...so suppose X-drones aren't in use outside X-ships?

What would that do to Loren's deceptor proposal?

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 04:46 pm: Edit

So, GW ships using standard Type Is and IVs?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 04:53 pm: Edit

Sure.

Why not? If that way lies the best gameplay, a suitable in-game reason can always be found for it happening that way.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 04:57 pm: Edit

WEll, if this Deceptor is only on X-ship drones, then the force multiplier is even worse AGAINST the GW ships.

A late GW ship can take on about 6 drones by itself, using tractors and P-3s and a few P-1s. If you force the GW ship to use up even more weapons to take out each drone wave, or WW in the face of an X-ship, you have taken away the GW ship's ability to compete against an X-ship.

Now, if this thing were like 10 BPV just for the module, plus a cost for the decoy submunitions, that I could see.

As long as in a dual of close to equal BPV, both sides have a fair shot at winning, then all is good.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 09:14 pm: Edit

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Now, SVC could just say all the borders popped back to their original form via a treaty or something but I think it would be the first really unimaginative thing he's ever done.

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Assuming the standard drone of the day will be the Type VII (6/18) drone, and this drone will be used by all ships, GW ships being refitted to this standard. Drones are going to become holy terrors.

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By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 09:17 pm: Edit

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I'm fine with that duruing the trade wars, but during the Xork invasion, I think speed 40 drones would be fun and cool and mess nicely with speed 40 plasma.

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By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 09:55 pm: Edit

Mike at first I was suspect of just forgetting the "Trade Wars" but indeed the SFU ship designers will not know what the Trade Wars are because they haven't happened yet. One should consider the culmination of events up to Y200 which is likely when the plans for X2 are in their beginning stages. Perhaps these ships first are born of the consideration that Operation Unity might fail! Surely they must have considered that, hence the weapons improvements we've come up with. Once Op Unity was won the deigns would be modified to a "Rebuilding The Nation" design which would match nicely with the Trade Wars mission (I the TW as an out groath of Nation Reclaiming and Rebuilding.)
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Oooops, I just realises this is really not the right topic for this so I stop. I'll give replies in the right topic.

Sorry guys.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 10:07 pm: Edit

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And you are basing this on what?

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By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 10:16 pm: Edit

CFant: It is a powerful thing and you did manage to convince me that the Deceptors should be able to be ID'ed by Labs. I'm not convinced that, in limited quantities, it too dangerous. It has the same restrictions as a MW drone and the war head on the Type VII is only 6 points (having only one 1/2 space explosive module). The Type VIII is at 12 points of damage.

To be sure, I only see these as limited or restricted availability.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 10:28 pm: Edit

If they are IDable as dummy weapons, then it gets better.

Also, they should be the most restriced type of drone, so I think that falls under Limited for drone %s.

That way, a standard (non-Kzin) warship will have 1 of these things in the rack, and at most 2 reloads. Three total on a ship is still very dangerous, but assuming they are very expensive and can are very limited, that should be ok.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 11:31 pm: Edit

I would like to see them with the same frequency as MW-Drones but would replace MW-Drones and not be in addition to.

Of course I once had a guy create a wave of 18 Type VI drones on me. I ID'ed the first one and realised they were indeed Type VI's. Cool, I said feeling the relief that a huge wave of drones wasn't going to vaporise me. That turned to a cold feeling that twelve were still going to get through for 24 points and his Alpha was next with my Phaser suite depleated. The Deceptor drone builds off of that tactic with less economic expence.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 06:03 am: Edit

What if the X2 Tractor beams we able to perform tractor rotation twice in a turn ( on impulse 1 & 17 ) and thus bring X2 drones into the firing arcs of "other side" phasers sooner?

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

That's be OK for SC 6 and 7 objects. Larger...not so sure.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 08:46 pm: Edit

Yeah, I was wondering what would happen if I allowed it to happen to a warbird, myself.

Probably should be limited it to SC 6 & 7.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - 09:14 am: Edit

Limit the double rotation to SC6-7 and it should be fine.

SC5 and up are simply to massive to be swung that quickly. You would burn out the tractors and the safety overrides would probably release what you tried to rotate before it ever happens.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - 12:39 pm: Edit

SC5 and larger are a noticable drag on the ship whereas SC6 and 7 aren't. That's the way I thought of it.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - 10:17 pm: Edit

Yeah, shuttles and drones don't have a regular MC.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Thursday, August 07, 2003 - 11:21 pm: Edit

Drone proposal:

Type X: 1 space, 18 warhead, 8 damage
Type XI: 2 space, 36 warhead, 12 damage

With the new ph-5 and ph-6, drones might need to improve to keep pace.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, August 08, 2003 - 02:36 am: Edit

With the new ph-5 and ph-6, drones might need to improve to keep pace.

That or something like what I've proposed; keep drones as X1 but give them better modules. The Deceptor Drone certainly would give the Ph-5/Ph-6 equipped ship a run for its money. And being a module that fits on a Type 7 and 8 drone it is available to X1 ships, evening the playing field. This is one way X2 improvements can go to the bulk of the fleets which, most agree, will be GW and X1 ships. Other modules can increase their effectiveness and survivability.


Hmmm, of course, who says that the new drone types must be restricted to X2 ships. Maybe a new drone type would be designed to fit any rack X or not.

Jeff, the Type-H has a warhead of 36 and is too big for ships. I think that the Type XI is too powerful in numbers.

The goal being survivability why not a 24 point warhead and keep the damage at 12. Put a bit of armor on it and it will take three Ph-6s to kill it. (or a full Ph-5 and a Ph-6...same thing.)

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, August 08, 2003 - 02:42 am: Edit

I'm not sure if 2 extra damage points on the one space drone and the invention of a true two spaced drone will right.

The invention of a true two spaced drone is kinda the upper limit so inventing a new warhead that does 8 points of damage per 1/2 space or jumping up to speed 40 ( through boost or otherwise ) will kinda make the the true two space drone OVER THE TOP.

But if the restrictions are little then those two will be cool, I for one like the idea of true two speaced drone but I dare say I'm one of only a few.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Friday, August 08, 2003 - 08:32 am: Edit

One difference between my Type-XI and a Type-H is that a single ADD would kill mine, while it would only damage a Type-H.

With just about every X1 and X2 ship mounting some varient of a G-rack, my type-XI isn't as dangerous as it may seem.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, August 08, 2003 - 01:17 pm: Edit

I haven't envisioned Roms, Gorns, ISC, Tholian, Lyrans and Hydrans mounting G racks. Are you suggesting that they do?

Anyone want to universally upgrade the probe launcher to a G rack with probe launch capability?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, August 08, 2003 - 02:08 pm: Edit

Tos, actually I had proposed that the X2 probe opperate like a drone. I'll have to find it.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, August 08, 2003 - 09:36 pm: Edit

Hydrans already have G-Phasers.
Lyrans already have e-s-Gs.
The Tholians probably won't have X2 ships.

So it's just the ISC and Gorn that need fear the uberdrones and they have no Historical enemy during the X2 period with those.

I'm not saying the introductoin of the true two spaced drone is wrong, just that it's about the only drone upgrade availible, if it's employed.

Everything else, high speed, high explosives, will need to have some kind of limitation added to the true two spaced drone to avoid having it as too deadly in the minds of most of the posters on this BBS...we could technobable our way out;" the extra mass of three warheads was too great for the drone frame under boosted mode and so a boosted true two space drones was never built" and "The high explosive modules were considerably heavier than the regular explosive modules and so the true two space module would crush it frame during manouvering and thus was never employed"...but I'm not sure if the idea of the BIG ONE being not able to do EVERYTHING it's little broyther can is going to sit well with a lot of players...it's fine with me but I'm not sure it'll be considered to have passed the "knights in satan's service" test.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, August 09, 2003 - 07:28 am: Edit

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The Tholians probably won't have X2 ships.

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