Archive through September 03, 2003
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Archive through September 03, 2003
Mike's right. There has to be a fair amoutn of common ground.
If we shield-shunt, everybody uses the same rules. If we use a ASIF, everybody used the same one. I play with that a little by assigning sifferent shielding values to different races with my ASIF, but it still always works the same, which is the big thing.
I agree we need to have common rules. Otherwise we get the Andromedans
For Shield Shunting I still like the SC Based shunting I did in my Romulan Intergrated proposal. basically you could shift damage equal to your Size Class to each adjacent shield. IE a CA can put 3 points of damage from a hit on the #1. To Both the #2,6. (For a Total of 6 points.) A DD could shift 4 points.
You could only do this 1x a Turn. And only shift a total of 1/2 max damage. If the CA took 10 points of damage the max it could shift would be 5 points. At 14 points it could only shift a max of 6.
Well, for the sake of varity I introduced a class of Romulan ship that uses an alternative. Though some feel that its name will get ADB in trouble I've never heard cannon ST ever called anything "Powered Armor". Cannon ST never even mentions armor on Romulan ships either.
Sorry, I don't mean to start that issue again, the point is I feel it is a nice diversion from the standard ASIF that every one gets. One way to keep the feel of the WE but have it be more advanced.
Ctitique of the ASIF.
Procedure: The ASIF is a single 360-degree shield that blunts penetrating damage by shielding some or all of the columns of the DAC.
Wouldn't it just be easier to make it shield 7 (And maybe 8 in a FH/RH style.) and let it stop damage that comes through the primary shields? Maybe the Galactic powers learned something from the Magellanic races? Keep the KISS principle in mind. This has a number of points that you have to stop during Damage Allocation and change completely how it works.
The ASIF display on the ship's SSD shows the shield boxes designated for the DAC columns it defends. When a point of damage would normally be done to a column protected by an undestroyed ASIF box, a box on the corresponding column of the ASIF display is marked off instead. When all boxes for the column are marked as destroyed, damage is allocated normally using established DAC procedures. The player must record damage to the ASIF before recording any damage to the corresponding column of the DAC (or deeper columns). He may not choose to let some damage through.
Whats happens after you have already filled the A column and you roll a 7 on the very first roll for damage. Do you then have to fill the entire B column before rolling for another A hit? How does this interact with the Positron Lancet? Or even dealing with the second (or third) roll on a one hit item. IE: A=Torp B=Phaser C=L Warp. So would i have to fill in Columns B and C? Before rolling the very next hit?
Reinforcement: The ASIF may be reinforced by either general or specific reinforcement. It may be reinforced in response to combat damage.
You stated earlier that the ASIF could only be raised during the Shield step.
Quote:The ASIF is raised or lowered at the same time and same manner as standard shields are raised and lowered. The ASIF may be raised and lowered independently from other shields. It may not be raised in response to combat damage. An operating ASIF may be reinforced in response to combat damage
Now your saying it can be reinforced as well? Strange the ASIF itself is a reinforcement of the SIF in the first place. I dont think you can boost it even farther. (Even if the idea works at all.)
All reinforcement is cut in half, round fractions down. Reinforcement fills in the ASIF starting from the deepest columns working out toward the "A" column. Each column must be filled in before reinforcement can fill in the next column. If the "A" column is entirely filled, the reinforcement adds onto the "A" column.
This isn't a much of a drawback. I'm trying to stop Weapon hits on the A column. Unless I get 8 OL Photons on the same shield/impulse it's not to likely for a XCC to take many B hits. So I'll reinforce my shields at 1-1 and keep the ASIF from taking hardly any hits in the first place.
Balance:
1) Reduction - ASIF uses the "leaky shield" rules, allowing 1 out of every 5 hits through.
2) Reduction - Transporters are considered to be blocked as if by a facing shield or general reinforcement when the ASIF is powered, raised and has any undestroyed boxes in the "A" or "B" columns.
3) Improvement - The ASIF can be repaired at the same rate as other shields.
4) Improvement - Reinforcement to a ASIF is not cut in half
5) Improvement - Reinforcement and/or repairs may be made to a new column if there is at least one box in a previous column. EXAMPLE: If we have a ASIF with its "D" column down by 2 boxes and have repaired 3 ASIF boxes, we could skip repairing more "D" row boxes (there's) 2 already there, repair 1 "C" column, box, which would enable repairing one "B" column box, and finally repair one "A" row box. The "A" row could then be reinforced if needed or repaired further in a future turn.
At the minimum I would suggest that reduction 1 be used. And none of the improvements be allowed.
Which is all beside the point.
I'll say it again. ASIF will be DOA. As written it implies that it's an Advanced SIF. It doesn't matter if the idea has been around for 50 years in SciFi. All it takes is One Paramount lawsuit to put ADB out of business forever. It never even gets to trial since the discovery process is used to bankrupt ADB.
The same goes for changing it to an energized armor. ADB Can't go there since Enterprise did it.
While I'll do the Ship defs for SFBOL with it. I just dont think it's worth the time to playtest. For the reasons I gave above.
Please note this not an attack. Just my reasoning on the potential game and real life problems that will keep ASIF from being allowed in the game.
IMO it would be swept off SVC's desk as soon as he saw it.
I think the most risky thing about it is the term Structural Integrity Feild.
Call it a Young's Modulii Improvement Array and since there aren't many Engineers at Paramount, it'll probably never be a problem.
Yeah...a Y.M.I.A. would be a much better name for it.
Hey did I ever mention that Young's Modulus of Elasticity is actually a measure of ridgidity!?!
Go figure!
For my stuff, I canned the SIF and went instead with self-repairing shields. An XCA, for example, will repair 5 boxes per turn, per shield, at no cost. Not enough to break the game, but enought to give it some chance of getting it's defenses back up. The actual shields aren't all that much larger than those from X1.
At first I was skeptical of the ASIF.
A lot of the real skill and fun is flying a ship with light-to-moderate damage. A CA with 20-30 internals.
But, when I reread the text in P6 from SVC, I realized that if we double the shields and double the firepower without doubling the toughness of the hull, ships would either have shield damage or heavy damage.
The ASIF would convert the heavy damage (about 40-50 points of damage) into moderate damage (about 20-30 internals)
One of the differences between a MC 1 cruiser and a MC 2/3 cruiser is that the NCL can take one solid punch, but the MC 1 ship can take two and remain operational.
With the increased damage in X2, neither ship would be able to take a solid blow and keep running.
As far as the name, whatever works.
Kenneth Jones: In no way is the ASIF DOA as you say. The ASIF is a phase I coined. No sci fi anywhere ever used an "Advanced Structural Integrity Field". Copy right on that phrase belongs to me and since I posted it on this BBS as a SFU proposal it now belongs to ADB.
Further, STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY FIELDS have been mentioned in the rules and have been in the rules since at least "Dooms Day".
Though I'm no lawyer and the ultimate discision is up to SVC and ADB, I would say Paramount has no leg to stand on to complain. Second, Paramount must issue a formal request to remove the precieved infringement before a law suite proceeds. SVC will always have a chance to defend himself by compliance before Paramount can put ADB out of business. Paramount isn't just going to snap it's fingers the first chance it get to put ADB down. I understand it's a love hate relationship though this aren't as you state they are.
Second, the ASIF you have reviewed isn't the only ASIF proposal. I have one and others have theirs.
To Everyone: I may be mistaken about it being me that coined the phase though I'm pretty sure I did since I remember arguing why it should be called that. I lay no claim to any proposal but my own and only brought up coining that phrase for the sake of this arguement. I'm getting frustrated hearing that ideas are DOA because Paramount wont like it and will end it all. We all are grown up and are keenly aware of the position between ADB and Paramount. What we call anything here is not the published material. If the idea is good and paramount has a problem with it then it can be renamed. Again, Force Fields are not the property of Paramount or any single entity.
Ken,
Thanks for taking the time to look through the rules I wrote. Yours is the first feedback I have gotten on the actual rules text.
Technically there are two ASIFs out there. Loren has one that is a 1-point-of-power-per box 7th shield and mine, the Shielded DAC you critiqued.
We rarely come up with a single way of doing things around here.
Jeff cuts to the heart of what I wanted for my ASIF: a way of blunting the effectiveness of damage without just making bigger shields. The effect bigger shields give is the ship increasingly becomes like a D&D character, fighting at 100% efficiency despite damage done to it then suddenly dying. SFB is about playing hurt and if damage is too effective too fast you lose that.
Now to the critiques.
No, it wouldn't be better to do a shield 7 or 7/8 for the reason Jeff stated and I restated. You might as well just integrate the 7/8 boxes into the normal 6 shields for all the difference it would make for the way the ship takes damage.
You have my ASIF operation right. You hit a A-row phaser or engine hit that's already been done, skip to the B-row, you run straight into the B-row protection. This does indeed reduce the effectiveness of the Mizia concept. I didn't write my ASIF to blunt the Mizia. It's a side-effect. But I'm fine with it. I even like it.
On reindocement: Hmmm. I will have to look over my rules. I had intended my ASIF to operate like a shield for most purposes. I may have has a limitation in mind and forgotten. All my rules were written in little snippets at work during small lulls in the fighting when I had nothing to do.
Note that reinfocement functions at 1/2 strength. 5 points of power become 2 points of specific reinforcement. General reinfocement is cut in half also. Or used up at twice the rate which would be more accurate.
I have never heard a Trek use the term "Structural Integrity Field" and as you say the concept has been around a long time and outside Trek. I have been the first to invoke the lawsuit danger with anything that remotely smelled like a Trek concept, too (including various energized armor concepts suggested here).
In this case, I can't see Paramount caring. We aren't co-opting their intellectual property. "Intellectual Property" is everything. Paramount jealously defends its copyrights and that's where their focus is at. If Paramount is as touchy as you suggest: 1) That's more than defending copyright, it's outright megalomaia. Paramount wouldn't have sold SVC a license if they were THAT bad (or they would demand approval over SFU products) and 2) X2 is a dead product because paramount would almost invariably sue over something.
Final decision is SVC's.
I expect most of my stuff will land on the cutting-room floor. It's defintiely there unless I put it up for consideration.
Loren,
I think I may have added the "A" to your "SIF".
Loren,
Structural integrity Fields were mentioned in TNG. We can name it something else. Which I would prefer. ASIF though can work as a working title.
As to Paramount being Megalomaniacal. They have sued any number of ppl to keep them from posting things about trek. As to not selling the license. They sold SVC the license wayback, when they thought they would be getting just a few more drops of blood out of the ST turnip.
The suits didn't think they would still be milking ST 20+ years down the line. Thats why the license is the way it is. Being a perpetual license instead of one that has to be renewed every few years. As is the practice for all licenses today. (Which is why we are lucky that SVC did it when he did. If he tried to start SFB today you could forget it ever getting off the ground.) Just look at AoG B5 license as a prime example.
And yes I was just critiqueing JT's ASIF. Since thats the only one I have seen on SSD's at this point. On JT's web page. (If he still intends to be a central 2X clearing house.)
Ken,
Most of what you attribute to Loren was my writing.
Mike's previous Fed XCA used Loren's ASIF but I don't seem to have any current examples. Loren hasn't sent me anything.
And yes, I want to be the X2 clearing house. Seems like someone needs to be.
Nobody here is insisitng on ASIF as a name. We're playing with concepts here.
LATE ADDITION: If Paramount didn't want the ADB to exist they'd sue SVC. They sue fan websites because the fans post copyrighted material. its all about the copyright. No copyright on a SIF, no lawsuit.
Yep I did mix up posters. My goof. Serves me right for posting while giving the baby a bottle.
Actually, the first SIF I used was Chris Fant's idea. Power it, and it deflects a given number of hull or cargo hits in one turn; it also improves breakdown rating while operational. I liked the simplicity in playtest, but found it favored ships with more hull over ships without, as the ships with more were able to last the round out because they took more "free" hits, and those with less lost the benefit of it before the turn was over. (Example: Fed XCA has 12 f-hull, 4 a-hull, for 16 hull total. With six of those protected, it takes awhile to get through all 22 hull points in one turn...and by the next turn, the ASIF was back up for another six protected hull. On the Klingon XD7, it had 4 f-hull, and 7 a-hull for 11. With the ASIF on, it had 18, and still lost hull more quickly and was more susceptible to damage on the second column than the XCA on the second turn). The ASIF has to protect equally, or this sort of thing happens. That's one reason I just shifted to auto-repairing shields. Simpler, and it doesn't favor one design over another because it doesn't mess with the DAC. All this being said, I have no objections to a well-crafted and tested ASIF, and don't think Paramount has any right to claim it as intellectual property.
Kenneth: I would like to appologise for sounding rude. I should have posted my arguement in a more friendly debating method.
Try a search on yahoo - +"Structural" +"Integrity" +"field".
I think if you elminate the word "field" from the name, nobody from the technobabble department would notice.
I propose the Structural Integrity Force Field (SIFF) be used then.
ASIS: Advanced Structural Integrity System.
Loren, NP I have a pretty thick skin.
It comes from having all that baby drool
Covering me from head to toe. It's caused scar tissue like you wouldn't believe.
Seriously, I'm just trying to point out various concerns and problems. So we can keep moving forward on 2X. I'm NOT trying to start an argument.
If anyones interested. I just finished doing the Rom XCC. I'll give it another proof in the morning to see if I made any foolish mistakes. Like making 2 Phaser # 3's.
I'll email it to John tomorrow after I fix everything that I catch.
Ken,
Cool.
All,
I'm thinking of writing a common rules notoation system and create a "rules smorgasbord". I am thinking of giving each rule its own page rather than one huge bank of 'em and organizing them by SFB rule sections.
Suggestions? Currently, only Tos has rules posted on my site besides me.
I was thinking of something like posting rules format like X2a.2xxa where a is a letter and x is a number. For example, all ASIFs would be D-section rules (X2D200.0) and all ASIFs, Loren's mine, everyone's would be filed under X2D201.0 - ASIFs, with Loren's at X2D201A.0 and mine at X2D201B.0 I wanted to start rules at 200 because that's what the ADB does with R-module plytest ships.
Too complicated? Suggestions for simplifying it?
Also, I'm for Lorens ASIS idea if we're at all worried about calling it a ASIF.
I'll send you some rules for my stuff, John. It'll be a couple days, though.
M.R.:
Whilst you're at it you could send my version of ASIF.