Ken, we've had this poll before and polls have their own topic thread.

Ken's questions will be reposted on the "polls" thread.

Please answer there.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Friday, November 21, 2003 - 11:47 am: Edit

John, I was referencing it. The question has been rephrased etc, to let us see the state of the discussion/general concensus.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Friday, November 21, 2003 - 04:46 pm: Edit

I thought the general idea (SVC's last I heard) was that X2 would have a 50/50 chance against a single GW/X1 unit of equal BPV. I think it's obvious that pre-GW units would get trashed but then there's probably not too many of them left by Y205. My guess is that when it's all said and done reality is going to be that X2 has a somewhat better than 50/50 chance against GW but stays about 50/50 against X1.

I think the operative part here is comparable BPV, rather than comparable class. An X2-DD may very well be able to hold its own against a GW-CC or what-have-you, but then again it may not. Until the ships start solidifying and playtesting we won't know.

That's not to say there can't be some sort of paradigm developed and basic philosophy established (race-based?) for each class, and of course that's partly what this debate is all about. In the end (or perhaps at the beginning) we need to ask ourselves, "what advanced technology will be fun (and different) to play and still give GW/X1 a fighting chance (at least until the new main enemy appears)?"

Perhaps I'm overstating the obvious, but then again if nobody can agree on what the fundamentals (with SVC as the final authority) are then we're just going to continue to go around and around. Personally I'm starting with the Fed X2-"CC" and going from there. My paradigm is that X2 tech gives ships of a particular class a capability on par with the next higher GW class. It isn't intentional, I think it's just the way the tech will work out, and it gives the game designers room to make the ships believable.

The Fed X1-CC ("CX") has BPV 225. Now that we've done the X-fix, is that BPV still accurate or has it changed (I can't find my copy of the X-fix CLog)? The Fed GW-BCHs BPV at 180-197, GW-DNL at 240, and GW-DNH at 264. If we're going to have approximate 50/50 odds against X2, then what's the right BPV? 200? 250? 300? Given the numbers, I'd say BPV 300 is pushing it. It looks like BPV 250 is closer to the mark.

Am I way off base here or am I making sense?

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Friday, November 21, 2003 - 06:41 pm: Edit

R. Brodie, the new BPVs are in the on-line Errata section on this BBS.
The Fed CX is now 240,
The Klink DX is 250, etc.

I keep picking 300-350 for the XCA because it would be the easiest values to playtest with. 300-350 is roughly 2 late-GW CAs.

There are very few units that are more than 275, and they're either conjectural, or prohibited by (S8.0) from flying alone.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, November 21, 2003 - 07:43 pm: Edit

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Quote:

Bully for you. Me, if want a 400 point ship, I'll just whip out my copy of R5.

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By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, November 21, 2003 - 07:47 pm: Edit

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Quote:

I keep picking 300-350 for the XCA because it would be the easiest values to playtest with. 300-350 is roughly 2 late-GW CAs.

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By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, November 21, 2003 - 07:49 pm: Edit

Well two DDX would be 340...

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, November 21, 2003 - 08:43 pm: Edit

I almost posted this in the Poll cometary and realised it belonged here.


I could be wrong and F&E might say something different but I recall reading that by late war all Fed CAs ended up as CC or variants (like the CAD) and I beleve the CAR went out of style too.

That would lend to the XCA being directly moved to an XCC since it was clear there would be few of them.

Actually, I could see there being NO XCA until the Xorks, when there is a need for many of these excellent units but not their extra amenities.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, November 21, 2003 - 08:49 pm: Edit

MJC: Just checking. Do you realise that the B11 is a conjectural unit and none was ever built?

That's not to say it's an unreferable unit as it is a ship with a high BPV that is in an official state. But we cannot expect any X2 ship to fly against one historically. So, designs cannot place much value one a compairison. (Other than from a game mechanics PoV)

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, November 22, 2003 - 08:08 am: Edit

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Quote:

The fully refitted B11 is the only thing that comes close and the other is the DOM ( at 600 ).
R5 doesn't give you many options at 400 BPV!...although BBs with all their fighters would be the right BPV, but X ships go through attrition units.

Becareful of starting a flamewar, it may make you look uninformed.

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By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Saturday, November 22, 2003 - 12:16 pm: Edit

Definitely not the only one.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, November 22, 2003 - 01:04 pm: Edit

I'll admit to being prety to power fantasies, but, practically speaking, play balance is likley to be hades on a stick on wheels.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Saturday, November 22, 2003 - 03:55 pm: Edit

Thanks, Jeff. In light of the errata, I'll submit the target BPV for the main X2 cruiser should be 275 (it's also double the original Fed CC BPV).

If we go with the split-cruiser concept, then the smaller cruiser should BPV at about 200. I'm going with calling the smaller one simply "cruiser" (vice medium or light cruiser) and the larger simply "command cruiser." I also maintain the larger would me MC1 where the smaller would be MC3/4 or 4/5.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, November 22, 2003 - 06:58 pm: Edit

You know, I was talking to my brother yesterday, and he said the 410 BPV playtest battle of the Fed XCA wasn't anywhere near being broken by the high BPV.

16 really powerful weapons happen top be a lot easier to play than 32 standard weapons ( which a BB and her fighters can easily throw arround in one turn ).

At a certain point we just need to warn players.
You will need 3 GW CAs ( Plus a lotta C.O.s ) to fight an XCA+ and so players are advised that if tracking three GW CAs worth of weapons and energy is too much work then the game should have four players, 1 for each GW CA and 1 for the XCA.


Seriously, is a starbase assault run as 6 players on the attacking side and 6 on the defending or is the ratio more like 9 to 3!?!


We can have 410 BPV XCA+s, because if people feel that's too much to chew off then they can have a DN Vs XDD+ or CX Vs XDD+ battle or a BCH Vs XDD battle or a DDX Vs XDD battle or even a BCH Vs XFF+ or CA Vs XFF battle.
They can even have an XCA battle Vs an XCA battle!
People need to understand their own limitations and play within them, not blame the game systems making ultra powerful ships into ultra powerful ships.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Saturday, November 22, 2003 - 07:31 pm: Edit

MJC said:

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Quote:

The biggest Late GW CA I know of would be the D7W ( 155 BPV ) so two of those would be 310 BPV.

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By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Saturday, November 22, 2003 - 08:24 pm: Edit

CL#23 specifically states that DNs, BBs and CXs are not meant for dueling.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, November 22, 2003 - 11:35 pm: Edit

A conversation that belongs better here got rolling in the Poll Cometary thread.

===============
John Trauger wrote:

Loren,

That's nice and apporpos to the CM designation.

But that's not really what I, personally, am interested in.

I mean no slight to you or your ideas. It's just a difference in what we have a taste for.
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LK:
No offense taken. Quite understandable.

The thing that is driving my ideas is what I think the races would be facing. I'm trying to create my designs from a historical perspective. What is the next step based on whats happening, what was succesful before, what failed before, what is affordable, and what will serve the needs of the Navy best.

My best guess at the situation is that the ISC pushed the races back to their core systems and then the Andromedans made things worse. Once OpU is over the races begin to rebuild, having more than half their nation to retake.
During the ISC and Andro wars R&D went into overdrive but implementation was problematical since no one could spare a moment to experement, instead building X1 ships and carriers and such as fast as they could to survive. Everyone enters the X2 era at the same time because thats when Galactic events allow for it to happen.

Oops, I'll stop now, this isn't the place.
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John Trauger responds:

...so you're assuming that the races will want a ready stock of technologically current war-production hulls?

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LK answers:

No.

The XCC is clearly the most desirable unit but it just isn't going to go into production as fast as the GW CA was. The NCL and subsequent NCA had some design advantages the lent to faster production (aside for cost cutting and corner snipping). Some of these advantages make it into the XCM design. Also, some to most missions wouldn't require a full XCC to serve. So, an alternate cruiser is put into service. These are fully capable cruisers, just not the premere Starship of the era but more capable than a CL. The XCC handles the Extreme missions while the XCM handles the others (but is still serving in front line missions.)
XCL/XDD handle anything from back up to rear area missions. Also, this hull will have the most variants.

The XFF fills in any gap including Scout, DB, and Fast Transport.

X2 is meant to phase out other technologies as it is easier to maintain and is more user friendly (as such requires less of the crew. Important because experienced crew of exceptional quality is more rare at the time).

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, November 23, 2003 - 02:15 am: Edit

Here's a little table that may help people see what I think about Refits for X2 ships.

Ship	BPV	GW Opponents	X1 Opponents.
XCA+	410	3CARa+	CX + DDX
XCA	300-330	DNH	2DDX
XDD+	240-250	DNG	CX
XDD	180	BCH	DDX
XFF+	170	BCH	DDX
XFF	130	CAR	FFX

Basically the X2 ships will come in an replace the X1 ships that are rought their class and then as the Trade Wars get out of control the refits bring these ships up to be a class ahead of their old X1 counterparts.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, November 23, 2003 - 02:21 am: Edit

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Quote:

It's actually 150+12, if you count all Type I-F drones.

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By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Sunday, November 23, 2003 - 02:48 am: Edit

There are not going to be any refits until the Xorks invade. And to talk about anything in the post-Xork period, before SVC describes the Xorks, is a waste of bandwidth.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, November 23, 2003 - 04:39 am: Edit

I disagree....I think refits could be a part of the tradewars.

As the treaty system breaks down, the galactic power want to recapture territories that they lost due to the GW-Pasification-AndroInvasion and will also ( some races ) want to steal a bit of the territory that was not theirs and want to gain that through having the biggest meanest ships capturing and patrolling their gains.


And from that point of veiw the X2s could have refits.


.


Alternately, there is the concept of having refits that are not chronological, but rather financial...that is to the main design was fairly modular and some shipyards built a version with some optional extras and some ship yards built versions with other optional extras.
So some Klingon XCAs could have four X2 Disruptors and others could have the full 6, some could have X2A-racks and others X2B-racks and others B-racks supported by X2E-racks whilst others still could have boom Ph-5s, all built by different manufacturers from the same basic blueprint based what the Klingon Admiralty is looking for in it's lattest aquisition.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Sunday, November 23, 2003 - 01:10 pm: Edit

Here's a question, can we all agree to put design philosophy discussion/debate in this thread? There's discussion all over the place about how big/small the ships should be, their BPV, flag/medium/etc. cruisers, etc. All I'm asking is can we keep it simple and put it all here? Have you noticed how many threads are under "X Files" now; for that matter how many of them aren't even being used any more? If anyone's going to create a new thread, it should be "X Files Management."

We still have threads for the actual X2 tech, like photons, drones, "any box," etc. which is fine, but for fundamental philosophy let's keep it in one thread.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, November 23, 2003 - 01:12 pm: Edit

I agree with MJC.

Ships shouldn't be exactly the same from 205 to to 220 and then suddenly blossom into a whole new set of classes.

New stuff gets developed and implemented all the time, albeit at a slower pace than with the General War.

Even if there is a treaty system, it wouldn't bar refits that didn't affect the main components of the treaty. (RW example: the japanese built their limit of "aircraft carriers" fully intending to convert them to cruisers once the next war was on. (funny thing was, they discovered carriers were better...)

Perhaps that's where a lot of the wierd stuff like ASIFs and any boxes come from: explotable gaps in the limitation treaty.

If the treaty defines a Cruiser as a MC=1 ship with 4 heavy weapons (plasma: no more than 150 points of standard launch damage), no more than 12 P-1s. Every naval designer will start to look for what doesn't get mentioned and improve that.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Sunday, November 23, 2003 - 01:24 pm: Edit

That's one of the reasons I'm saying a treaty isn't going to cover the limitations we're looking at. In order to make them stick, they're going to have to be the intrinsic consequence of the technology.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Sunday, November 23, 2003 - 03:05 pm: Edit

A little traffic control here, from the "Poll Comentary" thread (it seemed more appropriate for this thread):
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Tos Crawford November 22, 2003 - 09:50 pm:

I equate an upgrade conjectural BCHX to an XCC.

I wouldn't say that...I'ld say that a BCH is not a new techlevel above a CC+ but that an XCA is a tech level above a CX.

A BCHX is not an X2 cruiser...it's an X1 cruiser.

A BCHX should be in X1R and should have a YIS in the late 190s or maybe even early 200s.

Although the BCHX is a cool idea and is probably pretty scary (perhaps X1R will also have conjectural ships?), I'm not sure the GPs could've built one and I'm not sure they'd want to once X2 came into being.

I'm inclined to not worry too much about an offhand non-rule comment in X1.

I certainly don't want to escalate the CX to BCH levels then escalate power again switching to X2.

A BCX would have to have on the order of 18-20 P-1s on it before adding extra photons/plasma/drones (a Fed BCFX would replace plasma-F with plasma-S like just about everybody else? -- Brrrr... That's why I'd like to quietly forget that sentence in X1)

It may be that the the BCX is an alternative to the XCC and the two are more or less parallel-evolved equals.

The comment implied that when the problems were solved that allowed X-Tech on a BCH type hull THAT'S what X2 was.

Loren,

The problem is, the sort of X2 we're proposing (at least Y205 X2) here doesn't square with that.

XCX to XCA we trade 1.5 P-1's for a P-5. to got to the BCH benchmark a ship should then have 10-12 P-5s and we're stopping at 8.

We made a conscious effort to limit the escalation of raw power going from X1->X2 and I think that decision was the right one. Our XCAs in general are upgraded CX equivalents, Not BCX euqivalents.

Now come the Xorks, THEN we'll talk about true BCXs.

I'm not seeing it as number of phasers (or any armorment) that defines the hull. And I don't want to call it a XBCH either.

The X2 ship will have more powerful/flexable weapons so it's a trade off. What does define the XCC as based on the BCH is it number of hull, command facilities, shuttles etc. My XCC is closely related to the BCH but not a conversion. The number of weapons remain the same though there is a few additions. Certainly the warp and impulse engines are different.

The XCA has a similar layout as the NCA with a few additions. Not to mistake it or a refit though. It's clearly a new hull.

I am totally not looking for BCHX's. But am basing the RAW hull on the GW BCH to keep in line with what was written before.

Internal consistancy is important to me. It was said and should be done. That's why I'm not keen on the "X2 is smaller" concept. Also, I don't want to blatantly contradict canon Trek. The differences are many but it's a good thing to maintain some similarities. Myself and new players would expect it.