VorchaN at Patrol level

[Morakas]

I play Centauri all the time and use vorchans a lot. I really don't think they need any adjustments. Put them in squadrons of three and they will prove their worth to you every time.

 

[Target]

I play Centauri all the time and use vorchans a lot. I really don't think they need any adjustments. Put them in squadrons of three and they will prove their worth to you every time.

Putting any ship in squadron of 3 and you get the same effect, it increases the effectiveness by 3 fold, imagine how effective Ka Tans become. I don't think they should be patrol lvl, give them the orginal 1.0 stats & they will be fine. but if i was to change them, give SAP & 6+ dodge or SAP & interceptors 1. For fwd arc only wepons they lack the firepower to compensate for being vunerable in 3 arcs & fragile. Speed is good to close the distances but become a weakness when it comes to turning round to make another attack run. If speed helped in making you harder to hit it would be cool but it doesn't just brings you into weapon range yours & theirs.

 

[Reborn]

Of course, the Centauri already have plenty of raid choices, so the Vorchan would have to compete with the Centurion, Altarian, Sulust, etc. for fleet space. At skirmish it's more attractive for its cost.

Sadly, you're right, but it seems to me it should be the other way around - the Centurion, Altarian and Sulust should be competing with the Vorchan for fleet space. I'd wap the Altarian down to Skirmish and the Vorchan up to Raid. After all, a couple of them make such a mess out of that White Star in Season 5 in about three seconds, and also in "Acts of Sacrifice" the G'Quan is ripped up by Vorchans.

 

[Banichi]

I've played with vorchan in a few small (2 point raid) games and found that people go after them because they are easy to get out of the way. And if they pop too early into the game your pretty much on the back foot for initiative.

 

[Target]

Of course, the Centauri already have plenty of raid choices, so the Vorchan would have to compete with the Centurion, Altarian, Sulust, etc. for fleet space. At skirmish it's more attractive for its cost.

Sadly, you're right, but it seems to me it should be the other way around - the Centurion, Altarian and Sulust should be competing with the Vorchan for fleet space. I'd wap the Altarian down to Skirmish and the Vorchan up to Raid. After all, a couple of them make such a mess out of that White Star in Season 5 in about three seconds, and also in "Acts of Sacrifice" the G'Quan is ripped up by Vorchans.

I think the current thought is that they are Demos. Which is even a worse ship stat wise, they got close when they put out the tourney list but revereted to the SFOS for some unknown reason. Less hits, less troops , less firepower, same speed has a Centurion. It actually made me quite angry, I had forgot about the same speed till i thought Burger had it wrong in his shipviewwer but no they are the same speed.
Sometimes i wonder what goes through MGP head when you bring out a nice balanced list & then revert to horribly unbalanced one in Armagedon & then bring ships with stats like the Trogilan & a SM Narn ship ( not sure if the Narn was a misprint because it got recified pretty quick.)
Actually i'd probably give Vorchan & Demos 6+ dodge, 15, 25 hits respectivially & SAP for Vorchan, & keep the Demos Tourney load out with interceptors.
EDIT: Speed 14 for Demos as well

 

[Lord David the Denied]

The Demos is another bit of flagrant ret-conning to explain the In the Beginning CGI cock-up. We see no indication for two classes of Vorchan-type ships. All we see is one using torpedo weapons that we don't see very often. That in itself doesn't mean all Vorchans don't have that weapon, just that they don't often use it.

I'd be quite glad to see the Vorchan go up to raid if it has stats to match that level, and to see the Altarian, Sulust or whatever move down to skirmish to replace it. The Vorchan and Primus are the only canon Centauri ships we have; the AoG inventions should be arranged around them in terms of capability, leaving centre stage for the iconic ships from the screen.

 

[captainsmirk]

Based on In the Beginning the Vorchan or Demos should have some form of missile as well (which was not the same as Torpedo), though that may just be a ground bombardment weapon going by what it was used for.


Nick

 

[Greg Smith]

The Demos is another bit of flagrant ret-conning to explain the In the Beginning CGI cock-up. We see no indication for two classes of Vorchan-type ships.

Actually the Demos is used to explain the Vorchans in season 5.

All we see is one using torpedo weapons that we don't see very often. That in itself doesn't mean all Vorchans don't have that weapon, just that they don't often use it.

We also see interceptors.

Many of the variants in the game at the moment exist to explain different CGI weaponry on the same hull (Pulse Omega, Secondus). Why should the Vorchan be different?

 

[Lord David the Denied]

We see interceptors? On Centauri ships? You're sure? If they had them, you'd think the Primus that attacks B5 would intercept the massive pulse cannon fire that blows it to bits... :wink:

How is the Demos used to explain the season 5 Vorchans? I was told it was made up to cover the Primus/Vorchan swap-ship from In the Beginning...

 

[captainsmirk]

Well you mentioned the reason yourself...

The 'Vorchans' in Season 5 fire torpedoes which the Demos has and the Vorchan doesn't...

Plus in B5wars there was a Demos variant (the Darmoti) which carried fighters and had a tractor beam representing the one which rescued Delenn's WS after the others blew the hell out of it.


Nick

 

[Greg Smith]

The Demos has torpedoes and interceptors (seen in 'Movements of Fire and Shadow').

It is the Dusk Coutari that was created to explain the events in 'In the Beginning'.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

That'll teach me to listen to random people telling me stuff, then... I'll wait for my DVDs, watch it all and then tell you all how it should be... :wink:

So we think the Demos is A, a canon ship, and B, generally more powerful than a Vorchan, with interceptors and torpedoes? Like it was in SFoS, except without crap stats?

Question is, though, how do we know all these ships seen on screen doing all these different things are not, in fact, the same class of ship showing capabilities we didn't see before?

 

[captainsmirk]

That is true, unlike some of the EA ship variants none of the things the 'Demos' or 'Vorchan' does in the show preclude them being the same ship.

Then again the Omega already shows that most of its weapons can fire as both beams and pulse weapons (including the same ship doing it in the same battle) therefore the Pulse Omega may not actually exist.

However the various Hyperions do show different. The Hyperion itself obviously wasn't fitted with lasers, otherwise they would have used them (although it never fired the side turrets at all during that battle...). It also fired only blue pulses, wheres as other are shown firing red ones (suggesting different weapons fits).

But there is also plenty of evidence from real world ships of ships with the same basic design having different weapons fits.


Nick

 

[Lord David the Denied]

The various ships of any given class do get modified in real-world navies. The County-class cruisers of the Royal Navy are a case in point. The changes were so major in some cases they're often listed as different classes.

They do this all the time in Star Trek, don't they? Apparently new systems are "revealed" in various episodes in response to various situations. It's still the same ship belonging to the same class, but suddenly it's got new capabilities we knew nothing about. Take the Defiant as an example. It fires phaser pulses and quantum torpedoes from emitters and launchers at the front... until in one episode it fires a phaser beam from somewhere on the dorsal surface. Where'd that come from? Why'd they never use it before?

 

[captainsmirk]

Take the Defiant as an example. It fires phaser pulses and quantum torpedoes from emitters and launchers at the front... until in one episode it fires a phaser beam from somewhere on the dorsal surface. Where'd that come from? Why'd they never use it before?

Admittedly the only scene where I can remember the Defiant firing a beam phaser was the Mirror Universe copy (but I haven't watched DS9 for quite some time, and never saw any of the later seasons). Plus the Federation tends to put weapons all over their ships why should the Defiant be any different? Most of the rest of time it was attacking targets in front with its (I would suppose) more powerful pulse phasers.


Nick

 

[Lord David the Denied]

On the other hand, she gets chased all over the place by Jem'Hadar ships, but never fires this dorsal phaser back at them... even when they're above her.

The Enterprise is the same. Look at her, you can see phasers here, there and everywhere, but some of them are literally never used on screen. They're there, we can see them, and the published, allegedly canonical tech specs state that they're there, but they never use them. I reckon firing about eleven phasers at a single target it better than firing one, but perhaps Starfleet policy is different...

Of course, when we see the Enterprise fire that ventral phaser, it could be a variant design with more guns and a higher PL... :wink:

 

[Greg Smith]

The Enterprise is the same. Look at her, you can see phasers here, there and everywhere, but some of them are literally never used on screen. They're there, we can see them, and the published, allegedly canonical tech specs state that they're there, but they never use them. I reckon firing about eleven phasers at a single target it better than firing one, but perhaps Starfleet policy is different...

In Best of Both Worlds the Enterprise fires multiple phaser arrays at the Borg cube. It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Like I said. However, they don't fire all the phasers that can bear. A target ahead of a Galaxy-class starship can be fired on with the dorsal and ventral saucer phasers (2), nacelle pylon phasers (2) and the ventral hull phaser. That's five arrays, but in Best of Both Worlds they only fire one saucer phaser and the nacelle pylon phasers.

A target dead behind can be fired on by the four arrays mounted around the torpedo launcher, the pylon phasers, the ventral hull phaser and two phasers on the "neck" section. Yet, in Q Who? they only fire the rear torpedoes when the Borg ship is chasing them. A target behind the ship is fair game for phasers at warp speed, it's only targets ahead or on the flansks that cause problems.

 

[Greg Smith]

Except for the range. A photorp has a range of 3.5 million km, more than ten times that of a phaser.

 

[Alexb83]

I think the USS Odyssey in The Jem'Hadar has the most use of phasers, up until the later battles in DS9 - you see the Defiant using all her arrays in the mirror universe, and the ships in the more chaotic battle scenes in DS9 regularly engage targets with multiple arrays.

I guess it's as much an artifact of the level of special effects possible (in TNG it was usually static model shots of 'fire the phasers' - 'they've had no effect!') whereas B5 and later DS9 went for much more involving action sequences that made better use of CG - which allowed them to be more inventive in what weapons were fired and how many ships could be on screen at once.