This is intended as a “The Mad Scientists Workshop” proposal, for inclusion in Stellar Shadows Journal.

Proposal: the Type O/D Gatling Phaser. by Jeff Wile.

Rule (JE___.0) Type O/D Gatling Phaser.

The Federation received Gatling phaser technology from the Hydrans shortly prior to the Federation entry into the General War. They were, (to a limited extent) able to deploy both ship based and fighter based versions.

Before the true limits of the technology were discovered, enthusiasm for the new technology energized many officers in the star fleet. Politicians in the Federation Council, reacting to the unsubstantiated claims by officers who should have known better, were also swept up in the euphoria.

As a result, a research program was instituted to build a phaser 1 gatling, some junior officers involved in the early program talked of “vanilla DD’s Scoring a Klingon C8 Dread Nought with one alpha strike.” The image of each phaser 1 mount on a Fed DD getting 4 separate shots in a single 32 impulse turn, and coupled with 6 such mounts and 4 overloaded photons was too good to be believed.

Sadly, it was too good to happen.

First, the state of phaser technology was not advanced enough to support the quality change represented by the application of Gatling Technology. Metallurgy, targeting, and control of the vast energy needed to power a Gatling 1 phaser mount were too insurmountable. Yes it was possible, to fire a single phaser 1, and using care and good judgment, it might be possible to get a second shot off within 32 impulses, (although at a significant cost). The problem was that each phaser 1 shot added a cumulative chance of a catastrophic failure of the components. so much so, that any attempt to make a 4 shot sequence always resulted in destruction of the mount and 36 points of damage inflicted to the firing ship. (resolved as a single omnidirectional volley.)

Second, the effectiveness of the targeting systems were seriously degraded by the raw energy of the system, and the residual heat build up during the firing sequence and the inability of existing systems to remove the unwanted excess heat. the best the system could achieve, was a phaser mount that generated hits as if it was a phaser 2 offensive/defensive phaser. (hence the choice of O/D in the name.)

Third, manufacturing standards needed to produce functioning O/D Phaser Gatlings were a full order of magnitude more exacting than the requirements of a standard phaser, and those systems that did function correctly had a limited service life. the Federation could keep no more than 12 functioning O/D Gatlings operational at any time. also (part of the support system network of the O/D Gatling Phasers) required extensive repair support, far more than a ship on patrol would be able to do by itself. as such, ships equipped with O/D phaser Gatlings were “hanger Queens” in that they needed repairs far more often than conventional phasers required.

(JE___.1) use ruleE2.15 Type G Gatling Phaser with 2 exceptions. First, substitute phaser 2 weapons table for the phaser 3 weapons table for resolving damage. Second, the energy cost of operating the Type O/D Gatling Phaser, is doubled for each shot. (where the Type G costs 1/4 energy point per shot, and 1 point per turn for 4 shots, the type O/D Gatling phaser costs 1/2 energy point per shot and 2 points per turn for 4 shots.

In the actual event, all attempts to field a more powerful gatling type phaser failed. no actual examples were ever deployed with the active duty fleet. the program did not contribute in any meaningful way to weapons research for advance phaser technology.

This rule is offered to players to examine the effectiveness of more powerful gatlings.

There are reports that the Federation actually mounted prototype type O/D Gatling Phasers on a test bed, and conducted live fire exercises. The result was serious damage to the USS Princeton, numerous injuries and fatalities to the crew, and (if the records are to be believed) the death of the minister of the War department of the UFP.

By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 - 02:37 pm: Edit

Jeff,

JFYI a gatling P2 has been proposed for Hydrans in the X2 threads. But push ahead anyway.

You have a good background and explanation why it didn't/couldn't work.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 - 04:17 pm: Edit

Kenneth, thanks!

I figured that it "would be too good a deal" for the Feds to be able to have unlimited production (especially since they couldnt do that with regular phaser gatlings, or even fighter gatlings (even though they "are not the same things")... so a SSJ thing seemed reasonable to me.

Too bad the feds had to blow up a perfectly good old CL hull to "disprove" the concept!

By Adam James Villatorio (Merlinfmct87) on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 - 08:45 pm: Edit

Ph-G2 was done in SFC OP for their X2 ships. It was so good at it's job we used it as the Defiant's pulse phasers... made it one of the most unbeatable ships in the game.

Would be interesting to see the rules trandslated to SFB.

Merlin

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 - 08:55 pm: Edit

Adam, the problem with gatlings in general, is the fact that they are so good.

A phaser G can do 16 ponts of damage a TURN... compare with a overloaded photon, (with its inaccuracies) that costs 4 points of power over two turns and you can see the phaser G has the advantage.

Now the proposed PH-G2 (or as I called it, the O/D phaser gatling) can generate 24 points of damage per turn for 2 energy points cost.

leaves most other weapons systems far behind for the potential damage ability, especially the heavy weapons systems.

for that reason alone, I would not expect to see a phaser 2 gatling published as part of "real history".

still, it has potential... especially as a PF buster!

By Tim Longacre (Timl) on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 - 08:57 pm: Edit

This sounds somewhat similar to the PH-C that Jeremy Gray came up with for his race, the Borak.
With his, you got 3 P-2 pulses at 2/3rds power per shot, with the same firing restrictions and capabilities as a P-G. You might think about asking him more about it if you want a "designers opinion".

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 - 09:18 pm: Edit

Personally, I thought a gatling P-2 was just too good, even for X2.

By Adam James Villatorio (Merlinfmct87) on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 - 09:34 pm: Edit

Some clarification:

The Defiant was 3X. Not the tholian web defiant, the DS9 defiant. As in TNG era. So yeah, I would expect this to be in the "Area 51" of SFB for now.

Merlin

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 - 09:49 pm: Edit

Since the ADB doesn't have rights to the Franchise (which includes DS9), it's probably going to stay that way.

By Adam James Villatorio (Merlinfmct87) on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 - 10:42 pm: Edit

I'm well aware of that, I'm telling you what I did in a SFC mod.

Merlin

By Steve Cain (Stevecain) on Thursday, January 20, 2005 - 03:52 am: Edit

Jeff-
Suprise... I like this one. I even thought in years past of doing a race that used a pulse Ph-2 w/ 2 or 3 shots. Keep it SSJ as you mentioned or use it on a new race.
One note. If the feds thought it up you might as well say it is a Ph-1. The Ph-1 is in fact a Ph-2 with better targeting. So unless you are saying the targeting system would start smoking, the fed would gladly use the better sights on the now multi-shot offensive/defensive phaser.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Thursday, January 20, 2005 - 04:18 am: Edit

Well, he *did* say in his write-up that targeting got harder when the P-1 was made a gatling.

Why not say that the Feds realised that there would be limitations, and just went for a 2-shot?

Instead of a p-1, get two p-2 shots, for 2 power. Shots must be made at least Z impluses apart (where Z is 1-8 probably). You could even allow the first shot to be a P-1 shot.
Note that a standard P-1 can be fired twice (over two turns) with just an 8-impulse break, so to allow a phaser to be fired twice in the same turn with an 8-impulse break, where the second firing is a Phas-2, is not that great an upgrade.

I could see that as an X weapon, on a very limited basis as implied in the write-up. However, I'm not sure how much this thing is covered for by exisiting X-rules (which I don't have).

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, January 20, 2005 - 12:05 pm: Edit

The way this is "written up" the phaser gatling would get a 50% increase in damage generation and a 100% increase in cost (in terms of energy points).

Changing the proposal to allow phaser 1 gatlings would amount to about 225% improvement in the ability of the Phaser G to inflict damage points on an opponent(going from 4 points per phaser 3 "shot" to a 9 point damage phaser 1 "shot" while "only" increasing the energy cost by 100%.

IMO that would be ahuge improvement in technology.

worse, letting each SSD box phaser take up to 4 "shots" amounts to inflating the number of phaser 1's a given ship would be equipped with while the energy cost to power all those phaser 1 shots amounts to half of what would be required if all those phaser 1's were represented on an SSD.

Don't know what SVC would say about it, but I would not be surprised if he started muttering about "this way leads to madness" or some thing similar...

Now if there were an established (read as printed) rule allowing phaser 2 gatlings... we might see some interesting SSD proposals where Phaser 2Gatlings would be more than just a carrier escort thing.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, January 21, 2005 - 01:20 am: Edit

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Quote:

Personally, I thought a gatling P-2 was just too good, even for X2.

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By Adam James Villatorio (Merlinfmct87) on Friday, January 21, 2005 - 03:00 am: Edit

IMO X2 *should* be a big step... as long as we can accurately account for it BPV wise, and it is a *reasonable* big step. I.E. we don't go from Two plasma-Rs per ship(as in KRX) to, say, 8.

I did like the idea Mike Raper suggested: Having X2 ships better tech wise(having bigger guns and better toys) but not being better combatively... made more for peace/science work and the occasional police action. Of course, that's begging for a big war to spice things up, but that's planned.

Another thought that has been suggested to me is to give a BPV bonus per tech level difference... i.e. X1 vs X2, X1 gets a 10% bonus(just off the top of my head). while X2 vs EY, EY gets a 30% bonus, because the X ship can guarantee an advantageous speed, EW, and damage environment.

Something I'd like to see drawn up.

Merlin

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, January 21, 2005 - 04:31 am: Edit

We can talk X2 in the X2 threads.

But I think an X2 gatling analog doing the Ph-G damage of R2 at R3 is quite a big step, not least because ESGs just got less effective and ADDs just got less effective and tractors cost more to grab the fighters and Phaser-1/2s just got less effective.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, January 21, 2005 - 04:21 pm: Edit

I thnk X2 should be discussed in the X2 thread.

Phaser 2 Gatlings would have a serious impact on the game if allowed into the "real universe".

As had been expressed by others, a phaser 3 (with a 4 point damage potential) would do a good job defeating drones and crippling a older defensive fighter (the one(s) with fewer hits) but do not do as well against better quality fighters and PF's.

A type O/D phaser gatling mounted on a fighter or a PF(that is, if the Feds operated PFs) would be a material improvement to its leathality.

A ship armed with 2 or 4 of these suckers would be capable inflicting serious damage upon an enemy.

please note, a Fed DD with 4 overloaded photons could inflict (assuming all torps hit) 64 points of damage every other turn for an energy cost of (on average) 16 points of energy a turn (32 points over 64 impulses).

In comparison, a Fed DD that substituted 4 O/D phaser 2 Gatlings for each photon (assuming such a change were legal) would inflict 24 points per mount per turn. thats 96 points of damage per turn and 192 points of damage over 64 impulses for 4 such mounts. the energy cost is 2 points of energy per phaser 2 G, or (for all 4) 8 points of energy per turn and 16 points of energy over 64 impulses (2 turns).

broken down, thats 50% more damage for half the energy cost of operating overloaded photons.

Even worse, with the 8 impulse delay, one could conceivably fire an alpha strike using the type O/D phaser 2 Gatlings on impulse #25 of turn #1, and follow it up with another 96 point alpha strike on impulse #1 of turn #2... just 8 impulses later.

such a scenario would bring howls of complaint from the non fed players crying "foul"!

One could almost imagine the mighty klingon C8's cowering in fear of the lowly Fed DD's...

(gee, could we name a Fed DD "Jack, the Giant Killer"?!?)

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, January 21, 2005 - 04:29 pm: Edit

Correction.

I wrote " a 50% increase in damage compared to 4 photons" that would be a comparison of a single strike from each of the photon ship vs the phaser 2 Gatling ship.

with the gatlings able to fire each turn, they would do 96*2=192 points vs 64 for the overloaded photons.

IOW the gats would do 3 times as much damge as the photons in the same spand of time taking twice as many "shots".

If the comparison were done over using standard phasers or normal phaser gatliongs, the results would still be infavor of the O/D phaser 2 Gatlings.

those suckers are darn dangerous.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, January 21, 2005 - 10:47 pm: Edit

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Quote:

please note, a Fed DD with 4 overloaded photons could inflict (assuming all torps hit) 64 points of damage every other turn for an energy cost of (on average) 16 points of energy a turn (32 points over 64 impulses).

In comparison, a Fed DD that substituted 4 O/D phaser 2 Gatlings for each photon (assuming such a change were legal) would inflict 24 points per mount per turn. thats 96 points of damage per turn and 192 points of damage over 64 impulses for 4 such mounts. the energy cost is 2 points of energy per phaser 2 G, or (for all 4) 8 points of energy per turn and 16 points of energy over 64 impulses (2 turns).

broken down, thats 50% more damage for half the energy cost of operating overloaded photons.

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Quote:

those suckers are darn dangerous.

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By Steve Cain (Stevecain) on Saturday, January 22, 2005 - 12:38 am: Edit

Back when I was looking at the Ph-2 gat. I saw the issue that you raise w/ the Ph-1 version. The solutions were fairly clear...
make it a 'heavy weapon' for a new race. (It in fact would be a new phaser system that was NOT a Ph-1/2 but new system)
make it cost a excessive amount (each pulse costs normal ph1/2 amount...1 pt)
large delay between use
could burn out on 1+x fireings (like UIM)

No solution fit what I wanted and I ultimately dropped the project when it turned out to be totally unlike what the goal was.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, January 22, 2005 - 12:56 am: Edit

And what was the goal?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, January 22, 2005 - 03:01 am: Edit

I can see of lot of ways of making it more heavy-weapon-like.

Progressive firing costs.
If the basic cost to fire one once is 1 point but the firing cost of the next is say 2 points minus 0.1 points per impulse between firings.
That way to fire them all on the impulse of firing costs 7 points of power and to fire them over a period of 40 impulses would be merely 4.


High energy explosions.
If the weapon is fired more than once in a turn then one must roll against 11 or more on two six sided die and and if failed the weapon explodes and does one point of damage to the ship per point of energy still in the capasitor.


Overheating.
Each shot generates 12 ECM that then cools at a rate of one point per shot with all shots after the first being effected.
This firing all four shots in one impulse would generate 36 ECM and thus a +6 shift to latter shots but the firing them over 36 impulses will mean the four shots have no EW trouble.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, January 23, 2005 - 01:07 am: Edit

MJC:

The prime characteristic of the phaser 2 was the "offensive/Defensive" attribute.

It was between the power of a phaser 1 and the defense phaser 3 type.

If you are going to "force" the phaser 2 (be it a single mount or a gatling style) you are ineffect moving away from the premise of the Offensive / Defensive aspect.

If you (or anyone else) wants a heavy weapon, then by all means, go for it.

but taking a moderate weapon (such as a phaser 2) and then forcing it to behaive as if it is a heavy weapon misses the point of the proposal.

To restate, it is to provide a gatling phaser that is 50% more powerful than the original phaser 3 gatlings.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, January 23, 2005 - 09:02 pm: Edit

Oh...well in that case there is only one answer.
Six shot Ph-G.

( Might have to go with some BTTY power rule or X1 Caps. )

It'll grant the increase, remain Ph-G like and still have all that Ph-G flexibility that phasers have.


Actually three shots from a Ph-ubergatling might just be the balance between ( not wild enough to need heavy weapon style restrictions ) and granting the extra range to yeild a "50%" improvement.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, January 23, 2005 - 10:33 pm: Edit

Only one answer to what question?!?!

A six shot phaser 3 Gatling would cost 1/4 energy point per "shot" so the total would be 1.5 energy points.

A phaser 2 has a slightly better range ability to inflict damage than the phaser 3, so would have a slightly better to hit ability at ranges greater than the phaser 3 charts would allow.

While 6 shots might be more versatile tactically, at range 0 the 6 shot ph 3 Gatling would inflict a potential max damage of 24 points for the cost of 1.5 energy points... the O/D type phaser 2 gatling would cause the same 24 points of damage at range 0 at a energy cost of 2 points.

A O/D phaser 2 gatling would have better damage ability at greater ranges than the 6 shot phaser 3 gatling... plus, of you are going to increase the phaser capaciter to hold 6 shots worth of power, what justification are you going to say the phaser 2 gatlings can't also have a 6 shot capaciter?

AOFBE, the smart players would rather have 6 phaser 2 shots than 6 phaser 3 shots.

and while we are at it, why not give the O/D phaser 2 Gatling the ability to down size its phaser shots?

that way the capaciter can retain more of the stored energy for future use and the O/D phaser 2 gatling could "choose" to fire each shot (subject to available energy) as either a phaser 3 or a phaser 2.

Hmmm.

I'll have to think about that feature, you might have actually improved the proposal for us.

Thanks.