Archive through November 16, 2020
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: New Product Development:
Module X2: a project for the future:
Archive through November 16, 2020
Whatever form X2 takes, I'll buy it.
I would like to see X1 ships get a speed boost from Max 31 to max of 36. X2 ships with speeds up to 40, and with speed 36 (X1) and speed 40 (X2) Drones and Plasma Torpedos to match.
SVC: I REALLY HATE THIS WHOLE IDEA BUT YOU NEVER KNOW...
Since I am really about to get downvoted, I would like to see X1 and X2 Fighters and Pfs with speed increase as well.
I'll head to the both now, thanks!
SETTING 7/10, SABATON'S LOVE SONG MIX (GHOST LOVER, TO THE JEWELRY STORE AND BACK)
The main problem, as I see it, is how to change the dynamic?
The weapons systems can't be altered by much, not when it's shared (disruptors by the Kingons, Kzinti, Lyrans - plasma by the Romulans, Gorns, ISC).
Drone (or anti-drone) improvement would soon be reversed-engineered by the three users (Federation, Klingon, Kzinti) leading to stalemate on that front.
Phasers (the everybody weapon), can any more be added? Can any more be improved/upgraded?
Power has increased, but so have the options (EW, tractors, transporters have been added to the usual speed and weapons). Even so, fleet speed has increased, how close should X-2 jump towards 30 with all heavies and most phasers?
X-1 was an offensive increase (faster weapon cycling, heavier phasers), should X-2 be defensive (better reserves and shielding)?
Considering all the above, where can the dynamic be altered without pushing something into the overwhelming category ...
You can give weapons different firing options. For example, phasers can have a wide angle mode were they do less damage but are more accurate, and a narrow angle mode where they do more damage and are less accurate. Bring back overload phasers but give them an overload range equal to heavy weapons to avoid the range 5 close and hose. Give plasma some of the options from hellfire torpedoes (increase warhead/decrease range, and vice versa, plasma shotgun can have different combinations of smaller torpedoes instead of just plasma-F), etc.
SVC SEZ NOT IMPOSSIBLE BUT HE'D HAVE TO SEE PLAYER SUPPORT TO EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.
Up earlier, Steve asked if EY v. EY played differently than GW v. GW. The answer is, "Yes." Compared to GW, the reduction of firepower in EY was greater than the reduction in damage absorption. This means the whole concept of the single devastating strike doesn't exist. (Outside plasma. And that's terrifying.) it's the same game, but it does play differently.
SVC WAS ACTUALLY COMPARING EVOLUTION VS REVOLUTION, AND THIS IS EVOLUTION. ADDING TORPEDOES IN 1870 WAS REVOLUTION. ADDING ANTI-SHIP MISSILES IN 1970 WAS REVOLUTION.
As for MY compared to GW, that isn't as great if comparing specific ships against their improved selves. Instead it is the fleet structures that change the dynamics. War hulls up the firepower and available power, meaning battles moving faster and happening faster.
In all three eras, the dynamics of the game are noticeably different and the battles do play differently, even using the same rules.
For X2, I would expect the dynamics of the game to be appreciably different. I want to see that the battles work differently so I have to learn something new to play effectively. Just doubling the boxes, either explicitly (with literally double the number of boxes) or practically (with 50/200) just doesn't sound that interesting. I want the dynamics to appreciably change in some way. If there is no change, then what's the point?
Why not possible adjustments to maneuvering, to allow X2 to be able to pay for advanced maneuvers. play with the warp cost but some suggestions off the top of my head; This would really make it harder for earlier generations ships to engage
1) Warp slide, pay for an additional slide slip, if you don't want to be able to move two hexes, than an additional slid slip on an impulse when you are not scheduled to move.
2) Warp pause, pay for a negative hex of movement, that you can use in one impulse of the turn to negate a normal movement in that one impulse. You move 1 hex less than your stated speed
3) Warp augmentation, the opposite of the above, one extra hex moved when you would not normally move. So you move one more hex than your stated speed.
4) Warp distortion allow for an announced x impluses where the ship moves 1/2 the hexes it should, but immediately after it must move every impulse to make up the lost hexes. In the in end of the turn it must have moved the correct number of hexes and it cannot spread across a turn break.
5) High warp evasion, which adds effective ECM to seeking weapons on the impulse they impact you do an evasive maneuver, to reduce the damage via warp maneuvering in the same hex, of course major seeking weapon races would have the ability to lend ECCM to their weapons to counter this activity, for a price of course. 
5) And just for fun and giggles a Warp top, where you spin in the hex you are in, it must be an impulse when you do not move. allowing you to fire once in a chosen shield facing with a direct fire weapon form any firing arc to the chose arc at a single target with imposed ECCM cost due to the crazy movement.
The idea being X2 has more power to pay for bells and whistles and instead of just flying at 31 every where with guns blazing, they slow down and can do some fancy flying to mess with the opponent, on the impulses that they would not normally move. This way it is not a complete surprise, you know that the funky maneuvering can only be done when they don't normally move.
REPLIES
1) Warp slide, pay for an additional slide slip, if you don't want to be able to move two hexes, than an additional slid slip on an impulse when you are not scheduled to move.
IMPOSSIBLE, LAWS OF PHYSICS: A sideslip is not moving at an angle, but moving 30 degrees off. What you want to do is move 60 degrees off while maintaining the "north" facing. I don't see the laws of physics allowing this, although it would be a really spiffy maneuver. Call it door shut, two nails, no lag bolts.
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2) Warp pause, pay for a negative hex of movement, that you can use in one impulse of the turn to negate a normal movement in that one impulse. You move 1 hex less than your stated speed
FED COMMANDER HAS THIS FOR X0. NOT IMPOSSIBLE.
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3) Warp augmentation, the opposite of the above, one extra hex moved when you would not normally move. So you move one more hex than your stated speed.
I REALLY DO NOT WANT SHIPS MOVING TWO HEXES IN ONE IMPULSE, BUT OTHERWISE FC ALREADY DOES THIS SO I DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM.
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4) Warp distortion allow for an announced x impluses where the ship moves 1/2 the hexes it should, but immediately after it must move every impulse to make up the lost hexes. In the in end of the turn it must have moved the correct number of hexes and it cannot spread across a turn break.
OH HELL NO, DOOR NAILED SHUT, LAG BOLTS INSTALLED.
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5) High warp evasion, which adds effective ECM to seeking weapons on the impulse they impact you do an evasive maneuver, to reduce the damage via warp maneuvering in the same hex, of course major seeking weapon races would have the ability to lend ECCM to their weapons to counter this activity, for a price of course.
NOT A NEW IDEA. HARPOON DOES THIS (THE MISSILE) AND IT CAN BE EFFECTIVE.
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5) And just for fun and giggles a Warp top, where you spin in the hex you are in, it must be an impulse when you do not move. allowing you to fire once in a chosen shield facing with a direct fire weapon form any firing arc to the chose arc at a single target with imposed ECCM cost due to the crazy movement.
OH HELL NO, NO, NO, NO. STARCASTLE = YOUR SHIP EXPLODES BECAUSE YOU'RE BEING A TWIT. NAILS, LAG BOLTS, CONCRETE, DEAD HORSE. DEAD GIRAFFE.
A FEW NOTES ADDED TO ABOVE POSTS FOR CONVENIENCE OF PLAYERS. I WANTED TO BE SURE YOU SAW THEM.
As noted in the prior Module X2 thread, one hope of mine for this project is that, as the first "new" Alpha Octant technnology era to be created since Federation Commander was added to the stable of ADB product lines, whatever new ruleset is worked up to make second-generation X-ships work in Star Fleet Battles terms will be relatively seamless in terms of being used as the basis for a conversion to a would-be "X2-Ships Attack" module for FC.
For example, I was wondering if the door was being left ajar at this point for some sort of re-imagined "warp gearshift" concept for X2-ship warp engines. Say, if a Fed XCA had a pair of 16-box warp engines: these could produce a 1:1 amount of warp energy at Speeds 0 to 15; a 1:1.25 amount at Speeds 16 to 23 (so 20 points of warp energy); and a 1:1.5 amount at Speeds 24 and up (producing 24 points of warp energy). Not coincidentally, these would match the Baseline Speeds to which ships are set over in FC. And also, perhaps the higher the warp ratio, the more expensive it could be to fly the ship backwards?
SVC: THERE IS A LOT TO DO FOR FC BEFORE THAT BECOMES A QUESTION.
So far as X2-ship weapons go, I was still thinking about "borrowing" some of the firing modes for certain weapons in FC to augment - but not to replace - their pre-existing options in SFB. For example, perhaps the X2 ESG could add a single-impulse "burst" mode (where the ship literally generates an "expanding sphere" of energy), while the X2 PPD could add a single-impulse "rapid-fire" mode (up to four wave-pulses in a single impulse, but not overloadable in this mode).
SVC: I HAVE NOT RULED THIS OUT.
While I appreciate that there are more than a few SFB fans with no interest in FC (and vice versa), I would yet argue that, if the SFB version of a given X2-system turns out to work just as well using an "FC-friendly" mechanic than not using one, I might prefer the option that makes things easier to convert than the option that doesn't.
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So will 'dead giraffe' become the new Hell, no?
;)
Let’s say I am upping my game.
Well, that was a definitive response to my post, I had not intended to provoke such ire, I had merely thought to add a direction to the conversation that seemed to be being overlooked.
That being said however intention is not action, and so I sincerely apologise for the offense I have given.
I will refrain from repeating my mistake.
Jim
Ire? I presented no ire. You made no mistake that I saw. I even agreed to consider some of them.
Having invoked SVC's ire before, not only was that not ire, but it was the opposite of ire. That was an immediate response that reacted favorably to the suggestions and highlighting what could work and what won't.
That said, I think using the ability to purchase a deceleration or acceleration in X2 would be cool and a new dynamic. Do note that the request was only for an acceleration in an impulse that would otherwise have no movement, not for a double-move. Both of those would help give X2 a different feel.
I can go with no double move.
There should be an increase in phaser power
SVC: WELL, THAT HAS BEEN SORT OF ASSUMED FOR YEARS. I DO NOT THINK WE NEED A NEW KIND OF PHASER, BUT I CAN GO WITH MORE PHASER-1S, ALL PHASER-3S CONVERTED TO PHASER-1S, AND PHASER-1S ABLE TO FIRE AS TWO PHASER-3S AGAINST GUNBOATS, FIGHTERS, SEEKING WEAPONS.
Just following up on some of the comments people have made, I just would like to remind everyone that X2 (like X1) is supposed to lead to the decline of attrition units (PFs, Intruders, Bombers, fighters.)
One way that ***could*** be accomplished is by increasing defenses.
By that, I mean, is if X2 era ships are more resistant to fighters and PF weapons, there is less incentive to deploy attrition units.
Not sure how that was accomplished, but the history as published does seem to indicate that such an event did happen.
Question is, is it possible that X2 ECM might have been particularly effective against attrition units ECCM? If it is, it can’t be over powered. It can’t, say, increase the nominal range effects of “Natural ECM” way beyond whatthe existing rules already do. Perhaps it added a +1 nominal hex to range for all attrition units firing at X2 ships and bases. More than that would be OP.
I imagine other things could be done, just wanted to offer an example of what Effect is needed to make attrition units less effective vs X2 ships.
Jeff: not really true, that mostly happened during X1, not during X2.
one idea: eliminate phaser-3s and allow phaser-1s to fire as two phaser-3s but only at size5-6-7 targets.
GARY CARNEY POINTED OUT THAT X1 ALREADY DOES THIS.
I like the pulse phaser idea for Ph-1s. It forces decisions to be made on whether to use an existing phaser offensively or defensively and will help keep up with the drone/plasma empires, although at a cost. Perhaps also explains why intelligence analysts thought hypothetical Andromedan escorts (see other thread) might be able to do this since Galactic weapons development was working on it, albeit a ways away from success.
Phasers are already the most power efficient weapon in the game and I really do not want to see overloaded phasers make a comeback. Overloaded phasers render heavy weapons much less relevant and I want heavy weapons and maneuver to matter as this is what gives the various empires their flavor (i.e, dissimilar technology and thus tactics). Overloaded phasers rendered heavy weapons as secondary weapons and broke X1, hence their removal.
SVC CONCURS, NO OVERLOADED PHASERS.
If there is some other idea for what overloaded phasers means then perhaps that’s different but “bringing them back” in their prior incarnation is a firm no vote from me.
Here are my thoughts.
X2 is an extremely difficult and tricky proposition. Taking the W-era ships and comparing them to Y, and then Y to MY the progression is clear and logical when it comes to speed: more advanced ships go faster. Once you hit MY, you reach the speed limit of 31, and going faster becomes impossible (sort of) within the natural constraints of the game system. Eras later than MY give more energy to the ship, which doesn’t give it any ability to actually go faster, but allows it to fight better at faster speeds, and therefore can, in practice, move quicker than the average combat speed of the ships that preceded them while still respecting the 31 speed limit. X1 starts to push the limits of this. A CX has 42 warp engines and 2 AWRs, with 4 photon torpedoes it can use standard loads and still easily hit the speed limit of 31 with plenty of energy leftover. Quickloads and overloads are a bit more energy intensive, but the ship can still go speed 29 and let off a standard photon volley every turn with quickloads, or an overloaded one every other turn. If X2 follows the logical progression, and say, gives the CX2 50 warp engine boxes (plus 2 AWR), then the CX2 will end up in the territory of being able to fight at 31 with some combination of quickloads and overloads every turn.
I think that this is a problem for a couple of reasons. One, as others (including Steve Cole) have pointed out, more boxes just make SSDs a mess. Two, it really seems to kill the whole tough choices during energy allocation dynamic that makes the game interesting. When you can afford to do everything, you lose the pressure of making every point of energy (or fractional point) matter. The tactical situation goes from “do I pay to charge my heavy weapons this turn or maintain the initiative and guarantee that I get to choose the distance we fight at?” to “should I fire my quickloaded photons at a low or high overload threshold while going the only speed that matters, 31?”
I see a few possible answers to this, but I’m going to discuss that a bit further down.
The speed question is inextricably tied to the offensive power question. Give a ship more power and you increase both. The expectation is that both speed (or at least effective combat speed) and offensive power will increase as X1-era ships give way to X2, and that means problems since it starts to bump up against the natural barriers created by the game system itself. Steve Cole is pretty against double-moving ships, and I agree. The game was meant to operate on 32 impulses, and any time something requires more than one movement on one of those impulses, it begs the question of why we’re using a 32 impulse system to simulate it at all. Speed 40 seeking weapons already strain the system by having unintuitive jumps and jerks as they race across the board, and having ships do the same thing would basically make the whole movement system an unintuitive mess of unfluid skips and hops by every counter. If the game is to have faster than 32 speeds, then it cannot be for every single item on the board, unless the turns consisted of more than 32 impulses. Although this would solve the issue of faster-than-32, turning the impulse movement chart into a chart with 36, or 48, or 64 impulses would dramatically change the game in ways that I think are (and should be) beyond the scope of any X2 project.
So speed must increase, but it shouldn’t increase beyond 31 (or maybe 32?). And so we’re left with the same tools that increased the speed of ships post-MY, which are to add more power to the ships so that while the ships have the same speed-limit, they have higher effective fighting speeds. But we can’t simply dial up the power because then we destroy the tactical pressure of energy allocation. It’s a conundrum.
Manoeuvring (by which I mean things related to movement other than speed) is probably the most soluble of the X2 design challenges, but still must be treated with care. There are many proposals, some in this reopened topic, that could work. Simply decreasing the wait time between mid-turn speed changes, and increasing the TAC abilities seem obvious although I’m not sure of their effects on balance or fun. HETs could become more freely available, or more HET-like manoeuvres could join the stable of options available to a captain. A dangerous breakdown-risking burst of speed within a single impulse could be an option (violating the no-double-moving paradigm, since the lag bolts have yet to be drilled into that door maybe it’s worthy of consideration). A less dangerous semi-HET that is limited to a 60° turn and doesn’t interact with turn-mode could be useful. Maybe a more forgiving version of the emergency deceleration could be available to X2 ships? It might be worth putting minimum speeds on new manoeuvres to keep them from enabling the ‘sit-and-spin’ necessary for an effective starcastle.
I think that when it comes to manoeuvre though, the greatest challenge will be to not wreck manoeuvring by changing some aspect of the game somewhere else. Limited weapon arcs mean manoeuvring is necessary, whereas wide weapon arcs diminish its importance for instance. Accidentally enabling starcastling is always a danger, and the more tough ships are the greater the danger of that is, and since more energy makes ships more tough, the challenge of keeping the door to starcastling closed will be well, tough.
There’s also the problem of defence more generally. If X2 ships have increased offensive power, they need increased defensive strength, at least to some degree. One way is stronger shields, but that just puts more boxes on the SSD. I remember reading about the idea of an integrity field at some point when I first read this topic months ago, but I forget the details of it. I don’t really have solutions here, but I wonder how important defence really is? Surely X2 should be tougher than X1 on defence, but what if it was only 10% tougher instead of 33% or 50% tougher? Maybe the increased power is all that’s needed for making X2 tougher than X1 since shield reinforcement and ECM are now easier to afford? Maybe the weapons should outpace defences by some wider than previously available margin?
When it comes to the 50/200 solution to these and other problems, I’m not a fan. The most extreme version of the 50/200 solution would be to take a CA or CX (I’m sticking with the Fed for all of my examples, but you could plug in any empire) and simply write “second generation X ship” on it. I know for a fact that this extreme version is not the plan, Steve Cole has said these would be new hulls, and new designs previously. Still, 50/200 would leave an X2-era that played very much like whatever era it was most cribbed from, and in my opinion, risks ending up as a kind of pointless rehash of previous designs and eras. I’m fully ready to be wrong on this question, but this is what I fear.
Another thing that rubs me the wrong way about 50/200 is that it feels so… arbitrary. I’m not like most SFB players, so maybe I’ll be the only one who feels this way. I was born well after the original series was put to rest, and I’m not really a Star Trek fan. Since playing SFB I’ve started watching TOS (almost done season 2!), so it’s not like I’m totally in the dark, but prior to SFB I’d seen maybe four or five episodes of any version of Star Trek. I wasn’t drawn to the game because of the setting the way many others were. I was drawn into the game because it felt legitimate to me. It is a complex game, and it has all of the science fiction tropes represented in-game in well-thought-out ways. The idea of a transporter bomb tickled me when I first encountered it. Playing a simulationist game that created scenarios where a tractor beam was a completely normal and sensible tool seemed fantastic to me. The point is that the game was deep in terms of both tactics and rules, well developed, had a deep lore that I could sink myself into, and nothing about it seemed arbitrary. SFB to me feels like the best representation of what it would be like to be the captain of a space warship that I’d ever come across as a board game. I fell in love with this game because everything within it has a purpose, and the deeper I went the deeper there was yet to go. I can’t really defend why in great detail, but 50/200 seems to violate this feeling for me. I understand that it’s a solution for how to make X2 play nicely with X1 and earlier, but it just feels so arbitrary. Why do one ship’s phaser-1s do half damage? It can be explained away as hulls being tougher or whatnot, but it just doesn’t feel right, not as a flat denominator for all things at least. 50/200 might prove to be the best solution, and I’m fully ready to accept that, and maybe it won’t feel so arbitrary on the board. I haven’t spent 20 years thinking about the problem of X2, and some of you have (including Steve Cole), and so maybe I’ll come around one day to 50/200, but right now it just feels wrong to me.
My provisional answer, and I am not a game designer who has kept a company alive for four decades so please understand that I’m writing this with full humility, to the problems that 50/200 tries to solve, and to all of the X2 problems really, is to go back to the beginning.
Increase the X1 ship’s power output modestly, maybe even up to the 50 warp boxes that I laid out in the very beginning of this post (although a smaller increase would do), and maybe increase the shield boxes minimally, but don’t increase the other systems (maybe even cut some hull and other boxes out, since the shields are stronger). This will make the ships stronger than X1, and represent that increment in power and defence everyone expects. If no increase in warp boxes is desired, then as Gary Carney pointed out, the warp gearshift solution is there in a file drawer waiting to be tried, and it would allow for proportionally more available energy at high speed. This covers the power problem, and the defence problem.
For the offensive power problem, I propose pure blasphemy:
Put the photon torpedo to rest.
Replace it with something more power-hungry.
Rather than adding more photons (which is bad because it means more boxes), or doing nothing and allowing the power increase alone to take care of the increased offensive output (which is bad because it makes the game less tactically interesting at the level of energy allocation), replace the photons with some new weapon that still maintains the spirit of the photon torpedo (and if it must, the name), but which is as expensive for an X2 ship as a photon is for a MY ship. Something that takes 6 or 8 energy over two turns, but puts out proportionally more damage (non-overloaded) would give the CX2 a choice equal in consequence to the CA. Essentially, have a more powerful X2 ship that still plays like a (faster) MY ship, but with more options and higher tech.
A similar solution in spirit to 50/200 would be to give X2 ships new weapons and new defences to counter those new weapons. For instance, a post-photon heavy weapon that does 1 warp engine damage every time it penetrates a shield (or maybe every time it hits?) in addition to its normal damage, but that 1 extra warp engine damage isn’t applied if the anti-extra-warp-engine-damage-field is activated (and this field, which costs energy, is only available to X2 ships). This would achieve a similar effect to 50/200, but would feel more like it is legitimately simulating something (to me anyway). Maybe the anti-extra-warp-engine-damage-field doesn’t function below a certain speed to help kill the starcastle?
Anyway, that’s a summary of my thoughts on X2. I don’t have a clear idea of what I’d like it to be, and I mostly intended this post as a kind of exploration of different thoughts that I’ve had banging around in my head on the topic. If nothing else, I hope it’s useful for others to build something better and more concrete off of.
If X2 ships top out at speed 32, they would be vulnerable to X2 seeking weapons that go faster than speed 32 but could stay away from all pre-X2 seeking weapons except sabot plasma torpedoes.
Replacing the photon is a non-starter. Paramount would think we are trying to sneak in quantum torpedoes,
Confirm: no overloaded phasers.
Improved Proximity Fuse:
A "real world" proximity fuse on a SAM or air-to-air missile doesn't function at a certain distance from the target. It functions at closest approach. If the missile were going to score a direct hit on the aircraft, the proximity fuse would never function. The missile would fly all the way to the target and the impact fuse would detonate the warhead. (The preceding is somewhat oversimplified, and there are exceptions. But I regard it as generally accurate.)
So... at X2 the photon torpedo proximity fuses detonate at the warhead at closest approach. If the torp would have hit even with standard fusing (a die roll of 1-2 at 9 to 12 hexes, 1 at 13 to 40) the torpedo hits for the full eight points. If it misses by one pip, the warhead is six points. If it misses by two pips, the warhead is four points, just as current photon torpedoes.
Downsides - the X-tech photon already dominates the 31-40 range bracket. Yes, the disruptors on an X-cruiser range to 40, but only average 1/3 point of damage per shot. And X-tech frigates and destroyers are limited to 30 hexes with their disruptors. An X1 photon averages two points every two turns, three times the expected damage of an X1 disruptor (on a cruiser). And the Fed (and Tholian DPX) can contribute their heavy weapons firepower all the way to 40 hexes, unlike the F5X or F5WX. If this approach is adopted, the other X2 heavy weapons (especially "big plasma") will need long range upgrades to have a chance in the long range battle.
And even if such a solution would work for other empires' X2 ships, it might break things from the perspective of Fed X2 ships fighting against X1 and standard tech. I throw it out as an idea for consideration, fully aware that more careful analysis might prove it unworkable.
Upgraded Phasers:
Allow an X2 phaser-1 to fire twice per turn as a phaser-1 but with at last 8 impulses between the two shots. Firing twice as a phaser-3 would count as one of the phaser-1 shots. This means an X2 phaser-1 could fire four phaser-3 shots per turn, but with 8 impulses between the first two shots and the second two.