Loren, I'm not sure I follow your statement about Dreadnaughts being a class of Battlecrusier?

If you are reffering to wet navy history, then you are quite incorrect, and I cannot see how that would apply to SFB.

Care to expound?

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 03:52 pm: Edit

Loren,

No, I've been largely absent from the X2 discussions. I just happened to glance at John's note, thought for a moment about the size of SSDs, and threw that post out there.

I'll go back into lurk mode now.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 03:56 pm: Edit

Jessica,

Please take a look through and give us your input as a dedicated architect of a race, your opinion would be useful.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 04:45 pm: Edit

John,

Whilst I am flattered, I'm going to decline.

I don't have the time to go through the several thousand posts that comprise the X2 discussion at this time. Heck, I already rob time from what I should be doing just to keep up with the parts of the forum that I do follow.

Further, what I believe to be core to a successful X2-generation is pretty much a dead duck amongst those that have been active in this conversation. To be honest, I've been thinking about X2 since the original abomination third-party Supplement-2 version. Ever since I saw those bloated SSDs, the thought that has been foremost in my mind is: that's no way to advance starship design. Rather, I think that technological improvement should result in a "more punch in a smaller package" result. In envisioned ships with an overall size/box-count similar to non-X ships, but with improved power efficiency and better systems as described in my previous post.

My ideas do not mesh at all -- and I really do mean "at all" -- with what you have been developing; thus, my decision to bow out of the conversation.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 05:48 pm: Edit

Jessica,

Not so...not at all. As it happens, one of the very, very first suggestions for X2 was exactly what you describe; smaller, but more efficient ships. Unfortunately, it wasn't terribly popular as most people were afraid that small ships would turn into eggshells with sledghammers; that is, small and relatively fragile ships that carry a great deal of fire-power.

If you have ideas on how to avoid that, and still develop your ideas, by all means do so! I have no objection to hearing them or trying them out and I'm sure others would be interested, too. The thread of the X2 conversations so far have been around one particular direction...no one said it's the only way we can go.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 06:13 pm: Edit

Tos Crawford was very big on that kinda thing.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 07:54 pm: Edit

Yeah. Remember Jessica, none of this is official in any way.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 08:13 pm: Edit

Also true.

If you guys wanted to expore the "mighty midgit" route that's fine. If you went back to GW engines, you could do 1-pointn P-5s and 1/2 point P-6's very easily.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 08:22 pm: Edit

I've got a way to avoid the eggshell syndrome...but I don't know if anyone would like it.

X2 begins around Y210 or so, yes? Well, that gives the Galactic Powers some five years to study the various technology that they find in the LMC after taking out the Andro starbase. I can definitely see a development based on, but less/different from, the PA panel (frankly, I have a very hard time picturing the GP not doing whatever it took to make that particular technology work in some fashion). Something that would work in conjunction with shields, as a sort of 7th shield, absorbing perhaps three or five points per box, with perhaps as many as seven or eight boxes on a XCA. Something with reduced "panel dumping", and probably no panel-to-battery dumps (all prices paid to make it work with shields). All of these are pure ballpark numbers, of course, but you get the idea: you could have the "bigger punch in a smaller package" whilst still having a very durable package.

There's any of dozens of similar ways to do it to avoid the PA-shield stigma, if need be. Perhaps "new composite materials" and better computers could permit a sort of Kinetic Dampener Array (KDA) that would function much like some of the massive shock absorbers that you see in missile silos and such (or the interesting new counterweight-based anti-earthquake devices being installed in some new skyscrapers now); they could take X-amount of damage before overflowing (say, two or three points per KDA box), and then disperse the kinetic energy over X-amount of time via a "flywheel" or some such, during which it couldn't absorb any more power. Bonus over PA would be that destroying a KDA box wouldn't result in a cascade, and wouldn't wound as many sacred cows in making it work in conjunction with shields. The basic result is the same: a regenerating secondary defense layer that compliments the shields and makes the ship both tougher and more efficient than simply a ship with half-again as many shield boxes.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 08:40 pm: Edit

One of the things we've discussed is an advanced structural inegrity field that would absord hull hits up to a certain point. While I agree that the GP's would try to copy the PA panel, I'm pretty sure that's a big no-no with SVC, even for 2X.

I personally like the notion of a regenerative shield; one that recovers some of it's boxes every turn at no additional cost, though not at a very rapid rate, perhaps.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 10:15 pm: Edit

If we're going back to GW power curves, my ASIF might work pretty well.

Jessica,

The basic concept is a true "7th shield" interwoven into the ship's structure. The way this works is that each line of the DAC has an amount of protection.

It gives the ship functionally more boxes without padding with with pointless hull and such. I can post a link to the rules I wrote if you're interested.

Mike already knows where to find it.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 11:21 pm: Edit

I suspect changing the power requirements of existing systems would be rejected.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 01:57 am: Edit

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Quote:

I personally like the notion of a regenerative shield; one that recovers some of it's boxes every turn at no additional cost, though not at a very rapid rate, perhaps.

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Quote:

I suspect changing the power requirements of existing systems would be rejected.

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By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 07:47 am: Edit

Um, I may have it wrong, but I think your making what Jessica proposed much more complicated than she envisioned.

All she said was that X2 ships are more efficient in their use of power. This paradigm already exists; think about the difference in a size class 4 ship and a size class 2 one. Same rules, same type of power; the SC4 one just gets to use it for less.

So, if you make the XCA a relatively small ship - say about DW sized - and give it 30 points of warp, you can stretch that warp out by:

1. Having a MC of 1/2
2. Making the PV a very efficient P1; use the same chart, but the energy cost is 1/2...that's 1/2 for a P1 shot, or 1/2 for 2 P3 X-aegis rapid pulse shots.
3. Improved APR or AWR reactors that pump out two points of power instead of 1.
4. Energy absorption, so that damage to your shields feeds some kind of capactitor that puts a partial amount of that damage back into your shields.
5. An SIF that has its power cost tied into life support or shield cost, rather than seperate.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 08:24 am: Edit

Are we talking about size class or movement cost when we say smaller.


Personnally I don't see why we are even going down this path.

A heavy Frigate at 175 BPV should be a really good match up against both a 170 BPV DDX or a 180 BPV BCH.
It'll be the smallest ship both by movement cost ( 1/3 ( perhaps the heavy frigate would be 9 XFH!?! 0.5 MC )) and size class 4 ( I forget if the DDX is SC3 or 4 ) ( although we might push all Size Classes up so it'll then be SC3 ).
It'll be small but worth it's BPV and therefore aren't we really saying that these ships are effiecent vessels built smaller and cheaper.


The smaller and cheaper idea ( cheaper in that it'll cost less to build an XFF ( or even XFH ) than a DDX ( just barely )) comes from a question of fleet organisation.
If the fleets have lots of nuggetty little X2 Frigates doing all the subsidiary missions and lots of heavy hitting X2 destroyers, and fleets are organised into taskgroups ( known in X1 as squadrons ) then there really won't be any reason for the fleet to actually use a capital cruiser hull because the ship numbers are below the Control ratinbg of the XDLs ( or is that XDCs ) and thus it would seem to the casual observer that X2 fleets are made of smaller, cheaper more effiecent vessels.


The X2 cruisers don't need to lesser combat ships than the X1 cruisers but rather the fleets become Destroyer dependant and those destroyers are smaller cheaper and as effective as the X1 cruisers.
And that is were the counter veiw is...the ships seem smaller because more effective FAST little ships can get to the place where the job needs to be done and do that job on time on oldly enough under budget and therefore people think of the vessels as being smaller even though they are carrying around the full offensive and defensive capasities of their X1 next class up and GW two classes up.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 03:05 pm: Edit

MJC,

I think Jessica was talking effective move cost: A full-CA still has the mass of a MC=1 cruiser but only needs 2/3 of a warp for each point of speed.

If you're going back to a mostly GW-tech power curve, we could defintiely go back to 1-pt P-5's and .5 for the P-6.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 03:48 pm: Edit

Then a Ph-1 shot would cost .75?

And then what of Shield Reinforcement? 1/2 power stops 1 damage? After that, how do you handle tractor interactions?

Then if you don't change those costs how is X2 not at a disadvantage? Reducing move cost is an advantage but I think there is more to the problem than just saving some power.

I'll see if I can expand on that later. I'm pretty distracted right now.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 04:12 pm: Edit

Loren,

My take:

At that point, we would be in an exact P-1/P-2 situation with P-5/P-1. I would probably leave the P-1 at a cost of 1, which means you fire a P-5 as a P-1 about as often as you fire a P-1 as a P-2. The idea in this context is that the P-5 is a more efficient P-1.

This is a different mindset than the "more damage for more power" maxim that seemed to emerge from our X2 discussions so far. This should be looked at as a completely different way of working with X2.

I would be totally against a 2:1 specific shield reinforcement. It was one of the mistakes of Old X2. Instead, I'd use an ASIF to provide better durability.

A better way of describing what I think Jessica was getting at for movement is to rephrased as: "when expended for movement (and only movement), warp energy is multiplied by 1.5" A MC=1 CA would only need to spend 20 warp to go 30. Impulse would not be affected. This gives the CA an effective move cost of 2/3 but the full MC=1 weight for things like tractor beams.

These differences would reflect the fact that we'd be ratchetting X2 back to a late-GW power curve. We'd be working with X2 ships that would only have 32 boxes of warp, not 45-48.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 08:40 pm: Edit

"I think Jessica was talking effective move cost: A full-CA still has the mass of a MC=1 cruiser but only needs 2/3 of a warp for each point of speed."

I feel the same way. I felt that something could be done to make X2 ships more efficient at using their power. But when I looked into the game dynamics further I found that reducing the movement cost the X2 ship would seldom have a reason not to move at max speed thus reducing the importance of EA and killing X0. To preserve the flavor of the game I found increasing the movement cost, the opposite of what I expected, returned the important EA decisions nearly forgotten with X1.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 08:56 pm: Edit

Tos,

The only way reducing the effective move cost of a X2 ship would work (IMHO) is if you coupled it would a reduction in warp power. (as in Jessica's suggestion) Or a lack of expansion.

That's why I instead suggested that warp power expended for movement get multiplied by 1.5. That gives the effect of a 2/3 move cost but still gives the hull the "heft" of MC=1 where it matters.

Which brings me full-circle to the post I orginally put up that started this off.

(shift gears to our previous X2 paradigm please)

My own thinking about having to make tough decisions at EA was why I suggested that we may well not want to give X2 version 1.0 any warp increase over X1. The increased power cost of our proposed X2 weapons should make for a nifty set of options but the lack of increased power should help to make for a lot of hard choices. Increasing the warp power by even 5-8 might disrupt that balance.

We might change when we get to the Xork era and X2 version 1.1 (2.0?).

THEN we may get 48-warp (MC=1) cruisers.

Evolving in this direction, X2 becomes in many ways the true fulfillment of X1. X1 improved the basic starship hull and implemented marginal changes in weapons. X2 is when most weapons get a serious makeover.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 09:19 pm: Edit

We are in agreement with not materially increasing the warp but I think you have this backward:

"X1 improved the basic starship hull and implemented marginal changes in weapons. X2 is when most weapons get a serious makeover."

X1 did not improve the hull (its the same tired old hulls they have been using for decades) and did have serious weapon improvements. Please restate this thought so I can understand your point.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 09:33 pm: Edit

Tos,

The weapon improvements were mostly fastloads for multi-turn arming weapons, a plasma that split the difference between a S and a R and some slightly better drone frames. The combat effect is significant but the changes themselves are minor. We packed on more P-1s. We made larger plasmas available on smaller ships. We expanded the size of drone racks. We allowed ships to use more disruptors.

That pretty BFD on the evolutionary scale. The difference between a BCH and a CX is only about 60 BPV.

The changes seemed to me to be in the hull. We get a new, improved warp drive that sgnificantly improved the ship (more power, better strat speed, etc). The sheer number of weapons boxes was also at an all-time high as well.

Hmph. maybe you're right. I was perhaps generalizing the engine improvements to the rest of the X2 hull.

But I will stand by my comment on X1 not being that big a change. We didn't really play much with the way X1 weapons functioned. We just made them operate faster.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 09:53 pm: Edit

If X1 represents a 'minor' improvement in weaponry I can't see a 'major' improvement over X1 being balanced.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 10:00 pm: Edit

My 2 cents.

X1 is improvements of existing technology, taking it to the pinnacle of its capabilities.

X2 is totally new technology, different than anything before.

To me, that means that while X2 may be "better" overall, it may still not always have the pure combat effectiveness of X1. A 16" shell from an Iowa-class BB is 60+ year old technology, and can more easily sink todays ships than those of 60 years ago.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 10:07 pm: Edit

Minor in difference, major in effect. Clan tech vs. Inner sphere to borrow from battletech. Same stuff, same designations, just new and improved variations on the same theme.

Then again my basis for saying that may be flawed also.

Bottom line: I see the X2 that has emerged here as being more revolutionary than X1. I think it can be balanced.

As for anything even more different--I'm not interested in whether hypotheticals can be balanced. This X2 discussion is as hypothetical as I'd care to get.