Archive through March 25, 2004
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
The "X" Files:
First Generation X-ships:
X1R SSDs and Counters:
Archive through March 25, 2004
Jay, check out Vorlon's X2 page
Jay, just a note:
There is no official play test material for anything X.
X1R is in a state of being considered to become an official Product in Development. Official Play test material would come sometime after it becomes so.
X2 is not official in any way. Not under current consideration for development, nor even a goal date set. Every thing is individual proposals. All this discussion in the X-Files is us trying to reach some kind of consensus which I think we've reached in a loose sort of way. Few things are unanimous. For instance, I believe my proposal is the superior one. I'm the only one who thinks that of course. 
Loren, now you KNOW my proposal is far superior.
RE: 2X SSDs in SFBOL:
2X SSDs can't be placed into the SFBOL library. BUT you can use 2X SSDs individually by using User Defined Ships. (Unfortunately anyone who doesn't have the same ship def will only get a text SSD.)
I had a good number of 2X ship definitions done. (A few of them got deleted accidentally.)
Simply Email me for the installation instructions for the ship definitions. And I will send you what I have already completed. If what I send isn't what you wanted to use then simply email me the ship SSD you want to mess around with and I can do a ship def pretty quickly. (Depending on my available time.)
Probably, I shouldn't do this. But, I'm going to anyway. The other night (after a glass or two too many) I played around with the concept of the DNX. These are the two I came up with:
R2.?? Federation DNX
R3.?? Klingon C9X
Now, I leave it up to the masses to decide if these are too much or not. I suppose I could live with them as conjectural...
Ooooooh, but the C9X does look oh so scary. I feel a strong urge to try it out. Which is strange since I'm a die-hard Fed fan.
Epyon, you want to try it out . . . I can feel the mischief swelling in you. Give in to the Dark Side . . .
Now those are ships that could each kick the crap out of a B-10.
If these fly and not as conjectural there will be little wonder why the Battleship concept went no further!
Shouldn't that be a C9AX?
Those are beutiful SSDs from an insane mind. I hope you didn't spend too much time calculating their BPV, because you got it wrong. I think either of them could take down four D5K with fast drones.
Nope...SWAG'ed it. I have no clue how high they ought to be, and being "in my cups" at the time didn't help. Hell, I'm amazed they turned out so well.
Those DNX's look very close to a couple of ships we had in a campaign back in the Commander Edition days. Except I think the Klingon had a C8X with drone racks up front in the cargo spot. They were the pride of their fleets and usually used as raiding ships.
I concur that the BPV is way too low. A C10 with nothing but Type-IF drones in its drone racks will come in at right around 300 BPV and the C9X (which is listed at 305 and that includes Type-VII drones in the price) will blow it away without working up a sweat. Similarly, the Fed DNH with the G-racks loaded with Type-1F costs 288 and the 314 BPV DNX (Type-VIIs at no extra charge) is MUCH more powerful.
Other than the BPV, my only complaint is that the Klingon #4 shield is weaker than shields #3 and 5 (48 versus 44). This ship would have been designed after the GW (lots of experience fighting Hellbore-equipped Hydrans) and probably during or after the (DisDev-equipped) Andromedan war. I don't think there's any way that ships designed during this time period would revert to the Pre-war pattern of weaker rear shields. Bring the #4 shield up to 48 and fix the BPVs on both ships and I think they are winners (though perhaps, to paraphrase Franz Kafka from one of his Parables and Paradoxes) only conjecturally.
The rear shield is just a mistake; I can fix that, no problem. Suggested BPV's? Anyone?
Mike:
I would be inclined to start them out somewhere close to 400 points, though playtesting will be required to set BPV accurately. These ships effectively have the firepower of Battleships (or better), given the inherent X-ship advantages in things like EW. They can't absorb as much damage as a Battleship can but they have much more power for weapons at high speed, given their lower movement costs, and they have the X-ship advantages in manueverability. All in all, I think 400 is a good place to start, and then playtest from their.
Two other things just occurred to me. The Fed DNX photon table still maxes out at range 30. This needs to be extended to 40. The other point is that they have two HET bonuses, like most X-ships, but since their breakdown rating is 3-6, this translates as a 33% chance of breaking down even with the bonus, so the extra bonus is not very useful. As an alternate suggestion for X-Dreadnoughts, how about giving them only one HET bonus but changing the breakdown to 5-6. This would give them one safe HET and is I think much more useful. The exception to the above would be the rare Dreadnought (the Condor comes to mind but there may be others I can't think of right now) that already has a 5-6 breakdown. They would keep their breakdown rating and pick up a second HET bonus, like other ships.
Just my .02 quatloos worth.
Already done. The BPV's are in the 400 range, with the Fed being a touch higher. Fixed the shield on the C9X, and fixed the photon table.
RE: the HET bonus. It's definately a thought, but since it would require a new rule - however simple - I'll just leave it up to the powers that be to decide it. Should DNX's make the cut for Tos's list of ships for XR1, we can hammer out the ruling then.
I do have to admit, though, that it's sort of a guilty kind of pleasure making stuff like this. I'm toying with a Hydran one, and a Lyran as well. Ugly, ugly, ugly.
Mike, I would have to agree with Alan regarding the HET issue. Just curious, how would it require a new rule? It's it only just what it says on the SSD? Sure some mention of it differing from oter X-ships might be in order in it's R-section write up but then a DNX is an oddity in its own right and would require some explaination. Anywho, just my thoughts on the matter.
I guess that's what I mean; there would have to be some mention of it in the book, otherwise players would want to know why they don't have two HET bonuses. I agree with the idea, but unless these sort of things see print, it's all academic.
The DNX and C9x could go into R9.
Why? Just because you don't like the idea of the DNX class?
There is a large segment of the SFB playing population that prefer playing straight warships, like Destroyers, Crusiers, and Dreadnoughts. We are far less interested in X-Tech Carriers, PFTs, Tugs, and expecially Aux ships. All I think some of us are looking for is a balance between the two groups.
As such, I cannot grasp how the priorities were arrived at. I certain disagree with them.
As SVC will make the decision as to what makes the cut, I leave it to him to do so. But of course I will let him know my opinion on what makes the list.
I prefer straight warships to CVs PFTs etc. Since I prefer duel to squadron level engagments. Until you get to fleet levels CVs PFTs simply take up to much BPV.
Also I prefer to simplify the headaches of a squadron level engagement. Not increase them, which is what Fighters and PFs do.
I like the DNX and C9X I wish they were real ship.
If I can get the appropriate formatting to work (I haven't tried this yet) I'm going to post three SSDs for proposed new Tholian X1 ships. But first I want to explain what I was trying to do with these ships. They are the result of the confluence of three different trains of thought.
The first is the large gap between the Tholian X-destroyers and their X-cruisers. The DPX costs 129 BPV while the CCX is 220. This is a 91 point difference.
Compare this to the Klingons: FX (130 BPV) to D5X (193) is a 63 point difference. D5X to DX (250) is a 57 point difference.
The Feds: FFX (112) to DDX (170) 58 points. DDX to CX (240) 70 points.
Or the Romulan Hawk series: SEX (105) to SKX (160) 55 points. SKX to SPX (228) 68 points. SPX to FHX (278) 50 points.
There are races that have gaps in their BPV ranges comparable to or even larger than the Tholians. The Hydrans, for example, have a 100 point gap between their LNX (180) and DGX (280). And the gap between the ISC CSX (195) and their CCX (315) is a whopping 120 points. Nor is this gap necessarily a problem. But it does provide room for X1R to introduce new ships that are significantly different from anything the race currently possesses. The Hydrans for example could build war cruiser-based X-light cruisers which would be substantially more powerful than their corresponding x-destroyers but fall short of the Ranger-X and Dragoon-X. So my second train of thought was what would fill the gap for the Tholians?
An NCLX has been proposed. But this ship may not narrow the gap all that much. If the NCL-NCLX conversion mirrors the NCA-NCX conversion, the NCLX would be one of the most powerful and expensive X-light cruisers. Now it is quite possible that the NCLX conversion will be less dramatic than the NCX conversion to do some limitation in the smaller hull. But if it does mirror the NCX conversion the NCLX would have 41 points generated power plus 12 points reserve power. Shields would be 39-30-30-30. It would have 1 webcaster, 4 disruptors, and 11 phaser-1s. Even by X-ship standards, this is one powerful light cruiser. It falls a bit short of the 220 point CCX (most notably in the shields) but its overall offensive capabilities are very close to the CCX. I suspect this full-blown NCLX would still have a BPV of about 205-210. Also, there are only a limited number of hulls available for conversion, since only 6 NCLs arrived with the 312th Battle Fleet and at least some were destroyed before the X-era.
Tos Crawford has suggested the NDDX, which would be more expensive than the DDX because of the webcaster. But this would only be a conjectural ship since all NDDs in this galaxy were destroyed in the EY period. And even if the Tholians figured out how to construct NDD rear hulls, I don't think the NDDX would be a good ship for Tholians to build in this galaxy. The problem is that the Tholians can only build webcasters in very limited numbers and thus have to be very careful how they distribute them. I believe the NDDX would be excellent in the Tholian home galaxy but inappropriate in this one because it would still be too fragile a platform for the very rare, limited production webcasters. It's not a matter of what would result in the best Tholian destroyer but what would result in the best overall Tholian fleet.
The obvious choice for the Tholians for something to go in the gap between the DDX/DPX and CCX/CPX would be a CWX or CWHX. Most races already have war cruiser-based x-light cruisers and they have been proposed for races that don't have them yet. So that is one solution, but this is sort of "cookie cutterish" and brings me to the third train of thought that brought about these SSDs.
(Continued on next post due to length. I'll get to the actual SSDs eventually.)
(Proposed Tholian X1R SSDs continued from previous post.)
One minor misgiving I have about the current trend in X1R discussions is that all the ships are conversions from older designs, even though some were built as new construction. Given that a bit more than 20 years elapse between the introduction of X1 and X2, I think it likely that at least a few brand new designs - designed from the ground up as X-ships but still using X1 technology - would appear. The cost and effort of designing these ships from scratch would dictate that most X-ships would still be conversions of older designs. New designs would appear if a given race either didn't have a suitable GW-era design that could be converted to perform the new mission, or if a new design would perform the mission substantially better than a converted design, thus justifying the increased R&D costs.
My desire to see some new designs in X1R led me to propose an Advanced Heavy Destroyer (and two variants) for the Tholians instead of a CWX, even though the CWX would be more powerful (and more expensive) than my proposed HDX. (My proposed Section R7 write-up has some handwavium about why the Tholians never built an X-ship based on the CW.) Unlike the Gorn HDD/HDX this is a size-class 4 ship, a true destroyer but a very large one. I was aiming for something with about the power and cost of the Fed DDX, the largest and most heavily armed X-destroyer. The Tholian HDX does not have the total firepower of the Fed DDX but it is more manueverable, has better shields and weapons arcs, has 4 batteries/12 points reserve power, and snares. My intent was to create a 170 BPV Heavy Destroyer with somewhat less offensive power than the DDX but superior survivability due to its other features. Playtesting will be required to see if I hit my mark.
Some other comments on the SSDs:
1) The movement cost is 3/5, because it is a large destroyer but still smaller than a cruiser. This doesn't bother me all that much because the Tholians have always had some oddball move costs. In Module R7 most races got light dreadnoughts with movement costs of 1-1/4. The Tholians got a "heavy dreadnought" with a movement cost of 1-1/3. And the Tholians also use 5/6 (a cruiser carrying a cargo pack) and 1-1/6 (a DPW with a cargo pack), so the 3/5 doesn't strike me as a problem. The HDX also generates 34 points of power. Again this is in between a DDX and a CWX. The Fed DDX actually has slightly more power for weapons/EW/whatever at high speeds, since it generates 32 points of power but has 1/2 move cost.
2) The disruptor cluster is in the bow of the DDX with phaser clusters in the "wings". This is the opposite of the pattern of the CW, DD, and DDX. I did this partly because I thought it looked cool, and partly because I wanted this to be immediately recognizable as a Tholian ship but also immediately recognizable as not a conversion of an older design. I chose the somewhat unusual outline for the same reason.
3) Yes, I am aware that there are more boxes contained within the outline than in the CW. I'm also aware that the Fed DDX has more boxes within its outline than does the Fed NCL. And the Lyran DWX has more boxes than the Lyran CL (though not than their CW). There are many cases where an X-destroyer has almost as many boxes on the SSD as the same race's small SC3 ships. There are fewer where an X-destroyer actually has more boxes than that race's small SC3 ships. But examples do exist.
4) I did the original SSDs for these ships in MS Paint, and my artistic skills are such that they were pretty sorry looking. I wish to express my thanks to Robert Cole for putting them in presentable form. If you think these look cool, he gets a good share of the credit for cleaning up my designs. If you think they look stupid, I get all of the blame for coming up with designs that evidently weren't as good as I thought they were.
(Continued on next post.)
OKAY, What am I doing wrong? It keeps telling me that my file (at 34 kilobytes) is too large because the maximum file size allowed is limited to -1 kilobytes???
Help? Any one?
At any rate, here's the proposed Section R7 Write up:
(R7.???) Advanced Heavy Destroyer (HDX): The Tholians turned to their war cruiser to bridge the gap between their small DDX and their excellent but difficult to produce CCX. But the CW proved unsuitable for conversion to X-technology. And while the superior structural integrity of the slightly larger CWH made it suitable for the conversion, the Tholians believed that building this ship would slow CCX production. They therefore designed a new Heavy Destroyer from the ground up. The ship was developed from lessons learned during the design study for the proposed but unbuilt CWHX, and from a careful analysis of the facilities the Tholians used to convert SC4 ships to X-technology. For a number of years the HDX was the largest and most powerful X-ship the Tholians could build from scratch which would not reduce CCX production rates. It was also the Tholians' first X-ship that was not a conversion of an older design. The HDX performed the same roles in the Tholian fleet that war cruiser-based X-light cruisers performed in other races' fleets. It was designed with an unusually large tractor array for a destroyer because it was envisioned from the beginning that the ship would also form the basis for an Advanced PF Tender.
The HDX is not nimble and cannot pinwheel.
Let's try this again.
(Edited) Nope - Still didn't work. "File size is limited to -1 kilobytes."???
What does that mean?
