The Paravians do not have any 1st Generation X-Ships. I suspect that any of them would be considered to be known variants and don't count for anything. Except as a request to be published in a Captain's Log or other X-Ship product.

By Jeffrey George Anderson (Jeff) on Saturday, October 05, 2019 - 06:58 pm: Edit

I like the idea of both Paravian and Carnivron X-ships, but just for the sake of completeness. While I've never been involved with one, I'm sure there are campaigns with non-SFU Canon histories where they remain around long enough to reach that level of technological advancement.

(TBH, though, I gotta admit that I've never really been a fan of X-ships in general; they've always been too unforgiving of minor mistakes for me to ever enjoy them.)

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, October 06, 2019 - 02:15 pm: Edit

For what (little) its worth, I had posted a couple of thoughts regarding first-generation X-technology for the "lost empires" of Module C6 over in this thread.

Technology-wise, the key point here might be how to make the X-tech version of the quantum wave torpedo work. Should it have a sabot function? Would a Paravian CAX mount 6 QWT-X mounts instead of four, akin to the added disruptor mounts on a Klingon DX or Lyran CCX? Or would some entirely different option work better instead?

On a side note, if the concept of "Mæsron-type" first-generation X-tech in the Omega Octant ever gets up and running, it would be interesting to see how that might affect the Paravians of Omega - and how those X-ships would vary from the ones their "lost empire" counterparts would have built had they remained a power back in the Alpha Octant.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, December 06, 2024 - 02:50 pm: Edit

A note for future consideration:

I've been thinking a bit more on what, if any, changes could be made to a would-be X-quantum wave torpedo, beyond what the "modern" QWT is capable of under (FQ1.0) in Module C6.

By and large, I would strongly prefer keeping any proposed changes relatively streamlined - both in keeping with the relative simplicity in function of the current QWT ruleset, and in terms of making it easier to one day port over to the likes of Federation Commander).

With this in mind, I would consider one, or both, of the following options:

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Firstly, I would suggest giving the X-QWT a sabot function, akin to (FP11.0) for the X-plasma torpedoes being launched by enemy Gorn and ISC (and Orion) X1-ships.

As is the case for the plasma sabot, this proposed X-QWT sabot would not require any new warhead tables or movement charts. Although, unlike the case with plasma sabot (which appears as a Y180 refit for non-X ships), there is as yet no sabot refit for non-X QWTs - which would appear to limit the sabot option here to X-QWTs, to include those which might be installed as partial-X refits.

The questions then would be: what sabot surcharge cost to set; and should both standard and overloaded torpedoes have the same surcharge, or ought there be an added cost for overloaded warheads?

Since Plasma-Fs, -Gs, and -Ls each have the same one-point sabot surcharge under (FP11.21), I would set both the standard and overload surcharge at 1 point apiece for X-QWT sabots here.

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And secondly, I was wondering if it might be an option to allow an X-QWT to launch two warheads in a single turn - allowing both to be sabot warheads, should that rule be adopted also. But, there would be a minimum sixteen-impulse delay between launches, and only the first or the second of these launches per turn could be an overload.

Unlike the case with a non-X particle cannon under (E17.312), the prospective arming costs would be the same for both launches. Also unlike a particle cannon, there would be no capacitor system added: each warhead would still have to be armed and launched separately.

Rather than making the individual warheads more powerful (akin to a plasma-M or plasma-L torpedo), I would think it more in-character to increase the number of them that are in flight over the course of a given turn - but in a way that did not require installing more weapon boxes onto the X1-ship SSDs.

Plus, as with the proposed sabot option above, this would avoid having to adjust the QWT weapon tables from how they are at present.

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Speaking of partial-X refits, I would give these proposed X-QWTs a replacement cost of 3 BPV: this would equate to the 2 BPV cost of upgrading a plasma-F to a plasma-L under (XR4.25), plus the 1 BPV of installing the sabot option. (Although, if X-QWTs were not permitted a sabot function, I would suggest lowering the proposed replacement cost down to 2 BPV instead.)

I would suggest offering the same availability limits as seem when upgrading from plasma-Fs to plasma-Ls, under (XR9.0).

Although, by the time partial-X refits become available, there would likely only be so many eligible hull types in the Paravian fleet that would be eligible to receive these upgrades under (XR4.1) in any event.

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I would not recommend any further changes beyond this: so no pseudo torpedo, no direct-fire mode, no adjustments to the amount of built-in ECM, and so on and so forth.

Of course, the above is only one (well, two) of a number of potential options. Does anyone have any preferences of their own, in terms of what a would-be X-QWT ruleset might be?

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Friday, December 06, 2024 - 07:43 pm: Edit

Hmmm, the multiple launch might be a function of the overload ability, would it be same target or separate (same impulse or separate)?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, December 07, 2024 - 12:13 pm: Edit

I was thinking a bit more about the arming and launching cycle being proposed in my last post.

Per (FQ1.211), the "standard" QWT launches one torpedo per turn, with an eight-impulse launch delay over turn breaks. Per (FQ1.23), it is possible to use contingent allocation to partially arm a QWT, and then to "complete" arming with reserve power (as well as to use reserve warp power to overload the torpedo) - or to wait and arm the warhead entirely using reserve power.

With this in mind, presumably the proposed X-QWT would still have the eight-impulse launch delay across turn breaks, if only one torpedo had been deployed from the launcher on the previous turn. However, if one wanted to deploy a second torpedo in the same turn, there'd then be a sixteen-impulse delay between launching the first and second torpedo, and a sixteen-impulse delay imposed between the second torpedo's launch on said turn, and the launching of a first torpedo on the next.

Or is this too restrictive? Would an eight- or twelve-impulse delay be better, without being too generous? (An eight-impulse delay all around would fit more neatly with the current non-X delay, but might result in too many torpedoes being launched in too short a period of time...)

And so far as arming is concerned: again, there'd be no capacitor installed. So, only the first torpedo could be armed, fully or contingently, during Energy Allocation; arming of the second torpedo would have to wait until after the first torpedo has been launched, and must be through reserve power only.

I would permit both launches in a given turn to be against the same target, and/or to be set along the same ballistic course.

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However:

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Quote:

Hmmm, the multiple launch might be a function of the overload ability, would it be same target or separate (same impulse or separate)?

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By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Saturday, December 07, 2024 - 07:31 pm: Edit

Shot gun QWTs I like that.

Great for use vs fighters and PFs. As well as a fleet action. The power requirement would be rough. I also think only 1 tube per ship could be Shot gunned a turn. (2 max with some kind of shock roll)

The one allocated and one from reserve per tube is interesting. The second from reserve power only. As a X refit it can be done. The BTTY X refit can give the power.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, December 09, 2024 - 12:22 pm: Edit

Actually, one of the interesting details in (XR1.141) is that, on X1-ships, the X-reactors (X-APRs and/or X-AWRs) are about half the size of reactors on non-X ships. While it is possible for a non-X ship to replace a number of its individual APRs and/or AWRs with pairs of XPRs, "full" X1-ships do not do this, instead using this "spare" space for other purposes.

In the case of the Federation, perhaps one example of this might be how the DWX in Module X1R has three X-batteries, rather than the two on the non-X DW in Module R2. Although, there was a bit of system box shuffling on the SSD in that instance.

So far as the Paravians are concerned, their ships tend not to have as many reactors on board as their Federation counterparts, since Paravian shipwrights prefer to go with large impulse decks instead. Even so, I could certainly see them looking seriously into using what "spare" space can be provided by the switch to X-reactors in order to increase a given X1-ship's X-battery complement.

As a second example: as is the case for the Federation DWX, I don't doubt that the Paravian designers would try to get a third X-battery onto a DWX blueprint of their own. Whether or not this ends up being viable from an engineering perspective is, of course, another story...