NSM beaming, right out.

Transporters through shields would be a nifty non-combat, non-unbalancing X2 advantage that I would support. Gives us a really good reason to create X2 Commando Cruisers too.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Friday, July 25, 2003 - 04:22 pm: Edit

I was basically thinking of the beaming a single BP, maybe 2, through a shield that would be less effective for the remainder of the turn. This would be useful in espionage and Prime Team activity, which I think would be very useful in the "trade wars" era.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, July 25, 2003 - 08:53 pm: Edit

I think minimum shields on X2 ships should be higher. At least 6 possibly 8.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, July 25, 2003 - 09:52 pm: Edit

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Eight impulses to activation? Then whats the point of transporting it? By transporting it you give up secrecy of placement and then give the enemy a 1/4 turn to avoid it? What's the point?

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By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, July 25, 2003 - 09:59 pm: Edit

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I think minimum shields on X2 ships should be higher. At least 6 possibly 8.

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By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Friday, July 25, 2003 - 10:57 pm: Edit

See, if beaming through shields were allowed, it would have to be limited to 1 or 2 Boarding Parties per turn, or it would be far too overpowering.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Friday, July 25, 2003 - 11:01 pm: Edit

Beaming through shields is so, TNG.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, July 26, 2003 - 12:00 am: Edit

MJC: On that second account regarding Minimum Shields. Ooops, that's right. D'oh. I knew better! 10 is fine. Leave it.

I don't know what's up with me. My massive overload of works must have me beat.

Regarding a viable tatic for beaming a NSM: OK, that's one. I admit that's a good come back. I still would want to see all ships have them and they would it beaming them is possible but you did get me on the viable tactic thing.

By Shannon Nichols (Scoot) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 01:07 am: Edit

It seems to me that part of the problem of balancing the new X2 ships is to much power. In my thinking on X2 I approached engine tech from two ways. The first is what I call Reduced Mass Wrap. This is basically lighter warp engines. This allows in my design rules more warp power on the same size ship. A XCA would have two 24pt warp engines and 12pts of Aux Power. Total of 60pts. This gives a Ca size ship way to much power to balance it against a GW era ship. An as many of you like to make hard decision in the EA phase, this takes the fun out of it. My second approach I call High Efficiency Wrap (HEW). This is nothing more than ships move for less power. But do not get more raw power. The basic Fed CA under HEW has 2 18pt warp engines and 12pts Aux power for a total of 48pts of power, the same as the Fed Cx. HEW Fed Ca moves at a movement cost of .75. At a battle speed of 12 this gives the HEW 3 more pts of power to play with than the Cx. At 15 this is 4.25 more points of power.

Another power saving idea is to cut the cost of EW for X2 ships. Leave the max number of points at 8. An cut the generating power cost for each point to .75. This would give a X2 ship 2 more pts of power to play with.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 05:57 am: Edit

I'm not so sure if messing around witht he MC is all that good, we toyed around with it during the Y debate and got stompped on by steve.

Everybody who's been playing SFB for a while has gotten comfortable with cruisers having an MC of 1.

It's easier to mess around with the SC than the MC...IMO.


Most people are looking to reduce the expected jump in battle speed of the X2 by making the X2 pay more for stuff.
• 24 point Photons cost a lot of warp power to arm.
• Larger amounts of juice in Cap's `n' Bat's will slow the ship right down latter in battle.
• Making that 32nd point of movement cost 10 times the regular cost.
• And adding the A.S.I.F.
• And the S-Bridge.
...Will all go into the business of eating up the energy of the X2s to make fantastic battle speeds whilst building a fully armed attacks a dream...sure you'll be able to move at speed 32, but not much else if you tried.

Most people are thinking 48 warp, 4 saucer warp, 2 AWR & 4 Impulse...10 more power than a CX.
Once you through in an HK of 5 instead of 4 and a life support of 7 instead of 1 and most of the battle speed has evaporated...and when you start needing to actually allocate 9 points of power to get to fire 6Ph-5 ( but hopefully by that time the enemy will need to drop speed to power his phaser caps ) the battle speed gets even lower.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 02:56 pm: Edit

Shannon,

Jessica Orsini suggested something like this a while ago.

Like MJC I'm not comfortable changing the move costs for ships. I never liked the MC of Jindaran rock ships either and changing the MC of X2 ships is close enough to get the same dislike from me.

But I did have an idea.

Suppose that warp power when used for movement gives 1.5 points of movement? It would give a CA a functional MC of 2/3 while still leaving it at 1 for things like tractor intractions and such.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 03:30 pm: Edit

Doing anything that allows, in fact encourages X2 ships to go faster is counter productive.

Since the X2 ship will have plenty of power we should be looking for a way of forcing it to slow down, not speed up.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 04:10 pm: Edit

Tos,

This would ONLY occur in concert with rolling the X2's warp power back to 30-32.

Apologies for that crucial omission.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 07:53 pm: Edit

Then it will move at speed 31 and only be able to fire weapons until the caps run out. Once empty and unable to recharge in combat it will run away. In its wake it left a crippled cruiser or two having taken only shield damage in return.

An X2 ship with more power and less caps will be more likely to engage at knife fighting ranges where the X0 ships have a chance. We need to find a way to slow X2 down to find the balance they need. The reduce the MC theory, while logical, does horrible things to game balance.

What can be done to retain X1 level combat capability while reducing combat speed to something X0 can compete with?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 08:39 pm: Edit

X-1 level combat capability was bland and excessively uniform. We want a way to reestablish the combat dynamic of GW kicked up a notch.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 09:36 pm: Edit

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Doing anything that allows, in fact encourages X2 ships to go faster is counter productive.

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By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 09:40 pm: Edit

I am NOT proposing 1.5 power per box.

Energy apllied to movement is multiplied by 1.5 for purposes of figuring speed.

Big difference.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 09:41 pm: Edit

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X-1 level combat capability was bland and excessively uniform. We want a way to reestablish the combat dynamic of GW kicked up a notch.

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By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 09:44 pm: Edit

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I am NOT proposing 1.5 power per box.

Energy apllied to movement is multiplied by 1.5 for purposes of figuring speed.

Big difference.

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By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 10:25 pm: Edit

Exactly.

Except both are simple.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - 09:19 am: Edit

Sorry. But I still want a X CA to be MC1. Maybe have the XCC be 1.25 like was proposed very early in these discussions.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - 12:41 pm: Edit

me too.

Except 1.25 doesn't have much appeal. Especially since the introduction of the DNL.

A MC 1.25 X-ship will look like a XDNL in cruiser's clothing.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - 06:57 pm: Edit

Maybe it should.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - 08:43 pm: Edit

I think this has been discussed before; what's been the reaction to Warp Engine and AWRs producing 2 points of warp power per box? Also was there any resolution on the 3-or-4-or-5-point X2-batteries issue?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - 08:54 pm: Edit

I actually don't mind two point APR/AWR, because you can't use it to move. However, 2 box warp engines are a problem, IMHO, for two reasons. They either make the ship severely fragile by cutting the physical number of boxes in half or close to it, or they make it grossly overpowered. Figure an XCA with 48 warp. That's two 12 box engines; not enough to survive long. But, if you make 'em bigger - say, 15 to 18 boxes per engine - you get ships with 60 to 70 warp.