From a background/fluff perspective I like the idea of the Galactics picking up technology and resources as an unexpected side benefit of Unity.

There's a (and whether this is conscious or not is another question) theme of convergence in the Galactic navies. Think about the various classes pre-GW.

What the heck is an F5? Is it a frigate? A destroyer? It's a Klingon ship that serves a role within the Klingon fleet structure, and it has only loose analogues in other navies.

What is a Fed DD? It's called a destroyer, but the bloody thing is more heavily armed than a light cruiser.

What is Dragoon? A carrier? A cruiser?

What is a Warbird, or anything Romulan for that matter?

Why do the Klingons have two Heavy Cruiser equivalents (D6/D7)?

The different navies in the early-to-mid eras are very different from one another, and as time goes on they converge. By the time you hit carriers, the carriers all have a national flavour, but they are more similar to each other than the old DN and CA fleets were. War cruisers/new cruisers/war destroyers are all quite similar to each other.

The pressure of the General War produced a convergent evolution in ship design.

As the Galactics defeated the Andromedans they connected Alpha to The Cloud and Omega. If the trend of convergence continues, it would only make sense that the X2 era sees a further and greater convergence with more and more empires post-contact. The opposite case, one where the fleets stay radically different from each other, makes less sense than the convergent case.

And it makes sense. Real world analogies exist everywhere with the convergence of military models around new technologies and tactics. The Spanish Tercio was only Spanish until it wasn't. The French entered WWI with short range, light, but accurate and mobile artillery, while the Germans entered with long range, less accurate, less mobile artillery, and everyone left that war with basically the same artillery and doctrines.

So, that's why I like the adoption of Magellanic technology.

Why I don't like it is that it threatens to make everyone's ships play too similarly.

The Magellanics are unique, and feel unique, in large part because they have unique shields (and lasers!). Taking that from The Cloud and sprinkling it everywhere threatens to make everything an undifferentiated experience. Klingons Vs Fed should feel very different than Klingons Vs Eneen. If they all use the same shields, that lessens the uniqueness.

Anyway, this is all to say I have mixed feelings about it, but I think the idea is neat. I'm interested in how others feel about it.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, November 29, 2020 - 04:50 pm: Edit

I will not be importing Omega or Magellanic technology into X2.

By Jay Gustason (Jay20) on Monday, November 30, 2020 - 12:56 pm: Edit

Why not have a new shield system your get one shield that surrounds the ship set number say 100 every time you get the number goes once it’s gone you start getting internals

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, November 30, 2020 - 01:48 pm: Edit

Directional shields are a key part of the game. One big 360 degree shield would eliminate maneuver and ruin the game.

By Jay Gustason (Jay20) on Monday, November 30, 2020 - 02:10 pm: Edit

Okay

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, November 30, 2020 - 06:18 pm: Edit

I could see some X1 freighters that function as auxiliaries. Or Q ships.

By Jay Gustason (Jay20) on Monday, November 30, 2020 - 06:57 pm: Edit

Would there be X2 carriers

By Jay Gustason (Jay20) on Monday, November 30, 2020 - 11:27 pm: Edit

X2 pods for tugs

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, December 01, 2020 - 12:29 am: Edit

X2 carriers: ONLY for Hydrans. Dead Horse.

X2 Pods for Tugs: Only for X2 Tugs. Dead Giraffe.

No X-freighters, No X-Auxiliaries. Dead Moose.

No X2-freighters, No X2-Auxiliaries. Dead Elephant.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Tuesday, December 01, 2020 - 03:44 am: Edit

Perhaps the X2 Photon torp can have the option of loading a proxy photon plus either a standard or overloaded photon in one photon tube. If double loaded the photon torp can fire both in the same turn (8 impulses apart).
Just some thoughts, I know some of the Federation X2 ships have already been done.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, December 01, 2020 - 05:45 am: Edit

No X2 ships have been done (I got side-tracked by another project before I could do the two I was going to work on), but two shots from one heavy weapon is not going to happen.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Tuesday, December 01, 2020 - 08:44 am: Edit

I got a little carried away with the Photon.

All good

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Tuesday, December 01, 2020 - 09:06 am: Edit

X2 Photon Torp,

An overloaded Photon that misses has an additional 1-4 chance of it being a near miss doing collateral damage of 4.

By Jay Gustason (Jay20) on Tuesday, December 01, 2020 - 10:04 am: Edit

Are regular fighters dead n the X2 area

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Tuesday, December 01, 2020 - 12:25 pm: Edit

Given the Federation has the GVX in first generatiton X-ships, I would suspect there will likely still be GW era fighters even in the 2X era.

As far as their being "Dead" goes, well, anyone who's flown fighters against even first generation X-ships knows they sure don't last long...

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Tuesday, December 01, 2020 - 01:26 pm: Edit

OK, I feel obligated here to make a partial defense of fighters (specifically, drone-armed fighters) even in the X1 (don't know about X2 - the ships and rules aren't published yet) era.

No individual ship, even a Kzinti, can come close to matching the sheer volume of drones that a "ship equivalent" fighter squadron can launch in a turn. Granted, fighters can't use X-tech drones. But the Kzinti, Klingons, and Feds can all field squadrons capable of launching 22 Type-I drones in a single turn, without resorting to remote control fighters. (This assumes one EW fighter in the squadron). An F-14C or F-14D squadron can launch 44! Type-III drones in a turn. (That's "44 is a lot of drones", not "44 factorial - which is orders-of-magnitude more drones than all three empires together could produce during the entire period covered by SFB".)

This is very expensive to be sure. And even a huge "pure drone" swarm, if that's all you have, is usually easy for mobile opponents to negate. But you use the drones in conjunction with your warships, closing in with phasers and overloaded disruptors or photon torpedoes. If the enemy shoots the drones, that's less firepower targeted against your ships. If he uses wild weasels, close in and blast him at point blank range with direct fire weapons before his fire control is back on line. If he falls back; well, that may be viable in some circumstances but in others he may be protecting something stationary or slow moving.

And those fighters (again - talking about the drone-using empires) can launch those drones at ranges from which even X-ships can't hurt them all that much. Nothing requires them to close with the enemy. So... no. I don't agree that fighters are not survivable in the X1 era. They are generally less useful than against standard-tech ships. And that plus the cost of all those drones may eventually make them "non-cost effective". But that's a different matter.

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Tuesday, December 01, 2020 - 01:43 pm: Edit

I would surmise that only the Hydrans would have X2 fighters. I would venture that a sightly better version of the St-TM would be a likely candidate. Perhaps a few more charges with mega fighter abilities built-in. I cannot see much more improvement while still remaining a heavy fighter.