The X-versions of CA/CCs and DDs got significant upgrades of various things (shields, weapons, power), while X-versions of the CWs did not. That is likely a reflection that the CWs were pretty much over-gunned and over-powered to start with, so there wasn't much room for further upgrades.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, October 05, 2022 - 05:44 pm: Edit

Mike,

It's true that CLX/CWX designs generally received less impressive shield upgrades that CCX/CAX designs (though some received pretty good shield upgrades, such as the Gorn HDD/HDX and Romulan SPH/SPX upgrades) but almost all CLs/CWs received at least a few extra shield boxes when they were convereted to X-tech.

And then there are the Tholians^* and Hydrans...


^*Note that the NeoTholian NCL did receive a pretty decent shield upgrade on the NLX.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, October 06, 2022 - 02:30 am: Edit

We evaluated each ship and gave it what was needed to be what it was intended to be. None of them are wrong, none will be changed.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, October 06, 2022 - 10:33 am: Edit

SVC,

Thanks for the quick response. Note that I wasn't asking that any of them be changed. Mostly I was just remarking that it struck me as curious that some (a very few) X-ships received no additional shields at all as part of their X-conversion.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Monday, October 17, 2022 - 09:12 pm: Edit

Why are slug drones more limited than armor drones when they're just armor drones themselves? It seems like they would even be general availability on the Lyran borders.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Monday, October 17, 2022 - 11:28 pm: Edit

Ginger,

Slug drones are only really useful verses one Empire, the Lyrans.
(I believe was the reason given once before for their availability).

By Jeff Guthridge (Jeff_Guthridge) on Tuesday, October 18, 2022 - 11:04 am: Edit

Ginger, that’s an interesting question. I can easily imagine the BurOrd folks having excrement fits over field commanders pulling the warheads out of perfectly good drones and replacing them with hard to obtain armor modules. Depleting two sets of inventories to no offensive gain.

I know it’s not a ‘sexy’ answer, but if you look back into the history of WWII, a sub captain came very close to getting court Marshaled over his removal of Mark VI magnetic detonators he was certain was junk. The BurOrd pukes got upset that their perfect weapon system was being torn down by an upstart captain that couldn’t hit the broadside of a fleet repair dock. (And who were conveniently ignoring the fact that premature detonations was WHY he kept missing).

Maybe that’s too gritty of an answer, it’s not rules based, just flavor.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Tuesday, October 18, 2022 - 02:23 pm: Edit

Why would commanders pull modules out? You know you'll have ships on the Lyran front. Manufacture the slugs directly and ship them out that way.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Tuesday, October 18, 2022 - 02:31 pm: Edit

Slug drones are really just a Kzinti thing for use on the Lyran border. In that circumstance, I could certainly see the Kzinti manufacturing a certain percentage of slugs as standard equipment on that front. They are really quite useful in countering ESGs.

--Mike

By David Jannke (Bigslowtarget) on Tuesday, October 25, 2022 - 12:04 am: Edit

Slug drones would probably limited if drones of the era use a modest draw on the antimatter in the warhead for power. Replacing the entire warhead would mean you pull your power/fuel source which means you need a replacement. A very small and stable one that won't explode even if it hits something. That does sound a little expensive and specialized.

I'm not drawing on old Captain's Logs or anything, just hypothesizing.

By David Jannke (Bigslowtarget) on Friday, December 02, 2022 - 02:04 pm: Edit

A proposal for 'Why' tbombs work as they do:

I was thinking of submitting this as a CL article but I'd like to get feedback on where it might conflict with rules I've missed.

The operation of transporter bombs

Transporter bombs are small devices capable of fitting inside shuttlecraft. When used they have an effect on every single target within a 70,000 km area, well in excess of every other known weapon. In operation they are most comparable to the self destruction explosion of a full frigate but when a ship with even six of them onboard detonates they do not add to the explosion strength. They themselves are not effected by a nearby explosion and are very difficult to detect when laid without the energy signature of transporters. How can this all be the case?

Transporter bombs do not create destructive power through the use of large masses of antimatter. They create their effect by creating a disruption through interaction with warp drives, impulse drives, and reactor containment within their targets. When a transporter bomb is triggered it destroys itself emitting a high intensity burst of energy in all directions. While this burst is not in itself highly destructive, the impact on active warp fields and reactor containment fields is immense. Interference between the fields creates numerous temporary and largely virtual particles between the tbomb detonation and power source fields. These particles not only impact shields or hulls at high speed but can be created inside other matter with destructive results.

Attempts have been made to build weapons around tbomb technology but as in weapons the fields are greatest near the emitter (and so close to a firing ship) they have been uniformly unsuccessful and on occasion fatal.

Being without power inside a Tbomb detonation radius does not protect you from damage. The materials that used to make up your reactors, impulse engines and warp drives is largely scattered around and through your ship and sufficient to cause creation of the disruptive particles though interaction with the fields created in a Tbomb detonation.

By their nature transporter bombs are unstable. The systems used to create the energy pulse require exotic materials that constantly create a disruptive effect on the fields around them. Larger ships are able to separate the individual devices and also better stabilize their drives and reactors against their inactive influences. Ships of cruiser size can carry as many as four tbombs, destroyers can only safely carry two. The disruptive effects of mines increases geometrically with their size so most ships of any size are unable to carry large mines without special equipment.

The nature of transporter bomb gives rise to other parts of their behavior. Their own dense and specialized exotic material shielding makes them immune to other nearby transporter bomb and self-destruction explosions. They do not impact planetary surfaces except over wide areas so installations on planets are usually safe from their explosions.

Given the nature of transporter bombs it is easy to understand their interaction with Lyran Energy Sphere Generators. When a Tbomb is struck by an ESG rather than set off by its own fuse the detonation is asymmetric and focused entirely inward toward the center of the ESG in a narrow pulse. The pulse is too narrow to have its full area of effect or hit targets other than the ship creating the ESG. The ESG itself does not have an effect on the energy in the pulse but it does disrupt the original generation of that pulse and so reduces the damage directed inward. A 5 energy point ESG will cause a Tbomb to go off and cause the pulse to strike the ship but the strength of the field is insufficient to disrupt the entire formation of the pulse and so only 50% of the normal explosive effect of the transporter bomb will strike the ship. That ESG striking 5 transporter bombs will trigger all five of them but only mitigate 10% of the damage of each one. Don't hit 5 mines at once.

Transporter bombs also interact with Tholian web. Tholian web spreads over tens of thousands of kilometers and causes reductions in Tbomb effect over longer distances. Less than 10k km of a device detonation there is minimal change in the energy fields but outside of 10k km the web reduces tbomb damage in a 1:1 strength to damage relationship.

Romulan nontactical warp and impulse drives may be less technologically advanced than other races, but they also have interaction with mines, particularly those of greater size. They have put this to good effect by equipping many of their ships with large mines. As Romulan technology advanced, they built the new warp, impulse, and reactor systems to also have less interactive effect at the cost of greater manufacturing complexity, cost, and lower reliability. Other races had not incorporated large mines into their tactical approaches (and were less likely to given the lack of cloaking devices) so the approach was not copied.

These devices can be stabilized by special systems dedicated to doing just that. These systems are large in size, requiring field emitters and power transfer systems that go unused most of the time - except in emergencies. A cargo box of 50 spaces can only carry 8 mines with these systems installed. They are referred to in the vernacular as "Mine Racks." Weapon systems also complicate carrying mines due to their disruptive field effects and draws on power so minelayers rarely carry heavy weapons.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Friday, December 02, 2022 - 06:15 pm: Edit

1 - AREA = 30,000 diameter, or 15,000 radius ...

2 - If it worked like that, it would bypass any shield as it's interacting with the ship, not the shielding though the ESG interaction is a bit clearer ...

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Saturday, December 03, 2022 - 12:01 am: Edit

Gee, I always thought that there was just a bit of explosive put inside the legendary Beryllium Sphere that turned a small boom into a BIG one.

By David Jannke (Bigslowtarget) on Saturday, December 03, 2022 - 01:57 am: Edit

1) Oops - area math problem good catch.

2) Well, we know transporter bombs don't bypass shields and that shields are damaged when they go off. That may be because the destructive coupling interaction triggers on shield emitters or it could be because the shield emitters recognize the transporter bomb pulse itself as a destructive energy and attempt to prevent it from getting to the ship.

The real trick is to explain how they work in conjunction with PA panels. I guess I'm covered by no one really knowing how those things work anyway.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Saturday, December 03, 2022 - 01:39 pm: Edit

If it helps, there is a portion of the BBS set aside for authors to workshop articles (or ideas for such) prior to submitting them to ADB for consideration. There is also a set of input guides posted here, if any of those help also.

According to the mine warfare rules under (M0.0), "explosive" mines in the Alpha Octant (of all sizes) use nuclear warheads, not matter-antimatter reactions. (Otherwise, the "pre-Smarba" Romulans would not have been able to use their infamous NSMs.) Further, the damage caused by an exploding mine is not the kind of "unorthodox" damage caused by, say, a Carnivon heel nipper; it hits a target's shields (or PA panels or... whatever alternative to shields a given empire might have) and then scores internals as "normal".

It might be worth looking "back" at the evolution of transporter bomb technology in the Alpha Octant: be it in terms of how many T-bombs an Early Years ship could carry relative to a "modern" one; how far these T-bombs could be placed from the deploying ship based on the range of the transporters aboard the ship in question; and the difference in usefulness of the T-bomb itself once deployed before and after the advent of radius-1 detonators in Y145.

Or, for that matter, to look "forward" at how the advent of first-generation X-technology increased the number of T-bombs a given X1-ship can carry - but at the same time turned all Alpha Octant X-ships into minesweepers.

If your intent is to focus only on mine warfare in the Alpha Octant, well and good. But, if your intent is to take a broader look at transporter bomb usage across the known Star Fleet Universe, it might be worth keeping an eye on how T-bombs are used in Omega, the LMC, and/or Triangulum - and how this can vary significantly from how one might encounter them back in Alpha. (At least you won't need to worry about M81, since T-bombs don't exist in that galaxy.)

Also, articles published in Captain's Log these days go with "empire" or "species"; the old "R-word" is no longer used to refer to either.

By David Jannke (Bigslowtarget) on Saturday, December 03, 2022 - 04:24 pm: Edit

Sounds good, I'll take a look and make the corrections you suggest. I wanted to make sure the logic worked before I went through the formatting change.

I'm far more familiar with the Alpha Octant than Omega/LMC/Triangulum. Never got into running those ships in our group. Have to do some research.

By Jeff Guthridge (Jeff_Guthridge) on Saturday, December 03, 2022 - 10:53 pm: Edit

PA panels absorb exo/indo-thermic, voltaic, and kinetic energy. Probably due to a coupled field quantum entangled with the integrated storage medium. The way they can pull four points of power out of a half point PH-3 blast only appears to violate the law of conservation of matter and energy.

Galactic shields ablatively mitigate the same types of damage. The field gap (between the ‘shield’ and the hull can be adjusted to cover a docked ship, for example, but is projected around the ship so protected.

The instantaneous shock wave expansion of mines is abstracted out in the same fashion that photon torpedoes, disrupters, and bolted plasmas can cover a couple of dozen hexes in an instant too.

As for why they don’t add to the destructive force of a detonating starship (or shuttle) is an interesting question, as they used to.

Problem was it became a tactic to load up a massive stockpile of mines on a ship and drive it to range zero with the eneny and self destruct, or draw enough fire to explode with similar results. Ship Explosion strengths were nerfed for this very reason.

One possible puesdo-science reason would be that T-bombs and NSMs use a controlled warp bubble to eject their destructive payload. This bubble collapses before the particles travel more than 15km. The distance being some sort of limit based on the warp generators and/or explosive density per square meter. It is a spherical expansion of antimatter or similar substance with damaging effects that covers the 15km sphere around where it was lain and triggered.

It’s probably not antimatter, as any containment failure would be bad. But some sort of stable explosive that could be propelled at high warp speeds for a flash before annihilating anything in range fits the effect. Either way the energy wave of the explosion happens at trans-warp speeds because we can infer the speed of light as > 10km per 32 impulses but < 20km per 32 impulses.

In WWII destroyers, one job that had to be done during the abandon ship procedure was installing safety pins on remaining depth charges or they would detonate as the ship sank to trigger depth with lethal results for the survivors in the water. It’s reasonable to interpolate the high tech toys have similar safeties.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, December 05, 2022 - 02:43 pm: Edit

As an aside. There are limits to the number of bombs carried by warships. Two T-bombs, two T-bombs and one NSM (Romulan), and so on. HOWEVER, you are overlookng the major hole in all this. A Minesweeper e.g., F5M, can carry 36 T-Bombs, or 16 NSMs and two Two T-bombs. Or any combination not to exceed its limits. Note that a large minelaying freighter could carry 204 T-bombs. Ostensibly these are referred to as "small mines", but since there are rules for taking a small mine out of its mine rack and using it as a T-bomb . . . Obviously the mine racks involve some kind of technology, obviously (thinking off the top of my head) mines are very touchy and cannot be on ships with "heavy weapons" except if such heavy weapons are on a base with positional stabilizers. which again limits the number of T-bombs available.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Monday, December 05, 2022 - 02:51 pm: Edit

An Orion could have a mine rack beside some heavy weapons.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, December 06, 2022 - 09:53 am: Edit

I was under the impression that the "no heavy weapons on minesweepers" thing was a doctrinal issue, as opposed to a technological one.

For example, the various "lost empire" Paravian minesweeper variants in Module C6 each retain their "base" hull type's full suite of quantum wave torpedoes, as the QWT is an effective minesweeping weapon. Which, ironically, is a problem for the Paravian admiralty, since their minesweeper captains find it all too tempting to take their ships into direct combat, rather than waiting around for an enemy minefield to clear...

Further, a heavy war destroyer retains the base hull's heavy weapon suite, even when assigned to operate as a minesweeper under (G33.45). Although I suppose an Orion HDW operating as a minesweeper in a "Mapsheet P" timeline might benefit from installing QWTs in its weapon option mounts.

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So far as non-Alpha mine (and T-bomb) usage goes:

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The LMC factions in Module C5 use T-bombs and "explosive" large mines as per the Alpha Octant standard; however, there is no date (or dates) yet listed for when their detection ranges were adjusted from zero to one. They do have distinct captor mines, armed with the various Magellanic weapons systems (warp-tuned lasers instead of phasers, and so on).

There are no dedicated Size Class 3 minesweepers among the three Magellanic Powers (Baduvai, Eneen, or Maghadim); the Jumokian pirates do not have a minesweeper, but can install a minelaying Pinnace pack onto one of their ships (which, in itself, does not provide the ship with any "minesweeper" capabilities).

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In the Omega Octant, most empires have yet to have their minesweepers presented in print. However, it would appear that, for the most part, T-bombs and heavy mines function as standard. There is a wide range of Omega captor mines, though there are certain technological and/or biological limitations that prevent certain empires (such as the Alunda or Branthodons) from operating their own captor mines.

The Chlorophons are distinct in that they have a larger than average number of T-bombs aboard their destroyer escorts; whereas their strike frigates each include a mine rack as standard. This is due to the Phons and their Keepers being physiologically capable of operating fighters or "volatile warp" PFs; when faced with enemy forces using such attrition units, the Phons struggled to develop countermeasures to match - or rather, ones which did not involve hiring Bolosco, Iridani, or Zosman "mercenary carriers" to support their battle forces.

The Souldra are a unique case. They use their own dark matter bombs in place of T-bombs; however, they have no larger "dark matter mines" and no "dark matter captor mines".

Actually, there are a few interesting hints about two of the "Omega's Lost Futures" empires, in terms of mine warfare. It would appear that the as-yet-unpublished Nucian Clans develop a range of "tactical mines". Whereas the Omega-Paravians previewed in Captain's Log #54 reportedly steal and reverse-engineer samples of Nucian tactical mine technology in order to develop "quantum wave mines". However, there are no rules in print as of yet to explain what these mine types are, or how these empires use them.

While the playtest Zosman Marauders do not have a minesweeper variant at present, though I could picture a mine warfare module of some kind being made available to them at some future point in time.

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While out in the Triangulum Galaxy, the Imperium (to include its various autonomous provinces) are resented in preview form in Captain's Log #23; one of the systems they use is a medium mine rack. Medium mines have 15-point explosive warheads, but cannot be operated via transporter.

They, plus the other three playtest M33 empires introduced in Module E2 (Helgardian, Arachnid, and Mallaran) use T-bombs normally, though there are no minesweeper variants or captor mines for these empires currently in print.

By Jeff Guthridge (Jeff_Guthridge) on Tuesday, December 06, 2022 - 12:56 pm: Edit

I've been mulling this one over for a while. I seem to have a vague and vaporous partial answer from something on the GEnie board ages ago...

"Why does it seem as if every race has static Scanners and Sensors?" To whit, I mean that barring some of the really early, early years stuff, almost every ship from every empire has scanners that are never better than zero and sensors rarely better than 6. Is the 0/6 package peak telesense?

If not, why are upgrade systems not available? Especially with prestige units such as Dreadnoughts, Battleships, and Starbases?

To go deeper still, I wonder about the game mechanics and why they were designed this way. There are several elements that directly tie into these systems (Seeking Weapon control and EW just to name two) that end up feeling like universal constants like the pre-Yeager sound barrier, the pre-Cockraine warp barrier, and so forth.

How much scarier would a Starbase be if it had a -5 Scanner? A Kzinti SSCS with a Sensor rating of 24? Granted these are nonsensical examples that would be game breaking. Andromedans with -2 scanners might actually make them more dangerous without being more powerful, and justifiable as having extra-galactic tech. Orions could have developed better Scanners and Sensors in order to better find and retrieve loot not to mention the inherent weaknesses with Non-Violent Combat to capture cargo intact. Just as I've often wondered about the lack of technological diversity with this embedded system.

Yes, I get that a baseline is important, and adding needless complexity to an already overly complex stack of rules is distasteful, but I still wonder why it seems as if Scanners and Sensors hit a dead end early.

As for what I remember of an answer, the system developed from a way to degrade without destroying the systems right away, but was quickly used as the baseline for other things. Scanner zero is no penalty, and Sensor six is no routine chance of failure to lock-on. I just don't understand why no one ever tried to boost base ability, like a hunter-killer police corvette with a sensor rating of 8 to help lock onto and retain lock on a target that cloaks.

Outstanding Crews can pay for a -1 EW shift, a Legendary Weapons Officer can fire with an effective scanner rating one less than the ship, so why not a more expensive upgrade package that would boost the tactical abilities of a ship, with a H&R-able nerve center like DERFACS, UIMs, or Cloaking devices.

Yes, yes, I fully expect the knee-jerk reaction is to think I'm trying to gain a Photon+6 of Accuracy or similar unfair advantage. I'm not angling for that, I'm just asking why it seems that everyone starts at about the same level of tele-sensory tech, no matter where or when in the Galaxy they start.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Tuesday, December 06, 2022 - 02:11 pm: Edit

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Quote:

adding needless complexity to an already overly complex stack of rules is distasteful

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By Jeff Guthridge (Jeff_Guthridge) on Tuesday, December 06, 2022 - 04:29 pm: Edit

You point out "why not" but I'm mostly curious about the WHY behind the way it was balanced the way it is.

Its a deeper WHY question that only sounds like min-max whinging on the surface.

By Ginger McMurray (Gingermcmurray) on Tuesday, December 06, 2022 - 04:54 pm: Edit

In game design "why" and "why not" are often synonymous.

By Jeff Guthridge (Jeff_Guthridge) on Tuesday, December 06, 2022 - 04:59 pm: Edit

While true, its no less frustrating to ask the question and get the easily offered side of the WHY/WHY not answer.

I'm really curious about why the structure of it works the way it does and in a fashion that doesn't seem to objectively change even when the tech does.

And yes, I freely admit my verbosity often interferes in my ability to transcribe the maelstrom of thoughts into a series of words to convey the meaning. Neuro-divergence for the loss (and I mean mine).