MJC: We named a ship Columbia. That about covers it.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 08:00 am: Edit

MJC,

I remember the five point "warp" batteries from Supplement 2, and IIRC, the warp power stored in them can't be used for movement. Might be wrong, but that's what I remember.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 11:12 am: Edit

I thought 5 point batteries for the Galactics had been outlawed. We've been saying Four Points under that light and because it was the only number above 3 and below 5. (BTW, real world designers are going to see the new battery as being able to hold megajules of extra power, not as one point. They would build a four point battery and install as much as there was room for. Real world design don't allow things like "Lets put six of the old instead of five of the new." Example: A ship has provisions for five units of batteries. Do you want four megajule units or three megajule units?)

HOWEVER: (H5.5) is a clear basis to go from. So 5 pointers it is. And they are able to hold warp! (which is an improvement to the photon so we need to consider that.)

MJC: Good catch. I think the arguement is over unless SVC says otherwise.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 11:31 am: Edit

Note that just because the rulebook has a holdover note from previous editions, doesn't mean things might not change when in-house design work commences (see also: the differences between the original sublight Romulans and the one sin Module Y1).

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 11:57 am: Edit

Ya, hence my last line. G.O.D. created the universe, he can take it out!

I just had a quick thought about the Hydrans and a cool goodie for them.

The Fusion Gatling. Using the pod technology from their fighters the Hydrans developed a rotating rack for firing them from ships. The rack holds four Fusion Pods. The pods fire under similar restricions as fighter based pods do. All four pods can fire in one turn on different impulses (short range) or two pods can be combined to extend the range. There is no overload fuction. That's the gist of it.

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

Loren, a good Fusion idea.

The fact that 5-point warp-batteries was in Old X2 is an immidiate reason to be skeptical of the idea.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 04:12 pm: Edit

Thanks John. I was also thinking that they would take one turn to arm that they couldn't fire on. The turn of firing requires no power to hold. (Turn (A) arm each pod for 2 points. Cannot fire this turn (can load with reserve but there must be at least 16 impulses of no fire for loading). Turn (B) can fire impulse one or later (up to 25 turns) for no hold cost. If you time it right you could fire two short ranged fusions per turn or one long ranged (R10) per turn. OR you could cream some one from R3 with all four on the turn of firing (aak!).

Only two of these on a Cruiser and CL. DD and FF get one. The standard armorment should be Hellbores and Ph-Vs. Ph-GIIs in the rear.

Hey, wait a minut. Maybe this replaces the Ph-G. It would be very effective against drones. Might could even kill a full X drone in one shot! If it replaces the Ph-G, though, it will have to be a one turn arming device. One energy point each. Fire up to two per impulse. Wide arcs on a swivel mount.


Re X-BATTERIES: I prefer the idea of four point batteries. SVC had said that 5 pointers were Andro tech. and the Galactics will never have that. I like that plan. Four pointers that can hold warp power works GREAT for me. And four points makes a lot of sense that way, too.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, February 03, 2003 - 04:33 pm: Edit

Technically we could ask in Rules Q&A but it matters little as long as the final reserve power is appropriate.

By Shannon Nichols (Scoot) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 06:45 pm: Edit

Loren I like your idea about H.I.P. that you proposed in the Shields. Been working on a idea, along a some what similar vein. A 2X ship would pay a power cost equal to it makeing a HET. This would reduce its turn mode by one of the folowing.

Proposed option #1 Decrease the ships turn mode by one letter. Say turn mode C goes to turn mode B

Proposed option #2 This is more radical. The number of hexes a ship needs to move straight before turning is reduced by 1. With a lower limit of having to move 1 or 2 hexes straight before turning.

Set a duration for how long this ability last after being powered up, 8, 16, 24,
32 impulses.

Set a limit to how many time a ship could do this at once. Need a really tight high speed turning raduis. Just double one of these and that Fed cruiser can turn with the best of the Klingons (proposed option #1). Allow this with option #2 and it turns like a fighter (really bad idea unless your a Fed ). May want to limit powering to warp only.

This could be one way for 2X ships to out manuver older ships. Use up all that excess power their suppose to have.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 07:24 pm: Edit

"Loren I like your idea about H.I.P."
You mean H.I.T. (High Impulse Turn)?

What I was going for was something with some balances. You announce it and yes it's a surprise but then your opponant knows a couple of things. After a normal turn he knows you can't do one for 2(I might make it 4) impulses (you could HET as always). Also, in my original proposal it resets your turn mode AND your side slip mode so there is no choice but to move straight forward on the next move (unless you HET or pull another HIT two impulses later. And unless you have your ASIF powered you risk a break down).

I wanted to tie the two together so that X2 ships would have a achilies heel. If you can get through the shields and get past the guards and take out the ASIF you have a marked advantage. (And you had better remember to guard your ASIF control room!)
GW era would be able to gain an equal footing. There is any number of new tactics that become available.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 07:32 pm: Edit

I think in my original proposal it took enough impulse power that you could only do it twice in one turn. If the XCC has six impulse then it was three times MC. The point there was that if you are moving 31 your opponant KNOWS you can do two HITs.

Last note: I figured that HIT was a good acronymn relating to HET but this spells "hit" an might be confusing. How about Impulse Energy Turn (IET) or Impulse Power Turn (IPT)? I think IPT was in my original proposal.

By Shannon Nichols (Scoot) on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 11:57 pm: Edit

Sorry about getting the spelling wrong.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, February 06, 2003 - 12:28 am: Edit

Oh dude. No worries!

I was just taking advantage of that to add more comments to the proposal.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, February 16, 2003 - 04:18 pm: Edit

I'm leaning more and more toward 3 point batteries for 2X. With the poll showing a fairly solid majority in favor of 46-50 points of warp for a CA, and with said CA having a MC of 1, five point or even four point batteries might be too much. If you tried to pack on four batteries on an XCA, you'd get 16 to 20 more points of reserve power. That's too much. But cutting down the number of batteries has it's own problems, such as leaving you with NO reserver power when you take a couple of battery hits. I'd say stick with three points, but add the ability to the batteries to store any type of energy you can generate, including warp or impulse.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, April 12, 2003 - 11:38 pm: Edit

I was thinking about creating more flexibility in movement, rather than just giving the X2 ships 8 mid-turn speed changes four impulses apart, and hardly anybody needs all six of the X1s, we could go for something different enough to make the ship interesting without making the ships stranded in MORE OF THE SAME.


SO here's my Idea.

XXC.___.0 New Movement control, The IONISED GAS CHOAK
The X2 designers wanted to create a system by which the speed of the vessels could be controlled through the use of some other system other than the energy consumption of the warp engine naccelles.
They hit upon the idea of developing a control value to slow the amount of released ionised gas that flows into the warp engines.
By reducing the flow the solinoid electrogamganets running the the length of the naccelles would have less matter to accellerate and thus would be less effective dispite consuming the usual amount of energy.
This was originally seen as a safty mechanism ( to allow he ship to move slowly around obsticals such as moons or asteroids even if the antimatter injectors beconme stuck on full power...but the system was quickly adopted as a method of controlling battle speed, particularly in fleet and squadron engagements.
It was also useful in that X2 ships could plot a speed of 8, to be escorted by some of their shuttle craft, and then drop down without preplanning in EA to a speed of 4 to drop a WW.


XXC.___.1 Method
The X2 vessels are free to engage in their 6 mid turn speed changes pur turn and must plot the enemy consuption of their movment under a leagal speed plot.
But the ship is free to move without following a leagal speed plot.
The ship instead is able to make any speed that is equal to the ploted speed or slower, so long as the ship does not violate it's mid turn decelleration restrictions.
Furthemore if the vessel is moving more slowly than it's current energy based speed plot and it whish to accellerate it may accellerate by and anmount equal to to it'self accelleration limit but to a speed no faster than it's energy based speed plot nor faster than the speed developped by its excelleration limit applyed to the slowest speed of the vessel over the previos 32 impulses.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, April 13, 2003 - 12:31 am: Edit

Another idea that follow on from the technobabble of using the Ionised gas is to invoke a new kind of turn although this is based more around the idea of the A.S.I.F. being able to strengthen the EXCESS DAMAGE boxes of a vessel.


XXC.___.0 New Movement Control, The HIGH SPEED REVERSAL
For decades, naval architects of the various galactic powers have been looking for a way to make the Retrograde more easily adoptable.
They hit upon the idea of spinging the ship on the spot with the impulse engines whilst switching over the ionised gas injector nossels at the front of the narcelle with ionised gas injector nossels at the rear of the narcelle and coupling that with a change in the "rhythm" of the solinoid electro magnets that accellerate the isonised gas.
The manouver requires massive quantites of power but will cause the vessel to emdiatly turn 180 degress and move from forward to reverse ( or visia-versa).

XXC.___.1 POWER
The High Energy Reversal requires 8 points of power of an soarse and two availible impulse engines ( which could be providing some of the power for the HER ).

XXC.___.2 METHOD
The Reversal is designed to help a vessel slip into reverse quickly but is quite difficult for the ships helmsman to perform and thus their is a die roll to detmine if the vessel finishes facing in the correct direction.
The Player shall roll 2D6 and consult the table below.

2-3	Vessel turns 120 degrees and moves into reverse
4-10	Vessel turns 180 degrees and moves into reverse
11-12	Vessel turns 240 degrees and moves into reverse
13+	Vessel suffers breakdown

* The owning player is free to select whether he want to rotate the vessel ina clockwise or anti-cloakwise irection.

Oustanding crew will use an unmodified table with a Ledendary Navigator shall use the unmodifed table.
Ships WITHOUT a legendary navigator shall add +1 to any die roll result in the table above that is greater than 7.
Ships with a Regular crew shall add +1 to any die roll result in the table above that is greater than 7.
Ships with a poor crew shall add +2 to any die roll result in the table above that is greater than 7.
If the player choose to spend his Het Bonus on the Turn ( he may only spend one ) he shall subtract 3 from any roll greater than 7.

The Result of the table indicates what will happen, the vessel could suffer a break down and begin spinning ( tumbling ) or it could move into reverse in the exact oppoiste direction to the direction it was travelling or it could move into to reverse in a slightly different direction.

XXC.___.3 DAMAGE
The vessel is very likely to take some structural damage during this reversal.
First there is the damage to the impulse engines. The Player is to roll against his break down number for both impulse engines twice ( four die rolls in total against the break down number ) and if the break down roll was failed ( no het bonus can be spent on this ) then that impulse engine was destroyed during the turn through burnout ( who can one impulse engine really deal with four times the usual amount of power being pumped through it!?! )

Second there is the likelyhood that the vessel will suffer some structural damage during reversal.
Multiply the ship's movement cost by 3 and round up, the result is the number of die rolls one must make against the ships break down number for damage to the ships excess damage boxes. Each failed break down roll ( the HET bonus may not be used here ) shall result in one Excess Damage box being destroyed.

Finally the ship shall make a roll against it's break down number equal to half the number of structural damage breakdown number rolls (roulded up) if the vessel failed to turn 180 degrees.

* Ships that loose all of the Excess Damage Boxes and take one more point of damage to their excess damage shall fall apart. And then explode as the contents of the ships matter/anti-matter reactor make contact with floatsom.

* The ship's excess damage may used to effects of an active A.S.I.F. to reduce the number of of boxes lost in a High Energy Reversal.


XXC.___.4 LOW ENERGY REVERSAL
Ships may engage in the low energy reversal in order to start retrograde motion more quickly.
Simply put the vessel uses the mechanism of New Movement Control IONISED GAS CHOAK to bring the vessel to a complete halt and after one period of mid turn speed change has been spent at a stand-still the vessel is free to accellerate again and is free to accellerate in reverse ( with no special energy expendature ). If the vessel were to Tac or HET whilst stationary then it might not be facing the exact opposite direction and therefore might not instantly be considered as a reversal but is indeed a reversal.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, April 13, 2003 - 01:06 am: Edit

XXC.___.5 HIGH ENERGY REVERSAL PENALTIES
There are several restriction tot he High Energy Reversal that are noted here.

• A Vessel can not HET and HER on the same impulse.

• If a vessel is called to move on the impulse in which performs a HER it shall not move, this is because the vessel's warp engines at that instant have no ionised gas flowing through them in any direction.

• The Vessel performing the HER may substitute a Warp eninge box for one or both of the impulse engines but if both are replaced by warp engine boxes then each box must be of a different side of the vessel ( if possible ) and if it is not on a different wngine then the vessel can not perform the HER.
Eg. if a Fed XDN were to HER and use two Warp Engine Boxes then it would use one on the Left Warp Engine and on on the right, unless the left ( or right ) warp engine was completely destroyed in which case it would use one of the right warp engine and one of the centre.
If the left and right warp engines were completely destroyed then the vessel could not perform a HER using Warp Engine boxes even though it might have many WARP engine boxes availible in the centre warp engine.


The HER really exists so that vessel may retrograde, loose all their forward shields and then HER so that the enemy will fire on the rear shields of the vessel, allowing the vessel to stay at range longer and spend time laying more T-bombs and launching more drones.
This is aimed to offset the fact that in a battle with GW ships, the X2 vessel will have very few direct fire heavy weapons compaired to the task group of GWs and thus will need to be able to spread that damage over several shields without greatly reducing the retrogading speed of the vessel ( as Caps to SSReo would do ).

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Sunday, April 13, 2003 - 01:34 am: Edit

Yes, most definitely, lets make a game that is already taxing to remember all the rules in involved even more complex!!

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, April 13, 2003 - 02:22 am: Edit

MJC,

That's hitting awfully close to the positron flywheel, a bit of rules I'm sure SVC wishes he never wrote.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, April 13, 2003 - 03:31 am: Edit

J.T.:


Yes you could pay for speed 32 for the turn ( assuming you apid enough on the previous turn ) and move at speed 11 during the entire turn ( or speed 8 if we are allowing quadrupple +20 as the accelleration limit ) and then if by chance you suddenly need speed 32 you could jump up to speed 32 or something slower, but look at the COST, you're paying speed 32 for the entire turn ( XCC XCA carry a cost of 41 if we say the last point cast en times the usual ) just to hold the right to have an unplanned mid turn speed change.
It's heavy price.
The PFly is different in that you pay energy upto three turns before to buy a massive accelleration limit this turn.
One provides efficencies below 100% and the other in effect buys effiecencies above 100%.
There are no bonuses to energy or SSReo ( unlike quick breaking and ED ) or capasity ( unlike PFly ), just an improvement in flexibility in that you can make unplanned mid turn speed change to both higher and lower speeds.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, April 13, 2003 - 02:16 pm: Edit

Still functionally very similar.

You could set up the same thing with the flywheel, albeit without earlier-turn energy expediture.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, April 13, 2003 - 08:40 pm: Edit

You don't need energy expendature on the previous turns unless you have a hunch that you're going to need to jump up during those previous turns...sorry for any confussion.

But what advantage is there to moving at a speed of 11 and paying for 32!?!
A mid turn speed change in the right spot is a better choice...this systems simply allows you to have better flexibility....oh and by overpowering in a squadron action the outer ships can speed up and the slower ships can slow down and thus the entire squadron can maintain formation whilst turning.

I think freedom to move is better than a the same old YOU MUST HAVE A LEGAL SPEED PLOT TO FIT WITH YOUR ENERGY PLOT restriction coupled with 8 mid turn speed changes 4 impulses apart and quadrupple your speed or plus 20 which ever is greater accelleration limits.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - 04:21 pm: Edit

Thinking about 2X labs. For starters, what about a +1 bonus on die rolls for gathering info, and a -1 on "labbing" rolls? Are there other things a 2X lab should do?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - 04:33 pm: Edit

I proposed some time ago that labs be able to have a higher capability on labing drones of past generations. For instance, a -2 for GW drones. A -1 for X1 drones.

Of course I went and also proposed that X2 ship maintain the use of X1 drones but add to that technology (DBP, new modules etc.).

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - 08:21 pm: Edit

I'd rther not bother with intergenrational complexities, such as IDIng X! and GW drones easier. They could easily end up as KISS violations over issues of rather small importance.

The one thing we might want to implement is a kind of "Drone Tac Intel" table that gives the ship some vague idea of what mods the drone has.