Fighters

<Joachim wrote:>

> Hiya y'all. It's time for my next question about fighters. I don't

Our group is still getting into the rules and haven't had a whole lot of
experience with all of the different fighter combinations. To keep things
simple while we learn the rules we've adopted a general house rule stating
that you CAN'T mix up fighter functions. I think one day we will but until we
know the rules cold we're going to limit fighters in our games to one of the
'types' described in More Thrust.

> I think my group finally agreed on a system where you can take a

This is a good idea and I'd probably start 'layering' fighters in a similar
fashion when our group is ready to do so.

> Say, that brings up a third point. If I always round up the amount

Our group rounds UP the system mass but rounds DOWN the damage boxes. An 18
mass Destroyer would have 9 systems and 9 hits. A 17 mass Destroyer has 9
systems but only 8 hits. Not much of a difference, I admit, but at least
there's a small tradeoff. You could reverse this if you feel that system mass
is more important and state that a 17 mass Destroyer doesn't get extra system
mass but does get an extra hit. Guess it's up to your personal preference.

Pete

Jon (GZG), having digested your ideas on fighter movement I will beg to
differ. Currently they need amending and I tentively suggest the following 1)
combat endurance is scrapped (see ammendment) 2) Ammendment:endurance fighters
have the ability to deploy on table formed Either before or during(my votes on
this one) but not after the opposition has deployed.This give either a fast
strike option against an upcomming fleet or restricts his deployment due to
imposed threat. 3) Since fighters are now on table for a long duration what
gets rid of them?
   Any fighter group that is _totally_ destroyed is out forever; however
if even one returns to the carrier it may form a new squad in 'combat

endurance turns current FTII rules'. All of this makes carriers more fun and
eliminates lots of paperwork regarding endurance turns an proposed thrust
vectors.

Comments? anyone! Jon (top cat) SDL

> ***

Wasn't a similar arguement made in our own history about the usefulness of
Aircraft in naval warfare. As I recal most Naval experts couldn't see the
point in aircraft.

Me I never rule anything out. If the enemy have some I want some to:)

A lot depends on how efficient small engines and weapons can be made. If the
proportional power of small engines is less than or only equal to the power of
the engines on the ships, the fighters would not be able to travel faster than
the ships. This would make them useless. This is why you don't see large ships
launching smaller boats with 6" guns or machine guns on them to attack other
ships.

To make a fighter useful, it must have the following
characteristics/abilities:
  1 - Fly faster than the ship that launches it.
  2 - Have an efficient enough engine that it has enough fuel to get to
the objective and back while meeting provision 1.
  3 - Have an efficient enough weapon that it can cause appreciable
damage without negating provisions 1 or 2.

The main reason to have fighters on a carrier or other ship are:
  1 - Extend the range of the ship/fleet. Today, a carrier and its
fighters can cover more area than two or three other types of ships.
  2 - Cost. Because of the power of today's fighter launched weapons,
carriers are more powerful than an equivalent cost of other surface ships.
  3 - Flexibility. Today, carriers can attack ships and land targets.
They can also send recon patrols.

I am sure that I have missed some reasons for carriers in the present day. But
the ideas remain the same.

<ramble mode> In the Tuffleyverse, there seems to be somewhat of a paradox in
the regard of engine efficiency. Fighters, while not able to match the top
speed of ships (which can reach unlimited speed) have very efficient engines
that allow for radical direction changes (180 degrees at full speed) and
dogfighting while being able to dish out, mass for mass, more damage than any
other weapon (I can hear the numbers crunching even as I speak). However,
smaller ships do not have more efficient engines than larger ships. Perhaps,
fighters use a different style of engine than larger ships (considering the
different style of movement) that just does not work on a larger scale.
</ramble mode>

---
Brian Bell bkb@beol.net <mailto:bkb@beol.net>
http://members.xoom.com/rlyehable/
---

[quoted original message omitted]

G'day guys,

> Wasn't a similar arguement made in our own history about the

The argument was made about aircraft in warfare full stop. At the start of WWI
the powers pretty much made a tacit agreement that planes would be observers
only and unarmed (the guys in charge couldn't see how arming them
would be effective/useful). Unfortunately no one told the pilots so you
had guys taking up hunting rifles, bricks, grapples (to pull the other guys
propellor off), pistols, axes, darts etc and eventually they invented the
interrupters/synchronisers/wedges, the command gave in and bonifide
fighters were born.

As for not seeing fighters or a very small ship as beeing effective against a
honking great big one, anyone who's read "Hoka Hoka Hoka" can see where that
train of thought can lead you...;)

Cheers

Beth

> As for not seeing fighters or a very small ship as beeing effective

Has anyone fought a battle involving capital ships on one side and destroyers
(or smaller) on the other?

It would seem to me that if the smaller ships can survive to get into the
larger ship's blind spot, it's history... but the smaller ships are definitely
going to die before they get there.

A possible strategy for the larger ship would be to stop dead, so as to be

G'day,

> Has anyone fought a battle involving capital ships on one side and

We've had a few games were a group of FSE small guys (DDs) have come up
against the NSL BB or similar. The DDs got hit pretty hard but they did manage
to cripple the BB with their SMs (mainly because it had stopped dead). I
wouldn't want to do a beam match off with the BB though unless you had quite a
few small ships that could keep the 4 firecons occupied and still get damage
in somewhere.

Beth

> We've had a few games were a group of FSE small guys (DDs)

Actually that should say DHs - sorry.

Beth

> Fred and Evelyn Wolke wrote:

> Has anyone fought a battle involving capital ships on one side and

Yes.

> It would seem to me that if the smaller ships can survive to get into

There are some problems with this:

First, it doesn't work very well unless the capital ship is alone. If there
are two capital ships (or lighter units escorting the capital) and the player
knows his stuff, one of them will be able to hit the small fry.

Second, in the FB at least there is nothing to stop the capitals from being as
maneuverable as the small ships. This tends to make it difficult to stay in
the target's blind spot for more than one turn.

Third, in the FB there is no blind spot unless you use your main
engines, though most ships have arcs with only a few or short-ranged
weapons (Class-1s and PDS, usually).

Regards,

> At 07:40 AM 6/24/99 +0200, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

There's a historical precident for Brian Bell's reasoning on the viability of
Fighters in any real future space combat, vis a vis engine power and
efficiency. If we look back beyond actual shipboard aircraft to earlier small
combatants: turn of the century torpedo boats. Around the 1880's or so steam
powered torpedo boats were all the rage in some navies, meeting most of
Brian's requirements: they were fast (25 knots or so at a time when battleship
speeds were around 18), they had effective weapons (at least in theory,
although early torpedoes weren't all they were cracked up to be) the range
thing was a bit of a problem since most were short ranged and risked swamping
in heavy seas (although TB's were looked at as a great
equalizer in coast defence - the French built hundreds - and a few
navies experimented with tenders or motherships, sort of prototype carriers.
But the advent of the destroyer changed all the equations. Originally intended
to fight torpedo boats, it was discovered that destroyers made better torpedo
boats than the torpedo boats themselves: hydrodynamics meant that the larger
destoyer hulls (starting at around
300-400 tons and growing to over 1000 by WWI) made for higher speeds in
real sea conditions while steam engines, both reciprocating and turbine
gained greater scale efficiency as well.  By WWI 800-1000 ton destoyers
were hitting well over 30 knots while the 100-200 ton torpedo boats, no
matter how hard you tried, couldn't break 30 with steam power. Of course
during WWI gasoline and diesel engines came into their own for small craft and
internal combustion powered and the steam powered torpedo boat gave way to the
ancestors of the PT boats, MBTs and E & S boats of WWII.
        The Fleetbook design rules represent the Destroyer/TB dilemma
fairly well -- if designing some sort of small missle boat and you want
high speed plus an effective weapon (ie: a SMR) there's a definate limit to
how small you can go (not to mention the number crunching and rounding of
decimals suddenly becomes REAL important). As for fighters, maybe Brian's on
to something when he says perhaps fighters use a different style of engine
(like the internal combustion engines that suddenly made torpedo boats viable
again). I've always
wondered about the FT fighter rules anyway -- FT fighters behave a great
deal like their wet navy counterparts. Which is odd since unlike aircraft they
don't move in a whole different medium (ie air rather than water) their
manueverability advantages shouldn't be so obvious, nor the need to have
dedicated weapons to attack them since, in theory at least, they're just much
smaller cousins of the ships they attack (ie: why are fighters so
much more effective than small mass 6-10 ships).  The system gives a
very WWII feel with airstikes and flak barrages, but then again, I ignore the
anachronisms and play it anyway cause it's a hell of a lot of fun.

                        -M

> At 07:40 AM 6/24/99 +0200, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
Yes. Played one earlier today using the core rules and some modified ships. 4
Destroyers and 1 Heavy Destroyer (See Below) versus 1 Modified Battle Cruiser.
Approximately 500 Points per side.

The Battle Cruiser managed to take out three destroyers and damage the heavy
destroyer before being destroyed by the heavy destroyer.

Due to a navigational error the fourth destroyer left the edge of the table
and couldn't come back.

Heavy Destroyer Jonathan Whiting Mass: 18 Type: Escort Class: Barracuda Move:
6 FTL: Standard Hull: Military Cost: 130 Damg: 9
 4
 5
Syst: 2x PDAF
2x B-Batt PFS
Level 1 Shields

Modified Battle Cruiser Peter Clayton Mass: 40 Type: Capital Class: Titania
Move: 6 FTL: Standard Hull: Military Cost: 485 Damg: 20
 5
 5
 5
 5
Syst:
3x A-Batt PFS
2x C-Batt PFS
Needle Beam F Level 2 Shields

[quoted original message omitted]

sorry to pipe up so late on this thread - it's a long round-trip to
Mars, you know.

i recall reading that there has been extensive debate on the 'are fighters
practical in space combat' issue on the SFCONSIM-L mailing list at some
time in the fairly distant past. i know many people round here are on that
list (i'm not [1], and wasn't for long), so if anyone can recall the
conclusions, or give me a general direction to an archive where i could find
it, i'd be most grateful.

personally, you see, i hate fighters, so if i can get some pre-packaged
arguments why they're impractical, it'd save me a lot of time:).

tom

[1] sort of - there's a funny story here. well, not that funny,
obviously.

I haven't read all of the statements about the fighters I just had five of the
digests to read at once, but here's my own rulings. The first is on
lauch and recovery. The FT2 rules state that a carrier can launch and/or
recover 2 groups per turn, any other ship can only launch and or recover one
group pre turn. I am against more than two groups launching because it
unbalances the fighters even more than people seem to be complaining about. As
far as what constitutes a carrier or a "dreadnaught" I have felt that if more
than half your weapon system mass was dedicated to bays then your ship would
be a carrier, if 50% or less weapon mass was bays then your ship falls into
the dreadnaught range (1 group per turn). I use the same rule in DSII to
determine transport vs. gunship VTOLs. Having one rule of thumb for all the
GZG games makes it simple to remember.

Fighters in Mothball: Discussions on this list have placed fighters in the
class 3/4 range in DSII. If you use the vehicle carrying capacity in MT
and assume that all fighters are class 4 (needed to have the heaviest possible
armor for aerospace) it takes 16 cargo (at the old 50 cargo = 1 mass, I don't
rember if there is any new *official* ruling on that yet) to hold one fighter,
so 48 cargo would hold three fighters, and three fighters would be kept in
"Mothball" for 1 mass, an entire fighter group would take two mass.

Of course "Mothballed" fighters couldn't be readied in one combat, at least
not in complete groups. A partial group that returned to the carrier to
refuel/rearm may have a DCP (or maybe two successfull rolls: one dcp
twice, two dcps in one turn, ect.) attempt to pull a fighter out of mothball
and get it ready for launch like any other system, but only one fighter at a
time. Replacing a complete group isn't possible under the conditions in one
battle, but may be possible in campaigns, or when the "judge" or all players
agree that far too many rounds have pased since signifigant group losses
occoured (I'd say 50% or more) that crews *wouldn't* have been sent to
extracate the additional fighters.

Jim

When I started number crunching, it sort of worked out that a size-4
fighter used up 20 CS without a bay & 32 CS with a bay (SG = size x 8, FT =
mass x 1.5). It works out the same amount of CS is required, except the
rounding in SG gives a slight penalty. There's nothing *official* with regards
to CS
in FTFB, it's unofficially 20-25 CS depending on your preferences.

'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-----

> > -----Original Message-----

> > kept in "Mothball" for 1 mass, an entire fighter group would take

In an effort to keep things simple, just use one cargo mass
for one fighter.   We treat the process of activation for a
stored fighter the same as the recovery, rearm, and launch of normal fighters,
only the terms are different. Recovery = Move stored fighter to bay. Rearm =
Arm. Launch = Launch.

Bye for now,

Interesting discussion about fighters. It always seems an issue that gets
people excited, whether they are pro or anti. For what it is worth I hate the
things, and ususally put 6 PDAFs on a FT2 BB (mass 60) and had ADAF escorts...

I do like the idea of seperating the hangers from the lauch bays (we could use
the SML mechanics, with launchers linked to magazines "how long until you get
the lift unjammed?"). I know someone did this quite nicely (I am sure I have
it clipped, if not back to the digests). I would love to ee this in FT3.
Perhaps for greater cost and mass per fighter you could have the traditional
bay, the advantage being that all the bays could launch at once. (so we don't
replace the system and invalidate existing designs, we add a new one).

Hangers and 'catapults' would be perfect for classic thin skinned wet-
navy style carriers to maxaimise numbers while a DN with one group would find
a normal bay more cost and mass effective.

I think we need to differentiate clearly between fighters stored in a ready to
go state and those boxed. The latter are available but must be in bays or
hangers while boxed fighters are not available but occupy less space and can
be carried in any available cargo space.

I am for anything that makes a fleet train important.

"I do like the idea of seperating the hangers from the lauch bays (we could
use the SML mechanics, with launchers linked to magazines "how long until you
get the lift unjammed?")."

Seems like an excellent idea to me.  A point/mass cost structure like
the
SML's would give players more options - a hangar/catapult combination
would allow more fighters per given mass but a mass of "bays" (SMR equivalent)
would allow the launch of a large strike in a single turn (a strike or attack
carrier).

Personaly I tend to go for the "paper-hull wet navy style carrier".
Often using converted merchants (a heavy freighter makes a nice base to build
a carrier on). Actually converting merchant ships to carriers has historical
basis, WWII escort carriers were initially converted merchant ships. Later
ones were purpose built, but still had freighter hulls, engines and speeds
-- hence the hair-raising moment of deep shit at Leyte Gulf when the
Japenese battleships suddenly appeared in the midst of the CVE task force
providing air support to the beachhead, with only the suicidal intervention
of a half-dozen DD's and DE's to save the day (sounds like an
interesting
FT scenario - a task force of light carriers and a few small escorts are
supporting the mop-up of a planetary invasion (with half the fighters
dirtside) when suddenly a BB strike force emerges from FTL and goes in for the
kill?) Some early escort carriers (the MAC ships) actually still carried cargo
along with a flightdeck of Swordfish.

And while the hybrid NSL style "Battle Carrier" has a precident in Russian
Kiev Class (or the half-decked battleship conversions the Japanese used
at Leyte) there is also a precident for strong hulled, heavily armoured
carriers mounting the same light weapons but carrying fewer fighters than
their "paper-hulled" USN style bretheren: The Royal Navy carriers in
WWII, with their heavy armored flight decks designed with the confined waters
of
the Med., North Sea/Baltic in mind.  The carried fewer aircraft but, in
the Pacific, easily shrugged off Kamekazi hits that left US carriers crippled
for days at a time.

                        -M

> In a message dated 7/9/99 2:21:16 PM EST, edens@mindspring.com writes:

<< Some early escort carriers (the MAC ships) actually still carried cargo
along with a flightdeck of Swordfish. >>

Or how about the Merchat Auxilliary Carriers which had a Hurricane or two
mounted on a catapult with NO retrieval access at all. The guy hit the silk
and waited in a rubber raft for a boat to pick him up. There's dedication for
you!

> ScottSaylo@aol.com wrote:
...Snip...JTL
> Or how about the Merchat Auxilliary Carriers which had a Hurricane or

F105 Ariguani 6746 tons
F107 Maplin    5824 tons
F 87 Patia     5355 tons
F106 Registan 5886 tons All were armed with 2 X 6 inch guns as well as a
catapult.

Originally classed as 'Ocean boarding vessels', they were refitted with a
catapult in 1941 and used for convoy escort.

Bye for now,

> "I do like the idea of seperating the hangers from the lauch bays (we

As much as I hate to argue FOR something that requires FB redesign: I actually
like this idea as well.

On the other hand, by the time we get through all the testing, FT3 is going to
be one kick @%& game.

In a message dated 99-07-09 22:25:14 EDT, you write:

<< On the other hand, by the time we get through all the testing, FT3 is going
to be one kick @%& game.

Schoon >>

Is that not the point?
-Stephen

> Sean Bayan Schoonmaker wrote:
...Snip...JTL
> Schoon

I can really see the idea being embraced by all. However, the idea may may not
be quite as welcome after somebody does an attack fighter run on the one and
only landing bay, destroying it.

Bye for now,

> ScottSaylo@aol.com wrote:

> Or how about the Merchat Auxilliary Carriers which had a Hurricane or

One thought:

FT3 is likely (perhaps?) the next FT release. In FT3, I expect to see a
consolidation of rules with some mods. What I also expect is that there will
NOT be a reissue of FB1 and FB2, so those designs may change in NPV, but they
won't change in design. Therefore, believing this to be Jon's most probably
approach, I would expect that any tweaks made to rules will be made with the
idea that the FB designs are the benchmark. I don't expect to see many, but I
would expect to see something done
with fighters to reflect common FB designs/frequencies of classes and
the efficacy of larger fighter formations.

I think some of the discussion towards fighter groups has centered on these
points: 1) FB1 designs will not be reissued
2) As Roger pointed out, in paper-scissors-rock, the odds are balanced
so you can get screwed, but you always had a chance. The same is not
true (as he illustrated) as the advantage will be with the fighter-heavy
force more often than not. This is the imbalance likely to be approached. 3)
One off games aren't realistic, nor is not knowing about your enemy,
nor are you forced to use FB1 designs or models - BUT, a majority of
people seem to do that - run one off games where each side shows up with
an NPV and FB1 designs as standard. 4) You are always free to ignore the rules
and do your own thing within your group 5) The objectives of at least one of
the better options seemed to be: Make attacks by small fighter counts at least
somewhat useful (okay, who has showed up with a BDN with one fighter group and
thought "what the
heck for?" - hand up, I know you're out there!), make fighter attacks by
huge groups of fighter less efficient/effective, give fighters a reason
to meter their attacks and thus have some staying power. All of these
will tend to make the game more fun - making small fighter formations
have some use will mean when people take standard JoaT designs (admittedly not
optimized), then the NPV for the fighters won't be wasted. Similarly, when
people take large fighter fleets, they will be very dangerous, but not
disproportionately so. And encouraging fighters to spread their attacks over a
turn or two will tend to remove the "one wave, win or lose, game over"
mentality.

Now, one could argue this is changing rules to setting. Yes and no. Yes,
because it is trying to legitemize the FB designs. No because the PDS (or
other) rules the way they are today exist by an equally arbitrary choice and
reflect some sort of view of how things work... changing this is not a case of
violating some sacred generic system... because ANY system involves some
portion of "setting" in it. Even the one we have today.

In the end result, you can do whatever YOU want with the game. Some of you use
house rules, others mix alien and human tech, others build their own ship
designs with a very different philosophy, etc. This is all fine... so why
you'd worry about any official modifications to the base rules, I can't
image... you'll just continue to do your own thing, to change things you don't
like, and to ignore what doesn't suit you (as
you should!). OTOH, those who play vanilla out-of-the-book ships/fleets
will tend to have (one hopes) a more enjoyable game.

Tomb

> From: "Tomb" <tomb@dreammechanics.com>

*SNIP*
> Therefore, believing this to be

This would be, IMO, a bad thing, since the designs are flawed according to
most players, and using them as a benchmark ties the system more closely

into the background. The reason I got iinto GZG was the attraction of a

generic system that I could apply to any background. Anything that detracts
from that generic quality of the games detracts equally from my attraction to
the games in general.

> I think some of the discussion towards fighter groups has centered on

> 3) One off games aren't realistic, nor is not knowing about your enemy,

Again, this is a choice people make, and the better solution is to reach an
agreement with your opponents regarding standardizing designs within your own
setting, campaign format, etc.

> 4) You are always free to ignore the rules and do your own thing within

this is also true of a game set in the Tuffleyverse, and I see no reason to
change the rules to suit that specific setting.

> 5) The objectives of at least one of the better options seemed to be:

One option that someone mentioned is to allow PDS and ADFC to defend against
multiple fighter groups. I'm starting to warm to that idea.

> Now, one could argue this is changing rules to setting.

And I have.

> Yes and no.

Mostly yes.

> Yes,

Which doesn't seem fair to the system, if, as it's been argued, the designs
are flawed and not worthy of such legitimization to begin with.

> No because the PDS

This is true to an extent, but the trick to maintaining the generic feel is to
limit that setting influence AMAP. The more you tweak it to fit the
Tuffleyverse, the stronger the arguement that it's not generic becomes.

> In the end result, you can do whatever YOU want with the game. Some of

Because the more the rules are changed/added to in order to legitimize
the FB designs, the more the rest of us have to sift through them to determine
which work and which don't in a given system.

you'll just continue to do your own thing, to
> change things you don't like, and to ignore what doesn't suit you (as

And, I might point out, as can anyone using FB designs.

> OTOH, those who play vanilla out-of-the-book ships/fleets

There's nothing stopping those who use "vanilla out-of-the-book"
ships/fleets from using their OWN house rules like those suggested in
order to accomplish just what you proppose, but that doesn't necessitate
making those rules canon just to suit that group of players.

3B^2

Fighters,fighters,fighters....oh bother.

Captain! Captain! Scans report over 3 wings of BEM fighters approaching!

Fire control, lock onto the center of their formation and fire the XP-49
Space Remodulator! FIRE!!!!!!!

...pop...

WHAT !?!?!?! Where is the ka-boom? Where is the Earth shattering
ka-boom?

eeeeeeehhh, Whats up doc?

Remember, in space, no one cannot see you take the wrong turn at Albuquerque

From: Brian Bilderback bbilderback@hotmail.com
> This would be, IMO, a bad thing, since the designs are flawed according

into the background.

Well, there's a difference between "not optimized" and "not usable". Brit
ships in WW2 weren't optimized for combat but they still were useful.

> [free to change rules to suit yourself] is also true of a game set in

That doesn't address tournaments, conventions, pickup games, or people
who like the background and/or don't like to tinker.

> One option that someone mentioned is to allow PDS and ADFC to defend

Ah! Okay, so would you just say "PDS as is, but applies to all inbound
attacks", or would you tweak anything?

Note that any changes need not be "standard", ie they could be just as
optional as Wave Guns.

> laserlight wrote:

> Well, there's a difference between "not optimized" and "not usable".
Brit
> ships in WW2 weren't optimized for combat but they still were useful.

True, but I haven't heard that the FB1 designs were useless, just inferior.
Would you play a WWII ship combat game that skewed the rules in favor of

Brit ships, or US ships, or any other power, rather than reflect the reality
of the day?

> >[free to change rules to suit yourself] is also true of a game set in

No, but neither does readjusting the rules to suit them serve anyone else very
well. Perhaps a set of rules specific to the tuffleyverse would make a good
supplement, or optional rules, but any changes to the core system that makes
them integral would still be something I'd hate to see.

> >One option that someone mentioned is to allow PDS and ADFC to defend

> attacks", or would you tweak anything?

I don't know. I didn't say I totally favor the idea or am espousing it yet, I
haven't even fully considered it (haven't had time since I've been at work
since it was mentioned), I just said I'm WARMING to it.

> Note that any changes need not be "standard", ie they could be just as

THAT is the best comment I've heard yet regarding them.

3B^2

> At 12:18 PM -0700 5/3/02, Brian Bilderback wrote:

I'd rather play a game that either accurately reflected the realities of
things at that time or in the case of "what ifs" play out games that inserted
later developments earlier to see how they worked. Say for example, if the two
British Battleships (Prince of Wales and Repulse) that the Japanese sank off
of Singapore had been fitted with
better anti-aircraft armament.

[quoted original message omitted]

[quoted original message omitted]

> KH.Ranitzsch wrote:

> > >Well, there's a difference between "not optimized" and "not

Errr.... that was a rhetorical question... my point was that the rules should
not be adjusted to favor poor designs, rather to allow those designs to be
improved upon.

3B^2

> From: KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de (K.H.Ranitzsch)

> > There's nothing stopping those who use "vanilla out-of-the-book"

Relatively inexperienced players will also probably be sticking to basic FB
designs, and anyone playing them should do the same, just as a matter of

honor. Anyone with enough gaming experience to design their own ships should
also be experienced enough to figure out House Rules to cover FB
inadequacies IF they choose to play in an all-canon setting.

3B^2

> On Fri, May 03, 2002 at 03:32:13PM -0700, Brian Bilderback wrote:

> Errr.... that was a rhetorical question... my point was that the rules

The distinction is that in the real world we have an absolute arbiter of
what was a relatively good design. In the FBs, the _only_ thing to give
relative values to designs is the rule system.

Right now fighters are (IMHO anyway) over-powerful _in relation to their
points cost_, particular in large numbers (because the Nth fighter
squadron gives you more extra hitting power than the (N-1)th did). I
should be entirely happy to see a rule change which made fighter power
approximately linear with point value, and I cannot see any reason to argue
against such a thing. (We can argue over what that point value
should be, if you like... :-)

> From: Roger Burton West <roger@firedrake.org>

> The distinction is that in the real world we have an absolute arbiter

Agreed, but my point remains, that the advantage fighters has seems to be
greater vs FB stock ships than Vs. custom designs. While I agree with all else
you say, I still don't think the rules should be changed just to favor those
designs.

> Right now fighters are (IMHO anyway) over-powerful _in relation to

Perhaps not by changing how fighters work, but by giving newer, better
defenses against them - thus actually simulating an arms tech race. :-)

3B^2

> On Friday, May 3, 2002, at 02:18 PM, Brian Bilderback wrote:

> Well, there's a difference between "not optimized" and "not usable".

> Brit ships in WW2 weren't optimized for combat but they still were

From being involved with playtesting the question may be may not be whether to
modify the rules to suit FB ships or not, but rather is the
fighter/missile/PD system working well.  Even customized ships can have
real problems with the rock/paper/scissors that this group of systems
sometimes end up being. Part of the issue of fighters as I see it is the
secondary move allowing you to sort of pick the target to pig pile on. Unless
everyone goes with Uberships, most ships will be vulnerable to the huge
concentrated attack by fighters.

> >[free to change rules to suit yourself] is also true of a game set

> to see.

Adjusting the rules doesn't mean that is being done strictly for any
particular group of ships. The systems mentioned above and their interaction
with each other might be part of the problem.

I'd rather balance the rules around the FB ships for one main reason -
to provide an "out of the box" solution for players. If a player not only has
to master the rules but a ship design system as well to have a chance in a
game I find this a bad thing. Also, I've played various games in the past and
I strongly dislike systems where the battle may be

over before the miniatures are moved on the second turn because one side

is much better in optimization. Although I find it enjoyable to construct
custom ships I don't want to invest the time finding
combinations and loopholes for casual gaming - I'd rather put a bit of
that time into playtesting instead.  Of course - YMMV.  :D

Before I say anything else, I wish to state that Brian Bilderback has not
said a single thing in this sub-thread that I don't agree with
completely. To wit:

1. If you use FB ships only against other FB ships, the rules are fine.

2. If you use custom ships against custom ships, the rules are still fine.
There's nothing (including fighters) that you can use too much of without
taking serious risks, and a balanced overall doctrine is generally what will
work over the long haul. (See my other post on "Fighters vs. non fighters
doctrines.) Yes, scatterguns are much better at stopping fighters than PDS...
so what? If you allow custom designs to a degree that soap bubble carriers are
coming into play, give their enemies scatterguns and see how many people still
want to use soap bubble carriers. If you are going to delve into custom
designs and not allow people to use the tools that
discourage such min-maxing with fighters, you're doing something wrong.

3. Fixing the system so that FB ships somehow become optimized is a
UNILATERALLY bad idea.  FT is _not_ a game that claims to canonize any
ship designs as what you MUST use, by its own declaration. Shifting the rules
to make the FB ships better detracts from that at the expense of what is, at
its core, a very beautiful and solid game design. (Loose translation into
flame-ese:  the tools for dealing with fighters exist within the system
as-is.  Find them.  Use them.  Don't blame and seek to change the system
just because you either can't or won't do so.)

E

[quoted original message omitted]

> On Friday, May 3, 2002, at 08:27 PM, Eric Foley wrote:

> Um... at risk of flaming... too bad. That's part of the point of the

I'm at a loss to see where you feel the need to be just a little condescending
here. There isn't a need for everyone to agree, I was however voicing a
opinion, one which I believe never insulted. I never

claimed that I didn't want to bother with the design system, but it is only
part of the system.

> I, on the other hand, have been playing with the custom design system

> who

This is great that you enjoy playing outside the Tuffleyverse. There's

no claim that the rules require you to use it. I've had fun playing other
story lines as well. However, since it appears this discussion is

getting away from balancing a system and more into what is the "correct"

way to play the game I suggest that analyzing what the root of the problem is
first might be beneficial. I find that fighters can be overwhelming under any
design approach that doesn't forbid or greatly increase their cost. Their
usefulness, as one poster mentioned, is
greatly increased with the addition of more - thus where maybe 4
squadrons is next to worthless, 12 squadron might be worth more than 3 times
those original four in the same situation. I believe under most preferred
styles of play that use the design system as printed in the rule books
fighters can become unbalanced when one side has a vastly different number of
them. In many of these situations it comes down to out guessing in the design
phase. Any design system that places too much importance on design alone,
while in some cases it may be "realistic" depending upon the background
portrayed, can lead to an larger numbers of games that are unenjoyable for one
or more participants. No design system can totally balance every aspect
without

killing off the width of it's options IMHO, but coming as close as is
reasonably possible is a worthy goal.

I admit that I've tended to skim and lightly read some of the response, but I
fail to see when discussing a base point to start discussing balance issues
where that has in anyway said "You must abandon the way you enjoy playing".

Balancing the ships to only one aspect, be it optimized ships or FB type

ships, is not a good way to go. It appears the main comment I mentioned

above was overlooked. For whatever reason (maybe I didn't state it clearly,
cloaking it in my preference for FB ships as a base approach) the whole system
needs to be addressed. What balances a system in one aspect of design approach
may not be balanced in other perspectives.
Fighters/PDS is one such issue.  Just because it's balanced for FB ships

or custom designs (if it is for either) doesn't make the combat/design
system balanced for the other.

As you mentioned above a "generic" system should work for any type of play; be
it optimized designs, FB designs, Star Trek adaptations, B5, etc. Another
factor to consider is the rule system has a long past of using a particular
base for starting its testing and discussions, branching out to test things in
other gaming approaches. Radically changing that balancing point means
potentially restarting and redoing a

vast amount of playtesting and work that's already been done. Some has to be
done anyway with any changes, but with the amount of time that would be needed
to redo so much more could greatly delay newer material's releases. Just a
comment here though.

Eric said:
> I, on the other hand, have been playing with the custom design

Ah, Eric, no one said you had to come back. It's perfectly legitimate to
tamper with anything and everything. Write your own house rules, and change
them every week if you like..But since you're going to ignore some of the
rules and make up new rules of your own no matter what's printed, I'm a bit
puzzled why you

I'm afraid I'm pretty much in the "Fighters as written Are Too Powerful" camp.

For starters, they cost (SWAG here) about half what they're worth, for the
stock rules. Maybe not half, but they're way underpriced right now.

Either double the price, or redo the fighter weapon systems as PDS -
kill 1 fighter on a 4,5; 2 on 6; do one point of damage to a ship on a 6. Let
interceptors kill 1 fighter w/ 4; 2 on 5,6; no damage possible to ships.
Leave the torp fighters as is - they're balanced. This has the advantage
of making the fighter & anti-fighter weapons use the same mechanic.
(KISS principle)

Having a half-range B1 that can't be killed beyond 6" away, and can't be
killed unless it's actually attacking you, sucks royally.

I'm talking FB-stock ships/fleets here, not custom oddness. I'll grant
that you can balance fighters with custom ship designs with all the costs as
they are, but with the FB ships as they are fighters are too cheap.

Lots of personal preference here, of course. Using historical naval examples,
I'm much more likely to play 1915 High Seas Fleet vs Germans, or Hunt the
Bismark than Midway. Having your real ships just lie there and be
swarmed by fighters has always struck me - historically and in FT - as
an incredibly boring game. There are, basically, no tactics beyond the
ship-design stage if you play FT this way. Real ships can't outrun
fighters and get creamed by massive swarms when caught. Why bother putting the
figures on the table in the first place?

My $0.02,

> Lots of personal preference here, of course. Using historical naval

BTW someone has done FT Tsushima (or FT Jutland)--what URL?  I need to

The one concensus (well, sort of) that we seem to have achieved concerning
this issue is that fighters are far more useful in large groups than they are
in small ones. Also, wouldn't it be easier to manipulate the point system,
which is an artificial construct anyways, rather than change the rules per
say? Therefore, I'd suggest as an optional rule that fighters be priced
exponentially rather than linerly. In other words, under the current system,
each fighter group costs X, so having four fighter groups costs 4*X and having
20 costs 20*X. What I am proposing is that the first fighter
group cost K, the second cost K+1, the third K+2 and so on.  This would
mean that, asuming K was set lower than X, having small numbers of fighters
would cost less than the current system, but having large numbers would cost
more. The actual number added to K would have to be determined, the one and
two I used were just for explanitory purposes. Finally, I to stress that this
is proposed as an optional correction, if it doesn't fit your backgrond, don't
use it.

> "Z. Lakel" wrote:

That's funny that you proposed this idea now. I was thinking about this very
thing in the shower this morning.

Zachariah:
> are in small ones. Also, wouldn't it be easier to manipulate the

Yes, except: a. the problem is not the number of fighters per ship, it's the
number of fighters per fleet. Which means you can't precalculate "how much
does this ship cost", you'd need to refigure it every game. b. should
interceptors be left out of this mix?

> On Sat, 4 May 2002, Laserlight wrote:

> Zachariah:

What about tweaking it so that interceptors are the default fighter, and
the multi-role ones that are standard now cost more?

My books are all being borrowed right now, but leave interceptors at the
base cost (18/squadron or 3/fighter, I think?) and bump the multi-role
cost up a bit - two extra points per fighter, or 12/squadron. Something
like this, anyway. In effect, make the multi-role a 'specialized'
fighter type, like torpedo & heavy fighters are now.

In message <Pine.GSO.3.95.iB1.0.1020504001023.4807B-100000@vtn1>
> Brian Burger <yh728@victoria.tc.ca> wrote:

> I'm afraid I'm pretty much in the "Fighters as written Are Too
Let
> interceptors kill 1 fighter w/ 4; 2 on 5,6; no damage possible to
(KISS
> principle)
I've had similar thoughts, but motivated more by feelings of style and
PSB than game balance - at first glance, a standard fighter does the
same damage as a class-1 beam battery
_that_is_at_least_as_big_as_the_fighter_, abet with half the range -
although the disparity becomes less when the fact that the fighter can
only attack a limited number of times without re-arming is taken into
consideration.

Although I'd still like something similar to what you proposed...my version
wasn't quite as drastic:

multirole fighter - as written vs. fighters, does 1 DP on a 5+ vs. ships
(6s re-rolled), level-1 screen reduces this to 1 DP on a 6, and level-2
screens negate the re-roll.

Interceptors & torpedo fighters are unchanged

Attack fighters are as written vs. fighters, but do 1 standard beam die vs.
ships.

Some time ago I did suggest a fairly radical simplification to Full Thrust
fighters, one that, to a certain extent, harked back to the original FT 2
rules

#################################################
Simplified Fighter Rules

Fighters move _after_ ships (remove phase 3 from the FB 2 turn sequence,
fighters move during Phase 6)

Fighters do not need to check morale

Fighters can make _one_ and only _one_ effective attack (they
effectively have one CEF)

Long-Range and Fast fighters become synonymous.

Fighters do not make secondary moves.

Fighters that are attacked after making their attack are treated as if they
had exhausted their CEF
#################################################

Another idea is again to have fighters move _after_ ships, but moving
like ships, but without written orders - I'm sure someone out there has
tried this - how did it work?

In message <F125mh2v8nBmiZDuhn10000b3a6@hotmail.com>
> "Brian Bilderback" <bbilderback@hotmail.com> wrote:

> >From: Roger Burton West <roger@firedrake.org>

> defenses against them - thus actually simulating an arms tech race.
:-)
> 3B^2
Heres a (quite nasty) idea - I've recently been re-reading the old
Earthforce Sourcebook...

Replace PDS with EFSB Anti-Fighter Batteries (same symbol :-)

For those without the EFSB, an anti-fighter battery is like a PDS, but
it can attack _any_ fighters in range (6 mu), and each kills 1D6-2
fighters!

Mimbari Beam Projectors in anti-fighter mode are worse - they are like
a re-usable Scattergun that doesn't do collateral damage!

On a related not, heres an idea for the ADFC, that (hopefully) fits its rather
limited usage in FB designs.

> From Kevin Wlaker:

Thjis I agree with

> From Eric Foley:

> it's SUPPOSED to be generic and able to support custom designs without

This I also agree with.

> If you don't want to bother with the design system.... go ahead and

And if the system gets revised to make the FB1 and custom designs more
compatible, that can only be a good thing too. If it ruins one set of custom
designs, its just a challenge to make a new set - or - ignore the rule
change and play the "old" way.

> I've left the Tuffleyverse behind

Then any changes made in this area have no bearing on your games. You still
tend to use FT systems that have no clearly defined rules in the FB design
system anyway (e.g. cloaks), so you are already used to taking the rules you
want and leaving the rest, as FT is designed to do. Gamers like you are among
the most able to roll with changes to the base system.

> -----Original Message-----

I'd have to agree. In non-campaign games we used to have a
problem with people bringing loads of carriers to the table vs.
those who chose a more balanced fleet. 'Soap-bubble' carriers
were also a problem when we allowed custom designs later on.

We fixed the problem by doubling the cost of fighters, and it pretty much
sorts itself out in campaign games as one of the players that favoured
carriers found out to his cost:) Design doctrines amongst those in the
campaign game tended to more balanced fleets with the odd specialist ship, and
equally more
mid-range ships as opposed to big ships due to the need to
defend over wide areas.
> Either double the price, or redo the fighter weapon

We experimented with allowing ADFC controlled defences engage any enemy
fighter group whether they were attacking friendlies or not, and also allowing
ADFC controlled defences to engage at 9 MU (not both rule changes
simultaneously though). This generally led to wholesale slaughter of the
fighters against any fleet fielding ADFC systems until players got used to
holding their fighters off at considerable range until they were ready to
commit in a large group.

It also wouldn't solve the FB1 ships issue with no ADFC NAC vessels and mostly
ADFC systems only apearing as known variants.
> Having a half-range B1 that can't be killed beyond 6"

I think the biggest stinker here is that you can't attack them until they
choose to attack you. I'd favour any change that allows your ADFC to start
pumping the flak out as soon as fighters are in reasonably close range as in
my opinion that's more 'realistic' maybe with reduced hits if the group isn't
actually making an attack run (which is something I've proposed
as a house rule for our gamers - any fighter group within 6 MU
can be attacked by ADFC with 1 fighter killed on 5 or 6 [6 only for heavies]).
> I'm talking FB-stock ships/fleets here, not custom

Rgds,

> Alfie Finch wrote:

> We experimented with allowing ADFC controlled defences engage

The NAC Furious class escort cruiser seems to have an ADFC.

> --- Brian Burger <yh728@victoria.tc.ca> wrote:

Depends on how many you show up with.

I dropped the fighter squadrons from my SDNs because
they are pretty pointless in the 1-2 squadron strength
shown.  Now, if you show up with 20-30 squadrons, then
it'll be overwhelming.

Once.

You'll take some serious casualties, in the order of
50-60% if your opponent has even a reasonable number
of PDS/ADFC.

In a campaign (ie, in the "Real World") you'll have to spend thousands of
points on replacement fighters and
transports to move them to their front-line carriers
in order to refit that carrier battle group for any purpose whatsoever. Now,
against a more balanced opponent, I'll wear you down, use my cruiser squadrons
to take out logistics nodes and keep my superdreadnoughts as a force in being
in order to force you to keep all your swarms of fighters
together--while I clean up the secondary targets with
my destroyer groups. Plus I'm using my stealth destroyers to go after your
carriers before they get a chance to deploy fighters.

The perception of fighter strength is based off of
one-off combats between ships where both sides fight
to the death with all their ships. No context, no morale, no nothing.

> -----Original Message-----
I meant FSE...NAC has Minerva/A and Tacoma/A variants with ADFC

> -----Original Message-----
Exactly...in a campaign game fighters end up being more costly in terms of
logistics and an easily dealt with annoyance if
fielded in groups of 2-3. They may project power and be
overwhelming for one battle but when you have to split your
force to defend multiple fronts you soon find carrier-based
forces get whittled down or circumvented easily.

One of our regular carrier mini-maxers in one-off battles got
creamed in our campaign game for just that reason:)

Rgds,

> Alfie Finch wrote:

> -----Original Message-----

Oh, ok. Actually, does anyone find it slightly wierd that the most missile
happy faction in FB1 has no ADFC designs listed at all?

> -----Original Message-----
In the Tuffley-verse design doctrine (FB1) it does say that they
have a lower priority on defence and that their larger ships are designed to
take a lot of punishment, as well as the general focus on mobility with
generally higher thrust factors.

Maybe they think they can out-manoeuvre or absorb anything
that's thrown at them?:))

Rgds,

G'day,

> Maybe they think they can out-manoeuvre or absorb anything

That's how I've found they play best. With such high thrust I've never found
FSE ADFC to be anything more than a waste of space when I've tried used them
(same doesn't follow for other fleets though with different design style).

Cheers

> On 5-May-02 at 20:09, Alfie Finch (alfie.finch@btinternet.com) wrote:

> One of our regular carrier mini-maxers in one-off battles got

It really sucks to bring in your carrier/SM based fleet, drive
your opponent off taking the system, and have to run away the next turn
because you miscalculated supply lines.

One thing, while redoing/fixing fighters don't break SMs in
the process.

> Kevin Walker wrote:

> From being involved with playtesting the question may be may not be

Now that is a line of reasoning I can accept. Up until now, all I'd heard was,
"See, the FB designs don't work against a lot of fighters, so fighters must be
unbalanced." If the evidence shows they are such against ships in general,
that's a different matter.

> I'd rather balance the rules around the FB ships for one main reason -

If the rules are balanced in general and the FB designs are well-thought

out, this should not be a problem.

> If a player not

Agreed, but if you're playing a rookie who is usinf stock designs, you
should be doing so as well to give them a fighting chance - any
optimized design in an experienced player's hands will give a rookie fits if
they're
using stock designs - in almost any gaming system (Except the Evil One,
where you can't dersign your own, I'm told).

Also, I've played various
> games in the past and I strongly dislike systems where the battle may

Sadly, that's pretty unavoidable in most systems, regardless of how
well-designed it is.

Although I find it enjoyable to
> construct custom ships I don't want to invest the time finding

See, I'd rather spend my time creating settings, backgrounds, campaigns, and
designing ships that fit such. I actually get more enjoyment out of creating
the background for a game than I do playing the game out. I mentioned I was
odd, didn't I?

3B^2

> Brian Burger wrote:

> I'm talking FB-stock ships/fleets here, not custom oddness. I'll grant

And see, there's the catch. If ships can be designed that can defend against
fighters, then the problem isn't with the fighters, it's with the FB designs.
If that's the case, then the rules should be left well enough alone. If, on
the other hand, there's no way to defend against fighters

within a well-designed and well-balanced fleet, then by all means, the
fighters need to be readjusted. I can't claim to know enough to say which is
the case, and I've heard compelling arguements for both, but my concern is
that we don't become too quick to correct the fighters when they may not be
the root problem. Once fighter rules are changed to give FB1 designs a
fighting chance, and someone comes up with another way of optimizing designs,
and it turns out FB1 designs can't hack THAT strategy either, will we again
readjust the rules to make them better against THAT strategy too? That really
sounds like making the game fit the designs instead of vice versa, and that
sounds bad for the game.

> Lots of personal preference here, of course. Using historical naval

Boring, but not historically unprecedented -- eg Prince of Wales.

> There are, basically, no tactics beyond the

Design should be part of tactics and strategy. A game design that is tweaked
to make bad designs work well isn't a good gaming system, it's GW. Once the
designs make room for fighter defense, then it becomes interesting
on-board again (Until someone comes up with another design/combo for
which you have to readjust. Welcome to an arms race).

Real ships can't outrun
> fighters and get creamed by massive swarms when caught. Why bother

Which is why real ships employ all sorts of intermeshing defenses, and why
well-designed FLEETS are as important as well-designed SHIPS.

3B^2

> On Mon, May 06, 2002 at 08:08:38AM -0700, Brian Bilderback wrote:

Not necessarily.

If the current rules said "each PDS destroys d6 fighter groups every turn, no
range limit", then it would be possible to design ships that fared better
against fighters than the FB1 designs. Does it follow that the designs ought
to be changed, rather than the rules? How about "each PDS destroys every
fighter on the board"?

There is nothing holy about the current rule system. The only way any design
can be evaluated as "good" or "bad" is within the context of rules. You and
Eric are both saying "FB1 designs are bad, other designs are better" as if the
current rules were the way things "really worked". They aren't.

Don't forget the last page of FB1: if you don't like whatever changes get
made, don't use them! This isn't Games Workshop with the latest "official"
rules being the only thing anyone ever plays.

> Brian Burger wrote:

> What about tweaking it so that interceptors are the default fighter,
fighter
> type, like torpedo & heavy fighters are now.

This actually makes sense. IF the problem iswith fighters in genral and not
just vs FB1 designs, it's a logical way of addressing it.

I must say I do see your point about fighter range vs. PDS range. Perhaps
reducing the range at which fighters can attack, or increasing PDS kill
ratios, would make sense as well.

3B^2

Let's rephrase the question as: "Some people want more of a early 1900's feel
instead of a WW2 or modern feel to fleet actions. What Optional rules would
you suggest to tone down fighters in those settings" etc

> At 8:08 AM -0700 5/6/02, Brian Bilderback wrote:

But as the British said, Battleships lying at rest are easy targets for
aircraft, not so if they are maneuvering and under way. Well, if they don't
have 30 AA guns between the two of them and little in the way of coordination
of said AA defenses, then they are still sauce for the Goose of Air Attacks.

So really the question is, do you build or change ships so they have a greater
AA fit? You betcha. Did the US change the amount of AA defenses on their
battleships from the start of WWII compared to the end? Well, the Iowa's had
10 5"38's that were excellent at AA work with their large proximity fused
fragmentation rounds, 19 40mm quad guns and 52 20mm AA guns. Three layers
there folks.

Compare that with the 10 5"/38s, 4 quad 1.1" AA guns and 18 .50 Cal
MGs that the North Carolina's started out with. They had a massive
increase in anti-aircraft armament.

[note, I'm agreeing with you in this Brian]
> Design should be part of tactics and strategy. A game design that

Its called coordination of your designs, fitments, and what gets deployed
against a given target. Not all battles have everything optimal.

All those folks who are bitching about fighters or the rock scissors paper
argument need to read about the Battle of Savo Island.

> Real ships can't outrun

Thank you.

> At 8:34 AM -0700 5/6/02, Brian Bilderback wrote:

So then it would require even more fighters for carriers to be useful.

The current issue is that fighters have to pummel a ship to bits before it is
dead. In the ocean you let X amount of water into the hull and it sinks. That
was why torpedo's were so awful for any kind of ship when launched from
Aircraft.

> At 11:51 AM -0400 5/6/02, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:

Then you reduce the speed of fighters to a lower value and reduce
their endurance as well as anti-ship ability. Torpedo's should stay
the same. PDS effectiveness would get a corresponding down rate as well
though.

At the same time, I personally think that core systems ought to be used and
that torpedo's have penetrating damage similar to the Kra'vak weapons.

> Roger Burton West wrote:

> Not necessarily.

That's just being silly, and really doesn't make a point. For the sake of the
arguement, I'll go ahead and imagine, "What if?" What if you made PDS
ultra-powerful to the point that the minute a fighter entered the board,

it's life was endangered and it had no chance of surviving long enough to do
any significant damage? Then yes, the FB1 designs would still be bad, because
they waste space on fighters at all. Fighters themselves would not be possible
to make effective unless you ran vs. an opponent with NO PDS

whatsoever, which is another design mistake.

Howevever, I believe your point was that in that given case, the RULES would
be broken, not the designs, because their would be no way to make fighters
useful at all. And I would agree that in that case, it WOULD be the rules that
needed fixing. But that's not the issue here. If, as Mr.Foley has
argued, it IS possible to design ships/fleets that defend sufficiently
against fighters, and still require good ship-to-ship tactics, then
fighters
AREN'T the problem -- there's a difference between a problem that can be

fixed by designs alone and one that can't. If, on the other hand, as Mr.Burger
argues, fighters are so powerful as to become the only concern in

designs, then yes, I would concede that they are too powerful, and do need
adjusting. The best way to do that, well, there are plenty of suggestions
floating around.

> There is nothing holy about the current rule system. The only way any

They aren't what? The way things really work in space combat? Probably

not, but how would we know? Or do you mean by "Really Worked" that the rules
don't work even within the confines of the game? If that's the case, then my
question would be, "why don't they work?" Is it because the rules don't allow
for any countermeasure that can effectively deal with the threat? Eric among
others has argued that there are. You yourself say,

"The only way any design can be evaluated as "good" or "bad" is within the
context of [the] rules." That's actually what I've been arguing all along. If
the rules work, and the designs don't.....

> Don't forget the last page of FB1: if you don't like whatever changes

I keep hearing this used as an argument against my concerns about changing
fighter rules. And I keep thinking, "this goes both ways. If you don't

like the way fighters work in the rules now, don't use them that way!" employ
whatever suggestion has been made so far about how to limit fighters, but
employ them as a House Rule.

This isn't Games Workshop with the latest
> "official" rules being the only thing anyone ever plays.

This is true, but the more the rules are changed to suit the designs of a
certain setting, the less generic and the more GW-like they become.  I'm

sure if you wanted you could take the GW game mechanics, and ignore enough
rules/add enough house rules to make it a more useful system for your
own purposes. This wouldn't make the GW rules themselves any more "generic."
What I'm hearing is "The FB1 designs don'tr work against fighters. Therefore
fighters are too powerful." The few arguments I've heard for changing fighters
that I actually respect are the ones, like the other

> From: "laserlight@quixnet.net" <laserlight@quixnet.net>

> Let's rephrase the question as:

Now that's a line of thinking I can appreciate a lot more.

3B^2

On Fri, 03 May 2002 10:24:21 -0700, "Brian Bilderback"
> <bbilderback@hotmail.com> wrote:

> This would be, IMO, a bad thing, since the designs are flawed according

They aren't flawed. The point system is flawed. Twenty fighter squadrons are
far more effective combat wise than 20 times the cost of 1 squadron would
suggest. Twenty beams, on the other hand, are about as effective as the cost
of 1 beam multiplied by 20.

The Fleet Book designs don't take this into account.

Again, the designs aren't flawed, the point system is. Almost everything
scales up linearly in the game except for fighters (and, to a lesser extent,
missiles), which scale up in a non-linear fashion.

> Anything that detracts from that generic quality of the games detracts

You will still be able to fight carrier versus carrier games "as is". The
difference is that if someone in your group wants to walk in with a fleet of
battleships and battlecruisers, he'll stand a chance. Right now, he doesn't.

> Again, this is a choice people make, and the better solution is to

Unfortunately you can't always do this (a good example is "design your own"
tournaments). Right now, people are saying, "FT is broken. If you don't bring
fighters to the game, you're toast."

> 4) You are always free to ignore the rules and do your own thing

How about "design your own" tournaments? If you don't use fighters in a heavy
way, you won't win. Why is that? Because the point system is broken. It has a
flaw in it where by fighters become more and more efficient for the points the
more of them you buy.

> One option that someone mentioned is to allow PDS and ADFC to defend

This is something that people are looking at. It would effectively make
fighters less effective for the price. It could bring fighters back down to
where their cost is linear compared to their numbers.

> Allan Goodall wrote:

> They aren't flawed. The point system is flawed. Twenty fighter

> cost

OK, this I can accept as a reason to overhaul the system. I merely want to see
it done because it's broken, not because one set of designs make it look
broken. But the arguement that was being used was, "FB1 designs don't work, so
it must be the system." Your arguement is much more compelling.

> You will still be able to fight carrier versus carrier games "as is".
The
> difference is that if someone in your group wants to walk in with a

I'm not interested in carrier vs carrier or carrier vs battleship battles
only.  I'm interested in well-mixed fleets being able to take on all
comers. If the game is skewed so that a fleet with both carriers AND ships of
the
line STILL gets trounced by an all-carrier fleet, THEN I'd be interested
in how to fix it. Unbalanced design fleets vs unbalanced in the other
direction is a poor standard for judging.

> Unfortunately you can't always do this (a good example is "design your

> bring

And if you do bring fighters, AND other ships, and your opponent brings
fighters and carriers only, are you still toast? I'm just asking, I don't know
the answer.

> How about "design your own" tournaments? If you don't use fighters in a

> heavy

If that's really the case, then the points system is flawed, not fighter

mechanics in general. I'm just wondering if ANY design massed in such a

matter wouldn't require you employ defenses specifically to react to that
threat....

> This is something that people are looking at. It would effectively make

Makes sense, I suppose, if you do want to limit fighters. I also wonder if you
could offer different levels of PDS (Like DS does), for the same mass but
higher costs.

3B^2

[quoted original message omitted]

[quoted original message omitted]

On Mon, 6 May 2002 20:02:55 -0700, "Eric Foley" <stiltman@teleport.com>
wrote:

> Yes, but there's a problem with this argument: it goes both ways, and

Okay, here's the math.

Komarov: 751 NPV. 41 fighter squadrons: 738 NPV

Let's create a single ship based on a Komarov hull (strong, 220 mass). It has
88 hull boxes. It has room for 88 PDS. Give it drive 2 and an FTL drive, and
_nothing else_ and it costs 748 points, still 10 points more than 41
fighter squadrons. 88 PDS would do 70.4 points of damage, on average. This
reduces the fighters to about 176 out of the original 240. They would then do
140 points of damage, destroying, utterly, the ship.

So, it's quite clear that a single ship of equal point value armed with
nothing but anti fighter weapons is no match whatsoever for an equal point
value of fighters.

Allan said:
> Komarov: 751 NPV.

That's only paying for the squadrons, not for the carrier. If I've scratched
the back of the envelope correctly, you get 11 squadrons in a
mass 142 ship (15 hull, MD2, FTL, nothing else) for 525 + 198 = 723NPV

On Tue, 7 May 2002 12:46:08 -0400, "laserlight@quixnet.net"
> <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:

> That's only paying for the squadrons, not for the carrier. If I've

That's true. It's possible to create a ship that's all PDS. It would take out
the fighters. But then it's very susceptible to pretty much everything else.
If you add a cruiser escort to the carrier, the cruiser will plink away at the
PDS ship until it's safe to send in the fighters. Boring game, but the carrier
will win every time. If the PDS platform adds a cruiser to help defend itself,
the fighters take it out.

Now, here's a problem. If you change PDS so that it can take attack all
fighter squadrons against it, are you swinging the game too far the other way?
20 PDS, for instance, costs 60 points and 20 mass. If 20 fighter squadrons
attack, that's 20 times 20 attacks by the PDS. Bye bye fighters. Wouldn't
custom designed ships just pack on a whole bunch of PDS this way and defeat
fighters totally, just as lots of fighters defeat any ship totally?

I'm beginning to think this problem can't be solved. Changing the PDS rules
might make the fleet book ships viable against custom designs with lots of
fighters, but would it also kill fighters totally in custom designed battles?
This would move things from, "Lots of fighters are the only way to go in
custom games," to "Don't waste any money buying a fighter in a custom game".

The proper solution may be a campaign system...

> Now, here's a problem. If you change PDS so that it can take attack all
Wouldn't custom designed ships just pack on a whole bunch of PDS this way and
defeat fighters totally, just as lots of fighters defeat any ship totally?

a) you can reduce the efficacy of PDS vs any single fighter (which will help
make small quantities of fighters *more* useful, which they presently aren't)
b) Assuming you fiddle with ADFC some, *every* ship will need to have masses
of PDS to be invulnerable. If you put 20 mass of PDS on a DD or CL, you're not
going to have room for much else. c) And even for big ships, 20 PDS is moving
20 mass from offense to defense. Maybe you can get away with 15. Or 12. If we
only put 8 on, we'll take some hits but it won't kill us and we'll get a
couple extra B3's.... you'll have to make some choices.

> At 10:08 AM -0500 5/7/02, Allan Goodall wrote:
wrote:
> Yes, but there's a problem with this argument: it goes both ways, and

umm 41 squadrons is 1107 points just for the bays.

Given a thrust of 1 and a fragile hull and FTL, you need 492 mass of ship to
support that many bays costing 1845 points.

I'd hope that at a bare minimum 2583 points of weapons aimed at a single ship
would destroy it handily.

Assuming more realistic carriers, say a Modified American pattern Ark Royal
(not as armored, faster and carrying more fighters); 200 mass,
690 points, weak hull main drive 5/FTL, with 9 PDS, and 9 fighter
groups. Then you'd need 4 of these guys to get 36 fighter groups. That costs
2760 less the fighters. 36 standard fighter groups costs 648.

Now, if you're someone like me who tries to run fighter groups that actually
match something like the multi role functions of a carrier. Then you've got
more points sunk into fighters that aren't going to do a thing against ships
(Interceptors) and some points sunk into fighters that actually do more
against ships but die faster than 1.5 times their number (Attack and Torpedo
bombers).

All this rule will do is push folks like me away from using carriers at all
since it will now be pointless to have an Ark Royal on the table with 1
Interceptor, 2 Standard, 2 Attack and 1 Torpedo type fighter on the deck.

This kind of Ark Royal has parity with other carriers on other task forces if
they don't have all Interceptors. If they have all Heavy fighters it gets a
bit rough. The Best defense for fighters is your own fighters of similar
quantities or less if you have heavies or Interceptors (or both or combo
types).

By the same token, Ships fitted with all P-torps will make mincemeat
of ships with heavy shield complements. The problem is that ships take years
to build and folks get into phallus matching contests with
designs that appear after a day's worth of "Munchkining". With FT/MT
it was make the biggest ship in the class or make a Super massive SDN.

When I wanted to try the arsenal ship theory with a mixed component of MT
missiles, I asked and described the ship. I wanted to try it out. It wasn't
something that I threw at players every chance I wanted. When someone else in
our gaming group started carrying cheese to every game one of our Resident
Savasku players asked to try something. Have his fighters ready from the
start. So, with two Savasku Carrier's worth of fighters and his Mother ships
keeping their distance the 120 or so drones wandered over and proceeded to
destroy the 500 mass station with 1 thrust point and lots of class 4 beams.

Don't let the munchkins drive the game. Play your designs realistic. Play your
games with theory and doctrine behind them and things will make more sense.
There will be less need to 'fix' the game.

On  7-May-02 at 14:49, laserlight@quixnet.net (laserlight@quixnet.net)
wrote:
> >Now, here's a problem. If you change PDS so that it can take attack

I was thinking 10 PDSs, this should on average kill 8 fighters, but since
there are only 6 to a squadron it should remove most of the fighters.

4,5, or  6 kills 1 fighter, no re-rolls?

> At 3:32 PM -0400 5/7/02, Roger Books wrote:
wrote:
> >Now, here's a problem. If you change PDS so that it can take attack

Should be 4,5 kills 1, 6 kills 2 and has a re-roll.

> At 2:48 PM -0400 5/7/02, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:

When did this become a thing of making a ship invulnerable to a weapon system?
"Gosh, can I have level 10 screens so my ship ignores beams all together?"

Its about balance. When the exception jumps on the end of the spectrum and
screws the balance, you're going to move the balance of the rule and not the
exception?

What it really sounds like is that the Ship construction rules for Carriers
needs to be revised.

No instant launches of all fighters. Carriers must have at least average hulls
for the cats to function with a corresponding decrease of strength given a
higher Delta V from the engines. Break out separate launching and recovery
facilities for carriers from the 1.5 mass of the fighter bay and points cost.

Fiddle with this more and your problem of soap bubble carriers washes away.

> From: Ryan M Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com>

> What it really sounds like is that the Ship construction rules for

Hmmmmm....

Not sure I agree with this. Not sure I disagree, either. However, it is ironic
that this brings us back to my original question about connecting

multiple fighter bays to 1 ops deck (launch/recovery system).

3B^2

On Tue, 7 May 2002 14:48:39 -0400, "laserlight@quixnet.net"
> <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:

> a) you can reduce the efficacy of PDS vs any single fighter (which

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

> b) Assuming you fiddle with ADFC some, *every* ship will need to have

It takes 8 PDS, using the proposed system of every PDS firing at every fighter
squadron, to -- on average -- take out 20 squadrons of fighters. 8 PDS
rolling an average of.8 at 20 squadrons = 128 fighters destroyed.

Hmm... In fact, 8 PDS make a ship totally invulnerable to _any_ number
of fighters..8 average roll x 8 PDS attacking a squadron = 6.4 per squadron.
That's assuming the 0,0,0,1,1,2reroll dice distribution for PDS is maintained.
If it's changed, the number goes up.

> c) And even for big ships, 20 PDS is moving 20 mass from offense to

Actually, you can get away with 8 and make a ship invulnerable to fighters. 7
almost makes it invulernable (average of 5.7 kills per squadron).

> At 1:19 PM -0700 5/7/02, Brian Bilderback wrote:

The problem isn't fighters. The problem is fighters in such massive numbers
that ships get eaten like biblical locusts settling on fields. If you've got
that many fighters flying around just killing stuff, why aren't you killing
those carriers? Where are those carriers? So what we do is make it so Soap
Bubble carriers are hard if not impossible to make.

Fighters get launched out of a Cat with a 24" direct move in from the carrier.
That Catapult needs to really throw that group out there. Its not releasing
them like in B5, it's throwing them out there. That means the fighters get
shot out in a ballistic path from the carrier. So that massive structure needs
to be aligned with the ship and has to be really solid. I take it Kra'Vak
ships are generally pretty solid what with their large rail guns. We postulate
that the cats need a good solid ship so unless the ship is already a fast
mover (and can impart energy then turn) then you need a solid ship. Average
Hull. Lighter hulls are allowed for smaller ships as they have less bending.

Up the the 1.5 masses to 2 masses and break it out.

.5 mass for recovery and.5 for launch and.5 for service and.5 for
spares/consumables/armaments/aircrew/flight crew stowage.

One can fiddle with the amounts you have for each available for launch,
storage and recovery. But one impacts the other. You'll get some carriers like
the Early US and Japanese carriers that had Cats on the second deck. Or you
can dispense with Cats and have the fighters launch from bays. They start out
at the same V as the ship and are optimized for zero speed recovery. The trick
is that they have to use an endurance factor to launch and an endurance factor
to recover if they don't just hang with the ship in escort mode. (Its still
not true vector, but it helps.)

Or I could build an escort carrier that has fighters that launch and just
escort the ship. They spend lots of time hovering around the ship, they don't
spend endurance unless they leave or fight. If they come into hover, they
spend an endurance.

Fighters launched by a Cat do get a free move no endurance cost. Normal
fighter movement is no endurance cost. Combat still is 1 endurance factor.

I could have a Fleet Carrier with Cats enough to launch 3 fighter groups,
recover 2 per turn and space enough for 8 fighter groups, my turn around time
would be limited by the smaller number of rearmament bays. It really all
depends.

All of this would make the carrier players think about the fighter functions
more and build the carriers as more than just a Launching platform that
carries them around.

Think about the structure and play with the system....

How viable an option would it be to have fighters, more to reflect taste than
depower them, burn a turn endueance for every gameturn inwhich they are not
escorting a ship and move? What would be the right # to set endurance at if
one wanted to make fighters as strong as current, stronger than current, and
weeker than current? Just a though.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I was suggesting that if each PDS could fire at each
squadron weaken the PDSs to 4,5,6 kills 1, no reroll.

[quoted original message omitted]

> At 7:38 PM -0400 5/7/02, <kaime@mindspring.com> wrote:

*Big wave to Aimee!*

> I've seen several battles with Soap Bubble Carriers that have their
Clearly
> this isn't fun for everyone, nor does it simulate anything from my

The randomized ship entry rules would fix that. I'd like the ability to hold a
third of my task force in reserve and have it enter a random side or chosen
side X turns from now. That would make those soap bubbles think twice about
hugging the table edge.

> Now I know scenerios and campaigns can make things like this Soap
Also,
> what some people think is 'pushing' the spirit or letter of the rules

Massive waves of anything can suck.

> -----Original Message-----

Allowing PDS to fire on all attacking groups will IMO 'break'
the game for standard designs. Mini-maxed designs fare better,
or unbalanced fleets of lots of carriers, but we were talking about FB1
designs originally (your open tournament, step up to the table, pick ships out
of the book to a certain points cost and slug it out battle).

> I'm beginning to think this problem can't be solved.

I was thinking about allowing PDS to fire on only a certain number of
attacking groups per turn, then I remembered; The change of turn order for FB2
takes into account knowing which
fire arc a fighter group/missile salvo is coming from, so how
about PDS nominate fire on all fighter groups/missile salvoes in
one arc (i.e. roll against each group/salvo in that arc) ?

This brings on a little tactical work for large fighter groups
to try to position attack runs from multiple fire-arcs, thus
spreading out the PDS fire, but equally may make them vulnerable
to ADFC equipped ships in a well thought-out formation.

Overwhelming fighter groups will still be powerful, but will either need to be
positioned a little more thoughtfully or spend CEF in the secondary move phase
to avoid massed PDS fire.

It might 'break' salvo missiles though as they tend to come in across 1 or 2
arcs at max range.
> The proper solution may be a campaign system...

I don't think fighters are necessarily 'broken' in FB-only
one-off battles with balanced fleets, and the logistics issue of
most campaign games would avoid massed carrier battles anyway.

Rgds,

Ryan said:
> The randomized ship entry rules would fix that. I'd like the ability

I come on the table with all fighters deployed, turn one. I FTL out, turn 2
during movement. Six hours later, I come back to a predetermined rally point.

Of course, if you have "burn a CEF for each turn fighters are deployed" then
this becomes a less viable tactic.

I think that it would be simpler to change fighters, rather than PDS. Fighters
still do too much damage when attacking, and killing them faster would still
have the survivors doing too much damage.

My favoured method of balancing fighters is, again, to give each fighter a
PDS rather than a half-B1. Takes out 1 fighter on 4,5; 2 on 6. Vs real
ships, it does 1pt on a 6. Rerolls as per existing PDS mechanics - I
don't
think they reroll vs ships but do vs fighters - my books are with a
friend. (I think Eric described this as 'neutering fighters' when I proposed
it over the weekend. I think it just brings them in line with their primary
direct opposition, namely PDS systems.)

That said, however, I also think that one of the major problems with fighters
is that they're the only system that you can't kill while still outside it's
engagement range. With PDS & fighter systems having the same range, and the
rule about only being able to use PDS on fighters actually attacking you,
fighters cannot be targetted before they're actually attacking you. (or, with
ADFC, attacking SOMEONE in your squadron. My point holds, though)

Every other weapon system (ie those that require mounting on an actual ship,
no matter how small) can be shot at outside it's engagement range, if you've
got a weapon that can reach. Fighters are invulnerable until they're on top of
you, an advantage that I don't think is represented in their cost.

For Ex: 500pts of light forces (DD, FF, etc) vs one 500pt capital ship.
(battlecruiser size, for that pt cost, I think). Light forces aren't likely to
have space for much beyond B2; the cap ship is going to smoke a couple with B3
or bigger before most of the weaponry in the light forces are even within
range. The cap ship might get cut up, but it's going to take a LOT of the
little stuff with it.

Ex2: 500pt cap ship as above, vs 500pt fighters w/ irritating 'soap
bubble' carrier. Guess what? As a number of other people have pointed out,
we've got one dead, dead cap ship. As Alan & others make clear, the carrier
player will probably suffer fairly trivial losses in fighters, and only in
fighters.

I'm starting to repeat myself and other people here, though...

> On Tue, 7 May 2002, Ryan M Gill wrote:

> At 2:48 PM -0400 5/7/02, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:

I'm not quite sure what Laserlight is getting at (I've lost track of the
threads here!) but I don't think invulnerablity is the design goal we're
gunning for.

If you want invulnerability vs fighters, just ban the silly things from your
tabletop!

> Its about balance. When the exception jumps on the end of the

I don't think so - most of the fixes proposed & debated have been one or
two rules at most - either some part of fighters (cost or attack
strength) or PDS variations. I favour revamping fighters, because PDS pretty
much works in other situations already. Fighters are always broken...

> What it really sounds like is that the Ship construction rules for

But these also render obsolete the whole of FB1 (and chunks of FB2) and
all the fighter-using designs based on those rules.

Tweaking the fighter and/or PDS rules - without changing mass or
adding/subtracting systems - seems better. (Don't forget that the FB
carriers DON'T have fighter costs written in - so you could, say, double
fighter costs to balance them without wrecking the existing SSDs)

> On Tue, 7 May 2002, Ryan M Gill wrote:

> At 1:19 PM -0700 5/7/02, Brian Bilderback wrote:

The Soap Bubbles are parked about an inch in from the back edge of the blasted
table; you start somewhere near the other edge of the table. SBs barf insane
amounts of fighters at you, which come hammering in at full
move (24"); they meet your squadron/ship/fleet somewhere in the middle
of the table, and do that locust thing before you're even within B4 range of
their carriers, never mind more conventional sized weapons ranges!

It makes for the most boring, irritating games of FT it's possible to play. My
favourite games have always had either minimal fighters (10 or less squadrons)
or none of the damn things at all. That allows for actual
maneuver, tactics, and things like that. (Imagine - a game where space
devoted to Thrust isn't "wasted"!)

Brian - yh728@victoria.tc.ca -
- http://wind.prohosting.com/~warbard/games.html -

> Fighters get launched out of a Cat with a 24" direct move in from the

> On Tue, 7 May 2002, Z. Lakel wrote:

> How viable an option would it be to have fighters, more to reflect

This might help a bit, but the problem isn't endurance, it's firepower.
Fighters have too much for their cost, and/or PDS don't have enough.

> On 7-May-02 at 22:56, Brian Burger (yh728@victoria.tc.ca) wrote:

> It makes for the most boring, irritating games of FT it's possible to

Here's a "house rule" fix. Play in centimeters and require 1 inch bases on the
fighters.

Oh, high speed affects fighters exactly like SMs. If you can't put your
fighters within 12" of me they can't hit me. If your opponent insists on soap
bubbles insist on playing cm with a starting velocity of 30 and a floating
table.

> At 8:34 PM -0400 5/7/02, Laserlight wrote:

Depending on the position of my ships and the amount of Delta Vee that I have
on tap, I'll either FTL out if the ROE allow it or I'll thrust away from the
fighters until I've got more Vee than they have with a combined move.

Mind you this kind of tactic leaves one with the presumtion there are other
places where forces are as well (rather than "other space, being the alternate
reality next to the player's ssds and in the fig's box).

If I can FTL after your carriers then I'll do so. A Complement of Fast
cruisers would do so as well. This is how the New Isrealies
would deal with the IF is it not? Hunt down the Tugs/Carriers?

> If I can FTL after your carriers then I'll do so.

It's my understanding that you can't track through FTL in the GZGverse.

> A Complement of Fast cruisers would do so as well. This is how the New

The NI would go to IF space and make a preemptive strike on IF facilities and
ships, with special attention to anything FTL capable. The IF, though, says
this is a purely theoretical question and the only reason they haven't hit New
Israel is because they've been preoccupied with the KV and also supporting
freedom fighters trying to free themselves from PAU oppression.

> --- kaime@mindspring.com wrote:

> I've played in many FT games and if anything causes

Have your ships enter the board in a dispersed formation. Make certain it is a
'long' board(three fighter movement turns, end to end), the guy with the
carriers will love that part. On the second movement turn announce your ships
going FTL (I.E. jumping), and do a 'tactical FTL' jump to the other end of the
board. It should be fun, for at least one time.

Bye for now,

> At 10:00 AM -0700 5/8/02, John Leary wrote:

Normally that group doesn't allow Tactical FTL because the Cheeze heads that
run the bubble carriers also wanted to use suicide FTL ships as a standard
tactic.

In message <Pine.GSO.3.95.iB1.0.1020507193756.14957F-100000@vtn1>
> Brian Burger <yh728@victoria.tc.ca> wrote:

> On Tue, 7 May 2002, Ryan M Gill wrote:
[snip]
> > What it really sounds like is that the Ship construction rules for

> > of strength given a higher Delta V from the engines. Break out

> > mass of the fighter bay and points cost.
and
> all the fighter-using designs based on those rules.
Well, maybe not _all_ of Ryan's suggestions - but you could have a base
rule "fighters begin the scenario in their hanger", and have to have
written orders (LF - launch fighters) to launch. You could even copy B5
Wars that (IIRC) has no manoeuvres on the turn that fighters are launched.

Add refinements (fleet readiness, sensor superiority giving advanced warning,
etc.) to taste.

I've only played Full Thrust a dozen times or so, and even then usually
without fighters just because they seemed kind of messy.

However, I do see both sides of this argument. What about an expansion on the
idea of the burning endurance for each turn on the battlefield: the fighters
can opt not to burn endurance every turn, but if they don't they can be
targetted by weapons other than PDS. My rationale is that the
reason beams and other non-PDS can't attack fighters isn't because of
their size but because they're using evasive manuevering. A corvette isn't
that much bigger than an individual fighter (okay, at a minimum 6 times as
large) but doesn't get any bonus for being smaller than an SDN by a factor of
40 or so, so size isn't the reason you can't attack fighters.

But if it costs endurance to maintain that evasive manuevering, then that mass
of fighters dumped from a carrier on the other side of the table will spend a
decent chunk of endurance just getting to the fight. Or they can risk long
range fire from beams (maybe other weapons? haven't thought that through at
all) and take some damage on the way in, so that they can linger in the battle
a little longer.

I really don't know if that will help the balance issue or not, but I thought
it was an interesting idea. It adds another opportunity for some tactics,
which is usually good.

Just an idea. Don't hurt me.

Randy Wolfmeyer

> On Tue, 7 May 2002 kaime@mindspring.com wrote:

> On Wed, 8 May 2002, Tomb wrote:

> Fighters:

I'd guess it'd be better to have some way to mark the "coasting" fighters
because I assume most fighters will still want to be evading most of the time,
and especially when up close to the target ships which will just make keeping
track of an additional counter more complicated. That's probably the biggest
flaw with this idea, another counter to keep track of.

My original thought was that beams would attack just like beam 1's in PDS
mode, but with the appropriate number of dice for range. This would make it
imperative for fighters to be evading at close range. One thing the fighter
player has to account for as well is keeping endurance to survive leaving the
fight and getting back to the carrier alive. It might make sense then to have
your carrier closer to the fight, which might make some of the FB carrier
designs more useful with all of their "unnecessary" armaments.

> At 5:17 PM -0500 5/8/02, Randy W. Wolfmeyer wrote:

So Class 2's, 3's and 4's will get to engage fighters as well?? Tell you lads
what, why don't we just ditch fighters and carriers all together? Would that
be better?

All of the methods you folks are proposing would emasculate carriers. Why have
carriers?

> On Wed, 8 May 2002, Ryan M Gill wrote:

Class 2's, 3's and 4's will only get to engage fighters if they choose to
conserve their endurance and not evade the incoming fire. I really only see it
being an issue when the fighters are in the 3rd and 4th range bands, because
most ships won't be able to put out too much fire on the fighters and they'll
be distracting the big beams from attacking the larger targets. I see it as
adding more tactical choices.

Also the amount of endurance available to a fighter is adjustable without
changing a lot of the game mechanics or previous designs. So you can keep
changing with it until the proper balance is achieved, and even then it can be
changed by house rules to make fighters more or less powerful depending on
your preferred setting.

One thing I thought about walking home today was whether or not you should
charge an additional endurance for attacking, or if attacking and evading
would be included in the same endurance cost. I think the secondary should
still cost an additional endurance as before.

From: Ryan M Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com>
> So Class 2's, 3's and 4's will get to engage fighters as well??

Non-evading fighters, yes. It's a decent spin on the "CEF every turn"
idea, though it won't prevent a one-turn fighter swarm, and in fact
might simply make more people opt for Torp fighters instead of other kinds.

> Tell

Adding beam vulnerability some of the time is far from crippling to fighter
groups.

> All of the methods you folks are proposing would emasculate carriers.

Hardly. The fix I like best (reduced strength PDS that can fire at multiple
fighter groups) takes the teeth out of massed fighter groups, but leaves one
or two groups as reasonable forces.

One of the changes I am going to try when I run a B5 scenario (using FT3
designs) is to let all pulse weapons (standard FT3 Class-X beam
batteries) fire against fighters. Each weapon will roll 1 die, with rerolls
and have 6" range (just as normal PDS) but would subtract the class of the
weapon from any damage. This represents the fact that few ships in B5, at
least as represented in B5W, (which is what I'm using for conversions) carry
dedicated anti-fighter weapons. It also represents the difficulties of
hitting with really large weapons: You need to roll a 6, reroll a 6, and
then 4+ to do any damage with Class-4s.

Does combining this with 'PDS attack any fighter within 6 inches' reduce the
effectivness of massed fighter attacks enough? I'm not too concerned about
making attacks by 1-2 fighter groups totally worthless (I feel that they
already are).

> Class 2's, 3's and 4's will only get to engage fighters if they choose

John A replied to me:

> <lister unknown>'s claim about interceptors

> Not necessarily if you assume the fighters are either

True, except that is more a simple CAP role than a true interceptor
role. And with no operational level game with a larger board/map, you
don't appreciate the manouvering that goes on. The battle should pretty much
be an afterthought, the fight won before you arrive at the field (or
essentially a foregone conclusion) if you read your Sun Tzu and
apply it right - and in the case of space fighters, if you can't get to
the field, you're already defeated. Your interceptors should combine
fast and long-range to allow you to reach out and intercept enemy
strikes or loiter in gaurd roles more or less indefinitely (in FT combat
turns).

When I think of an interceptor, I think of things like the F-22, the
F-14 with its AAMRAMs and whatnot, the old CF-104 lawndart (read:
Starfighter), etc. Some are large with long range standoff weapons. Some are
fast and manouverable (Starfighter). Either offers a viable
strategy. The next gen fighters (F-22, Eurofighter) may actually be
fast, tough/heavy, and manouverable all in one package, and be able to
carry extra fuel to buy the additional long range classification.

How about this idea:
Std Interceptor -> Std Fighter cost, no effect vs. ships, better vs
fighters (standard rules)
Std Interceptor with Standoff package - add +1 (or 2?) pt per
interceptor, attack range 12" but attacks at range are resolved as standard
attacks (don't get interceptor bonuses), attacks in close get bonus, no effect
vs. ships
And of course you can buy fast/heavy/long range on top as desired...
making for one fighter that is very painful to lose if it strays to close to a
PB or an ADFC escort....

> --- Tomb <tomb@dreammechanics.com> wrote:

> True, except that is more a simple CAP role than a

Yeah...

<snip discussion of operational level game>

If fighters had the legs to go gallivanting around the star system on their
own, you:

1)Wouldn't EVER see carriers actually on the field.

2)Would fight most battles as pure airstrikes against groups of starships.

3)Would be playing frickin' HARPOON, not verdammt Full Thrust.

This discussion has massively tended in the direction
of Harpoon-style rules covering massive complexity in
fighters. At which point you need a CAG with a complete staff to do your
battleplanning (anyone here ever played Harpoon besides myself and Don??).
It's like having Starfleet Battles power allocation rules, which requires an
engineering technician and staff.

The point of Full Thrust is to be a quickplaying and simple game that you can
teach to small children at 2 in the morning on the second day of the
convention.
Not an hours-long exercise in tedious staff work
(which is not nearly as much fun as some people here seem to think).

> --- Tomb <tomb@dreammechanics.com> wrote:

> How about this idea:

How about a better idea, instead of reinventing the wheel, just say that the
interceptors get to shoot first in the combat.

A far less messy concept that does not mess with costs and rules.

Bye for now,

> At 4:40 PM -0700 5/13/02, John Atkinson wrote:

I can (were I a pilot) fly an F15 to England from Atlanta. I could even do it
with ordinance. It doesn't do much for my endurance on such a long trip.

In a general method, one expects that fighters are going to be brought into a
system for combat against a target.

> 2)Would fight most battles as pure airstrikes against

Or against surface targets for Aerospace support of Dirt Side operations.

> 3)Would be playing frickin' HARPOON, not verdammt Full

But then you wouldn't get to fight aliens, bash the frogs and then bombard
planets...!

> This discussion has massively tended in the direction

Which version? Minis or with the computer? The newest computer version is
pretty nice. I was playing the Computer game in the first version about 15
years ago....

> On Mon, May 13, 2002 at 04:40:07PM -0700, John Atkinson wrote:

Yup. Extensively. And I see no reason to recreate it even though I enjoy it.

I continue to maintain that space-fighters are going to be _nothing_
like atmosphere-fighters, for the simple reason that there isn't the
difference in media - an F-14 is going to be going at least ten times as
fast as a carrier, because it's in air rather than in water. Therefore
speed of strike isn't the reason that space-fighters exist.

Roger Burton West schrieb:

> I continue to maintain that space-fighters are going to

> least ten times as fast as a carrier, because it's in air rather than

> exist.

A better analogy than spaceships as carrier/battleships vs. airplanes
might be that of the spaceship as a heavy bomber and a FT fighter as, well, a
fighter. Speed differential of no more than a factor of 3, but a significant
difference in maneuvrability.

There have even been various experiments with heavy bombers carrying fighters
for their own defence. Technically feasible, but of dubious tactical value.

Greetings

> >

The range of any fighter is based on something more practical... The pilot's
bladder.

Warren Shultzaberger schrieb:
> The range of any fighter is based on something more

Hardly any more. It's long been common practice to carry plastic bags for that
purpose.

Greetings

From:  KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de
> There have even been various experiments with heavy bombers carrying

Zeppelins with biplane fighters. I don't know how well they worked, though.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at

> "laserlight@quixnet.net" wrote:

> From: "laserlight@quixnet.net" <laserlight@quixnet.net>

> From: KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de

Not sure, but KH may also have been referring to experiments by the USAF in
the late 40's and the 50's involving release and recovery of a small fighter
known as the Goblin (IIRC) which was specially designed for the mission, and
later with a modified F-100.  The project was abandoned, but the bombers

(Mostly 52's) that were used in the experiments found their true calling as
launch beds for the X series.

3B^2

> On Tue, May 14, 2002 at 09:42:30AM -0400, Indy wrote:

Crimson Skies has dirigible aircraft carriers. But that doesn't even try to be
realistic.

> At 11:15 AM +0200 5/14/02, KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de wrote:

I'm still stuck on the ship/aircraft meme. It fits due to the role
rather than looking at the speed differentials. Ships have a far longer period
of time between resupply and can make repairs while under way. Aircraft
cannot. There is a reason the great airships of
the first part of this century were called air-Ships and not craft.
They were in fact ships. Their role was as ships.

Their final evolution in the form of the two American Airship carriers with
their 3 and then 5 sparrow hawk fighters could have made a huge difference in
WWII when radar was still being worked out. Their ability to scout over
hundreds of miles (given the fact that
airship could travel at 60-70 knots) in short periods of time would

> At 7:44 AM -0400 5/14/02, Warren Shultzaberger wrote:

Hence my statement about endurance. I was speaking about the pilot's
endurance. I find the same sort of issue when driving my Honda Insight across
country. It gets better gas milage than I can contend

On Tue, 14 May 2002 06:51:29 -0700 Brian Bilderback
> <bbilderback@hotmail.com> wrote:

> From: KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de

> Zeppelins with biplane fighters. I don't know how well they worked,

> Not sure, but KH may also have been referring to experiments by the

Actually, there have been several attempts at this kind of thing, mostly by
the USN and USAF, who have this thing about fighting over
someone else's territory... ;-)

The earliest attempt I know of was the XF9C-2 Sparrowhawk, a
Curtiss-Wright biplane that operated from the airships USS Macon and
Akron. It worked, but not well enough to be more than a curiosity.

The next program was the McDonnell XF-88 Goblin, a fat little parasite
fighter (looked like one of thise Hasgawa "eggplane" models that were around a
few years ago, but this was for real <g>) that was
intended to be carried in the bomb-bay of a Convair B-36 Peacemaker,
the biggest bomber of them all (10 engines -- 6 turnin', 4 burnin').
Later, after the Goblin idea was dropped, the '36 was used for a series
of experiments known as FiCON -- Fighter In CONvair -- in which a
slightly modified F-84 Thunderstreak was mounted in the bomb-bay. I
didn't know that they tried a Hun as well, but why not?

All these ideas worked -- after a fashion -- but they all suffered from
the same flaws: the weight of the fighter is a massive drain on the bomber's
performance, and what happens to the "escort" after it's
launched? Re-docking with the mother aircraft is possible, and has been
done, but it's a fairly risky procedure, and I'd hate to have to depend on it,
especially in a combat situation.

Phil
----
"We gotta get out into Space / If it's the last thing we ever do!"
   -- Return to the Forbidden Planet

laserlight@quixnet.net schrieb:
> From: KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de

Not just Zeppelins. Heavy bombers, too, as late as the 1950's

US projects:
http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/history/mdc/goblin.htm
http://users.chariot.net.au/~theburfs/URgoblin.html
http://www.air-and-space.com/ficon1.htm

Russian:
http://users.chariot.net.au/~theburfs/URvakhmist.html
http://aeroweb.lucia.it/~agretch/RAFAQ/Zveno.html
http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws001/bi/photos.htm

German:
http://visi.net/~djohnson/arado/are381i.html
http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/me328.html

For more, do a Google search with: bomber + fighter + parasite

Greetings

> From: Phillip Atcliffe <Phillip.Atcliffe@uwe.ac.uk>

> Later, after the Goblin idea was dropped, the '36 was used for a series

No, you're right, it was an 84, not a 100, my memory was just bad. I do

know they switched from the 36 to the 52 in the whole Parasite experiment.
Discovery Wings had a pretty indepth show on the whole project and it's
influence on later X-plane projects.

3B^2

A late reply - I'm still catching up with the mail...

Allan Goodall wrote in reply to Laserlight:

> a) you can reduce the efficacy of PDS vs any single fighter (which

What he means is "If any specific fighter group took less damage from PDS than
they do now, small numbers of fighters would be more useful than they are now
even if *large* numbers of fighters become less useful than they

currently are."

> b) Assuming you fiddle with ADFC some, *every* ship will need to have
8 PDS
> rolling an average of .8 at 20 squadrons = 128 fighters destroyed.

Er, no. You're thinking of the "on average 0.8 kills per PDS" as a
constant, but it isn't - it is a function of two variables: the number
of PDSs shooting at the fighter group, and the number of fighters in the
group.

In order for the PDSs to score on average 0.8 kills apiece, *each* PDS must
fire at an *undamaged* fighter group. (Actually each PDS must fire at a
fighter group consisting of an *infinite* number of fighters in order to

average out at 0.8 kills apiece, but in this particular case 6 fighters is
close enough to infinity to make the difference negligible - the real
average of fighters killed when one single PDS fires at an intact fighter
group is 0.7963.)

If more than one PDS shoots at a single fighter group, they start
"stealing" each other's kills - so 8 PDSs shooting at a single fighter
group "only" kill on average 5.0 fighters, ie. on average 0.625 kills per PDS.
In fact, no matter how many PDSs you throw at the single group, they'll
*never* reach an average kill number of 6.0 since there's always a chance,
however tiny, that they'll all miss.

Still, 5.0 fighters gone from each squadron is pretty close to wiping the
fighters out <g> That's the reason behind the suggestion that an "engage

all incoming"-style PDS shot be reduced in effect...

Regards,

> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

> Still, 5.0 fighters gone from each squadron is pretty close to wiping

How much would it need to be reduced to produce the desired effect? Would 1
kill on 5, 2 on 6 be good enough, or would it be 1 on 5 or 6, or 1 on 6, or
some other combo?

Also, how would this affect B1's? Combining this with other ideas, how about,

In one turn: 1. PDS may engage any ONE fighter squadron within 6" (provided
they are not engaging another ship or friendly fighter squadron) OR may engage
ALL ATTACKING fighters; 2. B1's may attack any 1 attacking fighter squadron;
3. Any PDS linked to ADFC may attack any ONE fighter squadron within range but
not attacking, or any number fighter squadron attacking another ship

within range.

3B^2

From: Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com>
> in this particular case 6 fighters is close enough to infinity

> Laserlight wrote:

> > in this particular case 6 fighters is close enough to infinity

Och, that's nothing. While studying (very) basic antenna design some years
ago, the professor told us that "in this application, the infinite distance
where the far-field formulae for the electromagnetic field can be used
is
roughly one meter" :-)

Later,

> --- KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de wrote:

Spacecraft aren't set up for such imprecision.

Sanitary facilities are, however, presumably built
into the vacc-suits worn by pilots.

Or you end up with a large aftermarket in flight suit accessories. For a

day long strike mission I'd want a massage unit built in.

> John Atkinson wrote:

> --- KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de wrote:

Just ban the bloody things?

Being Serious, it WAS my solution for my scenarios. Burt then I tend yo use an
"Air Force Model" Rather than a "Wet Navy in Space Model" when I think about
FT games. Not that it doesn't have problems of it's own...

Of course you have to have been raised with the 1950's SF book I read
about the (physically impossible it turned out - but then there is FTL
in FT, but I digress...) about the Nuclear Reactor Powered Airplanes.
Otherwise the model doesn't, um... fly.

Gracias, Glenn

"Half the Harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to
feel important.  They don't mean to do harm - but the harm does not
interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are
absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves." T. S. Elliot

On Fri, 5 Mar 2004 09:36:33 +0000 (GMT)
> =?iso-8859-1?q?Michael=20Robert=20Blair?= <pellinoire@yahoo.com> writes: