Are we calling 7.33:- 8 now or are we just taking the die roll results of 1-4 an ignoring 5 & 6?

If you really want point defense ( in the rear arcs ) roll a T-bomb set to R0 out of your shuttle bay hatch!
The Damage to Power ratio is fantastic.

Since these things aren't likely to be firing at ships, and ships are were power consumption is important ( ever used BTTY power to protect a fighter ? ) ( only the stand alone Ph-6 could be fired at ships ), the damage to power ratio is even less relivant than it is for capital weapons.

Let's find what X2 drones are like and then work on a point defense phaser.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 02:46 am: Edit

I am assuming that X2 drones will just be X1 drones. Why toss a perfectly good weapon system that is barely 20 years old?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 02:57 am: Edit

Because Speed 40 seekers can jump the good range of 1 for the Ph-3 so rapid puulsed Ph-3 shots are not depenadable enough to save your ship ( or more importantly your base ).


Even if there are no speed 40 drones, the speed 40 Plasma makes rapid pulsed Ph-3s of the X1s less effective...although the fact that you're going to throw everything but the kitchen sink into the plasma will reduce the effects of one or two bad rolls, unlike a drone wave which will require you to split your fire over several different targets increasing the chaos effect such that a bad roll could actually cause damage to strike the ship.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 08:07 am: Edit

My. Lots of debate over this. Here's my feelings on it.

• power cost I have no problem with the P6 being a .5 power weapon...but, then again, I think the P5 should be 1, so who's counting? If the concensus is (and it would seem to be) that the P5 should cost 1.5 to fire and can be downfired for less as a P1, then the same pattern should hold true for the P6. MJC said the other day that one reason to keep the P5 at 1.5 was because it gave the option of downfiring and saving some power. Why should this not be true of the P6, as well?
• Other options If a .75 cost P6 is too boring or otherwise unappealing, maybe we can try some new approaches. A P6 might not have it's own table; maybe it can be sort of a mini PG, one that only fires twice per turn. Or, maybe it can be like Cfant describes; lots of damage at short range, but a very, very limited range; sort of like a phaser/ADD hybrid, at least in terms of performance. Or, allow the P5 to downfire as a P3. You can burn 1/2 a point defensively, and still have a full point left to fire a P1 from. It may be that simple flexibility is all that is needed.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 09:41 pm: Edit

Actually I'm begining to take a a liking to Tos' idea.

Extend the table, so instead of doing 1-4 like a Ph-3 at R2, the Ph-6 is doing 3-4 still, that way it's not really anything like a "more power for damage" weapon but rather more like a "same power but more accurate" weapon.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 09:42 pm: Edit

The apocalypse has come........

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 09:53 pm: Edit

That idea was discussed at the beginning of the X-Files. It remains a lagit proposal, I believe, as it hasn't been put down by the board.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 10:49 pm: Edit

That would be interesting, either as an alternative to the P-6 or in addition to.

The traditionalist in me wants to make at a repalcement P-6 to keep the P-1/P-3 paradigm intact, but hey, I'm open to having it in addition to. If the P-6 is a 1/2 box, what would this be...1/3? 1/4? My vote's 1/3.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 11:38 pm: Edit

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying, I think the "P-1/P-3 paradigm intact" isn't supossed to mean the Ph-1/Ph-2...
But assuming that's correct...

The Ph-6 needs to come about for a number of reasons.
1) To defend against speed 40 seekers.
2) To make the analog of the Ph-1+Ph-3 suite return as a valid racial flavour.

The big difference in a stand alone Ph-3 and a stand alone Ph-6 need not be output ( read damage ) based, but could be performance based.
E.g. the stand alone Ph-6 could rapid pulse as 2Ph-3 shots, something the stand alone Ph-3 can not do, or it could be fired as a Ph-6 shot that does slightly more damage ( say 3-5 instead of 3-4 at some ranges ) or it could and this is not output based, inflict its damage out to longer ranges ( say 3-4 at R2 instead of 1-4 ).

Two of the three examplkes above are not MORE DAMAGE and therefore don't really need the MORE POWER FOR MORE DAMAGE principle of our design philophy of the Ph-5 to be applied.
Personnally though I like the 1.5 power of the Ph-5 I too could go with 1 for not too much effeort, indeed I used to through around the idea that a power oriented refit could be applied ( changing the 3 point BTTYs to 5 point BTTYs or some such ) that would also drop the power consumption of the Ph-5 down to one.

The extra point of SSReo we generate via firing a pair of Ph-5s for 1 point instead of 1.5 ( each ) can easily be covered by BPV.
What really is the difference between an XCA of 325 and an XCA of 321, in the grand scheme of things!?!

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 11:43 pm: Edit

Just to be perfectly clear, I mean SSReo through writting a smaller number on the RECHARGE PHASER CAPASITORS Line of the EAF and therefore having a few points to play around with...I mean the power's bound to go into movement or tractors but the base of the BPV would be built around using that power for SSReo as it's a direct defense where as the others are indirect defenses and are therefore harder to meansure.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 11:53 pm: Edit

MJC: I meant P-1/P-3. It's the primary two phasers found on standard-tech ships. Almost no ships used P-2's by the end of the general war.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, July 19, 2003 - 10:28 am: Edit

I'm sure almost no ship will be using X2Ph-1s by the end of Xord invasion.


Actually if your speed 40 plasma is well timed enough against you that you only get an R2 shot against the plasma, a single type 1 phaser shot will take less of the warhead away from the plasma than the rapid pulsing of that phaser for 2Ph-3 shots ( by all of 1/12 of a point of warhead reduction ), we need some kind of rapid pulse mode for the Ph-5 ( and proably the X2Ph-1 ) that can rip off more damage at range 2 than a Ph-3 currently can ( unless we jump to 3Ph-3 shots ) or else we'll be left with hoiking entire Ph-5 shots at the enemy.

This is a table of warhead reductions assuming 9 bearing X1Ph-1s and 6 bearing Ph-5s in both standard shot, and rapid pulsing of 2Ph-3 shot and 3Ph-3 shots all at R2.

Weapon	6Ph-5s	9Ph-1s	9x2Ph-3s	6x3Ph-3s
Damage to warhead	39	43.5	54	54
Warhead reduction	19.5	21.75	27	27

For supossedly Uber tech warships, they aren't doing so well and there's a lot of people who don't like the 3Ph-3 shots for the Ph-5 rapid pulsed so it's even less able to defensd itself ( dropping to 18 points of warhead reduction through it 36 points of damage ) so in a lot of ways the Ph-5 array of X2 is even worse at fending off Plasma than the X1 ships.
I'ld lioke to see their ability to deal with plasma kept in line with their BPV so I'ld like a better set of results at R2.


And with those better results at R2, the Speed 40 drones won't be so frightening, so I'ld like to see those introduced as well.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, July 19, 2003 - 12:24 pm: Edit

Speed-40 drones aren't frightening. They're unbalancing. That's the last I have to say on that subject.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 08:59 am: Edit

The thing about unbalancing weapons systems is that you can offset its effects with BPV.

If the Type X drone is 3 BPV more than the Type VII, then a DXD style X2 ship will suddenly jump up by an extra 108 BPV when you load up with type Xs. The average X2 vessel will be 36 BPV more than it was with the Type VII drones and that's enough to buy a considerably larger GW ship, and if there is enough X2 drone racks to be loaded with Type X drones the GWs could by an FFG to counter it, thats a heck of a lot of anti-drone capasity.

Since type IF ( or for that matter type I ) or Type VIF drone can still eliminate a Type X drone and a T-bomb will do it's damage irrespective of speed ( except when L.K. is playing ) and Ph-1s still do 3+ damage at R2, and ADDS are still pure carnage on drones; the extra BV will allow the GW player to buy enough defensives systems to defend himself against the added danger of the higher speed drones.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 12:39 pm: Edit

( except when L.K. is playing )

Sorry, I don't understand. I don't recall a proposal where speed changes damage. I've mentioned it before perhaps...could you remind me?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 02:24 pm: Edit

I think he's referencing something you said about drones taking more damage while boosted.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 02:46 pm: Edit

There are two X2 drone topics. Let's get back to defensive phasers.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 03:33 pm: Edit

Mike: Oh ya, I get it. I was looking at it from the wrong direction. D'oh!

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 08:40 pm: Edit

Yeah, it's the drones still take 10 points from 10 bombs and 35 points from NSMs, not 20 and 70:- thing.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 08:45 pm: Edit

So, am I right, that the very existance of sabotted plasma calls for a new point defense phaser that is dependable at R2?


I woulder if the Plasma-Ds released by a PLasma shot gun can be sabotted to move at speed 40, if so Hydran fighters will need a Ph-g analogy that is depenable at R2.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 09:09 pm: Edit

No, just because plasma goes speed 40 does not mean that the point defense needs a boost. GW ships do just fine against the speed 40 plasma.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 09:15 pm: Edit

Agreed. The whole purpose of making the sabot rules was to compensate for the higher speed of late-war ships. If GW can handle sabots fairly, X2 surely can.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 09:19 pm: Edit

I don't know, X1s arn't doing much better than a BCH against a well timed Sabotted Plasma dispite the extra BPV.

Since X2s will have even higher BPV they should be comming out of shooting at a Sabooted plasma with a lower warhead strength on the goo...and not just through the higher battle speeds that are possible with the X2 ship.

By Shannon Nichols (Scoot) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 12:38 am: Edit

Have the stand alone P6 cost .75 power to fire. But give it the ability to rapid pulse as two P3s. Each P3 shot would cost .5 power and be under X1 Aegis restrictions. P6 shots from the P5 are already rapid pulse shots and would not have this ability.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - 12:42 pm: Edit

We talked about it before.

The moment you give it that ability you'll get clamor for making a P-5 into a P-G