Hello, I have been trying to keep up with all the discussion regarding
fighters. I have also read the beta fighter rules (although I should reread
them) and I cannot understand why such a complex system is required to fix the
game imbalance problem. From the games I have played the major issue is how
quickly a fighter can engage its target and the lack of options the ship has
prior to the figthers attacking. So I was thinking of reducing the movement
from 24mu to 18mu for all
non-fast fighters and reduce the CEF burn to 6mu. Next
modify the ADFC rules so that an ADFC system will
allow a PDS and/or class 1 beams to fire at
nonengaging fighters up 18mu away. Lastly reduce the range at which a fighter
squadron can attack a ship from 6mu to 3mu.
These changes would accomplish 2 things: 1 it would allow opposing ships to
gain more ground toward carrier and potentially destory it; 2 it would put the
fighters at greater risk by extending their flight time and the amount of time
they could be shot down.
Just the ramblings of a guy who likes his carriers
> On Tue, Apr 20, 2004 at 08:07:59AM -0700, Jeff McConnell wrote:
> I have been trying to keep up with all the discussion
The short version: we've tried most of the simpler options, and they don't
work. Remember we want to keep the FB1 designs reasonably survivable, at least
in cinematic play.
The flip side: they're really not all that complex once you actually play
them. They're written up to be excruciatingly clear, and there's a fair bit of
repeated material for this reason, but in actual play they're as fast as or
faster than the standard rules.
[quoted original message omitted]
On Tue, 20 Apr 2004 20:37:49 +0200 KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de
> (K.H.Ranitzsch) writes:
<snip>
> reasonably comprehensive and idiot-proof (*). WRG Ancient period rules
<snip>
Rules-lawyers are a sub-set of Idiots.
Gracias,
> K.H.Ranitzsch wrote:
> Complex phrasing is a notorious problem when writing rules, if you aim
If you're calling DBM et al some of WRG's complicated sets, then you've
either never seen or have blacked-out 7th edition Ancients. Possibly
designed to keep rules lawyers entertained and so keep them away from other
games.
> Jeff McConnell wrote:
> I have also read the beta fighter rules (although I should reread
Roger has already given you the (very) short version, and it is also discussed
a bit in the "Background" and "Comments and observations"
sections of the beta-test file; so I guess that leaves it to me to post
the
long version :-/ I'm afraid it gets rather wordy, but the fighter
problem isn't a trivial one... if it had been trivial it wouldn't have taken
over ten years to figure out what really caused it, nor would the solution to
it seem so radical.
As for complexity, the beta-test rules are actually only about as
complex as the current FT fighter rules; although some areas do get a bit more
complex (in particular both sides have to think more carefully about their
tactics than they do under the current rules), this is made up for by
reducing the complexity and book-keeping in other areas. As Roger wrote
in his post
yesterday, the main reason why the beta-test rules file *seems* so
complex is that it repeats the main points several times... and of course the
various notes and comments don't make the file any shorter either!
Another important reason for the size of the beta-test file however is
that the rules it is intended to replace are themselves quite extensive; they
take up about five pages of rather fine print (the Fleet Book font is
particularly tiny) - and that's after you've taken out all the graphics,
redundant or superceded sections (*), and the bits the beta-test rules
currently don't cover (**). Since these five or so pages are currently
scattered in smaller portions all over the four books, you don't always
realize just how long the current FT fighter rules really are though...
(*) eg. the "advanced fighter types" (heavy/interceptor/attack etc.),
published both in MT and in FB2 with a few minor changes between the two
versions.
(**) The fighter rules that I'm aware of are missing from the beta-test
rules are: Fighters landing on carriers (from FT2), Fighter Refuelling &
Reorganization (from FB2), Aces&Turkeys, and Scrambling Fighters (both
from MT); together these add another half-page or so. The first three of
these work fine as they are; fighter scrambling however needs to be updated
slightly from its MT version. (Has been updated actually, but it was left
out of the beta-test file since it is an optional rule which only rarely
comes into play.)
But I digress. Back to your question: why this change?
> From the games I have played the major issue is how quickly a fighter
I'm afraid that you walk into the same trap as so many others have done over
the years: what you describe as "the major issues" are symptoms rather than
the root cause, and treating the symptoms won't cure the real problem
- particularly not since you only treat some of the symptoms and ignore
the rest.
Basically, the FT fighter balance problem is NOT simply that "fighters are
too powerful" - which is the half of the problem pretty much all
previous attempts to fix the fighter balance, including yours, have tried to
solve. The real problem is that the amount of extra point defences needed to
go
from "fighters are too powerful" to "fighters are useless" isn't that
big -
putting one or more ADFCs and 4-6 PDSs on every ship in your fleet
(unless of course your fleet only consists of a few very big ships, in which
you
need more PDSs on each of them) is enough to allow you to handle all but
the very largest fighter forces (and makes small numbers of fighters
completely useless); spending those points on scatterguns instead makes the
fighter problem go away completely. Not surprisingly there are quite a few
player-designed custom fleets which do put one or more ADFCs and 4-6
PDSs on every ship.
Of course such a PD-heavy fleet tends to be at a disadvantage against
fleets with less PD weapons and heavier anti-ship armament, but the
PD-heavy fleet nevertheless has a decent fighting chance in this
match-up
whereas the PD-light fleet will get slaughtered by any serious fighter
force.
IOW, under the current FT rules fighters are almost invariably either much
too strong or much too *weak* - but unlike Goldilock and her stolen
porridge, the chance of finding a situation where the fighters are "just
right" under the current FT rules is very slim even if both players cooperate
to find it. If they don't cooperate but instead compete the chance of them
hitting the balance point by accident is effectively nil, so
instead of paper-rock-scissors you something like get paper-chain
saw-submachinegun... which isn't very fun if you're the paper :-(
This means that if you try to solve the fighter balance by making the
fighters weaker and/or the existing anti-fighter weapons stronger -
which is what your suggestions do, and what virtually all of the other
proposed "fighter fixes" I've seen over the past ten years (including the
fighter
changes in More Thrust and Fleet Book 1) have done too - the only thing
that'll happen is that you need more fighters before you pass beyond the
point where the balance tips over (and you thereby also make small numbers of
fighters even more completely useless than they already are)... but you don't
make it any easier to *hit* the balance point. To continue the PRS
analogy you change the submachinegun for an assault rifle, and you might
change the chain saw into a woodcutter's axe, but you don't make the paper any
stronger.
Which is why the beta-test rules go the other way: instead of making the
existing PD weapons even more powerful, they allow *all* weapons to shoot at
fighters but give the fighters the means to avoid most of the effects of this
fire both by sacrificing combat endurance and by manoeuvring to avoid the
enemy's main fire arcs (forcing both sides to think about their tactics
- the fighters in order to minimize their exposure to anti-ship fire,
the ships to maximize the fighters' exposure to same).
The basic idea behind this concept - and after almost two years of
playtesting it still seems to work out this way in play - is that if you
don't *need* to stack up so heavily on PD weapons and ADFCs in order to have a
fighting chance against massed fighters, you're not that likely to *do* it
either since it leaves you at a disadvantage against other types of
fleets. Of course a PD-light force may still be at a disadvantage
against massed fighters if your point defences are *too* light, but instead of
being utterly fatal this disadvantage is now only about as big as the
disadvantage PD-heavy fleets suffer against the PD-light one.
Paper-rock-scissors restored.
So what about small numbers of fighters? Don't they get completely wiped
out when every weapon can shoot at them? No, they don't - unless of
course they attempt to charge the enemy fleet singlehandedly or something
similarly daft. (Been there, done that :-/ ) It turns out that (as any
Phalon player can attest) the choice between firing your main batteries at
enemy *fighters* and firing them at the enemy *ships* is usually a rather
difficult one to make; and if there's only a small number of enemy fighters
present, the anti-ship weapons are usually more effectively employed
against the enemy ships (with some exceptions depending on the tactical
situation, as discussed in my replies to Grant). The main batteries'
anti-fighter capabilities only really come into play when there are lots
of enemy fighters but few or no enemy ship for them to shoot at.
(Of course, if you *do* send a few fighter groups unsupported into the
middle of the enemy fleet they'll get wiped out very quickly - but keep
in mind that each fighter group is only about as powerful (and expensive) as a
frigate. If you sent a few frigates unsupported straight into the enemy
fleet you wouldn't expect them to last very long either, would you? :-)
)
So, to return to Roger's "short version": we've tried most of the simple
options, and broken them within a week of testing. This one is more extensive
than the simple options, but it has survived almost two years of
testing so far :-/
***
> KHR wrote:
> Complex phrasing is a notorious problem when writing rules, if you aim
Best known, at least... there's a reason why the term "Barkerese" was
coined, after all :-/
> Examples, graphics, a plain explanation together with the legalese
Very much so. Unfortunately ASCII graphics don't carry over well emails
:-(
The situation isn't exactly improved by the facts that I (who wrote most of
the FT beta-test fighter rules text) am not a native English-speaker,
and that I learned how to play the WRG 7th Edition Ancients rules through
reading the rulebook at the age of 13 - which as put a rather deep
imprint
on any rules I write... I've tried to get the native-speakers on the
playtest list to translate the beta-test rules into English, but so far
they've only made a few cosmetic changes :-(
***
Looking back at the archives, I realize that the acknowledgements in the
beta-test file need to be updated - although I first heard the
"anti-ship
weapons can fire at fighters" from Jon T. when I visited the GZG workshop
(which must've been early May 2002), it was Randy Wolfmeyer who posted the key
"fighters can burn CEF on evasive manoeuvres" bit on this list less than a
week later (and as far as I can see independently of my discussion with
Jon). If these beta-test rules make it into FT3, Randy should definitely
be mentioned in the credits!
Regards,
In message <20040420150759.77282.qmail@web80703.mail.yahoo.com>
> Jeff McConnell <mcconje@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
[snip]
> So I was thinking of reducing the movement from 24mu to 18mu for all
Interestingly enough, the original fighter rules in Full Thrust I (ONE) gave
fighters an 18" move.
[snip]