Archive through April 19, 2004
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board: The "X" Files: OLD X2 FOLDER: X2 plasma: Archive through April 19, 2004
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 01:18 am: Edit

If plasma can ignore weasels, then the price of a ROmulan ship should double.

It is way too good.

I agree (dang, we're on a roll CFant). Lets go way back before there were weasles. Now why were weasles able to detract plasma in the first place?

Now, I agree that the situation is different but after consideration (I did consider a way to allow Plasma to avoid weasles)it was clear that plasma would be very deadly. Imagin the near same value of an anchor with out having to tractor. And in most cases if you anchored your dead (or close to it) because you can't weasle. Also, if the BPV doubled you would either have 400 point cruisers or seriously thin paper tigers...er...raptors.

Still, the increasing weasle problem is something that would be studied bythe plasma races. Romulan now face a weapon (carronade) that can hit them effectively while cloaked and when they come un-cloaked they face a ship with lots of shuttles to use as WW.

Hence, I proposed the plasma repeater so that the Roms could divid up their torps for eliminating the weasles then strike the ship with the heavies. And X2 heavy cruiser could take out four weasles and still hit the enemy with two full M-Torps. (when equiped with 2xS + 2xM). Romulan only X2 technology (posted above).

In the next post I'll place the link to the Grand Eagle.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 01:39 am: Edit

"If plasma can ignore weasels, then the price of a Romulan ship should double."

I disagree. Consider the aforementioned SPX at 228 BPV. It's armed with 1M+2S plasma, 9 P1 and 5 X-bats. Assuming the X1 BPV is correct (big if considering free Sabots and ECP) its likely GW foe would be 2 NCLa+, 8 phot, 12 P1. This might be a fair fight.

Making the plasma immune to WW does what? Add a third NCLa+ (50% increase in BPV) and one NCL eats 40 points of plasma and two eat 30 points of plasma. Though lightly damaged none of the NCLs are stopped from reaching range 4 and shooting 12 overloaded photons and 18 P1 at the SPX. Against a +2 shift we would expect 4 photon hits plus 45 points of phaser damage. That SPX isn't going to be happy taking 109 damage. Splitting the plasma onto two targets might work better, but I'd still tend to give the edge to the three NCLs.

Maybe the NCL is just too good a ship for this comparison. Lets try it with three Gorn HDDb+. That's 3S+6F+15P1. The SPX has the same problem, it can't kill all three. If the Gorns blitz they shouldn't have much trouble getting close enough to wipe out the Romulan.

Based on these two examples I'd guess the BPV for this SPX+ would be in the 300 range, not the 450 your estimate suggests.

Then again even if I could use a weasle I doubt I would have. I don't really see much point in using a WW against an X ship. If you are going to ceed the initiative against an X ship then you have lost the fight already.

Question: what ships (any reasonable BPV) would you take to beat a SPX if your strategy required you to plan for a WW? Personally I can't see how having the ability to weasle is supposed to somehow make this a fair fight.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 03:46 am: Edit

Quote:

Question: what ships (any reasonable BPV) would you take to beat a SPX if your strategy required you to plan for a WW? Personally I can't see how having the ability to weasle is supposed to somehow make this a fair fight.


In a fleet battle I'ld take a DN of some kind with three WWs armed.

Weasel off the Psuedoes and the real plasma and hit you up close because my 6 points of WW ( at most ) this turn ( and what ever my weapons leaves me ) probably gives me the edge over your 18 points powering up your cloak so I can fire at whatever range I think is best with relative immunity.

Weasels have a lot of options that arn't just to slow down a battle.
1) In a fleet battle they allow a ship to get saved if it became the target of an entire fleet's seeking weapons ( very handy for scouts ).
2) They save bases from having to shoot at everything that get's thrown at them.
3) They attract Pseudoes just as much as they do real plasma allowing them to be used as a kind of one time lab.

I'm not willing to say the ignoring WWs automatically ups the BPV of the X2 ships by 100% or even 50% but I do think that it unfairly shift the position of how BPV works away from giving slower units like monitors and bases the ability to deal with massed plasma volleies far more effectively if they can WW their way out of a bad situation.
Do we want monitors and bases to suddenly have to loose out to X2 ships any time they meet.


WWs exist mostly because plasma has such a cheap arming cost that plasma chuckers can move very quickly indeed and so need something to slow the vessels down enough to allow them to become targets of each other. A K7R and a Gorn BC can spend a lot of time shooting at each other if there is no WW interaction.


Maybe a middle ground option like giving the X plasma a die roll to see if it ignores the WW might be a better option for X2 than simply saying X2 plasma ignored WWs.


Quote:

Making the plasma immune to WW does what? Add a third NCLa+ (50% increase in BPV) and one NCL eats 40 points of plasma and two eat 30 points of plasma. Though lightly damaged none of the NCLs are stopped from reaching range 4 and shooting 12 overloaded photons and 18 P1 at the SPX. Against a +2 shift we would expect 4 photon hits plus 45 points of phaser damage. That SPX isn't going to be happy taking 109 damage. Splitting the plasma onto two targets might work better, but I'd still tend to give the edge to the three NCLs.


I think you'll find it's 200 points of enveloping plasma at one NCLa+ whilst moving very quickly ( no cloak cost ) and an R5 brush with those 8 bearing Ph-1s which should be enough to pop one of the NCLa+s and the other 2 shall hurl through a +1 shift 8 Photons and 8 bearing Ph-1s for about 67 points of damage whilst it'll hurt the SPX wont actually be enough to stop it from having a good fight against the 2 remaining NCLa+s.

Arming the Enveloping plasma the SPX can move at a speed of 27 assuming it wishes to both fastload and uses all it's BTTY. If it armed slower it'll have 6 points of power freed up which in turn will allow a speed of 9 added to the attack run.
Arming some as standards instead of envelopers will also increase the battle speed ( note no 8 paid for ) but will allow the SPX to seriously move in the face of those incomming NCLa+s.
Additionally the X2 veesel XSP will probably have a few extra Warp Engine boxes giving it a even more power for movement and EW.

All in all it'll be hard for the NCLa+s to really press home an attack against a ships if they can not WWs their way out of trouble because X2 ships and X2 plasma ships move very very quickly.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 08:56 am: Edit

"Do we want monitors and bases to suddenly have to loose out to X2 ships any time they meet?"

I would think units with positional stabilizers in use should have some effective plasma defense, probably the WW, just as a play balance thing. I would consider having any unit allowed to WW if speed zero.

I'm less concerned about monitors. It won't be the first ship class that has lived past its usefulness.

Perhaps WW immune plasma isn't the answer that I think it is. I do believe the objective of allowing X2 to bring back the wow without just adding more warhead is valid.

I'd like to consider giving plasma ships rules to rearm PPTs. As a sample allow the plasma ship to generate 1 PPT for 1 power from 1 launcher in 1 turn, provided that launcher is not used to arm or hold a real plasma that turn.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 10:12 am: Edit

Or 1+1+1 and allow any arming to take place. Just separate the two numbers with a slash.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 12:01 pm: Edit

That's the thing, Tos.

To lose the WW as a countermeasure to plasma is a massive advantage.

Now suddenly we have to start restoring it as the impact of the loss becomes apparent.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 01:01 pm: Edit

Not sure I would agree to 2X plasma being immune to WW's. I won't say a categorical "no" but I do worry about how that will affect GW play against X2 plasma ships.

Since Alan asked about a "top of the line" ship based on the stuff I posted yesterday, I'll go ahead and post this very, very preliminary draft of a Rom XCC. It's so undeveloped it doesn't even have a name...just XCC. This is the first XCC I've ever posted using the new systems I've played with, and no XCC has yet been tested (though I'm hoping to get in a test game between the Fed and Klink one soon).

R4.?? Romulan XCC

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 09:42 pm: Edit

What if due to the design of the X2 warp engines a WW can't hide an X2 ship? Then neither the X2 nor the non-X2 can use a WW. Balance?

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 10:11 pm: Edit

If you go back and lok at my Romulan proposal you'll find that I already mentioned rearming PPTs.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 10:17 pm: Edit

Quote:

What if due to the design of the X2 warp engines a WW can't hide an X2 ship? Then neither the X2 nor the non-X2 can use a WW. Balance?


Unfortunately that gives X2 vessels a massive advantage to drone chuckers.

Everybody will just launch their all type VII SP(s) as soon as they get to a range where the enemy can not draw the range back to R36, say R26, and then let their packs bloom.
WHOOSH-KAR...how many X2 cruisers ( or worse Frigates ) can deal with 12 ( or maybe even 16 ) lots of 18/6/32 with non-weasel drone defenses.


Every drone chucker just had "loading up his drone control channels with every drone he can squeeze out of his SPs" become his number one tactic and Lyrans, Gorns, Romulan ( to a lesser extent ), the ISC and Hydrans all just bit the dust as Galactic Powers.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 11:50 pm: Edit

I don't see that as such a big deal. What you suggest is hardly a new tactic and a WW is seldom the best defense. I'm thinking I'd prefer to use a TB.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, April 18, 2004 - 12:36 am: Edit

Quote:

I don't see that as such a big deal. What you suggest is hardly a new tactic and a WW is seldom the best defense. I'm thinking I'd prefer to use a TB.


I'm sure you would but why cut off your nose to spite your face.

Give the X2 Plasma a die roll to avoid being fooled.
If we just say the X2 plasma ignores weasels, what else will it ignore..a Wild SWAC...a scout!?!

Erradicating WWs will change the whole dynamic of the game in favour of seeking weapons particularly drones.


Sometimes a ship just happens to be best off using a WW and taking away that ability MIGHT ruin the game in some unexpected direct.

We'ld be better off to say X plasma inflict collateral damage over a larger area than to remove WWs all together.
We'ld be better off having a die roll.
We'ld be better off finding some way of upping the warhead.

I say change the crawl-away speed of the ship with the new Plasma Warheads. It'll give X2 Plasma a new Advantage without rendering the ED/WW manouver completely useless.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, April 18, 2004 - 09:36 am: Edit

Granted, I haven't put much work into X2 Roms yet, but I did have an idea about X2 plasma that might be worth looking into. Basically, give non-X2 ships a slight penalty do the die roll when phasering plasmas. This would help illustrate the advantage of X2 weapons and systems over the older, more obsolete ones without rendering a GW or X1 ships plasma defenses as useless.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Sunday, April 18, 2004 - 09:53 am: Edit

but plasma is still plasma, even in X2.

I think anything that gives a penalty to GW or X1 tech is a game breaker.

Besides, X1 is only 20 years old at this point, no way is it obsolete.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, April 18, 2004 - 10:06 am: Edit

Yeah, but which is worse; a penalty on a die roll, or the complete loss of immunity provided by WW's?

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Sunday, April 18, 2004 - 10:23 am: Edit

I'll take neither for 500 Alex. :)

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, April 18, 2004 - 01:11 pm: Edit

Mike, I have to YET AGAIN (wow) agree with CFant here. I think the solution to making plasma more effective in X2 is how it is deployed and perhaps a fresh arming option but not in changing the foundation of plasma function (including changing WW).

+++++++++++++++

On a separate note I'll re-present the Grand Eagle (name just a place holder for now) in the X2 Romulan thread. I'll include the basic rules that will be asked about when people view the SSD.

John T.: I've rewritten the powered armor rule to address your copyright concerns. The fix was so simple I couldn't believe it. And it fits in with other stuff we've worked on too.

By Orman J. Hoffman II (Ojh2) on Sunday, April 18, 2004 - 06:07 pm: Edit

Has any one considered how effective phaser defense would be with the larger plasma warheads? It would seem to me that the reduced number of phasers on most of the proposals would become a serious detriment with large saboted plasmas.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, April 18, 2004 - 06:50 pm: Edit

Well, I haven't playtested it yet, but I don't think it'll be too bad. For one, I don't think the new "big" plasmas will be very wide-spread. I think most people agreed that the bigger X2 CC's would be pretty rare, and it would be those ships (and the few Rom new-type Eagles, if there are any) that would carry them. And, in the old basic set, a Rom WE was about the same BPV as a Fed CA that had just six phasers, and could usually only bring four to bear. Granted, there wasn't a sabot rule for then, but it ought to work okay. Platesting would definately be needed. The phaser-X works quite well against drones; might try a Fed XCM against one of these plasma ships to see how well they work against plasma torps.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, April 18, 2004 - 10:35 pm: Edit

Well, the phaser proposals most accepted for X2 already are an improved plasma defense.

Note that most have the Ph-5 being able to fire as two Ph-6. Generally this proposal has the ph-6 maxing out at 6 points of damage. Now, that's 12 tops; 2 more than the PH-5 can do but to fire the second shot they both must be fired at X-AEGIS restricted targets. To do max damage to ship you have to fire the full Ph-5 but plasmas are qualified X-AEGIS targets so each phaser-5 will hit plasmas on average for 6x2=12/2=6 off of plasma instead of 4 for ph-4 and 5 (max but more like 4 average) for the Ph-5. Basically the equivelent of 50% more Ph-1. If the XCA has 8 Ph-5 that's the equivelant of 12 Ph-1 against plasma but with a greater tendancy for top end damage.

Of course there are variables but this is the basics and assumes the more accepted X2 phaser charts. (I also assume the charts I refere to are in fact the more accepted ones.)

This proposed X2 naturally defends against Plasma better.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Sunday, April 18, 2004 - 10:59 pm: Edit

Quote:

I don't see that as such a big deal. What you suggest is hardly a new tactic and a WW is seldom the best defense. I'm thinking I'd prefer to use a TB.



True, the WW is seldom best, and I have not yet used one in a face-to-face game. However, the fact that the WW is an option forces the plasma/drone ship to adjust tactics.

Remove the ability to WW, and you will improve the odds for the plasma/drone player.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, April 19, 2004 - 06:20 am: Edit

On Rapid Pulses Ph6 shots we need a Ph-6 that does both strong ( 4.5 Average!?! ) and consistant ( No damage below 2 points!?! ) damage at range 2.

Otherwise even the X1 sabotted plasma will be able to skip past the X2 Phaser Defenses.

On the other hand an XCA with 6 of her 8 bearing Ph-5s will be able to cut a fairly substantial 27 points of damage out of a Plasma torp ( against plasma-Ms I suspect ) whilst an old X1 era CX firing also at twenty million metres, would be able to rapid pulse a mere 27 points of damage out of said incomming Plasma-M torpedo using rapid Pulsed Ph-3 shots and only 21.75 points with a full blast of her 9 bearing Ph-1s.


It's likely that the Ph-6 won't be as powerful as the Ph-6 dynamics in the above stats ( probably it'll do a Ph-3s R2 damage at R2 but with a 5 & 6 thrown into the mix averaging just 3.5 ) but then the standard XCA it'll be meeting will be more likely to have 2 Plasma-Ms only or even 2 Plasma-Ms + Plasma-L than the full 2 Plasma-M + 2 Plasma-S suite of her X1 cousins...until very late in the X2 period anyway.


Personnally I wouldn't mind both, a powerful & consistant Ph-6 shot at R2 AND three Ph-3s shots sqweezed out of Ph-5s ( both hacking off 4.5 points of plasma warhead strength per Ph-5 ) but if WE MUST choose ONE option then we need to have a consistant & powerful damage out put at R2 from our Ph-6 shots.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, April 19, 2004 - 10:13 am: Edit

Whacky idea, what if we allowed the P5 to rapid pulse (twice) at range 0-2 against X-Aegis targets, at no damage reduction? It could be balanced by BPV and power cost per shot.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Monday, April 19, 2004 - 10:38 am: Edit

No. No. No.

2 P6 shots is fine. That and keeping the weasel is plenty.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, April 19, 2004 - 12:23 pm: Edit

Agreed.

We can reassess the issue if there's a problem.

Reminder: X1 plasma almost came out taking 1:3 damage from phasers because rapid-pulse was so effective.

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