Archive through March 05, 2003
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
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OLD X2 FOLDER:
X2 photons:
Archive through March 05, 2003
"SEPs"?
There's a lot of good restrictions that don't involve a die roll to avoid ( look at the FUS S-O/L ) and non-holding is a good on for the Feds.
I found the second rule: (S4.32) Overload. No prior-turn arming can be assumed to have overloads. Except Feds which may have 2 points of power per tube.
This means that Feds can start the scenario holding 12 point overloads. Hold cost 1 1/2 per torpedo.
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What's wrong with simply making photons 24 points and leaving it at that?
Having to slow down is restriction enough.
Going from 6+2 to 10+2 requires 16 more warp.
Warp engines on X0 increase by 18 to X2 (30 to 48).
I don't see what the problem is.
Makes two of us. The power required is its own restriction.
MJC thinks that 2+10 is a problem case, and I'm having trouble seeing that also. I would think 10+2 would be the more dangrous case.
That's three, then, 'cause that's what I've been saying for awhile now. Any captain that wants to sink that much power into arming the things is going to pay for it. I think that just making it an even split on the arming for anything above 16 points (i.e., 6+6 for a full 24 points) would solve the problem MJC describes. A Fed XCA with 46 warp would would have to spend 24 points for two turns in a row to arm them. If they want to do that to gamble getting in that death blow, they should be able to.
What I am envisioning is that once the range of damage is established (when?) then the highest damage should have a dangerous risk or consequence.
People don't like 'rolling for consequences'? But we roll for lock-on for targeting cloaked ships? We roll for breakdown. We roll for shock.
Damage allocation has rolling. All these things push the envelope of targeting, overgunned ships, movement and damage. I just don't want players to use the upper limit of a weapon without fear of consequences. It reminds me of playing computer games with cheat codes. The fun wears off quickly once you play that way for a while.
Actually, I don't care if it is a roll or a prepackaged consequence, but there has to be a consequence. It makes for grittier gameplay.
So, if the proposed x2 photon has a 24 strengthed warhead as its upper limit, roll for shock, or increase feedback damage, blind scanners for 1/8 or 1/4 of a turn because of the 'backwash', making the to hit worse (+1), whatever. Having it simply slow down might not be enough.
I see this working for disruptors as well-heck all heavy weapons. I can see a Klingon captain say:
"Hyperload the Aft Disruptors! and fire."
"But sir!"
"Do it!!"
Cool.
3 D5s are 400 points. An XCA is about 350. The Klingons should have an advantage.
For the sake of arguement, I'll use the Fed XCA I posted on Loren's page.
Fed XCA:
4 photons, except replace 16 points range 10 with 24 points range 8,
10 ph-5, 2 each FH, FAL, FAR, 360, RH arcs,
2 GX racks,
Shields 45/38/32/32/32/38,
Power: 50 warp, 4 impulse, 2 AWR, batteries 5x3.
1 scout channel
turn mode C
Fed XCA vs. 3 D5s
Turn 1
Fed EA
Power 56
Housekeeping 4 (the only non-warp non-battery power on the ship)
Photons 22 *
Speed 20
EW 8
Hold shuttles 2
Batteries 15
* 4 x 1.5 = 6 power holds 12 point OLs
* 4 x 4 = 16 more power makes 20 point OLs.
** If you want full overloads (24 points), then either speed or EW will have to suffer.
Did I mention I didn't allocate the power to turn the scout on?
Or the power for the SIF?
Turn 1 - Range 8 battle pass.
Assume the worst case for the Klingons. 1 shift both ways.
Fed fires - EW gives -1 offensive shift.
4 torpedos (1-4 to hit). 8 ph-5.
Damage - 3x20 from torps, 8x4 from phasers.
92 damage.
1 D5 hopelessly crippled.
Klingons fire - EW gives +1 defensive shift.
12 disruptors (OL UIM, 1-4 to hit). 12 ph-1.
Damage - 8x6 from disruptors, 12x1.5 from phasers.
66 damage.
#6 shield down, batteries dry, 10-15 internals (say 1 phaser, 1 engine box, and a lot of hull)
Did I mention the Feds doing anything to handle the 6 drones and 3 scatterpacks the Klingons popped?
Turn 2 - Can the Klingons get a second shot on the down shield?
Quote:Makes two of us. The power required is its own restriction.
MJC thinks that 2+10 is a problem case, and I'm having trouble seeing that also. I would think 10+2 would be the more dangrous case.
Quote:That's three, then, 'cause that's what I've been saying for awhile now.
Alright my reasoning is to do with several things.
1) Against GW ships, especially using D22, an escape speed of 16 is actually quite fast...and faster if H5.5 is retained ( even if only retained post Xork).
2) We are looking for cheap more efficent ships to battle during the trade wars which means a lot of ships will be scaled back, remember ships that had 12 captial phasers? So too the Klingons are likely to have a mere 4 Disruptors and one has to ask what the disruptors can do.
Against 24 Point Photons by themselves 4; +2 UIM +2 Defracs 6 Impulse delay over a turn break FH+L & FH+R Capasitor drive disruptors that are linked to the Phaser Caps, shall fight fairly well.
Against 24 Point Photons that can fire as Overloaded Proxies, can swap to proximity mode with a 4 impulse delay, can fire 12 point standard all the way to R40 ( R50? ) and ( possibly ) can be driven by reserve warp from the previous turn, the four disruptors are not going to stand up...and if the H5.5 BTTYs come in 6 such disruptors will have trouble opperating with parity.
Quote:Any captain that wants to sink that much power into arming the things is going to pay for it. I think that just making it an even split on the arming for anything above 16 points (i.e., 6+6 for a full 24 points) would solve the problem MJC describes. A Fed XCA with 46 warp would would have to spend 24 points for two turns in a row to arm them. If they want to do that to gamble getting in that death blow, they should be able to.
Counting in the AWR it'll be more like 52 warp.
The instability method of controlling Photon loading allows you to build 5.5+6.5 or 5+7 or 4.5+7.5 or 4+8 and build that 24 point photon.
You just have to use it or eject it this turn.
The Net result will be that because people are loave to arm photon on the turn of the attack run, that then people will but high damage photons as 6+2to6 for warhead of 16 to 24 or if you'ld like, about 20.
Now then the Klingon X2 disruptor getting one R15 Disruptor attack and one R8 +2 UIM O/L Disruoptor attack will fire 8 average damage for 6 points from the Caps instead of 6+something of actual armning energy for 20 points of damage half the time at R8 for an average of 10 points of damage.
10 @ R8 Vs 8 @ (R8 + prevous turn) RESULTS IN a much closer balance between the two weapons that 12 @ R8 Vs 8 @ (R8 + pervious turn) !!!
We need to water down the ability of the Fed to create 24 point photons and allowing 24 point photons to be built under 2+10 and 10+2 and leaving it upto the Engines limits us.
Consider what happen when the H5.5 BTTYs get installed if there is a BTTY refit to repulse the Xork invasion!?!
Consider what happens if there is an engine refit that brings the engines up to 40 warp engine boxes that can generate 1.5 power each???
If we just say that 10+2 and 2+10 are fine now because the ships have limited power then we limit ourselves to 46 box engines and that's actually quite silly!
If we get to deep into the designs and say "oops we never had the H5.5 refit and we never had the Xork repulsing Warp Engine refit" then we can just go back and unplug the instability rule from the play test rules and go on from their.
As it stands the GWs and the Klingons will get trounced by having "as you please" photon arming.
Quote:Actually, I don't care if it is a roll or a prepackaged consequence, but there has to be a consequence. It makes for grittier gameplay.
That it does.
Quote:** If you want full overloads (24 points), then either speed or EW will have to suffer.
Did I mention I didn't allocate the power to turn the scout on?
Or the power for the SIF?
Quite frankly one wonders why you are spending 2 points to hold shuttles that are undoubtedly both SPs. 2MRX ( the Admin of X2 ) with 8 Type VII drones each...what a rush!
Quote:#6 shield down, batteries dry, 10-15 internals (say 1 phaser, 1 engine box, and a lot of hull)
You forgot to plug in either Caps to SSReo or Damage Shunting...and the sheilds shouldn't be +5 over X1 they should be +10 these things need to be around or a little better than a BCHX incase X1R has them.
And one point of BTTY into Special Bridge would be great at breaking the lock on of one of the SPs.
MJC,
OK. I think I understand.
Instability: set a "safe" power maximum above which the torp will be use it or lose it on the turn of firing. That level seems like 8. So we can do a 10+2, but the torp must be ejected on the second turn, same as with a 2+10.
I don't think you need to worry about a H5.5 refit. That rule does not describe the function of X2 batteries, only call the player's attention to the fact that there are batteries that function differently.
I don't think you need to worry about X2 cruisers with 60 warp regardless of the wayyou get it. The "1.5x warp box" idea doesn't seem to have a lot of mass-appeal and we're certainly not going to glue another 12 warp onto the Y205 X2 cruisers.
I'd go one further on the safe torpedos...anything over a 16 point warhead has to be armed evenly over both turns, and cannot be held. That means a 20 point warhead is a 5+5, and only that. Makes it equally expensive on both turns, and keeps the player from using reserve power to increase the warhead at the last second.
Mike, the flexible arming is the very heart of the photon torpedo.
Pull it out and you have a disruptor cannon with less accuracy.
Let's see what the playtesting results with a normal 24 point warhead look like before we add extra rules.
Yeah, it's the heart of it, but you gotta have some limit put on those big 24 point warheads, and that seems fair enough. But, I'm flexible...we can try anything.
If we set up round 1 of playtesting, I'd like to allow 10+2 for 24 with no other limitations.
I'm not convinced 10+2 is unbalancing.
Granted if an XCA were in a duel against a D7W, the Klingon is toast. But put any 350 points of Feds against that same D7W and you get the same result.
Like I said, I'm flexible. Whoever playtests, do as you please...just report it as such. I think the basic ships are pretty sound. Just gotta work out the photon. I would prefer testing against a similar 2X Klingon opponent, though, but since we don't have them yet, that's not an option.
Ya know, if Disruptors get CAPs then they can load up similar to photons; 2 + 2 for an OL disruptor. Only using 2 points each on the attack run turn.
I mentioned this once, but there was a flurry of other posts so it might have been missed. What if we simply made the enhanced proximity fuse rules from SSJ1 the new X2 rules? Has anyone tried them yet?
Also, let me clarify something about my photon position. I was never very much in favor of making the photon "bigger." It has fine damage potential already. But, every proposal to make it either more accurate or "different" that's been put forward has been almost universally shot down. There was a point when the bigger photon seemed the only option that a majority could agree on. If it were strictly up to me, I'd leave the damage the same (except perhaps allowing 16 point fast overloads for 2X) and have some modest improvements in accuracy...and I mean VERY modest. That doesn't seem very popular, however.
I read up on them Mike.
In the imortal words of Scotty..."I'll let ya know."
Mike: That's a major change from holdable photons. Consider the first battle pass with both options:
Holdable: 4 Photons at 24 hold for 12 power.
Non-Holdable: 4 Photons at 16 hold for 8 power. Add 16 power, likely from reserves, to top them off. On the turn of fire you have invested 24 power.
Your suggestion requires double (12) the amount of power on the first battle pass. Big difference. Best compromise suggestion I've seen.
Quote:Instability: set a "safe" power maximum above which the torp will be use it or lose it on the turn of firing. That level seems like 8. So we can do a 10+2, but the torp must be ejected on the second turn, same as with a 2+10.
That that thrust of it.
Only I would say that the safe level was 6.
That way you have safe 12 point fastloads just like X1 but also non holdable 16 pointers.
You could build a safe 6+6 24 point warhead and you could be an unholdable 4+8 (or 5.5+6.5 for that matter) but you couldn't build a 8+4 or a 2+10 as that instability rule and the power injection rule that goes with it would get in the way.
I'ld rather not have an 8 point limit in any one turn as I think holdable 16 fastloads ( although a full tech level jump from X1 ) would be too powerful.
That is build weapons that can vap' your oppnent every turn an the extra 33% damage can go to hell because you get 50% extra damage by continuos fastloads.
With non-holdable 16 point fastloads the every shot's a fastload crowd will steer away from it because of the immense waste of power if they don't get a firing oppotunity and so that will create a bent towards players using the Photon as a two turn weapon again...12 every turn and 24 every second turn is very similar and the player may choose to fire as the situation calls...but 12 point fastloads that can be held and 24 point two turners and 16 point non holdable fastloads gives the Fed a good set of options to fire with.
Quote:I'd go one further on the safe torpedos...anything over a 16 point warhead has to be armed evenly over both turns, and cannot be held. That means a 20 point warhead is a 5+5, and only that. Makes it equally expensive on both turns, and keeps the player from using reserve power to increase the warhead at the last second.
I disagree, photons should have some descression in their arming.
You're limited with MY and GW photons in overload mode in that you must pay atleast 2 power in each turn, whe you apply the other 4 points is up to you.
I'm perfectly happy with 4+6 to give me a holdable 20 pointer...I'm even happy with 2+8 for an non-holdable 20 pointer.
Quote:Ya know, if Disruptors get CAPs then they can load up similar to photons; 2 + 2 for an OL disruptor. Only using 2 points each on the attack run turn.
And you can load up an overkload power into the Cap and the fire "downloaded like a phaser ) two points to the disrupto it'self at the instant of fire or four points purely at the players descression.
Handy but not in my opinion a game breaker.
Quote:I mentioned this once, but there was a flurry of other posts so it might have been missed. What if we simply made the enhanced proximity fuse rules from SSJ1 the new X2 rules? Has anyone tried them yet?
I don't have SSJ1, are they overloaded proxies?
Quote:Also, let me clarify something about my photon position. I was never very much in favor of making the photon "bigger." It has fine damage potential already. But, every proposal to make it either more accurate or "different" that's been put forward has been almost universally shot down. There was a point when the bigger photon seemed the only option that a majority could agree on. If it were strictly up to me, I'd leave the damage the same (except perhaps allowing 16 point fast overloads for 2X) and have some modest improvements in accuracy...and I mean VERY modest. That doesn't seem very popular, however.
No I follow you.
I'm a big one for increases in accuracy.
I'm for 8-12 point standards but in that, I'm for the 9-12 point warheads being fired using the overload shot criteria ( max R8, feedback damage ) or the standard shot criteris ( Myopic Zone and R50 ( or maybe just 40 )).
I'm for a four impulse delay to change Proxies into standard or visa-versa ( instead of waiting until EA )
I'm for overloaded proxies right to the 6+6 or 4+8 arming 12 point warhead 5/6 chance overloaded proxy version of the full 24 point photon.
But then I'm for Disruptors having a 6 impulse rearming cycle over the turn break.
I'm for +2 UIM and +2 Defracs.
I'm For Disruptor Caps and I'm for Disruptor Caps that are linked into the Phaser Caps.
X2 should have several areas upgraded on the heavy weapons, for one reason to stop the Phaser battle winning or loosing the game...racial flavour and all that.
A question from Loren, which I said I'd get back on...
Quote:Photons: What's to stop me from "Planning" 20 point war head on turn A and allocating 5 then changing my mind on turn B and allocating three for a holdable 16 point warhead. Then, suddenly, circumstances provide a great shot so I add 2 points of Reserve Warp for a twenty pointer. That is still an even 5 + 5.
Okay, the answer was actually in my original post dated 3/4/03 at 8:24 p.m.:
Quote:This also means that anything over 16 is a "planned shot"...since it must be armed evenly, you can't use reserve power to bump up the warhead on the second turn. You get what you plan for, and it must be fired or ejected.
I may not have been totally clear, but by even-arming I mean that you cannot use reserve power to increase arming past 16...you have to use normal EA for anything greater than that. Now, you could plan a 20 pointer, then change it at the last minute to 16 for whatever reason because the rules already allow that. Any normal combination that will arm a 16 point warhead is fine. With the proposed "even-arming" rule for anything greater than that, you are effectively making the uber-photon a use ir or lose it weapon, especially becuase using that rule forbids you from calling up reserve power at the last minute to increase the warhead size.
Example
Fed player has an XCA. He wants to use a full spread of 20 point photons against the evil XD7. So, on turn one he puts in the requisite five points in each tube. On turn two, one of two things could happen:
- He could find that for whatever reason, he's not going to get his dream shot, so he puts in only three points of power into the torpedos and goes with normal overloads, so that he can hold them.
- He finds that he'll be able to fire them this turn, so he puts in his additional five points per tube, knowing that he has only this turn to use them. He cannot increase them with reserve power, he cannot hold them...so he has to hope he can get that shot.
I can see several nice benefits to this rule.
- It makes the uber-photon (anything over 16 points) expenisve to arm on both turns, preventing the Fed from dumping a majority of power on turn one, then skating through on turn 2 and making a high-speed super pass.
- It adds a certain level of tactical challenge. You have to know you can get your shot, and plan accordingly if you want the big payoff.
- It puts a very real limit on the photon without changing the flavor much...your simply trading the ability to hold it or use reserve power on it for a bigger crunch.
- It balances nicely with existing two turn arming rules. You could put in six points on turn one, fully planning to superload up to 24 points. But, if you choose not to, you can only put in 2 more points and get 16 pointers...something that you already do, anyway, so there isn't any way to get around the limitation.
I really do think this will work to make 24 point photons a possibility without making them either too easy to use, or too difficult. I know that variable arming is part of the photon flavor, but there has to be some give and take in this. Simply making 24 pointers available and allowing variable loading and holding is too much, and I can't help but feel this is a good compromise. Loosing your hold ability and reserve power ability is a fair trade to arm up a weapon that can do this kind of damage.
And, as I said before, I love the fact that it's going to make the photon user really have to think to get the most out of it. He can't just hold them and chase you down with them, he's going to have to arm them and plan his movement just right to really get the big payoff. This favors better and more skillful players by adding a new tactical challenge...what it doesn't do is put an uber-weapon in the hands of inept players, though, and that's a good thing.
Mike, that could work for duels and fleet actions but what about fixed positions? From either side for that matter. That is of little consequence to a slow approaching Fed against a base or a Star Base against anything that gets in OL range. 24, IMO, is still too much. It's the difference between a few internals and a lot of internals.
I thought about that, and it doesn't bother me too badly. Here's why. Current X1 ships can fast load 12 point photons and fire them every turn. Over two turns, you'd get the same damage against a given target. Think of it as the difference between a disruptor and a normal photon...trading damage for arming time.
Now, it's true that 24 points at once is better than 24 split over two turns. But there are big advantages to splitting it, as well. Consider a Fed XDD. With 30 warp and two AWR, it'll have just enough power to arm four 24 point photons. But, to do that, it'll have be moving fairly slowly on both turns using these rules. They will also have to very carefully plan to get into the exact range they want, and then either do a slow battle pass, or practically stop altogether to pull this off. They'll have very little power for EW, shield reinforcement, or anything else.
Doing 24 points is alot, that's true. But taking two turns to arm it and spending that much power is a serious consequence, and having to fire it or loose regardless of position, EW shift, or anything else makes it a tricky business. The attacking ships would probably be better off arming 12 point fast loads, keeping up high speed and defenses, and hitting two times instead of one.
All that being said, I'm still open to alternatives, but we really are going no where with this. There just isn't any concensus to be had. Who'd have thought fixing a 2X photon would be so hard? 
I agree.
And it's not like there's no GW-grade ship that can deliver 96 points of photons. All DN's past the YDN can do it too. since the BPV of a XCC is at the very least comprable to a DN, it seems to me that heavy weapon damage is right in line.
Quote:And it's not like there's no GW-grade ship that can deliver 96 points of photons. All DN's past the YDN can do it too. since the BPV of a XCC is at the very least comprable to a DN, it seems to me that heavy weapon damage is right in line.
Fed DN only has 4, it gets the 5th and sixth with the plus refit.
On the other hand the DNJ throughs around a potential 96y points of damage and isn't a problem with respect to ship smashing.
With a 50 box facing sheild and damagwe shunting of 20% and 5 btty of 3 points each, an X2 cruiser will still take 96 points of damage, and turn it into 11 internals, which drops to 1 internal if you have those BTTY holding 5 points each.
And that's only under a jackpot.
And MY ship that Jackpots will do more than just a few internals with the Jackpot and MY ships don't have the A.S.I.F. to mitigate the nature of massive blows ( such as the 7H phaser hits ).
It's not like the 24 point is unbeatable.
Fi the X2 cruisers reach R8 of each other and average shots are made ( Disruptors using +2 UIM ) then the Klingon will inflict 24 points of damage and the Fed 48.
Then the Fed can't fire full Photons the next turn ( unless he goes with out highly penalised Fastloads ) and the Klingon comes in for an R1 strike against the Fed for 33.33 points of disruptor damage or stays out for an R8 strike for another 24 damage ( bringing both totals up to 48 ).
Now if the Fed chooses to fire his photons as 12 point fastloads ( or use reserve for non holdable 16 pointers ) then hell generate 48 damage ( and 12 feedback to himself ) bring the Klingon Disruptor+feedback on the second turn to 45.33 and the Federation to 48 on the second turn.
If the Klingon can get 10Ph-1s of her 12Ph-1s to bear then she could do 21.666 points of damage and the 6 opf 8Ph-5s that the Fed could bring to bear would be just 21 points of damage.
At R1 the 6Ph-5s would inflict 45 points of damage whilst the Klingons would inflict 53.33 points of phaser damage.
Admittedly the Klingons might get 8Ph-1s to bear form the 12 (instead of 10) but those ships are likely to have early refits to having boom Ph-5s.
And the Klingon ships are proably going to have a slightly lower BPV than the Feds.
All in all the combination of two turn arming and some improvements to the Disruptor will yeild ships that can fight each other without the 24 point photon being too powerful.
MJC,
That's why I said "All DNs past the YDN."
IIRC, the original Fed DN is the YDN these days.
I don't have module Y so I wouldn't know but one would think the 12Ph-1 would mean that it's a different ship.