FT Fighters:
As I understand it, the standard 6-fighter group is simply a convention
for ship building and book keeping. There is no hard and fast rule regarding
the size of fighter groups. This opens fighter use to potential abuse. You
have a slight advantage sending in 6 groups of 5
instead of 5 groups of 6 - Even if the defender has 5 PDS, at least 5
fighters are guaranteed a clean, unscathed shot. If you made your groups 3
fighters instead of 6, you could tie up 2 PDS's or interceptor groups instead
of 1, leaving more fighters to get through to the target. Moreso groups of 2
(the whole reason I have these questions was because I began thinking of
fighters in terms of lead and wingman) which effectively eliminate the reroll,
as a 6 just kills off the whole 'group' of 2.
Finally groups of 1 - whouch would navigate on the board as individual
units, are the ultimate in maximizing fighter power if you take the PDS and
dogfight rules verbatim.
Another distinct advantage of small groups is that you can spread them around
the projected course of your opponent (like with SML's) and allow them to glom
en masse on to preferred targets within 6".
Revising PDS to engage up to 6 fighters (in any group) per system would
eliminate one issue. Enabling intercepting fighter groups to split for
mano-a-mano duels would also help. But there are other complexities.
Splitting fighter groups enables 1 group to take on, say 3 corvettes at
once with reasonable chance for success - the reduction of overkill and
extension of fighter endurance increases the relative power of the fighters.
Perhaps these questions are too niggling, but tell me if you'd rather face a
CV with 6 groups of 6 or 18 groups of 2 fighters?
> FT Fighters:
[mass snippage]
My take on the subject is that following the SPIRIT of the rules, you'd have
as many groups of 6 as you have fighters, and maybe a leftover group of the
rest.
This prevents too much abuse. Even though fighter group size is not explicitly
stated, I think it's pretty well been established at 6.
WAY too rules lawyer-ish for FT.
This would be like splitting up Salvo missiles into salvoes of a single
missile each. I think there are some basic assumptions regarding number of
targets and how the PDS works. If you're going to allow groups to be broken
up, then the PDS should gain
the capability to shoot up to six targets each - doing one point per
target for a 6 plus a re-roll.
I think the assumptions is that the fighter group is just a convenient
breakdown for doing rolls, you could fire at each target individually with
each PDS being able to fire at up to 6 targets or just do 1 roll for every 6.
In addition, if you use the Fighter Morale Rules a group of 1 would rarely
make the morale check and wouldn't attack. Use of the Morale rules is
recommended in the FB.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
> Izenberg, Noam wrote:
...Snip...JTL
> Perhaps these questions are too niggling, but tell me if you'd rather
As I understand the entry in the FT/MT book it says 'Fighter group
including
bay---- mass 6.'. So in FT/MT putting one fighter in the bay is not
cost/
mass efficient and no one I can think of would want to do that.
As for the FB: This really only would work for even numbers of fighters.
Otherwise the
mass roundoff would kill you. At the present I cannot find where the rules
state that all fighters can start on the board, and even if written I would
create a house rule to return to the two squadron launch a turn
on the spot. Furthermore I would allow the PDAF/PDS to kill as may
fighters as are attacking the ship without reguard for the squadron size as
this is more realistic.
Bye for now,