Archive through May 19, 2003
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board: The "X" Files: OLD X2 FOLDER: Major X2 tech changes for the BIG players : Archive through May 19, 2003
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 12:01 am: Edit

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MJC's proposal is reasonable but given the intermixing going on during the Andro war, I figure all the races would get the Ph-V about the same time due to their own experience and research and passing of technologies through spies or pirates.


To be more precice I'ld like the earliest productions on the Klingon X2 cruiser to be like the D6 and the general war, the Klingons has one shipyard producing D6s right through the egeneral war.
So too one Ship yard should produce Boom Phaser-5s and the other Boom Phaser-1s until the need is seen for a refit of those lesser ships.
In this way you can mix and match as you see fit.
The Ph-5 boom phaser on account of the fact that in a high EW enviroment the all Ph-1 ships will get cruicified and the cheaper ship that allows you to buy more drone upgrades.


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Further I would suggest that a ship must be designed to mount the Ph-V or we will get every body wanting to refit the old ships with Ph-V's if refitting is shown to possible.


The Klingon production plan must always have held room for replacing the Ph-1s with Ph-5s because a 12Ph-5 Fed XCA is going to truely "murderalize" a 12Ph-1 Klingon Cruiiser...and it doesn't take much insight to see that since the CX had 12 phaser and the XCA has Ph-5s that the Feds plan on holding the capsity to feild someday a 12Ph-5 ships.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 08:02 am: Edit

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Myself, I'd prefer all P5's on the wings and boom, and P1's on the waist. That's just me, though.


Just on that, playtest will be the judge but I don't think it's such a good move.

In a general oblique the KLingon could point all of those Ph-5s, 8 of them, at a target.
This becomes difficult for the standard Federation ship to oppose having only 6 of her 8Ph-5s being brought to bear.
Additionally the perfect oblique by the Klingon will cause 8Ph-5s + 2Ph-1s to strike and that will infact generate 0.833 points of damage more than the fully phasered up 9 of her 12Ph-5s federation oppoent will generate.
Whilst not a game breaking effect one would wonder, after the boom and wing phasers have been refitted to Ph-5s why spend money on refitting the waist phasers when X2Ph-1s provide the same capsitor power to the entire phaser array, are cheaper to buy and easier to repair?


.


On the other hand I do like the idea of having Wing and Boom Ph-5s on some ship designs.

Consider a GSV and D6D analog for the X2.
Take the waist phasers and replace the pairs each with trios of X2B-racks.
Remove the Drone racks from the shuttle bay and replace them with something handy like the tractors from the boom.
Then replace the boom tractors with Special sensors.

Instant D6D or GSV analog.


.


Alternately one could take that design, refit the vessel with all Ph-5s ( that is the boom and wing phasers ) and mount on the fifth and sixth Disruptors and replace the Special Sensors with X2G-racks.

Instant D7D analog.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 09:40 pm: Edit

Just to be clear, I think a boom Ph-5 refit for the Klingon ships (availible for VERY early on ) is helpful; partly it helps against the Crunch factor of the Fed Photons (although 4 +2UIM R8 Overloaded Disruptors will generate on average 24 points of damage and 4 fastloaded 12 point R8 Photons will also yeild an average damage of 24 so the Klingon doesn't need to much extra help and since 1X2E-rack + 2X2B-racks will proabbly beat 2X2G-racks it proably doesn't need any crunch power offsetting) and partly because the Ph-1s will be more strongly effected than the Ph-5s by the EW effects of Asteroids, Dustclouds, Nebulae and the ubiquetous ECM drone module.


Actually this crunch power idea brings up an interesting idea.
What is the net effect of Disruptor Caps...sure they make the ship go faster, but how much damage does that result in?
Four OL R8 +2 UIM shots will average 24 points of
damage (4 x 6/6 x 6).
On the follow up turn, a fairly standard R15 or less Standard shot will generate a further 8 (4 x 4/6 x 3) points of damage.
SO we might actually be looking at 32 points of damage most likely spread over two shields.
But the Disruptor caps let us move faster (particularly if linked to the Phaser caps) so we might actually get to R8 again and thus generate another 24 points of damage.
So the Disruptors are probably looking not at generating 32 points of damage over two turns but more like 40.

With better turn modes and better phaser arcs and better disruptor arcs and with a lower arming costs ( 4+4 instead of 6+6 ) the Klingon ship may not actually need the extra crunch power offsetting capasity of a Ph-5 boom refit, but it's very likely not to need a full boom and wing
Ph-5 refit.

Furthermore when the Klingon is refitted to 6 Disruptors instead of 4.
6 O/L +2UIM Disruptor shots will generate 36 ( 6 x 6/6 x 6 ) points of damage on the on turn and on the off turn even if it only gets an R15 shot will generate 12 ( 6 x 4/4 x 3 ) points of damage which means the Klingon Disruptors are generating the same damage as the 24 point Photon array of the Fed even if it doesn't vist any closer than R15 on the off turn.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 11:13 pm: Edit

This seems to be the place to post Fed ideas.

Here's one that seems VERY Fed to me.

The "Bag of Tricks."

For X2, the Feds combined mine storage space, probe storage space into a single area.

To make most efficient use of this space, the Feds standardized the size and shape of T-bombs, drogues, probes and a small, thightly packed subspace controlled fighter.

They found it a handy place to store there and all manner of similar small devices that could give them an edge in any situation, be it research or combat.

A Fed XCA has 12 spaces of storage.

Each space of storage can hold:

A T-bomb and dummy (limit 6)
A probe rounds (must have 3 rounds)
A Small captor mine and T-bomb dummy (at 4x listed BPV value in section M - T-bombs + captors can't exceed 6 total)
A transporter/tractor passive repeater system
A spare drogue
A small RC fighter (uses 2 spaces, limit 2)
Other interesting things I haven't thought of.

To make things useful, the probe launcher was retooled to admit any of these items. It was upgraded to be able to fastload anything besides the antimatter charge on a probe in one turn for 2 warp. It can launch any of the items that can be stored in the space. Probes have their own specified range. All others may be places using the probe launcher up to 8 hexes away and must be placed in at least an adjacent hex. the probe launcher is considered to have a FA arc for these purposes. The RC fighter may only be placed in an adjacent hex.

The RC fighters are pre-packaged the same way MW drone warheads are. I will try to define two or three configurations. No changes to fighter drone loadouts may be made. The fighters may be unpacked for their drones but, like MW warheads, this destroys the fighter.

(and yes, Loren, I am at least partially reclaiaming the RC fighter idea from the Klingons. I'm not sure which race it's best at so I'm hedging my bets)

Thoughts?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 11:23 pm: Edit

A.D.B. already has seen my Probe launcher can drop T-bombs rule...they said it was sweel but it'ld require a new edition ( altered reprint ) of the rules to get publised and that that wasn't forseeable in the near future.

Getting more use from the Probe will be good, but I'm not sure if the Radio Controlled fighter is a good idea and I'm not sure if the spaces are required.

Even just CAN LAUNCH DUMMIES would be a move ahead of the Probe hurling T-bombs as I had them.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - 11:54 pm: Edit

Well there's a perfect opportunity to implement probe-launcher usage with X2.

The probe launcher would have to be able to launch real T-bombs to make dummies work.

*I* like RC fighters, anyway. Kind of similar to the RC drones the US is deploying in real life.

As for the combined spaces, that's the fun part of the proposal. :)

This proposal is Fed-only in case that wasn't made clear.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 08:48 pm: Edit

I would like to make some comments on the X2 Bridge as Special Sensor.
It should be able to do all ofthe following.


G24.22 Breaking Lock-ons
G24.222 The Breaking lock-ons was difficult to acheive for the developers until the starting taking some of the system data feed from the Aegis sensors. Unfortunately this means that an X2 ship using hger bridge as a Special Sensor may only perform the task of lock-on breaking out to range 6.

G24.23 Attracting Drones

G24.24 Controlling seeking weapons

G24.25 Identifying seeking weapons

G24.26 Detecting mines

G24.27 Gathering Information

G24.29 Tactical Inteligence


I think that all of these will be needed by the ship.
Partly because she needs added drone defense due to the effects of reducing the number of Phasers whilst keeping the number of rapid pulse shots static ( or slightly increasing them ) and partly because she needs to be able to deal with monsters better for her BPV.


As a side note.
How do people feel about requiring the Bridge as Special Sensor energy to be added to the Active Fire control line of the EAF ( you need Fire control paid for anyway to run the special sensor ) so in that way we can avoid adding an extra line to the EAF.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 09:27 pm: Edit

MJC:That is basically the way I first proposed it. Since then the first two have been questionable (Breaking Lock-ons and Attracting Drones). Playtesting of X2 in general will probably tell if those should be eliminated or made available.

My personal concern is those two abilities become major factors in squadron level games. For now, I have eliminated those from my own X2 designs. I'm cool with putting them back if it's found to be needed.

Re. the EAF. That makes a lot of sense. I hadn't thought about it yet but that's probably how it should be.

SO the ASIF is powered on either Life Support or Shields. And Special Bridge Functions are powered on the Fire Control line.

That about covers the need for powering the extra technologies. And with no change to the EAF. Excelent!

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 10:52 pm: Edit

Breaking lock-on is very powerful...you don't get the drone headded your way like attracting drones and you get three shots per turn...even though you have a 2/3 chance of success that'll average out to two drones per turn rather than the 1 of attracting...that's why I'ld like to serverly limit nreaking lock-ons by putting in the R6 restriction.

So 6 X2 vessels can break about 12 lock-ons per turn...I'm not sure if that is a problem...X Feds'll be hurling 2 drones per turn per ship so it comes out even...of their abouts and Klingons and Kzintis will do better so you'll need some kind of other drone defense...like Phasers.
The 2CVAs and DNH that are in a equal sized BPV GW fleet will certainly be able to launch more than 12 drones per turns, so I'm not sure if a squadron sized engagment will be more of a problem than in a duel.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 10:30 am: Edit

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Actually, only the first four photons were at range 5. The second four were at range two. Standards at that range hit on a 1-5. Nothing going on with the tables...just pretty good rolls.



Still 625 out of 20,736 is pretty good luck.


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But, against GW, it's way off. No single GW ship save a BB could handle getting smacked by 80 points of photon damage, plus the phaser damage.


That's not a problem, So long as the XDD and XFF match up with GW ships there shouldn't be a problem.
80 points of damage is not that much, it's hardly anything really, a Gorn CCX can chuck out 280 points if it chooses to envelop or 140 if if uses standards...every second turn...at R10!


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You have to hit me seven times to touch my hull. If you did 10 hull hits, I'd loose four. On the next turn, I could loose another four. All this time, all those things AFTER hull on the DAC haven't been touched. But someone with less hull won't last so long, and will start taking more damage more quickly.


That's a pretty iffy A.S.I.F B.T.W., you have one hull box left and keep powering it every turn and stops 6 points of damage!
That gets close to one of the problems Steve Cole said, any ship and any weapopn should be able to harm these ships and that kind of A.S.I.F. just builds a hurdle that the GW ships will have to climb over.
Much better make the hull boxes ( all of them ) take double damage to destroy but if the last point of damage in a volley is applied to Hull then the hull boix is destroyed, this mean that even if the enemy only does one point of internal damage to you he still destroys something.

The otherthing to avoid is to make the power costs and capasities of the A.S.I.F. to be flat or uniform.
The A.S.I.F. should priovide it's own BPV value based on being mounted on that ship and the it's ownb power cost for that ship and protective capability for that ship.
That way ships with few hull boxes are also cheap to buy and cheaper to run, which'll counter balance the ships with more hull and therefore a better A.S.I.F.!


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Didn't use other defensive systems, mostly because none have been really well defined yet. Might work on the shield shunting thing for next time, though.


I like Caps-to-SSReo, the name says it all.


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1) Don't let a Fed get to range 8 when flying a Klingon. Dance, dance fast and dance faster.
2) Play with EW.


Yeah, I wondered why "Hal" didn't fire at R8...it was almost like he was afraid of the 20 point Photons.
So what if the Fed fires and runs away on the next turn, with all the Reserve warp power of the ship it won't be too hard to hit a rear shield with overloads if he does choose to fire and run.


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If powered on a ship with no hull remaining it absorbs one hit each turn before internals can be fed through to the next column.


That's probabaly bad, X2 should have a flavour of being power for a little while and then spiralling down if it remains in battle too long...it's supossed to be a different flavour to a 410 BPV BBH.


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Here the thing about the disruptor. The UIM/DERFACS integration does not increase the chance to hit over previous versions. These systems are already there. THe only thing integration adds is durability of the UIM (one for each disruptor that can't be H&R'ed). THe best thing is that is simplifies the firing chart and you don't have to decide or announce the firing mode. In X1 UIMs can break down but they have no effect/penalty on the systems (so it is possible to run out but you usually get three. It is probably rare to loose all three in one scenario.) In my presented version of theIntegrated Disruptor UIM burnout is not an issue and this is really only a minor improvement givin the previous comment.



Actually that does create better output, after 18 turns or there abouts ( fewer for the DDs and FFs ) the X1 will be unable to fire in UIM mode ( fewer if there are H&Rs so the final Output of the weapon over say 48 tursn will be higher of the X2 Disruptor than the X1.
Disruptor Caps + Intergrated UIM & Defracs + a 6 Impulse Double Broadside penalty is about all the Disruptor needs to keep up with the photon, even the 24 point Photon but especially the 20!


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EW will temper both weapons (Disruptor and Photon). I agree with the assesment of the Photon though you did get a little lucky on the rolls and the Klingon should have danced for four to six turns.


I wonder how bad the Klingon would look if you take a look at the SSD and work backwards subtracting out the 40 points of Photon damage you did more than average at the first exchange...probably a lot better.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 10:43 am: Edit

I've been thinking about small improvements to the firing arcs of the X2 ships.

What if Both Klingons and Feds ( or maybe just the Disruptor users ) got some kind of arc extention.


So the FA weapons could fire through the FA arc AND through the left and fright L and R sections of the Klingon Wing Phaser acrs.

That way you'll get about 135° through as one big arc to fire through.


Could be a serious help the Klingon FA weapons!?!...but maybe they should be FA+L & FA+R and the Feds should get the slight increase in arc.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 11:49 am: Edit

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I wonder how bad the Klingon would look if you take a look at the SSD and work backwards subtracting out the 40 points of Photon damage you did more than average at the first exchange...probably a lot better.



Well, first of all, it wouldn't have been an average of forty. On a 1-4, it's more like an average of sixty. As for how he could have looked, it also could have been much, much worse. On the second turn I only fired standards at ten points. Had I fired max fastloads, it would have been 15 points, for an additional 20 points of internal damage.

More playtesting is certainly needed, this is true. But 20 point photons feels a bit high, and 24 is definately too high. Had I hit him that first time with 24 pointers, he'd have suffered another 16 interanls...and at that point he was all the way into column E on the DAC, and loosing quite a lot of power and key systems. A 1-4 chance is pretty tempting for a 96 point narrow salvo...especially if you can follow up with another 64 points eight impulses later!

I absolutely agree on the firing arcs. In fact, the ones the klingon used were FH+R and FH+L. Very good, combined with the other improvements. I don't like the six impulse penalty for firing, though. That gives the disruptor user a very sizeable advantage over everyone else, giving him a chance to nail you before you can fire back if you both fired near the turn break. The improvements we have honestly seem to be enough.

As for Hal not firing at range 8, I don't know why he didn't. I expected it, and had planned for it, but he chose to close range a bit more. I certainly would have, and on our next match when I'm the klingon, I will.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 03:32 pm: Edit

Well, fire one anyway.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 09:56 pm: Edit

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More playtesting is certainly needed, this is true. But 20 point photons feels a bit high, and 24 is definately too high. Had I hit him that first time with 24 pointers, he'd have suffered another 16 interanls...and at that point he was all the way into column E on the DAC, and loosing quite a lot of power and key systems. A 1-4 chance is pretty tempting for a 96 point narrow salvo...especially if you can follow up with another 64 points eight impulses later!


Yeah well, now you have me confussed.
At R5 with 24 pointers you should be hitting on a 1-3!

The "follow up" 64 points is nice, which is exactly the reason for the 6 impulse turn break delay.


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I absolutely agree on the firing arcs. In fact, the ones the klingon used were FH+R and FH+L. Very good, combined with the other improvements.


I'm not sure that the Klingon XD7 should get the full D5 Firing Arcs but something more than 120 degress would be nice.
It'll reduce the need for a perfect oblique, you can do the same damage by going "slightly past" and that'll be marginally easier to organise.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 10:21 pm: Edit

I gave my design (K-XBC) FH disruptors.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 10:24 pm: Edit

M.R.:

You might want to mess around with the Klingon having an X2E-rack for drone defense as that will free up more of your own drones for offensive work reducing the Fed phaser capasity.

Another Option is to go the full 12Ph-5 Fed and see if that's balanced against the 6 Disruptor, 12Ph-5 Klingon.


I suspect that that is the point where parity is acheived.

The Y205 Klingon X2 cruiser is supossed to be weaker than the Y205 Fed Cruiser because their ecconomy was so much more damaged by the General war.


After that battle you'll probably be seeing that 24 photons are the way to go...particularly if the Klingons have got 2X2G-racks and an X2E-rack against the Fed's 2 X2G-racks.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 10:29 pm: Edit

GX racks are a much better, more flexible choice.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 10:44 pm: Edit

Read my lips...2 X2 G-racks PLUS 1 X2 E-rack.


That kinda beats 2X2G-racks but doesn't raise the offensive potential of the drones by very much...I mean you could choose to let those extra type IX drones hit your ship.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 10:52 pm: Edit

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Yeah well, now you have me confussed.
At R5 with 24 pointers you should be hitting on a 1-3!

The "follow up" 64 points is nice, which is exactly the reason for the 6 impulse turn break delay.



Well, look at Loren's chart (the one I used). It has a slight change to the range bands, and R5 is the last range in the 1-4 bracket.

The six impulse delay (which I assume is in reference to the disruptor) isn't going to do anyone but a 2X klingon any good. Everyone else will get pounded.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 10:55 pm: Edit

An ADD would be a better choice. Potentially kill more than 2 drones a round, which is the E-rack's firing rate.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 11:19 pm: Edit

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The six impulse delay (which I assume is in reference to the disruptor) isn't going to do anyone but a 2X klingon any good. Everyone else will get pounded.


What a great idea, you mean something that will only help one race ( a mizia weapon because the Phaser don't get the capasity ) to offset the crunch power of fastloads.
It'll be great for the X2 Lyran and if the Kzinti don't get a DC then it'll be great for them, too.

Basically it'll be a device to offset some of the threat of Fed Fastloads for everybody who ain't a Fed, is on a Fed boarder and needs the help, Romulans can be fully cloaked long before the Fastload is ready and Gorn Fs ( particularly if X2 Plasma can fastload as Ls ) will do about the same damage back as the Fastloaded Photons.


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An ADD would be a better choice. Potentially kill more than 2 drones a round, which is the E-rack's firing rate.


What's a round?

The E-rack can fire a Type VI drone four times in a turn 8 impulses between each shot, I would like the X1E-rack to take that down to 6 impulses between shots and the X2E-rack to go down to 3 impulses between shots.

I'm also not opposed to the X2E-rack ( or the X1E-rack ) firing as an ADD.

So the X2E-rack should generate the same or slightly better defensive potential than the X2G-rack but slightly lower offensive potential.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 11:22 pm: Edit

round = turn

And I thought the E only shot 2. I'll have to check my rules.

ADD's still better.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 11:33 pm: Edit

E-Rack can fire up to four type-VI drones per turn; one every eight impulses max.

The Klingons have a D5 based ship designed to kill Stingers. It has four E-Racks.

MJC: I think there is merrit to your Weapons arc proposal. Photons or not I can think of a few other weapons arraingements where a quarter arc might make sense. One reason I could see them not "Selling" is the added complexity that adding any thing adds vs. value (which is a SVC descision). Just my observation.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 11:38 pm: Edit

I would like to hear how you mark that out on a hex map without going to a "klingon firing arcs" sort of diagram.

Every other SFB firing arc has boarders that follow either a hex-grain or a hex-spine

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, May 19, 2003 - 12:18 am: Edit

The Right Forward Quarter would cover the #1 hex row and extent to the hex spline between the #2 and #3 shields.

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