Hi all,
I've been away for a while and not played any Full Thrust for ages, but after
attending Colours this weekend and picking up some new Islamic ships, me and
my mate are going to start playing it again.
Have there been any major changes to the rules in the last few months?
Specifically fighters. Before I paused playing, I seem to remember the rules
were
Fighters move before ship movement is revealed, 24MU, so have to predict where
ships are going. After ship movement, fighters may expend a point of endurance
to move a further 12MU Then, fighters declare targets. PDS weapons fire and
casualties are caused.
Morale rolls must be made for fighter groups still attacking (1d -
having to roll number of fighters remaining in squadron) Calculate damage from
fighters.
I like using fighters as I've put them on cool bases, and they look good, but
I've always found the problem with them that 1 or 2 squadrons is a waste of
time, you'll get blown to bits before you get to do anything. But with lots of
squadrons, you flood your opponents ship and overwhelm their PDS, you'll lose
the same number of fighters, but there will still be loads left.
If you only have a couple of squadrons, I guess the trick is to go after the
smaller ships, or wait until the bigger ships have lost some of their PDS.
I was also not keen on the fighters having to move before ships, it doesn't
feel right, with the little ships being more maneuverable and nippy, I thought
they should quite easily be able to follow a big ship. But, I believe this was
brought in because fighters were too powerful. With the morale rules now a
standard (I think), are they still really powerful.
Cheers All, good to be back
No changes to fighter rules in the last couple of months.
You hit them right on.
FB2 (more than a couple of months ago) introduced a couple of new things:
1. Refuel/Rearm Rules. Roll a d6 on a 1 it cannot be
relaunched. On a 2-5 they may relaunch after 1
full turn. On a 6 they may relaunch next turn.
2. In dogfights with more than 2 squadrons, the squadron with inititive fires
first and damage is not simultaneous. (However for 1 on 1 dogfights damage is
still simultaneous as listed in FT).
3. Launching. All fighters may launch at the same
time. Recovery is now equal to 1/2 the number of
fighter bays each turn.
---
Brian Bell bbell1@insight.rr.com ICQ: 12848051 AIM: Rlyehable YIM: Rlyehable
The Full Thrust Ship Registry:
http://www.ftsr.org
---
[quoted original message omitted]
G'day,
> With the morale rules now a standard
Personally I think you have to use the morale rules to make them balanced. As
for moving after shipping you'd be taking all the guesswork out of it, not a
good idea I'd say. Some guesswork is necessary so they don't become too over
the top.
Cheers
In message <C6B11301984B7B4482835995B486A53626083A@molly.tas.csiro.au>
> Beth.Fulton@marine.csiro.au wrote:
> G'day,
I've been (vaguely) considering a 'simplified' set of fighter rules, as
follows:
Fighters move _after_ ships
Fighters only move their primary movement (no secondary - don't need
it).
Fighters can only make ONE attack before needing to return to their
carrier for re-arming.
After the attack, treat the fighters as having exhausted their CEF
(FB1).
The are no morale checks.
Now I'm kind of hoping the 'only one attack per sortie bit will cancel out the
'doesn't need to make morale checks' if it doesn't, then I think the points
cost should be adjusted.
Special Fighters.
Mostly as written, consider long-range fighters to be the same as fast
fighters (move 36).
Torpedo fighters should have a higher cost, as they only make 1 real attack
anyway.
Refinements (Optional).
Allow re-arming.
Some system for having some of the 'killed' fighters in a sortie simply being
driven off or damaged. For example, group of 6 attacks a ship, loses 4 to PDS,
instead of the survivors being 2, they are actually say
4,
with 2 that could not get through the PDS fire (2 were actually killed). All 4
are treated as having expended their combat endurance.
The idea of all this is to simplify fighter mechanics for larger battles. Now,
do you all think it'd work?
G'day,
> Fighters can only make ONE attack
Ouch that's a bit rough! OK I haven't thought about it in terms of moving
after the ships, but off the top of my head I would've given them at least 2
attacks. By the way how long does it take to re-arm?
Cheers
> [quoted text omitted]
I've been (vaguely) considering a 'simplified' set of fighter rules, as
follows:
Fighters move _after_ ships
Fighters only move their primary movement (no secondary - don't need
it).
Fighters can only make ONE attack before needing to return to their carrier
for re-arming.
After the attack, treat the fighters as having exhausted their CEF
(FB1).
The are no morale checks.
<<<<<<<<<<
[back out of semi-lurk mode]
this is starting to look more like B5W and BFG. BFG goes to the making all
fighter-type craft as ordinance and extremely simplified. B5W is not
quite so streamlined.
I have fiddled with ftr movement after ships, since they are more maneuverable
and responsive craft. however, they must survive the curtains of defensive
fire (PDS, intercepting ftrs) before they can attack. I'm still playtesting
these ideas. the trick now is which ftr wing moves first. you can either
alternate or draw initiative cards. we use init cards with
more cards in the sequence deck for better trained units -- they get
more of a chance to go first or last.
torp and missle ftrs must spend 1 turn rearming aboard the carrier. that makes
the turnaround time 3 turns (land, rearm, launch), plus any time to get back
to the carrier and target.
Dave
In message <C6B11301984B7B4482835995B486A53626084C@molly.tas.csiro.au>
> you wrote:
> G'day,
Well, the idea was to simplify the fighter rules to allow for easy use of
large numbers of fighters, so, hopefully, the reduction in capability
would be off-set by using more fighters (as, at least according to
this list, fighter capability scales non-linearly with numbers). :-)
Which is why only one attack - easier to keep track of.
For re-arming, use the re-arming rules in FB2, p4.