I'm in agreement with Kieth and others that fighters are too cheap for their
power in FT. I like kieth's idea of costing them as ships, but that would make
PDS a too cheap way of getting rid of them. If you do it that way, I think
you'd have to drop PDS as a concept (or specialize it only as an
anti-missile system) and make the primary antifighter weapon the Class 1
beam - perhaps add a new system as an Anti-Fighter Fire controll to
enable Class 1's to fire as PDS do now (with the same dice etc).
Another idea that pops up is a way of neutralizing large fighter swarms
w/o
jiggling present costing too much.
Kill Zone Ships being attacked by large numbers of fighters (or missiles) can
give up
all anti-ship fire for the turn and direct all available weapons fire at
the
incoming swarm. Choose one arc (or two adjacent - depends on balance)
All bearing weapons in that arc may fire at the fighters in that area as if at
a target at 6". Total damage from the volley is the number of fighters
destroyed (or half that, depending on balance probably even less for
missiles). The Kill Zone is in addition to normal PDS/ADFC fire. PSB is
that
even though heavier weapons are hard to aim at fighters/missiles you're
saturating a relatively small area of space with them.
I like fighters and don't see them as a problem.
This is mainly because my opponents have fighters and so after a few dogfights
neither side has full squadrons left to attack ships with.
The only quick change I can see to even things up is to allow ships to fire
their PDS at a range of 12" at any fighters in range but must use a firecon to
do so. And do this during normal ship fire. But not if already used as a
normal PDS.
The main problem I have is fighters just going where they like without having
to be careful of enemy ships.
> I like fighters and don't see them as a problem.
I agree the FB fighter rules are pretty cannonical IMO.
> The only quick change I can see to even things up is to allow
I would just let PDS fire at any fighters in 6MU range and not require the
ship to have an ADFC or the fighters to
be attacking the ship, it can over-watch for any passing fighters
and zap them as they pass. They don't need an FC for this as PDS is clearly
stated as having an integral FC anyway.
> The main problem I have is fighters just going where they like
I agree allowing PDS to target any hostile fighter in range would be a good
house rule.
Instead of restricting the use of fighters why not allow more weapons
system to engage them? Ideas such as anti-fighter missiles, better
fighter screens, new types of close up defenses and such.
I like Tim's changes.
> Tim Jones wrote:
> >I like fighters and don't see them as a problem.
> Instead of restricting the use of fighters why not allow more weapons
There are quite a few already Class 1's, PDS, ADFC, other fighters
and Wave/Nova Guns (if you use them). I'd just remove the got to be
attacking *YOU* clause.
***
I agree allowing PDS to target any hostile fighter in range would be a good
house rule.
***
However, the advantage to firing at attacking fighters makes sense. Course,
this tends to be from my limited movie viewing of WWII battles, but fighters
on the attack tend to be moving straight at the ship, and therefore tend not
to have problems with target aspect(?).
I'm assuming Jon considered this important; your house rules are your own to
adjust.
As far as using other weapons for swatting fighters, giving limited PDS
capability to Class C, then 1, was called a Good Thing(tm) to enhance it's
value, and sharing the capability lessens that. Fix one part...
Also, I thought it was accepted in most cases that the WWII model, use big
guns for defense means possible damage to big guns, would work.
The_Beast
> However, the advantage to firing at attacking fighters makes sense.
In a modern sea battle, it hardly matters as long as the fighters
are in range of the Sea Dart/Cat or whatever other fast and accurate
AA missile the ship possesses. Though target aspect matters slightly to the
chance of a kill, its less important that with gunnery deflection.
The list members who serve on *real* ships would have the real dope
on this situation, I've only played Harpoon and EF2000 :-)
This is more likely to be a more accurate reflection of future technology
(as its nearer the future) that the days of pom-poms and Bofors guns.
As for big guns for AA, an earlier thread concluded it as a non starter in
WWII (very very rare and total pants)
> I'm in agreement with Kieth and others that fighters are too cheap for
I've also never had too much dificulty in dealing with fighters in FT. I've
found that just one escort with an ADFC can really mess up a squadron's whole
day.
Now granted that I've never really dealt with really large groups of
fighters (10+), but I would think that adding another escort or two
would solve that little problem.
Yes, fighters are powerful, and seem daunting when you look at them alone, but
it's actually fairly difficult for them to get their damage on target without
being swatted fairly hard first.
From: Sean Bayan Schoonmaker <schoon@aimnet.com>
> I've also never had too much dificulty in dealing with fighters in FT.
I've
> found that just one escort with an ADFC can really mess up a squadron's
Actually, this ties in neatly to one of FT's other main sticking points.
In
most cases, concentration of fire can carry the day and so tight clustering of
ships is a bonus. Here, tight clustering of ships is also good
anti-fighter defence.
Are fighters inherently nastier when you have to be aware of area effect
weapons and fly in a more open formation?
***
In a modern sea battle, it hardly matters as long as the fighters
are in range of the Sea Dart/Cat or whatever other fast and accurate
AA missile the ship possesses. Though target aspect matters slightly to the
chance of a kill, its less important that with gunnery deflection.
The list members who serve on *real* ships would have the real dope
on this situation, I've only played Harpoon and EF2000 :-)
***
Been long time since I played Harpoon, and never EF2000, but I was thinking
more of the CIDS, basically hail of shells at a missle. PSB for it being only
effective way of ship handling fighters is something I could comfortably
craft, I think.
However, I grant YMMV.
The_Beast
> Noam wrote:
> I'm in agreement with Kieth and others that fighters are too cheap
This depends entirely on how the carrier is designed, though. The
"proper" FB cost of a standard fighter squadron is, IIRC; 85-90 points
- ie, if you buy an anti-fighter escort for 85-90 pts (the Tacoma/A,
for example) you'll usually beat the fighter squadron quite easily,
whereas a 90-point ship with very weak anti-fighter weaponry is likely
to get plastered. A 90-pt ship somewhere between these two extremes is
usually a pretty even fight for a single fighter squadron.
The problem is that in FB (and FT too, for that matter), these 85-90
points include the cost of the figher bay and the hull and engines
which support it. You'll get this cost if the carrier devotes 50-60% of
its total Mass on drives and hull - 55% Mass for hull, FTL and engines
gives a total cost of 87 pts per Standard squadron - which is where
most of the FB figher-carrying ships are. (The FSE Bonaparte and the
ESU Rostov and Komarov classes use 70% of their hull for fighter squadrons
instead.)
If you use paper-hulled thrust-2 carriers, you'd need to pay some 40
pts for a standard fighter squadron instead to achieve good balance against
other ships (this leaves the MT point modifications for the various other
types of fighters unchanged, but the FB costs all increse by ~22 points).
Best wishes,
I've been swamped by fighters once or twice when playing against an FSE fleet,
but found that, as has been said before, a good combo of my own fighters and
my ADFC systems can whittle them down to impotence pretty quickly. The best
(IMNSHO) defense against a fighter is really another fighter, although (for
those of you who use the FB designs) certain fleets such as the NSL are
handicapped by a relative lack of fighter support when compared to fleets such
as the FSE or ESU. For myself and my ESU fleet, I've found that a Konstantin
backed by a
couple of the Beijing-B ADFC variants will munch an FSE fighter strike
pretty quickly, and the one I play against routinely throws 11 fighter
squadrons at me all at once.
Mark
> Sean Bayan Schoonmaker wrote:
> I've also never had too much dificulty in dealing with fighters in FT.
I've
> found that just one escort with an ADFC can really mess up a
> Izenberg, Noam wrote:
Comment: The problem seems to have developed after the increase in the FTFB
number of turns of fire to 6.
Bye for now,
D Evans said
> However, the advantage to firing at attacking fighters makes sense.
WW2 fighters were in atmosphere, which limited their
maneuverability--you
could only change your vector by a very limited amount without stalling,
crashing, spinning, or otherwise having a Problem. They also didn't have
computers, so the pilot had to split his attention between flying and hitting
the target. There's no reason a FT fighter couldn't program random vector
changes into his attack run.
> Actually, this ties in neatly to one of FT's other main sticking
In
> most cases, concentration of fire can carry the day and so tight
Is why SML+fighters fleets are so much fun
> I'm in agreement with Kieth and others that fighters are too cheap
Oerjan said"
> If you use paper-hulled thrust-2 carriers, you'd need to pay some 40
Of course, if you take a paper hulled carrier, it'll need some legs to stay
alive. Make it thrust six and see what that does to your numbers. Or leave it
thrust two, and make your enemy's DD and CL captains feel good any time they
catch a carrier.
G'day guys,
I've played quite a few games now where there's been in excess of 20 fighter
groups on the board and overall the fighter rules hold up pretty well. However
it does mean you have to keep fighters in mind and take ships
kitted out with anti-fighter stuff. For instance I did up the Colbert
class CE for the FSE which drops some of the Milan's weaponary for extra PDS
and ADFC and it has saved my butt quite a bit. Overall I've found that
fighters on the board simply means you can't have a fleet dedicated to
offensive fire only, you've really got to have escorts there too or pay the
price. Another thing I've noted in the games I've played is that the fighter
groups are all but exhausted after 2 or 3 turns (most are dead or very low on
endurance), so the number of attacks that actually go in fall off dramatically
(another occassion were a natural ability to roll 1s has its bright side).
Unless you get lucky, fighters are another of those systems only guaranteed to
work for a few turns, thus the same comments I make in defense of SMs apply to
fighters (admittedly I play FSE so this may be
biased) - they pack a punch, but they don't last long - its all swings
and round abouts, especially if you take balanced fleets which have defensive
as well as offensive capabillities. Having a lot of fighters can also be
painful in the "guy with greatest points left on the board wins scenarios",
for example I lost a game like that a fortnight ago because I play FSE and my
360 pts of fighters weren't around no more, like I said swings and
roundabouts.
Having fighters on the board has also seen the tactics used down here
blossom - e.g. using different wings for different purposes, trying to
out
distance the fighters by speeding up and only slowing down/coming back
when the fighter endurance is gone (OK that would make a boring game if used
everytime, but it has saved me from MT missiles and fighters twice now) and
then there's the possibility of mine fields etc. Once again I think its a
matter of learning to adapt and use what you've got - after all if
fighters were that grossly unbalanced FT would have toppled over ages ago.
Fighters probably do need a bit of a tweak, but they aren't that bad really
(but like I said I guess I do play FSE).
Having said all that though I do like the idea of being able to fire at
fighters within range even if they aren't attacking that ship specifically,
though I'd probably give a -1 to the roll because they aren't attacking
you directly. However, I don't see the need to up the number of weapons with
anti-fighter capability. I also wouldn't be too distraught to see the
cost of fighters go up if its generally thought that this is needed, though I
think its OK the way it is - especially in a campaign setting were
replacements are costing me a fortune (something those dastardly NSL don't
have to worry about as between games they only have to polish they're beam
weapons not sweat about were the next fighter/SM load is coming from).
Anyway that's my 2 razoos worth.
Beth
> Are fighters inherently nastier when you have to be aware of area
Yes, simply because it's harder for ship and/or escorts to support one
another effectively.
Is there any rules for anti-fighter missiles?
Nothing official, but I did do rules for countermissiles to use with my HH
rules. Essentially, you purchased an SML/R with unlimited magazine.
Each missile gave you 1 PDS die to allocate to any missiles in range & arc.
How this would work against fighters is another matter, as I had to tweak the
missile rules so the defences weren't too powerful.
'Neath Southern Skies - http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
Commodore Alfred K Hole - RNS Indy's Folly [CB]
Captain Nicolette O'Teen - RNMS Golden Spear [CB]
EBD Medusa
> -----Original Message-----
> John Leary wrote:
> Izenberg, Noam wrote:
How? All anti-fighter weapons in FB have 360-degree fire arcs...
Curious,
David asked:
> Is there any rules for anti-fighter missiles?
I think they're called "PDS" (or "PDAF/ADAF" in FT2) :-)
Regards,
> Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 15:20:37 +0100
i like it, because it's simple and doesn't require yet another game mechanic.
this also makes escorts more effective, since the ADFC restriction is removed.
if some feel that fighters are too powerful, why not make them a bit more
expensive to purchase?
> Comment:
I took this to mean combat endurance increased to 6 in FB
from 3 in FT2/MT, this means upto 3 more turns of fighter
attacks before thay are exhausted.
[quoted original message omitted]
G'day guys,
> David asked:
Derek has toyed with the idea of allowing SMs to target fighter groups instead
of ships (rather than create a whole new missile type as some brave soul
suggested yesterday, this would only be an extension of the existing SMs'
abilities), but we haven't actually tried it yet.
Cheers
Beth