Archive through August 29, 2004
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board: The "X" Files: First Generation X-ships: X1R The X-ship R Module: Archive through August 29, 2004
By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Friday, August 27, 2004 - 11:32 pm: Edit

Technobabble: X-maulers do to X-batteries what they do to engines (i.e. kill 1/3 of the boxes that are discharged directly through the mauler).

The capacitor system is developed to give better capability without the massive internal damage per firing.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 01:41 am: Edit

Quote:

Technobabble: X-maulers do to X-batteries what they do to engines (i.e. kill 1/3 of the boxes that are discharged directly through the mauler).


I'm not sure if that's a big enough reason.

Sure when you get to R1 your 32 BTTYs blow out 11 of themselves but you inflict a further 64 points of damage over and above the 128 you were doing, which is a very great many cases (mauling bases) will be the difference between killing the enemy RIGHT FRIGGING NOW (and fixing the BTTYs latter) and having to survive a few R1 Phaser ( most probably Ph-4s ) shots in a few impulses as the enemy turns.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 06:04 am: Edit

If we do swap out the mauler BTTYs for Caps we will radically change the dynamic of the game as Maulers can no longer be used to attack fire and thus slip REAL warships up to the enemy.

Also the scuiside tractor will become a less availible tactic, this will means that charging on down to R1 is the ONLY tactic availible to the mauler and will probably cause the mauler to be unfun as it'll either be blow to bits by the entire enemy fleet or it'll singlehandedly kill the enemy DN and end the battle.

By Peter David Boddy (Pdboddy) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 08:55 am: Edit

Heh, that's a possibility that was always there, get singled out by the fleet and get toasted, or get in close and severely mangle the command ship. It's just more pronounced now...

The capacitor system may take away from the massive reserve power possibility, but specific shield reinforcement can counter that to a small degree.

I do not believe it's a radical shift in the game really. It's still a really short-range weapon, there's only going to be one mauler in the fleet (usually), and hey, it's X-tech.

Try play testing the idea first to see. I think I'll give that Firehawk X-Mauler a shot in my group's SFB game later today.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 09:56 am: Edit

Agreed. Maulers do not operate alone...they are part of a squadron or fleet, and are essentially support ships. It will be up to the other ships in the squadron to help get the mauler into position to do its thing. As an x-ship, it has some pretty good advantages anyway, namely its EW capacity, improved shields, movement precedence, and increased power. The ship above can move at speed 31 while cranking out max ECM and paying HK, and still have some power left over.

The capacitors add a ton of flexibility to compensate for the loss of the batteries. No more drawing from groups of batteries, no more destroying systems when you fire the damned thing, etc. Playtesting will tell something, but I think it makes for a pretty good x-mauler as it is.

MJC said, about a new and improved table:

Quote:

Personnally I'm for it, at R8, maulers have half the damage to power ratio of Photons and photons are supossed to suck in damage to power ratio.



What a surprise; double damage that adds up to over 100 points isn't enough.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 09:58 am: Edit

Considering that this X-mauler will have an X power curve and nothing to arm it should have plenty of reinforcement and speed, it just has to allocate it rather than have it available as ungodly amounts of reserve power. As Peter says, playtesting will tell. Too bad playtesting requires a base assault.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 02:11 pm: Edit

"Nothing to arm" ????

Except the 7 ph-1 and 2 M-torps.
Even without the mauler, this is a formidable cruiser.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 03:24 pm: Edit

True, but in fairness, that's a light load compared to most x-cruisers. It can easily run full speed while "holding" those plasmas on a rolling delay.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 08:52 pm: Edit

J.T.:

Will you help me prove a point!?!
Could you please organise and post a FAL-X SSD based on the outline I'm about to give you.


• Take one KEX.
• Remove the armour relacing it two banks ( the mauler goes up the middle ) of 3 X BTTYs.
• Rotate the Bridge and double the number of Aux Control boxes ( to two ) and then swap that group of four with the current BTTYs to put the BTTYs in the centre and mark them as Mauler Caps.
• Delete the R-torp.
• Remove the Flag Bridge and replace it with another Transporter.
• Extend the Warp Engine Narcelles.
• Delete the Warp Engine Narcelle Phaser and shunt the Engine boxes backwards.
• Shunt the Plasma-Ls forward and in the gap on each warp engine add a 3 by 3 array of Mauler caps.
• Link the mauler Caps on the narcelles engines to the centre maukler cap.
• Link the Engines to the mauler caps on the engine narcelles.
• Extend the mauler line through where the R-torp was and put an arrow on the end.
• Give the ship a BPV of about 230...I suspect.


If you really want to put have fun put up an improved mauler chart ( although that'll ram the BPV up to about 280 ) as follows.
R9-10 x 0.5 Damage
R5-8 x 1 Damage
R2-4 x 1.5 Damage
R0-1 x 2 Damage



The point being that the FAX won't really be a ship murdering machine like the FHX is.
You see even though the Mauler Caps hold 2 points of power each the reduction from 36 BTTY to 24 Mauler Caps means you only technically have an increase in 33%, since the Klingon DX got 50% more Disruptors and the Fed CX got 50% more Phasers, it's not really a huge improvement...partularly since the vessel looses the ability to easily win tractor auctions and generate huge amounts of improptu reinforcement (her now 6 X-BTTYs give her 18 points of power for that sort of thing which is half as much as the FAL had).

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 09:02 pm: Edit

MJC,

I think I can do that, but the armor will have to stay.

It's a part of the hull.

I'm at work, which is the best place for me to do this stuff or the worst.

I'll get it done, workload permitting.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 09:04 pm: Edit

Quote:

What a surprise; double damage that adds up to over 100 points isn't enough.


I'm not a munchkin...It's just that X-Bats would give a Theroretical tripple damage...once you add in the fact that X Maulers will have fewer M-Cs than their GW BTTY counter parts the doubling has its legs cut out from under it.

If we push the table so that the damages done shift out to 50% more and 100% more at range then we change the style of the mauler without changing (increasing) the MAX DAMAGE...something has to be gained for the loss of all that impromptu specific shield reinforcement.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 09:10 pm: Edit

If you have the SSD of the Rom FAL in front of you, you'll find that it has no armour.

I wasn't meaning for a FAX to be a WE refit but rather a from the ground up fast and dirty SSD and the quickest way of getting one of those was to start with an existing SSD...sorry if that created any confusion.


Thanks for helping.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 09:35 pm: Edit

MJC,

I keep a reserve stock of SSDs around to serve as "spare parts" for putting something together.

As it happens, one of the later SFT issues put out a King Falcon and I snagged it a while backfor my reserves.

When I looke dta it, I noticed the lack of armor immidiately.

For simplicity's sake, why don't you surf out to

http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sft/images/r4_935.gif

Check out the King Falcon and tell me what you'd like to edit on that SSD. Probably be easier for everybody.

If you ever decide to put your own SSDs together, a good starting point for building reserves would be the SFT SSDs and the tournament SSDs.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 10:07 pm: Edit

Well, you've already seen my Fed XFF and XCA.


• Take an HFA.
• Extend Narcalles.
• Increase Warp Engines to 18 boxes on each side.
• Raise cloak cost to 18.
• Remove warp Engine narcelle Phaser-3 from both Engines.
• Upgrade Plasma-F to PLasma-L and shift forward.
• Place 3x3 Mauler Caps between Warp Engines and Plasma-Ls.
• Delete BTTY array 1, 8 The Bridge and the Aux control and place where they were two pairs of Ph-1s ( 2 LS+R & 2 RS+L ).
• Delete BTTY array 4 and 5, place one 2 by 3 Mauler Cap array in their place.
• Relable the C-HULL boxes as LABS.
• Remove BTTY Array 3 and 6, and add on left, a 2 by 3 C-HULL array and on the right 2 Bridge boxes and below 2 Aux Control Boxes.
• Extend BTTY array 2 and 7 to become 3 BTTY long each and mark as X BTTYs ( if needed ).
• Shunt Probe, Tran, Shuttle and Trac forward one space and make the TRAN, SHTL and TRAC double in number by refilling their old positions.
• Alter hull outline and add one RA+L PH-1 and one RA+R Ph-1 next to the Impulse Engines ( and reconect the hull form ).
• Connect the Warp Engines the mauler-caps on the engine narcelles.
• Connect the mauler-caps on the engine narcelles to the centre mauler cap.
• Make sure mauler line extends out from centre mauler-cap.

• Raise BPV to 230 ( ish ).


IF you like to mess around witht he mauler table then use the following mauler table and raise the BPV to about 280.
R9-10 x 0.5 Damage
R5-8 x 1 Damage
R2-4 x 1.5 Damage
R0-1 x 2 Damage

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 11:22 pm: Edit

John besides the SFT and tournament SSDs. Another great tool is the SFBOL Ship definition kit. To build ships with. With those resources you can cover most any of the typical designs to start with.

Heck I used that material for tables etc for the SG project. It takes work but you can make just about anything you need by creative cut/paste.

By Peter David Boddy (Pdboddy) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 11:28 pm: Edit

Quoting MCJ:
You see even though the Mauler Caps hold 2 points of power each the reduction from 36 BTTY to 24 Mauler Caps means you only technically have an increase in 33%, since the Klingon DX got 50% more Disruptors and the Fed CX got 50% more Phasers, it's not really a huge improvement...

Heh, *only* an increase of 33%? Better than a kick in the pants! Seriously, the capacitor system allows a mauler ship to walk *and* chew bubble gum at the same time. Using batteries you'd be stuck trying to recharge them all after firing off an alpha (or mizia) strike, so if you didn't kill what you fired at, or if it had friends, you'd be either running really fast, or going kaboom. With the capacitors, you charge them up on the way in, fire when the fancy takes you, and next round, you can load them up again with your x-batteries, and maybe kill what you were hunting.

Secondly, the capacitor makes the maulers less prone to losing effectiviness when they start taking internals. If you lost a battery as a mauler, you not only lost use of some reserve power, you lost damage capability from the mauler. With the capacitor system, if you take a capacitor hit, you lose only capacitor space, not any capability to generate damage. If your capacitor is partly empty, you don't even lose any power. And you would still have battery power to prevent the internals in the first place.

I'd say those two points alone are worth the "only" 33% increase in damage capability.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 11:34 pm: Edit

MJC,

Here you go. Kind of a rough-cut version leaving interior room to allow for changes.

I didn't have time to add your mauler table, sorry.

http://www.vorlonagent.com/sfb/x1/mjc/r-kfx.gif

By Peter David Boddy (Pdboddy) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 11:38 pm: Edit

Nicely done, John!

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 28, 2004 - 11:56 pm: Edit

Thanks, John...now the question is will anyone playtest it to find out if I'm right that it isn't a ship murdering machine.

You might want to change the SSD ship data table to FAX even if you don't change the name just to help you avoid confusion.


Quote:

Heh, *only* an increase of 33%? Better than a kick in the pants!


My mum always says..."better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick."


Quote:

Secondly, the capacitor makes the maulers less prone to losing effectiviness when they start taking internals. If you lost a battery as a mauler, you not only lost use of some reserve power, you lost damage capability from the mauler. With the capacitor system, if you take a capacitor hit, you lose only capacitor space, not any capability to generate damage. If your capacitor is partly empty, you don't even lose any power. And you would still have battery power to prevent the internals in the first place.


Unless there is something about the Mauler Cap I don't understand loosing a mauler-cap box costs you 2 ( or one ) points of damage output.

Also since you have fewer of them ( 24 instead of 36 ) every hit costs you a large percentage of your output and your survivability.

By Peter David Boddy (Pdboddy) on Sunday, August 29, 2004 - 12:20 am: Edit

You only lose some of your maximum one-shot output, but not total output. If you have a 16 box MC, for 32 points of possible damage, and you lose two, leaving you with 14 and 28 points of possible damage. You could still put in 28 points of power (from any source, not having to worry about losing power sources), and after firing, plunk in another 4 (or more) points of power from reserve.

For the mauler as it stands, lose a couple of batteries, and you're losing not just maximum one shot damage, you're losing total output, unless you're crazy enough to start dumping engine power directly into the mauler...

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, August 29, 2004 - 02:11 am: Edit

Okay so like Phaser Caps you can refresh the Mauler-Cap with BTTY power.
But at a certain point ( when you have fewer than 1.5 times as many Mauler-Caps as BTTY boxes left, you'll start to loose that ability ( directly ).

Also if I can fire and recharge and fire again in the same turn, then that's exactly what I would do and so I still loose out however many Mauler Caps took hits it they took hit holding power.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, August 29, 2004 - 08:37 am: Edit

I don't know if it has been mentioned but another cool reason to go with caps over bats would be if the caps allowed you to determine how much energy to discharge at the time of fire (bats require discharging the whole bank).

I'm also thinking maybe we should have the caps at 3 power each. This should quiet the people who will claim that x-bats would do more damage. It would also make the mauler more vulnerable to damage; since it will have less cap boxes to hit each DAC hit will hurt more.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, August 29, 2004 - 09:31 am: Edit

Yeah, I brought that up yesterday as one of the major benefits; lets you act like an Andro without having the same power.

By Peter David Boddy (Pdboddy) on Sunday, August 29, 2004 - 10:05 am: Edit

I agree Tos, three points per capacitor sounds better, and it does make the mauler feel each cap hit on the DAC. I'm going to give it a shot and see how it goes in playtesting...

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, August 29, 2004 - 08:27 pm: Edit

I'm total for the discressionary control of output but I'm not entirely for the 3 point caps.

• It'll probably produce a push for 3 point Caps attatched to phasers...and I'm one of the few players who'ld like to see a Klingon DX with 33 points of power in her caps ( But I rather it were called the XD7 and had 36 as most of you know ).

• I'm not sure how one would word it as the hit kills both caps stores their plus one cap that was split between that SSD box and the SSD box next to it...I'm not sure how to word that to make it fit SFB understanding of Physics and Engineering.


I also kind of like the altered chart and the 2 point caps because it changes the Dynamic of the ship, with X Engines and X Reserve Warp how does a FAX not get to R1 and blow the doors off whatever it was hitting.
A further reductions from 24 M-Cs to 20 but with 3 point M-Cs would allow the FAX to blow ships to bits at R1 with a massive 120 point blast and the Firehawk-X will be even more devistating...coupled with the fact that the mauler can't just shunt that power into shield reinforcement or tractor auctions and you get a massively deadly vessels that could easily be a game breaker. Probably the only good news would be that shield take a few turns to re-arm afterwards.

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