Next we'll be hearing about how Orions won't be getting X2...

All major Alpha Sector races are getting X2.

Just take it as a given.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Saturday, August 09, 2003 - 08:52 am: Edit

Amen, Mike and John.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Saturday, August 09, 2003 - 08:54 am: Edit

I keep seeing "GXX" racks, etc. What makes these X2 racks different from the previous ones? Sometimes it's hard to follow the threads if you weren't there from the beginning.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, August 09, 2003 - 11:19 am: Edit

The G2X rack may mean different things to different people, but, to me it is a GX rack with two 4 space magazines. You can load one magazine while firing from the other. The theory is the treaty will limit the number of drones that can be launched per turn so the races improved the througput by using a small multi-magazine system instead. Most races will leave sufficient room to seperate the magazines and install a second launcher should the treaty ever be broken.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 09, 2003 - 11:29 am: Edit

Never heard that one.


GXX would be at the very core a drone rack that can launch X2 drones...which might or might not be quite different from X1 drones particularly after the treaty breaks down.

I would also feel that an X2 G-rack should be able to fire a type IX drones at a faster rate than an X1 G-racks.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, August 09, 2003 - 12:52 pm: Edit

GXX usually means some kind of expanded magazine capability.

Tell us whose ship you saw it on and the creator will tell you wany he heant.

Tos,

I went through a stage where I thought multiple magazines was a good idea but I realized that it's really just a way to fire less drones. Once I saw that I could replace each magazine with a GW-era G-rack and get a better ship, I abandoned the idea. What I came up with instead was the Kzinti drone array which completely decoupled launcher from magazine. (Tecnically, my drone arrays only launch drones, they don't have the G-rack's ADD function)

4 adjacent magazines would have 4 launchers ut they would be free to draw from whatever magazine they chose allowing one magazine to be depleted and be reloaded on sudsequent turns while still cranking out 4 drone launches.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Saturday, August 09, 2003 - 03:08 pm: Edit

Original G rack - 4 spaces, can fire ADD, cannot fire X-drones.

Gx rack - 6 spaces, can fire ADD, can fire X1 drones.

GXX rack (at least on my ships) - identical to Gx rack, except can fire X2 drones.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, August 09, 2003 - 03:23 pm: Edit

What if X2 drones went the other way?

How about a two turn endurance, speed 32 (variable), standard/ R8-warp guided, 6 point warhead, Type VI based drone( 1/2 space). Typically fired from a X2 version of the E-Rack.

The tactical ramifications would be entirely different. And, in a way, more fitting of the era. More targets are harder to take out. Consider a defending ship with 8 Ph-5s. Now, a wave of four Type VII drones approaches from a K-XCA. No big deal right?

Now, the K-XCA has four EX racks firing upto four of these X6 drones a turn. The ship can only guide 12 of them but when they reach R8 they guide themselves (which, to a degree can help identify the target but that not much consolation). Our defender can destroy one X6 with one Ph-6 easy enough but will have to use all his phasers to stop the entire potentiol wave of 16 X6 drones per turn!

Four Type VII drones can be taken out with four Ph-6 (if good rolls). At most four Ph-5s. The X6 will require one Phaser shot per, in a way negating to a degree the vast arsinal of point defense weapons available on X1 and X2 and late GW ships. Drones thus make a real come back.

And if that weren't enough, consider that the target fired no phasers at anything else! Of course, there are other drone defenses, a new one I'll introduce next post.

This is no major revelation in technology. The drone has a single 1/2 space module so the warhead is only 6. The warp guidence is already a part of the Type-6. The new technology really is in the extended endurance but that's not too far fetched, IMO. The EX-Rack holds four spaces (8 half spaces) and can fire one per 8 impulses, just like the normal E rack. Normal E racks would be able to launch X6 drones but it shouldn't be hard to have an EX-Rack as part of a XP-Refit.

I could see Klingons mounting these exclusivly while the Kzinti would mount mixed racks consisting of EX and GX types.


Mike Raper stated earlier regarding drones that he didn't think bigger was nessaserily better. I agree and that's what sent me in this opposite direction. The X6 drone is easier to manage for the crews too! It's cheaper and provides more targets which is more effective in the X2 era.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, August 09, 2003 - 03:34 pm: Edit

There has been some talk about a new ADD weapon, possibly adding a phaser to the mix. Here is a new appraoch.

Mini-Tractors capable of only holding SC7 units.

Here's the proposal.

Anti-Drone/Tractor Defence (ADTD): This weapon acts as normal ADD-12 but has the added capability of four small tractor beams, two of which can opperate simultaniously. The maximum range of each tractor is 1. To power all four tractors requires 1 point of power during EA or with reserve power, from any source.

The idea being, drones that get by the ADD to R1 get caught by this mini-tractor and held until they can be dealt with another way. These tractors cannot be used on any target larger than SC7.

I know the ADD/Phaser thing was for dealing with Plasmas too but with the pulse mode for the PH-5 most ships will have pleanty of Plasma defense. We are already stepping on plasmas with the Ph5 as they get stronger and Plasmas don't resist phasers any better. Also, plasmas are a primary weapon while drones are typically a secondary weapon. The Kzinti, of course, use the drone in concert with their other weapons making the mix the primary weapon. But the drone its self in not the primary weapon while for the Gorns and Romulans, the plasma is. All in all, I think there is already enough Plasma Defense.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Saturday, August 09, 2003 - 03:43 pm: Edit

I, for one, do not want X2 to go in the "more but smaller drones" path. Anyone who's flown a Kzinti GW fleet can tell you why.

Tactically, it may be better, but from a "fun" standpoint, NO.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, August 09, 2003 - 05:20 pm: Edit

Jeff, ever fly the D5F?

Its pretty fun when all the main action is over to have something left to send in.

Also, please note I said Kzinti would have a mix of rack types. I agree that too many drones would be cumbersom but there would be that many X2 ships generating massive waves either (at least not historically). I've flown (and against) a Kzinti GW fleet many times. I understand why you say what you do. One such fleet was a SSCS with escorts and a couple FFDs. Drone output was the goal. It WAS fun.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, August 09, 2003 - 05:54 pm: Edit

When I mentioned drones being smaller, what I meant was that they should remain the same size with a moderate increase in damage potential; I don't plan for ships to carry more of them, or something; just for the ones they have to be the same physical size as X1, but with better performance. This is highly preferable to having SC-6 drones, or some kind of ship mounted Type H drone.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Saturday, August 09, 2003 - 06:30 pm: Edit

Mike, I think I'm with you on this.

My proposals had one-space and two-space drones.
The standard one-space was 8/18, and the standard two-space was 12/36.

But there was no increase in firing rate.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, August 09, 2003 - 08:43 pm: Edit

Mike: I knew that. I just was inspired by what you wrote.

Actually, so far, I'm keeping with my previous proposal. X2 uses X1 drones and adds new modules and the DBP. It's just simple that way.

But I wanted the X6 logged onto the board. I don't think it's a bad idea. Maybe it could be a Kzinti thing.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 09, 2003 - 10:39 pm: Edit

I think the Type IX Heavy drone with a 6 points of damage ( I'm already considering that the Type IX might inflict 8 points of damage on shuittles and fighters ) irrespective of the size class of the target might be quite do-able.
I've been thinking about mounting an X2E-rack on the Klingons as an analog to their ADD-racks.
Having a high ROF ship hurting function for it would be kinda cool...but I'ld probably prefere to give it a G-rack abilito launch single spaced drones...a Type VII ECM drone is good whay to keep the ship alive and chucking out aType VII from time to time at the enemy will also hurt the enemy.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, August 10, 2003 - 10:15 am: Edit

I'm not a big drone player, so I'm not as familiar with them as the rest of you guys. However, I will toss out some general comments we should probably keep in mind when working on X2 drones.

The recent new plasma rules (plasma sabot, ECM plasma) were made primarily to give the plasma races late-war parity with the drone races. Even 1X drones are not markedly superior to any previous ones, and what changes there are remain balanced by the plasma M and L. If we change core drone features like speed, warhead strength and damage, one of two things is going to happen. Either the plasma races will fall behind and need more upgrades in speed and warhead power, or the drone races BPV's will be so high as to prevent balanced duels. With that in mind, I think we should be working to balance X2 plasma and X2 drones simultaneously.

Thoughts?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, August 10, 2003 - 12:51 pm: Edit

You did it to me again Mike: I'm in a hurry so I'll be brief and elaborate in the plasma thread later.

A Drone Defense Plasma.

This plasma seeks SC7 units only. It over runs them with their damage reducing the war head like an ESG. The max range is the First range bracket. This is how long the targetting computer can last inside the plasma.

So, basically you fire a plasma (any size) in this mode and it sweeps up drones until it runs out of war head strength.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 12:20 pm: Edit

On the subject of the S-bridge as knocking down lock-ons.

In the MY period a D6 launches an SP at a Fed CAR and after the Fed manouvers to shoot all 6 type II drones at R1, the D6 launched a type II drone which is stopped by one of the two tractors of the CAR.

In the GW period a CARa+ fires at R3 & R2 at a the first wave of 3 type IVF drones launched from an SP launched from a D7bk, destroying 1 and using 2Ph-3s and 2Ph-1s as Ph-3s to destroy the rest of the drone in the wave, then the ADD-8 fires on the two drones launched from teh D7bk, killing one and 2 more Ph-1s are fired as Ph-3 to kill the final drone.


All in all the standard is that if the enemy fills his ( or nearly fills ) control cannels, the equal BPVed ship can shoot down all those drones.


Now consider a WS-III Fed BCG and NCA, whcih can control 18 drones and launch 18 type IVF drones through the employ of SPs and the racks.

If a Ph-5 is limited to 2Ph-6 shots then the phasers can only pull down 6 type IVF drones ( as a standard cruiser will only have 6 Ph-5s to point at the drones unless it centerlines.

She then has to deal with 12 reaining IVF drones with just 2 X2 G-racks and tractors ( are there any Fed XCAs with more than 3 tractors ).
Unless the drone lock-on breaking abuility of the special sensor are add in, in which case the tractors and G-racks will have only 9-12 but probably 10 type IVF drones to deal with instead of 12.


I think that X2 ships will have such low drone defenses that they'll need the S-bridge to be able to pull down drones.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 01:22 am: Edit

Was talkinX2 with my brother. He came up with an excellent idea for a drone module.

A "shield" killer" module.

A 1/2 space module would do 6 points o shsield-only damage (poof! against an unshielded ship) and do another 6 points of highly temporary shield box suppression, which would end after damage done by movement was resolved.

The advantages in hitting at the same time as explosive drones is obvious (or having one of these in the nose and some explosive too).

What does everyone think?

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 01:08 pm: Edit

Your brother is thinking HEAT-style drone?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 01:16 pm: Edit

Except the module itself does zilch to the ship. It just deals with shields.

...but yeah.

a combined drone with some of this and some explosive modules would be a HEAT drone.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 01:28 pm: Edit

That's what I was thinking.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 01:49 pm: Edit

...Like it?

good idea/bad idea?

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 02:11 pm: Edit

It is different. Would SVC go for it?

By Douglas E. Lampert (Dlampert) on Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 03:20 pm: Edit

We do have Spearfish for a partial precendent.

But I think I would prefer a souped up spearfish, less potential for wierd interactions.