How about no X-tech for PFs becuase they are destroyed too quickly to have a positive return on investment?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 09:48 am: Edit

That's the default answer. I'm wondering if there is something minor we can do that would so dramatically improve their capabilities that it would be worthwhile.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 10:17 am: Edit

Give PF X-EW and the -1 shift?
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Just yankin' the chain. Perhaps a change to the booster packs. Those are the #1 thing PF's have a problems with. Maybe not eliminate the damage process but perhaps reduce it to simply one extra instead of the die roll. This would be a very late fix, say around Y198+.

Could give them the ability to use specific reinforcement. Very minor but useful in some cases.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 10:24 am: Edit

Loren, fix the WBP, nice. What's the BPV of that?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 10:53 am: Edit

Tough one for off hand. I'd say compare it to another small unit functionally and see. But I figure it's would be more than +10 BPV and perhaps around +6.

You still lose warp pretty fast just not as fast as is possible with the old way (where you can lose the whole engine with one hit.) This way it amounts to one volly of warp hits also hit one additional Booster box. (basically, some sort of circut breaker system keeps extra damage to the minimum.)

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 11:11 am: Edit

Loren:

Though I've broached the subject hypothetically, I'm not a big fan of the notion of PFXs (though I am a believer in PFTXs). I must say though that your idea is the best I've heard for a PFX. It provides a useful increase in the survivability without letting the ships get out of hand.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 11:24 am: Edit

The other thing I like about it is the WBP are plug and play. Its like putting a mega-pack on a PF. Should our mega-PF-pack also stock two additional batteries

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 12:33 pm: Edit

Probably not needed, but changin out to an X-battery would help.

The pack could also contain 2 extra EW channels (powered, not swing points)

By Andrew Harding (Warlock) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 02:35 pm: Edit

PF's are already in some ways better than X-ships and I'm uncomfortable with the idea of improving them further.

With 15 power each, a movement cost of 1/5 and low housekeeping costs, a typical squadron has a total of 48 power available while moving at speed 30, more than what most CX have at speed 0. Electronically they are at least competitive with unsupported X-ships (PFS+free points = 10 EW each). Throw in the immense number of weapons and the massive aggregate durability.... what equivalent cost of non-X units would you rather use to take on an X-ship?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 03:25 pm: Edit

Please remember that PF improvements were being discussed to balance an X-type improvement to fighters. And only if deemed necessary. It was a discussion of an option to balance another option if the latter proves to outweigh the former.

The improvement would not be an X-style improvement either. Such as fixing the WBP. This would be a durability improvement rather than an added one like more power or shields.

6 PF do have the up front power of a full x-ship (perhaps a bit more) but will lose that power based on die roles that can wipe out an engine at a time. Very un-X-ship like.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 03:28 pm: Edit

I personally would go with something pretty simple, like just allowing fighters/PF's access to X-drones. Mega-Fighters are already pretty damned impressive; adding x-drones makes them more so. PF's are pretty nasty, too, and if you can't upgrade DN's or BC's with X-tech because they are on stressed hulls, I can't imagine adding it to PF's, which are about as stressed a hull as you can get. Maybe the heavy PF's from SSJ1 might be okay, in limited availability.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 03:52 pm: Edit

Mike Raper:

The problem with just allowing access to X-drones is what to do about the non-drone-using races. The problem is particularly acute for fighters since, except for the Hydrans, their fighters are already weak compared to the drone-using fighters.

Note that Loren's proposal shouldn't increase stress on the hull since it is a modification to the WBP that increases the survivability of the engines.

Also, I believe non-conjectural heavy PFs are on the auto-reject list.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 04:08 pm: Edit

X-Drones could be left out of PFs, IMO. They will do fine without them.

Adding X-Drones carriage and control whould be part of the Mega-X pack for Drone fighters. Non-Drone carrying fighters would have a different Mega-X pack that would enhance thier abilities appropreatly.

Allen, I would argue that the Hydran fighters played well can be considerably more nasty than drone fighters, point for point BPV wise. But yes, the WBP would actually improve stability.

Heavy PF's are conjectural. The problems are part in the PF itself and a lot in actual deployment (can't be carried by ships).

I would like to entertain the idea of H-PF for planetary defense (like bombers can only opperate from planets), possibly during the push back of the Xorkealian invasion.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 04:10 pm: Edit

That's going to be a problem, period, as any x-improvments to fighters will include drones. Non-drone races are going to be at a disadvantage regardless; the only way for them not to be is to allow no x-drones at all. As for PF's, x-tech for PF's is also on the auto-reject list; module X1 is very specific about this fact. The point of this discussion, I thought, was to find options that might supercede these existing rules.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 04:20 pm: Edit

Loren:

I agree with you about Hydran fighters, though it depends somewhat on the scenario. That's why I said the non-drone-users "except for the Hydrans" had weak fighters compared to the drone-users.

I don't think any plausible (whatever that may mean in this context) mega-x pack for fighters would put the Rom/ISC/Gorn/Tholian fighters in the same class as Hydran/Klink/Zin/Fed fighters with a mega-x pack. On the other hand, Rom/ISC/Gorn/Tholians have generally more cost-effective PFs, IMO. So they might benefit more from PFTXs and a minor PF upgrade to engine stability than would the drone races. This might suffice to preserve the overall balance.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 04:23 pm: Edit

I disagree Mike. SVC has shot down direct X-tech improvements to the actual fighters but he seemed open to the idea of a X-mega pack. This would only add two type 7 drones (drone wise).

PF's usually have a darn good launch rate and those would all be Fast drones on Type-1 and 4 frames.

With availability limits the difference will be small. With in BPV balance, IMO.

With a WBP-fix and 8 unit squadrons, PF's would remain supreme (except against Fed megax squadrons.)

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 04:29 pm: Edit

8 unit FLotillas are not needed and unbalancing for the reasons I already posted.

Messing with PFs is a waste of time., They already serve their purpose very well, and with the downgrade to X-phasers, PFs live much longer than they used to.

Other things would be better time spent than messing with PFs.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 04:31 pm: Edit

Cfant:

Do you also oppose PFTXs? They seem to me a very logical development even if the PFs themselves remain unchanged.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 04:34 pm: Edit

The PFTX is fine, the X-PF or XP-PF or anything called a PF with X_tech is a non-started in my opinion.

I also don't really care for the Mega-X pack for fighters, as I think the Mega-FIghters now are fine (and terrible things to face).

I think that all drones should at some point switch over to X-drones only, and thus fighters would just carry the X-drone equivilant. Same size and all.....

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 04:41 pm: Edit

They may be the same size, but the current rules forbid non-X ships from guiding X-drones or even launching them to be guided by accompanying X-ships. So there are clearly some compatibility issues, mostly probably having to do with electronics issues. So fighters would still require some kind of modification to handle them.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 05:01 pm: Edit

Sure, but that can be handwaved.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 07:36 pm: Edit

Also remember that Fed PFs are strictly conjectural. Any actual improvement to PFs would have to apply to Fed heavy fighters instead.

Some improvements to consider, remove PF weapon range restrictions, do the X-Battery (or XP-BTTY) thing, allow PFs to use general shield reinforcement at 1:1, etc.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 07:40 pm: Edit

PFs DO use general reinforcement at 1:1.

A modes range-increas (to 15 or 20) would also work.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 07:42 pm: Edit

The Mega-X Pack actually reduces the number of X-drones compaired to just allowing fighters to use X-drones.

I came up with that idea so that fighters would gain access to those drones for interest but would only allow any given fighter only two of them. Fighters would still have their full complement of normal drones but the mega-X pack would add two Type-7 instead of two type-1. It would also add the ability to control X-drones. Yes, they could take over control of ship launched drones too.

All these bennifits would be the same if regular fighters were to have full access to X-drones but instead you would see huge waves of X-drones. Much larger than is currently possible.

The Mega-X pack tones it down a lot. It also steers around the hard fast rule that only one fighter was ever X-Tech. The Stinger-X. SVC recently reitterated this.

I had originally proposed that the Mega-X pack would also add a two point shield in addition to the normal mega pack stuff.

That might not be needed but I thought it was interesting, giving it a New Tech feel. Perhaps the shield part could wait for the Mega-X2 pack.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - 07:42 pm: Edit

Doh! That they do. Okay general shield reinforcement at 2:1? Too much? As to how the improvements get there, they arrive with the newly constructed PFs. The improvements are included only in new construction.

How about 5pts of general shielding for heavy fighters for every reduction in speed by 1 (shielding is lost with increases in speed)? Max. shielding 25pts (remember it's general shielding; i.e. 360^o).