A more creative idea than a faster sabot and lengthened plasma range would be to expand the plasma caster I gave the ISC.

The caster essentially shoots the plasma up to 5 hexes away, "launching" it from the destination hex.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 01:38 am: Edit

I just don't think heavies should get creative.
I think heavies should just get better.

We can get creative in so many other areas of the game and creative Heavies can be put in Stellar Shadows and Omega.


We should just make Heavies better for X2 and leave the creative solution to movement and defense.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 08:43 am: Edit

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Quote:

The Plasma Napalm is a super Mizia weapon!

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• DF plasma
• Faster plasma
• Bigger plasma
• More resistant plasma
• Veiled plasma
• Longer range plasma

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 11:40 am: Edit

Mike R.: One thing to consider is the PLs utility on stationary units like bases. With limiting the range you do help the bases by requiring the firing ship to move in closer but to give a chance to a base I fear that 20 hexes is still a little too far.

What if Plasma Napalm was a "Overloaded" weapon. I.E. max range of 8 (or ten). Then, remove the restriction on Sabot.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 01:02 pm: Edit

Mike R: It seems to me that three turns is too long. How about damage occures every 16 impulses? That also removes the ambiguity regarding when to apply the damage on subsequent turns.

Or every 20 impulses. If you time it right then you could get three turns. If you time it differently you could get two damage alocations in one turn (either the first of the second).

There is something that bothers me though and it's the constant burning effect that gets built up and applied in pulses (i.e. every turn, 16 impulses or 20 etc.). I would think a napalm effect would cause damage evenly over time (like every impulse until it burns out).

Some questions:
___If I phaser down an incomming Napalm Plasma, how is the damage reduced? From the first damage allocation, the second or is it removed evenly from each. How do you apply the odd numbers? Do you have a technobabble explaination as to how the napalm sticks to a translight vessal? (Not that it is totally nessasary. One could be thought up, I'm sure.)

Perhaps you could allow ships to fire phasers through the napalm after it has hit to further reduce the damage.

There is a good defense against the Plasma Napalm in that you can regenerate you Specific shield reinforcement each turn it burns. However, you must be careful not to allow this to happen. If a Plasma Napalm strikes a shield that was UNDAMAGED at the start of the turn and is downed that same turn, you may not be able to prevent internals on the next turn since you cannot repair a shield box until the following turn and you cannot reinforce the down shield. You could use general reinforcement.

Which brings up another question. If the damage is set to occure mid-turn and shield reinforcement in allocated, does the reduction of damage occure on impulse one or when the damage is applied? If the latter, then the enemy can phaser down your shield reinforcement before it protects against the napalm.

The alternative is that the damage is applied on impulse one of each subsequent turn after impact. If so, how can you explain why, if I impact a ship with a Plasma Napalm on impulse 31 it will do it's second damage allocation only 2 impulses later. Additionally, if you impact on impulse...say 20, the second damage allocation doesn't occure until 13 impulses later (and so on).

Mike, the idea I kind of like but I think there is some serious game mechanics issues that need to be dealt with if the Plasma Napalm is going to be playable.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 01:08 pm: Edit

Well, I did think of another possible application for it. Instead of splitting the damage over two shields and burning for three turns, doing damage every turn, we could reduce the damage to some degree, increase the burn time, and add a "marker" ability in that ruins ECM for the target ship, and even takes away the advantage of cloaking.

Think of it like this. A gorn XCA fires off a plasma napalm. It hits, and burns for 16(?) impulses, doing maybe one or two points per impulse. During those impulses the target ship will take some damage (not as much as before) but will also loose any ECM it's putting out. And, if it cloaks, the benefits of cloaking would be either totally lost or at least badly degraded. The ship wouldn't take very serious damage, but loosing your EW ability and cloaking benefits could really suck. It'd be an ideal Gorn weapon, since they have the most interaction with the Roms, anyway. I'd have to work out some details (damage, burn time, etc) but I think it'd make a cool weapon. To do this it would likely have to be a specialty weapon, not a new way to fire standard plasmas.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 03:00 pm: Edit

WHen R10 comes out there is a new Gorn plasma thing (I think) that helps to expose cloaked ships. You might want to check that out first.

Plasma Caronade?? Or something like that...

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 05:18 pm: Edit

Mike,

Suddenly, I'm not sure how it works.

Your 30/20/10 over three turns would be

Turn 1: 1 point of damage everytime speed 30 would move
Turn 2: same for speed 20
Turn 3: same for speed 10?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 09:35 pm: Edit

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Quote:

However, I don't follow your logic on how a speed 48 plasma is somehow no more dangerous to a GW ship than it is an X2 one. A GW can't outrun it, and doesn't have the weapons to gun it down.

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By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 10:56 pm: Edit

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Quote:

Mike R: It seems to me that three turns is too long. How about damage occures every 16 impulses? That also removes the ambiguity regarding when to apply the damage on subsequent turns.

Or every 20 impulses. If you time it right then you could get three turns. If you time it differently you could get two damage alocations in one turn (either the first of the second).

There is something that bothers me though and it's the constant burning effect that gets built up and applied in pulses (i.e. every turn, 16 impulses or 20 etc.). I would think a napalm effect would cause damage evenly over time (like every impulse until it burns out).

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By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 11:22 pm: Edit

I would agree with that.

I Give it an X damage for Y impulses damage system.

Otherwise, having napalm void a cloak would be too powerful. it would render the cloak near pointless.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 12:18 am: Edit

However, I don't follow your logic on how a speed 48 plasma is somehow no more dangerous to a GW ship than it is an X2 one. A GW can't outrun it, and doesn't have the weapons to gun it down.

That's very situational. Depending on the launch point, the X2 ship can no more outrun it than a GW ship can. The GW ship just has to withdraw more power from other systems to do so. Both are limited to speed 31 still and both have excess power left after doing so.

Also depending on the bpv involved, the gw ship will be facing the same or less amount of plasma than an equivalent gw ship, in that a GW CA could be facing an X2 DD with GW CL style armament...its hard to tell right now. So to say that shooting down the Xplasma is going to be harder is presumptious.

Basically, this will be borne out either way in playtesting.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 12:40 am: Edit

I think X2 plasma will be a lot like X2 drones.

If a Klingon X2 ships has X2 A-racks ( with 6 spaces ( ah good, that's 4 type VIIIs ) and an X2E-rack which can because of following the G-rack, launch one Type VII or X drone per turn then that klingon cruiser is launching ( depending on when Type X and XI drones come to be ).
2 Type VIII and one Type VII or Two type XI and one Type X for...
2 x 24/8/32 + 18/6/32
Upto
2 x 48/10/40 + 24/8/40

Which is total of 66-120/22-28/32-40.

On the other hand the task group that is sent to destroy it consists of a D7D, 2D7bk or possibly D7D + C7 + D6D.
They will hurly 4 type IVF drones plus 2 times 2 Type IVF drones, through to 2 times four Type IVF drones plus 6 type IVF drones.
Which is
8 x 24/6/32 or 192/48/32
Or alternatly 14 Type IVF drones.
14 x 24/6/32 or 336/84/32.

Now if we look at the drone offenses of each ship ( this assumes attacking with the drones as the X2 cruiser is much better off launching Type IX or XII dogfight drones every third impulkse to shoot down then enemy drones than it is to launch a heavy hitting type VII or X drone ) we get.

66-120/22-28/32-40
Vs
192-336/48-84/32

The damage of the GW task group is far greater than the X2 cruiser but the X2 cruiser's drones are far harder to out manouver and individually tougher to destroy.

So too it should be with X2 plasma.
Not many plamsa torps actually being put on the board by the X2 ships and being far less deadly when it reaches it's target than a whole swarm of GW plasma, but far more able to actually reach it's target.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 - 11:24 am: Edit

oops

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, April 20, 2003 - 10:04 pm: Edit

One improvement that will aid the Plasma users but not make them "death on a stick" to GW ships is to improve the fastloaded F torps for G and larger launchers such that you can launch Plasma L every turn...particularly with L have 5 extra hexes of Glory Zone and speed 48.

By Roger Dupuy (Rogerdupuy) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 06:48 pm: Edit

Michael, this suggestion goes along with the 'evolutionary' leap in tech that leaves me a little cold.

As an evolutionary idea it's makes them more Fed-like rhythmically.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 11:57 pm: Edit

I'm not so sure that it needs to be considered evolutionary.


I would say we could have the revolutionary feel of X1 in X2 and yet the MY-GW evolutionary feel by saying that the, in this case, the Gorns always had the capasity to mount 2X2M launchers & 2X2S launchers ( see X1 ship SSD for reasons ) but that after the general war the ecconomies were so limited they the built their new X2 cruiser at first Just with the Ms and then latter with the Ls because they were seeing a few Xork ships and stronger enemy vessels, and finally moved to 2Ms and 2S for forcing the Xorks out of the Beta Quadrant.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 12:02 am: Edit

On the other hand, the Fastloaded L torps is probably needed to counter the fact that Feds will probably have ( Atleast non holdable ) 16 point Fastloaded Photons.
And partly the increase in L glory zone and speed will be to offset such Federation things as the four impulse delay between switching from Proximity to Standard modes ( which is something that can normally only be done in EA ).

By Roger Dupuy (Rogerdupuy) on Tuesday, April 22, 2003 - 03:46 pm: Edit

Michael,
Why not the Plasma Stasis Cannon (posted on Thursday, April 10, 2003 - 04:09 pm?)

Nutshell:
a Direct fire weapon
fires a 22 point warhead regardless of range
if fired in 1 turn very inaccurate
if fired in 2, more accurate
if fired in 3, even more accurate
defending ship has an option of phaser defense

seeking plasma would be secondary as a defensive first/offensive second weapon.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 02:26 am: Edit

seeking plasma would be secondary as a defensive first/offensive second weapon.


Problem; this would be a radical departure for the Gorns and Roms and the ISC already do this.

Ergo; bad idea.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 07:58 am: Edit

I like having a DF option for plasma, but it shouldn't replace seeking plasma...especially not for the Roms. If the 2X Rom has a modular design, then it should be easy enough to creat DF plasma modules. That would solve the problem easily enough, I think.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 08:33 am: Edit

Well I don't think the Seeking plasma should be done away with!


That being said I've said for while now that I think a glory zone extention would be good for the Plasma, and that makes the bolt quite a bit better.

Now I'm not sure if the plasma should be 1-4 all the way out to R10 and 1-3 out from R11-15 or if it should be 1-5 for R0-5 and 1-4 for R6-10 and 1-3 for R11-15, but I think that in and of it'self with give the Roms, Gorns and ISCs all the DF power they need.

By Andrew Harding (Warlock) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 09:17 am: Edit

Some stats on existing plasma DF options in X1.

The Fed CX firing 4 proximity photons with a -1 shift averages 10.7 damage per shot at range 13-40. With lower EW edge, this drops to 8 (EW 0) or 6.7 (EW +1). Each shot uses 16 power.

Rom/Gorn cruisers bolting two M torps with the same -1 shift average 15 damage per shot at range 15, 10 at range 20. EW drops these numbers to 10/6.6 (EW 0) and 5/3.3 (EW +1). Each shot uses 18 power.

I'll call that a decent set of numbers for the X1 bolt, especially considering that I've ignored the S torps and that the bolt is only one of a host of plasma firing options.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 02:08 pm: Edit

Though I figure that the Romulans and Gorns would eventually drop the use of seeking weapons it would be in the time frame of the game (maybe by Y340?).

Seeking plasma should certainly stay but I do think they would start to develope some DF heavy weapons too.

One thought is that if Plasma gets really fast, it might be OK if they have a chance of missing. If they miss they must HET and try again until they hit. At first I was thinking a co-efficient of speed but that would be too complicated.
So how about a speed 64 plasma that when it reaches it's target it must roll on this table:

Super-Sabot Hit Table

Die Roll	result
1-2	miss
3-4	grazing hit
5-6	hit

In the case of a miss the plasma can HET the next impulse and try again. In the case of a second miss the plasma cannot HET again so it looses tracking.

Grazing hit is half damage.

A hit is a normal full hit.

Consider that the first miss might be a good thing as the plasma might hit a better shield. The least desirable result would be the grasing hit.

In the case of the SSP Table if the target is using EM there would be only a -1 to the die roll. SSP, like other plasmas have ECCM. EW shifts are only applied if the result is a full hit.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 02:17 pm: Edit

Loren,

Why? This is essentially saying that every ship that gets hit with a seeking weapon rolls on the damage-vs.-cloak chart. It negates the whole dynamic of seeking weapons, especially plasma.