Mike,

I don't want to add any more phasers to the Fed ships. Even just adding two could be a potential problem. (And I can't see replacing the drone rack with anything less than two P-3s, not just one.)

The reason for allowing damage to plasmas is primarily back-story. These systems need to do *something* to plasmas or the Feds would use G-racks instead of ADD racks, and we are right back to where we started.

Plus, it doesn't do a whole lot (-2 warhead/4 phaser pts) if it hits, but is still useful.

Stephen,

Yes, the fighters are problematic. I don't know whether they should use a full "fast-photon" type fighter, or should use a more traditional 50/50 split between assault/superiority fighters. I figure the latter. They would be able to use the munitions of the defensive system against other fighters. I would probably up the damage somewhat over ADDs, though.

I also wanted to have a naval/NG divergence where the navy uses the photon/superiority fighters, and the NG uses a rejected drone fighter.

By Scott Burleson (Burl) on Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 11:47 am: Edit

The Holy Lyran Empire idea seemed to divulge into two different tangents, the "religous zealot" tangent and the diverse, loose political entity tangent. Obviously, the latter is supposed to be similiar to our planet's Holy Roman Empire, which as my Western Civ teacher used to say, was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

I actually think the latter is interesting to pursue. The Carnivons, Paravians, and Lyrans all have various duchies that at various times exert more power over the territory than others, but hardly a unified nation. Since this is SSJ, I think you could even say that the Hydran Guilds, instead of winning a war of independence in the Y130s, used political pressure to create a duchy that would also have various amounts of power within the HLE, at times being the most powerful duchy, similiar to Spanish and Austrian Hapsburg history within the HRE.

The General War would have probably progressed quite differently, with the HLE switching sides frequently and in effect being in a state of civil war throughout the war (similiar to the thirty years war in our history - the outside powers, such as France and Sweeden, would fight along side one duchy against another in the HRE).

By Jim Cummins (Jimcummins) on Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 01:02 pm: Edit

For the drone-less Fed you could modify the photon to fire seeking warheads move 20 or so. They can only be targeted on size class 6 & 7; against the Plasma torpedo a seeking photon reduces war head strength either 1:1 or 2:1 like phasers, against drone does full damage. This would be useful against the Plasma races, but it wouldn’t change the playing versus the drone races much, because chance are you would never really want to waste a photon on a single drone.

By R. Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 01:36 pm: Edit

Dang it Mike West! You're describing something I'm working on for X2. Now I read that Omega has it. Curses! Foiled again! Well I'll keep plugging away.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 03:47 pm: Edit

Jim,

The whole point of the DF Feds is to eliminate their use of seeking weapons. Consequently, a seeking version of the photon is not applicable here. (Though such an idea may be an interesting submission on its own merits.)

Again, the anti-plasma component is more to give it SOME utility against plasmas, not to provide a true plasma defense. Plus it is an interesting technology to give them to replace what is being taken away.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 03:56 pm: Edit

Well, when I developed my Tycosian stuff, I had a very similar problem. As a race, they are totally direct fire dependent; no seeking weapons at all, nor any attrition units. So I, too, needed a good defense system. What I came up with is a point defense plasma (PDP) which has some of the properties of an ADD, and some of a bolted plasma D, and is hit on DRONE hits on the DAC. Specifically, it fires like an ADD as a direct fire weapon, but the damage drops off like a plasma bolt does. A bit better range than the ADD, but less ammo and no auto-kill feature. It is also unaffected by EW, again like the ADD, and costs no energy to fire. In playtesting they work very well against drones and fighters, but as written, they do not work against plasma torpedoes at all. Basically its part of the racial flavor for them, which I won't get into here. I guess the point is that I do understand the problem very well, but I tend to be wary of any system that will defend against both; but, since it is SSJ stuff, maybe it'll be okay anyway.

By Jim Cummins (Jimcummins) on Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 04:18 pm: Edit

Ahh I misunderstood, I thought the idea was to get rid of the drones/ADD aspect. I was trying to replace the lost functionality with the photon. oops

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 06:05 pm: Edit

One problem I personally have found with races that have no seeking weapons, they tend to be boring.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 06:23 pm: Edit

To each their own. Me personally, I find cluttering the board with hordes of seeking weapons dull to the nth degree; I much prefer slugging it out and relying on my scheme of maneuver to get what I want to launching weapons that will just chase down the enemy for me. Ugh...no fun. Then again, I spent 12 years running around in tanks doing the whole direct fire thing, so I'm biased.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 08:26 pm: Edit

Just for fun! The religous zealots race, "showing the light" to all those unbelievers out there with the Solar Compression Blaster.

R_.?? Remorseless Brotherhood of Light Heavy Cruiser

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 08:40 pm: Edit

Do note that the DF Feds *do* have attrition units. They have fighters. I still haven't decided whether they have PFs or not. I'm waffling *big* time on that point.

The genesis of the DF Feds is that many people feel that drones just don't feel *right* with the Feds. They go from being "photons and phasers" to the third drone using race. The idea is "what would they look like if they decided to not use drones".

Personally, I don't think they are boring. But then, they will never be to everyone's taste. I do know that several did like them.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Friday, April 09, 2004 - 06:01 am: Edit

That solar compression blaster looks suspiciously like a TRH.. An Andromedan Ally?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, April 09, 2004 - 07:39 am: Edit

Nope...just laziness on my part, since it's just a "for fun" ship.

By Richard Sherman (Rich) on Friday, April 09, 2004 - 05:31 pm: Edit

Mike West,

A few years back, Tos Crawford, Andrew Harding (I think), and myself undertook a project that I think we called "Star Fleet Gold" or "Star Fleet Alternative" or something like that. The theory behind it was to eliminate "tech-sloshing" and restore the original "feel" of the various races from years gone by. It involved wholesale tech changes to all the races, including limitations on attrition units, foreign technology, etc., but still maintained the political and strategic feel of the General War.

IIRC, we developed a defensive system for the Feds as part of their refit program that replaced the G-rack. I think we called it "ASW" defense. ASW stands for Anti-Seeking Weapon. Against drones and shuttles, it functioned just like an ADD. Against plasmas, it used the same ranges and to hit as ADDs, but just took one strength point (not a phaser point) off the warhead per hit. The rack itself was still hit on "drone", and contained 8 rounds (not 6 or 12). It could not launch regular drones of any type.

All Fed ships that had 2 or less G-racks were swapped on a one-for-one basis. If they had 3 G-racks (only 1 ship comes to mind), they got 2 ASW plus 1 360 P3. If they had 4, they got 2 ASW and 2 360 P3. If they had 6 (again, only 1 ship comes to mind), they got 3 ASW and 3 360 P3.

In some cases, though, plasma or drones (B- or G-racks)were replaced on a one-for-one basis with P1. The three examples I remember were:

BCG/BCF - both of these became the "BC" with the G-racks replaced with ASW, and the B-racks/F-torps replaced with P1.

DDL - this became the DDP, with P1 replacing the plasma. The DDG got the 2 ASW defense.

FFL+ - this became the FFF, with P1 replacing the plasma. The G-rack did become an ASW. Nasty little ship. [the FFD+ got 3 ASW, and became a defacto fleet "escort" ship. It became the FFG, and the original FFG designation was changed to FF+]

Escorts weren't a problem because the Feds didn't have any carriers, escorts, or carrier-based fighters (except at bases). All fighters were direct-fire fighters anyway...[In fact, the only races with fighters were the Hydrans (all, but no formal carriers or escorts), Kzintis (all single-seaters, carriers), and Romulans (G-I,II,III only, limited carriers).]

I think the Yahoo Group memorializng all of this may still exist, if you're interested...

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, April 09, 2004 - 05:39 pm: Edit

Anti-Plasma drone (APD)? Replaces ADDs. Charge it for 1 point for 4 and at launch it creates a field of phased energy around it and drives into a plasma causing a specified reduction in strength. Charged APD cannot be held and must be replaced the following turn or they take up room in the launcher.

Could that work as a replacement for the ASW?

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Friday, April 09, 2004 - 07:49 pm: Edit

Rich Sherman. It was you, Tos, and I. I still have that stuff, if you want to see it again.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, April 09, 2004 - 08:09 pm: Edit

RFA: Racially Flavored Alternative, if I remember correctly. I checked for the Yahoo board, but I didn't find it. I'm guessing its extinct.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Friday, April 09, 2004 - 11:06 pm: Edit

Tos. The board's gone, but I kept all the summary docs.

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Friday, April 09, 2004 - 11:50 pm: Edit

Richard,

I think I remember when you initially started the conversation on this BBS. Then you all moved elsewhere.

I took the idea in a different direction. I wasn't trying to prevent tech-sloshing, or change any race other than the Feds. My goal was to simply eliminate drones (and plasmas) from the Feds, forcing them to completely rely on direct fire weaponry. I also wanted the DF Feds to work in such a way as to NOT cause any changes to the other races.

I definitely retained fighters, and was even debating whether to use PFs, since the fighters' effectiveness would be drastically reduced.

Again, my NotAnADD (or whatever) was initially a plain ADD that had a special ammo that could affect plasma and, if it hit, do the equivalent of four points of phaser damage (i.e. two off the warhead).

For any submission, I would change it a bit and give it a different name. There would be only one ammo type, but for it to work against plasma, a quarter point of power would have to be applied on the turn of firing. (It can still be used against drones or fighters if the power is applied, but it doesn't give any extra effect.) I would keep the 4 points of phaser equivalency (2 off the warhead), but might take your suggestion to reduce the rack load to 8.

As for the ship differences, I would just replace up to two G-racks with the NotAnADD on a one-for-one basis. Anything with more than two G-racks would would replace the excess with P-1s added to the closest bank. (So the DNG and DNH would be pretty nasty. The DNH might have used four NotAnADD systems.) The DF Fed BC would be as you suggest and replace the dorsal weapons with FH P-1s. (The BCJ was also more common.) There were a few exceptions, I think. I still have my list, and can look it up, if you are interested.

Of course, I didn't worry about the drone and plasma variants, as I simply eliminated them. If I did use PFs, they would have two photons and one NotAnADD.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, April 10, 2004 - 12:15 am: Edit

The thing that killed the idea in my mind is there was no marketability of what we created. At the time SSJ didn't exist. Now it does.

Andy, are any of those summaries short enough to see if there is any current interest?

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Saturday, April 10, 2004 - 09:30 am: Edit

Here is it, guys

http://www.geocities.com/andypalmer/SFBRFA.htm

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, April 10, 2004 - 09:56 am: Edit

That brings back fond memories. We should poll to see if there is any interest in further exploring this topic. I still have the MSC files identifying which ships make the transition. Something like this might work well in a campaign setting. No SSD of the revised Condor?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, April 10, 2004 - 10:53 am: Edit

I like the Fed BCP. Of course that made shiver when I thought of how totally cool it would be to have P-Gs in those #9/10 phaser mounts. What a monster that would be. Talk about a ship able to wade through a battle to close on target!

By Chris Bonaiuto (Epyon) on Saturday, April 10, 2004 - 11:00 am: Edit

I really like that idea. I'm a die hard Fed player, but even I don't use drones from ships that much. The only time I really use a lot of Federation drones is with carrier groups. I could actually see the Feds keeping more carriers though. I REALLY like how your version has more BCJs. I LOVE the BCJ.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, April 10, 2004 - 11:33 am: Edit

I like to point out that for the RFA the BCP is cool. The Ph-G idea would fit in the RFA but was just a thought I had for something else. Perhaps it's own design.

Perhaps intended as a CVBG unit designed to specifically fight in this group against other CVBG's.