Fighters....Re: Full Thrust vs Starmada

> And a further note to the effect that the points system is broken,

Any points system is going to break down eventually. People say fighters are
borked. Meh... In the games I've played (at cons and at home) fighters have
never really played that big a role.

Ergo...I don't see what the fuss is all about unless you're getting into that
tournament mindset (shudder).

> Any points system is going to break down eventually. People say
fighters have never really played that big a role.

If you're fighting a battle where both sides have the same amount of points,
it ought to be a fairly even match, yes? So take a 6000 point game with 30
fighter squadrons on one side and no fighters on the other. Tell us how many
turns you played...

> If you're fighting a battle where both sides have the same amount of
Tell
> us how many turns you played...

Okay...now you take as many 1 hull, firecon, t-4,  Beam-4 ships as you
can fit in those 6000 points. Don't have the books handy but it's got to be
over 100.

Tell us how many turns you played vs. a "standard" fleet.

Point systems are borked. Being that way I sometimes question the sanity of
trying to prevent a cheese monkey from bending a points system to their will.

> damosan@comcast.net wrote:
Tell
> us how many turns you played...

Right, but the fighters STILL can't be attacked or destroyed by ANY of those
"weenie madness" ships. The fighters will still slaughter those
weenie ships unless you imposed some currently non-existant rules about
fighter groups being degraded by the loss of thier carrier.

> Right, but the fighters STILL can't be attacked or destroyed by ANY of

The need for such a non-existant rule escapes me.  What happened to
scenario design? Is it dead? Taking a powder?

My fear is that the rules writer and test list will spend eons searching for
the Holy Grail when such a thing never existed in the first place.

Next thing you're going to tell me is that once the fighters are taken care of
they'll come up with something that will help level the field for the gaming
population who either rolls all 1's or 6's.

You know how you are.

> If you're fighting a battle where both sides have the same amount of
Tell
> us how many turns you played...

Right, but the fighters STILL can't be attacked or destroyed by ANY of those
"weenie madness" ships. The fighters will still slaughter those
weenie ships unless you imposed some currently non-existant rules about
fighter groups being degraded by the loss of thier carrier.

----

Who cares?

Fly in like the blazes, blow the crap out of the carriers, and then FTL out.

The fighters are dead soon enough...

Or just accelerate, accelerate, accelerate - until their endurance is
used up and then they die if the 'victory conditions' require you to stay on
the board.

;-)

Never mistake a points system for a campaign system as a method to balance out
a game.

> Never mistake a points system for a campaign system as a method to

EXACTLY!

> damosan@comcast.net wrote:

"Scenario Design" in my playgroup is driven by the campaign system we
have in place.  My group is bored with the fighter-centric strategies
that the current fighter rules and points system seems to promote.
While we agreee on that point, we cannot agree on house-rules to
eliminate it. Before anyone says something along the lines of "So you
understand the difficulty the playtester's have in 'fixing' fighters!", they'd
be right. But that's why I PAY for rules instead of writing my own. Others
have done the work that I don't have the
time/resources/creativity to tackle.

> My fear is that the rules writer and test list will spend eons

If they aren't willing to tilt at that windmill, then sales of rulesbooks are
going to slip away to other games designers who are willing to, as the thread
on TMP has vaguely indicated. Which, as beloved as FT and GZG's other rules
are, may suit GZG just fine in the long run, since it's been mentioned earlier
it's the minis that pay the bills.

> Next thing you're going to tell me is that once the fighters are taken

Don't go all ridiculous on me just to make my comments or concerns seem silly.

Also, they already have the plagued/blessed die roller's problems
addressed. They're called loaded dice, something our group has yet to
NEED to make a ruling on...   *grin*

> You know how you are.

Some nights, it's me... *grimace*

--Tim

> David Rodemaker wrote:

Pretty much everybody in my gaming group and multiple people on this list.

> Never mistake a points system for a campaign system as a method to

IMO, an effort should be made for a points system to be able to balance
campaigns as well as one-off build-n-bring games.

--Tim

> Okay...now you take as many 1 hull, firecon, t-4, Beam-4 ships as you

I get 93 points/ea if you include FTL, so about 64 ships for 6000pts.
I've played games like that, and had it be rather more even than the
massed-fighters deal.  OTOH, if you make it Beam 4 and Thrust 8, that
gets ugly.

> Next thing you're going to tell me is that once the fighters are taken

I thought that the South London Warlords had already taken care of that
with their D6 Extreme (1-1-2-5-6-6) and D6 Mean (2-3-3-4-4-5). Depends
which way you want to "level" the field <g>.

Phil

> > Who cares?

Sarcasm my good sir. It was whimsical sarcasm.

> > Never mistake a points system for a campaign system as a method to

Impossible, can't think of one that worked that didn't have an inbuilt set of
implicit or explicit campaign, doctrine, 'technological limits' rules to go
with it.

And FT neatly has those in the published designs.

Personally, I like the idea of the Anti-Fighter EMP Buglight - I'm not
sure
how I'd work the idea since ADFC/PDS DD's have always worked pretty well
for me.

If fighters are that much of a problem - don't play with them.

;-)

The problem with point systems is that they are too abstracted.

For instance, how does range factor into a game? Are short ranged weapons as
effective as long ranged weapons?
Damage vs. shielded or non-shielded targets?
If the weapon system is affected by ECM or simple counter-measures?
Is there a potential defense that completely negates the weapon system?
Situtations where a particular weapon system is unstoppable (guaranteed a
kill)?

You could have approximately 50 point weapon system(s)that are roughly equal
in points but each would have a totally different tactical values, some
examples are:
1 squadron of heavy anti-ship fighters
1 super beam (class-5or 6?)
a set of torpedo launchers a massive minefield
a kamikaze jump-boat
a set of SMR's a cluster of Kra'Vak scatter guns

In some cases it's like comparing oranges and grapefruits - there are
some similarities, but many differences, and to the individual, its those
differences that matter. Just calling oranges, grapefruits and limes, "citrus
fruits" and saying a pound of one is the same as a pound of another misses the
point. I'm sure that Orange Pie would not have the same taste as Key Lime Pie.

Points only go so far for balance - campaigns are better since they tend
to be evolution in action and very dynamic - poor tactics or weapon
choices can lead to the elimination of your forces, but your weapon
choices won't be static either as new tactics or weapon/defensive
combinations appear. In a campaign, factors other than straight combat power
also come into effect; leading to financial, logistical or political choices
that help shape your armnament decisions.

Even a campaign system using the current ideas is not very good. The problem
with the current system is that the players know too much. The technology is
limited to what is in the rulebooks, so a player with a 6000 point fleet is
going to know roughly what any other 6000 point fleet is going to do, there is
no uncertainty that someone else has developed the 1000 point Fleet Entrapment
Web or a 500 point Supernova
Mine or improved their engines so that their ships/fighters move 10%
faster with less construction costs or developed level 3 or 4 shields that are
impervious to anything less than a class 3 beam or torpedo. A more realistic
system would allow for different levels and costs for "technologies" such as
propulsion, beam weapons, hull integrity, shielding, FTL propulsion, as well
as supply of raw resources and logistics to the fleets.

For instance, you may have developed an FTL drive that jumps 5 times further
than any other drive, but it consumes a rare element in the
process and you have only one source of that element - do you still
install the super-FTL into all your ships?

my 3.14159... cents worth

--Binhan

[quoted original message omitted]

> David Rodemaker wrote:

Blasted text... I couldn't see your mischevious grin!

> IMO, an effort should be made for a points system to be able to
rules to
> go with it.

Ermm... have you committed the heresy of playing SX? The initial impression I
have is that they MIGHT have it right... but then again, limited playtesting
so far. We haven't gotten to the point that we can start trying to poke holes
in the rules yet.

> Personally, I like the idea of the Anti-Fighter EMP Buglight - I'm not

I do think that there needs to be more options to dealing with fighters than
just taking fighters yourself... I've long contended that.

> If fighters are that much of a problem - don't play with them.

That would hurt at least one of my regular gaming buddy's feelings very
much... not an option.

--Tim

> >Okay...now you take as many 1 hull, firecon, t-4, Beam-4 ships as

How about making them 3 x beam 1, thrust 6 and 1 point of armor? Then they're
35 points each. Complement them with some with 1 ER SMR and 1 beam 1 for 47
points each (remove 2 beam 1 and the armor). That's 100 of the first and 53 of
the second. Build your fleet up to speed 30 and overrun the other guy. The
force has 353 beam 1's and 53 extended range salvo missiles.

Against most fleets, you'll beat him just because he doesn't have enough fire
controls to target your ships. Nova Cannon and Wave Guns are potentially nasty
though, but I'd bet on the little ships myself. Even heavy fighter users are
going to fall to this one, because each ship has a
anti-fighter
weapon in the beam 1's. You'll attrit the fighters away while the salvo
missiles kill the carriers.

It's probably not possible to design a points system that doesn't fall to
  the "fuzzy wuzzy" problem at the low end and/or the invulnerable
killing machine on the upper end.

> Laserlight wrote:

> >Any points system is going to break down eventually. People say
Tell
> us how many turns you played...

30 fighter squadrons? Why so modest? Take the full 90+ groups you can
buy for those 6000 pts instead, and see how the battle goes...

Later,

> How about making them 3 x beam 1, thrust 6 and 1 point of armor?

And variations on this theme, yes -- they're called ash Shaulah
strikeboats by the Islamic Fed and I have played with them a time or two,
including the swarms you suggest.

> Who cares?

;-)

> IMO, an effort should be made for a points system to be able to
rules
> to go with it.

I have to admit that I have not - I will say however that I have yet to
find a system I *can't* break. If it's not fighters then it will be something
else...

> Personally, I like the idea of the Anti-Fighter EMP Buglight - I'm

I agree to a point. I have yet to see an really convincing argument saying
that fighters are broken that doesn't devolve down to the '6000 point one
off game' - that's where every simulation game falls apart without fail.
Combat simulation games that ignore doctrine and strategic 'reality' really
just tend to fall into the race to see who can find the loophole first.

> If fighters are that much of a problem - don't play with them.

Then do what I've done - show up with your regular fleet (one that not
designed to exploit a loophole) set up and then let him play and make it quite
obvious that you don't care that he's going to 'win'. Push the ships around in
circles, have them sit and send shuttles back and forth, have them immediately
surrender when faced by his overwhelming force.

Again. And Again. And Again. Why beat your head against the wall?

Force the argument. Either he can play a fleet that makes some sort of sense,
or play scenarios that balance things out, or he can put up with an
opposing player who is showing up to spend time with his friend - not
actually 'play'...

He'll get the message sooner or later.

> damosan@comcast.net wrote:

One of the things that pops to mind is the BYOF (bring your own fleet)
scenario that some people host. This happened at an ECC a few years ago, which
more than
illustrated the overwhelming power of an all-fighter fleet vs a "normal"
fleet. The "normal" fleet had zero chance to do anything other than die (it
was the
last(?) great Canadian-American FT game, iirc; I'm sure others will
verify it
for me ;-).

Mk

> David Rodemaker wrote:

> Then do what I've done - show up with your regular fleet (one that not
Heh, he reads this list... which for some reason is making me chuckle like a
fool... (at least *I'm* amused... you're all on your own!)

I've actually told him that sometime I'm gonna make him fly someone
else's fleet while he sucks down the fighter-death... Just for giggles.

<soup-nazi from Seinfeld> No fighters for you!  When you fix fighters
with house-rules, come back. </>

Instead, we're playtesting SX... see why it's better to hope that FT gets
"fixed", or at least made harder to break?

--Tim

> One of the things that pops to mind is the BYOF (bring your own

Yeah, that's the 6000 point game I was referring to. It was ugly.

> He'll get the message sooner or later.

LOL! Well, maybe the news needs to come from somebody else...

> I've actually told him that sometime I'm gonna make him fly someone

> <soup-nazi from Seinfeld> No fighters for you! When you fix fighters

Y'know it always fun to find the loophole and crush the living crap out of
the opponent - but after awhile I just get bored. Yup, proved that the
loophole is a loophole. Sometimes it's fun to try and find a counter loophole
and at times you can, but after awhile we always return to campaign play
because that's what suits our styles best.

> Instead, we're playtesting SX... see why it's better to hope that FT

Bingo!

> Grant A. Ladue wrote:

> >

You mean "...and overSHOOT the other guy". When you move at speed 30

At least in Cinematic, that's a pretty even battle

> The force has 353 beam 1's and 53 extended range salvo missiles.

> Against most fleets, you'll beat him just because he doesn't have

*drops out of lurk-cloak*

Yeah, I was just about to say... 6000 points and only 30 fighters? I haven't
played the game for a good couple of years or more, but in my old 5000 point
games, 30 fighters was not usually enough to break through the standard
defenses we'd become accustomed to using unless you backed it up with heavy
doses of plasma bolts as well.

Eric/Stilt

[quoted original message omitted]

Replying to multiple posts at once here:

> Grant A. Ladue wrote:

> Show me the number crunching that suggest they ameliorate the problem

Really. And it's not just number crunching, either; the playtest experience
shows exactly the same thing. Sure, you can put the limit lower; all that
means is that you reduce the minimum size a ship needs to be to become
virtually immune to fighters.

> For instance, I would think that if you limited a cruiser sized hull

And there's the rub: you limit a CRUISER SIZED hull to only 4 attacking
fighter groups. What limit do you set to a SUPERDREADNOUGHT SIZED hull, then?
Same as for the cruiser, or different?

When you start looking it closer, it turns out that in order for the PSB to be
consistent with itself (which you want, because otherwise you won't be able to
convince all your opponents to use that rule) you have to use *the
same* max limit for the SDN as you use for the cruiser - which means
that you have to choose which of the two you want to balance against the
fighters, and leave the other one either badly overpowered or badly
underpowered against the fighters.

Let's take an extreme example to show why: * Assume that fighter weapons has a
maximum range of 10 km. (To put it into perspective, that's more than the
range Star Wars fighters typically attack
from but less than some of today's aircraft surface-attack weapons.)
* A cruiser is a cylinder 10 meters long and a diameter of 2 meters. * A
superdreadnought is a cylinder 1 km long and has a diameter of 200 meters (so
it is ten thousand times larger than the cruiser).

With a max range of 10km, the fighters can attack either of these ships
from 10km away - or, in other words, the "engagement volume" (ie. the
volume from which attacking fighters can attack either of these ships) extends
10 km out from their respective hull surfaces. If the PSB explanation for
limiting the number of attacking fighters is that "they get
in each others' way/they interfere with one another", the maximum number
of attacking fighters must be proportional either to the outer surface of this
volume or to the volume itself.

The engagement volume for the cruiser is ~4.19*10^12 m3. For the SDN, it is
~4.51*10^12 m3... so the the SDN has an engagement volume less than
*10%*
larger than that of the cruiser, in spite of the fact that the SDN is *ten
thousand times* (ie. 1000,000%) the size of the cruiser. If the maximum number
of fighters attacking the ship is proportional to the engagement volume and
the cruiser can be attacked by 4 fighter groups, then the SDN

can be attacked by at most 4.4 fighter groups.

If instead the number of fighters is limited by the *surface area* of the
engagement volume, the difference is only 4% (the surface of the engagement
volume is 1.97*10^9 m^2 for the cruiser, and 2.05*10^9 m^2 for the SDN).

IOW, if the cruiser can be attacked by at most 4 fighter groups at a time,
then the SDN can be attacked by at most 4.16 fighter groups at a time.

Note that these tiny differences in maximum fighter numbers is with a *really*
extreme difference in size between the two targets, and a fighter
weapon's range which is less than that of today's air-launched anti-ship

missiles. If the size difference between the targets is less than one order of
magnitude (eg. a Fleet Book SDN compared to a Fleet Book cruiser), or

the fighter weapons have longer effective ranges than 10 km, the differences
in maximum attacking fighter numbers disappear somewhere in the far decimals.

So, I ask you again: if you set the maximum number of fighters that can attack
a cruiser in a single turn to 4 groups, what is the maximum number of fighters
that can attack a superdreadnought?

***
> In another post, Grant wrote:

> Okay...now you take as many 1 hull, firecon, t-4, Beam-4

Have you actually played such battles? I have, and so has Laserlight. Assuming
that you use the CPV system rather than the NPV one, in my experience this
usually gives a pretty even fight where tactics decide the day.

While you get around 2 of these strikeboats for each enemy fighter group,
3-4 of them for each enemy DD and rather more for each larger enemy
ship,
quite a few of these strikeboats will die before they get into range -
and thanks to the FT combat initiative system even more of them will die
*after* they've gotten into range but before they get to fire their own
weapons (since the enemy can fire one ship for each strikeboat which fires,
and most warships ships can kill at least one and often multiple strikeboats
in a single salvo).

Victory in a battle like this goes to the side which manages to control the
range and/or gets into the enemy's blind arcs... and that side is by no
means always the strikeboat side :-)

> Complement them with some with 1 ER SMR and 1 beam 1

...and hope that the enemy doesn't dodge your SMRs, or soak them up with

BJs of their own, or shoot them down with point defences, or uses any of

the other anti-SM tricks in the inventory.

> Build your fleet up to speed 30 and overrun the other guy.

If you fly that fast and are armed with such short-range weapons, you
run a quite significant risk of overSHOOTING the other guy instead of
overRUNNING him.

> The force has 353 beam 1's and 53 extended range salvo missiles.

And thanks to the very low hull integrity (306 damage boxes) and the short
weapons range of the B1s, many of those beams won't get to fire a single

shot before they're destroyed.

> Against most fleets, you'll beat him just because he doesn't have

This only works *if* you manage to close the range without taking any
long-range fire (and avoid overshooting him). Having fought quite a few
actions like this on both sides (though none quite this large; IIRC the
largest strikeboat swarm I've faced or fielded in Full Thrust was 4500 pts),
my experience is that this is *much* easier said than done for the

strikeboat commander :-/

> Even heavy fighter users are going to fall to this one, because each

Not exactly, no :-/ B1s aren't that powerful anti-fighter weapons, so
assuming that each fighter group attacks a separate strikeboat each turn

each Standard fighter group kills on average 2-3 strikeboats - which is
about the same points value as the fighters themselves cost once the bay

and its supporting systems are included. ('Course, if several fighter groups
gang up on a single strikeboat they can reduce their losses, but it'll take
them longer to kill the boats.)

> while the salvo missiles kill the carriers.

In a 6000-pt battle I doubt that a mere 53 SM salvoes will suffice to
*hit*
every enemy ship, much less *kill* them all...

All in all, while the Full Thrust points system certainly has problems, in
my experience the swarm of small short-ranged strikeboats is not one of
them.

Regards,

> Binhan Lin wrote:

> The problem with point systems is that they are too abstracted.

This depends on the movement system used. In order to factor it in correctly
you fight a large number of playtest battles between a large number of
different fleets, and record how much damage each class of weapon inflicted in
the various range bands. Doing this will give you a pretty good picture of how
the range affects a weapon's combat value.

> Are short ranged weapons as effective as long ranged weapons?

No, since the ships carrying them will almost invariably have taken damage
from the enemy's long-ranged weapons before the short-ranged weapons
come into play.

> Damage vs. shielded or non-shielded targets?

Look at the proportion of shielded vs non-shielded targets in use in as
many different gaming groups as you can, then calculate the average.
(OK,
you have to weight it with the number of damage points each ship has too
-
ie., a ship with 100 damage points counts ten times more than one with 10
damage points.)

...and so on.

The basic answer to all of Binhan's questions is really "PLAYTEST". Ideally,
don't just use one or two playtesters playing one or two battles each, but
scores of playtesters playing scores of battles each.

(Make sure though that you take careful and detailed notes about exactly

what happened during the games, so you can figure out which game mechanics
had what effects - it is *extremely* easy to blame your loss on one
particular new weapon used by the enemy, only for the post-battle
analysis of the data to show that you lost because the enemy was able to park
in your (A) arc where you couldn't shoot back at him...)

***
> In another post, Binhan Lin wrote:

> The basic system needs revision as it seems very odd that a PDS system

that >can knock down up to 6 high-velocity missiles, can only take out
1-2
fighters.

Say again? A PDS is just as capable of taking out 6 non-heavy *fighters*
as
it is to take out 6 *missiles* - it gets exactly the same rerolls
against both types.

Grant replied:

> Why do pds shoot down the same number of fighters per turn if 12 are

For the same reason why your Class-3 Beam Battery is only able to shoot
at one single target per turn no matter how many targets it has available to
shoot at and no matter how many FCSs you have on your ship. If you PSB the
one, you can apply exactly the same PSB to the other.

***
> David Rodemaker wrote:

> Force the argument. Either he can play a fleet that makes some sort of

> and morp wrote:

> in my group we're playing with logically build forces and

In other words, David and morp would both flatly refuse to play against
someone who brought, say, a canonically correct BattleStar Galactica force to
the game. Or, for that matter, a Raider battlegroup out of the Babylon 5
universe, or most Star Wars forces, or...

David and morp, please tell me one thing: how can Full Thrust claim to be a
"generic" space combat system if you can't use forces from these quite popular
SF backgrounds without being accused of being a "munchkin"?

Regards,

> Grant A. Ladue wrote:
Then
> > they're 35 points each. Complement them with some with 1 ER SMR
That's where the 360 degree class 1's have that little advantage. If you use
the "fire in rear arc when you don't use the engines" rule, you can just not
use any thrust in the attack turn. Then you can overrun them by 12 mu or less
and still fire. It gives the class 1's a *much* larger area that they can fire
through. Still takes some timing, but it does tend to lessen the problem. The
salvo missiles also make it much harder for your opponent to find a completely
safe pass.

> At least in Cinematic, that's a pretty even battle
Hmm, I wonder. Definitely interesting to try out a few times, but not
  fun on a steady diet I would think.  :-)

> I wrote:

> Grant A. Ladue wrote:
Then
> they're 35 points each. Complement them with some with 1 ER SMR

Sorry people; hit the wrong button. Complete post should be on its way by now
(or already arrived, hopefully).

> ***
That's no minor assumption. We use NPV because that's all that has been
  published, so that's all the guys will go for.  :-)

> In a 6000-pt battle I doubt that a mere 53 SM salvoes will suffice to
    Well, I wasn't actually trying to argue that they were all-powerful.
 A lot
does depend on the styles of the people you play with, and I would feel pretty
confident with such a force against the ships my current group likes to use.
There are certainly counters to such a tactic, but of course, there
  are counters to the massed fighters too (just not as many).  :-)
Personally, I prefer to force a more "realistic" force structure. I think it
gives a better game. The biggest "real world" objection to an all strike boat
force is that most forces wouldn't be able to recruit enough suicidal fools to
man such a fleet.

> This only works *if* you manage to close the range without taking any

strikeboat commander :-/

I've done 5000 points once, 2500 points quite a few times. Ash Shaulah
strikeboats die in droves.

On Tue, Apr 26, 2005 at 12:38:31PM -0400, Grant A. Ladue distributed
foul capitalist propaganda:

[...]
> Personally, I prefer to force a more "realistic" force

They're all unmanned AI controlled combat drones. :-> Besides, I guess
if you can get enough of suicidal fools for the fighter swarms, you can get
enough of suicidal fools for the strikeboat swarms.

As for the fighter problem - since points are an artificial game
construct that has no relationship to reality whatsoever, then the
NPV/CPV of fighters should be determined using the total amount of
fighters in the entire fleet, using a sliding scale. Just like CPV, as a
matter of fact.

Just make the CPV of fighters (sum of cost of all fighter
groups)^2/36, or something like that. I think that using an
exponent of 2 is too large, so you'd have to tweak that, but the basic
idea is the same as behind the CPV, and it should actually _work_
without requiring cumbersome mechanics like the proposed new beta fighter
rules, which I used and didn't really like.

> grant

On Tue, Apr 26, 2005 at 06:04:09PM +0200, Oerjan Ohlson distributed
foul capitalist propaganda:

[...]
> And there's the rub: you limit a CRUISER SIZED hull to only 4

Different, of course.

[snip example]

Of course, if you assume that the attack limitation comes from physical
constraints, it makes no sense. But many things in FT make no sense if you
consider physical constraints. For example, the absolute dumbness of salvo
missiles which hit banzai jammers instead of targets I'd like them to hit.
Fighter movement in vector makes no sense. Range limit for salvo missiles
makes no sense. Etc.

The limit for number of fighter groups which can attack a given ship
may stem from ECM limits for networking of fighter-launched ordinance
salvoes - too many missiles just make it too easy for the inherent
abstracted ECM/PDS (the one which is used as a PSB behind the 'lock-on
roll' for SMs) to fool them, since they can not network efficently enough to
distinguish fake signals from real signals. Larger ships have a harder time
using ECM that makes missiles see multiple targets, so they can be attacked
effectively by larger swarms of fighters.

One can PSB anything. :->

> Oerjan

In a message dated 4/26/05 2:48:04 PM Central Daylight Time,
> ladue@cse.Buffalo.EDU writes:

<snip>The biggest "real world" objection to an all strike boat force is that
most forces wouldn't be able to recruit enough suicidal fools to man such a
fleet.

grant

Two Letters - IF.

Gracias,

<snip>The biggest "real world" objection to an all strike boat force is that
most forces wouldn't be able to recruit enough suicidal fools to man such a
fleet.

Glenn said:
> Two Letters - IF.

<grin> I did think about saying "they're not suicidal fools, they're
heroic martyrs--allahu akhbar!" -- but he did say "MOST forces", and
IFed is only one. Sort of only one. Depends on how many emirs are feeling
frisky at the time.

> In a message dated 4/26/05 2:48:04 PM Central Daylight Time,

I know, I know, but even with a religious directive to enable them, a force
would have a hard time affording to train a huge number of expendable
"crew".
Each strikeboat is going to need a minimum of 1 pilot, 1 gunner, and 1

engineer. Odds are they would really need more than that. That's a lot of crew
training expense to lose to a class 4 shot at 48 MU. While a fighter pilot may
require *more* training, the fighters have the advantage of not being anywhere
near as vulnerable to fire from the enemy fleet, *and* when they get killed
the specialists in maintaining the fighter don't die with them. A real fleet
based around strikeboats (as opposed to using moderate numbers of strikeboats
as an adjunct) is just going to be too stressed by the the logistics of it
all. The strikeboat concept is a fun one to play with sometime, but it's not
truly viable in a "real world" way. Of course, you guys know that.
:-)

> even with a religious directive to enable them, a force would have a

At the high end, say 200 strike boats with 10 crew each, total 2000 out of a
population of at least a billion. Add in official government encouragement,
either indirect ("your five year old looks like a sweet girl, it'd be a shame
if something was to happen to her") or direct ("your vessel doesn't have FTL,
so if you want a ride back, you'd better win"), and you'll get crews. And most
of the strikeboats are on patrol duty and therefore not expended anyway. I
think the platform cost is more likely to be the problem, but YMMV, of course.

> >even with a religious directive to enable them, a force would have a

Yeah, but this would be the "adjunct" portion I was talking about. Those 200
strike boats are scattered all over hell's half acre, not concentrated
together as your "fleet". There's still a number of 6000 point fleets who are
there for the main fighting. What I'm saying is that a large strike boat only
fleet is not truly viable. While it might be possible to very occasionally
assemble truly large numbers of those strikeboats for major operations, it's
far more likely that there's 5 to 10 of them working
  together with your local fleet elements.  It means those 6000-point,
150 strike boat fleets just aren't really very likely outside of the "throw
together a one off force for a pickup game" type of thing. Most 6000 point
forces consisting of more normal ships are far more likely as "real" fleets.

In any case, it's not finding the bodies that's necessarily the problem
(although depending on the culture, it might be), it's the cost of training
them and training their replacements. Those 2000 men are expected to die
  quickly when war comes.  If they're killed in 1/4 the time it takes to
train a replacement, then you're going to have to have something like 4 to 5
spare crews ready to go per active boat just to maintain the force (and that
presumes you can build the boats that fast). That may be a maintainable rate
during war time, but it's likely to be a huge logistical drain any time else.
Actually you can make similiar arguments about those huge fighter forces. One
of the main reasons you wouldn't see them is because of the vast amount of
resources they use up during peacetime. Now if the war lasts significantly
longer than the time needed to train crew and build super large carriers, all
bets are off.

    Sorry, didn't mean to take this seriously....  :-)

> Leszek Karlik wrote:

> [...]

"Of course"?

> Of course, if you assume that the attack limitation comes from

And that's *precisely* the reason for the attack limitation which the
proponents of this proposal bring up each time :-/

> The limit for number of fighter groups which can attack a given ship

IOW, big capitals are unable to carry more powerful ECM generators than tiny
scoutships?

> One can PSB anything. :->

As long as one wants to tie oneself into a particular background, certainly...

> Yeah, but this would be the "adjunct" portion I was talking about.
Those 200 strike boats are scattered all over hell's half acre, not
concentrated together as your "fleet".

My point is, you only need to train, at most, 1/500,000 of your
population to provide crews for a fleet of 200 boats (which is roughly
approximately
6000-ish points, more or less, depending on the details).

> That may be a maintainable rate during war time, but it's likely to be

If the strikers can do jobs (recon, patrol) which would otherwise require a
larger ship, they might be less expensive than a more survivable ship. And I'd
like to think they're not actually getting expended if it's not wartime...but
the IFed has been known to get just a teensy bit confused
about what constitutes "wartime". :-)

> Sorry, didn't mean to take this seriously.... :-)

Allahu akhbar! <grin>

> Leszek Karlik wrote:

> As for the fighter problem - since points are an artificial game

This has been tested; it doesn't work. The problem is that the value of
fighters doesn't depend on the raw number of fighters in the fleet, but on the
ratio between the number of fighters and the amount of enemy
anti-fighter weapons - so unless your opponent is prepared to tell you
what
his anti-fighter armament consists of prior to the battle, you can't
determine the value of your own fighters.

(So why isn't this a problem for *ships*? Well, to some extent it is -
that's why PD-heavy fleets suffer against PD-light non-fighter fleets -
but it is far smaller than for fighters. A ship's combat power is a product
between its firepower and its survivability; against ships the firepower

comes from its anti-ship weapons, while against fighters it comes from
the
anti-fighter weapons. The anti-ship weapons usually make up a much
bigger
part of the ship's total armament than the anti-fighter weapons do, so
replacing X Mass of anti-ship weapons with anti-fighter ones or vice
versa
will almost always change the anti-fighter armament (and thus the ship's

anti-fighter combat power) by a much greater proportion than it changes
the
anti-ship armament (and anti-ship combat power).)

Regards,

> >One can PSB anything. :->
Now now, the basic premise of not limiting the number of fighters that can
attack based on range is itself tied to particular backgrounds. Star Wars,
Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, Babylon 5, heck *most* televised sf have
fighters that need to get right up close and personal to attack ships.
 Not
limiting the numbers of fighters that can attack in these backgrounds would
seem to require a handwaving psb it would seem to me. Bottom line, if limiting
the number of fighters that can attack each size of ship (perhaps based on
mass) makes for a better game, then the rule is far more important than the
"reason" for it. I know that some people don't buy the PSB behind rolling for
the number of missiles that attack from a SM attack. Thing is, it makes for a
good game, so they let it go. Now if you want to argue that limiting the
number of fighters that can attack

doesn't make for a good game, I'll listen. Still I'd rather that the reason it
was rejected was that it doesn't work, not that we can't find a reason for it.

> Grant A. Ladue wrote:
Star Wars,
> Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, Babylon 5, heck *most* televised sf
Now if
> you want to argue that limiting the number of fighters that can

With all these suggestions about putting limitations on fighters, I've got a
random question for the general populace: how many people do or do not use the
CEF rule with fighters? I can see where if one opted to not
keep track of this fighters are essentially an infinite-use weapon
(hence why it was adopted). Maybe limitations or other caps can or should be
put on CEFs?

All the wondering (having not played with fighters in over a year now), Mk

I generally use the CEF rules and usually found by the time they ran out of
endurance, I had also run out of fighters. The attrition factor comes into
play over several turns. Sure, I nuke the first target and usually the second,
but by the time the thrid & fourth targets get attacked, a lot of the
squadrons are down to
1/2
strength (and the attack or torpedo squadrons are all gone).

Brendan 'Neath Southern Skies

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> With all these suggestions about putting limitations on fighters, I've

We play with CEF, and a relatively low number of fighters. I've demonstrated
the power of massed fighters to a couple of them once, but not much in a
"real" game. That will change in the campaign we're doing
now.  :-)
As has been mentioned here, with small numbers of fighters (typically
6-8
at most) I usually see that the fighters run out of CEF right about the time
that they've been heavily reduced and need to reform in the carrier anyways.

It's amazing how much difference the playing style of your group can change
how well the game works.

The GZG Digest wrote on 4/28/2005 1:00 AM:

Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 09:55:00 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Grant A. Ladue" <ladue@cse.Buffalo.EDU>

> The strikeboat concept is a fun one to play with sometime, but it's

If you are talking "real world" why are you discussing "human" crews? Why not
an AI crew?

(I know, this will get into the "but humans are unpredictable, AIs are not"
discussion, like it usually does. I still believe that in 200 years we should
be able to write AI capable of maneuvering a strikeboat on a suicide run.)

Notice I don't even begin to talk about Kra'vak crew on one of their
berserking benders...

The GZG Digest wrote on 4/28/2005 1:00 AM:

Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 15:52:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Grant A. Ladue" <ladue@cse.Buffalo.EDU>

> Now now, the basic premise of not limiting the number of fighters

Ignoring for the moment that TV and movies have fighters "up close and
personal" with ships because it tends to be boring otherwise, I've read
sci-fi where fighter engagement ranges are far greater than that shown
on TV. I think I've seen some anime where fighters launch strikes at ships
from a hefty distance, but I'll let the anime experts comment on that. Then
there's good old reality. Modern fighters can engage surface ships from as far
away as 60 km and further. I can easily imagine "hard SF" suggesting similar
engagement ranges.

If you encode the PSB in the rules, then the rule makes no sense for universes
where the PSB makes no sense. This isn't a problem when you write rules for a
specific universe. However, FT prides itself on being a generic game. If you
encode PSB in the rules, you wreck FT's generic nature.

> Bottom line, if limiting the number of fighters that can attack each

Does it make it a better game? What is this supposed to fix, anyway? It makes
lots of fighters less powerful. However, it does nothing to fix the PDS
imbalance. In fact, by limiting the number of fighters attacking a ship you
lower the amount of PDS needed to make a ship invulnerable to fighters.

Let's go back to Oerjan's original rock-paper-scissors comment, where
fighter heavy fleets destroy anti-ship heavy fleets, PDS heavy fleets
destroy fighter heavy fleets, and anti-ship heavy fleets destroy PDS
heavy fleets. What this limitation does is makes it easier for PDS heavy
fleets to destroy fighter heavy fleets, and gives anti-ship heavy fleets
the capability of doing major damage against fighter-heavy fleets.

In other words, all viable fleets will be either anti-ship or PDS heavy,
with PDS heavy fleets looking more like anti-ship heavy fleets. Fighters
would not be viable.

> The GZG Digest wrote on 4/28/2005 1:00 AM:
Actually, I would just stick to the argument that the basic premise of
  almost any sci-fi setting that you might want to game is that that
they have
  living non-computer crew.
In 200 years, the AI will probably be capable of running any ship you might
want to think of.

> The GZG Digest wrote on 4/28/2005 1:00 AM:

I understand why televised shows work the way they do, but you can't just
ignore the way they do things if you want to to be able to simulate them.

> If you encode the PSB in the rules, then the rule makes no sense for
All very true. My point is that you are *already* encoding a PSB into the
rules. It's easily shown that fighters work very differently in different
settings. The fighters appropriate to the Full Thrust setting, are not
appropriate in Star Wars. Allowing unlimited numbers of fighters to attack
Babylon 5 is probably appropriate, but allowing the same number to attack a
White Star is clearly not. You can't write the rules to cover all the
different varieties at once. Write the rule to work reasonably well in the
standard setting, and give suggestions to how they can be done differently
depending on what you want to achieve.

> > Bottom line, if limiting the number of fighters that can attack each

> > size of ship (perhaps based on mass) makes for a better game, then
It
> makes lots of fighters less powerful. However, it does nothing to fix
Fighters
> would not be viable.

I disagree. What it can do is make your decision more reasonable. If the
number of pds you need to buy to make your ship invulnerable to fighters is
more reasonable, then you will not be nearly as crippled when facing a non
fighter using foe. It becomes more of a tactics issue. Do you stock up on
defenses, sacrificing firepower, or do you only have moderate defenses with
more firepower against ships? Please note, part of all of these discussions is
going to be the limiting of fighter's power. By doing that, you also
 limit or eliminate the "all-fighter" fleet, which in essence takes away
a part
 of the rock-paper-scissors thing.  None of the rules presented so far
prevent you from buying enough pds to make you fighter invulnerable.
Criticizing this idea on that premise seems spurious to me. In any case, I
wouldn't try to argue for this idea alone. It certainly can be combined with
the "all weapons fire on fighters" idea, and in fact I fully support that.

In my old games, we didn't use CEF in the early going in FT2, but by the

time we got to FBs we had started using it.

When I was playing with my ex-wife's brother, we typically played 5000
point
battles where pretty much anything goes.  Mixed tech, nova cannons/wave
guns (and we also allowed them to scale up similar to plasma bolts), cloaking

fields, reflex fields, anything your heart desired, it was fair game. We had a
few house rules to settle a few questions of mixed tech, and generally it went
fairly well.

Maybe it was a matter of the humiliation of one-sided defeats whenever
someone guessed wrong if they over-loaded on dealing with fighters or
with
ship-to-ship armaments, and maybe it was that we didn't play often
enough that we could afford not to care if we lost that badly by doing so. But
we
never really fell into the paper-rock-scissors game that Oerjan
describes.
My ex-brother-in-law was a little more given to overspecializing in this
way than I was, and when he guessed right it usually was not that great (if at
all) of a victory, while if he guessed wrong he suffered some of his most
crushing defeats ever.  Our most one-sided battle ever came when he
tried
flying a slow mega-dreadstar with no fighters, no escorts, a ton of PDS,
all figuring he'd just slog through the expected fighter swarm and pick off
the
carriers with the modest ship-to-ship armament he had.  Then I didn't
bring fighters; I brought warships armed with nova cannons in the main element

with a flanking detachment of fast-flying cruisers with stiff
screens/armor
and needle beams. He wasn't able to destroy the cruisers as they swung out
wide and behind him, he was at a severe maneuvering disadvantage, and the
cruisers took out his drives in about three turns, as well as his FTL. The
ship struck its colors almost immediately rather than be annihilated.

This was embarassing enough that trying to over-load against fighters at
the expense of offensive firepower just didn't happen again, on either side.

They were something to be accounted for, but we never got to
paper-rock-scissors.  This incident was probably the closest we came,
and the example of what happens when one guessed wrong was bad enough that we
played more balanced fleets. However, by the end of our time playing the game,
I tended to pack about a hundred scatterguns, give or take depending on
whether I had fighters or not, just on the off chance that the idea of soap
bubble carriers occurred to him. He didn't try it by the time I divorced his
sister, and after that we didn't play again.

Eric/Stilt

[quoted original message omitted]

In a message dated 4/28/05 8:46:30 AM Central Daylight Time,
> ladue@cse.Buffalo.EDU writes:

<snip>

It's amazing how much difference the playing style of your group can change
how well the game works.

grant

A much under-appreciated aspect to any set of  rules.

Gracias,

The GZG Digest wrote on 4/29/2005 1:00 AM:

> Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 13:06:11 -0400 (EDT)

> All very true. My point is that you are *already* encoding a PSB

That's very true. However, the PSB that's encoded in the game (particularly no
aft arc fire) is there to make the game better. As I'll

explain later, limiting the number of fighters attacking a ship has
shown to _not_ make the game better.

> I disagree. What it can do is make your decision more reasonable.
If the
> number of pds you need to buy to make your ship invulnerable to

You are on the right track. If you take out one of the three parts of
rock/paper/scissors, then you make fleet composition more interesting.
The problem, though, is that limiting the number of fighters attacking a

ship may do nothing to this balance. And, if it does, you essentially
remove fighter-heavy fleets as an option. This is bad because there are
a _lot_ of genres and a _lot_ of players who like fighter-heavy fleets.

Limiting the number of fighters attacking a ship _was_ playtested. What
they found was that it had very little impact on the rock/paper/scissors

thing, and introduced problems of its own.

I think the limit was 6 fighters attacking any given ship. This meant that
anything short of a battledreadnought was destroyed outright, as 6 fighter
squadrons were usually enough to take out smaller ships, regardless of their
PDS. Battledreadnoughts and above, though, could survive the fighters, and
mount enough PDS to be invulnerable. The number of PDS was less (since they
only had 6 squadrons, max, to contend

with) but they still needed enough PDS that they were at a serious
disadvantage against non-PDS fleets. At the same time, it exasperated
another problem in FT, that small ships are less powerful -- for the
price -- than bigger ships.

You could boost PDS effectiveness, so that fewer PDS are needed. That
makes fleets invulnerable to fighters, while making PDS-heavy fleets
more viable against non-PDS fleets. However, as I mentioned above, a lot

of players _like_ fighter fleets. This rule would essentially kill
fighter fleets.

What the unofficial fighter beta test rules do is similar to what you're

thinking: they take out one of the three tiers of the
rock/paper/scissors triad and make the two remaining fleets viable
against each other so that tactics decide the battle. The beta test
rules don't eliminate the fighter fleet, they eliminate is the PDS-heavy

fleet.

The beta test rules change the balance quite a bit. They put limits on
PDS anti-ship ability, making a PDS-heavy fleet less useful against a
non-PDS fleet. At the same time -- and this is the key -- it allows
non-PDS fleets to fire their main ordnance against fighters. Thus,
PDS-heavy fleets can still be invulnerable to fighters, but they are
even more vulnerable to non-PDS fleets. Non-PDS fleets now have a good
chance against fighter heavy fleets. In fact, the optimum non-fighter
fleet has a small amount of PDS, making them look a lot like the ships in the
fleet books.

So, with the beta rules, the PDS-heavy fleet is the one that disappears.

It wins all the time against fighters, but loses all the time against
non-PDS. A PDS light fleet, or one with no PDS, has a fighting chance
against fighters but wipes the floor against PDS fleets. So, if you're
not sure what your opponent will bring, you bring a non-PDS or light-PDS

fleet. If your opponent happens to bring fighters, you'll still have a good
chance of beating him.

> In any case, I wouldn't try to argue for this idea alone. It

Which would hurt fighter fleets even more, as mentioned above.

> limiting the number of fighters attacking a ship has [been]

I'm going to modify that a bit. The usual proposal is "no more than six
squadrons attacking in a single wave", and Allan is quite correct -- it
sounds like a good idea at first blush, but then you playtest it or do the
math and you see that it doesn't work.

However, there are other possibilies. "No more than three squadrons", rather
than "six", perhaps.

Or one I proposed but which was never tested, "pay an additional CEF for each
additional squadron in the wave", so a 3 squadron wave pays 3 CEF, not
1.

Or PDS fire causes fighters to break off without an effective attack: 1PDS: 1
on d6
2PDS: 1-2
4PDS: 1-3
8PDS: 1-4
16+PDS: 1-5

> >limiting the number of fighters attacking a ship has [been]

Did anyone actually playtest a "sliding scale" as opposed to a absolute max?

For instance:

1 squadron (max) can attack a ship of less than mass 20 2 may attack ships of
mass 20 to < 50 4 may attack ships of mass 50 to < 100 8 may attack ships of
mass 100 to < 150 double for each additional mass of 50

This is the kind of idea that I was arguing for (but I probably wasn't clear
in that). A strict limit is clearly not going to work. Of course the numbers
would probably have to be different, but something along these lines. Note,
the actual psb is immaterial to me if the rule works for the game. On first
blush, this would seem to allow small ships to carry enough pds to actually be
effective, while still allowing them to not do so and get killed. Buying
sufficient pds to make you invulnerable will cripple your
 ability to carry enough anti-ship weapons to matter.  Now, perhaps
there are problems in this approach as well. I'd be happy to hear about them
so we can compare and contrast though.

Why not link the number of fighter groups that can attack a ship to the number
of Damage Control parties it has? Maybe not 1:1 ratio.

> Grant A. Ladue wrote:

> limiting the number of fighters attacking a ship has [been]
Note,
> the actual psb is immaterial to me if the rule works for the game.

> From: Flak Magnet (Tim)

So warships are more prone to fighter attack than freighters? And what happens
if you buy extra DCPs, per More Thrust?

> >From: Flak Magnet (Tim)

Excellent points. I would stick to tying it to mass since mass, size, and
capability are pretty tightly linked in this system. One thing, I would tend
to also allow all weapons to fire at fighters as well just to prevent the
oddness of fighters being invulnerable just by not attacking. Of course, if
you were to use both concepts, you'd have to tweak the lethality of weapons
fire versus fighters.

> Flak Magnet wrote:

> Why not link the number of fighter groups that can attack a ship to the

That would mean that a TMF 250 SDN with 13 DCPs can be attacked by 13 fighter
groups, but a TMF 250 bulk freighter with only 5 DCPs can only be attacked by
5 fighter groups. (Or some multiple of 13 and 5 groups respectively, if the
ratio is something else than 1:1.)

Ah... I hadn't considered that.

So that's not such a good idea after all.

--Tim

> Oerjan Ariander wrote:

> Flak Magnet wrote: