Archive through April 21, 2003
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board: The "X" Files: OLD X2 FOLDER: X2 SSD's: Archive through April 21, 2003
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 04:03 pm: Edit

Ooops, I thought SSD meant Second-generation Super Disruptor.
:O

By Carl Madalinski (Shipwrecker) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 07:31 pm: Edit

I have always liked the Kzinti, hence to get ready for the X2 universe, I will prctice with a Fed drone ship, and give it Disruptor hit probability, is that about right?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 07:44 pm: Edit

Funny, I can't think of a Fed drone ship with photons.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 07:47 pm: Edit

CAD

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 07:52 pm: Edit

The CAD doesn't have photons, it has a pair of scout channels and 6 B-racks.

The closest thing would be the DDG, with two photons and two drone reacks.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 07:53 pm: Edit

D'oh! Was thinking pure drone ships. Good catch, Alex. There are a lot of later Fed ships that carry drones as an ancillary weapon; take your pick.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 08:08 pm: Edit

...take you pick. but most would not be "Drone ships". The is only one ship that could come close to what Carl M. was talking about and that would be the BC-G.

But what I really was trying to say is in response to his question "..., is that about right?", to which I meant "No". The X2 Kzinti (as Mike and I propose) is entirely different. It total dynamic is nothing like a Fed ship. Using the Fed BC-G would lead one to inaccurate tactical planning.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 08:10 pm: Edit

Kzinti and Fed drone deployment are very different. Even the smallest Kzinti ships have four drone racks after the C refits, whereas no Fed ships outside of DNs and speciality drone cruisers (CAD, CLD, NCD, none of which have photons) have more than two racks, and most one.

Thus a 4 DC and 4-6 drone X2 Kzinti is still going to be very different from a 4 photon and 2 drone rack X2 Fed.

Personally, I really don't like the DC for the Kzinti. It doesn't mesh well with heavy drone tactics.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 08:37 pm: Edit

The BCG has 2xG-Racks,2xB-Racks.

If you give it the Kzin drone %s, then you get a close comparison to what you guys are proposing for the new Kzin.

The drone chunkers should not have the ability to do 80 points of damage in one shot. NO ONE should have this, except for the Fed. That is the way ot has always been. That is the way it should stay.

By Carl Madalinski (Shipwrecker) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 11:10 pm: Edit

Chris,
That was my point, and while I did not have a ship in mind, the concept of a heavy weapon like the photon, coupled with the hit probability of a disruptor, and the drone waves I am used to, is what you get. I really do not have a problem, except that my race once again gets messed with. They were messed with 14 years ago, where the power loss resulted in new tactics, now they are going to be messed with again. It looks like my ships are going to get Fed Anarchisted.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 11:28 pm: Edit

Carl, just remember that absolutely nothing said by any of these guys is official in any sense.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 01:14 am: Edit

Quote:

And now you're changing your story, MJC? I thought you said the DC would make the Kzinti weak. Now you say it will make them too powerful.


Exactly....you thought rather than read.
Consider what happened during the Y playtesting with the Kzinti vessels.
If they went to R1 and tractored you, the Type IV & V drones they could put out would butcher the tractored vessels...particularly if they followed it up with an E.D. but if they never got into R1 they couldn't lock on the tractor and couldn't do much more than consistantly loose.
So too if you go tio the disruptor cannon, the Kzinti will iether will ion a hurry ( too much of a hurry ) or loose in a hurry.
That's proabably not a good starting pont for X2 ship design, particularly since every other race has moved to radically more defensive ships.
And if you give the DC a fastload option then the BPV rises still more.


Having a two turn Kzinti DF Heavy weapon will either cause you to kill your enemies straight off or fail to do enough damage to survive the turn it will spend without DFH.
It's not the same as Fed because the Fed has a radically different phaser suite.

Let's try the table again.
Weapon system R0 R1 R2 R3-4 R5-8
Photon To hit 1-6 1-6 1-5 1-4 1-3
Photon Damage 24 24 24 24 24
Photon average 24 24 20 16 12
Photon Average per Ship 96 96 80 64 48
Disruptor To Hit 1-6 1-5 1-5 1-4 1-4 (UIM 1-5)
Disruptor Damage 10 10 8 8 6
Disruptor Avarage 10 8.33 6.66 5.33 4 (or 5)
Disruptor Average per ship (6 Bolts) 60 50 40 32 24 (or 30)
Disruptor Average per ship (4 bolts) 40 33.33 26.66 21.33 16 (or20)
Disruptor Cannon To Hit 1-6 1-5 1-5 1-4 1-4
Disruptor Cannon Damage 20 20 16 16 12
Disruptor Cannon Average 20 16.66 13.33 10.66 8
Average Damage per ship 80 66.66 53.33 42.66 32


Now considering that the Photon is probably paying 6+6 or worse still 4+8 for those 24 point warheads, the DC is comming out quite nicely with only paying 4+4.
And considering that the Kzinti will be looking at mounting 2X2C-racks + 2X2B-racks + 2X2G-racks, whilst the Klingon is probably mounting 2X2B-racks + 1X2E-rack and the Fed is likely mounting 2X2G-racks, the Kzinti is just too overpowered with weapons.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 08:17 am: Edit

MJC,

You said:

Quote:

Now with No Disruptor Cannon rapid fire ability and only one Type X drone in each X2C-rack, is the Kzinti a prime candidate for THE OVER RUN?...lets see:-

Feds can rapid overload their Photons for 12 point and probably 16 point warhead and thus are likely to try the over run.

Lyrans have disruptors and Ph-5s and thus can perform the over run without much of a problem, even with the ESG down.

The Klingons have Disruptors and Ph-1s and X2B-racks ( 8 spaces? ) and thus are also able to perform the over run very well if they choose to.

The Kzintis only really have two options, run real fast, which is hard to do it you also want to recharge the Caps-to-SSReo connected CAPS.
On the other hand, there is another option. Bluff the enemy into not over running you.
With the ability to have on the turn after firning four overloaded disruptors ( and theoretically upto three spaces of type X drones in the X2C-racks, you could cause the enemy to find descression to be the better part of valour.



and...

Quote:

The Kzinti admiralty just wouldn't impliment the introduction of the weapon unless it could provide defensive fire.
There is no point in having the most powerful weapon system if you're dead before you can arm it.

If there is to be a disruptor cannon, then it has to carry a fast loaded option.



Sorry, but that definately sounds like you think the DC is a weakness. I agree with Loren...you're changing your story. I have yet to see a good reason NOT to use the DC with the Kzin. Plenty of excuses, yes...but no reasons. The basic complaint seems to lie around a change for the Kzinti going from a 1 turn disruptror to a two turn DC. This is not a problem. Here's why...




In short, there is nothing wrong with having a DC. It goes back to your original statement made a few days ago:

Quote:

I don't have a copy of Y ( more's the pitty ) so I don't see any reason to give that ( the Kzinti ) disruptor user a special Disruptor.



All of these arguments are being put forth by you and you haven't even used the thing. You have made too many assumptions about what the Kzinti ship will or will not carry, instead of focusing on the one weapon and it's merits or flaws. It's a good fit for the Kzinti. The rules say they wanted it. It provides racial flavor, and gives them a sort of "big gun" that they wanted for years. Accusing Loren of not reading your posts is grossly unfair, especially since you continue to change your position from "too weak" to "too powerful".

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 09:04 am: Edit

However, at the time the Kzinti were considering it, drones were spped 8 and 12, making a heavy weapon more of a priority. With medium and then fast speed drones, actually setting up drone strikes and getting hits becomes more of a possibility. The disruptor bolt, with the ability to be unarmed for a turn without affecting future fire, gives the Kzinti a better ability to tailor EA to the desired drone tactics in a given turn. A disruptor cannon requires power commitment the turn before, limiting the amount of power the Kzinti can use to manuver along with the drones, and set up for a telling strike on the following turn.

While the (presumably) high energy curves of X2 will make this less of an issue, it's still very much there.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 09:06 am: Edit

A fair point. I don't think it'll make much difference in the end, but it is a good point, Alex. The only consideration would be is it worth it to loose that extra power to gain the standoff ability of the DC?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 09:09 am: Edit

Just for kicks, and to start talking about SSD's again (which is what the thread is for, of course) here is a little Klingon XDD I made. If nothing else, it looks cool.

R3.?? Klingon 2X DD

Note that it has less phasers, but better arcs. The disruptor is the one that I sort of would like to see the Klingons use. Damage base is six (arming cost stays the same...reflects an improvement to the disruptor, technobabble it how you like) or, add a capacitor system. The disruptor capacitor would not be tied to the phaser capacitor, and would holds 4 points per disruptor. As a disruptor was destroyed, that part of the capacitor would be, as well. Not sure which advantage I'd rather have, to be truthfull. The xtra damage is attractive, and lord knows the Klingons are the the masters of refining the disruptor. But, the capacitor has a certain flavor to it as well, and would be great at letting the Klingon do an overrun. Charge in at full speed and blast away with every weapon blazing, then zip off and re-charge.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 10:40 am: Edit

Quote:

The argument that the Kzintis will have X number of defensive phasers and X number of drones is flawed, namely because no one knows how many of either they will actually carry.


We can all make a pretty good guess.
If the Kzintis get better phaser to make up for the lack of follow-up DFH fire then what are they, other than Klingons?


Quote:

We don't know how many DC's the Kzinti will carry, either. Say four, though, as a good choice. If they arm them on consecutive turns, then they get the same "defensive" power they had before. Instead of four disruptors at 5 or 10, they would have 2 at 10 or 20. But, they also get the option of having some DF crunch for a change, something they have an interest in according to the rules.


No, there's a difference. The DC garrenttes damages as though two turns of Overloaded damage ( bacuse we organise everything to make out primary fire point work ) where as the Disruptors may find they can only land fire outside of overload range and thus do even less than 50% of the Damage of the disruptor hit ( depending on the range ).
Additionally the fire is directed to the one shiled ( on the one impulse ) which greatly increase the ships ability to actuall get A11, A10, A3 and A4 hits.


Quote:

Your chart is nice, and illustrates OUR point. The DC has better damage potential in one turn than the disruptor, though not so much as the photon. What the chart apparently does NOT take into account is that the disruptor shown will fire again on the next turn. So, instead of showing damage from ONE turn, try showing it over two. Then you'll find that a four bolt disruptor ship will "average" the same damage as the four DC armed ship will, and that the six disruptor ship will "average" about 50% more.


Not so much as the 24 point Photon which is in some people's minds too powerful. 20 point Photons would have the same chrunch power at R0 as the DC and yet undoubtedly take more power to arm.
The secondary fire of the disruptor will likely be on a different shield rendering it null and void and the also likely be Standard fire rather than Overload because many enemies ( the Feds in particular ) will be trying to get away so that they can rearm their own two turn weapons.
Given R15 or less diruptor Fire the Disruptor will inflict 1/2 the damage again so the 6 Disruptor Ship will generate just 9/8 the damage of the Disruptor Cannon. Are you willing to drop your drone racks down to 2X2C-racks on a cruiser!?!


Quote:

It's a good fit for the Kzinti. The rules say they wanted it. It provides racial flavor, and gives them a sort of "big gun" that they wanted for years.


It also does massive damage for the little 4+4 arming for damage that the photon would generate with 5+5 arming.
The Ship doesn't have the defensive phaser reach to deal with an over-run ( although that can be improved through the use of a fastload mode ) and may change the nature of the Kzinti to being the DC race rather than THE DRONE RACE.


Quote:

especially since you continue to change your position from "too weak" to "too powerful".


Without a Fastload capasity, it is both at the same time.
With a fastload capasity and with the Drones the Kzinti is likely to carry, it'll make the ship about 70% more expensive than the other X2 cruisers.
I'ld rather have a few extra BPV to buy an ECM or MW drone module.

Quote:

A fair point. I don't think it'll make much difference in the end, but it is a good point, Alex. The only consideration would be is it worth it to loose that extra power to gain the standoff ability of the DC?


Not only am I for a Fastload mode if it is to come to pass, but also a Fully overloaded and partially overloaded setting, so that the ship won't have to pay full overloaded arming costs on two turns and get pouinded on the second turn by having the enemy figure out that you have overloads and thus stays out of ranage with standard diruptor fire.
Conversely if the enemy figures out that you've had overloaded on the turn before ( easy to determine on impulse 32 when rebuilding the enemy EAF ) you could complete the weapon with the power of standards and thus move in on the ememy faster and fire the overloads in overload range using the partial overload damage table.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 12:23 pm: Edit

The phasers are reasonable but if you want the boosted base 6 disruptors than you shouldn't have 4. I think that's too many for a DD, particularly for a Klingon DD. Still, the disruptors balance with the power curve so reducing the disruptors might require a reduction in warp power.

Having NWO and Cargo may be redundant.

Will UIM in X2 still burn out? Is it necessary to list DERFACS and UIM on separate lines or can we just assume the disruptor will be fired using the best available mode?

Overall, nice ship. I don't care for the bumpy and spiky parts of the layout, but like the core shape.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 01:53 pm: Edit

The disruptors won't be too much of a problem, I don't think. The reason I say this is that the photon can fire 12 point standards every turn, and the usual Fed DD would have at least three of these. That's a possible 36 points a turn, compared to the 24 max of the four disruptors. It'll have to all be balanced at some point, but I think it's a decent start.

Not sure about X2 UIM. Figured it probably doesn't burn out, but can still be hit by a BP, so it needs a seperate line. Ditto DERFACS.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 03:28 pm: Edit

By X1 DERFACS is built into the disruptor so it's presence is not an issue but is reflected in the table. X1 UIM's don't burn out but can be H&R'ed so it is nessasary to have them present on the SSD.

In the Trade Wars era all ships will have a use for some cargo as the NWO might not be used as cargo but as something else like Lab, tractors, repare etc.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 03:29 pm: Edit

Mike R. :

Well put, thanks.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, April 20, 2003 - 04:33 pm: Edit

I finally have my Kzinti put together. it took longer because I wanted to write up the rules for the specialized systems too. (and work was really busy)

The ship is at http://www.vorlonagent.com/sfb/x2-ships.htm along with my Rom and Gorn. The miniature SSD is a link. The Kzinti is at the bottom (I'm going in R-order) If you want to look at the SSd directly, go to http://www.vorlonagent.com/sfb/kz-bc2x.gif

Technology writeups are at http://www.vorlonagent.com/sfb/x2-tech.htm

I chose not to do a writeup on Disruptor cannon since it's still a little up in the air. I will eventually.

I may set it up to be able to fastload as a non-OL disruptor. I'm not sure. Post replies to this idea in the disruptor thread.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 08:08 am: Edit

I think the phaser matrix is a good idea. Couple of questions:

  1. Do combining phasers have to come from the same array? That is, can I combine the phasers from 6 and 7 with those from 10?
  2. Do they have to fire in the aegis step? Or, can you combine fire with them under the normal DF stage?


It'd be interesting to see this played out, and it does have a very Kzinti feel to it, IMHO.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 04:49 pm: Edit

This convo continued in the phasers topic.

comments on the ship?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 05:35 pm: Edit

Looks good. I'd be a bit concerned over the number of drones. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but as I understand the drone array notes, you can fire one drone per array every 20 impulses. That's a possible total of 14 drones fired per turn, right? Might be too much, depending on some other factors, namely how effective 2X drones will be, and how the DC works out. With that many drones, BPV could be extremely high, too. Perhaps 4 normal drones, and an array of 4? Then upgrade to this one after the Xorks?

Looks good, John. Very good design for the Kzinti, overall. Drive on, dude...you're onto something good, here!

On a different note, I'm starting to play with the idea of refits more and more. That is, having several stages of design for a given ship as it's improved over the years from Y205 to Y215 or so. I'll be putting up a farily different Klingon design tonight, one that incorporates those changes in a series of refits...the new "K" refit and a Y215 refit.

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