The Hydrans, seeing how useful escorts were in the direct attack role considered converting ship fusion beams to gatlings. Or mostly gatlings with one or two hellbores.

Advantages:
1) Fusion beams must be energized on the turn of firing, gatlings can use the Phaser capacitors.
2) Gatlings are useful vs drones and fighters.
3) Gatlings are less affected by EW.
4) Gatlings use the Phaser directional damage rule, so a shot from one angle probably won't kill them all.
5) Fusion overloads (and suicide overloads) have some of the worst power to damage rations of any weapons.

Disadvantages:
1) I can't think of any off the top of my head.

So on a Ranger, convert 2 fusion on the bow to Phaser G (FH +L/R arcs) and 2 to Hellbore.

No fighter bays are converted to power...

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Sunday, July 31, 2022 - 01:24 pm: Edit

Mike; a few questions:

Are you proposing this as a "real" developmenmt or a hypothetical "Stellar Shadows" development?

If "real", what YIS? When do the Hydrans switch over from their existing designs to these?

I note you are proposing this in The "X" Files. Is this only for X-tech ships or can standard-tech Hydrans also get this refit?

Speaking of refits, is this available as a refit to the already-built ships or can only new-construction ships be built to this standard?

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Part of me really likes this idea but I'm also concerned it may be "too" good.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, July 31, 2022 - 03:28 pm: Edit

Too good is why the last 2374 times this was proposed it went nowhere.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Sunday, July 31, 2022 - 03:54 pm: Edit

Besides fusion beams are effective out to range 10. Also look at the phaser1 chart vs the Fusion chart. The Fusion hits better at the longer ranges. At 9=15 ph1 hit 3,2,1 fus hits 3.2.1.1 ah now yes fire only every other turn but still

Now close range they ae better then PH1 out past range 2 3-8 not as good.

And you want my fus to be gats. uhmm power cost for PH-G load 1 and hold for free, Fus 2 to load st, and 1 to hold after Y170. Overload for 4 points. (can be done with bttys.) So power curve goes to the PH-G

damage. Avg of 15 at range 0-1. 12 at range 2 and drops off at 3 any kind of EW shift and range 4 or better not good at all. Fus st.. 9,6,2 ranges 0-3 then but hits a 2 out to range 10 and 1 out to 15.
Overloads make it as good as a PH-G at range 0 a bit less at range 1 for even more power. So the PH-G is better in most cases. Only at a longer range and then the FUS is well still sucky.

Unless You have 6st2 and a ranger... with 16 fus beams and 2 hellbores.. no shift... ah well

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Sunday, July 31, 2022 - 04:31 pm: Edit

I just can't imagine ever getting rid of a weapon that can "suicide overload"! I mean, really, how can you go wrong? Someone's not coming home, that's for sure.

--Mike

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Sunday, July 31, 2022 - 05:25 pm: Edit

"What if more gatlings" had only ever ended well once, and replicating the awesomeness of the LDR is a very high bar.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, August 01, 2022 - 07:44 am: Edit

I am saying that in the late X/ early X2 era that the Hydrans might consider this as an option.

Instead of 4 fusion would YOU rather have 2 hellbore and 2 more gatlings on the cruisers?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, August 01, 2022 - 09:52 am: Edit

Sounds like a bunch of SSDs few would pay for. Dangerously divides the player base into those who like weird stuff and those who do not. Hellbores take power, and gatlings just do not grow on trees. The Hydran fleet already has as many gatlings as it can build so anything that adds gatlings is DHOA.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Monday, August 01, 2022 - 11:24 am: Edit

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Quote:

Instead of 4 fusion would YOU rather have 2 hellbore and 2 more gatlings on the cruisers?

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By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, August 02, 2022 - 07:49 am: Edit

OK.

Note that this was specifically aimed at the late X, early X2 era.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Tuesday, August 02, 2022 - 10:35 am: Edit

In my opinion:
If you want hellbore-only Hydrans, you would need to make a few trade-offs to make it work:
- No extra gatling phasers; what they have is what they get.
- No fighters not on CVs (and maybe escorts). Even if the hellbore-only ship ordinarily has fighters (e.g. Dragoon), those are lost (along with their shuttle boxes) in a hellbore-only fleet.
- Mixed weapon non-command hulls are eliminated (e.g. Cheyenne).
This gives a more balanced approach and doesn't try to get "best of both worlds". If the Hydrans choose hellbores as their only heavy weapons, there must be trade-offs.

Command ships have their own guidelines:
- Start from the "hellbore" version (if any).
- A ship has as many hellbores as a comparable Klingon ship has disruptors. (E.g. the DN gets six; the BCH keeps only four.)
- Any remaining fusions are converted to Ph-1s.
- All fighters are eliminated (not on carriers).
- Some now-empty shuttle boxes are converted to APR, but no more than would be carried on their base hull. (So a CC cannot have any more APR than does the Dragoon.)

Here's my version for GW-era ships. However, the above guidelines would still likely apply to X-era versions.

Do note that the reason this is on my website, rather than a CL, or ePack or something, is because this was rejected. That means that either the entire idea is unworkable, or even my guidelines are not strict enough. Either way, hellbore-only Hydrans can't be any better than what I've done.

Do note that many Hydran players actually like their Fusion beams and fighters. Taking those away does affect the character of the Hydrans and removes a huge portion of what makes them unique. A hellbore-only Hydran fleet becomes very conventional and much of their unique flavor is lost.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Tuesday, August 02, 2022 - 02:51 pm: Edit

Didn't Module X1 state that fusions on X-ships weren't effective and production switched to the hellbore versions exclusivly?

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Tuesday, August 02, 2022 - 07:45 pm: Edit

WELL with X ships You get 3 box BTTY and latter 5 box BTTY? so load the fus.. hold for 1 point. Charge in and use the BTTYs to overload or suicide load them?
A mauler with a few extra shots?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, August 02, 2022 - 11:31 pm: Edit

With X-ships you get X-rolls!

By Tim Longacre (Timl) on Sunday, August 07, 2022 - 10:49 pm: Edit

"Didn't Module X1 state that fusions on X-ships weren't effective and production switched to the hellbore versions exclusivly?"

If memory serves my correctly, it was stated that Hydran x-ships with fusion beams were quite effective against non-x-ships, but they were less than adaquate against other x-ships which is the reason that production was switched over to hellbore equipped x-ships.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, August 08, 2022 - 08:12 am: Edit

SVC hath spoken, so tis decided... Alas.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, August 08, 2022 - 02:13 pm: Edit

What, you don't like X-rolls?