Well, ok. It was just a thought.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, August 07, 2003 - 07:26 pm: Edit

A good one. But to many other things make it to hard to even begin to implement.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, August 07, 2003 - 08:33 pm: Edit

When was the last time you heard Paramount complain about a direction SFB took? I can't imagine why they would care.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, August 07, 2003 - 08:43 pm: Edit

Jeff, it was a good thought! Don't quite throwing out new stuff.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Thursday, August 07, 2003 - 08:46 pm: Edit

I didn't mean to sound discouraged or anything. Just to say, oh well, this one didn't fly, maybe something else might later on.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, August 07, 2003 - 09:28 pm: Edit

The problem with paramount is that they can sue 5 years from now just as easily as next week.

They probably don't pay SFB much or any day-to-day attention, but all you need is someone someday to look at a SFB module and say, "hey, doesn't that violate our license agreement?" and away you go.

This is still the same Paramount that sued Trek fansites (arguably free marketing) if they included any images or such that Paramount felt violated their copyright.

On the other hand, that isn't our problem. it's SVC's. We can propose anything we like and let our imagination run riot. It's SVC that will need to judge whether the area if gray enough to bet his livlihood.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, August 07, 2003 - 09:49 pm: Edit

John. It's a balance. We shouldn't waste our time and SVC bandwidth with things that are obviously a violation (even though no of us knows exactly what the lic. agreement is worded like).

OTOH, some things belong to the science fiction genre and Paramount cannot lay claim to them. Some Star Trek ideas are not the property of Paramount. Sometimes a thing by another name is enough to make it different enough.

I might argue that the seeking photon is not a ST:6 idea but a product of the games already exsisting seeking weapons. Which are a growth from guided missles of today.

It does ring of ST:6 though so I would leave it alone. Beside, I'm not too sure the photon needs that ability. So why tread on a dirty river when you don't need to get to the other side?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, August 07, 2003 - 10:09 pm: Edit

Loren,

Exactly. We don't know the ins and outs of the agreement but we do know generalities.

SVC's pool of inspiration is limited to the backstory for Classic Trek, perhaps the animated Star Trek as well.

That's it. No series regulars from Classic Trek, nothing at all from the movies or the Franchise.

All you need is a resonable grasp of what the four Franchise shows and 9-10 movies have done and what of that stuff is public domain sci-fi and what's unique to Trek.

Photon torps as seeking weapons tilts pretty far into Star Trek VI so it's a problem. End of story.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, August 08, 2003 - 07:43 am: Edit

I actually concur regarding the seeking photon, but, I see no reason why a drone could not be filled with warp energy and set to explode like a SS. Not sure why you would do it when a simple and cheap thermonuclear device seems to work just as well but if we thought long and hard enough we could probably come up with a reason. Actually we already have precedent, the probe has done this for ages.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, August 08, 2003 - 10:15 pm: Edit

The problem is with the probe and the SS as our datum-line.

The SS gives you 18 damage for nine warp.
The probe gives you 8 damage for 4 warp.

If we say the Type VII-M/AM drone gives you 12 damage and the Type VII-M/AM drone gives you 16, and the power placed into them were 6 and 8 respectively ( over how many turns? ) we get to problem.
That's a lot of power for drones that are less devistating than zero energy drones.


If we raise the drones ( say a probe hold about as much matter/antimatter as a half space module ) damage output to Type VII-M/AM damage being 24 and the Type VIII-M/AM damaging being 32 ( or 12 and 16 power respectively ) then we get another big question, why can a size class 6 shuttle only hold 18 whilst a size class 7 drone can hold upto 32!?!
We could technobable our way though and say that the drones are specifically designed to hold matter/anti-matter and the shuttle is specifically designed for that purposes as it's sol function.

I could see the weapon at any strength being used to kill monster if the labs identifiy that it can be killed with an anti-matter bomb...but you're arming these things as though they were photons and then getting them shot down like drones...still not a good trade-off even with the high end damage versions.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, August 15, 2003 - 11:36 pm: Edit

Energised Boarding Parties

The developement of the X2 transporters had one radical advance over transporter designs that had gone before. Transporters became able to reproduce people and equipment for limited periods of time.
Indent The duplicates of people had no soul but they did have minds and as such could function just as the people they were copes of for about three minutes.
Indent The people to be copied would simply step onto the transporter pad and be coppied usually with the duplicates being sent to an enemy ship for boarding party action.
Indent The duplicates will evapourate ( die ) after 3 turns. Unless they are killed in combat before hand.
Indent The copying is immencely costly on power and does not include the transportation via transporter. The copy costs 0.8 points of power and the transportation of that BP to another location costs the usual 0.2 point of power. So an XCA with 4 transporters can spend 4 points of power every turn and contiuously beam artifical boarders to an enemy BP combat location.
Indent The Boarding party to be copied must spend the entire turn in the transporter room being ready to be copied at the instant they are to be copied ( they therefore can not guard the transporter as well ).
Indent If the dupilcate is to materialise at the location of the originals ( the same transporter room ) then a Legendary Major of marines will be needed to sort them out from the originals and order them to their next task, otherwise they will think that they are the originals and attempt to perform exactly the same task as the originals. If this happens the duplicates can not be given up first.
Indent The duplicates will fight as though they were the originals for three turns and if involved in a boarding party combat location, they may be given up first in favour of non-energied BPs (except as listed above).
Indent Because H&R beams a BP back to it's place of origin they will get confussed and therefore can not be sent on a regular H&R attack but for a total of 0.6 points of power a duplicate may be built that will last 1 turn, it can be beamed over, perform it's stuff and then evaporate and thus can perform H&R.
Indent Legendary Officers may be duplicated as part of a BP or individually. But they will suffer from the problems of not being beemed anywhere if they weren't beemed anywhere as if they were a BP as listed above. Legendary superior officers ( those that can function in the role of the duplicate, and always the captain ( except that the captain can not distinguish his duplicate from his original )) are needed to seperate the duplicate from the original in such situations.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Saturday, August 16, 2003 - 12:41 am: Edit

MJC, that's the kind of off the wall ideas we need.

Only thing I don't like is the dependence on Legendary Officers (an optional rule) for an X2 general system.

"Sir, it's too dangerous to beam the troops over."
"Lieutenant, send in the clones."

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, August 16, 2003 - 01:52 am: Edit

Hasn't the source tapes already stated this results in EVIL COUNTER PARTS?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 16, 2003 - 08:57 am: Edit

You only need them to deal with "current location" situations, otherwise you won't NEED the Leg' Officers.

If your transporter pad is in section A of a ship and you have boarders to fight in section D, then just spend a whole point of power per transporter and beam them there. The Originals can stay on the pad and do it again next turn.
Of cause with three transporter a Legendary Dr and and Captain, you can get upto 3 ( but no more cause they eventually burn out ) Leg' Doctors and 2 Leg' W.O.s and a Leg Captain working all at once inside the enemy ship...too bad they won't live long enough to actually capture the ship and fly it back to an SB for conversion...I'm not sure if being able to make huge numbers of tempory Leg' Officers ( as freeloaders no less ) won't drive the BPV up too much...you know, Leg' Eng' to fix shuttles and a Leg' Eng' to give you exttra power, plus the one on the pad, yickes.


L.K.:-
No these ain't alternate reality beings, they're transporter-clones.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, August 16, 2003 - 02:37 pm: Edit

MJC: I was kiddin, but refering to when Kirk go split in two by a transporter malfunction.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, August 16, 2003 - 03:33 pm: Edit

Transporter cloning also occurs in sevrral novels.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 16, 2003 - 10:02 pm: Edit

You know...we could take the SUPER-INTELIGENT-BATTLE-COMPUTER guard robots; give them to X2 ships, beef them up to act as regular BPs and limit the duplication to only those...that might be more beleiveable.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Saturday, August 16, 2003 - 10:15 pm: Edit

Why would they not be part of the permenant boarding parties? It's easier than using the transporter to clone more.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 16, 2003 - 11:31 pm: Edit

On the contary.


If I have 10 BPs of which 4 of them ar Robots and I have 3 Transporters, I can spend 3 points of power every turn.
Assuming no losses of BPs over the battle and the operation of the Transporter occours on the same impulse every turn, the BPs will be numbered as follows.

Turn	Number of BPs
1 before energisation	10
1 after energisation	13
2 before energisation	13
2 after energisation	16
3 before energisation	16
3 after energisation	19
4 before energisation	19
4 after energiation	19
5 before energisation	19
5 after energisation	19

To me the ability to convert 3 BPs into 9 ( and extra 6 ) for 3 points of power every turn ( even if it must be warp or some such ) is a pretty handy ability to have if one is the subject of being boarded...and pretty handy if one is doing H&Rs as the losses don't really count.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, August 16, 2003 - 11:52 pm: Edit

Too good. There needs to be a cap on how many you can have in service at any one time. Stick joystick jockeys in Auxiliary Control and allow them to control the robots. I’d use (K7.331) as a corollary but I’d double the number to 4 robots per Auxiliary Control, though each pair of robots would reduce the number of Death-Riders that could be controlled.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Sunday, August 17, 2003 - 12:12 am: Edit

Instead of cloning BPs, what about forming militia from your crew?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, August 17, 2003 - 08:01 am: Edit

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Quote:

Too good. There needs to be a cap on how many you can have in service at any one time.

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Quote:

Instead of cloning BPs, what about forming militia from your crew?

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By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, August 17, 2003 - 10:54 pm: Edit

An alternate would be personnal X2 body armour, the BPs take a shift to be protected in BP combat.

Couple that with multiple-indepentant traget aquisition systems built into the internal computer of the Phaser rifles to give the BPs a deadly shift when attack in BP combat.

And you've got BPs that fight at the ordinary rate against X2 BPs but against GW and X1 BPs fight with shifts that make them as effective as say one and half BPs...that's offset the huge number of BPs that the enemy can beam over with there GW ships.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, August 18, 2003 - 12:47 am: Edit

Hey there, MJC's heading in the right direction. How about something like this:

Not sure what to call them...Special Armor Commando Team (SAC Team)?

Anyway, these Commandoes wear powered armor developed during the X2 era with a short term personel shield and MJC's multi-aquisition targeting computer. Also they are equiped with a transporter beacon for transport on command (increasing survivaility in H&R raids)

Result, a SAC Team has a combat potential of 1 but takes two CP to kill in normal combat. Upon return to the home base or ship any damage to the SAC Team is "Healed" by the beginning of the next turn. This reflects the changing of shield packs or the armor it's self. (That is, SAC Teams that take one CP are healed on return. SAC Teams that take two CPs are killed and do not return. In ground combat "returning" equals being out of combat for one turn while at a GCS or Ground Base.)
SAC Teams get a die roll shift in a favorable direction for the various Special Boarding Party Combat Tables in the Commando Column on (D7.6), (D7.61) (D7.62) (D7.8) and (D7.831) This is in addition to other shifts such as those from a Legendary Marine Major.

Cost 1.5 BPV, max two per ship. (Second Generation Ships can have four by replacing two standard BPs and buying two additional SAC Teams.) This is a replacement option for normal Commando Teams which the SAC Team is actually an upgrade of. (I.e. SAC Teams count against the Commando Team limits on all ships). Ships with Barracks can buy four. (Yes, that means X2 can put barracks in a NWO and have six SAC Teams).

There is no "Outstanding Crew" version of the SAC Team. They are already as good as can be.

=============

By giving them a 2CP value and a favorable shift on the tables you get a X2 unit that can be used on all ships and don't have to determin which BPs are X2 and which are not in a mixed combat zone. X2 ships get the advantage of two extra teams.

No shift is applied to the normal combat table (D7.421)/(D15.3) as this complicates play. The SAC Teams advantage is that they take 2 CPs to kill and can heal one CP in one turn between combat. So, say I have a situation where (A)10 BP vs (B)6 BP + 4 SACT and player A inflicts 4 CPs on B and in turn recieves 3 CPs back. On turn two A is down to 7 ComPot and B remains at 10. Additionally, B can move one or all SAC Teams out of combat to "Heal" for one turn. SACT operations centers have effectively an unlimited supply of extra power packs for their armor so it is not needed to track these supplies. OK, there is probably about 4 or so packs per individual but used packs are recharged and rotated so the supply is unlimited, effectively.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, August 18, 2003 - 01:43 pm: Edit

We can call them "Mobile Infantry."

Sorry, couldn't resisit.