I like the idea of double damage and half damage but I do worry that if you give X1 ships an advantage over X0 ships it would mean having to adjust BPVs as this advantage was not factored into the X1 ships and would only apply in specific fights against X2 ships. When fighting X2 ships X1 ships would either have too low a BPV or X0 ships would have too high a BPV or possibly both.

I would just give them double damage and half damage against both X0 and X1 ships so that the current balance stays stable. Or add an X1 refit that gives the improvement once X2 ships start showing up giving them better damage and defense against X2 ships.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 11:53 am: Edit

No, X1 has no advantage over X0, I never said they did. I said they did not. But I do see how you could be confused.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 02:28 pm: Edit

No, I did not mean there would be any change in an X0 vs. X1 fight.

I meant that if an X1 ship fights an X2 ship there is a multiplier but if an X0 ship fights an X2 ship there is a more extreme multiplier.

The BPV does not currently take that into account. Basically that if you are fighting an X2 ship an X1 ship is a better buy then an X0 ship even if they have the same BPV because the X1 ship's weapons and defenses are more effective then the X0 ship against the X2 ship.

Does that make sense? Or am I misunderstanding you?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 02:54 pm: Edit

I think I see your point, maybe. Let me ponder.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 03:15 pm: Edit

Well if each warp box on a X2 ship was = to 2 warp boxes on a GW ship. Then there would be more space on the hull for other things? So a size class 4 ship could have more lab boxes. Weapons produce shock on a hull. So more bracing would also be allowed with miniaturization of other systems. So a size class 4 hull can have more weapons.

As for extra defenses. More power means more shield reinforcement. With more reserve power reinforcement on specific shields. With even perhaps a capacitor holding reserve power for shield reinforcement.

Just my thoughts on it all.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 04:11 pm: Edit

Just playing devils advocate here... addressing SVCs suggestion of double / half damage for X2 ships vs X1&X0 generation ships.

Instead of complicating the X2 weapons tables with game play modifications, would you get a similar effect for the X2 ships if you increased the phaser capacitor energy limits?

Existing ships have, iirc, a stated energy capacity equal to the total phasers on board a given ship. So if a X0 or X1 ship has 10 phaser 1's say, it's capacity would be 10 points worth of energy stored in the capacitor.

Instead of increasing damage inflicted on various generations of ships (early years, middle years, General War years, X0, X1) why not just increase the phaser capacitor capacity?

If a X2 ship had 200% of the energy needed to arm its phasers, it could in theory expend two phaser only alpha strikes before having to expend any energy on recharging the capacitor.

Just a suggestion.

Of course, it might also encourage the dreaded close and hose tactic... but then recharging all of the phaser capacitor energy on a single turn just might leave even an X2 ship a bit short of energy.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 04:28 pm: Edit

I might suggest die roll shift for weapons used by 2X ships and increased damage versus shields. In this way lesser ships would lose shields more rapidly but would last longer after that, perhaps making battles more interesting.

For defense, perhaps simarly it is possible for 2X ships to use aspects of magellanic shielding (volley reduction), the effect of which is reduced against 2X weaponry. Perhaps instead of a layer of inner shields, they instead have energy armor (protecting FH and RH) under the shields, technology developed after study of juggernaut vessels (in this time period).

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 04:29 pm: Edit

No, the phaser capacitor think was looked into earlier and isn't a workable solution.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 04:59 pm: Edit

One thing I did not like of X1 ships was the changing of most phasers to phaser ones. It took racial flavor from ships to an extent.

Perhaps to restore this sort of thing the X2 equivalent of point defense phasers might once again be worth putting on ships.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 05:09 pm: Edit

The problem with making their weapons more effective against shields but not anything else hits problems. It gives a boost to Jindarians and Andromedans and makes stronger shields less worthwhile.

I like the double damage dealt/half damage dealt system as a start. It is pretty clean. It means that a Federation CA facing a Fed CX2 with an identical SSD is effectively fighting something with double its own shields and double its own hull strength.

To preserve (and sometimes surpass) the power upgrades make power systems generate 1.5 power or even 2.0 power each and give it the 5 point batteries and have the number of power boxes match a Middle Years ship of that class.

Then there are the questions of what you are going to do with that power. Just bricking shields is boring. 8 or 9 sensor ratings so you can use more EW? More flexible ship movement where you can move or not move in a given impulse for an expenditure of power?

Push possible speed up to 32 with a limited ability (no more then once or twice a turn I would think) to speed up or slow down instantly (effectively speed 34 at a high cost in energy). Just a thought.

Optimize weapons to fight better at mid-ranges and maybe expand overload range a little (range 10?). Speed 40 drones? The FX and RX phaser arcs would add a lot of broadside tactics. To allow some shield transfer why not allow a player to use a single adjacent shield at a 2:1 rate? This would give coverage to a down shield but gives a strong tradeoff as the shield used to cover is taking damage at double the normal rate. You can counter some mizia tactics but if continued you will lose three shields when the damage should have knocked down two. An emergency fix with a high future cost.

Just a few thoughts.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 05:15 pm: Edit

Following up on Richards point.

A lot of discussion was expended on creating new phaser weapons and tables ( phaser 5 for example) which extended the range at which phasers inflicted more damage than existing phasers.

One suggestion would be a cost reduction in energy points in arming various phaser types. In particular, creat a cheaper cost for phaser 2s. Instead of making them cost the same as a phaser 1.

The benefit would be you could arm more phaser 2's for the same relative cost as a phaser 1 would require.

Pros in favor of empires equipping ships with more phaser 2 emitters would be more targets could be engaged making the X2ships better at destroying drones and fighters.

A second factor in favor of more phaser 2 emitters could be down firing a phaser 2 to two phaser 3's would be cheaper energy cost than half of the phaser 1 energy cost. If a x2 phaser 2 cost 0.75 energy per phaser 2, the down fired phaser 3's would decline to (0.75/2=o.375) instead of the ( 1/2=0.5) energy cost of a phaser 1.

A third factor would be to keep phaser 2s in the game instead of converting it to a seldom used weapon system.

Cons: two different energy costs for phaser 2 depending on the arming ship.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 05:44 pm: Edit

Maybe a phaser designed for longer ranged fights whose effective range goes (out to maybe 3 points average around Range 15) but damage increases only slightly at closer ranges, one for closer range (rough equivalent to phaser-1), and one for point defense. The first two take the same power (probably one point) and the point defense takes half a point.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 06:20 pm: Edit

Increasing the range risks too much risks eliminating maneuver. Close and hose is bad, but "park at 50 hexes and brick my facing shield then fire everything, repeat till someone disengages" is possibly even worse.

If you do successfully encourage maneuver, then too much power also results in it being too easy to go speed 31 all the time, which also has problems. If power substantially increases then X2 needs to be able to move faster than 31 or to have something more effective than moving at max to do with all that power.

x2 and x0.5 at least has the virtue of simplicity and of allowing X2 ships to outperform earlier ships without X2 vs. X2 becoming unplayable. You can add that 1 X2 power = 2 other tech power without too much cost, as it only matter if the units dock to each other.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 07:00 pm: Edit

There is another problem with focusing on the phasers in that if you do too much to them, you effectively eliminate all other weapons and reduce all empires to phaser boats. Which means diversity is simply the outline of the ship, all have the same weapons.

By Kosta Michalopoulos (Kosmic) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 07:13 pm: Edit

I don't know, I think you can improve weapon damage and accuracy at mid-ranges (9-12 hexes?) somewhat without hurting the importance of maneuver to the game. Maybe the tradeoff for better accuracy at longer ranges should be an increased energy cost to fire enhanced weapons at mid-range?

I agree that having everyone go speed 31 all the time would be boring. Give players something else on which they can expend their power.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 07:53 pm: Edit

Might want to consider expanding the electronic warfare system beyond the limits already in the game.

I will have to look at the rules again since it's been a while ... but iirc each incremental modifier/column shift gets progressively more expensive in electronic warfare points.

Existing ships of X1 and earlier eras have hard limits on what they can do...

If X2 had higher limits that cost more in such electronic warfare points they would have a decided advantage against all earlier ships designs but not that much better than X1 ships.

Better yet, to get those decisive EW levels will cost a lot of energy removing a significant advantage that X2 ships have.

Not sure what level in EW points of ECM or ECCM X2 ships should have that would be still playable? Might have to play test it.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 08:57 pm: Edit

How about a damage reduction PER VOLLEY against an X2 ship, based on the tech level of the firing ship? For the sake of argument, make it 5DR+1 per "level" below X2.
Every empire's heavy weapons have an automatic minus shift against lower level tech. Lower level tech has an automatic +1 that can't be offset by ECCM.
An eighth of specific shield reinforcement repairs one one shield box IF it's left over after the turn.
Can exceed speed 31 by paying double movement cost per hex, but you get to pick which impulse you get the extra move.
Can HET on impulse 1.
Extra tractor/transporter range.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 09:06 pm: Edit

How about a damage reduction PER VOLLEY against an X2 ship, based on the tech level of the firing ship? For the sake of argument, make it 5DR+1 per "level" below X2.
Every empire's heavy weapons have an automatic minus shift against lower level tech. Lower level tech has an automatic +1 that can't be offset by ECCM.
An eighth of specific shield reinforcement repairs one one shield box IF it's left over after the turn.
Can exceed speed 31 by paying double movement cost per hex, but you get to pick which impulse you get the extra move.
Can HET on impulse 1.
Extra tractor/transporter range.

By Steve Zamboni (Szamboni) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 09:09 pm: Edit

If close and hose is an issue, perhaps ships could power up sort of "defensive tractor" system could keep enemy ships at a distance (whether a tractor effect or just something that screws with other warp fields).

Any ships that reach that distance - 3-5 hexes? - would have to either sideslip around the edge of the field or spend power to push closer. (Not having big warp fields to disrupt, attrition units and seeking weapons may not be affected by this.)

Crossing the T could really crimp enemy maneuverability, forcing them either turn or slip away or stay where they are until they come up with enough power to push closer.

If there are far fewer engagements in the 0-4 ranges, this would reduce the effectiveness of phaser boats and increase the need for medium-range heavy weapons.

By Nick Blank (Nickgb) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 09:38 pm: Edit

I would love to see existing weapon systems get new abilities, to keep things like Disruptors and Photons and Plasma important, so we don't just get phaser boats.

Perhaps x2 Disruptors have a rapid fire mode along the lines of Particle Cannons and can fire 2 or 3 times a turn.

Perhaps x2 Photon Torpedoes have some built in ECCM to burn through jamming, or get a more powerful proximity fuse mode.

Perhaps x2 Plasma Torpedoes can change targets after launch, or if their target launches a weasel the torpedo splits in two and half targets the weasel/half targets the original target.

Perhaps x2 Drones get ???

Perhaps x2 Tractor beams deal damage over time to their targets, i.e. you grab a bunch of drones and at the end of each turn, or every so many impulses each held drone takes X damage points. Or perhaps each tractor beam can either function at greater range OR hold multiple objects at the original range.

Perhaps x2 Transporters have a greater range setting but only do this every other turn?

And so on.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 09:57 pm: Edit

Perhaps plasma users get something like a target illuminator, a system that would cause a specific torpedo to change tracking to a targeted ship. This information would be know (perhaps it would not work for a pseudo torpedo).

Perhaps energy can be used to provide energy armor to a drone (which makes it immune to an ADD shot until the armor is used up).

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 11:45 pm: Edit

I have been thinking of this question two-fold: both in terms of what I might like to see X2-tech look like (based on the guidelines posted above) and in terms of which X2-ships might appear when.

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For the first part, I was thinking of what the 50%/200% rule might allow for a would-be Federation XCA, in terms of enabling it to show how "less is more".

Shields-wise, I would start with a 24-box #1 shield and a set of 20-box shields for facets #2 through #6. From the perspective of, say, a CB or CX, this would be functionally equivalent to having a 48-box shield on the prow, and 40-box side and aft facets - but to another X2-ship, it would be somewhat lower than one might expect.

However, there would be a flip side to this, in terms of batteries. According to (H5.5) in my old (2005) copy of Basic Set, X2 batteries can store five points of power, and can carry warp power over across multiple turns. So, if the XCA had, say, four X2-batteries, that would give it a total of 20 points of reserve power - up from 15 points provided by the five X1-batteries on the CX (but lower than the 24 points of reserve power available to the Romulan NovaHawk-X via its eight X1-batteries).

In terms of weapons, it's noted above that the plan is to have (mostly) FX and RX phasers. In the case of this would-be XCA, that could lead to a set of 6 FX phaser-1s, backed by a pair of RA (or RH or 360*) phaser-1s (or phaser-3s). This would provide a total of 8 phaser-1s (or 6 phaser-1s and 2 phaser-3s) - which, under the 50%/200% rule, would still do more damage than the 12 phaser-1s on the CX (or marginally so if one goes with aft-firing phaser-3s instead of phaser-1s). That rule might make a set of 4 FA photon torpedoes particularly dangerous against non-X2 ships, but about what one might expect against another X2-ship. Drone-wise, my old (2005) copy of Basic Set also states in (FD2.12) that X2 drone racks may use the as-yet-undefined Type-X, -XI, and -XII drones; this proposed XCA could have a pair of drone racks (G-esque, in keeping with Federation drone preferences).

In terms of warp power, I would suggest dialing the warp engines down to 16 boxes, but adding in a re-worked "warp gearshift" concept. In Federation Commander terms, these engines would produce 1 point of warp power per box at a Baseline Speed of 0 or 8; 1.25 points of warp power at a Baseline Speed of 16; and 1.5 points of warp power at a Baseline Speed of 24. This would both reward moving quickly and perhaps discourage players from starcastling with their X2-ships.

The resulting ship would be more powerful and more durable than its first-generation predecessor, but might provide something of an unexpected challenge when facing other X2-ships (at least once it starts using up all of that reserve power) and puts more of a premium on the concept that "speed is life".


As an aside, if one were to try and create an "XGS" using a similar template, such a ship could have its FX phaser-1s cut down to 4 (with the aft-firing phasers kept the same as the XCA if phaser-1s, or upped to 4 if phaser-3s) and its photons to 2; it could have all six shield facings set at 20; it could have its complement of drone racks upped to 4; it could receive a fifth X2-battery (bringing its total reserve to 25, up from 18 on the GSX); and it could add the typical "galactic survey cruiser" stuff (four special sensors, more labs and more shuttles, a cargo hold, etc).

That would certainly be a step up from the GSX, but perhaps no more than that ship is from the earlier GSC, and would perhaps be something a lingering Andromedan RTN node might not want to be discovered by.

-----

So far as which X2-ships appear when, it is noted in Module X1 that X2-tech does eventually allow for larger hulls to be built from the keel up with advanced technology in mind. But that does not necessarily mean that they have to appear all at once.

Perhaps Y205 saw the first prototype Federation and Klingon X2-cruisers, as well as the first squadrons of X2-destroyers and/or X2-frigates. But perhaps the development of X2-tech is such that by, say, Y215 or Y220, the first X2-battlecruisers and/or the first X2 dreadnoughts were to eventually appear.

(As noted before, I would prefer if the X2 era did not necessarily finish by the end of recorded history in Y225; if the in-universe refinement of X2-tech continued through to, say, Y250 or Y260, well and good. There's no need to rush too quickly into X3, or whatever.)

Thus, by the time larger X2-ships enter service, the situation in the Alpha Octant would have progressed significantly relative to that in Y205 - not least in terms of what the Xorkaelians have in store.

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 11:59 pm: Edit

As far as phasers go, I would keep them the same (p4, p1, p2, p3/G) but simply have them ignore all EW.

No overloads (obviously) or anything else, just have X2 phasers be immune to generated EW. Natural EW (nebula, asteroids, etc ) can affect them as always. And they would ignore X0/X1 cloak effects.....a massive reason for Orions (and Romulans) to upgrade to X2 tech as fast as possible. They would have all have AEGIS, of course.

Tables stay the same, energy costs stay the same, and they don't dominate the X2 era.

Just my .02 credits,anyway.

By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Friday, September 15, 2017 - 01:28 am: Edit

Gentlemen, I have a slightly different tack to suggest regarding X2 weapons vs. X1 and X0. It requires no extra rules systems to be developed and uses a unique game system: The Disruptor Leak vs. Andromedan panels.

If we make X2 Phasers vs X0 have 1 point of leak for every point of damage, and 1 in 5 versus X1 shields, the only real balance factor would be increasing X2 shielding to make it tougher to get through.

I know that it's all a balancing act, trying to balance the defensive needs of X2 vs. X2, X2 vs. X1 and X2 vs. X0, but thickening the shields would be a logical first step.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, September 15, 2017 - 10:18 am: Edit

Leak: no, thanks
Volley reduction factor: no, thanks
Ignore EW: no thanks
Tractor keep away: no, thanks

New abilities: maybe