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	Archive through December 16, 2023	25		12/22 06:42pm

Nick,

Here, for whatever they are worth, are my opinions regarding the Tholians and Romulans.

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Quote:

Tholian 2X:

Should these be based on Neo-Tholian hulls, or do they continue the multiple PC-hull route for tradition? I prefer the former (restrict production of the WC as needed).

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Quote:

Romulan 2X:

I assume any 2X-KR ships would be conjectural given the break up of their alliance, but should they get a 2X-King Eagle for tradition?

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By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, December 18, 2023 - 04:43 pm: Edit

I would argue that the concept of Hydrans giving up fusion beams in the X1-ship era was somewhat walked back by the time Module X1R, with its range of new fusion-armed X1-ships, was published.

Perhaps, at the time the Hydrans were still getting used to the intricacies of first-generation X-technology, they were still expecting them to be used against Klingon, Lyran, and/or Vudar X1-ships - or even against the X1-ships assigned to the Inter-Stellar Concordium's Cordon Foxtrot.

However, once the Andromedan War broke out, most Hydran X1-ships found themselves confronted with a very different kind of enemy. And thus, they made a different set of choices, in terms of how many of which type of X1-ship they decided to build in response to this new invasion.

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Similarly, while Module X2 should hopefully provide a look at the Klingon and Lyran X2-ships the Hydrans might expect to fight if/when the next set of border wars break out, we don't yet know what kind of tactical challenges might be posed to them when the Xorkaelian invasion breaks out in Y210.

So even if (big if) one were to decide that X2-hellbores were to be more effective in X2-vs-X2 battles than X2 fusions are to be, that still might not prevent fusions from being more viable against... whatever technologies the Xorkaelian Tyranny has to throw at the empires of the Alpha Octant.

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Also, I am not particularly keen on Federation X2-cruisers using "gun deck" photons, or indeed using any kind of "ring-like" phaser arrays. Both are far too close to the post-1979 Franchise standard for comfort.

And in any case, aside from an X2 heavy cruiser (and its variants, such as a would-be "XCC" or "XGS"), how many other Fed X2-ships would necessarily have secondary hulls to begin with?

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As for the X2-era Tholians: I do like the idea suggested a while back of giving them a "web lance": as in, splitting the web fist function off of the web caster and deploying it as a separate weapon.

I also agree that, due to the ongoing limitations posed by the Holdfast's (lack of) shipyard capacities, any X2-ships they would build should by necessity be of "Archaeo" design lineage. Although, a set of "what-if" Neo-Tholian X2-ships might make for an interesting "threat file" someday...

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Monday, December 18, 2023 - 06:11 pm: Edit

Gary, we've had gun deck photons since the BCJ was published in 1989.

As for ring phasers, they seem to be a given at this point, even if they won't be referred to as such. For what it's worth, I fear they will make tactical decisions bland. Especially if everyone also has one turn arming heavy weapons.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Friday, December 22, 2023 - 05:59 pm: Edit

Nick, you are right. SFB is a game for people that likes problem solving, mental challenges. Increased capabilities without limitations to try work around is boring to us.
That's why i like the ships of the basic set most.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Friday, December 22, 2023 - 06:42 pm: Edit

Limitations are all a matter of perspective.

Say an X2 ship simply wipes the floor with a Gen War ship. Fine, that's a boring fight. But if the X2 ship has to content with limitations relative to another X2 ship, then the game is still entertaining; it's just in a new phase of its history.

Personally, I think it gives historical richness of to the SFU if X2 doesn't play well with Gen War or earlier. That's the way real life works. No one is going to play a sim that pits a wooden Ship of the Line from 1750 against a modern destroyer - not entertaining - but the historical continuity between the two provides nice flavor history.

IMO so long as X2 has serious limits confronting other X2 (or the Xorkalien menace) - I'm good. If the designers want X2 to play well with X1 or even Gen War (in enough numbers) - I'm good.


I *do* want to see X2 come to market in the next couple of years. It will be a very nice pièce de résistance to crown the SFU history.

By Mike Dowd (Mike_Dowd) on Friday, December 22, 2023 - 09:23 pm: Edit

I'm hoping that X2 is one of those phases in the "evolutionary arms race" where defensive technologies take a leap ahead.

X1 was "eggshells flying around with hammers".

X2 should make it extremely difficult to be hurt by GW weapons, but aside from some small refinements to weapons systems be mostly unchanged in that department.

EW, shield hardening, power, weapons arcs -- these are things that could be tweaked...

Of course, the Steves already have their vision, and it's in motion. I can't wait to see what they've done.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Saturday, December 23, 2023 - 04:47 pm: Edit

Ted, I am talking specifically about technological limitations.
In real life the next Fed photon torp tech (call it the Uber-torp) would be more powerful, cheaper to arm, faster to load and have improved hit chances. Perfect if you want your enemies disappear by the push of a button.

SFB, however, is a game that revolves around tactics. With no terrain to speak of the characteristics of the ships becomes even more important for this game concept.
Therefore the SFB Uber-torp need to have limited firearcs, arming times, shock etc.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Saturday, December 23, 2023 - 08:17 pm: Edit

With no terrain to speak of the characteristics of the ships becomes even more important for this game concept.

The guys that want "1 Shot, 1 Kill" can deal with that.... If that's not what a player wants... SFB Universe is one where it's not a requirement to allow into their gaming group....

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Sunday, December 24, 2023 - 03:07 am: Edit

Mark, sorry but i don't quite get what you want to say.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Sunday, December 24, 2023 - 08:53 am: Edit

Played with many that just want to dive in, Alpha strike and games over......
To be Honest, many of those didn't stick with SFB, as it didn't suit how they wanted games to go....

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Sunday, December 24, 2023 - 01:46 pm: Edit

sounds like when I first started to play sfb in the 90s.
i quit warhammer but stuck to sfb.

By Jeff Guthridge (Jeff_Guthridge) on Monday, December 25, 2023 - 03:18 pm: Edit

One of the things I keep trying to wrap my mind around when it comes to X tech stuff, is the similarity with the way military weapons technology has changed over the course of my lifetime. Apologies in advance for a word-wall, the TL,DR: is drawing parallels between our world’s wet navy/aviation tech and the SFU between Y165 and the end of the GW.

The Mark 15 torpedo (the one carried on Destroyers) by the end of WWII carried more mass of Torpex than does the modern Mark 48 ADCAP. The Hellfire missile has an order of magnitude less explosive mass than did the 250 pound bombs skip-dropped on German tanks by the Airedale’s in Europe. The USS Iowa has an armored citadel that is (outside of her sisters) unparalleled in any Navy still afloat anywhere in the world. Not that it matters in this day and age.

The hidden razor in all of this is cost, be it material, manpower, or Lucre, though not necessarily in that order. Once that effect comes into play ‘peace time’ designs with a mission life of 20 years between major refits and 60 years overall give way to ships that are assembly lined out as fast as they can be at the minimum acceptable quality.

If we make a tentative link between our wet navy tech in 1965 (roughly the end of the interwar period between Korea and Vietnam) and Y165, then when you look at the changes in technology at the end of that conflict that lasted into the Cold War through to the end of the USSR as the period leading up to the end of the General War, things seem to line up within a reasonable deviation, the Y175 refits probably align better with the 1983-1984 Reagan era rebuilding, but I shan’t quibble. The point is that at the end of both eras we see that larger hulls (with a few exceptions) become less desirable. No more BBs ever got built, most massive hulls are carriers (of one sort or another) or freight haulers. The effective size of warships decreased for the same mission often because the destructive power became better focused and harder to resist. Who needs 16 inches of armor belt when the enemy can precision drop a warhead from overhead at your weak points? Makes sense if your facing naval rifles…. But when your enemy could launch a 5kT nuke torpedo, its pointless. This is exactly why there has not been a true Battleship hull laid down since the end of WWII, no body can afford the expense for so little gain. Yes, there have been a number of Cruisers that could hit like the Iowa’s in one fashion or another, yet a small unmanned naval drone was able to knock out at least one Soviet era Cruise Missile Capitol ship in the current conflict in the former East Bloc.

We see this in the progression of War Hulls in the GW, with smaller and smaller capitol ships and more and more attrition units (fighters, PFs, etc al). Just as War hulls usually have most if not all of the weapons of their base design, they don’t have the fluff. A hard volley through the shields of a Heavy Cruiser tends to be more survivable than a similar volley through the shields of a War Cruiser.

With that in mind, maybe there should be a limit to the things that can be done with protective technologies and more things done to assist with the destructives and EW for the second generation X ships. Having a X2 Heavy Cruiser with 90 box shields all the way around is going to make things horrible to play through unless every empire has a 66%+ chance of generating a Alpha strike at range 4 that lands 100+ points. That is just hanger flying math. Actually being able to play this sort of tech makes a big difference because the game is not just marching mindlessly up to the line of battle and witnessing exchanging volleys until one side crumbles. And it never has been.

Perhaps at X2 EW should see a revision based on tech alone. For example: allow the purchase of EW points at less than a 1:1 EWP to power point ratio (2 EWPs per Power, 3EWPs? 2.5EWPs?), permit ship based EW systems to purchase three (X1) or four (X2) times current Sensor rating EWPs, make EWPs ‘agile’ so that you don’t throw the power away to adjust the polarity of them, and unlike the Andro EW rules, a EWP is an EWP for the entire turn and it can be shifted every 2/4/8 impulses. My guess is that Electronic Warfare is one of the least popular aspects still in the game and probably ignored by most players for ease of play, so lets not hang our hats on just EW changes for X2.

So what would cause Shielding technologies to not protect as well as it should? What is peak shields? The Zumwalt’s didn’t have a significant armor belt compared to the Iowa’s (not a far comparison I know), and so to draw that parallel, I would expect that anything X2 should have some sort of Shield bypass mode available by choice or by default. Shields would still work the same against natural sources of damage (asteroid dust and similar effects) but when the Heavy weapons of the day can punch through, you don’t need big shield arrays.

Say that Disruptors double their output against shields but not overall. So a volley of four disrupters at r15 would hit shields for 24 points instead of 12, but the same ship firing at r4 with overloads would do up to 64 points if there were that much bricking going on. So if a disruptor volley did 48 points of damage to a target that had 24 shields and 6 reinforcement, the first 15 points of damage knock the shields down, leaving 33 points of internals.

Give Photons an AP (I would not recommend Anti-Shield as the mode’s name unless you want a lot of giggling from the juveniles) fused mode similar to Prox. If it hits the weapon can ignore a number of shield boxes on its way in to cause damage. The example here is that four full overloaded photon warheads hit, and are resolved against a ship that has 40 shields and 4 reinforcement, the first photon ignored the first ten boxes and knocks out boxes 11-27, the second photon ignores the first ten boxes and knocks out boxes 28-40 and the reinforcement, the remaining two photons strike hull under a ten box shield for 32 internals.

Plasma tech is tricker since stealth and subterfuge is a staple of plasma tactics. In this case the player records in secret the number of steps down the plasma chart they ‘downgrade’ the torpedo and for every step, they skip a box of shields. So, a 30 point S torp is launched three steps down (S -> G -> L/F -> D) then the resulting torpedo when it hits can skip three boxes of shields after every box it damages. So if the plasma travels less than five hexes and isn’t phasered down, and hits a shield with 24 points and no reinforcement, it’s damage applied like like this:
1st shield box hit
2,3,4 skipped
5th shield box hit
6,7,8 skipped
9th shield box hit
10,11,12 skipped
13th shield box hit
14,15,16 skipped
17th shield box hit
18,19,20 skipped
21th shield box hit
22,23,24 skipped, leaving four points of internals making it through.

I know each of these three examples above are not viable for one reason or another, they are gross examples after all. The Disruptor is probably the best of the lot, the photon example probably needs to have the damage split in half with the first half of the damage hitting the shield and the second have skipping a number of boxes, and the plasma example is way too complicated to go to press, but each of the three applies pressure on the designer (not SVC but the fictional designer of the future X2 ship designs) to not bother with boosting shields to a huge brick wall defense!

At the risk of invoking the Paramount Demons, I found it interesting that as the tech advanced higher and higher in the later seasons, the fragility of the ships increased, to the point where one of the biggest of the big ships was one-shot (albeit a sucker punch), and later on massive fleet engagements where the screen time showed a lot of fireworks and explosions for very little relative volleys in a short span of time. It would be interesting to match a Zumwalt or similar bleeding edge naval ship design to its displacement weight counterpart from WWII and hit them with a series of attacks to see what the two ships could and could not survive. And no, I’m not suggesting that some lame tech-tree damage assessment be made either… But, I have read Christopher G. Nuttall’s Ark Royal series.

Anyway, thats enough pontificating for one essay….

I for one would like to see the “What If” lost empires updated to X/X2 tech as well. I have my own ideas of how QWTs could be boosted, and I think it is in theme with the empire that built them… If there is room to discuss this still, let me know, I’ll share my ideas, otherwise I’ll keep them to myself so as to not distract the project.

If you’ve gotten to then end of this sixteen hundred word wall, you have my thanks. I wrote this sitting in a truck stop restaurant on Christmas Day and found that writing this helped me feel connected to you all and not so alone. Merry Christmas everyone, even if you hate my ideas.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Monday, December 25, 2023 - 08:29 pm: Edit

Jeff, Merry Christmas and a good continuation as we say here in Sweden ^^
I'll be brief as neither the language barrier nor Parkinson makes it easy to be verbose.

Thanks for writing your thoughts. I bet you are not the first person to compare sfb to a navy. To me non-X and X1 is more like fourth and fifth generation fighters, at latest for comparing new and old.
The capability gaps in either case is huge, much more than in SFB.
I learned how the real world works by observation but i have realised that not much can be lifted from the navy or AF into sfb. The reason for this is obvious when one think about it; SFB does not obey the universal laws of physics, but the laws of the game system. We have the energy allocation phase, 32 impulse turn etc.

The primary consideration is how to avoid breaking the game system. It was specifically designed to replicate the Fed CA vs Klingon D7 duel of the old tv show.
Combat speeds varying between 15-20. No growth room was built in.
Then with X1 the ships got 20% more power, and it could be argued that X2 should see another 20% boost. It is easy to see why there have been proposals for speeds in excess of 32, and why svc says 'no' to that. The late generation ships have no problem going those speeds while arming weapons, and having two moves per impulse would be really too much of needless complications with yet more rules. The solution of changing to a 40,48 or 64 impulse turn are equally bad.


Bedtime now

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Monday, December 25, 2023 - 08:31 pm: Edit

One complaint I have about first generation X-ships is how they are the "Eggshells with Sledgehammers;" their capabilities are quickly gutted once the shields are penetrated.

WHAT IF...

What if, by the time of the "Second Generation X-Ships," the major powers had unlocked the secrets of Nicozian Collapsium Armor? Not a whole gonzo amount, but just enough to hold off the "Instant Cripple Once Sheilds are Penetrated" sort of "Eggshell with Sledgehammer" effect?

What if the Disruptor races have found a secret of "Double Overloads" for them?

(My apologies if I posted that earlier...)

What if the Federation managed to finally solve the whole (expletive deleted) problem with Advanced Proximity Fuses for their Photon Torpedoes?

Hydran Early Years had Nova Cannon, which eventually evolved into Fusion Beams. Could there be a "Next Evolution?"

Hydrans also had Hellguns in Early Years, which evolved into Hellbores. Again, a "Next Evolution?"

PPDs are two-turn arming weapons; a contrast with three turn arming Plasma Torpedoes. Could the ISC find a way, SOMEhow, to be able to arm Plasma-S (or Plasma-M?) torpedoes in two turns? Make their arming cycle more compatible with their PPDs?

Particle Cannon firing THREE times per turn?

Is that Slirdarian going to give me a concussion with that frying pan?

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Tuesday, December 26, 2023 - 03:48 am: Edit

Hi other Jeff :-) merry Xmas to you too.

I play almost exclusively tournament games and find the complaint about eggshells funny; in the duel on a fixed map we crack eggs and make the omelett, or in this season, eggnogg, all the time. It's like learning to take a knife in the gut so that you can reach and cut your opponents throat.
Very brutal play that way, different for sure to ordinary sfb.

Still, it's clear ships got a few more internals (warp engine boxes), about ten points stronger shields, iirc, and a big boost to damage output. Obviously this means a CAX vs D7X fight is not feeling the same as the pre-General way duel. "-it's SFB, Jim, but not as we like it"
I think MORE of this is not what the game can handle nor what the players want.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Tuesday, December 26, 2023 - 03:56 am: Edit

Personally I'd like to see a revision of M:X1. I can't see much fun in giving each race the same improvements, nor are that conducive to fun play. (Free HETs? Ugh)
As I understand it X1 was created simply by taking all the ideas for improvements on file, mix them in a blender, infuse the non-X designs with the mix and then play test to remove bugs. It was a mix of ideas with little, if any, thought on what it would mean for X2.

By James Cummins (Jamescummins) on Saturday, December 30, 2023 - 06:38 pm: Edit

Sorry for the long post,

Perhaps we could look at modification to a variation of EW, in that there is a shield penetration capability like Jeff suggested, but not due to the weapons themselves, but to understanding on how to detect shields "frequencies" this would then have star ships designs changed to add amour, to counteract the shield penetrations that would be expected in combat.

So X2 ships would have defensive armour and be able to "cut" through opponents shields, effectively a leaky shields modification. But this would of course cost power and lab time to determine the enemies shield frequencies. Also you could put you labs and power into defending your own shield's weakness or offensively attacking the opponents shields, your choice. X2 ships have more power so there should be more things they can spend it on.

Different races would approach this differently, The Feds have more armour slower move rate higher lab abilities, but moralistic restrictions on such damage in that their penetrating shots prefer the opponents weapons and engines, which reduces the amount of leakage they do.

Whereas the Klingons go in for less armour but the ability to scramble the shield frequencies to prevent the penetration and have faster lighter ships, and with less labs they have more difficulty in penetrating another's shields, but they don't have moralistic restrictions, so they damage indiscriminately (more damage).

Maybe Orions would have shield modification that would improve the stealth of the ships and reduce the ability to penetrate the shields.

The Gorns could develop harden shields to avoid the cost of armour, with different interactions with weapons.

The Romulans could create a distortion field to prevent damage, a combination of cloak and shields, that opponents need to penetrate to hit the ship.

But against GW ships the X2's would be able to cut them to pieces once they start finding the wholes in the shields, and the X2's have defensive armour and can take more damage and continue to function.

Different weapons would also have different benefits or detriments to this type of attack. Phasers would be generic, disrupters would be the best heavy weapon for this (mainly because I believe drones will not be part of X2 and the disrupter races will need a bonus), right up there with a Hellbore, which is already designed to do this. Maybe Hydrans would modify the fusion beams to act more like disrupters.

Photons could develop other modifications to compensate.

I am thinking there just needs to be a reason to change the designs. If ships just have more powerful weapons, then the normal design would be to improve defense so that the impact of the weapons is reduced. Then you have ships with 200 point shields being hit with 150-250 point phaser salvos, and blowing through a shield. Much the same as a 30 point shield being taken down by an alpha strike of 4-5 phaser I's at close range.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Tuesday, January 02, 2024 - 02:24 pm: Edit

Hi James!

"I am thinking there just needs to be a reason to change the designs. "

Yes, and there are several forces that would act on the developments of the various races designs.
For example, what would limited Aegis on Klingon and Lyran ships mean for the viability of drones as weapons for the Kzinti?