Tholians, WYN, misc others

By michael wheatley (Mike_Wheatley) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 04:57 pm: Edit

Tholians:

Small rear hulls on the back of PC based fore hulls.
The Forward PC being a big version of the Command Module, and the rear being a small (new build) version of the Neo-T rear hulls.
Not my idea, but I love it.
--
Make Tholians not another disruptor race!
a) Photons? (Minimum.)
b) Particle cannons?
c) Fist-only versions of Web Casters? (My preffered.)

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 05:16 pm: Edit

Why not just proliferate web casters. I could see a cruiser with four WC but no torps. Eeeesh!

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 09:53 pm: Edit

WC's need strict limits put on them or the Tholians get out of hand.

Building them a weapon based on the Fist does sound fun.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 10:51 pm: Edit

I have always wanted to see the Tholians get a weapon the hits for damage the sticks to the target. Sort of a individual globular web ST10. Damage as a Fist.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 11:04 pm: Edit

Very powerful if it is immidiately active.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 11:22 pm: Edit

Ya, I guess so. And it should become immidiately active so maybe just ST4 and if OL then ST6 (but no extra damage). That will hold you for four movement points right?

Maybe the good reason the Klingons armed with full X2 tech. still couldn't take out the Tholian Invaders.

The would get hit with these and the find cast web solidifying right in front of them just as they are getting free of the glob.

I would suggest that the Tholians not be able to fire through the Glob as it is too dense.

By Dave Morse (Dcm) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 11:38 pm: Edit

If the Holdfast lives long enough to achieve X2 tech, yet still hasn't constructed a shipyard capable to turn out dedicated cruiser hulls, they deserve to be stomped dead for sandbagging.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Eagle) on Tuesday, January 14, 2003 - 04:38 pm: Edit

Webfist cannon.
A Caster that only works in direct-fire mode.
Look at the table and figure out the rest yourselves...
http://starfleetgames.com/sfb/tournament/ssd/N-TH_00.gif
I think a cruiser would mount only four.

By michael wheatley (Mike_Wheatley) on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 - 06:43 pm: Edit

Tholian Webfist Cannon.

This requires two tweaks:
1) The "overload" energy levels need to be range limited.
2) The range brackets could do with being more interesting. I propose splitting each 10-hex bracket into two 5-hex sections, and making the closer range bracket more accurate, whilst keeping the same damage.

X2 WEB FIST CANNON CHART

Range	1-5	6-10	11-15	16-20	21-25	26-30
hit	1-5	1-4	1-4	1-3	1-3	1-2
miss	6	5-6	5-6	4-6	4-6	5-6
ENERGY			DAMAGE
1	2	2	1?	1?	0	0
2	4	4	2	2	1?	1?
3	6	6	4	4	2	2
4	8	8	6	6	4	4
5	10	10	8	8	0	0
6	12	12	0	0	0	0

Hmm...
This is a hideously good sniping weapon.
In terms of how many you can fit on a ship, the weapon needs to be a lot physically bigger than a disruptor. Twice as big is a good starting point - for half as many weapons. (3 on a CA, 2 on a CL.)
With low numbers of the weapon, it may need two damage boxes, like an SFG.

Prefered Alternative: as a "cost reduced" and "DF mode optimized" weapon, it may have a smaller capacitor than normal. With a 4-point capacitor, and limited to 3-point shots outside range 10, it is approximately equal to a disruptor.

X2 WEB FIST CANNON CHART

Range	1-5	6-10	11-15	16-20	21-25	26-30
hit	1-5	1-4	1-4	1-3	1-3	1-2
miss	6	5-6	5-6	4-6	4-6	5-6
ENERGY			DAMAGE
1	2	2	1	1	0	0
2	4	4	2	2	1	1
3	6	6	4	4	2	2
4	8	8	0	0	0	0

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 - 07:19 pm: Edit

a 50% chance of hitting at range 25? sheesh, I gotta get away from the photon more

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Eagle) on Thursday, January 16, 2003 - 01:54 pm: Edit

Mike, tnx for showing interest.
Hm, I like the first table better.
The weapons is powerful, but I thought limiting the numbers carried would help balance it vs. the Klings with their huge number of disruptors.
Making it equal with the disruptor... Weeell, why
don't the Tholians keep the disruptor in the first place then? That's the question.
I didn't had disruptor copy in my mind, rather something motre unique.

Also that 1-3 hit chanse +21 range need to be reduced to the original 1-2

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Friday, January 24, 2003 - 07:53 am: Edit

I think Tholian improvements in the future should focus on getting them back to their "roots." Let the Tholians figure out how to build new Neo hulls, or something similar in design, put particle cannons on them (a good weapon on the agile Tholian ships, compared to the clunky Selts), but still find some excuse to keep the number of web casters down which does seem to be necessary.

Perhaps the Tholians could get something midway between a snare (which is already difficult to employ and against X2 seeking weapons will be next to useless) and a full-fledged caster. Perhaps a caster that could only hold 2 or 3 points of power, one that made inferior freestanding web, had a range limit, or something that keeps it from becoming pathological.

The "sticky tape gun" idea also seems neat and very Tholian. Fire as a fist, if it hits, it sticks to the target. Solidifies in 4 impulses, after which the target is immobilized for a while. Efficiency and max power can adjust for balance. A wimpy conventional webcaster mode (snare at a distance?) might be useful for making it useful against drones, it's already pretty good against plasma. Tholians could mass produce these without weirding the game balance.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, January 26, 2003 - 02:23 pm: Edit

The web it creates would be too powerful if it were above strength 12, the threshold for deceleration breakdowns.

Suggest strength 6 or 4.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, January 26, 2003 - 07:00 pm: Edit

I another thread I posted a revised version of my Sticky Web Fist idea. The strength of the web was equal to the amount of damage the Fist did. It solidifies imediatly but lasts for only eight impulses.

Major uses would be against Ships and sometimes plasmas. Against drones would be a waist since you could only target one. But against ships it would be very nasty. Stopping the ship cold for a few impulses would make it much easier to ensnare them in a Cast Web from another caster.

Call it "Nasty Spider Tricks!"

By michael wheatley (Mike_Wheatley) on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 09:26 pm: Edit

We all know the Tholians would like a seeking weapon.
And now we know that the Gorn added a seeking to their plasma bolts.
So how about a seeking mode for Web Cannons?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, February 22, 2003 - 08:03 pm: Edit

I'ld like to see the Tholians stay where they are...if only as a measuring stick for X2 Vs GW but also because of their background.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Saturday, February 22, 2003 - 09:24 pm: Edit

Can anyone say Impact Webbing

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, February 22, 2003 - 09:29 pm: Edit

The Tholian beauraucracy creates a new weapon...the Red Tape Caster. Slows down everything around it to a crawl, allowing the Tholian to goof off and ignore anyone he wants...

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, February 22, 2003 - 10:03 pm: Edit

Mike. Ya, you have a lock-on but never get around to firing.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Sunday, February 23, 2003 - 12:33 am: Edit

I like the above idea of a weapon dedicated to only fisting (no sexual pun intended).

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, February 23, 2003 - 01:47 am: Edit

I like the idea of the Tholians stagnating at X1 tech. By their background even X1 should have been beyond their engineering grasp. Besides, once they ramp up X-Web Caster production enough all of their ships will be WC armed. That will cause problems even for X2 ships.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, February 23, 2003 - 02:31 pm: Edit

Be interesting but the argument's the same as Orions getting X2.

The players will want it, will complain if they don't get it.

For RW concerns, it's a blind alley.

Now for sake of uniqueness, The Tholians might never switch over to the P-5/P6 paradigm and instead install huge messes of P-1s on their ships. The extra range afforded by the P-5 isn't as needed for the Thols. They even might put extra P-4s on their bases instead of P-8's. (Or for the sake of base standardization, put P-5s, 6s and P-8s only on basees and not deploy them on ships)

THEY have little use for multi-role warships because they are a defensive enclave bordered by the Fed, Roms, Klinks/Selts and the galactic barrier. They might go for a piece of the LMC, but that's a different matter.

Hmmm....

Interesting footnote to the Trade Wars would be the Thols aggressively seeking territory in the LMC and getting various other empire's noses out of joint over it. They could passive-aggressively expand into new territory simply by throwing webs around the habitable planets and putting a Web Tender and ground-based P-4s on the planet.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, April 10, 2003 - 05:25 pm: Edit

X2 Andros: Re-release them with the original rules.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Thursday, April 10, 2003 - 05:28 pm: Edit

ACK!