Hmmm so Particle Cannons are sufficently like Disruptors that they can use DERFACS?

I think we have seen yet another case of Esesdeeooopses in action :p

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 10:00 am: Edit

Alan:

Quoting rules can reach a certain level of silliness you know in this context :b

I'll try and restate what I ave been trying to say:

Tholians arrive in Y83. NDDs and NFFs have operational PartCannons.

Personel who know how the weapons work (navy crew working the NDDs and NFFs) cannot be spared to setup any sort of production facilities due to the need to keep the Navy ships in action constantly (•••• Klingons!).

Police personel are not trained on particle cannons and don't know how to make them or restore their facilities. Navy ships and crews are destroyed.

Technolagy effectivly lost till 312th arrives.

312th arrives with full Navy combat fleet and support ships (this part is usually overlooked).

Technical abilities restored but personel who know how to either train others on the equipment or repair it are still of limited availability.

Web casters (and/or their original production facilities) given priority for immediate repair. Particle cannon facilities remain idle due to lack of support for their restoration and lack of time to train crews in their use.

Disruptors remain the main heavy weapon due to current crew training.

General War ends. More personel suddenly available to restore PC facilities at leisure.

--------------------

Okay....I hope that is easier to understand then what I've been saying before.

In my view, once the 312th arrives there is basicly no technical reason that particle cannons could not be restored at the Tholians option. If done prior to the war's end, limit them in the same manner as photons. If done after the war ends I don't see a real reason to limit their deployment at all.

HOWEVER; I do not see the Tholians effectivly repairing the facility to produce PCs till after the General war ends since, even with the bugs harrassing them, they have much more oppertunity to re-train crews in the use of Particle cannons as well as spare personel to restore the PC facility.

Personally I see no problem at all with the Tholians being able to fit their X-Ships and later production ships with particle cannons. (If your curious our group made X-PCs just shoot to 40 and be able to overload both shots).

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 11:11 am: Edit

Daniel;

I still have a couple of problems with your analysis. I'll try to detail them without doing anything so silly as quoting rules.

1) You say "Particle cannon facilities remain idle due to lack of support for their restoration and lack of time to train crews in their use." I don't think there were ever any particle cannon facilities on Tholia at all. The automated production facilities on Tholia were set up to produce PCs and POLs, both of which were originally phaser-only. The Tholians were also able to produce Phaser-4s even in the early years. But I submit there is no evidence at all that prior to the operation to steal disruptor tech from the Klingons, the Tholians produced any non-phaser weaponry on Tholia. Why would they, since the shipyard facilities there couldn't produce any ships that used non-phaser weaponry? So once the 312th shows up, it's not a question of the Tholians "repairing" or "restoring" particle cannon production capability. They would have to build it from scratch.

2) I agree (and have already said) that it ought to be possible to build such particle cannon production capability once the Neo-Tholians arrive. Where, in my opinion, you still haven't made your case, is in explaining why they would want to. What's so special about the particle cannon that would justify the diversion of resources and engineering expertise from other projects? I don't think the particle cannon is the piece of junk that some people apparently do. But I also don't think it offers sufficient advantage over current Tholian weapons to justify the opportunity costs.

I will grant that if the X-tech particle cannon works as you suggest, the matter is a little different. Being able to overload two shots per turn and having a max range of 40 hexes makes it a pretty impressive system. But at the non-X level I just don't see it.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 11:35 am: Edit

A quick point.

According to the Timeline and the R section the Tholians arrived in Y79. Not Y83.

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 12:18 pm: Edit

Ken: Silly me hehe.... thanks. I gets dates mixed up along with other numbers sometimes.

Alan: Quoting rules isn't nessicarily silly. just a little silly in this context :D

1) Which one of us is right here is basicly irrelevent since the net result is the Tholians having to build/rebuild the facilities once the 312th arrives anyway. What I'm basing them having exsisting facilities on is the fact that they could repair and maintain the particle cannons on the NDDs and NFFs that arrived with the sphere. Once the Navy personel went Poof! with their ships it's unlikely that the police would nessicarily know how to keep it running. It's also equally possable that the Klingons blew up the facility in question when they attacked the Sphere. Lacking that facility or personel to repair it, stealing disruptor tech (which, near as I can tell is alot simpler than a particle cannon) is easier than reverse engineering their own weapon system.

2) I really don't think I'll be able to explain why I prefer the PC over the disruptor to your satisfaction. I'll try again though. Maybe ADM can help explain since he's usually one of the people getting shot at hehe...

The particle cannon is a more versitile weapons system. It's ability to fire two shots a turn lets the player preform a number of tactics ranging from attrition unit sniping to anti-ship work.

Against fixed postions the PC allowes for an effective Mizia effect due to the usual predictabilty of rotation.

In fleet combat the same thing can be achived via multiple ships staggering out their PC fire so that the cannons on one ship finish cycling in sufficent time to assit another ship in performing a mizia.

The ability to fire two shots also allows the PC ship to either soften up an important shield (say... #1) or, particuarly on ships with poor turn modes, soften up the same shield that the PC ship plans to strike later in the turn with the overload shot.

---------

Alan: Basicly you can do more stuff with the PC than you can with a disrupter.

As far as the X-PC, improving the accuracy didn't seem practical since none of the other weapons systems had something simular. And reducing the delay seemed a little to much. So that basicly left range being able to overload both shots and increasing the range, which we did.

I suppose one coudl argue for increasing the capicter or reducing the holding cost but I didn't see much point to that since two overload shots empties the capciter exactly already.

If our X-PC becomes the 'real' X-PC or not is totally up to the admins and the PC designer, but it does seem a logical step up from the normal PC. At least to me.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 01:43 pm: Edit

This is moot. The Tholians ain't getting the PC, unless X2 lets them use it. The disruptor is better all the way around for them.

• The disruptor is more accurate, particularly with DERFACS.
• It causes more damage at once for better crunch.
• It has better firing arcs, not being limited to the 90 degree arcs of the PC.
• It is readily available, easy to use technology.
• It is less energy hungry than the PC.

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 02:04 pm: Edit

Mike: Boy do you sound confident hehe...

I don't see how it's moot really. To me there is nothing wrong with discussing things. How else does stuff get done if nobody spoke up about it before hand?

I mean look at the overload function for the PC. That got changed eventually. Even if nothing comes of this discusion it certainly doesn't hurt anything Mike.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 02:15 pm: Edit

I am confident. We're talking about making a radical change to a race that's been a part of the game since it's inception, and that isn't going to happen easily. Oh, I agree...there isn't a thing wrong with discussing it. I'm all for talking about this kind of thing, because it can spark new ideas. But I could also discuss giving photon torpedos to the Gorn, or heavy plasmas to the Feds. Neither are going to happen, though, and that's what I think here. If you truly want to give these to the Tholians, then go to the X2 thread and propose it there. Nothing is set in stone there, and it would be much easier to get them to use them then.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 02:57 pm: Edit

Daniel: Two problems with your listed Particle Cannon advantages. First, the Tholians seem unlikely to be attacking many bases. Second, a fleet of disruptor armed ships with a sprinking of particle cannon ships is considerably less effective than a similar pure disruptor fleet. The Particle Cannon also contradicts a staple of Tholian doctrine: spending as much time as possible behind web. The Tholians lack the numbers of ships and the numbers of Web Casters to make up for the increased vulnerability of Particle Cannon armed vessels.

There is one other major case you ignored that the Particle Cannon is better than the disruptor and that is the hunting freighters. That is a important mission for the Tholian Will but not the Tholian Holdfast. If the Tholians had any production of Particle Cannons, the best use for those weapons would be selling to pirates who in turn would use the handful of Particle Cannons in every convoy raid.

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 03:02 pm: Edit

In fact, what may come from this discussion is that X2 Tholians will have a new weapon, rather than being YADRs (Yet Another Disruptor Race)

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 03:24 pm: Edit

Daniel;

One point about capacitors for X-tech particle cannons - I believe (will have to check my books when I get home to be sure) that an overloaded particle cannon costs 3 points of power regardless of first or second shot. So an X-particle cannon that could overload both shots would have to have a capacitor capable of holding 6 points of power. But that's a minor point and I have already conceded that the X-particle cannon would be an impressive weapon.

Regarding the non-X particle cannon, I think my personal opinion falls somewhere between yours and Mike Raper's. I don't think it is as superior overall to the disruptor as you do, nor do I think the disruptor is as superior as Mike does. I believe that in overall capability they are comparable, though each is better than the other in some respects.

That being said, if there were no opportunity costs to the Tholians in setting up particle cannon production, it would clearly be some level of advantage to do so, since they could use their disruptor ships for missions in which the disruptor would likely be superior, and conversely for particle cannon ships. But there would also be some level of opportunity cost. Only the Steves can determine what that level of opportunity cost is, but we can make an estimate of the level of advantage in producing particle cannons, and I think your estimate is too high. Let me give a concrete example why I think this is so.

You mention that a particle cannon is superior to a disruptor at assaulting fixed positions. I agree. It's much easier to ensure that all shots hit the same shield against a base than against a ship, minimizing the problems with low-crunch/high-rate-of-fire scarring two shields but not penetrating either, and also as you mentioned allowing good Mizia opportunities. So, yes, the particle cannon is superior to the disruptor in the base assault role. But here's the thing. Particle cannon production would make the Tholians a bit stronger performing a mission at which they are already immensely strong, because of the web caster. As I'm sure you're fully aware, with web casters it is not only possible, it is fairly easy, for the Tholians to put together a fleet that can crush an X-starbase and suffer no losses at all, assuming that starbase has no defending ships/PFs/fighters/minefield. That would be historically unrealistic of course. When would you ever have an X-starbase without supporting defenses? But it illustrates how powerful the post-Neo-Tholians are in assaulting a fixed position. Granted in this galaxy the Tholians never have very many web casters. But they don't engage in many offensive operations either. On those few occasions when they would do so (for example, destroying a key Klingon position that was supporting Klingon/Seltorian operations against the Holdfast) they would assign adequate web caster support to the high priority mission.

So the particle cannon's superiority against fixed positions, which I ackowledge, ends up helping the Tholians in an area where they don't actually need any help. The Tholians biggest weaknesses (post-Neo) are strategic rather than tactical. They have severe limitations in building ship hulls, and a general lack of economic resources relative to the major races. Particle cannons are irrelevant to the first and at least somewhat aggravate the second, to the extent that resources will have to be committed to repair/restore (your interpretation) or build from scratch (my interpretation) the production facilities in the first place.

I've enjoyed this discussion and am willing to continue it if you wish. But I suspect that unless SVC or SPP provides some new information on the possibility (and degree of difficulty) of the Tholians re-establishing particle cannon production, neither of us is likely to convince the other.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 03:25 pm: Edit

It will have to be tactically better than the disruptor and fit their defensive doctrine. Remember, they are fighting for the very survival of their race as far as they know.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 04:02 pm: Edit

A note: I do not have anything against the PC. I think it's a fine weapon. I don't, though, think it's as good for the Tholians as the disruptor is, for the reasons I stated.

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 05:42 pm: Edit

I think I sorta tried to say that we aren't likely to agree already hehe...

Personally I think we are using the PC differntly and are hence, seeing two differnt results.

I've been using particle cannons on pretty much every Tholian and Neo-Tholian ship for as long back as I can remember (outside of offical playtesting). I'm used to using them. To me disruptors seem sort of limited in their usefulness. I just have trouble explaining why.

I will ask though.... what have both of you normally tried the particle cannons on? shipwise I mean.

Our group normally plays pickup battles unless we do a campaign or specific event. I usually played Will ships till I was *ahem* told to play non-Tholians :P

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 05:48 pm: Edit

I played them on Selts and the odd Orion here and there.

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 06:23 pm: Edit

But never on Arachno or Neo Tholians?

On exactly what grounds are you arguing agasint this discusion then?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 06:42 pm: Edit

I never played Andros with plasmas, either...and I don't have to to know it isn't going to fly. I repeat: I have nothing against PC's. But they aren't necessary, they aren't any better, and most importantly there is no compelling reason to re-write the game at this point to include them. If you want Tholians with PC's, then get them in X2. That wouldn't be a problem.

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 07:28 pm: Edit

How is that even in the same realm of an example?

Andro's never had plasma. Andros are ungodly unbalanced with plasma.

Tholians had PCs. Tholians work just fine with PCs.

As near as I can tell, if they were allowed on Tholians after the 312th arrives, it would be a small paragraph at most in some future R-module. Thats it. Thats all it takes. Doesn't even require SSDs.

I have no idea why you seem to think it's re-writting the game either. Can you explain that?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 07:58 pm: Edit

How is it not?? You propose to give access to particle cannons to the Tholians. Explain how that isn't going to alter the game? It is exactly the same as the Andro example...techsloshing. You can justify it with any amount of technobabble you please, but in the end, you're giving one races unique weapon to another not because they need it, but because you like it. To quote SVC, "that way lies madness". The Tholians are just dandy as they are. There is no need for them to get Particle Cannons prior to X2, period. A few uniique PC equipped ships is one thing, but adding them wholesale as some kind of refit is another, especially when the existing rules expressly forbid them from doing so. Again, it's techsloshing at its worst.

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 08:11 pm: Edit

???????????

How is it tech sloshing if the Tholians MADE THE WEAPON???

That makes absolutely no sense to me. Adding the photons to Tholian ships was tech sloshing. The particle cannon is already a Tholian weapon. How the heck is it tech sloshing for them to get their own weapon back?

Thats like saying the Feds can't have photons back if they misplaced the blue prints for them for while and it took them awhile to find them again.

This isn't anything like adding another races weapon to them like your example of Andro's and plasma.

This is letting them use their own bloody weapons system again.

*sigh* I think I'm just going to ignore your weird posts Mike. I get less confused that way.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 08:28 pm: Edit

DKT,

The GAME background has the Tholians using PC's, (which was written decades later). Real life background the Tholians had Disr. Thats the way the game developed.

As Conjectural units I don't see a problem with PC armed Tholians. But I really doubt that they would get them in reality.

Offhand I don't see how the complexities involved in switching the tech base from Disr-PC would be worth while, (in game setting).

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 08:37 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

I think I'm just going to ignore your weird posts Mike. I get less confused that way.

---

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 09:00 pm: Edit

Ken: Correct if I understand what your saying. The game has the Tholians using particle cannons in their home galaxy and when they initally arrived in this galaxy. What we were talking about for most of this thread before Mike showed up is if/why they would/wouldn't re-deploy them.

Not to sound to rude but how does RL history matter compared to what is established in the game? The history says they have PCs. So... we were talking about why couldn't they use PCs again once the 312th arrived.

I *think* Alan and I more or less agreed on at least half the items. Sorta. There is little technical reason why not. Reasons not to employ PCs on Holdfast ships are logistical. Alan and I just differed on which logistic problem it was.

Employing PCs on X1 ships, assuming they are roughly close to the guess our group made, makes much more practical sense.

Alan: If I mis-read something or forgot something lemme know. This is just more or less how I saw our discussion.

Mike: No you aren't. Your arguing to argue as near as I can tell and grabbing at things like accusing it of being tech sloshing to let them use their own damned weapon system. Thats why I'm getting annoyed with you. That, and your arguing agasint something without actually playing the weapon on the race. Not to mention it hasn't been about giving them the PC. They already HAVE the PC. It's been about why would they produce the more expensive PC over the less costly disrupter.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 09:00 pm: Edit

Daniel;

I have played Neo-Tholians with both disruptors and particle cannons, and found them to be very comparable overall. Since I have never played an Archeo-Tholian with particle cannons, I must admit the possibility, though I don't consider it very likely, that swapping disruptors for particle cannons would materially improve the ship. But given that I have observed no significant differences in overall utility between disruptor-Neos and particle-Neos, I'ld like to ask you a couple of questions.

1) Is there some characteristic of Archeo-Tholian designs, such that swapping disruptors for particle cannons makes them much better than before? If so, what is it and why don't the Neo-Tholian ships show that characteristic?

2) If particle-armed Archeos really are that much better than disruptor armed Archeos, what's the appropriate BPV cost? Mike Raper posted an Archeo-Tholian Heavy War Cruiser with particle cannons replacing disruptors, earlier in this discussion. He priced it the same as the standard CWH, 135/141 with snares. Since I believe the two to be of comparable capability, this seems right to me. You apparently disagree, since you regard the particle cannon as a clearly superior weapon. So what should the BPV be in your opinion?

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 09:07 pm: Edit

Daniel;

I hadn't read your latest post when I posted my latest. I do concur that we agree on some things and disagree on others, but one area of disagreement, as far as I can tell, is on the relative utility of the two weapons. You think particle cannons are a lot better than disruptors and I think they're about the same.