Has anyone tried Nimitz style carrier designs in FT, (i.e. no weapons and lots
of fighters?) When I first started to play, they weren't workable, but now,
with the new fighter endurance rules from the Fleet book, they look much more
feasable. Also, does anyone have any ideas on how to make a PT boat in FT?
The
base ship design rules don't allow for that much comparitive firepower on a
small hull. Right now, I'm thinking maybe a big ogre of a fighter that takes
two points to kill, and that you can hang several points of ordenance on.
> Charles Gray wrote:
I tried something like this for the PBeM game that Mark Kochte (Hi Indy!) ran
a little while ago. I ran into some problems:
1) Launch rates for carriers; you can pack a lot of fighters on a dedicated
ship, but you still can't spit them out very fast. (And, we're not going to
get into that huge discussion over 'what makes a carrier' again,
okay? (8-) ) You can change this for taste with house rules, but it's
a limitation.
2) Operational reality; you have to be really careful to keep the range open,
or dedicated carriers tend to pop real easy. (Much easier than something like
the Nimitz would. On the flip side, I was working on an extremely small hull;
you might have better results with something more appropriate for a fleet
carrier.)
3) Fighters aren't just as powerful in FT relative to ships as they would be
in the real world. They can do a lot of damage, but they don't have that one
shot kill capability (unless you go in for Torpedo fighters, or Attack
fighters, or something like that.)
Conclusion: I think the concept is workable, but there are some limitations in
FT that don't make it the powerful force it is in RL.
Some thoughts,
J.
> Has anyone tried Nimitz style carrier designs in FT, (i.e. no weapons
They work best in a big game when you can use then as the real Nimitz would be
used, ie kept well away from the action. As for the problem of launch rates (2
squadrons per turn unless you have some house rules), my theory is to wait
until all of your fighters have been
launched and then unleash them all at one go - don't send them in
piecemeal, they'll get minced.
This brings up a couple of questions / clarifications that arose from
a game I played last weekend (first go with the FB rules): 1) How fast can
carriers recover fighters? We used the same rates as for launching, two groups
per turn. Can they launch and recover in the same turn? We said yes in this
case because the carrier in
question was a big Brigade through-deck job with more than enough
deck space to do both.
2) How long do fighters take to refuel / re-arm ? We assumed one turn
for each endurance point, ie six turns. There were no long-range
fighters involved so we didn't have to deal with them.
> Also, does anyone have any ideas on how to make a PT boat in FT? The
The only way within the existing rules would be to build a Mass-3 ship
with
one mass of hull integrity, one mass of engines (thrust-8) and a
submunition pack (I'm assuming no FTL requirement). Grand total, seven points.
It would suffer from the lack of any modifiers in FT for
target speed / size which would mean that its life expectancy would
be about that of the apocryphal snowball in Hell.
> Tony Francis wrote:
> This brings up a couple of questions / clarifications that arose from
Depends on your house rules. I think that the FT rules are launch or recover
only up to a maximum of two groups, but if your ship design allows it, why
should I argue?
For rearming, I've seen a variety of answers. Our group plays that 1D6
fighters in a group are rearmed in a turn. It makes it a little more tense to
get the fighters out the door. Other house rules have one turn in the barn,
some two turns.
> Charles Gray wrote:
> Has anyone tried Nimitz style carrier designs in FT, (i.e. no weapons
Sure. I don't consider point defences "weapons" in this respect, though, and C
batteries aren't much better, so the "Light" and "Escort" carriers from FTII
and MT come very close to your definition.
> When I first started to play, they weren't
I assume that you started to play with the MT fighter rules directly... under
the FTII fighter rules (fighters move after ships, no endurance
limits) the Nimitz-style carriers were *very* powerful as long as ship
speeds were low. If the average velocities go above about 15, fighters lost
their punch very fast since they were unable to keep up... (As a
side note: I prefer to fly my ships at approx. 4-5x Thrust, so speeds of
30-40 are common for my escorts and 20-25 is the norm for my cruisers
:-/
)
> Also, does anyone have any ideas on how to make a PT boat in FT?
The
> base ship design rules don't allow for that much comparitive firepower
Small non-FTL ships with loads of SMPs or MT missiles, preferrably
operating out of an asteroid belt to avoid being blasted to bits at long
ranges. PT boats shouldn't have any staying power - their punch lies in
expendable ordnance.
Regards
> 1) How fast can carriers recover fighters ? We used the same rates as
Page 16 of FT2 states ONE fighter group may be recovered per turn.
> Can they launch and recover in
There is no stated rule for this. Use a house rule.
> 2) How long do fighters take to refuel / re-arm ? We assumed one turn
Again, no stated rule. Our group uses 3 turns as a house rule for all types of
fighters.
> > Can they launch and recover in
I agree use a house rule, I'd say that the spirit of the rules would disallow
launch and recover on the same turn in the general case. You make a sensible
compromise in that the carrier may be specially designed to allow a high
throughput. There is no right or wrong answer here only what makes sense for
you.
> > 2) How long do fighters take to refuel / re-arm ? We
If you take the defacto standard turn time to be 20 minutes then
it would seem reasonable to be able to refuel/arm fighters in
one turn (given future automation). I think 6 turns is perhaps too long.
If you disallow launch and recovery on the same turn and have one turn for
re-arming you are still going to have your fighters out of action for
long enough - its at time like this I always visualise the Japanese
carriers at midway frantically rearming, when...
-If you take the defacto standard turn time to be 20 minutes then
-it would seem reasonable to be able to refuel/arm fighters in
-one turn (given future automation). I think 6 turns is perhaps too
long.
-
-If you disallow launch and recovery on the same turn and have one turn
for
-re-arming you are still going to have your fighters out of action for
-long enough - its at time like this I always visualise the Japanese
carriers
-at midway frantically rearming, when...
-
-tim jones
This is a strong image for many of us, I'm sure. Perhaps those of the group
who like working the numbers would think about some possible rule
extension/scenerio variations. Maybe use some fighter variants(I've
forgotten whether these made it to FB), with a two turn change to make a
loaded torp fighter to a heavy or...?
I personally thought Tora, Tora, Tora was ten times more interesting than soap
opera Midway, but the scene where the Japanese pilots scramble on to the deck
and see the other flatops blazing, their faces filled with shock and pain,
haunts me almost as deeply as the TTT scene of Adm. Kimmel viewing the
destruction of Pearl Harbor.
It's the kind of drama of war I'd hope we could make rules for.
I would suggest that PSB would allow that space fighters would take as long
as one wants to make it necessary to rearm. Those are not F-18's on the
deck. ;->= That said, if you are going to make rearming a long term
prospect, I might think endurance should be lengthened also.
As usual, all of the above off the top of my head, without playing recently,
and having never scene FB. Let the flames begin!
The_Besat
Somebody suggested that 1d6 *fighters* could be rearmed per turn - this
requires a little more bookkeeping, but it might provide that dramatic
tension of trying to get the fighters back out in time. maybe a +1 for
Ace
deck crews, and a -1 for Turkey deck crews? (Ace fighter groups with
Turkey
deck crews - Oy Vey!) It depends on how much records you want to keep -
but then again, I use vector movement for fighter groups, too. Masochistic, I
know. And you could recombine fighters from any group into
any group to save time in getting groups back out the doors - but you
lose Ace status if you split them up, and keep Turkey status. The fighter
types did make it to the FB, as far as points are concerned, and (if you
didn't know already) fighter speed was doubled, as was combat
endurance (6/9 turns, for standard/longrange now).
Noah V. Doyle
[quoted original message omitted]
In addition to my previous post on this, along with rolling to see how many
fighters are rearmed per turn (modified by deck crew status), deck crews
should become a system on-board a ship, to be rolled against in
threshold checks. You would get 1 deck crew per fighter group. You start to
lose
those, and a carrier is really in trouble...
Noah V. Doyle
[quoted original message omitted]
In message <8625663D.003ED507.00@unebmail.uneb.edu>
> Doug_Evans/CSN/UNEBR@UNebMail.UNeb.EDU wrote:
> I would suggest that PSB would allow that space fighters would take as
You could always model the fighters on the NASA space shuttle, and have turn
around times of a couple of weeks if you wanted to...
(for the record though, I prefer fighters landing on turn t+0, and
relaunching (fully rearmed) on turn t+1).
I'll take that into account in my Low-Tech Full Thrust rules ;)
Noah
[quoted original message omitted]
> And you could recombine fighters from any group into
Surely not - an 'Ace' group is such because it contains a single
'Ace' pilot, _not_ because the whole group is above average. So even
if you split / combine groups this super pilot has to go somewhere
and will make the new group he's attached to an 'Ace' group.
And don't call me Shirley...
Tony, while I'd agree for simplicity's sake, if someone wants to tweak the
rules and do the bookkeeping, I'd think a group wouldn't improve THAT much
until the Ace had had a chance to work with/into the group(unless you
think the Ace is flying the group from his cockpit. You could say it that
way.) I may have missed the original post, but if it was the idea of mixing an
Ace and a Turkey to get an Ace and an Average, I'd have to look back to the
book. Does an Ace group go to Average if the Ace IN the group is shot up by
another Ace(individual)?
You have to admit, the idea of buying an Ace and several Turkey groups, only
to have the Ace group merrily moving from Turkey group to Turkey group,
magically upgrading them is particularly ugly. If you can think of blocks to
this, please mention them.
However, reformations were supposed to be a bookkeeping simplicity, and such
are always ready for abuse by rules lawyering.
Tony, that wasn't an accusation, just stating what's bother some of us.
The_Beast
"Tony Francis" <TONY@simis.co.uk> on 07/13/98 06:10:14 AM
Please respond to FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
To: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
> Tony Francis wrote:
...Snip...JTL
> > Ace status if you split them up, and keep Turkey status.
Tony, 1) A green group is six fighters that roll five dice. 2) A experienced
group is six fighters that roll six dice. 3) An 'Ace group is six fighter that
roll seven dice, (the extra die is from the 'Ace' himself. IF all of the above
are true, then a green group with an
ace attached rolls six dice. Two from the ace, and five minus one
(for green status) for the rest of the group.
sound reasonable?
Bye for now,
I disagree - from the standpoint of my campaign style, st least.
An Ace
group is only such because the Ace & the rest of the group have been working
together long enough to get a 'feel' for how each other operate.
They fly and fight as a unit. I figure that a Turkey group is so
bad/inept, that anyone transferred out of the group will drag down the
quality of the recipient of the Turkey. Both of these is based amily on
the assumption that fighters fly & fight, as above, as a unit, not a bunch of
'Mavericks' running around by themselves, shooting things. I also assume that
Ace is more of a leadership capability, besides the piloting
skills. The transition between group types (improving a Reg/Turkey mix
to
Regular, and a Reg/Ace to Ace) is hadnled on a strategic scale.
Noah V. Doyle
[quoted original message omitted]
> 1) A green group is six fighters that roll five dice.
Can't disagree with that logic. I was assuming that the Ace was being attached
to another normal group, rather than a turkey squadron. However, if the Ace is
joining a flock of turkeys then the above makes perfect sense.
> John Leary <realjtl@sj.bigger.net> wrote:
> 1) A green group is six fighters that roll five dice.
If the "Ace" group gets its extra die roll from the single "Ace" pilot, why
not decide that the "Turkey" group loses its die roll because of a single
inept pilot who couldn't hit the broadside of barn?
How about inept damage control teams? As normal, but replace the spanner
symbol with a hammer, they still fix the system on a 6, but if they roll a 2
they've broken it permanantly (even the normal team can't fix it), and on a 1
they've also broken something else (roll randomly).
:-)
> How about inept damage control teams ? As normal, but replace the
Ah, I see that you've seen my damage control rolls before.. no fair!! =)
> alun.thomas@cbis.com wrote:
> How about inept damage control teams ? As normal, but replace the
Alun, Thats what airlocks are for!
Bye for now,
> You wrote:
> with such systems. Real fighters have ranges that are way long
Unless either I'm blind, or everyone else houserules it, fighter endurance
doesn't count turns spent in transit to and from objectives. Only combat
turns, and they get six of those. You could fly for fourty
turns, fight for four, break off, and get home with a two-turn combat
reserve. It's just that most people don't want to go to the nuisance
of dealing with off-board carriers. Hell, some people don't do
off-board artillery when playing Dirtside. Which leads to little
chunks of artillery pieces bouncing all over the desert due to one little ol'
FISTV getting LOS.
Jerry spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> 2) Operational reality; you have to be really careful to keep the
Sounds like you need Warp Packs or some such idea to give you a longer
operational range and therefore let you operate at greater distance from the
carriers. Plus a bunch of escorts with ADAF, PDAF, batteries capable of
engaging fighters, etc. And a CAP to protect the carrier (not all
strikefighters!). You could do Midway esque wars with such systems. Real
fighters have ranges that are way long compared to FT ranges. Drop Tanks?
Consumable Warp Packs?
And how about Pseudo Fighter/PT Boats and their tug/tenders....
(Yes I am an SFB hand-me-down....)
Tom.
/************************************************
Thomas Barclay Software Specialist Police Communications Systems Software
Kinetics Ltd. 66 Iber Road, Stittsville Ontario, Canada, K2S 1E7
Reception: (613) 831-0888
PBX: (613) 831-2018
My Extension: 4009
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It seems to me that to represent PT boats, (or pseudo fighters) you need to
make small combat capable ships , probably non-FTL, that are armed
primarily with expendable weaponry- sub-packs, missiles, SMRs (but the
SMR is getting pretty big). The horrible bathtub fleet everyone loves to hate.
But then for the tender, I see 2 ways to do it - either design:
Tender: (by the FB definition a ship that provides internal hangar space for
the ships it tends and FTL for the whole shebang), or
Tender-Tug: Uses FT Tug style FTL to carry the additional Mass of a
number of the PT boats, no internal protection or carriage.
Now to make the whole system viable, Allow PT boats to dock with the Tender as
fighters can, and allow reloads at whatever rate you have chosen for
fighters. For Tender-Tugs, I think you need to provide some way of
"External Docking" - and then allow a reload. My feeling is that this
reload would be slower than properly supported tenders.
Then, allocate space for all those weapon reloads, and maybe draw a box around
them on the SSD to denote that they are carried cargo. You could load up on
SMs without a launcher, maybe carry missiles and subpacks at a small space
savings? (3 missiles in 5 mass?) Or take a slight cost savings instead, to
reflect the lack of a launch system. I would personally like to see a good way
of supporting "Docking" and reloads. I think lots of fun could come from it.
If you have a generalized reloading procedure, then you can also keep your
bathtubs FTL capable but make generalized
Ammo/Resupply ships - and with most SML mounting ships in the fleet book
you are limited to 3 turns of ammo (admittedly three potentially nasty turns)
but the capablility of rearming never hurts.
Jared
Thomas Barclay <Thomas.Barclay@sofkin.ca> on 08/05/98 11:53:40 AM
Please respond to FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
To: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
cc: (bcc: Jared E Noble/AAI/ARCO)
Subject: Re: Carrier design in FT
Jerry spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> 2) Operational reality; you have to be really careful to keep the
Sounds like you need Warp Packs or some such idea to give you a longer
operational range and therefore let you operate at greater distance from the
carriers. Plus a bunch of escorts with ADAF, PDAF, batteries capable of
engaging fighters, etc. And a CAP to protect the carrier (not all
strikefighters!). You could do Midway esque wars with such systems. Real
fighters have ranges that are way long compared to FT ranges. Drop Tanks?
Consumable Warp Packs?
And how about Pseudo Fighter/PT Boats and their tug/tenders....
(Yes I am an SFB hand-me-down....)
Tom.
/************************************************
Thomas Barclay Software Specialist Police Communications Systems Software
Kinetics Ltd. 66 Iber Road, Stittsville Ontario, Canada, K2S 1E7
Reception: (613) 831-0888
PBX: (613) 831-2018
My Extension: 4009
Fax: (613) 831-8255
Software Kinetics' Web Page:
http://www.softwarekinetics.ca or http://www.sofkin.ca or
SKL Daemons Softball Web Page:
http://fox.nstn.ca/~kaladorn/softhp.htm
**************************************************/
Jared spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> Now to make the whole system viable, Allow PT boats to dock with the
Make sure you have at least two internal docking spaces which can be used to
rearm these vessels at full rate. On 'cable tie' dockings, rearm rate should
be one half to one third.
> Then, allocate space for all those weapon reloads, and maybe draw a
How about multiple boxes. Hate to lose them all in one threshold check.
Ooh...magazine chain reaction....nasty.
You could
> load up on SMs without a launcher, maybe carry missiles and subpacks
Sure. The Fleet Supply Ship "Blammo". Munitions ships, Providers,
Replenishers, good idea. They add a lot to fleet tactics and strategy.
/************************************************
Thomas Barclay Software Specialist Police Communications Systems Software
Kinetics Ltd. 66 Iber Road, Stittsville Ontario, Canada, K2S 1E7
Reception: (613) 831-0888
PBX: (613) 831-2018
My Extension: 4009
Fax: (613) 831-8255
Software Kinetics' Web Page:
http://www.softwarekinetics.ca or http://www.sofkin.ca or
SKL Daemons Softball Web Page:
http://fox.nstn.ca/~kaladorn/softhp.htm
**************************************************/