8 minutes ago, Noosh said:

I agree big 3.

I'll be honest Im excited to do the gorn. Low manuvering, crazy toughness, high powered close range. I loved playing them in those Starfleet command games way back when.

Definitely though the Klingons should be redicoulsly offensive based. Not that they are orks or anything but their design ethos would seem to value frontal conflict and winning and surviving through the star trek equivalent of a slugfest. While they do have cloaking tech they use it more in the manner to move forces undetected rather than a combat ability. Again not saying they won't use it in that fashion, but they do prefer the frontal assault ( when tactically reasonable). So strong front firing arcs and sheilds, defence tokens that reward tanking dmg like contain or brace. In terms of hull and manouvers they should be balance because you can't fight if you can't move but you still need to take a hit. Subsytems should be limited and weapons, and crew only. Maybe something to increase manouvers but not really speed.

What's not to love about the Gorn?

Just now, Megatronrex said:

What's not to love about the Gorn?

Nothing!!!! Dwarfs for fantasy, lizards for SciFi. That's where you'll find me in RPGs.

Gorn I would take in the slow tank method. At best speed 3 with 1 click, never gonna get two clicks on a card average speed ideally 2. Sheilds and hull should handily outclass all others in their size category. Weapons on the other hand should we pretty equal across all arcs, but should be kept primemarly to blue black. Defence tokens I'm thinking no evade ever, no brace, mostly redirect and contain. On upgrades, defence slots, black dice uprgrades maybe some kind of special weapons slot.

**** tractor beams....I just thought about them, how do we handle those? I don't want it to turn into a game of shuffle board..... I can go play shuffle board for that.

On 10/6/2017 at 11:29 AM, Megatronrex said:

This isn't my work but I thought it might be usefull

Federation : "Individual lives have value." Ships are balanced offensively/defensively and have large power plants and redundant systems.

Klingon : "Glorious battle assures immortality." Ships are strong offensively and are highly maneuverable, but at the expense of defenses and support systems.

Romulan : "Subterfuge cloaked in mystery sheathed in deception." Ships are well-powered with good support systems, but speed and firepower suffer, requiring ships to be larger (more massive) to carry more weapons.

Borg : "Identical cogs in a perfect machine." Ships are fast, strong and survivable (through regeneration), but become too big to be maneuverable. They are also dependent on centralized command and control.

Cardassian : "Winning is everything." Ships mount a lot of offense, but require a lot of bulky power systems to do the job, reducing maneuverability and space for other systems.

Ferengi : "There's no profit in dying." Ships are fast, maneuverable, and have good active defenses. They're somewhat underpowered offensively when alone, but they can be dangerous in numbers.

Jem'Hadar : "My life for the Founders." Balanced offense and defense like Federation ships, but virtually no support systems.

Species 8472 : "Enough pure energy can solve any problem." Species 8472 ships are essentially maulers: single-weapon ships where all systems exist to support the weapon.

Breen : "#%$& $*&#@ #@^&." Not much is known of Breen design philosophy, but it seems to emphasize energy/power systems. So Breen ships tend to have good support systems to power their energy weapons.

Gorn : "I'm tougher than you are." Their ships would have basic offense and support systems, and they'd be painfully slow, but they'd be so massively armored that taking one down would be a real challenge. (Note: There are no Gorn ships in canon Star Trek... but there should be. ) )

Let's rewrite this in terms of the categories I laid out in the master reference, which I also note I have updated such that durability reflects physical hull parameters, and shield strength represents the power of the shields. I'm ranking each faction on a scale of [Low, Moderate, Medium, High, Extreme] in each category, and I'll probably have some notes as well.

Starfleet : (This is the baseline. Not every category may be Medium, but everyone else is scaled to Starfleet, because how the h*** else are you supposed to do this?)

Armament : Medium leaning High. Starfleet operates the Ship of the Line doctrine, and they're clearly never shown as slouches (just occasionally outclassed). In raw terms they should fall behind the Klingons and others, but they should still be formidable.

Durability : Medium. Starfleet ships are tough, but it appears to mostly be (IMO intelligent) multiple redundancy across capabilities as opposed to straight up armoring used by others.

Shields : Medium leaning High. Starfleet shields are capable of standing up to a lot of punch (see Excelsior defending Enterprise -A, anything involving the Defiant or Voyager ).

Agility : Medium on average. Starfleet is a study in contrasts here. The Galaxy while a fast warp platform is not exactly a Bird-of-Prey, and Sovereign is never implied to exactly be acrobatic. On the flipside, the raw performance of ships like Defiant and Prometheus counterbalance that.

Exotic Capabilities : High. This is consistently a Starfleet edge in combat, whether it's shenanigans to track a cloaked Warbird dumb enough to hide in a comet or whatever else they're getting up to (almost always the deflector).

Overall Technology : High. I've always understood Starfleet to be the most advanced non-Borg race overall, even if they rely a little heavily on it to hold an edge in performance. On the other side, it's implied (in my readings) that Starfleet pays for this by having fewer ships generally, particularly of top-end superships, even as they maintain the enormous cruiser fleet that backs up their exploratory mission.

KDF :

Armament : High. The Klingons are warriors. Their ships are armed to the teeth, and often with powerful weapons. See the comparison Worf always made about Starfleet vs KDF ships. Starfleet had the tech edge, so they had better sensors and often superior performance per unit input, but the Klingons dealt with this by going balls to the wall.

Durability : Medium leaning High. Here I'm going to diverge from @Megatronrex 's initial statements slightly. I've always viewed Klingon ships themselves as tough. They aren't multiply redundant like a Starfleet cruiser, but they are well armored and built solid. The difference comes next.

Shields : Low leaning Moderate. I mean, they exist, but they don't seem to be the bulk of what the KDF uses to escape danger. (They also really don't. They seem to prefer blowing it to Kingdom Come.)

Agility : Medium leaning High on average. Birds-of-Prey are usually described as exceptionally agile ships, so that's one end of the spectrum, but the larger size for many cruisers would seem to preclude exceptionally advanced manuevers. I would expect everything equipped with powerful engines for high Go-Fast quotients that can be brute-forced into advanced maneuvers, but the Negh'Var is no ballerina. (The Vor'cha is probably a bit more a ship of maneuver.)

Exotic Capabilities : Low. It's the Klingons. Subtlety is not usually their thing. Exception here is the cloaking technology they acquired from the Romulans.

Overall Technology : Medium. They won't discover much of anything that isn't a weapon much faster than the Federation, but they aren't a backward, barely warp-capable organization either.

Romulan Star Navy :

Armament : Medium leaning High. Romulan Warbirds do often seem underpowered for their volume, but they pack effective weaponry. And then every now and again you encounter ships like the Scimitar from Nemesis or the original Bird-of-Prey in Balance of Terror that pack terrifyingly destructive superweapons.

Durability : Moderate leaning Medium. They're the least durable of the Big Three, but they aren't paper-armored ships and larger mass gives them more room to lose things as they take damage.

Shields : Medium. Less than being exceptional, they appear to be simply unremarkable in the canon, so given the output of the singularity drives they're known to use I'll score them here.

Agility : Medium leaning High. Romulan commanders will often try to flank enemies or otherwise outmaneuver them, both within and without cloaks. While capable in the agility domain, they aren't as good at flat-out speed and acceleration as either Starfleet or the KDF, a weakness of their engine technology.

Exotic Capabilities : Moderate leaning Medium. Most of Starfleet's Exotic powers are the function of their superior science understandings, and their unerring ability to weaponize that capability in combat. While the Star Navy lacks that tradition and that mission set, the focus on asymmetric warfare means they have developed many otherwise unconventional powers for that reason.

Overall Technology : Medium leaning High. They aren't Starfleet but they're close. They do have sophisticated capabilities in arenas not all other fleets do, and they're generally formidable.

Cardassian Union :

Armament : Medium leaning High. Cardassian warships are well-armed, and their "spiral-wave disruptors" (whatever space-magic that is) are supposedly a thorny issue for Starfleet even decades after their first encounter with them.

Durability : Medium. The warships aren't exactly vulnerable, but they aren't a Klingon or Jem'Hadar dreadnought.

Shields : Medium. Bulky power systems still leave them with power, so whatever energies aren't routed to energy weapons appear to be routed here over propulsion.

Agility : Moderate. Cardassians aren't going to lack flat-out in this category, but they will probably be out-performed by most others as a rule of thumb. Cardassian commanders will have to be careful in maneuvers to prevent their ships from being totally out-flanked.

Exotic Capabilities : Medium. This doesn't mean the same thing it does for Starfleet. The Cardassians don't have the technology to stand toe-to-toe with Starfleet, but as a more military organization, they possess infinitely superior electronic warfare capabilities and other similar technologies to level the playing field.

Overall Technology : Moderate leaning Medium. Starfleet totally outclassed them in 2350's, and while they made strides to catch up by the war they are still implied to not quite be there yet.

Dominion :

Armament : High. The Dominion wielded impressive firepower, impressive enough that they cowed the Federation and the Klingons essentially by themselves. Every vessel in their fleet is a refined warship on a scale few other factions can match. I would think we can focus that impressive weapons array forward however, like the existing battlecruiser design does.

Durability : High. Even the tiny Attack Ships proved capable of withstanding exceptional punishment at the hands of Starfleet phasers and photon torpedoes.

Shields : Medium. It's really not clear how relatively good Dominion shield technologies are, so I'm open to debate here, but given the raw technology and capability of Dominion forces I'd be shocked if this was terrible.

Agility : Moderate. With the exception of the attack ship, most Dominion warships we see are enormous hulking warshipsx, far outmassing their Alpha and Beta Quadrant equivalents. Give them enough that the front arc focus isn't a weakness, but make them work for it too.

Exotic Capabilities : Moderate. We don't see much if any unusual Dominion capabilities (the Battle of Chin'toka was won by the Breen), but they do seem capable of broad fleet coordination in excess of their rivals.

Overall Technology : High. This could probably be higher than the Federation, but not quite to Borg grade Extreme. They are extremely formidable foes.

Ferengi :

Armament : Medium leaning Moderate. Weapons are often inefficient methods of acquiring latinum, and that's all a Ferengi really cares about. Most of this firepower should really be effective self-defense, requiring coordination to pose real threats.

Durability : Medium leaning Moderate. I wouldn't imagine the Ferengi want to expose themselves to much danger, but by the same token every kilo of armor is not a kilo of cargo, or an equal gain in performance to evade pursuit

Shields : Medium leaning High. Shields are much more efficient methods of self-protection than armor. I would expect significant Ferengi investment here.

Agility : Medium leaning High. Who cares about tanking a Klingon disruptor if the Klingon can't catch you?

Exotic Capabilities : Moderate. Ferengi trade routes should give them access to the most exotic technologies in the galaxy, but the Ferengi are probably more interested in trading said tech instead of using it themselves. They are resourceful though, so it shouldn't be overlooked.

Overall Technology : Medium. They are a regional power, not a superpower like the Big Four, and we're never given much reason to be all that impressed by them.

Breen :

Armament : High. Breen ships were a large part of what helped the Dominion hold its edge so long into the war.

Durability : Medium. I don't recall them being particular standouts in this department, but I'm sure we'll come up with a unique twist here too.

Shields : Medium. See Durability

Agility : Medium leaning High. They say "Don't turn your back on a Breen." A logical extension would seem to be "Don't let one get behind you," implying you can do something about that.

Exotic Capabilities : Medium leaning High. The energy dampener that won the Battle of Chin'toka can't be the only trick up their sleeve (though Lord only knows how we're balancing that).

Overall Technology : Medium leaning High. They're a capable power that give other large star nations pause; their technology level should reflect that.

Gorn :

Armament : Medium. They aren't slouches, they can fight off the Klingons, but they need some weaknesses.

Durability : High. Gorn ships are built Gorn tough. (Nobody? Fine.) This is a lot of their shtick though, so everything balances around this.

Shields : Medium leaning High probably. Shields can be just as important to durability as raw hull strength, so I think it's safe to give the Gorn above average marks here.

Agility : Low. They're flying bricks, they should act like it.

Exotic Capabilities : Low leaning Moderate. The lizards probably have a few tricks up their sleeves, but between a warlike nature and the wars with the Klingons they probably don't have a lot of ships or energy to spare dealing with the finer things in life.

Overall Technology : Moderate. They aren't the equals of most other powers in the galaxy, and I would imagine a lower technological point is a significant part of that. As long as they can give the Klingons a good fight (and by extension most everyone else) they'll be ok.

Species 8472 :

Armament : High leaning Extreme. They obliterated Borg Cubes for God's sake.

Durability : High leaning Extreme. They are shown to be extremely resistant to conventional weapons fire, even the firepower of the Borg.

Shields : None. Species 8472 is supposed to be solely biotechnology, and excepting STO, they are never shown (to my knowledge) using anything resembling conventional shielding.

Agility : High. The bioships are shown to be fairly agile, and it would be an interesting capability to give shieldless starships.

Exotic Capabilities : High. They are capable of moving through fluidic space, resisting tractor beams, and other Starfleet and Borg technologies. It's unclear how much they can deploy offensively versus defensively, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here.

Overall Technology : High leaning Extreme. Species 8472 probably has to be at least as broken as the Borg, so we can probably safely leave them alone until we are done with everyone (and I mean everyone else.)

Borg :

Armament : Extreme

Durability : Extreme

Shields : Extreme

Agility : Low

Exotic Capabilities : ? This is presumably Extreme given the Borg's overall capabilities, but they also seemed to prefer raw firepower to more subtle tricks or other odd capabilities

Overall Technology : Extreme

I'm throwing this out so people can see and comment as I write it in. I already did the Borg because they're easy. They're stupid broken.

1 minute ago, Noosh said:

Gorn I would take in the slow tank method. At best speed 3 with 1 click, never gonna get two clicks on a card average speed ideally 2. Sheilds and hull should handily outclass all others in their size category. Weapons on the other hand should we pretty equal across all arcs, but should be kept primemarly to blue black. Defence tokens I'm thinking no evade ever, no brace, mostly redirect and contain. On upgrades, defence slots, black dice uprgrades maybe some kind of special weapons slot.

**** tractor beams....I just thought about them, how do we handle those? I don't want it to turn into a game of shuffle board..... I can go play shuffle board for that.

No self respecting Gorn would ever use an evade.

I've always said that Tractor Beams should have been their own slot instead of Offensive Retrofit. We can always make different types of Tractor Beams for different effects though.

1 minute ago, Megatronrex said:

No self respecting Gorn would ever use an evade.

I've always said that Tractor Beams should have been their own slot instead of Offensive Retrofit. We can always make different types of Tractor Beams for different effects though.

I like that idea. It would seem in Star trek everybody's got one.

@GiledPallaeon when I get a chance I'll post my word vomits in you above format for easy distillation.

@GiledPallaeon also just a note if the Borg are the benchmark for extreme we should probably stay away from that unless agreed upon by all. I'll be honest here I'm not sure who else matches the Borg in any category.

2 minutes ago, Noosh said:

@GiledPallaeon also just a note if the Borg are the benchmark for extreme we should probably stay away from that unless agreed upon by all. I'll be honest here I'm not sure who else matches the Borg in any category.

Works for me.

3 minutes ago, GiledPallaeon said:

Let's rewrite this in terms of the categories I laid out in the master reference, which I also note I have updated such that durability reflects physical hull parameters, and shield strength represents the power of the shields. I'm ranking each faction on a scale of [Low, Moderate, Medium, High, Extreme] in each category, and I'll probably have some notes as well.

Starfleet : (This is the baseline. Not every category may be Medium, but everyone else is scaled to Starfleet, because how the h*** else are you supposed to do this?)

Armament : Medium

Durability : Medium

Shields : High

Agility : Medium

Exotic Capabilities : Low

Overall Technology : Medium

KDF :

Armament : High

Durability : Moderate

Shields : Moderate

Agility : High

Exotic Capabilities : Moderate - Medium

Overall Technology : Medium - High

Romulan Star Navy :

Armament : Medium - High

Durability : High

Shields : High

Agility : Medium

Exotic Capabilities : High

Overall Technology : High

Cardassian Union :

Armament : High

Durability : Medium

Shields : Moderate

Agility : Low

Exotic Capabilities : Moderate - Medium

Overall Technology : Medium

Dominion :

Armament : Medium - High

Durability : Moderate - Medium

Shields : Medium

Agility : Medium

Exotic Capabilities : High

Overall Technology : High

Ferengi :

Armament : Moderate

Durability : Low

Shields : Medium

Agility : High

Exotic Capabilities : Moderate

Overall Technology : Medium

Breen :

Armament : Medium - High

Durability : Moderate - Medium

Shields : Medium

Agility : Medium

Exotic Capabilities : High

Overall Technology : Medium - High

Gorn :

Armament : Medium

Durability : High - Extreme

Shields : Moderate

Agility : Low

Exotic Capabilities : Medium

Overall Technology : Low

Species 8472 :

Armament : High

Durability : High

Shields : High

Agility : Medium

Exotic Capabilities : Extreme

Overall Technology : High

Borg :

Armament : Extreme

Durability : Extreme

Shields : Extreme

Agility : Low

Exotic Capabilities : ? This is presumably Extreme given the Borg's overall capabilities, but they also seemed to prefer raw firepower to more subtle tricks or other odd capabilities

Overall Technology : Extreme

I'm throwing this out so people can see and comment as I write it in. I already did the Borg because they're easy. They're stupid broken.

1 minute ago, Megatronrex said:

Snip

So when I read through this, three things jump out at me. One, on most things we agree. Two, you give Starfleet less of a benefit of the doubt regarding relative tech than I do against everyone else. We're not at opposite ends of the spectrum though, just usually about one off each other. Third, we clearly have very different working definitions for Exotic, since there we are practically opposites so far. If you're defining Exotic as Different From Starfleet, yours all make sense. Mine are defined as Not Weapons But Combat Relevant, thus why Starfleet is High and the KDF and RSN are Low and Medium respectively. I'm fine with either definition, or even creating another measure to delineate both ideas, but we do need to come to a consensus.

2 minutes ago, GiledPallaeon said:

So when I read through this, three things jump out at me. One, on most things we agree. Two, you give Starfleet less of a benefit of the doubt regarding relative tech than I do against everyone else. We're not at opposite ends of the spectrum though, just usually about one off each other. Third, we clearly have very different working definitions for Exotic, since there we are practically opposites so far. If you're defining Exotic as Different From Starfleet, yours all make sense. Mine are defined as Not Weapons But Combat Relevant, thus why Starfleet is High and the KDF and RSN are Low and Medium respectively. I'm fine with either definition, or even creating another measure to delineate both ideas, but we do need to come to a consensus.

Yeah I'm probably jaded against the Federation because of so many Humans.

The exotic I definitely took as different than humans so I should probably change all of mine except for probably 8472

Just now, Megatronrex said:

Yeah I'm probably jaded against the Federation because of so many Humans.

The exotic I definitely took as different than humans so I should probably change all of mine except for probably 8472

As long as we understand that's what you meant versus what I meant, it's a good thing to have, since you're measuring how different they are to manipulate than Starfleet. The two should come together decently.

@Megatronrex I think you hit the nail on the head above I like your scaling. Although I do agree with @GiledPallaeon on the exotic capabilities. I think that these are good guide lines for faction Dev. Moving forward.

@GiledPallaeon are you planning on going to the tournament at Giga on the 28th

19 minutes ago, Megatronrex said:

@GiledPallaeon are you planning on going to the tournament at Giga on the 28th

Giga?

24 minutes ago, Megatronrex said:

@GiledPallaeon are you planning on going to the tournament at Giga on the 28th

That's my plan.

5 minutes ago, Noosh said:

Giga?

Giga-Bites, a FLGS in Marietta GA

Ahah makes sense now, carry on.

4 minutes ago, GiledPallaeon said:

That's my plan.

Giga-Bites, a FLGS in Marietta GA

Word Barring unforseen circumstances I'm planning on driving down for that

11 minutes ago, Megatronrex said:

Word Barring unforseen circumstances I'm planning on driving down for that

If you have someone on FB in the N GA group, have them jump on the event so Jamie can have an idea about it. Otherwise let me know how many are coming and I'll let him know myself.

29 minutes ago, GiledPallaeon said:

If you have someone on FB in the N GA group, have them jump on the event so Jamie can have an idea about it. Otherwise let me know how many are coming and I'll let him know myself.

I do, me. I changed from Interested to going. Might have 1 more riding with me.

1 minute ago, Megatronrex said:

I do, me. I changed from Interested to going. Might have 1 more riding with me.

Cool, for some reason I remember you saying at the last tourney you didn't have a FB, so I figured I'd offer. Let me finish fluid mechanics and I'll knock out the rest of the list.

17 minutes ago, GiledPallaeon said:

Cool, for some reason I remember you saying at the last tourney you didn't have a FB, so I figured I'd offer. Let me finish fluid mechanics and I'll knock out the rest of the list.

I had to start one finally two months ago just so I could keep track of armada stuff

Are we using the TNG Galaxy class as a spring board to the rest of the big 3? Vor'cha for the Klingons and the Warbird for the Romulans? Because im making the assumption that these three are all points equivalent.

My reasoning here is that these were all at the time flagships of their respective fleets. I know there are bigger ships that show up later in the timeline Sovereign for the federation, scimitar for the Romulans and the Neg'Var for the Klingons. But we very rarely see any direct combat comparison for them (yes scimitar vs Sovereign, but no Neg'Var vs any of those).

For the Cardassian's I think thier equivalent is the Galor class. For the breen and the gorn I think we're gonna have to come up with something or dig up some stuff.

For the Dominion they had two ships that I can remember how the larger of the two preformed. But I do remember the smaller of the two I. A squad took out a galaxy class ( Kamikaze).

Species 8472. I'm going to make a suggestion. Since they were only shown in direct combat against the Borg (whom I get the vibe we want to stay away from for balance) maybe we should avoid them as well. Since their only power gauge was against the Borg who are stupid powerfull, and were winning at that. This one I'm up in the air about. I remember playing the star trek Armada game on PC, they were there but they were balanced within the game ( along with the Borg) to every other race.

Disclaimer: my touchstone for all things star trek wargame is the computer game Star Fleet Command, which is inspired by star fleet battles. Every opinion I have on how things should be done star trek tabletop wise is colored by this.

I agree: stay away from the Borg and 8472 unless specifically for scenarios.

Choose an era and stick to it. Don't get bogged down with thematically balancing multiple eras to each other, you won't have the granularity for it to really work well.

Either go whole hog with factions and do a dozen plus or keep it to the big 4 plus misc (depending on the era, naturally).