Oh I know that. Just seems odd to drop power from the warp engines is all.

Mike:

Why'd you give the XBC a D turn mode?

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, September 23, 2004 - 05:43 pm: Edit

DKT,

SVC explained the Warp engine drop in CL.

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Thursday, September 23, 2004 - 05:48 pm: Edit

Okie dokie. As I said I haven't seen it. Just seemed curious.

I sent Mike a SSD for a straightforward X2'ing of the D hull (The new one you guys described to me).

Having the caster have a 7th point of power doesn't look like a game breaker to me. It still doesn't let you have a strengh 12 web thats 6 hexes long.

About all it does do is add 2 damage points to the web fist.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, September 23, 2004 - 09:22 pm: Edit

Mike, I understand not wanting to convert the snares to web casters as I suggested, but to simply delete the snares seems overly harsh.

Next to the right aft hull is an unlabled box.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, September 23, 2004 - 09:36 pm: Edit

I only read Tos's post but all Tholian ships need to have web generators and snare is just an advanced function of a web generator.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, September 23, 2004 - 09:38 pm: Edit

Tell that to the PC+

Don't webcasters function as generators?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Thursday, September 23, 2004 - 09:53 pm: Edit

I don't have my stuff (out of town right now) but I could swear the DPW didn't have snares at all; only casters. Could be I missed it.

•••• the mislabled box! What can I say? I did it in a hurry.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, September 23, 2004 - 11:08 pm: Edit

It seems you are right Mike. Surprise, the Tholian DPW does not have web generators or snares.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Thursday, September 23, 2004 - 11:28 pm: Edit

Could a DWP further maximized into a heavy variant and given a full XP refit mix it up with a Y205 ship?

Basically take your design, reduce the warp back to normal and replace two of the six disruptor with the web casters I keep asking for. Basically a nasty ship slightly light on warp in the X1 era but with a huge capacitor system. If we handwaved that it was as fast strategically as an X1 ship I think it would be quite competitive against an XCA.

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Friday, September 24, 2004 - 12:01 am: Edit

Tos: The web casters replaced the Snares on the DPW.

Reason: The casters can function identicaly to web
generators if the Tholians wish. Meaning there isn't much
point in having the generators on the ship as well.

Mike: Your DX design has a few glitches. You have 6 shuttles listed but only 4 on the ship. There is the 3rd transporter box that isn't labeled. Your forgot to add two T-Bombs And I think 312 is actually a bit low for the BPV hehe....

The XBC I think has a few things odd about it as well. A big one is te 'D' turn mode. That's just bizzare on a Tholian ship.

The turn mode chart is missing the '4'.

The shields should be equal all the way around. It follows the entire arachno design pattern.

The number of Ph5s is rather low for a XBC since even
various peoples XCCs seem to have 12 or so.

The smaller batteries and APR system seems curious as well
since you'd think the Tholians would use ones that take up
the same space as on the DPW to save design costs.

Your X2 Web chart is slightly off as well since, for the
most part, your supposed to drop fractions instead of
rounding (it's what the rest of the chart does; even with
a .66 or higher).

The number of T-Bombs on the XBC is low. a SC2 ship has 6
before any tech upgrades. Yours has 5.

Personally I think that the forward 2 Heavy weapons should
be option mounts considering that the base D hull has
photons, phasers and on this ship, PCs in that location.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, September 24, 2004 - 01:07 am: Edit

Even with web casters having two snares is super valuable. It is functionally a R1 mini-caster and doesn't use up your realy caster for SW defense or laying regular web.

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Friday, September 24, 2004 - 01:48 am: Edit

Loren: True but I think Tos misunderstood what happened to the casters on the DPW. I just ment to let him know.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, September 24, 2004 - 01:35 pm: Edit

I'll fix the DX later; I did it in about 20 minutes, before I left. (Had to go to TN to visit; my Grandmother had a slight stroke, so she's recovering. Alas, it also means a permanent move to a nursing home, so we're all here trying to deal with that. I'm on my Aunt's PC right now).

Not sure why the hell I put a D turn mode on the XBC; copied the wrong one, I guess!

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, September 24, 2004 - 07:54 pm: Edit

Your Grandma will be in my prayers Mike.

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Friday, September 24, 2004 - 08:40 pm: Edit

Soliciting opinion on the outline of the Federation Light Cruiser, Manta Ray class:

http://www.crawfordeducationgroup.com/sfb/ssd/federation/XCL4.gif

Everytime I happen to look at it I think 'gee, that looks cool'.

By John Erwin Hacker (Godzillaking) on Friday, September 24, 2004 - 10:34 pm: Edit

Mike Raper:
I was wondering if you got the e-mail I sent to you with the Gorn file attached. If so can you do the ssd's for me in your format and then put them up on your website and mayber (If rules allow), on this one.
Thanks, John "GODZILLAKING".

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Sunday, September 26, 2004 - 08:30 pm: Edit

Hello, all. Got back today, and finished up a few things.

Here is the revised Tholian DX.

http://www.geocities.com/raperm2002/T-DX.GIF

John Hacker, I did indeed get your email. Your eight ships are uploaded and I've sent you links. I'll keep 'em up for a month or so, anyway, or as long as they draw discussion. Good luck!

Daniel, I have also uploaded your X2 Tholian BC and sent you a link. Post away!

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Sunday, September 26, 2004 - 10:28 pm: Edit

Tos,

What is the design idea behind the long and thin hull shape? What is reasoning behind a mix of PH-5s and PH-1s? before I venture any comments I need to know why you designed it the way you did. It is a cool looking hull shape. Are looking at making a fast X ship?

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Sunday, September 26, 2004 - 11:39 pm: Edit

The way I figure it X1 achieves its strategic speed using an inefficient afterburner like formula too wasteful for normal use. Fast ships achieve the same results using a more efficient warp field, but sacrifice combat capability. The streamlined long narrow hull is designed to take advantage of the same physics that makes the fast ships fast without needing the wasteful X1 engines. I also believe that the narrower hull allows it to be manufactured in a smaller slipway. X2 needs to operate more efficiently then X1 to be worth the investment.

I picked this design in particular because I swapped the standard warp arrangement and I think it looks cool. The L/R warp is attached to the saucer, the center warp is attached to the rear hull. I envision these ships as more likely to separate then normal Feds, but I haven’t worked out the rules.

I’ve never felt the P6, depending on version, was worth the development cost. The XP1 is a good offensive/defensive weapon that the Feds have plenty of experience with.

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Sunday, September 26, 2004 - 11:52 pm: Edit

Tos,

How is the center engine attached to the rear hull? Have you consider that the rear phasers may not be able to have a 360 firing arc. You could put 2 PH-1s, port and starboard, and 2 Ph-5s in the rear with a RX arc.

Would this X2 design have a higher strategic speed than X1?

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Monday, September 27, 2004 - 12:06 am: Edit

John Trauger and I have been working on a XBC (I call it a XBC even though the SSD says XCA). I used a version of his phaser lance in two arrays. Comments are welcome

http://www.vorlonagent.com/sfb/x2/joecarlson/Fed-XBC_JT_v2.GIF

By Daniel Knudtson Thompson (Brezgonne) on Monday, September 27, 2004 - 04:13 am: Edit

There are a couple bugs I didn't notice till after I sent it to Mike. damcon needs to go up one step.

web fist table needs a 2 moved to wher the zero is.

Tholian XBC

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, September 27, 2004 - 10:46 am: Edit

I'm puzzled by the Tholian XBC. I thought SVC was adamant about no SC2 X-ships (other than "impossible" ones like the X-Light Dreadnoughts). Was that prohibition only for X1, still leaving open the possibility that SC2 X2 ships? That wasn't my impression but I might well be wrong.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Monday, September 27, 2004 - 10:58 am: Edit

Alan,

I had toyed with the idea of using a three-hulled ship for a Tholian XBC for a couple of reasons. For one, the old D was, IMO, nothing more than a BC; the only difference was litterally the designation of DN, and the incumbent size class increase. Another reason was that I can't find any reasonable way to make a 2-hull tholian ship into an effective XBC. I would guess that the "no size class 2" limit is still applicable, but the D is such a bizarre ship anyway, I thought we might get around it. However, even built as I made it, with less boxes than a DN and comparable to the Fed XBC I made, it's still too big. I am playing with another concept though; a dual hulled ship made from two CWH-type hulls instead of two standard cruiser hulls. It isn't finished, but shows promise.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, September 27, 2004 - 11:20 am: Edit

Mike;

I've got to disagree a little about the D being "nothing more than a BC". From the D to the DP to the DPW you're talking about a very steep increase in capability. By the time you get to the full-up DPW, you really have a ship that is sort of in a class by itself. It's "more than a BCH" but "less than a true Dreadnought".

If the XBCs generally are maxed-out super cruisers that the races deploy to counter the Xorks, maybe the Tholians don't get a true XBC. Maybe they should have a super efficient XCC instead. That's kind of the situation with the X1 case (not counting the Neo-Tholian NCX, which the Tholians can only convert from already existing NCAs) already. The Klingon DX is 250 BPV. The Federation CX is 240. The Tholian CCX and CPX are "weaker though in the same ball park" at 220 and 225 respectively. Though not quite as strong as their Klingon or Fed counterparts, the Tholian CCX and CPX are at least as good a BPV value. Partly this is because of their efficient high speed power curve, partly their superior shields, and partly due to web technology.

Obviously there are other possible ways to take the X2 Tholians. But I think that continuing along this path, with the Tholian "XBC" being a bit smaller and weaker, but very efficient, is still worth considering.

Just my .02 quatloos worth.