I have to admit that the PC, in my opinion, is a relatively inferior weapon. In all the games that I've played (that being only one) where I fought against a PC armed ship, I won. Ironically, it was a tournament game (selt vs tholian).
However, logically it makes sense that once the neo's showed up, the PC should be made available to new Tholian constructs.
It would be interesting to see a DPC (On the DPW, replace the webcaster with partical cannons).

By James A Beggs (Cybermerlin) on Thursday, September 02, 2004 - 09:56 am: Edit

It makes sense? Not if it entails using their economy to redo their shipyards to accomodate a new technology; it would be an expense, and not an inconsiderable one.

And one that I do not think they would find justifiable.

I used to have disdain towards the PC until I played one that did some rather significant damage to me. Granted, its not a super weapon, but it isnt as bad as I originally gave it credit for - especially now that they revised the overload firing rules.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, September 02, 2004 - 01:56 pm: Edit

What I think the Particle Cannon really needs are swivels like the D5 has on it's disr!

That would really be a major improvement for the Tholian, given their generally robust all around shields...

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Friday, September 03, 2004 - 01:49 pm: Edit

I never really understood why PCs were limited to 120 degree arcs...I mean if you look at them an other compairable weapons others do have expanded firing arcs.

The thing about PCs is that you can't usually learn to use them correctly in a handful of games. You have to play them, and keep playing them till you get the hang of things before they really start to work out for you.

As far as availabity goes; a PC is not a complicated weapon like a caster is. I personally see nothing wrong with having them be the same availibity (or slightly more avialable) than photon ships. The catch is, of course, why put them on a ship if your captains and crews are trained to use disruptors.

It's more of a logicistal problem I'd think than a matter of production availability.

In a campaign game, once Caster tech and the 312th arrive I'd personally say the Tholians can build ships with either dizzys or PCs at their option and replace them 1:1.

PCs do tend to work better on the larger ships due to the power requirements.

By James A Beggs (Cybermerlin) on Friday, September 03, 2004 - 04:57 pm: Edit

One nice thing about the PC is you don't have to commit to overload vs standard other DF weapons. I have to admit I'd been playing around with the Selt TC precisely because of that, but it doesn't appear to be a terribly effective ship for tournaments....

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Saturday, September 04, 2004 - 02:25 am: Edit

Remember guys, that the Tholians won their galaxy (and admitably lost it) with the PC weapon. And when the 312th fleet showed up, they obviously still had the PC weapon. What did they do with those partical cannons when they refitted the 312th ships with disruptors. I would at least believe they didn't destroy them. Perhaps, they did put those (existing) weapons on other ships.
And there are crews available that know how to use those weapons effectively.

By Jeff Tonglet (Blackbeard) on Saturday, September 04, 2004 - 12:31 pm: Edit

The problem with the Selt tournament ship is that the PC requires a manuverable ship to be effective.

You can't get the second shot in with a D turn mode.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Saturday, September 04, 2004 - 12:45 pm: Edit

I do admit that I never understood the 120 limitation on the PC. It isn't as if its a big crunch weapon like the photon, Hellbore or disruptor cannon. Some 180 arcs would be really nice.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Saturday, September 04, 2004 - 01:48 pm: Edit

It's game-balance I imagine.

Firing twice a turn has powerful potential mizia applications.

I think the ADB went overboard in sticking limitations onto the PC and hasn't quite corrected enough, though there is some disagreement on that last point.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Saturday, September 04, 2004 - 02:38 pm: Edit

If you get in a PC mizia with a 12 impulse delay, your opponent deserves what he got.

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - 12:57 pm: Edit

I seem to recall that the person who designed the weapon doesn't remember why it's 120 degrees either. I could be wrong though and he's free to correct me.

What you have to understand with the particle cannon is that it's effectiveness scales up very quickly depending on the number of ships you have. More so than for other weapons.

When an enemy fleet is facing 40ish partical cannons in a Neo fleet, the fact that they fire twice can be quite devestating even with their rather lousy hit probiblity.

Really though, using the particle cannon does require a good turn mode as well as sufficent patience to learn to use the weapon as it's own device instead of trying to use tactics specific to another weapon.

As far as hitting the target twice on the same shield; it's nice but it's not really something to count on. One thing a PC does excell at is shooting down fighters. The double shots permit a rapid depletion of the enemy fighters with little or no return fire.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - 03:46 pm: Edit

No to mention that unlike puny Disruptors all PC's are created equal.

By Richard K. Glover (Fahrenheit) on Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - 04:00 pm: Edit

Yeah, crappy.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - 05:17 pm: Edit

But none of this addresses my primary objection to the idea, which (to repeat myself) is not a tactical issue but an industrial base/infrastructure issue.

Let's review some history. During the "Early Years" period, the Tholians show up with a few small but (by Early Years standards) technologically superior ships. However, except for the phaser-only Patrol Corvette, they can't build new ships to replace their losses. Sometime during the period, they launch a complex "Special Operations" type mission and steal disruptor technology from the Klingons, which allows them to build Destroyers. We don't know the details of this operation, nor exactly what the Tholians stole from the Klingons. But it obviously includes technical data on design and production methods.

Although the Tholians have production facilities at the Dyson Sphere, they are unable to build new-from-scratch web casters or particle cannons. But after capturing the technology, they can build disruptors. This suggests that, regardless of the tactical capabilities of the weapons, a disruptor is easier to build than a particle cannon.

Eventually, the "Neo-Tholians" arrive. In getting these ships ready for combat, the Tholians replace the particle cannons with disruptors, presumably because they can easily supply spare parts and components for disruptors since they have been manufacturing them for decades. The Neo-Tholians also supply the knowledge to combine Corvette hulls in new ways, making the CW and its derivatives (including the DH) possible. After several years, (Neos arrive Y178, web caster production begins Y184) the Tholians have also developed the capability to produce new web casters, though only at a low rate. This makes the "W" refits to the Archeo-designs possible. Presumably, with Neo-Tholian knowledge the Tholians could have developed the capabilities to produce particle cannons. Yet, apparently, they never did.

During the Early Years, the Tholians had to acquire heavy weapon capability by hook or by crook. And they found it easier to steal/reverse-engineer alien technology than to develope production capability for their own heavy weapon technology. By the time the Neos arrive (Y178) disruptors are so familiar to the Tholians that for all practical purposes they are native Tholian technology.

At this point the Tholians have an established heavy weapons production capability. Changing it over to produce different weapons will inevitably cause some degree of disruption. So the question is whether the tactical advantages of the new weapon system outweigh any tactical disadvantages plus the disruption factor involved in changing the industrial base.

Reconfiguring factories and infrastructure, retraining workers, and assigning engineers to do the design work are all opportunity costs associated with changing the industrial base to produce new weapons. While those factories are being reconfigured, they aren't producing the old weapons. Ditto for the workers being retrained. And those engineers were pulled off other projects which are now delayed or cancelled. New particle cannon production facilities might be built from scratch, rather than reconfiguring disruptor production facilities. But this still diverts resources (and manpower) that are not then available for other purposes.

The web caster is so useful that it clearly meets the test. It's worth the disruption to gain the tactical advantages.

But the particle cannon does not in my opinion meet the test. It does have some tactical advantages over the disruptor (also some disadvantages) but these advantages are sufficiently modest that it isn't worth it for the Tholians to reconfigure an already established heavy weapon production capability, particularly in light of the Early Years experience, which suggests that disruptors may be intrinsically easier to produce than particle cannons.

By Thanasis Kinias (Tkinias) on Tuesday, September 14, 2004 - 07:11 pm: Edit

Thyrm: You've given a good argument why they might not make a wholesale switch to PCs after the Neos arrive. But, why couldn't they use them in limited numbers like they do photons? The Tholians seem not to have a problem putting nonstandard weapons on ships and keeping around the logistical tail to support two different HWs...

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - 12:17 am: Edit

>But, why couldn't they use them in limited
>numbers like they do photons?

Presumably they can buy photons from the Feds as a turn-key weapon--buy one, plug it into the warp engine, go blow up some Klingons. Also, the parts to maintain and repair a photon are available on the open market. (And a disruptor is about as complex as a stone ax, which is good because otherwise the Lyrans wouldn't be able to get them to work.) Meanwhile, disruptors and photons may be alien technology to the Tholians, but their particle cannons are alien technology to _us_--meaning that the Tholians would have to set up dedicated mass-production lines to churn out the parts needed to keep PCs operational.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - 10:17 am: Edit

Yup. Besides, as has been pointed out, why trade your disruptor or photon for the PC? It doesn't suite their needs at all, and doesn't integrate well into a mixed fleet. As I have mentioned before, I could see a few PC toting ships, mostly unique designs carrying captured Seltorian weapons. After all, why build a disruptor - however easy it is to do so - when you can use a stolen PC? But stealing or capturing them isn't enough to insure a steady supply.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - 11:09 am: Edit

If the Tholians were to build a "one-off" particle cannon armed ship, I think the CW would be the logical candidate for base hull. It can be built faster than the CAs or dreadnoughts and is also more manueverable (same turn mode as a CA but the CW has one safe HET and the CA does not). The DD (19 points generated power) can't use the particle cannons as effectively as it uses disruptors, since the particle cannon produces more total damage per turn but requires more power per turn as well.

The CW has 180 degree arcs for its disruptors but particle cannons in Seltorian service only have 120 degree arcs. Is this an intrinsic limitation of particle cannons or is it a limitation of Seltorian designs? If the former, the Tholians already have a CWP with 4 FA photon torpedos so building a CW-variant with 4 FA particle cannons shouldn't be a problem. (That assumes they could build such a ship at all, of course. Note that it would require a rules change since E17.14/E17.141/E17.142 explicitly restrict particle cannons in this galaxy to Selorians only. The only exception is provided by YE17.0 which allows the original Early Years arriving Tholians to use (but not produce) particle cannons.)

A possible mission for such a ship would be as a dedicated anti-fighter ship that still retains effective anti-ship weaponry. It wouldn't be a carrier escort per se, but might be assigned to any Tholian fleet, carrier or non-carrier, sent to intercept an enemy carrier fleet.

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - 12:31 pm: Edit

Maybe X2 Tholians could start using PCs again.

By Richard K. Glover (Fahrenheit) on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - 03:32 pm: Edit

If X2 PCs don't suck.

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - 03:32 pm: Edit

*shrug* It seems to be boiling down to personal taste to tell the truth.

I disagree with Alen that partical cannons should be restricted like web casters are. Web and casters are much more complicated pieces fo equipment.

Recall that the Tholians spread around the crews of the Neo ships once they arrived and assigned some of their Arachno commanders to command the Neo ships and vice versa.

I think at worst PCs are limited in deployment in the same manner as photons and not using them is a tactical choice so that they did not have to retrain personel.

Recall that the Neo-Tholian personel know how everything works. It just either may not be practical to do for other reasons (having to retrain lots of people to use different tactics) or more basic (They had to repair the facilities on the sphere that produced that).

[Rest of post going to be moved to it's own topic if I can]

By Tony Barnes (Tonyb) on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - 03:55 pm: Edit

The real reason the Archeo-Tholians don't use PCs is that they already have an abundance of PCs (and PC+s)!!!

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - 03:58 pm: Edit

badum bum CHING

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - 05:22 pm: Edit

Daniel;

I agree that web casters should be much more complex than particle cannons. The issue is whether particle cannons are harder to produce then disruptors. Note my discussion in my 5:17 pm post from 14 September, suggesting that Tholian actions during the Early Years seem to imply (though not prove, of course) that particle cannons are indeed harder to produce.

If that is in fact the case (we won't know unless the Steves rule on it), then the simple fact that the Neo-Tholians fully understand particle cannon technology isn't enough to justify their use in this galaxy. You would also need to show (and I don't think anyone has yet done so) that the particle cannon's tactical capabilities are great enough to justify the industrial/infrastructure disruptions that would result from developing a particle cannon production capability. We don't know how difficult it would be for the Tholians (post Neo-Tholian arrival) to establish such a production capability. But we do know that any particle cannon advantages over the disruptor are quite modest and therefor developing a production capability would only make sense if it were very easy to do.

And it would still require a rules change. E17.14 is quite explicit that except for Early Years Tholians (YE17.0), no one in this galaxy can use particle cannons except the Selts.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 - 06:45 pm: Edit

R7.?? Tholian Heavy Particle Cannon War Cruiser

Just for funsies, I made this modified CWH. No biggie, and frankly no better than the original, at least IMHO. But, for those that want a Tholian with PC's, here you go.