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	Archive through October 18, 2003	25		10/18 06:12pm

Feds are also borderline plausible, with limited plasma-F tech, some experience with D-torps (if only in producing Gorn fighters) and drones.

By Robert Eddy (Tar_Zhay) on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 06:23 pm: Edit

Should be on the Auto reject list... otherwise why not let the Romulan have it (tech exchange with the Klinks...) why not let the klinks have it (tech exchange with the Romies...) why not let the Kittys have it (tech exchange with the Feds...) shall I continue.

By Robert Snook (Verdick) on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 07:16 pm: Edit

well, it was pretty much dead (looking at last post date) until you mentioned it.

By Adam James Villatorio (Merlinfmct87) on Thursday, October 07, 2004 - 07:40 pm: Edit

I could see this as a 2x weapon...rather innovative to say the least. Also, there is precident for the tech exchange. Remember the BCF. That has drones and plasma F onboard already .

Also, if it is a 2x weapon, you could be launching more than one torp... reason for this is that plasma has already takene leaps and bounds ahead of the old type F(which was the cheapest you could by in the *General War*. So there is some rational to it being used for new and cool ways. Since it's small plasma it could be simplified and made to fit onto a drone.

I wouldn't mind seeing this, in SSJ at least.

Merlin

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Thursday, October 07, 2004 - 08:06 pm: Edit

Assuming that the tech sloshing were permissible, a plasma-armed fighter makes more sense.

By Adam James Villatorio (Merlinfmct87) on Thursday, October 07, 2004 - 08:21 pm: Edit

That's a great idea--especially if the fighter can get a tractor beam and drag it with them.

Or not .

Merlin

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Thursday, October 07, 2004 - 09:15 pm: Edit

Drag what? Not sure I follow. There are plenty of fighters armed with PL-F... including a Gorn version of the A-10. A G-10FM seems much more useful than a plasma drone...

By Adam James Villatorio (Merlinfmct87) on Thursday, October 07, 2004 - 09:28 pm: Edit

Good point, I am not too familiar with fighters myself. I'm still familiarizing myself to the SFB tournament rules to be absolutly honest.

To clear things up, I was assuming that you meant this would be a good idea--to which I responded that it would be handy if it could launch the plasma drone, then drag it along until it releases(effectively getting free range).

Would probably be better just to launch the darn torp and get it over with though, huh?

Once again, sorry for the confusion.

Merlin

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, October 08, 2004 - 08:54 am: Edit

IIRC tractoring a "friendly" drone causes the drone to go inert.

By Adam James Villatorio (Merlinfmct87) on Friday, October 08, 2004 - 06:15 pm: Edit

Well there goes another brilliant tactic.

File it next to HET and WW.

Merlin

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Saturday, September 02, 2006 - 08:41 am: Edit

You know, when I first read the thread topic I could've sworn it was another MJC drone extrvaganza.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, September 02, 2006 - 10:40 am: Edit

Yeah, well...new plasma just isn't my bag man...much!

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - 03:31 pm: Edit

Actually, you could do it with Plasma Ks. Since they are the same size as Type VIs you could put them in a Type IIIMW and launch them from F-14s. The Feds could get some use out of these on the Gorn/Romulan border. And in an emergency, in a mixed Gorn/Fed CV fleet, the Fed could "break open" the Type IIIMW-Ks and use them to reload Gorn fighters that are "homeless" but can still fight. Most of them are clones of Fed fighters after all.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - 04:29 pm: Edit

The idea is kinda fun, that Type-IIIMW-K, but to what advantage would it be. Really, the Type-VIF is every bit as good in practical use. The Type-K plasma might be a little harder to kill at close range but to have a chance of blossoming the Type-IIIMW would have to do so at R4 at the minimum. Type-K's are distracted by chaff.

The one advantage I can figure is that plasma fighters could not use their own plasmas against the Type-K's as they could against waves of Type-VI drones.

Still, I'm not sure it would be worth the impractablility of maintaining a store of unusual drone types for that off occasion that you'd use them when standard Type-IIIFMW's would do.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - 06:05 pm: Edit

It would give the plasma races the "flavor" of having the plasma K's instead of relying on traditional Type-IIIMW drones.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - 07:57 pm: Edit

The Plasma races use Type-IIIMW drones? From what ships?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - 10:51 pm: Edit

I suspect that if the plasma races could use drones, they would.

having some sort of "bus" vehicle to carry the type K plasmas would be a advantage that currently the roms, gorns and ISC lack.

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Thursday, January 11, 2007 - 01:42 am: Edit

Loren

Actually the Plasma-K is superior to a Type VI drone, IF used properly:

1. Both Type VI drones and Plasma-Ks are distracted by chaff.

2. Both of them are warp seekers and not distracted by WWs if attaining lock-on before WW launch.

3. Plasma-Ks are harder to kill than Type VI drones.

4. Plasma-Ks have to be killed by phasers rather than ADDs, RALADs, T-Bombs, or fast firing Plasma-D racks.

5. Plasma-Ks do more damage to ships than Type VI drones.

6. Plasma-Ks do more damage to fighters than Type VI drones.

7. Plasma-Ks cost the same as Type VIs' but don't have to pay for the speed upgrade to 32.

8. You can Sabot the Plasma-K submunitions to go speed 40 if you want, and at a cheaper cost than upgrading all those Type VIs. This also extends their range brackets depending on when the submunitions deploy. If you get a good break the first range bracket could be 2-7. Of course the standard range bracket would be 2-6, 7-9, 10-11, and 12-13.

9. Put extra endurance on the bus vehicles and you can have them chasing Andromedans all day with a REAL threat. 3-5 Plasma-Ks launched within range 5 (6-7 with Sabots) is a lot harder to kill and just as dangerous as shooting standard drones at them (maybe even more dangerous). 15-25 points (1-space or 2-space modules) is a little harder to take than 12-24. And you can use the Type III special launch rate if you're using Type IIIs instead of Type IVs.

10. 1 PA-mine will only affect 1 Plasma-K rather than 1 T-Bomb affecting an entire stack of drones, just have the MWs break at range 7.


The only bad thing about them is that you cannot use the "darkfire" tactic. Of course, if you are using drones, you probably do have some Type VI drones around somewhere that you can use.

And as far as who would use these: The Federation 5th Fleet CVs. They are fighting IN Gorn territory against the Romulans (and maybe Andros later) and would have good access to Plasma-Ks.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, January 11, 2007 - 10:26 am: Edit

Good points Michael.

The ones that really got me were their damage to ships. A considerable factor, I must say. We've discussed a four point warhead for the dogfight drone and it always turns out to be too powerful. That might be what kills the Type-IIIMWK.

The other is the Sabot which I had not thought about. This may add to the problem above.

This might not be too be if they are Limited Availablility. I'd bet they would cost a bit more BPV for the trouble of mixing the two technologies. (How do you get Gorn circutry and data interfaces to communicated and take power from Federation circutry and data interfaces?)

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Thursday, January 11, 2007 - 02:31 pm: Edit

A four point warhead on a Type VI is a four point warhead no matter what the range. The plasma-Ks warheads get smaller the further they go and are only useful within 14 hexes (if they get a good break with sabots) and barely useful at that extreme range.

The Feds already make fighters for them. For that matter the Feds also provide the Skolian mercenaries too. And use Gorn Plasma-Fs on some Fed ships. But, since they are better under the right circumstances (and who here can't arrange those), I could see the module costing a bit more. How much more would be a matter of playtesting.

MW modules are already Limited Availability. I don't think this would change with changing the submunitions. Unless there was an additional restriction that these could only be deployed on CVs or their fighters or that you must have a Gorn ship in your Fed fleet (or vice versa) to use them.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, January 11, 2007 - 06:31 pm: Edit

Actually, there's a corrolary to Loren's problem that is simpler and more thorny.

How do you charge a K-torp when it's inside a MW drone? They stay charged for a long time in game terms but not in patrol terms.

MW drones are assembled at the factory and never need to opened up and tinkered with. With a K-torp, you have to hook the submunitions up to the charger. You can't disassemble the drone and charge the K-torps because you can't reassemble the drone once you do.

The drone would need to mount some kind of internal power conduit apparatus and that by itself could be a deal-breaker.

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Friday, January 12, 2007 - 02:33 am: Edit

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Quote:

The drone would need to mount some kind of internal power conduit apparatus and that by itself could be a deal-breaker.

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Quote:

With a K-torp, you have to hook the submunitions up to the charger.

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By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Friday, January 12, 2007 - 02:53 am: Edit

And to get even more use out of Plasma-K armed drones: Starfish-K.

Bolted plasma-Ks hit on a 1-4 up to range 5 and 1-3 at range 6-9, much better than an ADD. Of course since the damage is halved they're almost totally useless, doing 2 points out to range 7 and 1 point at range 8-9 (and I have no idea why they have a range 10 bracket for a bolted plasma-K).

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, January 12, 2007 - 12:46 pm: Edit

JT wrote "MW drones are assembled at the factory and never need to opened up and tinkered with."\

SVCs story in the last CL clearly indicates that drones DO need to be messed with on a regular basis aboard ship.

Just like real life now.

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Friday, January 12, 2007 - 03:40 pm: Edit

Hm. Thinking about this, I don't know if it's going to work; it's a classic example of tech slosh. If you invent MW-K drones, then why can't Feds just use K-torps on their fighters? And so they obviously have experience with small, "munition"-type plasma torpedoes, so why not let them use D-torps on their fighters? And if they can use D-torps on fighters, why not D-racks on their ships?

As for drones firing plasma bolts, my only response is "lol".

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Sunday, January 14, 2007 - 05:36 pm: Edit

Because Feds have to be in Gorn space to have good availability of them?