Hi... I'm coming in on the middle of this, but could someone please help me summarize the major requirments on 2nd Generation X tech? Particularly, I want to know what things the Steves have declared good/bad/ugly and what things are still "officially" undecided.

I know that the Steves want the X2's to play nice with the old ships.

I also see that there is some debate over whether X2 should be bigger & better ("Excelsior") or if they should instead be economical & different.

I personally want two things on the list:

1) I think should be _more_ fun to play X2 than X1 or original. (If that's possible, of course!!) I want new tactical options and interactions rather than just a linear/exponential increase in power and abilities.

2) I want the X2 period to be well suited to "adventure." I want something that makes a good springboard for fiction concepts and Prime Directive adventures.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 01:35 pm: Edit

You basically hit the one concrete thing right there; that X2 must be compatible with GW and X1.

Module P6 (Galactic Smorgasbord) includes a one-page article from Steve Cole about X2, and some concepts he had for it. Last I heard (last year) he still considered much of it valid. There is a thread in the X2 forum that includes all the text from that article, if you don't have it.

Me personally, I'm all for X2 being better by leveraging efficiency and a few new toys, rather than being better simply by being bigger or more powerful.

By Jeff Johnson (Jeffro) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 01:46 pm: Edit

Does anyone have a link to that??

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 02:16 pm: Edit

Yup...it's in the X files section, in a thread called The X2 Library. The post is from
Saturday, August 02, 2003 - 12:36 pm.

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 02:53 pm: Edit

Jeff,

I like the idea as the game transition into X2 of have exploration and adventure worked into the storyline. What sort of tactical options were thinking of?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 03:21 pm: Edit

The X2 era has the LMC to exploit and explore.

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 03:29 pm: Edit

Loren,

I understand there are other satelite galaxies. As the LMC is explored perhaps one of of these could be as well.

Do you have any general ideas on this?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 03:59 pm: Edit

Joseph: In case you don't know already this is where the Andromedan Desecrator Starbase is that was destroyed by Operation Unity. This galaxy is due for release this year (hopefully). There are several races there that fought and lost against the Andromedans. After the Adros are defeated there is a small galaxy ripe of contact and the Alpha races now know how to get there and what is there. They no doubt made some contacts. This is a matter of established SFU history (both developed and developing for an upcomming release). But the LMC is NOT explored. Sure they found their way to the Andro base but it is yet to be actually explored. That will take centuries. The LMC is going to be (or should be anyway) a pivotal issue in the historical developement of Y205+.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 04:35 pm: Edit

Loren, perhaps I am not understanding you...

Operation Unity destroyed the Desecrator Starbase...but the Andromedan home area has not been attacked.

For some reason, I'm thinking that there was mention in one of the R rule modules (the one with the battleships and DN's in it) that there was another wave of Andromedan invaders... at some point after the trade wars... darn, now I'll have to go look.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 04:55 pm: Edit

Jeff: No that's the Xorks. It's true that the Adnro home galaxy hasn't been touched in any way but the invasions back was broken with the destruction of the Desecrator Starbase. Of course there was a lengthy mop up but how so isn't yet defined.

It is mentioned somewhere that it took the Adnros a very long time to get here; same with the Tholians. In the Andro section there is a list of arivals. First they send a few then more. The whole thing was planned out ahead of time. Then failed.

After the destruction of the Desecrator the LMC races will probably rise up but in what way? Will the ALpha races establish colonies in the LMC. This would seem wise as both a percousionary effort against destruction (eggs in one basket theory) and as warning posts against other invasions. Additionally, they could export materials and set up trade with the LMC races. Special long ranged convoys would be created and each race would send a Flag to the LMC. There could be a Trade Agreement between the races to cooperate in the LMC. This could break down resulting in the creation of an independant autority The MW/LMC-ITA (Often just refered to as the Independant Trade Authority). This would be made up of people from each race and have total autority over a smal area in the MW, the route tothe LMC, and an area of the LMC. They also would have autority to stop ships from trying to establish other routs. Of course Romulans and Orions would be the most difficult to stop from doing this.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 05:28 pm: Edit

The Alpha Quadrant colonization of the LMC is the backstory for the game "Star Fleet Warlord" if I'm not mistaken.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 05:46 pm: Edit

Yep it sure is.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 05:54 pm: Edit

Is that considered official SFU canon or a what-if sort of thing?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 06:38 pm: Edit

Either way it is not out of line that the LMC is to be exploited to some significant degree.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 06:41 pm: Edit

True.

If Warlord is canon, it affects the backstory of X2. If nothing else, it *defines* the trade wars.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 07:00 pm: Edit

Well, I was saying it opens the door to it being a significant part ofthe history. I can see it going either way although it seems logical thing would go like I presented them.

Of course there can be no firm hypothesis until the LMC module and it history see print.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 07:35 pm: Edit

I'd rather we not get backed into any pre-doomsday back stories. Yes we should draw from them such major things as the trade wars, but nothing after the fall of the Desecrator should be considered in stone. The history we define should make sense and be fun to play.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 08:11 pm: Edit

Jeff Johnson is an official member of "BattleGroup Greensboro"...with a whopping two members! He and I play sometimes; SFB, Ogre, GEV, what have you. We're planning to do some more in depth playtesting on X2 stuff as time allows. I think most of you guys will find that Jeff is pretty darned bright, and a tenacious player. A very good sabre-dancer, too!

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 12:23 am: Edit

Just to cover consensus.

Most people think that the Ph-5 should be the new Phaser-1.

Most people think that there should be some kind of ASIF but exactly what it is and how it works is anybody's guess. The Ph-1 would then become the new Ph-2 for racial flavour.

Most people think that the ships should be quite weak, some say no stronger or weaker than the ISC CCX but others say it could be as weak as a Fed CX. Personnally I think the that since the Orion X1 cruiser comes in at a massive 300 BPV the Admirals would be nuts not to build their X2 cruisers that can at least compete with that.

Most people want 8 EW to be the limit that an X2 ship can produce ( without aid ).

Most peole want all existing X1 abilitites to be carried over to the X2 ships.

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 12:51 am: Edit

Does the nothing as (more) powerfull as (than) a Ph-4 on ships apply to X2?

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 05:49 am: Edit

Joseph,

The P5 is simply an upguned P1. It's nowhere near as powerful as a PM, let alone a P4.

The main debate is on what it costs to arm, and exactly what the damage table will look like. While not exact, a good rule of thumb (for various proposals)is simply bumping the phaser-1 damage chart one column to the right, to get an idea of how powerful it is.

By Jeff Johnson (Jeffro) on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 12:22 pm: Edit

"What sort of tactical options were thinking of?"

- Joe


This is hard to answer because the SFB system is so well developed that it seems to have just about every tactical option covered. But to clarify the goal that I have in mind I'd use the Tournament ships as a jumping off point.

Suppose we have X2 tournament ships for all the races... and suppose we had a half dozen "Victory at Origins" type articles describing dozens of games. My goal is that those game stories could somehow have a new dimension or flavor to them.

It's tricky to move in this direction because you can't make changes that make an entire race's fleet irrelevent. For instance, any decision that makes drones irrelevant probably can't happen because of the Kzintis....

SVC was going to "invent some kind of totally new weapon that everyone could have, and install it on every 2X ship." This seems to me to be the place to work in my idea. Although I wouldn't limit it to just a new weapon-- I might open it up to include a new system that could be used to counter the new weapon.

Or maybe we could throw out the new weapon and go with a new system that opens up new possibilties-- something comparable to tractors or scout channels in terms of their significance. Repulsor Beams? Warp Siphons? Some sort of SFB equivalent to malicious code and firewalls?

Just thinking out loud!!

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 12:19 am: Edit

Personnally I think the ASIF can be the SPECIAL WEAPON for everybody but that's just me...and a couple of converts.

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 12:37 am: Edit

MJC,

Why do you consider the ASIF a weapon? It doesn't fire anything at anybody. It appears to be only a defensive system; to keep the ship intact longer.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, August 20, 2004 - 03:09 am: Edit

It's an indirect weapon.

It aids you by protecting all those Warp Engine boxes just behind A6 and A8 on the DAC.

So latter on you have power to arm the weapons you still have left.

If you double the hit points of a monster, is it more deadly than one with a double damage claw or less deadly or just the same???

Is UIM a weapon!?! Is Derfacs!?!

If the WHOLE SHIP IS A WEAPOIN then the ASIF is too...or atleast that's my thinking.