I’ve just noticed this thread and am not up to speed on which issues are closed for discussion, so I apologize in advance, but I was a contributor of the old threads and may be able to share some history.

One of the things that came out of the previous X2 thread was that ships need not be bigger or more powerful or move supra-light to be fun to play as X2 ships. In fact, the closer we could keep them to mortal ships the better they would integrate in generational battles. 300-BPV Destroyers and 500-BPV Battlecruisers need not apply (though some felt differently).

What many settled on was that X2 ships needed better mid-range weaponry in the form of improved fire control, thus the mid-range Phaser-V was born much the same way the Ph-1 evolved from the Ph-2. X2 ships needed to be master duelers, not massive crunch or flying eggshells.

For the X2 ship to thrive the Captain has to be a master of maneuver. Get too close to an X1 ship without an EW advantage and you get smashed. Too far and neither can hurt the other. Keep the range between 5-15 with a bit more ECM and victory can be had. Push out the optimal attack range by a few hexes and all sorts of good things started to happen, but X2 ships could not have increased overload range or the powerful X2 alpha strike would leave an opponent crippled with no fear of reprisal. Balance, playability and fun could have been our moto, if we had one.

As conceived long, long ago, class-for-class the X2 ships were on-par with X1 ships in combat (no additional power, reserves or crunch) but fought with more flexibility. Think 8 EW generation, second HET, better acceleration, faster speed changes, more TB storage, flexible configuration ala HDW NWO, new racks, new drones and the like. Evolutionary changes can be BPV balanced, radical changes, not quite so easily.

In fact if one assumes the early X2 era was moderately peaceful, in the mold of MY pre-GW fleets, then an X2 ship might have even less offensive capability than an X1 optimized ship of war. The neat thing about this approach is there remains a reason to keep X1 ships in service, or even continue in production, while the X2 ship undertakes the long-range exploration and softer missions. With efficient and flexible X2 ships of peace, X1 spare-no-expense warships and special mission GW-era ships all sorts of interesting combinations become possible. Not more deadly, just designed to meet the needs of a new era.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Monday, March 23, 2015 - 08:33 pm: Edit

I like that. There are lots of reasons combat power might remain stagnant or even go backwards a bit. The x2 ships might be "treaty cruisers" limiting firepower in an attempt to prevent another general war. Possibly the trade wars demanded more flexibility and less firepower, just as today's military has changed for today's missions as opposed to the child war. I like NWOs for that idea. Or they might have just gotten complacent, like how the Germans forgot about snorkels and the allies forgot about convoys at the start of ww2.

It also means the all-out combat versions could be introduced later, sort of like NCAs and BCHs in the later GW...

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, March 23, 2015 - 11:38 pm: Edit

Tos Crawford, good to hear from you. That was a great summery of the overall effort of those days in 2004+.

I so agree. I would like to see an X2 that is a maneuver master and mid-range value added. The phaser-V was a great achievement of those days, IMO, even if there was some differing opinion of the specific numbers. I also agree X2 should not necessarily more powerful in terms of pure energy projection or generation but have the edge in other matters.

I guess I've always thought that X2 should maybe be an experienced players joy to fly (able to employ a wider range of systems) but still operable by newbies.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, March 23, 2015 - 11:46 pm: Edit

I just remembered an idea I had some time ago when I was looking at Andromedans. One terribly effective tactic they have is the PA panel dump. It occurred to me that perhaps X2 ships could have something along those lines, so I have this proposal.

X2 shield Rapid Repair: Any shield on a second generation X-ship can repair shield boxes at a rate of 1 energy to 1 repaired up to the current maximum Damage Control Rating if the shield is dropped to minimum shield level and there is at least one existing shield box left. Shields must be active and raised.
Will require some rule references such at those regarding raising and lowering shields. Of course, you would have to drop the repaired shield to minimum for a full turn to get the one to one bonus. I suppose if you raise it during the required down time you would still get some repair done but at the normal 2:1.

By Steven E. Ehrbar (See) on Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - 01:25 am: Edit

Loren Knight:
X1 ships already repair shield boxes at a rate of 1 energy to 1 box (XD9.21).

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - 01:35 am: Edit

lol, child war. I mean, of course, Cold War. Teach me to post from my phone

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, March 24, 2015 - 12:47 pm: Edit

Sheesh. I am so out of the loop these days. Got so much going I forget such a simple thing.

Soon I'm going to do a massive rules review so I can finish a story. Then I'll not make these silly mistakes.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Friday, April 03, 2015 - 03:03 am: Edit

Thinking about X1 vs. X2...

One of the things I dislike about X1 is the extreme homogeneity of the technology. Compared to the GW...
* There are virtually no ph-2's. Everyone just has all ph-1's.
* There are no different kinds of drone racks. Everyone has GX-racks. Once in a while there's a CX rack, but those are rare.
* Everyone (with disruptors) gets UIM.
* All the heavy weapons have a one-turn arming cycle; plasmas kinda-sorta have a two-turn cycle, but you can still fire one-turn F's. Disruptors increase in quantity instead since they can't really fire much faster. Web breakers have a damage mode.
* Crew quality is removed.
* Everyone has all the special abilities. Everyone's a minesweeper, everyone has aegis, even non-Klingons get the benefit of having security stations (I guess this is fair since Klingon X-ships don't mutiny).

If there's just one X-ship leading the squadron, this all works pretty well (even overloaded phasers weren't too broken if there was just ONE X-ship) but if you start flying whole squadrons of them, there's a whole lot of sameness floating around.

I feel like, in general, when you play in the X-era, half the game is missing. But for X2, it's necessary to make the new equipment better than the old equipment. I'd like to propose, assuming the half-damage rule for GW/X1 vs. X2 is in effect, that if you use X1 abilities on your X2 weapons, they count as GW/X1 weapons and therefore do only half damage when used against other X2 ships. This would allow for the restoration of variety and flavor in the X2 era. The variety doesn't have to be the same as it was in the GW era. It just would be nice if it was there.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, April 03, 2015 - 09:40 am: Edit

Sheap, some X-ships do have BX racks. And Hydran X-ships have ph-Gs. In general though I agree with you about X1-tech being too homogeneous between empires. A long time ago, when the X2 thread was active, I suggested not every empire should receive every X2 upgrade. Each empire, even the Federation, could only afford to research, develop, and implement certain improvements. So, for example, Klingon X2 disruptors would be qualitatively superior to Kzinti (or Tholian) X2 disruptors, but Kzinti X2 drones would be superior (in quality, not just in numbers) to Klingon or Federation X2 drones. Federation X2 ships would have photon torpedoes superior to X1 torpedoes. But Tholian photons on X2 ships were still only X1 photons. Because of the interaction between webs and phasers, the Tholians placed their weapons-related R&D emphasis on maximizing their phaser capabilities and had phasers qualitatively superior to anyone else's (almost a throwback to the EY era) even thought heir torpedoes were qualitatively inferior to everyone else's. The Gorns and Romulans would both improve their plasma torpedoes but the upgrades would take different paths. They would both have torpedoes superior to the X1 versions, but Gorn X2 plasma torpedoess would be better than Romulan plasma in some ways but worse in others. It would all depend on what each separate empire emphasized in its finite R&D spending.

I still kind of like this idea but it never really caught on.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Friday, April 03, 2015 - 12:27 pm: Edit

I would support that idea, sure. I can see the Romulans upgrading the warhead some more, while the Gorns increase the speed; something like that.

The downside is that with each different empire having effectively its own kind of heavy weapon, balancing and playtesting gets quite a bit harder.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, April 03, 2015 - 02:36 pm: Edit

The homogeneity of the technologies do make sense in the historical perspective, IMO. I also think that the answer can be found by maintaining that perspective.

At the beginning of the GW there was considerable differences between empire navies due to different combat doctrines and scientific needs for their starships (among other qualities). As is to be expected by a long war the realities of war filtered the designs of all the empires to be fairly similar and the leap to X-technology was the prime example of that. Everyone had the same goal for their X-ships. If X-Tech had happened in peace time there would probably be a lot of difference between them.

X2, IMO, should - in the early 2nd generation years - reflect a peace time thinking while not ignoring lessons of the past.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, April 03, 2015 - 02:47 pm: Edit

I had an idea about X2 shielding. X2 could have the same shields as X1 but have a sort of seventh shield in the for of structural integrity reinforcement.

Sort of a cross between general shield reinforcement and armor. You use it just like General Shield Reinforcement except it protects inside the shields by strengthening the ships structure. Two energy protects against one internal hit from any direction. Does not block transporters. Shields need not be raised.

An added possibility would be if you spend energy equal to an HET you get a additional HET bonus point (at the time you spend the energy. Spend twice the energy and get 2 and so on. Of course, each HET will still lower the rating so there is a limit to how many an X2 ship could manage. A cruiser could get a second safe HET by spending 10 energy (5 +5) and a third (safer) for 15 energy points.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, April 03, 2015 - 05:33 pm: Edit

I wonder if phaser weapons could be integrated into a range of effects?

for example, we know that the phaser 2 is just a detuned phaser 1. What if (just to give some place holder names) phaser A, B, C and D had a linear relationship between energy cost and damage output?

type	energy cost	0	1	2	3	4	5	6-8	9-15	16-25	26-50	51-75
A	2	18	16	14	12	10	10	8	6	4	2	2
B	1	14	12	10	8	6	6	4	2	1	1	0
C	0.75	12	10	8	6	6	2	1	0	0	0	0
D	0.5	10	8	6	4	2	1	0	0	0	0	0

This way, you could have a "heavy offensive phaser" (the type A), a "Medium Offensive Phaser" (the Type B), a "Light Offensive Phaser" (the Type C), and a defensive phaser (the Type D).

The energy costs vary from a high of 2 points of energy to a low of 0.5 for the type D.

Ships could have a variety of phaser suites without allhaving the same exact types and different firing arcs.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, April 03, 2015 - 06:17 pm: Edit

Jeff, those would be base costs. How would you do a chart to include all six results for each range for each energy level?

BTW, that's a very powerful phasers. The Phaser-V from the old X2 forums had a top base of 11.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, April 03, 2015 - 11:16 pm: Edit

Loren, I would have to integrate a die 6 sub table, and build a separate table for each phaser.

Each basically uses the same proportional damage yield as a phaser 1 with damage points doubled, the type A asis, type B doubled and minus 4 points, type C doubled and minus 6 points, and type D doubled minus 8 points.

I just wanted to throw out an example where each type of phaser had a similar performance of generating damage points over a range of hexes at variuos energy cost levels.

We could build any kind of phaser damage table you like... in this case as damge potential goes up, effectiveness declines as the energy costs increase.

Its a classic case of diminishing returns. The most efficient phasers would be the type D at range 0 and 1. Two phaser Ds would inflict more damage thanone type A And cost just one point of energy.

But they wouldnt make sense to use type D phasers for the main weapons of a ship as the have a very short range.

By Joseph L. Brown (Jlbrown) on Thursday, September 10, 2015 - 06:42 pm: Edit

I like the idea of making the powers more diverse, and designing new families of phasers (ala the phaser V) to reflect this and encourage more sophisticated tactical interactions. Loren's idea of making X2 batteries 3+2 is also something I support. I don't really love the flat damage reduction for different tech level ships, but if it needs to be done then I'll live with it. (/end commentary)

My suggestion to make X2 feel new and different is to make power expenditures scale in effectiveness per point, as the points are spent. The central concept I have been playing with here is movement costs: a DD class (which might only have as many boxes as a pre-GW FF) would pay 1/3 warp per hex moved for the first 12 hexes plotted, 1/2 per hex for the next 10 hexes plotted, 2/3 per hex for the next 9 hexes plotted, 3/4 per hex for the next 8 hexes plotted, plus 1 hex of impulse to go speed 40 = total cost 21 warp & 1 impulse. Slowing down, especially in mid turn, could save more power than a GW-era player would expect. Reserve warp from one of Lorens 3+2 batteries on board would be enough to manage speed nine the turn after all engines are lost. EM & HETs are the (cheap) printed costs, no matter the actual plotted speed.

A similar concept is shield reinforcement -- an X2 ship could buy 1 point of GR for 1 point of power; the 2nd point of power would buy 2 more GR, total 3; the 3rd point of power would buy 3 more GR, total 6; etc. Specific reinforcement could be 2+3+4+5+.., etc for the 1st+2nd+3rd+4th+.. etc point of power spent. Shields would be smaller overall than X1 ships.

The idea is that early X2 ships can absolutely excel at speed, or protection, or etc, or try to seek a balance -- but being at the very peak of performance in one area is all they can manage.

By Charles Gray (Cgray34) on Sunday, September 27, 2015 - 12:30 am: Edit

Here's my question: what's the "gotcha" aspect of this new setting that makes me think it's good enough to drop money on? Shps that just do more damage and take less damage from GW and earlier shps doesn't do it. There has to be somethign compelling, not just in the rules, but the setting that makes it different.
EY had shps that worked differently and a setting that was far unlike later years where a lot of the big players barely knew each other.
MY had growing conflict, but still a lot of single ship stuff and most conflicts were small- more than a few ships in any given engagement was unusual.

GW, including early X era-- fleets, with a growing diversity of ships to fulfill individual needs such as scout, PF, carrier, etc.

What does X2 add that those era's didn't?

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Sunday, September 27, 2015 - 10:35 am: Edit

The Xork invasion

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, September 27, 2015 - 03:29 pm: Edit

Actually, the big deal is "layered" ships where X2 does more damage to X0 and X0 does less damage to X2. It's a new dynamic, just like EY and MY and X added to GW.

By Kosta Michalopoulos (Kosmic) on Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - 12:55 pm: Edit

SVC, will there be a "playtest pack" (Module P7?) made available before the formal publication of Module X2? This may be doable in a Captain's Log, if the rules don't take up too much space, although a stand alone (print? PDF?) product may get it in the hands of more people.

I recognize this may not be viable from a business perspective, if it hurts sales of Module X2. But I see something that would give players a preview of the X2 rules and a few ships helpful in providing a feel for the system and allowing a wider audience the chance to catch problems before things are set in stone. I just don't want the Supplement 2 experience to be repeated.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - 01:22 pm: Edit

I don't know yet. I get into trouble thinking too many projects ahead. X2 isn't on my mind right now. FO15, ACTASF-1.2Deluxe, F&E-ME, Fed Admiral, CL51, KMSSB, RMSSB, all are between here and X2.

By Kosta Michalopoulos (Kosmic) on Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - 01:42 pm: Edit

I hear you. Those of us at this end will just have to be patient.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - 03:35 pm: Edit

There was a mention of the "dark future" (the one encountered by the wayward Darwin) over in another thread.

On that note, I was thinking that it might make for a very interesting "bonus" scenario in Module X2, akin to the infamous Darwin scenario in Module X1. The idea being that the "dark future" Klingons might have been late to developing their first X2-ship prototype, forcing them to rush it into battle during the attack on Klinshai in alt-Y207 (the one which saw a Devastator destroy the B10 Invincible).

Such a scenario might even make for a good excuse to throw in one of the dissection beam variants from Module C3A, too. (Perhaps the "Devastator" was in fact a Devourer? Or, to make things even more dangerous, what if there was one of each involved in this battle?)

But then, there is no guarantee that the "dark future" empires ever got around to developing X2-tech prior to the Darwin's arrival, so...

EDIT: I re-posted this here before seeing that this thread had been created. Would it be better to move it there, or is there a possibility of seeing such a scenario in X2 itself?

By Tim Pearce (Komotomo) on Monday, February 01, 2016 - 08:20 pm: Edit

A thought I had to suggest to those that don't like the damage reduction/increase ratios:
Effective range alterations. A GW ship is treated on the various weapon charts as being X hexes closer to an X2 ship, an X1 ship treated as being Y hexes closer. The opposite would apply when the firing is done the other way around. The only problem I see is either a lack of improvement when the ships are at less than X or Y, you either need to have a couple more lines for, for example, the Phaser-1 damage chart, or a Phaser-1 from an X2 ship can never do more damage than it would at range 0.
This would mean that a GW ship would have incentive to get closer, where it would get pasted.

By Tim Pearce (Komotomo) on Monday, February 01, 2016 - 08:26 pm: Edit

Oh, and for what it's worth, I'll definitely be buying Module X2