Federation Commander

[cnuzzi]

I'm hugely excited for X-Ships Attack now that I know it will be released on pdf! I've started playing around with the X-Ships that have been released so far in Communique, and I have a few questions:

1 - An X-Ship fires overloaded photons. Can it fire non-overloaded photons the next turn, or must it now wait two turns to fire any photons at all? In other words, am I correct in thinking that X-Ships can do this:
TURN 1: Fire non-OL photons
TURN 2: Fire OL photons
TURN 3: Fire non-OL photons
TURN 4: Fire OL photons
Lather, rinse, repeat...

2 - Re: X-phasers, when firing a ph-1 as two ph-3s, can the two ph-3 shots be on the same impulse? Can they be part of the same volley or is it considered a separate volley?

Also, I love the tentative list of ships presented on the message board. My one addition would be an X-NCL for the Feds. Interesting to see some of the C3A Andros there as possible additions! Just as a matter of curiosity, were X-dreadnoughts ever produced?

[Steve Cole]

There were never X-versions of DNs, BBs, DNLs, BTs, or BCHs.

Adding ships isn't possible without deleting ships. 63 is a hard limit and includes the existing 16 free ones.

Published history says there was no NCLX for the Feds, the destroyer does that using the same hull. The Feds just thought calling it a destroyer rather than a light cruiser was better branding.

I don't think the Andros are going to make it this time. People love them or hate them and if half of the customers don't want them and the other half would like to have them but aren't going to be upset if they don't get there then you see where that leaves us. The decision there is about 90% made.

I am going to let Mike West handle the questions. It's best if he saves my input as the final appeal rather than the first wild guess.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[mjwest]

I didn't forget about this. It just took a little time to be able to answer it.

1. If an X-ship fires overloads on one turn, yes, it may fire normal loads on the following turn. What it may NOT do is fire overloads on a turn after it fired normal loads.

So, if a ship with photons has the photons armed up as much as possible on Turn 1, then it has choices:
- It can fire them as normal loads on Turn 1.
- It can not fire them on Turn 1, but hold them on Turn 2 and fire them as normal loads on Turn 2.
- It can not fire them on Turn 1, but hold them on Turn 2, add overload energy on Turn 2 and fire them as overloads on Turn 2.
However it fires them on Turn 2, it starts all over again on Turn 3. So, on Turn 3 it can either arm and fire them as normal loads on Turn 3, or arm them and not fire them on Turn 3 so they can be overloaded on Turn 4.
(Obviously, there are way more options available. I am assuming you are trying to fire as much as possible.)

But, the key point is that you cannot start arming photons AND fire them as overloads on the same turn. So, regardless of how you fired the photons on Turn X, you cannot fire them as overloads on Turn X+1.

2. The rules literally say the two ph-3 shots can be fired on the same impulse, so, yes, they can. [With the restriction that the target is a seeking weapon, shuttle, or fighter.] Consider it a "half-gatling" at that point. They otherwise follow all of the rules of the game. So, if the two Ph-3 shots are fired at the same target, they they are part of the same volley. If they are fired at separate targets, then they are in different volleys.

Hope that all helps!

On the idea of an NCLX, as Steve said, it isn't really needed. First, if it was made, it would be improved to the degree seen on the D5X, not to the degree seen on the CX. So, it would be nearly identical to the DDX in any case. (The only real things would be a bigger shuttle bay, bigger engines with a bigger movement cost. Everything else would be the same.) The DDX really is a CLX pretending to be a DDX.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

[Sgt_G]

[Steve Cole]

Wasn't that always true of every product we ever did?
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[cnuzzi]

Thanks, Mike. Interestingly, after I had posted this question, I heard it mentioned on the SFU On Call podcast that "war cruisers can't be upgraded to X-tech." Obviously, given the D5X, that is untrue, but perhaps the speaker (it wasn't Paul Franz) was referring to the Feds only, or maybe they were just misinformed. Iirc, the reason he gave was that upgrading war cruisers would cost more than building new hulls.

[mjwest]

The "war cruisers can't be X-ships" evolved over time. The way it applies now is that you cannot convert a war cruiser to X-tech, though you can apply partial X refits. That is still true. But ... you can build a ship that is functionally equivalent to a war cruiser and use it with X-tech. So, that D5X isn't a conversion of a D5. It is a different design with the performance of a D5 built with X-tech. A bit of semantics, yes, but that is how it works.

Also note that even the CLX based off a CW design does not get as many improvements over the non-X base design as would a CLX based off a CL.

The Feds are a unique case. Their CW is just their DD, but with bigger engines and a higher movement rate, two extra shuttles, and a drone rack. The difference between the DDX and a hypothetical NCX would be fairly minor, and it's not guaranteed the NCX would be better. And, even if it was, the DDX has a gigantic advantage that would trump any minor advantage the NCX might have: it is a size class 4 ship; it is not a cruiser. This gives the Feds a massive advantage with a nominal destroyer class ship that can hold up against everyone else's light cruiser. This is because, unlike almost every other empire, the Federation doesn't carry crappier weapons on a smaller ship; the weapons are the same. So, with advantages from being a size class 4 ship, and no disadvantage from being size class four from the weapons, the DDX is one of the Federation fleet's secret advantages.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

[Steve Cole]

CWs are built cheap (they are 7 combat point ships that cost 5 eco points to build in F&E, an 8 combat point heavy cruiser costs 8 eco points) because no one expects them to survive in combat long enough to wear out.

You cannot convert a CW into an X-ship, but you can build a new CW with the more expensive methods (costs 7 in F&E) and convert THAT into an X-ship.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[Nerroth]

One further reason why other Alpha Octant empires build X-tech versions of their light/war cruisers is to produce mission variants. Ships like the Klingon D5X and Romulan SparrowHawk-X each have a number of such variants in SFB Module X1R.

In principle, those empires have advanced technology heavy war destroyers (also in Module X1R) they can build, which could be used in whichever mission configuration might be required. Yet, as Mike West noted above, certain of those empires have a problem in terms of how their heavy weapons scale from one Size Class to another.

For example, the Romulans might be able to convert a SaberHawk-X to a fast patrol ship tender configuration (in order to hunt Andromedan Rapid Transit Network nodes); yet the resulting ship is somewhat less powerful than a SparrowHawk-EX used for this role (even though, unlike with the non-X SparrowHawk-E, the SPEX is no longer a modular design).

In the case of the Feds, they don't have that problem: their advanced technology heavy war destroyer is more or less able to hold its own as a "light cruiser equivalent" (if configured to an "HWXK" combat configuration), yet can still be converted into other mission configurations (say, if needed to hunt RTN nodes) if needs be.

With that in mind, it wouldn't surprise me if the Feds leaned more heavily on their HWX than other Alpha empires did on their equivalent designs for this reason, rather than trying to create more "mission variants" of the DDX than have already been shown to exist by this point. Others may have a different view of things, however...
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FC Omega Discussion (v3)
FC LMC Discussion

[ncrcalamine]

doesnt x in xships stand for experimental

so shouldn't there be a rule like when they shoot a weapon 1 /6 or 2/6 chance of weapon or system failure and then needing to be repaired. to function

[mjwest]

[Steve Cole]

X means anything you want it to mean, but if they put it in hundreds of ships, the chance of failure was long past.
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The Guy Who Designed Fed Commander

[SteveMB]

[ncrcalamine]

getting the bugs out wwII:

B-29 engines top 5 cylinders needed replacement after 25 hours, entire engine replaced at 75 hours. this was not fixed until the mid 50's

us mark 14 submarine torpedo 4 major problems
would circle back
mark 6 detonator only worked 30% of the time
magnetic detonator exploded prematurely
torpedo ran 11+ feet deep

us mark 18 torpedo would circle back

spitfire had carburetor problems in dive

Bismark could not turn with rudder damage
range finder wiring outside armored citadel

Iowa class battle ships bow underwater in heavy seas same for some british battleships

long lance torpedoes were susceptable to blowing up ship from machinegun fire

early m16 in Vietnam jammed when dirty

f35 doesnt work with some aircraft carrier catapults


this is just off the top of my head

thanks
Nicole Rubins

[mjwest]

Well, remember that Federation Commander is, first and foremost, a game that is intended to be fun. And for most people having to roll all of the dice they normally do to fire their weapons, but then roll even more dice to see if the weapon actually worked, is not much fun.

In fact, in the first versions of the published rules, there where failure chances. Certain things were not reliable and so, if they were tried, the player would have to roll extra dice to see if it worked or blew up in their face. (Sometimes very much the later; if a rapidly armed photon failed, it blew up on launch causing damage to the firing ship.) Apparently people hated this and the failure chances were quickly removed from the rules.

And that was for SFB. Even if those rules were still in SFB, they would likely have been streamlined out of FC. (Kind of like how shock doesn't exist in FC. You simply can't do something that would cause shock in SFB.)
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Federation Commander Answer Guy