stiltman is correct, the FB1 designs are generally bad. A few modifications,
like putting an ADFC on the large ships instead of having to have some piddly
escort will do a lot in slowing down massive fighter attacks. The downside is
that then single squadron attacks are worthless.
It seems people want to change the rules just because of the current ship
designs.
How about making one minor change: no ADFC is required to "share" PDS duty
between ships? Then make the ADFC do something else, like
be an improved PDS (+1) but not able to have an
anti-ship role (just like an interceptor group)?
And/or it allows class-1 type weapons to help out
nearby ships against fighters and missiles?
Or it can fire at every fighter/missile within range,
not just one?
Glen
P.S. Wow, you guys are finally actually talking about FT instead
From: GBailey@aol.com
> stiltman is correct, the FB1 designs are generally bad.
Can't say I agree. 1) The FB fleets balance decently against each other. In
the context of the "provided" universe of FT, they work just fine. 2) For
gamers who like evolved doctrine, the FB backstory is one very nice take on
things and provides one (of an infinity) way things might progress. Not being
a historical buff, I don;t know if or how combat
eras see-sawed between "generalist" and "specialist" doctrines, but it
is not implausible that future history events would favor one path over
another.
3) As Indy said, The FB ships were never meant to be min-maxed or
necessarily to face up to min-maxed ships. If "bad" = "not min-maxed"
then We Bad, We know it, Jam on.
> A few modifications, like putting an ADFC on the large
Agreed, given the way fighters and PDS work now, this is one of the few
effective ways to modify FB1 ships to fight custom jobs heavy on the fighters.
Hence the quest for a solution.
> The downside is that then single squadron attacks
Also agreed. The solution should find away to require neither of these things.
> It seems people want to change the rules just
Actually we want to make the rules better and more consistent without
invalidating current designs. Big difference.
> How about making one minor change: no ADFC is
One of these is close to what the test list is... well, testing. The others
are both interesting in their own right. Perhaps some more testing is in
order.
Re: B Lin's new systems:
First, if a main goal of the exercise is keeping current FB designs legal and
usable, then new systems should be avoided if possible. But that said:
> Idea #1: Super ADAF/PDS
A mass 6 reusable scattergun: Very mass intensive, and therefore at least as
easy to overwhelm with fighter piles as normal PDS.
> Idea #2: Anti-fighter SM's
See the WDA also for AFHAWKS
> Idea #3: Mines/passive deterrent field
> dropped behind the moving ship. Larger ships have enough hull and
Sounds too directional (Aft arc only) and otherwise could be the PSB for
normal PDS (accelerated ball bearings). Applies to all fighter groups, so
scales effectively with # fighters.
> Idea #4: Thermo-nuclear Point Defense
Similar to defensive use of Plasma Bolts. This _would_ scale with number
of fighter groups. Could easily pave the way for suicide ships. Wade into the
middle of a squadron packing a dozen of these bombs and wipe it
out - if they are to be anti-fighter, they have to blow up before
fighters or ships get to fire.
> Idea #5: "Death-Blossom" Ultra PDS
> range missiles and single shot lasers that fire in all directions.
That's like 'N' scatterguns tied together. Weaker than scatterguns if
there's no anti-ship capability and if all dice must be fired at once.
> Noam Izenberg Wrote:
> Can't say I agree.
*SNIP*
> 3) As Indy said, The FB ships were never meant to be min-maxed or
I agreee with all of this. If FB design - on - FB design battles are
well-balanced, then that's not where the problem lies, and the rules
shouldn't be changed to make these same designs hold their own against
optimized designs - because such designs should be faced only by other
optimized designs.
> Agreed, given the way fighters and PDS work now, this is one of the few
Again, if one side is using custom jobs, why isn't the other? and what's to
say that modifications of the FB designs that CAN deal with custom jobs
wouldn't be the next step in development amongst the powers?
> Actually we want to make the rules better and more consistent without
If the current designs are valid within the context of facing other current
designs, then no change seems necessary. If the changes are intended to
make the current designs more useful against more advanced/optimized
designs, then the changes skew the rules.
> Idea #2: Anti-fighter SM's
Huh? Sorry, you lost me there. I'm still learning. :-)
3B^2
> From Brian Bilderback:
> If the current designs are valid within the context of facing other
For FB vs. FB consistency no change is _necessary_ to maintain internal
balance, but that is not the question. The question in my mind is whether the
system as a whole is consistent and balanced.
> If the changes are intended to
The changes are to make the design system more consistent. It has the added
bonus effect of allwing FB1 ships to fare better vs. some custom designs, but
that is really only the accidental result of a better design system.
Doesn't it add _more_ variety to make Min-maxed ships able to play vs
the FB ships (and the other way around)?
> On 3-May-02 at 16:04, Brian Bilderback (bbilderback@hotmail.com) wrote:
> >Actually we want to make the rules better and more consistent without
Actually, let me simplify to why your solution doesn't work.
Ignore fighters and non-base (no plasmas or wave guns) for the moment.
Design any ship you want using these systems. Go ahead and min-max
if you want, I don't care. the decent FB1 ships (ignore that D#$N FSE BDN), if
using similar masses, will give your ships a run for their money if played by
someone of equal or better tactics than yours. You may have a 10% or so
advantage but that would only be because you are designing ships to fit your
tactics.
You can't say the same with massed fighters. I could write a flow chart for
the fighters that could beat an FB1 fleet. Since our standard of comparison is
ships from FB that tells me that for extreme masses of fighters the point
system is broken. Either the point system needs to be corrected so you can't
afford to do massed fighters or the rules need to be corrected so massed
fighters aren't unbalanced.
A wargame where trivial tactics are killer is a broken game. A flow chart is
trivial tactics.
Just for amusement, has anyone designed a soap bubble carrier for the Kr'vak?
They would have the additional problem of a broken morale system.
[quoted original message omitted]
> On 6-May-02 at 07:45, Eric Foley (stiltman@teleport.com) wrote:
wrote:
> > > If the current designs are valid within the context of facing
Any decent FSE player would have a reasonable shot against this. It has so
little thrust FSE can't miss with SMs. You are going to waste most of your SMs
trying to hit fast moving and maneuverable ships.
I won't speak to the others because I primarily play FSE.
On Fri, 03 May 2002 13:03:26 -0700, "Brian Bilderback"
> <bbilderback@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Again, if one side is using custom jobs, why isn't the other? and
> wouldn't be the next step in development amongst the powers?
To be effective, a custom job has to use fighters. You don't have any other
way around it if you want to survive. The point system is supposed to produce
ships that are, more or less, balanced for the same cost. This is not the
case.
The problem, to get back to the essential issue, is the costing of fighters.
As we have shown, FB1 ships are well balanced against each other, which means
they are well balanced against ships with a small number of fighters, say in
the less than 10 squadron range. The way FT is now, there is no option against
a fighter heavy player than to go fighter heavy, or _very_ PDS heavy, in
response. Since even PDS is under priced versus fighters, going heavily in the
PDS without buying fighters will mean that you will lose, just not as badly as
ships without heavy PDS or fighters. The ship points can be equal, but that
doesn't matter if you don't bring the same technology.
In FT, the fighters are underpriced. Sort of. Actually, the price of fighters
works out rather well in the Fleet Books. A fighter's usefulness increases in
a non-linear fashion. Twenty squadrons are more effective
point-for-point than
the cost of one squadron multiplied by 20.
Depending on how this is fixed, it won't hurt fleets with large numbers of
fighters. Those who like fighters can still continue to have massive fighter
versus massive fighter games. What it should allow is for a player with a
balanced fleet, one that would work well against fighters (though maybe have
to work for it) and against battleships to hold its own.
Right now the only way to be effective against a min-maxed fleet is to
come in with fighters. This gives those of us who don't particularly want to
fight with huge numbers of fighters to produce a fleet using a different
philosophy
and still have a good game against min-maxed designs. A 5000 point fleet
should be effective against a 5000 point fleet. Right now, a 5000 point fleet
made up of soap bubble carriers is _far_ more effective than any other
kind of fleet. All that's being suggested is that a 5000 point fleet of ships
made up of balanced designs have at least a fighting chance against a 5000
point soap bubble carrier fleet. Right now it does not.
However it's handled, I suspect the heavily "pro-fighter" people are
going to scream and cry that the game was "wrecked" because fighters have been
made less potent.
[quoted original message omitted]
On Mon, 6 May 2002 20:56:02 +0200, KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de
(K.H.Ranitzsch) wrote:
> Should 5000 points fleets be the only point of judgment ? Seems a
I just picked 5000 points out of the air. There is no reason to assume that
the point system has to work for _just_ 5000 point ships. It was just an
example...
> At 12:36 PM -0500 5/6/02, Allan Goodall wrote:
> The problem, to get back to the essential issue, is the costing of
But you have to carry that squadron of 20 around. The problem with
this argument is that fighters have to be used en-masse in order to
be useful. The way things are now, I find fighters tricky to use when
I have an Ark-Royal and what I consider to be a realistic escort of a
CA, 2 DDs and a FF or three.
That task group usually gets waxed pretty quick after the 6 fighters get
destroyed. Their one option is then to turn tail and run after the 1 shot
weapon of fighters gets fired and destroyed.
Making fighters more expensive will make it harder to use fighters in a
reasonable amount.
> Depending on how this is fixed, it won't hurt fleets with large numbers
How well will 5000 pts of ADFC cruisers and DDs do?
> However it's handled, I suspect the heavily "pro-fighter" people are
Not less potent, but useless. Folks that try to make up balanced task groups
are already limited by the excess cruft that the NAC carriers have. Why do I
need Class 2's on a ship that shouldn't ever be within 48" of enemy ships? I'd
rather put that into added bays.
The game already dis-favors true carrier group actions. A carrier
should be off on a second table somewhere with a portion of the game placed on
the enemy Carrier or Space Action group trying to find that carrier.
> Allan Goodall <agoodall@att.net> wrote:
> The problem, to get back to the essential issue, is the costing of
I will point out this is not quite true. A large ship will generally beat an
equivalent point value of smaller ships. That was the issue that (FB^2?) was
taking advantage of when he accepted my
challange of showing the game is broken for non-fighter based
ships. He didn't go quite big enough and designed a ship extremely vulnerable
to SMs even with 21 PDSes.
> Roger Books wrote:
> I will point out this is not quite true. A large ship will generally
Do you mean 3B^2? No, it wasn't me, it was Eric Foley.
3B^2
On Mon, 6 May 2002 15:33:38 -0400, Ryan M Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com>
wrote:
> But you have to carry that squadron of 20 around. The problem with
The problem righ now isn't with Ark Royals and other FB ships, its with people
who design soap bubble carriers to easily transport 20 fighter squadrons
around.
> Making fighters more expensive will make it harder to use fighters in
Fighters don't need to be more expensive. Massed fighters need to be more
expensive. Or, put another way, 1 fighter squadron is worth 18 points. 20
fighter squadrons cost 360 points but are worth WAY more than 360 points. A
360 point vessel would be, what, a BC? Heavy cruiser? 20 squadrons can shred a
cruiser in one turn. Then, they move to the next and shred it. Since a PDS can
only fire at one squadron per turn, you'd need 20 PDS on a ship to have a good
chance of handling those 20 squadrons. Try putting that on a 360 point cruiser
and seeing what's left over. And those 360 points of fighters will still be
potent after the 20 PDS fire.
> Not less potent, but useless. Folks that try to make up balanced task
Not useless. My favourite suggestion is allowing PDS to fire at multiple
squadrons, but it hasn't been tested.
> The game already dis-favors true carrier group actions. A carrier
Ummm... true in what sense??? We're talking sci-fi here! It's debatable
if "carriers" as defined in FT are realistic. If you want realism we'd see,
oh, I don't know, how about clouds of water vapour accelerated to significant
fractions of C? Or intelligent missile swarms firing in on a fleet. Or how
about simply making SMs vector based, so that you can launch them at speed 50
and have them travel at 50 out of the tubes. "True carrier group actions" are
only "true" in comparison to modern day or World War II. If you want to model
"trule carrier group actions" you should be playing something like General
Quarters.
On Mon, 6 May 2002 15:43:50 -0400 (EDT), Roger Books
<books@jumpspace.net> wrote:
> The problem, to get back to the essential issue, is the costing of
That is a good point, small ships are generally outclassed by an equivalent
point value of big ships. And big ships are way outclassed by an equivalent
point value in fighters.
Of course this entire debate had to crop up the day after I went
off-line
for a week... Oh well.
> The Stilt man wrote:
> > Ignore fighters and non-base (no plasmas or wave guns) for the
Legal design; NPV 879
> Assume cinematic rules, fixed table.
A couple of points here:
1) You're only comparing this ship against the FB1 SDNs. Roger's challenge
didn't say that you had to match the FB1 ships one-on-one; he talked
about
fleet-on-fleet.
2) In three of the four comparisons below, your ship is larger and more
expensive than its opponent... which means that it bloody well *should* have
an advantage over the smaller, cheaper ships.
> Valley Forge:
TMF 190, NPV 702 including 2 Heavy fighter squadrons. Your ship is
one-third bigger than the Valley Forge, and 25% more expensive even than
the most costly fighter option. You're really surprised that you win?
> I ignore his fighters, I have equal his class-3 armament and
The
> two pulse torpedoes and the screen he's got don't concern me... he
6 Valley Forges against 5 of yours means 4212 pts of NAC against 4395 pts for
you... and that's with the most expensive VF option possible. Not too
big a difference, but you're still stacking the odds in your favour :-/
4 Richmonds (ie., replacing both fighter bays on the Valley Forge with SML
launchers) and 3 Harrison scoutships against 3 of your ships could be
interesting though <g> (2631 pts of NAC vs 2637 pts of yours - pretty
close
points-wise).
> Von Tegethoff:
TMF 200, NPV 700 with 1 Hvy fighter squadron. Same odds points-wise as
the most expensive Valley Forge variant, but apart from that I agree with your
assessment - an unsupported Tegetthoff can't cope with massed missiles.
> Foch:
The only one of the FB1 SDNs which is both larger and more expensive than your
ship. No surprise that it'll be the trickiest one for you to deal
with... 'course, an FSE fleet consisting of smaller ships - eg. a
triplet
of Jerez-class cruisers, or why not a somewhat extreme swarm of 18
Athena/Ms - may cause your PDSs somewhat greater problems than a single
Foch <g>
> Komarov:
TMF 220, NPV 781 pts (as usual including Hvy fighters). Not as badly
out-costed as the NAC and NSL SDNs, but even so rather cheaper than your
ship. I'd much prefer an ESU cruiser force in this case though.
> So in the end... no, sorry, I don't accept that argument that I can't
You haven't tried your ship against everything in FB1, though... only
against a few carefully selected opponents :-/
Regards,
[quoted original message omitted]
[quoted original message omitted]
> On 6-May-02 at 19:03, Eric Foley (stiltman@teleport.com) wrote:
21 PDS is a sure kill for three salvo missiles. If I bring 3 Jerez cruisers I
can drop 6 on you. They will drop 21 submunitions. You will average kills on
16.8 leaving 4.2 for a damage of 14.7. Add to that 9 class 2's in 24" and I do
21.9 damage. Should be a threshold. In return (ignoring SMs for now) you have
13 dice of beams, or 10.4 damage. You do a threshold to me, I threshold you. I
feel pretty good about the start. As a matter of fact it looks like the battle
will be determined by how well I dodge you Salvos. You don't have the option
of dodging mine. I would say we are within 10%.
> And in a beam fight, this ship beats anything
You are wrong. The numbers don't lie. I'm not even counting on getting in your
aft arcs.
> I can shave off a SMR and maybe a class-2 and
If you want to design a ship to beat my Jerez's I'm sure you can. But if you
have to have a specific design to beat my stock FB ships I'll feel pretty good
about the fact that you have not found a loophole.
If you take the same NPV of fighters I lose.
I'll rest my case.
> At 4:40 PM -0500 5/6/02, Allan Goodall wrote:
> The problem righ now isn't with Ark Royals and other FB ships, its with
So if you change the rules, how will Ark Royals Fair against other FB ships?
Ark
> >Making fighters more expensive will make it harder to use fighters
20
> fighter squadrons cost 360 points but are worth WAY more than 360
What does 6 squadrons do against a Cruiser? It should shred it as well.
Regardless. 6 squadrons is the weapons fit of an Ark Royal that makes it
different from a Valley Forge. It should have such an effect. If 3 Valley
Forges rolled up on a target they could
> Not useless. My favourite suggestion is allowing PDS to fire at
Really all that will happen as I understand it is that the "effectiveness
point" for fighters will be moved higher. Requiring
more min-maxing in order to get more than one suicide mission of
fighters. The best I can see is allowing limited use of PDS against fighters
within 3" radius. Several DDs or CAs could buddy protect each other as they
would during such an engagement.
This has always seemed reasonable to me. Perhaps the caveat of this would be
that those ships would have to be "Netted together" in order
to coordinate. Class 1s would have their 6" range on the anti-fighter
role. Then, you could add that ADFCs allow PDS on that ship to fire
at fighters out to 6" and Class-1s out to 12".
> Ummm... true in what sense??? We're talking sci-fi here! It's debatable
So then explain to me why St Jon included fighters and carriers in the game at
all if they aren't realistic? I'm giving rational doctrine behind fighters and
you're saying it's nonsensical. If the
basic doctrine for fighters is non-sensical, then I guess the whole
function of fighters in the NAC is the same as they had during the late stages
of WWII. Does the NAC really have that much of an
over-population of crop-dusting farmer's kids?
On Mon, 6 May 2002 21:57:57 -0400, Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com>
wrote:
> So if you change the rules, how will Ark Royals Fair against other FB
It depends on how we change the rules, doesn't it?
> What does 6 squadrons do against a Cruiser? It should shred it as
Depending on the cruiser, 6 squadrons should shred it.
Here's an example.
The Richthofen is worth 351 points. It has 3 PDS, 31 hull boxes, 6 armour
boxes. I'll ignore the class 1 beams for now.
Now, if I have it correct, a single PDS will destroy.8 fighters, on average.
(1/2 the time it does nothing, 1/3 it does one point, 1/6 * 1/2 the time
it
does two points -- a 6 followed by a reroll of 1 to 3 --, 1/6 * 1/3 the
time
it does 3 points of damage, 1/6 * 1/6 * 1/2 the time it does 4, etc.,
etc.).
On average, the Richthofen's PDS will destroy 2.4 fighters. On average, each
fighter left alive will do.8 points of damage to the Richthofen.
Six squadrons, losing 2.4 fighters, will do 26.88 points of damage. That's
enough to do some heavy damage to the Richthofen.
However, let's look at what 20 squadrons would do. 20 squadrons against a ship
with 3 PDS would do 94 points of damage. Kiss off the Richthofen. 20 fighter
squadrons are worth 360 points. What's worse, the squadrons would still have
about 117 fighters left.
Here's another example, 6 squadrons against the Komarov (4 PDS, 2 class 1
beams, 2 shields, 88 hull points, 751 NPV). This is a better defended ship.
The shields mean that a fighter squadron does, on average,.4 damage each.
Similarly, the Class 1 beams do.4 points of damage each.
The Komarov would do 4 points of damage to the fighters, on average. Against 6
squadrons, that leaves 32 fighters. Those 32 would do an average of 12.8
points of damage to the Komarov. Not enough to get to a threshold. On the
second turn, the fighter squadrons lose another 4 fighters and do 11.2 points
of damage. This would put the Komarov over a threshold, but the fighters would
have lost 8 out of 36. At this point, threshold checks are probably going to
reduce the fighter defences, but you can see that eventually the Komarov will
win this fight (though the 6 fighter squadrons are only worth 108 points,
though they seem to be giving more than they are taking).
Let's see what happens with 20 squadrons of fighters... 120 fighters, total,
are reduced by 4 by the Komarov. They would then do an average of 46.4 points
of damage. Enough to crash the Komarov through 2 thresholds. Even if the
Komarov was lucky and survived with all Class 1s and PDS remaining, the next
round of fighter attacks would kill her. 360 NPV of fighters took out 751 NPV
of SDN, at a cost of only 8 fighters.
> Really all that will happen as I understand it is that the
No, because the more fighters you throw at a ship the more shots the PDS has
at them. Under the suggested rule, the Komarov's 4 PDS would get to fire at
all 20 squadrons, doing 64 points of damage (let's ignore the Class 1s). The
remaining fighters would then do 22.4 points of damage, thus crashing the
Komarov through a threshold check. They would then be best to break off.
Sounds nasty for the fighters, but they'd still have 56 fighters left. They'd
have 168 out of 360 points remaining. That means they lost 192 points in the
fight. The Komarov would have lost 1/4 its hull boxes. If you take the
NPV of
the Komarov and divide it by 1/4, it lost 188 points of "value" in the
exchange. Seems a pretty fair exchange, point wise, to me.
Taking an extreme case of 40 squadrons(!), the Komarov would take out 128
fighters in the first attack, leaving 112. They would then push the Komarov
through two thresholds. Chances are the Komarov would lose 1.8 PDS. With 2 PDS
left, the Komarov would take out 64 more fighters. The remaining 48 would do
19.2 points. Not enough to get through another threshold, but close.
And this is for 720 points of fighters versus a 751 point ship. If you think
that fighters are crippled, here's something else to consider: fighters do
their damage far more quickly than any other weapon system. How many hips
could get a Komarov down to near it's third threshold in 2 turns?
I think the PDS option would work. I agree with something Derek has said about
making fighter morale optional, because I think you really _do_ need to
let fighters survive better under this ruling. I'd also assume that "lost
fighters" are not totally destroyed and would have a percentage recoverable in
a campaign game.
(Just to show the difference in the proposed idea and the current rules, 40
squadrons of fighters would push a Komarov through a threshold point in the
first turn of attack. The loss to the fighters would be 4. 720 points of
fighters can easily shred 3 or 4 Komarovs.)
> The best I can see is allowing limited use of PDS against
Then fighters would move to within 4" of a ship and be totally immune to PDS?
> So then explain to me why St Jon included fighters and carriers in
Because space opera has them... Jon's simultating sci-fi, not reality.
> I'm giving rational
I'm saying that the idea that Full Thrust doesn't represent modern day carrier
doctrine in space is irrelevant. You could argue, though, that Full Thrust
doesn't let you represent carrier battles as found in space opera novels.
> Does the NAC really have that much of an
Well, this gets into _my_ pet peeve of humans in space fighters in the
first place. Given that the US has armed drones for use in Afghanistan, given
that humans require life support, given that humans can't withstand anywhere
near the g's that a fighter itself can withstand, and given that the RAF and
USAF are working to produce autonomous fighters within 20 years, I don't see
why a
couple of centuries from now we're putting "crop-dusting farmer's kids"
in fighters. They should all be computer controlled, autonomous fighters.
> Depending on the cruiser, 6 squadrons should shred it.
Code Red! SFB Over-Analysis Alert! Doctor -- Hand out the
dramamine
and the flight-sickness bags...she's going to get rough....
> At 9:47 AM -0500 5/7/02, Allan Goodall wrote:
Ho will those 6 squadrons do after you change the PDS so they can shoot at
every fighter attacking a ship at a time. Wow, I wish my Class 3's could shoot
at every Torpedo Boat attacking my SDN in one turn too.
> Here's an example.
So if that PDS gets to shoot at every fighter, then I presume the math is.8 x
36 = 28 fighters. Or do you mean that each PDS system gets a shot at each
group? Then that's 14.4 fighters destroyed in an engagement vs a cruiser.
Thats a bit under half. Pretty good for a general purpose cruiser. What would
an AA cruiser do? If it has 8 PDS (38.4 fighters destroyed in the first
engagement) then it will neutralize a carrier's worth of fighters 54 mass and
162 points with 6 mass and 36 points.
> Six squadrons, losing 2.4 fighters, will do 26.88 points of damage.
That's
> enough to do some heavy damage to the Richthofen.
As is should imo.
> However, let's look at what 20 squadrons would do. 20 squadrons against
Against 6
> squadrons, that leaves 32 fighters. Those 32 would do an average of
Mean while the equivalent points value of carriers is doing what? If it's 4
Ark Royals against a ESU battle line, I'd hope those carriers could do quite a
bit of damage. Really what ends up happening is you've just made it pointless
for Carriers to be used. Thats how it seems to me.
3 Ark Royals and an Illustrious are how many points? I should hope that 3 Ark
Royals and an Illustrious could totally cream a single ship. If they can't why
do they exist again?
> >Really all that will happen as I understand it is that the
Rolling 100 d6's? Each PDS gets to shoot at each group. Against a group of 6
fighters the PDS gets 19.2 kills. That's half the group.
> And this is for 720 points of fighters versus a 751 point ship. If you
Fighters don't absorb punishment like ships do. They have finite endurance and
require more behind them. They are a weapon that is
de-coupled from their associated ship. As it is, they have to reduce
a ship to component bits (all 4 rows of hull boxes) before it's really dead.
You don't have the benefit of water sinking the ship to help you out.
> I think the PDS option would work. I agree with something Derek has
720 pts of fighters plus the cost of the bays and mass to carry them around.
Those fighters just don't spring from the head of zeus.
I find it strange that we're using standard ships as a justification
for dealing with a Min-max ship form. Why not some guidelines on ship
design. Soap bubble carriers of large size should be difficult or hard to
build.
> >The best I can see is allowing limited use of PDS against
*sigh* Ok, then why not allow PDS a 12" range? Wait, don't stop there, make it
20", Oh, they can stand off at 21". Make it 54"...heck, just make it the limit
of the table edge. The fighters launch and TALOS PDS nails them as they come
out of the Launch Bay.
> >So then explain to me why St Jon included fighters and carriers in
Ahh. Yes. It's space Opera. "Hey PO Franks, have we got any more robot
fighters to send out against the Euries?"
Nope.
> >I'm giving rational
Then again, why do we have carriers if a cruiser can cripple the "weapons
component" from a ship 4 times it's mass?
Why build carriers at all if they don't have a hope of killing a BB with their
fighter detachments at all, let alone really hurting
> >Does the NAC really have that much of an
Umm, its space opera remember?
> humans require life support, given that humans can't withstand anywhere
in
> fighters. They should all be computer controlled, autonomous fighters.
With a morale problem? You're getting circular here Allan. I assume then that
the Kra'Vak Fighter's AI's also Ro'kah?
> Ryan Gill wrote:
> Really all that will happen as I understand it is that the
The goal should not be to push the "effectiveness point" *higher*. The goal
should be to transform that "effectiveness point" from the current sharp
breakpoint between "ineffective" and "overwhelming" it is now, to a wide
plateau.
> So then explain to me why St Jon included fighters and carriers in the
Because Star Wars has fighters. Battlestar Galactica has fighters. Babylon 5,
although it wasn't aired until well after FT was first published, has
fighters. Lots of Anime has fighters. If you want to create a generic space
combat game which can be used to game out battles in any of these backgrounds,
that game has to have space fighters.
However... all these shows have one thing in common: they're space opera.
Science FICTION. Realism as we know it has very little to do with any of them.
Regards,
I've pulled out of the arguement that fighters are overpowered, since I am
SURE I'm not qualified to comment on such. My only aruement was thast that
should be shown before moving on to adjusting fighters. So my only reply to OO
is a simple question (Asked in earnest, not sarcastically):
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> The goal should not be to push the "effectiveness point" *higher*. The
How?
3B^2
> At 10:36 PM +0200 5/7/02, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
Ok, and under this new system the Death star never ever ever would have been
destroyed by three squadrons of small fighters because it's 200 PDS systems
all would have been able to fire at every single squadron with no
consideration to anything.
And the two Cylon Carriers that the two main characters fooled into hovering
too close to the planet surface would never have hidden because they were
bluffed into thinking that 8 (or how ever many) squadrons of fighters were on
their way after them.
> However... all these shows have one thing in common: they're space
And in these shows, lots of large ships that show up and spew lots of fighters
will rip you a new one if you are over matched. That's why the Galactica was
running.
> Allan Goodall wrote:
> A fighter's usefulness increases in a non-linear fashion. Twenty
If that's the case, then merely increasing the cost of fighters is NOT the
correct solution. If you do that, their cost is still linear, it's just a line
higher up on the graph. This actually does two things: Make small
numbers of fighters even LESS usefull, and guarantee that there is STILL a
point, albeit higher up the line, where fighters still outweigh their points.
I'm starting to see both sides of the arguments. I definitely see huge swarms
of fighters devouring ships with impunity as cheese. I also see how any
adjustment to avoid this runs the risk of rendering SMALL groups of fighters
useless. Both would definitely fit nicely into the Sucks category.
The trick for those in power will be to guarantee that well-designed
fleets and ships can wield reasonable amounts of fighters and still be able to
do significant damage with them before the fighters die, but NOT be able to
compleetely overwhelm the game simply by ewmploying ridiculous numbers of
fighters.
Kind of a double edged sword, it seems.
3B^2
In message <k7kfduonjl70olrlgdo63fo6pfn43fsn10@4ax.com>
> Allan Goodall <agoodall@att.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 6 May 2002 21:57:57 -0400, Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com>
wrote:
> >So if you change the rules, how will Ark Royals Fair against other FB
> >ships? Ark
> >makes it different from a Valley Forge. It should have such an
That's
> enough to do some heavy damage to the Richthofen.
Umm.. there is all that hanger space needed to carry 20 flights of fighters
around though, thats 180 MASS and another 540 points! plus the ship(s) that
need to be wrapped round the hanger bays!
[major snippage]
> >Does the NAC really have that much of an
> [quoted text omitted]
Being that I am a novice in using fighters right now, I have a question. With
all the talk in using massive amounts of fighters, wouldnt you have to have
the appropriate support ships to launch these to begin with? And if you are
running in a points limited game, wouldnt you only be able to run so many of
these types of ships plus their escorts? Unless of course you happen to be
running Cylon Base Stars.
Kirk
From: Brian Bilderback bbilderback@hotmail.com
> The trick for those in power will be to guarantee that well-designed
"If this job was easy, we wouldn't need people of your caliber to do
it."
> 3B^2 wrote:
> The goal should not be to push the "effectiveness point" *higher*. The
That is a *very* good question <g> Several interesting ideas have popped up
during the discussion; we'll see if any of them actually works.
> Ryan Gill wrote:
> So then explain to me why St Jon included fighters and carriers in
> been destroyed by three squadrons of small fighters because it's 200
Incorrect, for two reasons:
1) The Death Star was not destroyed by "three squadrons of small fighters".
The original Death Star was destroyed by ONE fighter - specifically, one
fighter piloted by an Ace, who used a scenario house rule allowing him to
fire a Needle-style shot to take out the Death Star's power core... and
who was lucky enough to roll a "6" to hit with that shot.
2) The Death Star's guns, like those on the various Star Destroyers in the
movies, were ship-killers, not fighter-killers, and rather ineffective
against fighters. I'd rate them as B1s at best, not as PDS.
> And the two Cylon Carriers that the two main characters fooled into
When was the other Base Star destroyed in that way? At the moment I can only
recall the first one (in the pilot movie) <shrug> As in Star Wars, the
Base Stars's guns are used both against fighters and ships - ie. B1s,
not PDS.
> However... all these shows have one thing in common: they're space
> Galactica was running.
No, the Galactica was running because it was threatened by enemies with
resources an order of magnitude greater. You'd run too if you had a
5,000-point fleet (...and that's counting the nominal points value of
all
those unarmed refugee ships...) and had a 50,000-point fleet consisting
entirely of warships looking for you - at those odds even a soap-bubble
carrier force wouldn't survive very long.
Regards,
> At 7:44 PM +0200 5/14/02, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
But it took all of those squadrons to get in there and fight other fighters
while one took a run at the thermal exhaust port. Presumably the fire that the
various fighters were directing at turbo laser towers also helped the
> 2) The Death Star's guns, like those on the various Star Destroyers
Hmm. You mean just like where Massive SDNs with a few PDS are mobbed and
killed by fighters?
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> 1) The Death Star was not destroyed by "three squadrons of small
Ummm.... "Force Sensitive" enough to roll a 6. ;-)
3B^2
[quoted original message omitted]
David Brin has a theory that Anakin was acting as a double agent for the
light. He killed a lot of people.... but terror tactics have never worked to
control a subdued population, purging your officer corps is a Bad Idea,
letting the droids get away with the plans, ignoring a visit to his homeworld
etc.
As usual with Brin it's an interesting idea.
> Eric Foley wrote:
> If the Death Star had known that a fighter assault could have destroyed
On Tue, 14 May 2002 14:47:33 -0700, "Eric Foley" <stiltman@teleport.com>
wrote:
> If the Death Star had known that a fighter assault could have destroyed
Or it was simply a plot point written by a guy who, from later movies, shows
he doesn't think his stories through very well...
On Tue, 14 May 2002 21:02:27 -0700, Michael Llaneza
<maserati@earthlink.net> wrote:
> David Brin has a theory that Anakin was acting as a double agent for
> Bad Idea, letting the droids get away with the plans, ignoring a visit
Did he kill a lot of people? You see him kill one guy on the Rebel blockade
runner. After that, most of the folks you see him kill are Imperial officers!
On the other hand, I doubt very much that George Lucas is capable of this kind
of deception.
> --- Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
> It _did_ have the fighter materiel aboard to do so,
My opinion is that the commander did not launch fighters because to the well
known propensity for tie fighters to collide with the nearest large object.
Bye for now,
> Stiltman wrote:
> > >2) The Death Star's guns, like those on the various Star Destroyers
[snip rest of solid explanation - Eric said it all, so I have nothing to
add]
Wow! Stiltman defending my reasoning while I'm off-line... never thought
I'd see that happen :-)
Later,