Mike Strain,

I don't think the "new beasts" argument really changes things, unless you argue that the Klingons, or whoever, simply can't build the "X2 heavy phaser".

We know X2 ships will be very expensive. Spending, let's say, 10 or 15 million quatloos to upgrade the phasers on a billion quatloo warship is a lot cheaper than building a new warship because your previous one lost the fight.

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 12:49 pm: Edit

APR to AWR was for our photon armed ships. Making it standard was for simplicity.

To keep the current tables the same, no changes were proposed.

And what is this obsession with P2's on an X ship? P1's do the same job and use the same power but do more damage.

I like the shielded special sensors! That makes the X2 unique.

If one plays with EW, then the minimum of two Shielded Special Sensors assist in this department. Playing without with EW, the sensors allow for a modest X-Drone defense. (I resisted the temptation of proposing two ADD's for all X2 ships - though I wouldn't mind having them.) Our X-Drone using ships can also control more X-Drones. Something for everyone!

As to the added ship systems, my goal was to allow an X2 to soak up more damage than an X1. My detailed proposal and can be tweaked. The X2 technology break thru can handle this.

As an ISC player, I looked at the CCX. With the Sabot Torpedo, more power is needed to arm them, hence the +10 warp proposal. Let us not forget the Drogues. With the fast loading Torpedo and PPD, more power is needed. A few more AWR, IMPULSE, and BATTERY solve this problem. There are minimal penalties to do this with an X1. Why not eliminate these penalties via the X2 technology break thru? More importantly, the X2 can do these things and move a bit faster than an X1, as it should.

I view the X2 as an improvement on the X1.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 01:48 pm: Edit

Going to need some new capability for weapons as it stands now everyone is going to get FX and RX phasers and heavy weapons already fire every turn and have FA or FH arcs (except plasma). This is tactically boring.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 02:27 pm: Edit

Nick, that was one reason to give the X2 photons a three turn triple overload option.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 03:19 pm: Edit

Alan,

Interesting idea on the web breaker drone.

If I was designing the Tholians from scratch I would either allow weapons to fire through web but lose half of their damage rounded downand add 2 ECM for each strand you shoot through (cumulative so shooting through three strands of web would mean you do one eighth damage and face 6 ECM). Either that or allow conventional weapon fire to weaken web at a very slow rate. Something like every 5 points of damage lowers the energy total in the web by one point (after web tech modifier). Either would create a more dynamic battle around webbed defenses.

In the shoot through with penalties you would be all but ineffectual trying to hit a base in the center of a wedding cake but as ships come out to power the web you can shoot them. There is still an incentive to dive into the web as it takes a strand out of the way.

In the second method you let the enemy basically bombard the "castle" to speed up how often Tholian ships have to try to to power the web.

While I like the idea of shuttles from an engineering standpoint it does not seem like it would be a fun scenario. You presumably crash the carrier into the web and dump web bombs and then hit the next layer. It would speed up wedding cake scenarios but I do not think it would make for a fun tactical puzzle. Now suicide freighters that could hurt webs.....there is a thunk. It would also explain why SAFs work on webbed Tholian targets in F&E.

I admit my idea is probably more fitting for the Resurrection Edition of SFB though and not really for X2.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 03:23 pm: Edit

Since heavy weapons are going to do double damage to non-X2 ships why not make the quick-load version do half as much damage as a conventional heavy weapon, regular arming do what regular weapons do now, and overload versions match old-school overloads. Quick loads will match non-X2 weapons, Regular loads will do double what non-X2 weapons do, and overloads will do quadruple.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 03:32 pm: Edit

Jon Murdock:

No body from ADB has said "X2 Heavy Weapons are going to do double damage to non-X2 ships," so please do not state that as if it is a formal decision already made and not subject to debate or discussion.

Again, no such decision has been made by ADB.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 03:58 pm: Edit

Jon Murdock,
On your earlier post about having played enough campaigns with people wanting to play Tholians (because on defence they are all but unbeatable).

Perhaps all the players that don't want them could play Seltorians (that would upset the Tholians all but unbeatable defence). Call it the extermination campaign.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 04:03 pm: Edit

Steve Petrick: respectfully, this recent series of posts have been mostly predicated on the 50%/200% penalty damage thingy the SVC addressed several days ago.

You are quite correct that no decision has been made, but the posts from the last several days are all our pitiful attempts to grapple with the implications of such a change If it was to be made part of the game.

Jon Murdock was simply following the examples of those of us who have been participating in the discussion.

Just saying that Jon is not the only guilty party here. I and several other members are equally guilty of trying to reason our way thru a very complicated comment by SVC.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 04:07 pm: Edit

wayne douglas power (Wayne);

Probably because equal BPV Seltorians cannot defeat a Wedding Cake any more easily than any other power in SFB. Web Breakers do not really work all that well vs. anchored Web.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 04:58 pm: Edit

Alan, I'm NOT proposing going back to a phaser-2, because the proposal is predicated on a x2/x0.5 rule, in which case I'm proposing UPGRADING to an X2 weapon that uses the phaser-2 table, uses 1 energy and does double the damage of a phaser-1.

This is not going back to phaser-2's, it's introducing a MASSIVELY and overwhelmingly superior new weapon, that just happens to be marginally inferior to a different new weapon, but x2 the ph-2 table is vastly better than an X-1 Ph-1, so it's still a solid and pure upgrade.

No one is "suddenly putting ph-2 on their ships" after converting entirely to ph-1, they are putting a BETTER weapon on their ships that uses the ph-2 table, and doubles the damage against non-X2 targets (aka twice the damage) and does not half the damage against X2 targets (aka still twice the damage).

Twice the damage is not a small thing, ignoring it and saying "but ph-2 are obsolete" doesn't make it go away. The upgraded ph-2 is a better weapon than any mobile phaser on any alpha quadrant ship prior to the upgraded ph-2.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 04:59 pm: Edit

Adm,

I wouldn't put it quite that way, though I "more or less" agree. I think the way I would put it is that given equal BPV, the Seltorians are still disadvantaged against a well defended wedding cake, though they are less disadvantaged than the Alpha Sector empires.

In some ways, the Andromedans are actually the scariest attackers for a Tholian wedding cake (at least among empires that operated in the Alpha Sector.)

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 05:05 pm: Edit

Petrick,

Sorry, did not mean to imply it was a decided issue but SVC seemed to be in support so I think it is a valid premise to use in structuring ideas although it is, as you say, not finalized.

Wayne,

Yeah, but the Selt webbreakers do not help as much against fixed defenses as they do in weakening or eliminating cast web. They do help but it takes a lot of them to make a significant difference. If I was fighting a fully powered wedding cake I would want a full 14 ship Selt fleet to have a chance to bring down the web around a battle station. I would want 14 DNs to try to take out a Tholian starbase. I have only played a few Selts attacking Tholian base scenarios but you still have to come in from all sides to prevent the Tholians from getting a safe spot to charge the web. I would try to weaken the first layer enough to get through and dive into the second and then you either throw everything into bringing down the last layer or (if the Tholians can power it too quickly) you have to weaken the second and dive into the third and then kill the base. I witnessed one wedding cake scenario where the attackers took out the base but then were wiped out because they could not get out of the web afterwards.

Seltorians also used to be hard to use in campaigns because they lacked a lot of the support ships needed. That may have been remedied since I last played in campaigns many moons ago.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 05:23 pm: Edit

Douglas,

Yeah, I understand that part. Where we disagree is in the "... just happens to be marginally inferior to a different new weapon" part. I think it's inferior by a lot, just as I think the phaser-2 is inferior to the phaser-1 by a lot.

There are plenty of General War ships with phaser-2s that are viable because they have a compensating superiority in some other area. The X2 Klingons may still be as good as (or better than) the X2 Feds if, for example, their heavy weapons or shields or power generation are clearly superior. But that doesn't explain why they would go with the X2 phaser-2s. Why not go with the X2 phaser-1s as well as their superior heavy weapons or power, and really crush the Earthlings and their Vulcan lackeys.

You still haven't stated why the Klingons would be satisfied with X2 phaser-2s (or X2 "medium phasers"). Is it because they can't produce the X1/"heavy phaser" version? That's possible, but why can't they? Or is it that they can produce it, but only with great difficulty, while the Feds can produce it easily? That mimics the situation during the Middle Years and the early part of the General War. But if they are "... UPGRADING to an X2 weapon that uses the phaser-2 table", as you stated, the Middle Years difficulty with producing phaser-1s is not relevant to the X2 era abilty to produce a completely different weapon that happens to use the same basic table.

That at any rate is how I see it. Obviously you (and some others) see it differently.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 07:08 pm: Edit

Alan Trevor (Thyrm)

In our local experience, the Seltorians biggest problem is lack of crunch power. While WBs can nibble away at Web, the Tholians can fairly easily regenerate lost web points. If a couple of Selt units crash the web to discourage the Tholians from reinforcing the web, the Particle Cannon has so low of a one impulse output that even disruptors appear crunch heavy, a couple of photon units defending a base will disable Seltorian ships before they hit defending ships hard enough to make it worth the cost.

Andros are the bad guys for Tholians, Worb SSRs are thrown off target by web, and Souldra DPDs will not work within ten hexes of active positional stabilizers. Off hand only the Simulator Qari have a weapon that ignores web with the Trans-Mortar, but the damage out put is too small, and the number allowed too restrictive to be viable, and of course, they are not "real".

By Marc Michalik (Kavik_Kang) on Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 10:42 pm: Edit

I like the idea of bringing back the X2 ships and era. I think the X2 ships should work in a fundamentally different way that still works within the existing SFB rules. This is a little bit out of the box from the discussion that has been taking place here, but instead of focusing on the weapons maybe the foundation of X2 should be on the ship functioning in a new and different way.

X2 batteries could generate 3 power instead of 1 power. Power flows through X2 ships differently than previous ships. Batteries are discharged into shield repair, and shield repair costs only one point per shield box. This is then the available reserve power for this turn, and if it goes unused it repairs shields at the end of that turn. The X2 batteries are then “self-recharging”, they recharge for free every turn. So the batteries of X2 ships would essentially be “free energy” generated every turn for recharging the shields, and your reserve power for the turn. So a ship with 4 batteries would generate 12 points of “free reserve power” every turn and any remaining “reserve power” remaining at the end of the turn automatically repair damaged shield boxes at a 1:1 power/shield box ratio. Something along these lines could serve as a means of making X2 ships work in a fundamentally different way and greatly enhance their defensive abilities, and their reserve power versatility, rather than simply giving them more powerful weapons. Their slowly recharging shields make them seem tangibly “more advanced” than all previous ships and yet it still works easily within existing SFB rules.

This will make the X2 ships superior at a fundamental level before you even begin considering things like multiple free HETs (I like that idea) and double power weapons. I also think X2 ships should have some type of inherent EW advantage, since that only makes sense. Maybe the focus should be on their defenses and versatility rather than their firepower.

By Marc Michalik (Kavik_Kang) on Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 11:19 pm: Edit

Thinking about this more, cause I always like the idea of the Trade Wars era a lot although it was so vague I think we all have our own ideas of what that era is like, maybe this should be the overall theme of X2. The newer and better weapons of X2 were the first X2 tech to come along, and those are the X1 weapons. As is often the case, the technology was first expressed in their weapon/military/space program. X2 is this “next generation” breakthrough being applied to the rest of their technologies with brand new ships and hulls carrying the “X2” weapons that had actually been introduced on the X1 ships. One of our own motto's says it all... “Use your tactors, dammit!”. Cmmanding a starship is much more than just moving and shooting. So X2 is more about improving how the ship itself functions, and the “non-combat” systems like transporters, tractors, and that shielded special sensor idea is great, too!

Maneuver and firepower wise maybe X2 is either no different, or only slightly different, than X1. It is the ship itself and all of the other systems that are enhanced in the X2 ships. With power flowing through the ship differently, superior EW, and recharging shields that is also your reserve power.

By Marc Michalik (Kavik_Kang) on Friday, September 22, 2017 - 01:18 am: Edit

Sorry to make a third post about this, but to finish this off...

X2 should have a new system to really separate it as entirely new ship/energy system design. So you could say that the more advanced X2 reactors are used in the new design to power "Shield Generators", a new box on X2 SSDs that replace Batteries and are hit by BAT on the DAC. This doesn't change anything I said above, but explains it better to the player while also creating a new ship system unique to the X2 ships. Now it makes sense that this shield regeneration system is actually generating energy for reserve power/shield repair.

12 free reserve power is probably a bit much, of course. So the Shield Generators would still generate 3 power, and a CA would generally have 4 of them just like Batteries. So they would send 12 points of energy to the shields every turn, but if you remove any as reserve power it is at a 2:1 ratio. So only six free reserve power per turn, and you lose 2 boxes of free shield repair at the end of the turn for doing it. X2 have no Batteries so they can't generate more the "old fashioned" way. This system replaces the "old" battery system of the previous generations.

Finally, at the end of the turn you can repair any shield boxes you want but not more than your damcon rating on any one shield. This all then becomes the basis of how the X2 ships will be more powerful, and perceived as "more advanced" than all the previous generations.

If you can'y tell, I actually liked the X2 ships... even though the phasers were a bit much;-)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, September 22, 2017 - 10:38 am: Edit

Uh... Marc, I don't think so. Adding totally new concepts will delay the release two years, and I for one don't like the shield-power system as you define it anyway.

By Marc Michalik (Kavik_Kang) on Friday, September 22, 2017 - 11:12 am: Edit

It doesn't necessarily have to be this. I like this a lot but have learned long ago that you often see things very differently than I do. Your vision is the one that the players love, so you are always right in my mind when it comes to things like this.

But maybe consider finding some way to make the X2 ships themselves function differently in some way, most likely in how power flows through the ship, that will make them seem "different and more advanced" in some kind of real way. That's the main point I was making.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, September 22, 2017 - 01:34 pm: Edit

Other than a kind of "color commentary" it is difficult to see any practical way to implement most of the things you have posted.

The existing game system has worked well to portray star ship operations in the star fleet universe, it demonstrably works forward or backwards depending on the era in question(early years, middle years, General War years or X0 & X1.

That X2 must work with the existing game structure has been repeatedly stated as a goal.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, September 22, 2017 - 02:13 pm: Edit

In the case of the Seltorians, it's worth noting that historically, the Revolt-era Selts used Battlewagons and Assaultwagons as siege engines against Tholian Will bases (and Spheres) - although it would have taken a marked change in circumstances for the Tribunal expedition to feel confident enough to convert the Hive Ship Burning Torch of Vengeance into a BW configuration in order to advance it on the Holdfast sphere.

-----

To bring things back to Module X2, while I would prefer to see the primary focus of this product (and subsequent "Module X2*" files) be on those Alpha Octant empires which were still "in the running" historically-speaking, I wonder if there is any interest in seeing conjectural X2-ships appear in some capacity for certain other empires - akin to the conjectural Seltorian X1-ships in places like Module X1R, or the simulator Andromedan X1-ships in Module C3A - at some later point in time.

Personally, while I suppose it would be logical to speculate on what either of the "lost empires" from Module C6 would do with second-generation advanced technology in their respective timelines, I would rather see whether or not the Paravian or Carnivon exiles in other octants ever got around to fielding their own equivalents to X2-tech in the "standard" timeline.

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Friday, September 22, 2017 - 06:26 pm: Edit

"Self Charging Batteries?"

Uh, give me an X2 Mauler!


My over-the-top "double the hull" doesn't look so bad compared to this!


Built in ECM/ECCM for X2 is a possibility (wish I had thought of that).


Here is something weird. How about a single X2 360 P1?

It fires once an impulse for a maximum of 12 impulses*. You may change targets after each impulse of fire. You may voluntarily stop firing, but you will have to wait until next turn to fire it again.

If firing stops after impulse 24, you must wait 8 impulses until you may fire it again (like a normal P1).

You can continue firing across a turn (like the PPD).

You can add power if the phaser is firing across a turn but you must wait 8 impulses after the phaser stops firing before you can fire it again.

*The phaser capacitor holds 24 energy. Should the energy in the phaser capacitor drop below 12, then the maximum impulses of fire drops correspondingly. I.E. if 8 energy is in the capacitor, then you may fire a maximum of 8 impulses.

This phaser takes 24 phaser hits on the DAC to completely destroy it. If the cumulative damage on this phaser is greater than 12 (say 14), the then the phaser capacitor can only hold up to 10 energy. The maximum impulses of fire would be 10, assuming that much energy was allocated.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Friday, September 22, 2017 - 07:25 pm: Edit

Hmmm, and this changes the close-n-hose how??

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, September 22, 2017 - 08:17 pm: Edit

It does not change it at all. Fatal flaw.