Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive through April 25, 2002	25		04/25 01:48pm
	Archive through April 26, 2002	25		04/26 11:47am
	Archive through August 07, 2002	25		05/23 03:56pm

He could have not seen it yet.

By Roger Dupuy (Rogerdupuy) on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 01:39 pm: Edit

RIP

ReImproving the Photon

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, February 18, 2005 - 05:55 am: Edit

---

Quote:

Seriously, your test that 'proved' the photons are okay to yourself is rather arbitrary and flawed. Try a different test--try using the same ships and having a target at range 12 moving away at the same speed as the firing ships (i.e. constant fire at range 12) and see how the various ships now fare. Now, repeat the test at range 15. What do these tests prove to you?

---

By David Schultz (Ikvavenger) on Sunday, May 23, 2010 - 08:14 am: Edit

Interesting thread (though quite old) with lots of strong opinins on both sides. A while back my group and I figured the only way to find out if adding one to the 'to hit' for each bracket was unbalancing or not was to give it a go and see first-hand.

For standard loadings, R0-1 was still NA. The other ranges were increased by 1 (basically a 17% improvement).

The prox was basically the same i.e. R0-8 is an NA. R9-12 had the plus 1 improvement and the R13 and out stayed the same.

For OL, the R3-8 was increased by 1.

With that in mind we've played multiple games, both 1 on 1 duels and some fleet battles, both with various races as opponents. We have a 'Fed' guy that knows the ship pretty well and does a good job flying it. He's done well with it, but it is still quite beatable.

Now, that's just us and none of this is meant to be authoritative, conclusive or dogmatic. We just figured we'd give it a shot and see what happened. We had a good time and the game did not self-destruct.



As a side note, one thing we've played around with is a 'ready-to-go' photon. We figured if a fighter could have a standard photon in a RTG package (like the plasma F) then a ship could have one as well. Our limitation was that it is a standard load, only one is available per tube and if a OL is wanted then it has to be tossed and the OL started as per normal. Though I suppose adding power to it is an option.

I'm sure there is a reason we can't do this in the rules, but we're playing around with it anyway just to see what happens.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, May 23, 2010 - 03:56 pm: Edit

David,

I think I know what your trying to accomplish, (based on your conversations in the other threads), but IMO you are starting from a false premise here.

This thread wasnt started as a home grown campaign modification thing for photons, or improved photons or light photons... it was intended (I believe) by Mike Raper as a legitimate proposal for an incremental improvement to the Photon torpedo, apparently to "keep up" with improvements of other types of weapons (most commonly, Disrupters.

the Problem (and specifically, what I feel is your "false premise") is that the Photon Torpedo is a key (some might say, THE key game component in all of Star Fleet Battles.

In many ways, it is the yard stick by which all other weapons and systems are measured (more so, than phasers in that the photon has a fixed yield, not a variable yield).

Changing the way photons work, invalidates the structure of SFBs to the extent that the whole system is built on the way the original photon torpedo works in the game... which means changing of the photons means the BPV would no longer be valid, which means the "whole house of cards" would be threatened when you undermine the foundation upon which the game is based.

Now, that hasn't stopped players from proposing "improvements" over theyears... there are many people that think that the Federation is getting a bad deal compared to what the other races are getting with every improvement (DERFACS UIM, OAKDISK etc etc etc...) but what you are doing in you home campaign (with the modification to the Photon rules) is inflating (increasing) the net value of the BPVs of Federation ships compared to other races... since the photons in your home campaign suddenly become more powerful compared to the ships and weapons of other races. (Klingons and other disrupter armed races in particular).

Justs because you and your players don't specifically notice it doesn't alter the fact that more effective photons does make a difference.

Just understand that while what you and your players do at home is fine, good and wonderful... it really doesnt have a place here on the BBS (atleast in sections that deal with concrete proposed changes to "Real Star Fleet history".

just my $0.02 worth.

By David Schultz (Ikvavenger) on Sunday, May 23, 2010 - 04:10 pm: Edit

Thank you for your comments Jeff. Since the thread hadn't been touched in over five years, and it struck me as interesting I simply thought I'd toss my thoughts out there without any harm to the original premise.

After 30+ years of the game, I'm not expecting or even encouraging any changes in the photon on any official level. But it is interesting to me to see what others have done 'unoficially' and how it has worked (or not worked for them).

Since we've done something similar out of interest I thought to share it. Nothing more. As a point of interest, the Fed player has be pretty consistent in his victories/losses both with and without the subtle change. It helps, but isn't a game changer for us. And again, that's just us and I'm in no way trying to be dogmatic on the matter.