Archive through March 28, 2003
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board: The "X" Files: OLD X2 FOLDER: X2 plasma: Archive through March 28, 2003
By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Wednesday, March 05, 2003 - 06:31 pm: Edit

I am.

Recall that when the plasma was first introduced it was the fastest weapon in the game, versus ships that could not do speed 31 without sacrificing nearly everything, or couldn't even do 31 period.

I want to restore that feeling and balance. Plasma keeps getting variants because of the creep upwards in speed and power that latewar and certainly Xships get, why not address the most basic issue of plasma, that of getting to its target instead?

Frankly, having to fire at a plasma at range 2-3 is nowhere near as bad as it sounds. Having to do the same with Xdrones as others have proposed is.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, March 05, 2003 - 07:31 pm: Edit

Quote:

Well the real reason it will be needed is after reveiwing what I could find on the Sabot rules. I'm no longer in favor of having the Super Sabot.


There won't be a super sabot if ships are limited to speed 32.
If we go for faster ships ( say 37 top speed ) then the speed 48 uber-sabot may be needed but whilst ever we deal with a speed limit of 32 for ships we wont need anything more than the speed 40 sabot.


Quote:

Frankly, having to fire at a plasma at range 2-3 is nowhere near as bad as it sounds. Having to do the same with Xdrones as others have proposed is.


Lots of Ph-5 shots on a single plasma warhead will be a lot more dependable than other phasers.

Let's say you have 8Ph-5s and can bring 6 to bear.
If you roll all 6s at R2 with six facing Ph-5 shots you'll reduce the warhead strength of the plasma torp by 12 points.
If you roll all 6s at R2 on half of your Ph-5 rapid pulsed as Ph-3 shots and a normal spreed of results from the other six shots then you'll reduce the warhead strength by 16, but you can't do any worse than 6 bad Ph-5 shots and you could roll as many as 12 6s for a reduction in warhead strength of 6 points.

If you have fairly standard rolls with your 6Ph-5s then you'll reduce the warhead strength by 19.5 points and with standard spread of reasults you'll rapid pulse the warhead strength down with those 12Ph-6 shots by a full 18 points.


If the ships are going to go at 32 max then there will be no need for speed 40 drones.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, March 05, 2003 - 09:01 pm: Edit

Geoff,

Ain't happening. I don't think we'll seriously be able to turn back the clock or give plasma sufficient ability to deal with X2 that doesn't overbalance it against GW-tech.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, March 05, 2003 - 09:23 pm: Edit

J.T.:

Geoff wasn't talking about turning back the clock he was talking about redressing the balance.

Speed 48 Plsam aren't all that much more deadly then speed 40 plasma.

Admittedly X1s will do poorly because rapid pulsing Ph-3s at R2 is in effective, but such ships should be going fast enough to force and R1 shot.

Speed 48 Plasma is easier to get the jump on GW ships but it's not like players of plasma ships aren't good at timing things already so it's not much of an advantage.

Now if ships could move at 37 then a speed 48 plasma would be an advantage over speed 40, but since there is most agreement on speed 32 ships then speed 40 plasma will do fine.
We could build speed 48 plasma to because there's supossed to be a tech increase but it's not a must.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, March 05, 2003 - 09:41 pm: Edit

Speed-48 plasma has a much better chance of a 2->0 jump with a GW-ship, even a 3->0 jump.

I do agree that there's no call for speed-48 plasma.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Wednesday, March 05, 2003 - 11:18 pm: Edit

Yes the 3-0 jump is simply to much for a GW ship to handle. Certainly if it's possible every other Impulse. As Speed 40 it's possible every 4 impulses. Which makes a Big difference in the ability of a GW ship to handle it.

So I think we need to write Super Sabots off as an interesting but impractical idea.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, March 06, 2003 - 12:56 am: Edit

Let's leave them in the back of our minds incase people suddenly find speed 33+ for ships FUN at which point we may need the UberSabot back.


As an oddity of ship design GW ships will handle Faster Plasma better than X1 ships.Although the Kzintis will suffer a lot of flack from it.

The Difference between R1 Ph-2 shots and R2 Ph-2 shots ( or for that matter R2 Ph-1s shots and R1 Ph-1 shots ) isn't exactly massive.
That's not so true for rapid pulsed Ph-3 shots.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Eagle) on Thursday, March 06, 2003 - 06:11 am: Edit

Do not forget that X2 is the SECOND generation after GW era. It would be strange if X" tech was NOT difficult for GW ships to handle.
Speed 48 with ugly range jumps makes perfect sense for that reason IMO.

By Roger Dupuy (Rogerdupuy) on Thursday, March 06, 2003 - 12:33 pm: Edit

Also, increasing the range and speed of plasma seems to always be a way of 'catching up'. WHat would Romulan Admirals think? After looking at how they lost the GW, what would they need to do to improve their ships? GO the ISC way, powerful direct fire weapon with plasma or just improve plasma?

Let's assess the problems of the current ROmulan fleet and tactics.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, March 06, 2003 - 02:17 pm: Edit

Carl,

The problem isn't X2 being difficult for GW-tech to handle, but tech-changes effectively making it impossible for GW-tech to find a level playing field with X2.

it's not as simple as slapping a BPV figure on it. If that was all that was needed, Commander's X2 wouldn't have been so bad.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, March 06, 2003 - 09:40 pm: Edit

Quote:

Also, increasing the range and speed of plasma seems to always be a way of 'catching up'. WHat would Romulan Admirals think? After looking at how they lost the GW, what would they need to do to improve their ships? GO the ISC way, powerful direct fire weapon with plasma or just improve plasma?

Let's assess the problems of the current ROmulan fleet and tactics.



I like to explore both the idea of a tempory and mirky cloaking.

And with the Mirky cloak I'ld like to explore the possibility that weapons with ATG ( plasma torps ) will be able to be launched into their own control whilst mirky.

If that is the case than why would the romulan Admiralty invest in a more powerful DF weapon?
Faster and more deadly plasma on the other hand would be just the thing they would be looking for.


Quote:

The problem isn't X2 being difficult for GW-tech to handle, but tech-changes effectively making it impossible for GW-tech to find a level playing field with X2.

it's not as simple as slapping a BPV figure on it. If that was all that was needed, Commander's X2 wouldn't have been so bad.


What exactly are you getting at...No. Seriously what are you trying to say?

1) GW ships have reserve warp and can therefore change their speeds to alter the timing of their plasma interception. They can also engage in a simple counter sideslip to alter the timing of the interception.

2) GW ships didn't pay a massive BPV surcharge for for rapid pulse mode like X1s did and therefore assuming the same BPV ( so we are talking about an XFF Vs a CA or BB Vs XCC ) the GW ship actually has quite a few Ph-2 and Ph-1s to fire at the Plasma and the damage they both generated at R2 isn't all that different from the damage they generate at R1.
So the extra damage done won't be that much more different to the replacing that R2 shot against a plasma M with an R1 shot against a plasma R.
Which we can follow to mean that yes it is just a matter of changing the BPV to reflect the fact that GW ships might get stuck with having to fire about half a point less damage per phaser ( which'll mean about 1 point of wearhead reduction lost per 4 phasers ) some of the time.

Only the Kzinits ( who are not a historical opponent of the Roms ) will loose out significantly, and considering the ability of Kzintis to fight at range and move at high speed the chances that they'll get trapped by a full warhead strength torp at R2 is low anyway.

By Roger Dupuy (Rogerdupuy) on Friday, March 07, 2003 - 12:26 pm: Edit

Micheal, your cloak ideas are interesting. Having a plasma torpedo come out of a murky cloak would be scary and cool. Develop it. I would like to stimulate discussion of an alternate option for a Romulan direct fire weapon that would complement plasma.

Specifically, plasma -if not improved in damage output or speed- might have to be relegated to a primarily defensive and secondarily offensive weapon.

Hence, Romulan engineers, Legendary Warbird and others started working on a rapid fire DF weapon (1 turn arming) that would encourage, tempt the enemy to quit dancing and fly into a bunch of plasma.

THese are some thoughts before I teach this morning...

I just think that if any race was to seriously re-think their entire tactical doctrine it would be the Romulans because they got their head handed to them in the general war. If you keep 'em looking and flying the same, they are bound to be spanked again.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Eagle) on Friday, March 07, 2003 - 01:12 pm: Edit

I think plasma-while-cloaked is not going to happen unless severely restricted.
It's not unlikely ADB will require of the plasma ship to launch only during the fade in process, and also being to complete the the fade in.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Eagle) on Friday, March 07, 2003 - 01:15 pm: Edit

John, I don't see were the problem is. So far X tech has been about adding more power and more weapons etc. Sure this make it tough on GW ships (and rightly so), but it's not like they've got Andro tech, right?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, March 07, 2003 - 04:43 pm: Edit

Carl,

You're right, but not in the way you intend.

X2-tech will probably exceed Andro tech in effectiveness.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Eagle) on Saturday, March 08, 2003 - 09:21 am: Edit

Oh, I don't mind THAT. It's Andro game distorting capabilities I don't want to see. And so far there has been nothing of that in the X2 proposals seens so far.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Saturday, March 08, 2003 - 08:08 pm: Edit

ahhhh...riiiiiiight.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, March 26, 2003 - 11:55 pm: Edit

If you go back far enough in the archives you'll find my old, pretty lame "Photon Plasma" proposal for the Gorns.

I spent some time spiffing it up. The core concept is using a plasma to encapsulate a small (standard) photon torpedo. Originally the photon dissipated when the plasma did, which was why it was lame. it just amounted to an expensive warhead increase. Allowing the photon to shoot at the enemy gave the gorn is money's worth on the photon and raised some mizia potential.

For the full proposed rules, go to:

http://www.vorlonagent.com/sfb/x2-tech.htm and look at the bottom two items of the page.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Thursday, March 27, 2003 - 02:11 am: Edit

I like plasma. Mixing photons with plasma is just...bizarre.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, March 27, 2003 - 12:53 pm: Edit

Then my work here is done. :)

Hey, people wanted something different, right?

By Roger Dupuy (Rogerdupuy) on Thursday, March 27, 2003 - 09:39 pm: Edit

Plasma Stasis Cannon comming soon!

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Friday, March 28, 2003 - 07:57 am: Edit

Plasma ESGs anyone? :)

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, March 28, 2003 - 05:59 pm: Edit

I did propose the plasma cannon for the Roms...maybe something along those lines for the Gorn, to give them some DF ability?

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Friday, March 28, 2003 - 07:23 pm: Edit

The Plasma Cannon (or something similar) was probably adopted by all the Plasma races.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, March 28, 2003 - 10:58 pm: Edit

Why?

Unless we have X2 ships breaking the speed-31 barrier (and it doesn't look like it), I don't see a big problem with keeping plasma torps.

The gorns could use a secondary system. Having them effectively replace their secondary torps (those that would be F in GW or S in X1) with plasma cannon maje them a little more interesting.

Administrator's Control Panel -- Board Moderators Only
Administer Page | Delete Conversation | Close Conversation | Move Conversation