Needs to be something to balance it. If drone-chucking races get full access to x-drones, other non-drone races are going to be at a disadvantage. "Real" x-ships have much better drone defenses than an XP ship, assuming that XP ships don't get x-phaser abilities. Maybe only a certain percentage of the drone load-out for XP ships can be x-drones? I remember when the new "super sabot" round came out for the M1. The first units to get it were the ones stationed in Europe and Korea. It took quite awhile for them to be available to other, un-deployed units. Maybe X and X1R ships get the lions share?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Tuesday, March 09, 2004 - 04:30 pm: Edit

The balance is BPV. X-Drones cost more than IF drones. VII 6/18 drones aren't that much different than a IVF drone, they just need to be reloaded less frequently.

I'd be totally OK with saying X-Drones are restricted tech for non-X tech ships and GA for X-tech.

By Orman J. Hoffman II (Ojh2) on Tuesday, March 09, 2004 - 06:13 pm: Edit

Tos,

As it was stated in another thread, eventually production of Types I,IV and VI drones will cease.

Perhaps, XP-ships will get limited access to Types VII, VIII and IX from about Y188 to Y192 and restricted from about Y192 to Y196. Also, if XP-ships keep thier original drone racks then Type VIII drones should probably take up two spaces in XP drone racks as an additional balance factor.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, March 09, 2004 - 07:57 pm: Edit

Mike: X-Drones on XP ships could be restricted availability for the first couple years, limited for 5 more years and general from then on.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 03:11 pm: Edit

I can see X-drones phasing into exclusive existence.

Y188 Restricted
Y193 Limited
Y195 General

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 03:22 pm: Edit

John, I was thinking that X-Ships would gain such priority that X-Drones would get access for General availability until X2 era.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 04:26 pm: Edit

OK,

198: Restricted
203: Limited
205: General

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 04:44 pm: Edit

Do you have specific reasons for those dates?

I think that Restricted should begin with XP's introduction, when ever that is. Then beocmes limited about five or so years after (to allow manufacturing to catch up. But then doesn't catch up completly because XP production increases the entire time (increased demand). Come around Y205 production of X-Drone frames is in full swing. XP begins to dwindle but X2 and X1 takes up the slack.

I can't pin dates right now as I don't know when the XP refit is to be introduced yet.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 04:48 pm: Edit

I think we need to make distinctions between X-ships and XP-ships here. Module X1 includes Type-VII drones (the X-equivalent of Type-I) as the standard loadout for X-ships, already included in the BPV. So they are already generally available to all drone-using X-ships. But they should be limited/restricted for XP-ships, and the XP-ship would have to pay BPV for them. A Kzinti DN-XP (with the higher limited/restricted percentages) could still have a lot of these drones but this would be very expensive.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 05:11 pm: Edit

Alan, I had basically stated that in my first proposal for limiting X-Drone usage on XP ship. You do put it nicely though.

When I state X-Drones I do mean the Types 7, 8 and 9.

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

Loren,

No, I have no basis for those dates except the F&E notion that econ point eventually all become X-points.

I figure X-drone production is scrambling to catch up with X-ship demand, catches it, starts producing excess. At some point there is enough production to look at either retooling drone racks to fit X-drones or replacing racks wholesale.

It's at that point that X-drone reach restricted availability for non-X units.

Past that, it's a guess.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 05:55 pm: Edit

Considerable points those. I don't know when all econ points become XEPs. That would certainly be an indicator though.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 05:55 pm: Edit

I wonder if there will be XXEP?

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 06:15 pm: Edit

After a quick check of the rules (FD10.6), "limited" is more limiting than "Restricted", so...

198: Limited
203: Restricted
205: General

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 09:40 pm: Edit

So if one of the goals of XP is to put the whole fleet on the same kind of drones, would the bigger X2-specific drones defeat the purpose?

That would rule out some of the earlier proposals, but that might be a good thing.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 11:41 pm: Edit

Yes.

For myself, I have never wanted new drones for X2. The Type 7, 8, and 9 drones are great and should remain as is.

New Drone Modules is a different story.

By Orman J. Hoffman II (Ojh2) on Thursday, March 11, 2004 - 12:10 am: Edit

IMO the production of non-X-Drones will drop off with the introduction x-ships and as soon as there are a significant number of X-ships and XP-ship, production of non-x-drones will cease. Three to six months later most drone using races would burn through thier stocks of non-x-drones. Which led me to suggest limited access from about Y188 to Y192 and restricted from about Y192 to Y196. IMHO by Y198 you should not be able to beg, borrow or steal a type I - VI.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, March 11, 2004 - 12:31 am: Edit

Orman,

The world is rarely that cut and dried.

I'm kind of amazed that X-drones would be available to non-X ships at all 8 years after introduction.

By Orman J. Hoffman II (Ojh2) on Thursday, March 11, 2004 - 01:11 am: Edit

John,

In a shooting war where the combat is as hot and heavy I doubt most races would be able to maintain ammo stock piles that are capable of lasting more than 3 to 6 months. Even if the pacification cools things down before the Andro invasion, stock piles aren't going to increase by much. Once x-ships arrive production of drones will switch to the newer x-drones; in the span of a few years all production of drones would be x-drones. I honestly do think its reasonable to have a sufficient amount of x-drones available for fleet usage two to four years after x-ship introduction. A rough real world parallel would be U.S. cruise missiles. We had a atock pile of them in the late 80's and early 90's and then depleted the stock pile by the late 90's. The replacements that were purchased did not use 10 year old technology, but whatever was current. I believe the same would apply to drones.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, March 11, 2004 - 01:20 am: Edit

Standard drones most likely have 200 different manufacturer through out each nation. Many of those manufacturers wont get access to X-Tech for a while. In some cases they might even be behind the lines of on them. I can see standard drone production dwindling but probably never going completely away. There is the matter of civilians and non-X ships that will not get XP and serve a long time well into the Y200's.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, March 11, 2004 - 10:55 am: Edit

As I understand it, it's still undecided whether fighters will be allowed to use X-drones. If they are not, non-X drones will remain a major production item for at least a couple of decades after X-drones become available. If fighters are eventually allowed to use X-drones, drone production can be switched to all X-drone much more quickly.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, March 11, 2004 - 11:33 am: Edit

Regarding previous post about whether fighters can use X-drones - similar dynamic applies to PFs. Unless PFs get some kind of XP upgrade to support the use of X-drones, non-X drones will need to stay in production for PF-use as well. Note that the total drone consumption for fighters and PFs tends to be much larger than for ships. Consider how many drones a Fed, Kling, or Kzinti SCS, CVA, DCS, or ACS group can expend in one mass launch. Any of these will swamp, in terms of drone consumption, a typical Kzinti X-squadron.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, March 11, 2004 - 12:25 pm: Edit

No kidding...and think about what they will do to a non-x squadron of any kind.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, March 11, 2004 - 12:28 pm: Edit

And then there's retooling difficulties (and costs) at the productions points, retooling or replacing drone racks on ships, hidebound supply officers and others in positions of authority unwilling to accept new technology, not to mention the fact that this technology is extremely limited-avilability during the Y180s.

All of this together says that I and IV drones fade over the 25 years from Y180-205 and are not are suddenly dropped.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, March 11, 2004 - 01:17 pm: Edit

Mike R, have a look at my post a moment ago in the attrition unit thread. I address that very concern.