Is anyone willing to post or link a general synopsis of all the X2 rules as agreed upon so far including some sample SSDs?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, March 05, 2004 - 04:05 pm: Edit

Well, someon just proposed a change to the P-5 chart so we may hear crickets chirping for a while.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, March 05, 2004 - 07:37 pm: Edit

We need a topic that can be reviewed by the Steves without wading through 10,000 posts. At one time the Integrated Proposals section had that mission. It failed in that mission and eventually deteriorated into just another catch all thread. Unfortunately I don’t think there is a way to build a summary topic that won’t simply get overrun with commentary. Perhaps a web page displaying the current draft and participant commentary is the way to go.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, March 05, 2004 - 07:58 pm: Edit

That's what my site is for.

Any discussion topic here can and will get clogged with talk sooner or later.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, March 05, 2004 - 08:43 pm: Edit

Besides, aren't we miles away from a package? I know SVC is way off from even looking. I personally asked him to contact us before diving into these topics so that we could save him from months of useless reading. I think when he is ready to review what we've accomplished he will tell us and we can put something together then. I'd bet X2 is YEARS away.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, March 05, 2004 - 08:46 pm: Edit

I don't think we'll EVER have a single, everyone-approved proposal. That why my first post reads as it does.

I think the best we can expect is a broad consensus of, say, 60% or so of the posters here.

As I have said before, I think requiring or expecting a near-total consensus is a pipe-dream.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, March 05, 2004 - 09:23 pm: Edit

You'd be doing good to even get two or three individuals to agree on a total proposal. I think the best we can do is probably to get a consensus on what we DON'T want with X2, and perhaps a general concensus on some other things; like BPV ranges, etc.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Friday, March 05, 2004 - 10:37 pm: Edit

Just like the steves, I want to avoid the 10,000 posts as well.
Vorlon, what is your website with this info?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, March 05, 2004 - 10:48 pm: Edit

I think we can do better than that as long as we can tease conditional approval out of people.

What I mean i something other than "yes I like this" or "No I don't". There are shades of gray that don't always come out in a discussion of the merits.

Example: Personally, I have no use for NWO boxes on X2 SSDs. (Let's not get into a discussion of the merits of NWO boxes here. Just accept that this is my point of view and move on) While I don't *like* NWO boxes, I'm not dead-set against them either.

Put another way, the presence of NWO boxes on official ADB X2 ships wouldn't put me off buying the supplement.

In the marketplace of ideas, I'll talk against them because I do think they're a bad idea, but not THAT bad. I think we need to make the difference between dislike and complete opposition to included

The classic example of something that merited actual opposition was MJC's infamous spacific reinforcement from phaser capacitors proposal.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, March 06, 2004 - 12:10 am: Edit

To me the most important things I can think of are:
1) Compatability with GW tech
2) Timeline
3) Target game play and feel
4) Target BPV

I'm sure there are more but accomplishing the above would be a big step.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, March 06, 2004 - 04:07 am: Edit

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Quote:

The classic example of something that merited actual opposition was MJC's infamous spacific reinforcement from phaser capacitors proposal.

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By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, March 06, 2004 - 09:34 am: Edit

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Quote:

To me the most important things I can think of are:
1) Compatability with GW tech
2) Timeline
3) Target game play and feel
4) Target BPV

I'm sure there are more but accomplishing the above would be a big step.

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By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, March 06, 2004 - 10:19 am: Edit

But maybe the X2 ships SHOULD have a Fed CLa+ feel to them...paper thin shields but a nice bonus of unexpected internal fortitude.

That would be the ASIF.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, March 06, 2004 - 12:49 pm: Edit

...Besides, this isn't the place for THAT debate.


Personally, I think #3 will be the hardest to agree on. it's the most personal. I see #1 and #4 are dependent on #3.

I actually think #2 will be the easiest because we have the basic info in front of us:

X2 starts in Y205. That's set.

The Xork War starts in 225. That's set.

Everything else is refits and new ship classes, which should be guided by the feel we're looking for (#3). We get the "look and feel" issue resolved, the other stuff should fall into place.

Thing is, seems like we're thinking we're going to hand SVC a finished product. I'm not sure we can get general aagreement on THAT, save in groups of 2 or 3 as MikeR said earlier.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, March 06, 2004 - 04:27 pm: Edit

When I say Timeline I also mean background flavor text. Think of it as a mission statement. What are these ships designed to do?

The flavor will influence the design and the background has to integrate into the existing SFU. I consider this important because if we agree on a background it should be easy to identify a ship that does not conform to the background.

As an example lets look to the compatibility with GW tech. A ship capable of speed 48 and an overload range of 12 would probably not be compatible with GW tech.

As another example John does not feel that NWO are something he would like to see in X2. I say that if we first agree to the background flavor text we can look to that for design hints.

For timeline we also know Andros defeated Y202 and that there will be the/a series of Tradewars somewhere between the Andros and the Xorks.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, March 06, 2004 - 07:32 pm: Edit

Point 1 unfortunately is a deal breaker.
SVC has already said ( and I'm paraphrasing ) that if X2 isn't compatable with GW ships then whatever we come up with here is little more than reading material for the toilet seat.


I for one would rather take a Fed CL into a battle in Y120 than a Fed YCA dispite the fact that the YCA has better shields.
You know looking at the Plus Refit for the Fed CA you come to the impression that 14 BPV wont buy much.
But for the extra 14 BPV of the Fed CL over the YCA, you really get some hardcore advantages.
Better Phasers arcs, overloadable photons, 6 EW instead of 4...it's a huge set of advantages.

I wouldn't even be willing to place money on a Fed YCA with an Outstanding crew being able to beat the CL and that's 28 BPV ahead in price!

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Sunday, March 07, 2004 - 08:06 am: Edit

All that proves is that the BPVs in Module Y are broken, or that Module Y didn't have the same "compatible with GW BPVs" mandate that we believe we will have for X2.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, March 07, 2004 - 08:34 am: Edit

Agreed. I don't think module Y was intended to play with any later stuff. The mandate for X2, though, is that it will have to.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, March 07, 2004 - 09:14 am: Edit

At last!

The three of us in agreement about something.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, March 07, 2004 - 10:02 am: Edit

OK, that's good. Condition 1 is approved then? X2/X1R/XP will be compatible with GW tech and the GW BPV system. Anyone opposed?

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Sunday, March 07, 2004 - 12:36 pm: Edit

Yes it needs to be compatable.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Sunday, March 07, 2004 - 01:15 pm: Edit

That's not exactly news, guys.

It's a SVC directive. Anything judged not compatible will get junked anyway.

The underlying problem is, some of us thingk you can make anything compatible just by throwing enough BPV points at it.

The MY-EY comparison nicely shows how that notion fails.

By Orman J. Hoffman II (Ojh2) on Sunday, March 07, 2004 - 05:00 pm: Edit

The thing that will kill compatibility with GW era ships, IMO is the new tech toys. In the MY-EY comparison it is the change in sensor tech (i.e. EW) and a few other tech differences that are not reflected adequately in BPV. It follows that the more non-standard technology included in X2, the less BPV will be able to accurately represent the combat ability of an X2 ship. I am not against new tech, I just have been pondering the concept lately of what will break the BPV system and what won’t. In my own X2 proposal, I am currently leaning towards the thought that ASIF will have too drastic an effect on the BPV system and that another concept needs to be used in its place; something closer to standard tech.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, March 07, 2004 - 06:06 pm: Edit

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The thing that will kill compatibility with GW era ships, IMO is the new tech toys.

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By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, March 07, 2004 - 06:13 pm: Edit

Depending on the style of ASIF used it can be very easy to quantify. A careful study of mine directly translates to internals. Simply calculate the ship with these internals for the ball park BPV.

The problem with avoidance of New Tech Toys is that they are a big part of what will make X2 fresh and useful.

Otherwise, X1R(+) is as far as you can go.