Fighters that bad? Re: Soap bubbles?

Sorry to bust in on this thread but how, exactly, are fighters broken? I
missed the original "Soap Bubbles" post but I always thought fighters were
fine the way they were. They're fast, and powerful, but they go up like
popcorn in a microwave. The only problem I can see with fighters is the
relative lack of area defense FCons in most FB1 fleets.

SML/Rs...now there's a problem.  :)

Damo

> Sorry to bust in on this thread but how, exactly, are fighters broken?
I
> missed the original "Soap Bubbles" post but I always thought fighters

To repeat, most of us think they are fine, but while most things get better
when they can mob, fighters get better WAY faster. Least, that's the closest
thing to a concensus as you'll find here.

> SML/Rs...now there's a problem. :)

Actually, I feel that way about fighters, but my games have tended to be much
lower MU's than others, so slow and close make either fighters OR SML's of any
kind deadly.

The_Beast

> Sorry to bust in on this thread but how, exactly, are fighters broken?
I
> missed the original "Soap Bubbles" post but I always thought fighters

Try taking 10 soap bubbles (for example Mass 27, 3 hull, MD2, FTL, 2 fighter
bays, with normal fighters = 135pts each) against 1350pts of Fleet Book ships.
You should be able to vaporize a SDN every turn.

> SML/Rs...now there's a problem. :)

SMR are less of a problem because it's possible to miss entirely, or to have
that lovely barrage of missiles all home on one DD instead of the BB
that you were aiming for.  Either way, they're a one-shot weapon.
Fighters get to go on to the next target.

On Wed, 19 Feb 2003 13:47:00 -0500, "Damond Walker"
<dwalker@syncretic.com> wrote:

> Sorry to bust in on this thread but how, exactly, are fighters broken?

Yes, they are.

They aren't that big of an issue in the numbers found in the fleet books, but
the moment you start to build your own custom designs you find that fighters
are broken. A swarm of around 20 fighter squadrons can take out anything in
the fleet books, and pretty much anything custom built except ships armed with
lots of scatterguns (which, too, are broken, at least as far as their points
are concerned).

Fighters are worth their points as individual squadrons, but once you start
massing squadrons against ships with PDS you'll overwhelm the PDS ships.

> The only problem I can see with fighters is the

You can't build custom ships with enough PDS for the points that can withstand
a custom soap bubble carrier and the attendant fighters. This shows itself at
anywhere from 10+ to 15+ fighter squadrons on the table.

> SML/Rs...now there's a problem. :)

Folks thought they were overly powerful when they first came out. That's no
longer the prevailing sentiment.

> At 3:58 PM -0500 2/19/03, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:
Fighters
> get to go on to the next target.

Not torpedo Bombers. One thing the rules really make hard to run is Mixed
groups of fighters for multi role operations. 2 Interceptors, 2 Heavys, 2
Torps and 2 Attacks. Run an operation like that and see if the rules work.

> >Sorry to bust in on this thread but how, exactly, are fighters

Who cares?

I go back to campaign play as the real balancing factor. Any construction
system can be abused, so can most campaign rules. But if you must fix through
rules than rather than 'fix' fighters I'd rather see an arms race
and some new form of anti-fighter tech.

Like... Hmmmm... Anti-Fighter Salvo Missles or something like that. PSB
as something akin to a submunitions pack.

Or some big Pulse MT missle that does little or no damage vs ships and only
damages fighters and maybe strikeboats.

On Thursday, February 20, 2003 10:14 AM, David Rodemaker
> [SMTP:dar@horusinc.com] wrote:
PSB as
> something akin to a submunitions pack.

AFHAWK missiles are available as a houserule from the Midbar Skunkworks Weapon
Defence Archive:
http://nift.firedrake.org/Weap-Def_Archive.htm

1 mass each, act as KV scatterpacks (kills 1d6 fighters/missiles)

> David Rodemaker wrote:

> >Try taking 10 soap bubbles (for example Mass 27, 3 hull, MD2, FTL, 2

Using the published Full Thrust campaign rules, I assume...?

Regards,

> > >Try taking 10 soap bubbles (for example Mass 27, 3 hull, MD2, FTL,

<Bowing to Oerjan>

Yup, what else do you call canonical ships designs assigned to specific
political units *with* service details and costs provided?

It's more information than SFB ever provided (ignoring F&E) for years and
people (myself included) put together excellent campaigns...

<g>