I concur.

The S bridge is linkedthrough, the central computer...the ship has ONE of those and through the ship's sensor array; the ship has ONE of those.

Net result although any BRIDGE ( not any control but just any bridge ) can act as the seat of the S-Bridge function, a ship may have many bridge boxes but only one S-Bridge function.

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

MJC: Correct.

As a further technobabble explaination, bridge stations can take over the role of others. So as part B of the bridge is destroyed part A or C can take over. Hence, all bridge on the SSD are designated S-Bridge or none. I do have some ships that do not have S-Bridge in my proposal. Namely any ship whith real Scout Sensor Channels and various small ships and freighters.

I figure Orions would have an option of buying the S-Bridge if they wanted but the ships would be without it on the SSD.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 04:25 pm: Edit

The one problem with that is you'd have to figure out how much BPV it's worth for each X2 Orion.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 05:10 pm: Edit

Not so difficult. Since it doesn't add any EW capabilities it value is more routine. I'd say half the cost of a Special Sensor.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 06:10 pm: Edit

But you will have to playtest with/without to be sure.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 10:04 pm: Edit

Absolutly. Heck, everything I've come up with need that.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 10:18 pm: Edit

My point is the extra playtest effort required to test with/without.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, August 14, 2003 - 10:40 pm: Edit

That's fair.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 23, 2003 - 02:22 am: Edit

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Quote:

I still think it should retain the "Break Lock-Ons" capability but be limited to one target. This is still very valuable and would be the sort of protection an X2 ship needs. I.e. it renders it a little less susceptible to surprise launchings from planets or what have you that the X2 ship might be investigating. That would be part of the motivation to develop such a capability and it utility in combat is obvious.

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By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 04:17 pm: Edit

I just realized, there's no real reason to power the Special Bridge in a combat situation, unless you're facing a drone ship and you're short on labs, or if you happen to be fighting in a minefield. The TacIntel and Science Gathering abilities don't have much use either.

Granted the Special Bridge was designed to hunt out RTN links and be cheaper than a full scout channel, but there should be something that makes a Special Bridge useful in combat.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 04:44 pm: Edit

...thinking...

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 09:34 pm: Edit

Why?

Seriously...the S-Bridge was developed to hunt RTN nodes and aid the longer ( more lonely !?! ) mission X2 ships in performing missions against Monsters...in the X2 period, there's never a scout around when you need one.

Just because it'll help the X2 vessel in amine feild and against drone users doen't mean that it's an unbalancing weapon and doesn't mean that the S-Bridge needs a EVERBODY LOOSES OUT Function.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 09:36 pm: Edit

How do people feel about?:-

1) Improved EM for X2 ships.
2) Improved EM for X2 ships that gains an increase in it's improvement the smaller the MC gets.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 10:37 pm: Edit

I never said it was unbalancing.

I just said the Special Bridge has no use in combat unless you're fighting a drone race. It should be able to contribute something.

It's the same situation as the ADD launcher. If the enemy isn't firing drones, what good is it. Well, at least you can fire a Type-VI dogfight drone. That's something.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, September 02, 2003 - 10:55 pm: Edit

It's still useful against SS.

I'm still thinking what it could do against the Eastern side of the Galaxy without adding more against the Western side.

I.D plasma? That is, use the channel to specifically I.D the exact type and with a die roll of 1-2 I.D's enough to reveil if it is Pseudo or not.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 03:10 am: Edit

Since Drones are common and have a high RoF, I'ld say see if the S-Bridge just doesn't work as is.


To ID a Psuedo from a Real Plasma, wouldn't be too bad if we restrict it enough.

If we say Can ID Plasma at R15 then the Plams a boys are rooted.

If we say can ID plasma at R6 on a 2 in 6 then the Plasma Boys will probably do okay because it'll be very lat when the plasma gets to that point on can you ED and WW in 5-ish impulses.

If we say that the coupleing of a LAB and the S-Bridge buys the right that turn for the LAB to ID the drone but the plasma is treated as 2 hexes further away than it is, then the plasma will be right on top of the before it can do anything.

These limitations will allow the ID plasma to become workable ( if a crap shoot against the the Romulan XWE ) but I suspect the BPV price tag of the S-Bridge will not be so great as to blow the game balance wise i.e cause X2s to be truely destructive against the X1 and GW drone chuckers but be dead in the water against X1 & GW Plasmas.


Is there any other heavy weapon that needs the S-Bridge effects to do something more than the Plasma Chuckers?...If the others can be handled without a problem ( don't know how HBs will fair ) then we could add in an anti-plasma function tot he S-Bridge ( probably have to give it to X2 scouts ) that allows the S-Bridge to focus fire on Plasma and thus grant a +1 shift to plasma...actually we could allow it to be set to fighters aswell and deal with the HB Fusion boys that way...but it's probably best just to run the playtesting and see where it leaves us.

We might even look at letting the distract drones function move to plasmas aswell, creating a scout Yoyo between any two X2 ships when fighting plasma.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 05:38 am: Edit

Problem: If the S bridge can break Plasma Lockon. Why bother launching plasma at all. They will never hit. All the S bridge has to do is hold fire until the plasma has been broken and then ALPHA Strike away.

At least the Drone chuckers have other weapons backing them up. But if you make plasma even harder to use in seeking mode. You might as well serve the BP races up on the barbie. Cause they will be dead and ready to be BBQ'd by the first Drone user to come along.

Anyway why does the SBridge have to be good in combat? Is your Probe launcher a prime Alpha Strike weapon on your ship?
<EDIT>

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 06:38 am: Edit

One more thing on SBridge then I'll be queit.

SBridge: maybe it gives the Detection abilities of a SC on the strategic scale of F&E?

So there wouldn't be much need for more than 1 or 2 full Scouts per race used mostly in Exploration or battle.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 07:45 am: Edit

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SBridge: maybe it gives the Detection abilities of a SC on the strategic scale of F&E?

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Quote:

Problem: If the S bridge can break Plasma Lockon. Why bother launching plasma at all. They will never hit. All the S bridge has to do is hold fire until the plasma has been broken and then ALPHA Strike away.

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By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 12:44 pm: Edit

No way would I want S-Bridge to break plasma lock-on. Plasma is THE primary weapon of many races and that would be too much. There aren’t enough of them. As far as drones, I'm OK with S-Bridge being able to break lock-on on ONE target.

The way I see S-Bridge I.D.ing plasma is similar to I.D.ing drones. Roll a die, if the result is less than the range the it is I.D.'ed. After a successful I.D.'ing you can try to determine if it is Pseudo or not. Roll another die, if the result is 1-2 they type (real or not) is revealed.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, November 16, 2003 - 08:36 pm: Edit

Here's an idea that has been in my mind for a little while. Basically there is a call for stronger shields to make the ships better able to withstand the "increased firepower" of X2 ships but I think we should just make the ships harder to hit whilst the sheilds are up and thus make the shields last a little longer.


X2 natural ECM
We give X2 ships an ECM bonus ( like the Orions get from G15.8 ) because the X2 ships make their outer surfaces out of subspace-radar absorbing materials.

Thus each X2 ship has 1 point of free ( and natural ) ECM, except Orion ships which will have more than their X1 counterparts as listed appropriately under the G15.8 bonus in the ship's data table on the SSD.

The bonus is lost with the destruction of the last HULL box and restored when the first hull box is repaired by CDR or other means.

Because of the ASIF and the stealth materials X2 hull boxes shall have a CDR cost of 2.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, February 04, 2004 - 09:10 pm: Edit

Here is an interesting idea to improve X2 EW over X1 though I'm not sure it would actually come into play.

If X1 can achieve an ECCM advantage over its target it can gain a -1 to hit.

How about allow X2 to gain what ever shift if can. If it can gain a 4 ECCM advantage over its target then it can gain a +2 to hit. This, however, would be pretty difficult to achieve.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, February 04, 2004 - 09:25 pm: Edit

I wouldn't go there. I would like to X2 ships take longer to kill each other than X1s so I would go the other way.

Have every ship made of a special stealth materials that gives it one point of free ECCM that is destroyed with the destruction of the last hull box.

Having Four 20 point Photons shoot at R8 at an Orion With Photons tryiong to shoot back at you could build a situation where you are hitting at R8 on a 1-5 on D6 and that wouldn't be vey much fun after the Orion acted like a fool.

The reason why all but X ships ( and a handful of others ) can't gain from a -1 shift is that as soon as both players go for ECCM ( when each is making it's attack run ) the ability to pulverise each other at some pretty inconsequential ranged ( Auto Hitting at R4 with Photon!?! ) makes for a fairly unfun game.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Wednesday, February 04, 2004 - 11:49 pm: Edit

How about ECCM that can "pierce" a cloak, or make a cloak "leaky?"

How about Electronic Warfare Support Measures (ESM) that give a bonus to ECM or ECCM or TACINTEL?

How about converting or using Labs as a Combat Electronic Warfare Support Module (CESM)?

How about using probes to extend a ship's EW "horizon," or drones, or shuttles?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, February 05, 2004 - 12:27 am: Edit

MJC: So what your saying is that people flying X2 ships against each other would just throw everything into ECCM and the close and hose.

I suppose your right.

OK I'll retract that proposal.