Was not aware haven’t really followed this thread I didn’t think it would work.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, December 04, 2020 - 05:59 am: Edit

ANSWERS ANNOTATED ABOVE

By Benjamin Kidd (Bakidd) on Friday, December 04, 2020 - 01:05 pm: Edit

Mike, per the discussions of replicator technology in Prime Directive and elsewhere, most of the goods shipped by freighter are either bulk goods it is not cost-effective to replicate or complex items you can't make with a replicator. Remember that part of "The Trouble with Tribbles" was that they were devouring grain being shipped in a freighter.

There is obviously a vast excluded middle of stuff you wouldn't ship--custom high value goods simple enough to be produced by a replicator--but the exact details are irrelevant for SFB purposes and entirely subect to plot demands on the RPG/Fiction side.

It's entirely plausible (for example) that due to a programming issue, Star Fleet replicators can generate a passable Tabasco sauce but can't get sriracha sauce right, leading to some interesting RP possibilities for a player who took "hot sauce connoisseur" as one of their qwirks.

Perhaps the next generation replicator technology on the X1 and X2 vessels was the *real* reason postings to those vessels were so coveted...

By Jay Gustason (Jay20) on Friday, December 04, 2020 - 02:47 pm: Edit

Can’t wait to see what the X2 bases will be like

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, December 04, 2020 - 03:25 pm: Edit

As long as they look nothing like Starbase Yorktown ......


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, December 04, 2020 - 04:15 pm: Edit

So, how many classes of X-2 ships are you considering?
SVC SAYS THERE IS NO HARD NUMBER.

Personal opinion here -- I can see a logic in having three basic ships based (loosely) on the CCH (CB / C7), the CW (NCL / D5) and the DW (F5W).
SVC SAYS WE WILL HAVE AT LEAST THOSE THREE.

Personally, I think the BCH is pushing the limits of what you can stuff into a cruiser-sized hull, so it seem that there's no room to jam X-tech in it. I also think the FF is simply too small for the cost of all the tech, so the smallest ship should be DW-sized.

As always, SVC may have other ideas.
SVC HAS NOTED THESE.

Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, December 04, 2020 - 05:35 pm: Edit

I suspect that we will have enough trouble getting X2 designed and printed that Journey to Draco will have to wait for a Captain's Log article.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, December 05, 2020 - 02:05 pm: Edit

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, December 05, 2020 - 02:09 pm: Edit

Sorry, I see I posted in the wrong topic. It should have gone into the police ship one.
SVC: THAT'S FINE, JEFF, THERE WAS NO WAY THE FLOWER VT WAS GOING TO BE PART OF THE Y206 POLICE DISCUSSION ANYWAY.

By Shawn Gordon (Avrolancaster) on Saturday, December 05, 2020 - 08:04 pm: Edit

X2 transporters
SEE THE DEAD GIRAFFE LIST.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, December 05, 2020 - 11:15 pm: Edit

I don’t think so.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Sunday, December 06, 2020 - 09:55 am: Edit

X2 transporters
SEE THE DEAD GIRAFFE LIST.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Sunday, December 06, 2020 - 01:27 pm: Edit

X2 transporters
SEE THE DEAD GIRAFFE LIST.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, December 06, 2020 - 03:30 pm: Edit

I said no. I have added "any X2 transporter penetration of shields" to the DEAD GIRAFFE list.

By Jay Gustason (Jay20) on Sunday, December 06, 2020 - 07:39 pm: Edit

Would there be any x2 ground bases

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, December 06, 2020 - 09:56 pm: Edit

Not small ones, and I don't see much point in building a starbase on the ground, so ... no.

By Shawn Gordon (Avrolancaster) on Monday, December 07, 2020 - 12:38 pm: Edit

Have you had any luck with X2 SSDs/the internal process you referenced?

Any lessons learned about what works and what doesn't with the current direction?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, December 07, 2020 - 01:17 pm: Edit

I have many things to do. The counters for five or six new products need to go to press on 2 Jan and the typical F&E countersheet has 280 counters which means 840 separate things to argue with the staff about. Jean is retiring at the end of the year and the revisions for GURPS K and GURPS R have to be done before her last work day which is a week from Friday. X2 is a product for the 2022 schedule so it's not as high a priority.

By Jay Gustason (Jay20) on Monday, December 07, 2020 - 02:27 pm: Edit

Would X2 ships be the size of dreadnoughts
SVC SAYS "NO"

By Jay Gustason (Jay20) on Monday, December 07, 2020 - 03:59 pm: Edit

Will shuttles change in. X2
SVC SAYS THIS MINOR DETAIL WILL BE WORKED OUT LATER. IT HARDLY MATTERS TODAY AND THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO WORK OUT FIRST.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, December 07, 2020 - 04:11 pm: Edit

One of the things I like about first-generation X-ships is that, in most cases, they serve as a vindication of sorts for "peacetime construction" starship designs.

While there are X1-ships based on "wartime construction" templates, such as the Federation NAX (R2.210) and DWX (R2.209) in Module X1R, they have certain drawbacks: they must be built as new construction and to "peacetime construction" standards, while they have reduced operational range and station-keeping capacity (which made them mostly impractical to bring on Operation Unity). And even then, in many cases they are tactically no better than the equivalent X1-hulls based on "peacetime construction" templates.

Of course, the Romulans and WYNs stand apart from this, but then their non-X "war" classes are themselves something more than their counterparts in other Alpha Octant star navies.

-----

Since the X2 era involves building a range of entirely new ships from the keel up, I'd wonder if it might be a case of going back to go forward.

As in, one might see X2-era heavy cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers, and frigates in and around Y205. But it might not be for another decade or two before enough is learned about X2-ship construction for the equivalent of a war cruiser or war destroyer to be rolled out. And even then, those ships might still have to be built using "peacetime construction" techniques.

So, perhaps one might place a more "balanced" set of X2-hulls for each Alpha empire in Module X2 proper, and save more "wartime-optimized" (if not quite "wartime construction") hulls for Module X2R.

I recall an idea along these lines being mentioned in the prior Module X2 thread, so apologies if this is something that has already been processed and weighed in upon one way or the other.

By Jay Gustason (Jay20) on Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - 09:41 pm: Edit

Reactors give two points of power

By Jay Gustason (Jay20) on Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - 05:11 pm: Edit

Shields could be double the strength

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - 08:03 pm: Edit

Maybe easier to let each shield box take two hits ... though that may lead to other problems ...

By Shawn Gordon (Avrolancaster) on Sunday, January 31, 2021 - 03:13 pm: Edit

I’ve consolidated a bunch of ideas in this thread into one (hopefully) more coherent design idea.

The basic idea is to have X2 do more with fewer boxes. I’m calling this solution “less is more.” We would have smaller SSDs, probably smaller than any other generation, but we would have each box do more.

I’ve done a mockup of what the X2 version of the Fed CA would look like. I’ve taken a look at what the Federation YCA, CA, upgraded CA, and CX are like and extrapolated. My estimates for what the capabilities of the X2 era CA should be are below:

	YCA	CA	CAR	CA+	CX	X2 CA
Warp	24	30	30	30	42	58
Impulse	2	4	4	4	4	6
Shields	80	138	138	150	200	306
Phasers	6	6	8	10	12	14
Ph-1	0	6	8	8	12	14
Ph-2	6	0	0	0	0	0
Ph-3	0	0	0	2	0	0
Photons	2	4	4	4	4	6
Reactors	0	0	0	2	2	2
Lab	6	8	8	8	8	10
Battery	4	4	4	4	5	6
Battery Power	4	4	4	4	15	30
Transporter	3	3	3	3	3	4
Hull	14	16	16	16	16	18
Bridge	2	2	2	2	2	2
Emergency Bridge	2	2	2	2	2	2
Auxiliary Control	2	2	2	2	2	2
Tractor	2	2	2	2	2	2
Probe	1	1	1	1	1	2
Shuttle	4	4	4	4	4	4
Drone	0	0	0	1	2	4

And here is the SSD that I threw together to give an idea of how it would look: X2 CA

As you can see, there are not a lot of boxes. Everything still gets knocked out by one point of damage, but each box does more.

In order to do X2 this way, the X2 version of each system would need to function a little differently.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Warp Engines
X2 warp engine boxes would provide 2 points of warp power each.

Impulse Engines
X2 impulse engine boxes would provide 2 points of warp power each.

Shields
X2 shield boxes work the same way as they do in other generations, notwithstanding any other changes made to them for other reasons.

Phasers
In addition to whatever other changes are made to X2 phasers, they would be able to fire twice within a 32 impulse period per box, either in rapid pulse or normal mode.

Photons, other heavy weapons
Same as phasers, they’d be able to fire twice in the same arming period, effectively making every heavy weapon a single box, destroyed by a single point of damage, but able to fire twice. In the case of photons that would mean that the ship I threw together in the link would be able to quick-fire six photons in a single turn.

Each type of heavy weapon would require specific rules written about how they’d work, but the basic idea is one box = two shots. There’d be no power discount, if you fire two photons from the same box, they’d each require charging.

Reactors
In addition to whatever other changes are made to X2 reactors, reactor boxes would provide 2 points of normal or warp power each.

Labs
In addition to whatever other changes are made to X2 labs, lab boxes would be destroyed on a single point of damage, but would function as two non-X2 labs each.

Batteries
The X2 battery rules in H5.5 are fine as-is. They can store warp power turn over turn, and can hold 5 points of power each.

Transporters
In addition to whatever other changes are made to X2 transporters, transporters would work like normal transporters, but could be used twice per box within a 32 impulse cycle.

Hull
Hull is hull, there would be no change.

Bridge, Emergency Bridge, Auxiliary Control
No change to bridges, emergency bridge, or aux boxes.

Tractors
In addition to whatever other changes are made to X2 tractor beams, tractors would work like normal tractors, but could be used twice per box within a 32 impulse cycle.

Probes
In addition to whatever other changes are made to X2 probe launchers, probe boxes would work like normal probe boxes, but could be used twice per box within a 32 impulse cycle.

Shuttle
No change to shuttle boxes.

Drones
In addition to whatever other changes are made to X2 drone racks, they would be able to fire twice within a 32 impulse period per box.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This solution, make each box do more, solves many issues that are inherent to the X2 project, but is on its own not a total solution.

Here’s what it solves:
With “less is more” the X2 generation feels noticeably different from previous eras, but plays by the same rules and requires no major overhauls to extant game systems (such as switching impulse chart sizes). This makes the ships more than just a previous generation with “SECOND GENERATION X SHIP” written on them, but also keeps the SSDs similar enough to previous generations for them to be plausible successors to the original iconic vessels of the SFU.

SSDs remain manageable, despite the tremendous jump in strength between X1 and X2. We don’t need any weird SSD management rules like crossing off boxes twice, or regenerating boxes, and can keep X2 SSDs functioning by the same logic as the rest of the game. The compactness of the SSDs with the “less is more” answer to the X2 problem reduce the size of the SSD (in terms of number of boxes) to below that of X1, and even to below that of the General War era. It’s very easy to increase the firepower of the ships without what feels like the arbitrariness of the 50/200 solution. X2 ships are able to be as strong as desired using the same mechanics that exist for the rest of the game.

Should SVC choose, this compactness would allow for size class 2 X2-ships. My understanding is that the reason that SC2 X2 ships (and X1 ships) were nixed was due to the unmanageably high number of boxes on each craft turning each SSD into an ugly, confusing mess. If SC2 X2 ships were killed for other reasons, so be it, but this solution opens the door to them if the main issue was SSD clutter, since the SSDs would be less cluttered than General War craft.

Here’s what it doesn’t address:
X2 ships (if we go by my numbers and my example) have too much power and too few things to spend it on. The total power of my X2 CA is 66, which allows for the ship to go speed 31, fire a salvo of 6 fast-loaded photons per turn, recharge 7 phaser capacitors, and have four points left over for shields, fire control, and life support. SFB is fun when you can’t do everything at once. X2 ships, regardless of whether or not ADB decides to go with “less is more” can do everything at once. This problem can be solved, but it would have to be solved in addition to “less is more.”

This also doesn’t address starcastling, which will require other solutions to prevent. I think it was Jeff Anderson that suggested the positron flywheel, which might work. Either way, the starcastling problem that contributed to original X2’s death and memory-holing would need to be solved, and that solution would probably be just as difficult to invent with or without “less is more.”

Shields are out of control by generation X2. Look at the 306 shield boxes on my X2 CA. The X2 CA has 88 boxes on the ship itself and 306 shield boxes. There’s just too many shield boxes in my opinion. Someone will have to come up with a way to improve shields without increasing the number of boxes, I was toying with the idea of a capacitor that you recharge like a battery, and that rapidly repairs shield boxes, but I wanted to keep it separate from “less is more.” If anyone has an idea on how to take the spirit of “less is more” and apply it to shield boxes I’m all ears.

Anyway, that’s my idea. I’d love to hear some feedback.