Jeff,
The concept works currently, though with only one Pseudo per launcher...

A ship with 2 or more tubes, could fire real plasma from one launcher and pseudo from another...
Then reverse it for the second live Plasma....

Not sure if it was just an idea or an X think way back when, that launchers could "Reload" Pseudos....

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - 07:20 pm: Edit

I am not much for other empire tech like leaky shield and rotating shield being used in 2X.

Perhaps the 2X ships can do critical hits (D8.0)
Using the (D8.2) Effect chart vs none 2X ships. (or a new/different effects chart)

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - 07:28 pm: Edit

X2 PPTs could be reloadable, taking time and energy.

X2 labs might be able to identify non-X PPTs as such...#smarternotbigger

By Kosta Michalopoulos (Kosmic) on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - 07:58 pm: Edit

Are 2X-plasmas and drones smart enough to "see" that a wild weasel is just a decoy? Maybe not if it's also a 2X-WW, but what if it's from an earlier generation of ships?

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - 09:00 pm: Edit

I like the current direction development appears to be taking as of SVC post on Saturday. I was thinking about what to do with the extra warp power (the 40 to 48 stuff), and about making ships more manuverable. This is what I came up with.

(This probably borrows from stuff mentioned elsewhere. It also borrows somewhat from Federation Commander.)

ADVANCED WARP MANUVERING - Second generation X ships able to execute a number of manuvers using their powerful warp engines. A ship may only make one of these manuvers in a 4 impulse period. (At most a ship may perform 8 such manuvers per turn.) Each of these manuvers cost warp energy equals to moving two (three?) hexes. This energy is allocated specifically for warp manuvers; reserve warp energy may be added during the turn. If not used during the turn, this allocated energy is lost. Warp manuvers are announced an the beginning of the movement phase, before any units move.

(1) WARP BOOST - The ship makes an extra movement on a impulse where the ship is not scheduled to move. This movement does not count as a hex for satisfying turn mode. (Turn mode is increased by one.) This can be done on the first impulse of the turn.

(2) WARP BRAKE - The ship cancels a movement on a impulse on a where is scheduled to move. This still counts as hex for satisfying turn mode.

(3) WARP DRIFT - When the ship is scheduled to move, this allows a ship to turn one hex short of meeting its turn mode.

(4) WARP TWIST - When the ship is not scheduled to move, a ship can turn in place if it has met its turn mode. (This reset the turn mode.)

(5) WARP LEAP - When the ship schedule to not move on this impulse and is scheduled to move on the next, the ship will move on this impulse and not on the next. This cannot be used on impulse 32 as ships cannot be schedule to move on impulse 1 of the next turn. (This does not effect the turn mode.)

(6) WARP DRAG - When the schedule to move on this impulse and is not scheduled to move on the next, the ship will not move on this impulse and will move on the next impulse. If used on impulse 32, the ship will move on impulse 1 of the next turn. (This does not effect the turn mode.)

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - 09:18 pm: Edit

The problem with tweaking any of the non-phaser weapons (heavy, drone, plasma) is that in order to maintain a balance, all of the non-phaser weapons will have to be tweaked. I got the impression from SVC's Satuday post that changing weapons was not part of option one; I could be wrong about that.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - 10:13 pm: Edit

A David Merritt

What are the X2 upgrades to the booth?

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - 10:20 pm: Edit

Beware adding too many gimmicks, it could be a nightmare keeping track of them all.

I like the idea of of 2X ships perhaps being immune to Wild Weasels and Pseudo-Plasma (even perhaps those from other 2X ships). Simplifies things and gives them an advantage without having to create a bunch of new rules.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - 11:18 pm: Edit

X2 upgrades for the Agonizer Booths are still undergoing field testing and evaluation.

Petrick’s initial specifications were, (psst... what did we say we were going to say?!?...) oh yeah.

Ummm the initial round of tests were “inconclusive”, analysis of the ashes (poke!) oh, yeah... the... remains(POKE!) ummm the test subjects did not satisfy the designed parameters.

Additional testing will resume when enough volunteers(POKE!!) ummm unhhh... enough test subjects have been collected to complete phase I of the testing program.

On another topic, the sonic ovens have been returned to the galley as the anticipated excess heat from the X2 Agonizer Booths were discovered to be too much for the oven cook ware. Several thousand pounds of melted roasting pans, oven racks, tongs, forks and other kitchen equipment have been sent to the reclamation area because they were too badly melted after the initial test runs.

Replacement equipment is on hold per web mom orders. (When Jean found out that her favorite oven mitts and trivets were damaged, she announced that “we will just have to find out what exactly MR. PETRICK has to say about THIS!)

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - 04:50 am: Edit

Perhaps X2 labs can make more than one seeking weapon identification attempt per turn? Maybe one every sixteen impulses?

By A David Merritt (Adm) on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - 06:05 am: Edit

Nick Samaras

There's only one way to find out, if you are not on either the designing and planning staff, or approving the design plans...

By Shawn Gordon (Avrolancaster) on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - 10:25 am: Edit

Here's an idea, one that I'm not even sure that I like, but I'd be interested to hear what others have to say:

What if X2 ships eliminated impulse engines?

We know that there was a long period (~Y1-~Y62) of sublight combat, followed by a long period of warp combat (~Y62-Y2??). In real world naval propulsion there was a long period of sailing ships, followed by a long period of combustion engine powered ships. In the middle between that sail power period and engine power period there was a period that saw hybrid sail-engine warships.

What if, in SFB, the period we're most familiar with (the W, Y, MY, GW, and X1 eras) is just the transition period between impulse and warp?

What if X2 ships had small backup centre warp engines (like on the CX saucers and DX booms) instead of any impulse engines at all?

If nothing else, it could represent how warp has become so reliable that auxiliary engine systems have become more of a hinderance than an asset, requiring an unnecessary secondary supply chain and logistics system.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - 11:10 am: Edit

Shawn: I appreciate the effort but I think impulse is too much a part of the game system to eliminate.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - 12:11 pm: Edit

Getting rid of Impulse Engines on X2 ships would change how the Damage allocation chart works for them.


Garth L. Getgen

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - 12:30 pm: Edit

All though I am long past the point where I care about the film/TV franchise's effect on the game I think it would be a tough to eliminate impulse engines when the franchise shows them still in use well past the time point of the game.

Also what happens if a ship had to drop its warp core or had no access to dilithium? It would have no back up means of movement.

By Douglas Saldana (Dsal) on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - 12:39 pm: Edit

I always thought of impulse engines as necessary for movement at sublight speeds. Is it even possible to move at less than the speed of light using warp engines? (excluding tactical maneuvers)

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - 04:09 pm: Edit

deleted

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - 07:00 pm: Edit

Impulse engines are also necessary for erratic maneuvering.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Thursday, November 26, 2020 - 12:01 pm: Edit

Positron Flywheel?

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, November 26, 2020 - 01:15 pm: Edit

Just use all of FC's movement options:
- the effect of the Positron Flywheel.
- the ability to gain an extra move in an impulse where you weren't going to otherwise move, and do this once every eight impulses.
- the ability to cancel any move at any time.
- all unused power is reserve, not just battery power.

Note that this is in the context of SFB's 32 impulses, not FC's eight.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, November 26, 2020 - 07:13 pm: Edit

In FC, the ability to use unused power as reserve power is limited by the ship's batteries, in the sense that the amount of specific reinforcement which can be fed into a given shield facing is limited by the number of batteries available. The playtest X1-rules in Captain's Log #53 allow X1-batteries to provide three points of reinforcement per battery. I suppose one could set up something similar in SFB for X2-ships, but I might sooner expect that to be on the table if/when "X2-Ships Attack" is eventually gotten around to.

While I'm usually in favour of seeing more "FC-isms" be reverse-engineered into SFB (even if only for the X2-ship era), I'm not sure I would go quite so far as to allow an X2-ship to use unused (non-battery) power as reserve power - not least if it turns out that X2-batteries were to hold five points of power apiece, which would in itself be a step up from the X1 era.

-----

Also, so far as I'm aware, the idea of a "warp core" is a post-1979 Franchise concept; in the SFU, a ship has all of the "stuff" that enables the creation of a tactical warp field in the warp nacelles themselves. (Based on the frigate deck plans in GURPS Federation, the main engineering room is placed in front of the impulse engines, which I would also wish to see retained on X2-ships.)

I wouldn't mind seeing the "warp pack" used for certain X2-era command cruisers, but I would prefer if "standard" heavy cruisers did not have them.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, November 27, 2020 - 07:04 am: Edit

Just how powerful are X2 ships supposed to be compared to X1? As a - VERY - rough rule of thumb, with lots of individual exceptions, an X1 ship seems to be intended to be about 33-50 % more powerful than its non-X counterpart. Are X2 ships intended to maintain a similar ratio over X1 ships?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, November 27, 2020 - 07:59 am: Edit

Alan: Something around 50% but I am not locked into a number yet.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Friday, November 27, 2020 - 05:30 pm: Edit

Gary, to be clear, I was not recommending that. I was recommending that all unused power be used as reserve power. That's it. What reserve power can be used for is otherwise defined by SFB, not FC. I am not recommending other ramifications within SFB other than that.

And, yes, having 3 points per battery dilutes this some, but it is still a significant improvement. I still recommend it.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Sunday, November 29, 2020 - 12:50 pm: Edit

Thought about shield upgrades. Magelinic shields with no inner shield come pretty close to being what I think we want.

Hard to reinforce which discourages star-castling and makes a weak shield matter more. Not too many boxes but it's 50% stronger than a normal shield against an alpha strike and even more resistant to minor plinking so clearly superior to X1 shields box for box.

After Unity, the Galactics should have access to the basic tech for these shields, and for "technobabble reason" they take out the inner shield in favor of stronger outer shields.