are easily over killed.

Assuming an XCC with 4 Lab boxes, Bridge as special sensor and Full Aegis, AND ALL I.D. rolls being succesffully made the XCC stop being able to ID drones after the 13th has been I.D.ed and thats something the GW taskgroup can both generate and control!
Even with 8 Labs and all ID rolls successful, it's still only 17 drones that the XCC can ID and the GW task group can generate and control more than that!

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, February 15, 2003 - 11:39 pm: Edit

And a D6D is not a scout, it's a drone bombardment ship!

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