I was thinking of my post about deployed SMR pods, and I came up with this
idea for fighters. The fighter bays can be considered as the launch bays
(after all, a ship can launch all it`s fighters at once), we could have the
fighters carried as cargo in cargo bays, with the fighter bays use for just
launching/landing/rearming fighters, and the fighters transfered from
the cargo bays to the launch bays when launching is required. After all, I
don`t think a present carrier can launch all it`s fighters at once, it
requires them to be transfered from the hangers to the catapults. If we did
this, a CVL could replace 2 of it`s launch bays with cargo space for 3 fighter
groups, increasing it`s fighters to 5 groups, but only be able to
launch/land/rearm 2 fighter groups at once.
Any comments?
One of the major list battles that was never fully resolved. Some argued your
design, others stated that the fighters would have to be uncrated, and
unavailable during the relatively short periord of a battle.
We all ended up muttering about agreeing to disagree, though I think there was
agreement that it could be unbalancing.
Have you checked out the archives?
The_Beast
-Douglas J. Evans, curmudgeon
One World, one Web, one Program - Microsoft promotional ad
Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer - Adolf Hitler
"Bif Smith"
<bif@bifsmith.fsnet.co.uk To: "full
thrust" <gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>
> cc:
Sent by: Subject:
FT-Fighters and launch bays
owner-gzg-l@lists.CSUA.Be
rkeley.EDU
06/05/2001 01:51 AM
Please respond to gzg-l
I was thinking of my post about deployed SMR pods, and I came up with this
idea for fighters. The fighter bays can be considered as the launch bays
(after all, a ship can launch all it`s fighters at once), we could have the
fighters carried as cargo in cargo bays, with the fighter bays use for just
launching/landing/rearming fighters, and the fighters transfered from
the cargo bays to the launch bays when launching is required. After all, I
don`t think a present carrier can launch all it`s fighters at once, it
requires them to be transfered from the hangers to the catapults. If we did
this, a CVL could replace 2 of it`s launch bays with cargo space for 3 fighter
groups, increasing it`s fighters to 5 groups, but only be able to
launch/land/rearm 2 fighter groups at once.
Any comments?
BIF
"Yorkshire born, yorkshire bred, strong in arms, thick in head"
I could be wrong, but I think the rules were changed
to avoid the x turns of pre-engagement dancing while
both sides gradually deployed their fighter groups.
Most spaceship carriers do have such a parallel system, so maybe that's why
they chose this system as the norm. The B5 Omega Destroyer has a simultaneous
launch, single recovery system, as does the Battlestar Galactica, the Above
and Beyond carrier, etc.
Our carriers are dependent on the steam catapults and required deck space for
recoveries. In space, this wouldn't be necessary as the fighters could just be
dropped (or pushed) out. So, the bottleneck that characterizes modern carrier
operations doesn't really seem to be a factor in space.
> --- Bif Smith <bif@bifsmith.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> On 5-Jun-01 at 14:25, Bif Smith (bif@bifsmith.fsnet.co.uk) wrote:
This one has bounced around the list before. The end result of much
discussion was fighters took up 1-1/2 X their mass just like anything
else. If you wanted to store them crated they would only take up their mass
but would be unavailable in a scenario. Otherwise you were getting fighters
far to inexpensively. A base fighter squadron costs 45 before drive costs. A
"crated" fighter squadron in mass 6 cargo bays costs 18 before drive costs.
(My figures are from AO so may be a bit off.)
> At 7:51 AM +0100 6/5/01, Bif Smith wrote:
I like. This makes sense too. Fighter racks like on B5 are more like the
launch them all at once kind of fighter bays. A more traditional carrier would
have a number of bays that can could be used for recovery or launch. Though I
suspect the recovery evolution would be more protracted.
Let's see, Fighter Cost, assuming thrust 4 FTL capable carrier:
Cost of squadron: 18 Hanger: 27 Drives: 25.71
So a squadon of fighters costs: 68.71, this changes with ship thrust.
Fighters in cargo space:
Cost of squadron: 18 Cargo space: 0 Drives: 17.14
So a squadron of fighters in cargo space costs 35.14
Hardly a fair trade off for taking a bit more launch time.
(Did I miss any hidden costs Oerjan?:)
> Let's see, Fighter Cost, assuming thrust 4 FTL capable carrier:
plus screens, plus anything else percentage based. I'd say boxed fighters
would take several hours--to pick a number, say six hours minimum--to
uncrate, prep, fuel, arm and set up, and you'd need an unoccupied fighter bay
or similar maintenance facilities and crew.
I agree. However, in a campaign, it might be ok for replenishment of destroyed
fighters once they're out of the battle and before the next one. Of course
replenishment ships work well for that too.
Heck the Savasku "build" their fighters on the fly, much less uncrate them.
Maybe the author can score some drone wombs from the Savs.
> --- Roger Books <books@mail.state.fl.us> wrote:
> On 5-Jun-01 at 15:24, David Griffin (carbon_dragon@yahoo.com) wrote:
That's what we do. Crated fighters take up 1 mass each and you can prep as
many as you want between battles.
Of course we tend to have tugs towing 0 thrust hangers which are left as
defenses in recently captured systems.
> --- Roger Books <books@mail.state.fl.us> wrote:
...
> That's what we do. Crated fighters take up 1 mass
We've talked a lot about campaigns, but haven't actually played one yet (or I
haven't anyway), but we've had FTL capable ships which were effectively
floating hangers. They tend to put so many fighters on the table that they
unbalanced the game. The game I remember was getting hit with 4 of these, each
with 5 fighter groups and an additional 2 groups from somewhere as part of a
multi player fleet resulting in getting hit with 22 fighter squadrons at once.
It's hard to have a reasonable fighter defense for that without lots of
carriers of your own and you don't usually know it's going to be a carrier
battle till it happens.
That's why I prefer more "normal" carriers whatever that means.
> On 5-Jun-01 at 15:52, David Griffin (carbon_dragon@yahoo.com) wrote:
Large numbers of fighters can be handled, here is how I tend to do it.
Most ships in my fleet have PDS's and ADFCs so I can have a defense grid. This
means keeping everything tucked in tight.
For my ships see:
http://www.jumpspace.net/Wargames/FT/designs.html
Keep your speed up. If you can force him to split his fighters because he
doesn't know where you are going you can deal with them much more easily. I
like speeds in excess of 20.
Chose interceptors, they are worth their weight in gold.
Most importantly, USE THE MORAL RULES.
> On 5-Jun-01 at 16:08, Roger Books (books@mail.state.fl.us) wrote:
> Most importantly, USE THE MORAL RULES.
As apposed, of course, to the immoral rules (Whose initials are G....)
Use the Morale rules.
Sometimes, my group tries different strategies in the extreme, just for
giggles.
I remember one 5000pt battle where I took a bunch of 'hollow carriers' (more
or less a ship with FTL drive and a ton of fighter bays). I don't remember the
exact number of fighters, but it was somewhere around 200 groups.
In my experience, 200 fighter groups can take out just about anything. This
was one of those Saturdays when we were just playing around, nothing serious,
so it was a good time to experiment.
My fighters wiped the board of all enemies with little trouble. The only
problem is....it took FOREVER!!! The logistics of keeping track of combat
endurance and casualties for 200 fighter groups was almost unplayable.
In the end we all agreed that it was a fun experiment, interesting to see what
happens, but if anyone ever thinks of actually playing that many fighters
again, they should be soundly beaten with a large stick before fighters can be
launched.
Question one: has anyone else had this experience?
Question two: during current carrier operations, fighters that are launched to
fight are almost always in line waiting to be launched aren't they? I was a
Marine, so most of my carrier experience was either with our amphib carriers,
or just short stays on our big boys, mostly doing helo ops. I am not an expert
by any means on this subject, so any of you Navy boys might know this? The
time it takes to bring a fighter up from below and into launch status would be
too long to matter in most battles wouldn't it? Don't we usually have the
first group of fighters launch and have a second group on standby already
prepared and waiting on the flight deck?
I think the idea of unpacking and preparing a fighter for launch during combat
wouldn't be feasible. Of course, that would depend on how long a combat turn
is in FT.....another subject I'm not sure about.
> --- David Griffin <carbon_dragon@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Shawn M Mininger wrote:
> My fighters wiped the board of all enemies with little
I place a small D6 with each group to represent their endurace and all my
fighters are 1 to 1 and are removable so I just remove the models as they get
killed. My logistics are pretty easy, but then my fighters are pretty
expensive.
> Question one: has anyone else had this experience?
Only with the over running of fighters. But then we only allow what you
have models for so fighters are limited. I only have about 4-6 dozen.
> I think the idea of unpacking and preparing a fighter
What I think might be better is a laugh bay and a hanger bay. This would limit
the number of fighters you can launch at a time but give you an advantage in
numbers per mass. Sorta like SMRs.
I would suggest that you could prep as many fighter groups as you have hanger
bays in which to put them.
The problem with uncrating fighters is that if you allow fighter launches
before the battle, it is unbalancing.
> At 11:39 AM -0700 6/5/01, David Griffin wrote:
[snip]
Our Carriers, ie the US's carriers. The carriers that the Brits use don't
require catapults.
The fighters that the Atlantic Conveyor brought to the South Atlantic were
launched from her deck and flown over to Hermes and Invincible. They were
"cargo" on the way down and required prep time. Granted the AC wasn't a
"carrier" but that didn't stop the fighters from launching from the cargo
space. Those aircraft were spotted exactly the way they are below decks on
Hermes or her sisters.
What the Atlantic conveyor was missing was the support crews that prep the
fighter, arm it, fuel it, fix it and set things up for the blokes that fly
them off the carrier into the blackness of space.
If one were to take the cargo space/launchbay concept, add passenger
space and mass 1 each for 4 fighters say, then you'd be getting close to the
mass requirements for supporting those fighters. As that gives
you mass costs for shops, armament storage, fuel/reaction mass
bunkerage, crew space, etc.
Yes, all that is true, but you get into the rock scissors paper syndrome.
Super figher boy can take out super gun boy. Super pds boy can take out super
fighter boy. Super gun boy can take out super pds boy.
In order to be able to play the same fleet on a more or less consistent basis,
this kind of extreme fleet has to be avoided. This is especially true if
you're not allowed to know what your opponent is taking. Large amounts of
ordinance tends to get exponentially annoying.
If you know you're opponent is taking a ton of fighter groups, you can take
lots of pds and interceptor carriers and I do. I just find that the regular
carrier with moderate pds seems to balance pretty well.
Sometimes my PDS ADFC defense network gets the fighters and sometimes the
fighters get me.
> --- Roger Books <books@mail.state.fl.us> wrote:
> --- Jaime Tiampo <fugu@spikyfishthing.com> wrote:
...
> What I think might be better is a laugh bay and a
Is a laugh bay a morale thing? You know, for the fighter pilots to work off
that tension before a mission?
--- "Bell, Brian K (Contractor)"
> <Brian.Bell@dscc.dla.mil> wrote:
It seems to me that fighters tend to be balanced "in moderation." That is, the
more you have, the more it seems to be unbalancing. 6 squadrons can make a lot
of trouble for a regular ship or even an ADFC fleet (who might collectively
have
2-3 pds's for every squadron). Any technique that
puts huge numbers of fighters on the table tends to squash the opposition
unless he too has a specialized fleet (high air defense or large numbers of
fighters himself). This is just my opinion based on the limited numbers of
games I've played.
Shawn said:
> My fighters wiped the board of all enemies with little
Concur. In FT:1stCanAm at GZGECC, the Americans had something like 25 fighter
squadrons and it moved much more slowly than I'd wanted. No fighters next
year.
> I think the idea of unpacking and preparing a fighter
The correct view (ie mine) is 7.5minutes, but the "standard" is 15 minutes.
On 5-Jun-01 at 16:36, Bell, Brian K (Contractor)
(Brian.Bell@dscc.dla.mil) wrote: > I would suggest that you could prep as many
fighter groups as you have
> hanger bays in which to put them.
That is what we did. You could only have as many active fighters as you had
hangers. The rationale was they just didn't have the endurance.
> On 5-Jun-01 at 16:37, David Griffin (carbon_dragon@yahoo.com) wrote:
But if you look at my ships they are what I would consider balanced against
different opponents. I didn't desing them to only take on fighters. Of course
we also had SMs littering the area.
> David Griffin wrote:
It's to give them extra range by loading them up with gas:)
No, a laugh bay is the launcher for The Killer Joke.
> ------------ Original Message -----------
> Chris DeBoe wrote:
> Concur. In FT:1stCanAm at GZGECC, the Americans had something like 25
I don't think 25 fighter squads in a game that big is overkill. I would have
expected that many. I think it's a mistake not to include them next year. I
think fighters add a great dimention to the game. How the Canadians got caught
without fighters is beyond me.
I'm also a big fan of designing your own ships. That's one of the big
strengths of the game, might as well use it.
Maybe these were some fixed universe we're talking about, but some genres
which FT is used for don't have that many fighters typically. It's not
extraordinary for a fleet to be without fighters unless the people they fight
have a lot of them.
For instance, let's take Star Trek. Not a lot of fighters there. Even in SFB
the only game where fighters appeared in the ST universe, fighters were not a
major force in the game. The Feds only had 1 carrier model and it didn't show
up too often in games I played anyway.
When You play pick up games (or maybe convention games I don't know) and you
can't tell what kind of opponent you'll get, you could have anything from
massive fighters to none. Prepare for massive fighters against an opponent
with none, and he'll use all those points he didn't use for fighters or
fighter defense on guns to cut you to pieces, especially if YOUR fighters are
interceptors only.
So how irresponsible was it in the universe this game was being played in to
have a fleet with a low grade fighter defense?
> --- Jaime Tiampo <fugu@spikyfishthing.com> wrote:
Other genres have scads of fighters, though. I think of Battlestar Galactica,
Star Wars, Babylon 5, and Robotech as examples just off the top of my head.
The Canadians got caught without fighters for a number of reasons. One was
that the Canadian team did not get together until late. Another was the rules
on what you could take and the limitations on how you could modify the fleets
(what was designed to provide balance accually
suggested the all-or-nothing approach of the US team). Laserlight still
has the rules posted (the game was slightly different, but the construction
rules were as posted) at
http://angelfire.com/va/laserlight/CanAm_Rules.htm.
For a 6000 point fleet under the construction rules, 25 flights of fighters
was the absolute maximum we could achieve (or at least the most that we could
figure out).
As someone pointed out the problem with fighters is that their strength
increases at more than an additive rate. That is 1 fighter group is
pretty worthless. It does not provide enough offense agianst an ADFC/PDS
net and can only tie up 1 other fighter group. 3-4 fighter groups puts
them about on par with other weapons. And 6+ fighter groups tips the
balance in favor of fighters. Thus the value of fighters rises quicker than
their cost as their numbers increase. I personally think that fighters are
slightly broken, but cannot think of a good, easy, way to fix them.
---
Brian Bell bbell1@insight.rr.com ICQ: 12848051 AIM: Rlyehable YIM: Rlyehable
The Full Thrust Ship Registry:
http://www.ftsr.org
---
[quoted original message omitted]
> For instance, let's take Star Trek. Not a lot of
For the Kzinti, fighters are critical in SFB, as well as the Hydrans.
Also, while it was not stressed, at least in the Next Generation time line of
Trek, fighters were indeed present. There are mentions of them once or twice
in ST:TNG, and in at least one episode of DS9, when the Federation was
re-taking the station (I beleive, I did not follow that show well),
Sisco gave orders to fighter groups when deploying the fleet for the battle.
George
> --- Brian Bell <bbell1@insight.rr.com> wrote:
... Thus the value of
> fighters rises quicker
Me neither, but if the extremes are avoided, some intelligence as to what
you're facing will go a long way. After all, MOST of the time you know
something about your opponent. Is he a Cylon basestar with a slew of fighters
or a Dominion fleet with none?
> --- stranger <stranger@cvn.net> wrote:
...
> For the Kzinti, fighters are critical in SFB, as
True, but the actual numbers of fighters were relatively small, and normal
weapons could fire at them, so regular ships didn't feel so naked as far as
defense.
> Also, while it was not stressed, at least in the
There was something called fighters that showed up now and then,but the actual
vessels looked more like corvettes to me. Once in the DS9 battles harassing
the Cardassians and once on the Mars perimeter trying to attack the Borg.
Like I said, not a major factor. There (along with missiles aka drones), but
not that big a deal. I can count the number of times fighters showed up in our
SFB games on one hand. Maybe we were atypical, but the game and the genre is
about big ships with big guns.
> David Griffin wrote:
> Like I said, not a major factor. There (along
By genre you mean ST?
> Ryan M Gill wrote:
> At 7:51 AM +0100 6/5/01, Bif Smith wrote:
The awkward problem is repairing fighters. They cannot be repaired in the
cargo bay, and moving a fighter from the cargo to flight deck requires an
empty space. The evolution goes like this: launch a fighter, move fighter from
cargo to flight, move fighter from flight to cargo, recover launched fighter.
Balance is another issue. The only way to reflect the disadvantage of not
carrying all of the fighters in launch bays is to disallow launches before the
game starts. The launch evolution would then be: turn one, launch ready
> --- Jaime Tiampo <fugu@spikyfishthing.com> wrote:
I was using Star Trek (ST) as an example of a genre that isn't hot on
fighters. In FASA there WERE no fighters. In SFB there were, but they were
more of a harassing influence than a dominating one as they are (or can be) in
Full Thrust.
So, if you are playing Full Thrust in the Star Trek universe, there's no
reason you would (as an example) expect fighters. Why? Well if you give
Starfleet some credit for intelligence, it's probably for some good reason.
Maybe they can't carry hot enough guns to hurt the ships through their
shields.
> Roger Books wrote:
> On 5-Jun-01 at 14:25, Bif Smith (bif@bifsmith.fsnet.co.uk) wrote:
Cargo is free? Actually, I assumed that the "cargo" space occupied by fighters
would cost the same as a missile magazine of the same mass, due to the
requirement for fighter handling equipment.
Fighters in a cargo hold, as opposed to a magazine, would have to be pushed
into
> Shawn M Mininger wrote:
> Question two: during current carrier operations,
> Richard and Emily Bell wrote:
> Cargo is free? Actually, I assumed that the "cargo" space occupied by
Actually this put what I invisioned while reading the idea better then I
could. Think of fighters as salvo missile rounds. You rotate a new load into
the bay, then launch, the reload. To recover you come in a different way.
This kind of launching system would be space effective on a dedicated fleet
carrier then on small pocket carriers.
I'll see if I can come up with some numbers.
Note all of this is for the sake of argument and discussion. I'm not certain
now after further thought that the Mostly Cargo space "carrier" is such a
great idea....
> At 10:23 PM -0400 6/5/01, Richard and Emily Bell wrote:
Well, I can't see much of a reason why a fighter can't be repaired anyplace
the crew can get to the components. Cargo bay or launch bay. Really I think
the best way to think about the "fighter launch bay"
is that it includes the shipboard crewmen to maintain/arm the thing
and the space for hardware associated with all of that. A carrier based
fighter takes up no mores space spotted or packed.
> and moving a fighter from the cargo to flight deck requires an empty
Ever watch the Blue-shirts on carriers spot aircraft? They do a
pretty good job with those multi ton jigsaw puzzle pieces.
> Balance is another issue. The only way to reflect the disadvantage of
Which is why a carrier set up this way would need Cargo space of sufficient
size for the fighters plus a bit extra space AND probably three launch bays
(One for recovery, one for the Ready 5 and one for launching the CAP or other
aircraft)
Once you've got clear space in the 'cargo' space, you've got room to prep
aircraft. If you have Cargo space for 8 groups and 4 bays you could operate oh
say 10 groups pretty easy. Once a group was launched
and on CAP and another group was out on escort for the Anti-shipping
role, you'd have more elbow room for prepping, spotting and rearming.
(note how Hermes and Invicible carried and operated more fighters than
standard during the Falklands war by using deck space parking...)
Now, all that said, you still need room and bunk space for the Ordies (red
shirts), Plane captains (browns), safety guys (whites), spotters
(blues), grapes (fueling/purple guys), greens (techs iirc) and of
course the pilots and other O-Gangers associated with Aviation ops on
the ship. Cargo space doesn't buy you that, so either figuring out some number
and adding that amount of Passenger space plus cargo space for shops and parts
and stuff, would give a fair approximation of the mass requirements. Assuming
your WAG is correct.
At any rate going with the all bay based system isn't a bad idea. Adding a bit
of cargo space for an extra group or two would work. The
delay in launch/recover/rearm evolutions would probably approximate
the balance of crewman that are double timing on aircraft.
Though if a Nimitz could launch all of its aircraft at the same time, I
suspect there would be a few more Blue shirts. Also note, you don't get an
automatic fast turn around time for recovered fighters.
> Hmm, surprising a carrier with many of its fighters in a non-ready
Getting next to a carrier in any situation and being the bad guy is generally
bad for the carrier. Carriers don't knife fight, and certainly aren't supposed
to be even close to arms reach. Aircraft are strictly very long range
weapons...
> -----Original Message-----
[Bri] It depends on how you view the Cargo Hold on a spaceship. Remeber,
when we address 1 mass it is not really just mass, but also volume. As with
airline cargo units things are packed VERY TIGHLTY in standard shape cargo
crates. There is no room to unpack the crates because the crates fill the
entire cargo space. If you add empty space, you have to "pay" for the
mass/volume. If you want a way to get the fighters (crated or uncrated)
to a hanger deck, you must assign volume (and the mass that it could have
held) to the cooridor to move it. You must also take into account where the
packing crate/materials will be stored (you do assume that you will get
the fighter back, don't you?). And you have to account for the mass of extra
fuel that will be used (and space to store it and get it to the hanger
bay).
So you now have 3 choices as I see it:
1) Pay for extra mass/volume to allow internal movement of fighter to
bays for unpacking.
2) Pay for extra mass/volume to allow unpacking of fighter in cargo
bay
and for the extra mass/volume to allow internal movement to a fighter
bay.
3) Pay for extra mass/volume to allow unpacking of fighter in cargo
bay,
but push the fighter out the cargo hatch (makes it hard to rearm/refuel
fighters, or assumes casualties and lowers morale). This is also dangerous for
the crew and provides a chance of loosing cargo to vacuum. 4) Push crated
fighter out cargo hatch and into Fighter Bay for unpacking. This would be time
consuming and require loaders to be exposed to combat conditions.
> >and moving a fighter from the cargo to flight deck requires an empty
[Bri] I would not call the aircraft storage area of an Aircraft Carrier
a Cargo Section. And they have a fair amount of ship volume assigned to lifts
and other equipment to get the aircraft to the launching deck. In FT terms you
would need hatches and accessways to get the fighters to the Fighter
Bays. This should add mass/cost.
> >
[Bri] So what would be reasonable? Count a fighter group as mass 9 for
cargo storage?
> Once you've got clear space in the 'cargo' space, you've got room to
[Bri] True, but if you are preping a fighter in front of the hatch,
another fighter cannot use it. And you must uncrate the first one somewhere.
> (note how Hermes and Invicible carried and operated more fighters
[Bri] So you have to assign crew capacity to unpacking and moving the
fighters. These cannot be used for damage control if fighters are being
moved to/from the cargo bay.
> At any rate going with the all bay based system isn't a bad idea.
My comment above marked by [Bri]
I would suggest that fighters in storage that are able to be unpacked would
take extra volume/mass capcity. So assign a mass of 9 to fighters in a
cargo bay that can be unpacked. This represents the extra space used and
storage
of fuel/munitions for the fighters.
You would need an accessway from the cargo hold to the Fighter Bay. Draw a
line from one of the 4 cargo hold icons to a Fighter Bay. If the icon is
lost to threshold checks/needle attacks, fighters may not be transfered
from another cargo bay icon to that fighter bay.
You would need to assign each fighter group to one of the 4 cargo hold icons.
The icon must be of sufficient capacity to hold the fighers and unpack them (9
mass?).
A better option would be to have a "Ready Bay" for fighters. 9 mass, but only
18 cost for each fighter group stored (does not include the cost of the
fighters). The mass accounts for the mass of the fighters, room to prep them
and a cooridor/hatch to the launching bay, but is less expensive,
because it
does not have deal with launch/recovery of fighters. Draw a line from
the Ready Bay to a Fighter Bay. If the Ready Bay is lost the fighter group in
the bay is lost and fighters may not be stored there. If the Fighter Bay is
lost fighters in the Ready Bay may not be moved to another Fighter Bay (in the
time frame of a game). In between games, Fighters in accual cargo storage may
be moved to a Ready Bay or Fighter Bay.
---
If I were your opponent and you were using this I would howl.
Cargo bays base cost is massX0. You are getting a major point savings here.
Fighter bays base cost is massX3. You are making a system which is often
debated as being overly affected even cheaper.
Here, try it this way.
Fighters physically take up 6 Mass.
Fighter support, for people, equipment and spares take up 3 mass.
In actuality the fighter bay itself costs little, it is after all mostly empty
space. OTH the equipment, support, and spares area costs MassX6.
Roger has a point. The combat cost of various systems is at issue. The cost of
cargo bays is 0 because it doesn't affect the battle. If you allow a noncombat
system to affect the battle, it's cost should be at least 3xMASS just as the
fighter bay is costed. (note that even cargo costs *something* because you
still pay for the general mass of the whole ship).
So, you could theoretically trade off slow launches for some minor point
savings (however you explain it) but I suspect it wouldn't be worth all that
much since the first few turns are usually relatively free of combat anyway.
IMHO, fighters are already cheap enough (maybe too cheap maybe not) but we
don't need to find ways to make them cheaper.
I think though this is an attempt to graft a concept from wet navies onto
space navies who no longer have the restriction that required the concept.
It's easier to launch and recover fighters in a vaccuum and doesn't require
the large, expensive catapult bottleneck our current navies do. In other
words, It's so easy to create a shotgun launch capability in a space carrier,
that most everyone does it.
> --- Roger Books <books@mail.state.fl.us> wrote:
sorry this is late in the discussion -- one downside to digest
format....
small correction: in the B5 show ships are not "all launch at one time", but
phased. the B5W
game also has per-turn launch limitations as well, especially the
carrier hulls.
we do something slightly different for our FT B5 universe. each fighter
purchased uses 1 mass of hanger space (not cargo) and each launch bay requires
3 mass. furthermore, each launch bay may launch OR recover 6
fighters per turn. that means there is are command decisions in
coordinating fighter operations and designing ships with sufficient hangers
for their mission type. for example, CVLs may have 2 launch bays but 4 ftr
flights, taking two turns to get 2 squadrons into action. CVHs would have
4-6 bays but much larger ftr complements. another cool thing: damage
the
bays and no ftrs may launch/land -- another command decision where to
employ Damage Control!
"spare" and ready fighters may exist, but take up active hull space.
unlaunched fighters are also valid threshold targets, since they take up hull
space sitting in hangers (I believe already part of the FT rules)! another
command decision of determining when to launch if the ship may suffer fighter
casualties.... with the above, we usually have more ftrs aboard than number of
bays. decreases bay operations, but increases the ftr complement.
just my 2 credits. Dave
From: "Ryan Gill" <rmgill@mindspring.com>
> At any rate going with the all bay based system isn't a bad idea.
The best idea would be to say that each Fighter Bay can do one of the
following: Launch, Recover or Arm a Fighter group. You could then have Hangers
at a cost of 6 per capacity rather than 9 mass, which are only capable of
storing, not launching fighters. Each hanger would be connected to one or more
fighter bays. If you did this, I'd recommend boosting the cost of fighter bays
connected to hangers to 12 rather than 9 mass. Why? a) Playbalance, b) it
makes
I know Jon is the best source for this sort of thing, but it kind of looks
like between the original fighter rules and FB1&2, the rules were abstracted
out to make it simpler to launch fighters (and operate them). We should be
careful we don't add those limitations in and give the fighters extra
capability as a result.
In other words,
situation 1 -- fighters have launch restrictions and
cost X points.
situation 2 -- fighter have launch restrictions
abstracted out, but don't change in cost.
situation 3 -- fighter launch restrictions back, but
now fighters are cheaper.
I'd like to know what GZG (Jon?) thinks launch restrictions are worth in terms
of points and mass for these sorts of "slower" carriers. There WERE such
restrictions before, right? So there must have been a lot of playtesting.
Maybe it would be useful to know why they were dropped in favor of launch all
at once rules.
> --- David Reeves <davidar@nortelnetworks.com> wrote:
> On 6-Jun-01 at 10:20, David Reeves (davidar@nortelnetworks.com) wrote:
the B5W
> game also has per-turn launch limitations as well, especially the
You are saying that they don't have all fighters launched in under 30 seconds?
In FT terms this is "all at one time".
I know this is going to sound odd, and should be tempered with what you want
in the game, but lauching fighters in space is a simple task. Basicly you open
their launching area to space and they fly off. "Realisticly" there would be
no 15 minute delays in having all your fighters off and running. There is no
catapult to wait on. Of course this is tempered by the "realism" of your
chosen universe. In HH LACs are out immediately. In Battlestar Galactica they
seem to have cataputs so you may have a delay.
> --- Roger Books <books@mail.state.fl.us> wrote:
... In
> Battlestar Galactica they seem to have cataputs so
It kind of looks like every squadon has their own set of launch tubes. This
always looked to me like just a way to rapid transit from the parking area to
the outside world rather than a catapult that gets them to some safe flying
speed (of course there isn't any such thing in space). More of a visual
effect. They always seemed to launch their fighters pretty fast. There was
never a delay I can remember.
I will say that the Cylons were fond of flying out of what the Galactica would
call a recovery bay in that they seemed to want to fly out of a little bay in
the ship one at a time. This would probably be a *little* slower than the
human method, but in the context of the vague FT turn length, they are
probably fully launched within a turn.
Of course the real hazard in Cylon fighters is
that they're flown by committee ;-) And worse
by a pilot with one eye that goes back and forth. No wonder the Vipers outfly
them! Maybe to simulate
cylons we need a new class of fighters --
stupid fighter or committee fighter? I never did figure out why it required 3
machines to fly 1 machine. Sure looked cool though. I always liked the design
better than the viper.
FT 2nd edition limited fighter launches to 2 groups per turn for carriers
and 1 for all other ships. In FB, the carrier/non-carrier destinction
was
removed - all ships that could carry fighters worked under the carrier
rules. By FB2 the launch limitations were removed entirely.
While I am not Jon, I think that the restrictions were removed for 2 reasons:
1) To simplify play. 2) Complaints that in 15 minutes, a ship should be able
to launch all its fighters. I don't think that it effected play balance much
if the carrier must remain on the table, because in most games all the
fighters got launched by the time the carrier was in range of
other ships/fighters.
I sent my first post on the subject intending none further because I recalled
how tough this got last time. I must say no one's mother has been
insulted this time. ;->=
There's plenty of PSB available to justify making launching more difficult,
unless you are willing to make the bay facilities open to space, and any
incoming. Makes sense to me that launch tubes/catapults/ports would
protect the bay itself, with personnel. YMMV as to how much game effect it
has.
As far as balancing costs for larger numbers of fighters, one thing that came
up for me was the concept of 'traffic control'. Admittedly, the control for
individual squadrons can be rolled into the group itself, with a little worked
into the bay cost, but as you get more squadrons, I'd think costly centralized
control could be PSB'd, If you require a fleet hierarchy, say, one TC per 6
squadrons, and one Fighter CiC per 6 TC's, to be built into a ship or ships,
this could also offset the nonlinear improvement some folks have mentioned.
Working out costs, and the effects of losses due to threshold hits, if you
wish, begins to beggar my imagination, but it's offered as a direction.
Just, could we look into something similar for SM's? ;->=
The_Beast
-Douglas J. Evans, curmudgeon
One World, one Web, one Program - Microsoft promotional ad
Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer - Adolf Hitler
On Wed, 6 Jun 2001 07:50:48 -0700 (PDT) David Griffin
> <carbon_dragon@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Roger Books <books@mail.state.fl.us> wrote:
> It kind of looks like every squadon has their own set of launch
The Galactica had 16 tubes arranged along the side of each bay, which meant
that they could launch something like half a squadron at once (if you accept
my idea that the Big G's complement was 5 squadrons of about 30 fighters each)
from either side. Loading the tubes seemed to be pretty fast, although we
never actually saw it on screen. I always assumed that launching the fighters
was something like a sub firing a torpedo: each Viper moved forwards into a
tube from iis boarding position in the main bay; then, after the tube doors
were closed and, presumably, the tube depressurised, the pilot hit the turbos
and launched.
This is debatable, I admit. The red lighting that ran along the bay may
also have been some sort of catapult -- electromagnetic? -- and there
is "evidence" that the Colonials may have had some kind of pressure curtain
force field which would obviate the need for depressurisation.
(Of course, the _real_ reason is that the producers didn't think about
the practicalities of a hangar bay on a starship.) Certainly, there
would be no difficulty in launching an entire squadron per FT game-turn
from either bay.
Phil
> --- stranger@cvn.net wrote:
...
> FT games played outside of any given background
Yes, but even in the Tuffleyverse there's nothing to stop the French player
(for instance) from creating jeep carriers or supercarriers that get a LOT
more fighters to the battle than you might expect. I create my own custom
SSD's for my FT Starfleet, so I can't expect the other players not to do so.
That's why some kind of agreement (either a formal one, or an informal one)
can be useful.
For myself, My ADFC network tends to lose PDSs over time if carriers aren't
played very much, and it tends to gain some over time when I get crushed like
a bug by fighter squadrons.
I frankly wonder if balance might be better if ALL a ships weapons were
permitted to fire at fighters, even at a reduced rate. If for instance
even beam-4's were permitted 1 die at fighters,
kill on a 6, maybe the rock scissors paper effect would be less severe. AND as
an added bonus you could use fighters to cover your attack or retreat. As of
now, since fighters are shot at with a different set of weapons, the opponent
can shoot at your fighters and you too all at the same time. For all I know
this could produce some horrendous game balance problem, but it seems like a
reasonable thing to do. After all in WWII, battleships used everything up to
their main guns to fire at fighters. The big guns fired near the ocean to put
up huge splashes to try to knock torpedo bombers out of the air before they
could launch. Why couldn't a big beam skewer a 6 ton fighter?
> At 8:00 AM -0400 6/6/01, Bell, Brian K (Contractor) wrote:
Remeber,
> when we address 1 mass it is not really just mass, but also volume. As
to a
> hanger deck, you must assign volume (and the mass that it could have
.5 of the mass in addition to what is there isn't much of a difference. They
aren't that tightly packed over how they'd be "spotted" on a deck.
> to the cooridor to move it. You must also take into account where the
I'm not certain why you have crates in the first place. Fighters when shipped,
are usually wrapped in plastic sheeting to keep the elements out. Look at how
the Harriers and Helos on the Atlantic Conveyor were carried. Looked like
cargo space to me. A handling system that spots aircraft in a 3 D volume would
be pretty easy. Or you could build in close level decks that allow a group of
fighters to be folded minimally for vertical volume (tail fins drop, landing
gear has a compressed mode) and just build lots of shelves into the sides of
the carrier. Elevators that I presume that are just part of the aircraft
handling system for the fighter bays would be situated between.
After all look at how LAVs, Hummers and AAV7s are parked on board gator
carriers. You can walk around between each vehicle by stepping from one to the
next.
> fighter back, don't you?). And you have to account for the mass of
A serious consideration, probably a good slice of the.5 mass of the 1.5 that a
fighter takes up in a launch bay.
> So you now have 3 choices as I see it:
Aren't we already able to do that on the carriers? Looking at the number of
launch bays and the for and aft aircraft handling areas on the Ark Royal (NAC
vessel, not the more recent 20th century model) for recovery and launch.
Different areas.
> 2) Pay for extra mass/volume to allow unpacking of fighter in cargo
Umm, why so? Where are they servicing the fighter otherwise? In the open deck
space where ever they can and the plane captains are ok with it...
> 4) Push crated fighter out cargo hatch and into Fighter Bay for
I suspect when moving a fighter around a ship they'd have small tugs for
spotting and handling.
> [Bri] I would not call the aircraft storage area of an Aircraft Carrier
Cargo ships have a fair amount of mass and volume associated with hatches,
cranes and other gear for handling cargo as well.
> [Bri] So what would be reasonable? Count a fighter group as mass 9 for
Remember though, thats not 'Cargo' Storage. You are paying for something else
other than the space for handling the fighter.
> [Bri] True, but if you are preping a fighter in front of the hatch,
Again, look at Carrier ops now. They work on aircraft all over the place. They
park them over the catapults or on the landing deck half the time. They still
launch the entire groups.
> [Bri] So you have to assign crew capacity to unpacking and moving the
heh..stop focusing on the 'unpacking'. There is far more to carrier ops than
foam peanuts and cellophane.
> A better option would be to have a "Ready Bay" for fighters. 9 mass,
Probably not a bad idea for more precisely modeled carriers. However perhaps
such precision is overly detailed for the game. (mind you the reason for the
discussion is overall conceptual idealism rather than mass sweeping changes to
game mechanics...)
> --- stranger@cvn.net wrote:
...
> However, those weapons were quite a bit more potent
Which reinforces my contention that we're really talking about corvettes here,
NOT fighters whatever they may be called.
PF boats were more like frigates, so called "fighters" were more like FT
corvettes. At least that's what they looked like to me. It would be
interesting to look up the tonnage of these little ships (none of which ever
showed up in any of our FASA games) to see how heavy they were.
> IN games I've played, at least when the Kzinti are
In the Star Trek genre, it would be hard to imagine something the size of a
fighter (like the size of a modern F14) carrying a weapon large enough to make
much of an impact on a starship. That was always what I thought the
justification was against fighters. I saw the SFB fighters as actually pretty
sizeable little starships which were called fighters but which were actually
fairly large. The PF miniatures were large enough to almost be destroyer
sized, or at least frigate sized. They were cute as buttons too, I have most
of the ones produced. The Kzinti ones were very nice.
> --- stranger@cvn.net wrote:
What does it list as the weight of this supposed fighter? My book is at home
so I can't easily look it up at the moment. I assume you're talking about the
FASA Federation Ship Recognition manual.
> At 8:40 AM -0400 6/6/01, Roger Books wrote:
in reality what that.5 mass costs.
> In actuality the fighter bay itself costs little, it is
Aye, this is really where I'm leaning. My argument is that I don't see why the
fighters require massive huge crates for storage on a
nice dry/warm and climate controlled ship (Eurie Carriers may be
different, but I see NAC, Swab and Froggie carriers being pretty clean...) You
crate things up so you don't have to worry about the people handling them in
shipping banging them up. The fighter is already at its end user. If some Blue
shirt sticks the wing of an Interceptor through an Attack fighters side, I
suspect someone's going to find out quick...Carriers are pretty crowded
places.
I guess my big question lies with wether or not a carriers Air Ops people are
all dedicated to one fighter group or do they generalize in some cases. DO I
need a team for spotting every aircraft or would 4 teams for 6 groups work?
(I'm arguing theory here only mind you..):)
> At 6:16 AM -0700 6/6/01, David Griffin wrote:
Actually its mass savings in theory. You're still paying for the fighters. But
I'm having trouble reconciling how to pay for the extra aircraft ops personel.
> [snip]
A catapult seems like a great way to save on launch based
fuel/reaction mass expenditures. The launch isn't the bottle neck in
general. Is aircraft prep/turn around time. Thats the slow link...
> Roger Books wrote:
> Let's see, Fighter Cost, assuming thrust 4 FTL capable carrier:
Not sure how you got 25.71 here; looks as if you have counted the cost of the
engines twice or something I get:
Cost of squadron: 18 Cost of hangar: 27
(Mass of drives = 9/(1-0.2-0.1)-1 = 3.857)
Cost of drives = 2x3.857 = 7.714
(Hull Mass to hold hangar + drives = 9+3.857 = 12.857)
Cost of hull Mass = 1x12.857 = 12.857
Total cost is 65.57 points.
> Fighters in cargo space:
I get:
Cost of squadron: 18 Cost for 6 Mass cargo space: 0
(Engine Mass: 6/(1-0.1-0.2)-1 = 2.57)
Engine Cost: 2x2.57 = 5.14
(Hull Mass to hold cargo hold + engines: 8.57)
Cost of hull Mass: 1x8.57 = 8.57
Total cost is 31.71
But no, it is hardly a fair exchange.
Particularly not when you consider how long most players consider an FT
turn to be :-/
Regards,
> Me neither, but if the extremes are avoided,
In most games this isn't a problem, because the genre determines the limits.
However, if playing FT outside of any genre, then there are no known limits,
since not even the enemy is known. I think in the end, the arguments are still
pointing to the fact that FT games need to occur in some sort of a genre, be
it a well known one like Trek, or the Tuffleyverse, or one made up by a gaming
group.
For situations like the ConAm game, perhaps it is wisest to stick to
"official" designs only. That way everyone has a frame of reference. Also,
there would be no reason to place very strange contraints such as no fighters.
The game would exist in a genre.
FT games played outside of any given background really do exist in a vacuum,
no pun intended. I personally think teh argument over fighters (as well as
several other arguments I've seen) is settled in a large part by the univers
being played in.
George
> --- stranger <stranger@cvn.net> wrote:
However, those weapons were quite a bit more potent than the FT fighter ones,
so numbers are not needed. A fighter in SFB is quite a bit more powerful than
a single fighter in FT.
IN games I've played, at least when the Kzinti are involved, are usually not
about big ship vs. big ship, but about big ship vs. a lot of little ships.
I do agree though, that for the most part, SFB is a game about cruisers
fighting cruiser.
George
> > By genre you mean ST?
Not true. I don't have the book in front of my, but the Federation Ship manual
does indeed have a fighter in it.
George
> David Griffin wrote:
> In the Star Trek genre, it would be hard to imagine
I don't know, those shuttles they have on voyager seem to do pretty damn well
against lasrge ships, including voyager on occation.
> --- Jaime Tiampo <fugu@spikyfishthing.com> wrote:
...
> I don't know, those shuttles they have on voyager
Ah yes, the Delta Fryer. Well, if we look at data from the Last Unicorn game
(the only one who was in the position of trying to spec out voyager stuff) I'd
say they would have some low power phasers and microtorpedoes. Anyway, the
Flyer also seems like at least a corvette sized ship. Seems to have roughly
the capability of a Danube class runabout on a slightly smaller spaceframe
(but not much smaller). It is, in short a BIG shuttle.
Voyager isn't the biggest ship in the world, so I doubt it can handle too many
of these little ships. Of course Voyager seemed to have an endless supply of
destroyable shuttlecraft so perhaps reality doesn't play a big part in their
shuttlebay floorspace.
If you make them large enough, you can put large enough weapons to worry a
starship. You probably can't carry too many though. Actually we saw a lot more
of this sort of thing with the runabout. With both the Danube and the Flyer
though, it seems to me they tended to lose arguments with all the smallest of
opposition ships.
> -----Original Message-----
[snip]
> .5 of the mass in addition to what is there isn't much of a
[snip]
> . And you have to account for the mass of extra
[snip]
> > So you now have 3 choices as I see it:
[Bri] Yes. And so the cost should be included in the FT model.
> > 2) Pay for extra mass/volume to allow unpacking of fighter in cargo
[Bri] Because vacuum is inherently dangerous. A small tear can ruin your
whole day. Is the cargo hold 1 hold or several. If several, you would have to
assign a fighter squdron to a specific hold. If one bay, then you open the
whole bay to vaccume at the same time. If you are opening the hold to space,
you are exposing everything in the hold to vacuum and some decompression (you
can't pump out all the atmosphere each time). Space suits are clumsy. Crews
will be slowed down if they are working in vacuum suits. If they are not, they
you have to repressurize the bay after each launch. Also everyother thing in
the cargo hold woudl have to be protected against vacuum. You are talking a
cargo hold here, not just a fighter staging area.
> > 4) Push crated fighter out cargo hatch and into Fighter Bay for
[Bri] More reasoning for increasing mass.
> >
[Bri] True, but much of the is done by cranes at port. And cargo
aircraft do
not have as much devoted to such purposes. The form-fitting containers
are loaded in and the forklift is left behind. Cargo ships in space would have
a fairly large area with a large hatch to connect to a space station (or to
open on the ground if atmospheric capable). Most of the lifting and moving
equipment would be at the station
and remain there. The form-fitting containers would not leave room for
cooridors in the hold, it would be packed in a First-In, Last-Out manner
so that as containers are removed, you gain access to the ones behind.
> >
[Bri] So then
> >
[Bri] So by analogy, you would park the fighters on the outside of the
ship and have the pilots climb over the outside hull of the ship to get in the
fighter?
> >
[Bri] So call it preping. Someone still has to do it.
> >
[Bri] Or you could say that it is already abstracted into the Fighter
Bays already. You have commented that "A serious consideration [fuel),
probably a good slice of the.5 mass of the 1.5 that a fighter takes up in a
launch bay". So, an upacked fighter would not need less fuel, and therefore
bring
the mass/cost of a fighter unpacked in a cargo bay back to the mass/cost
of a fighter in a fighter bay.
> --
My comments above marked by [Bri]
I would agree with some savings as a trade-off to not being able to
launch all the fighters at once. But in most games, the effect would be
trivial, so
the mass/cost difference should also be trivial.
---
> David Griffin wrote:
> If you make them large enough, you can put
By themselves. If you ha d afew of them it would even the score.
Definitely! I sometimes play squadrons of corvettes. Individually, they're not
much. together, they're dangerous.
> --- Jaime Tiampo <fugu@spikyfishthing.com> wrote:
> At 11:26 AM -0700 6/6/01, David Griffin wrote:
Geeze, what do you consider a Corvette? The delta flyer fits in the shuttle
bay of the Voyager, ostensibly a small vessel in and of itself. Corvettes are
small destroyers and vessels in their own
right...
> of a Danube class runabout on a slightly smaller
Its that Star Trek axiom of, 'destroy all you want, we'll replicate
more...'
Roger,
comments inserted.
Dave
> [quoted text omitted]
Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 10:30:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Roger Books <books@mail.state.fl.us>
Subject: Re: FT-Fighters and launch bays
> On 6-Jun-01 at 10:20, David Reeves (davidar@nortelnetworks.com) wrote:
the B5W
> game also has per-turn launch limitations as well, especially the
You are saying that they don't have all fighters launched in under 30 seconds?
In FT terms this is "all at one time".
**********
I'm confused as to where the 30 s is coming from???
by observation from the whole B5 series, Omegas launch 6 or 12 fighters in one
wave before the next wave launches (given that's Hollywood and JMS is not
militarily accurate).
from the B5W game, the Omega may launch 2 flights of ftrs (12) each turn.
from the show each wave has about 30 s interval. the B5W game turn is
approximately a few mins (no rules in front of me now).
given all that, I merely tried to model the same behavior, introducing some
management of fighter operations versus the all-at-once launch/recovery
that is currently in FT. I'm not so concerned about the detailed physics as
long as the game model is believable, playable and fun. the main driver here
was that ftr ops are another command decision in fleet mgmt. command decisions
like this have lots of appeal to us. is that where your question was going?
**********
I know this is going to sound odd, and should be tempered with what you want
in the game, but lauching fighters in space is a simple task. Basicly you open
their launching area to space and they fly off. "Realisticly" there would be
no 15 minute delays in having all your fighters off and running. There is no
catapult to wait on. Of course this is tempered by the "realism" of your
chosen universe. In HH LACs are out immediately. In Battlestar Galactica they
seem to have cataputs so you may have a delay.
<<<<<<<<<<
> At 2:28 PM -0400 6/6/01, Bell, Brian K (Contractor) wrote:
> [Bri] Because vacuum is inherently dangerous. A small tear can ruin
But, if the holds are interior and in the middle as connecting space to the
"launch bays" all you'd end up really having is a space between the launch
area and the area where the fighters are serviced. Now, does the bay include
the airlock? If it doesn't then how are these craft serviced in the first
place. If it does then put the "cargo space" the really big open bay area on
the other side of the launch bays.
So in effect, you have:
Aft recovery area [Airlock] Big boxy space [launchbays x3]
> > > 4) Push crated fighter out cargo hatch and into Fighter Bay for
Theoretically you have some of these on hand already. Again though, in the
theoretical, how many tugs do you need? One per 6 fighters or 1 per 12....
Still this is far below the detail scale of FT....
> [Bri] True, but much of the is done by cranes at port. And cargo
well, the larger cargo aircraft (IL 76, C-130, C-141, etc) are self
unloading and have rollers (most cargo planes) and cranes (AN-124)
for facilitating self unloading. Some even kneel to make rolling a truck up an
easy prospect.
> Cargo ships in space would have a fairly large area with a large
> [Bri] So by analogy, you would park the fighters on the outside of
Nope, the ship is a big box with several partitions and levels in side. At the
front and back are the launch and recovery bays respectively and in the middle
is a huge bay (perhaps multi floor) for aircraft parking.
> > heh..stop focusing on the 'unpacking'. There is far more to carrier
heh... :)
> [Bri] Or you could say that it is already abstracted into the Fighter
Yeah, I'm still leaning towards one or two extra cargo type spaces for
additional fighters and such. Though, I'm inclined to think given the support
assets that they'd require, one would be better off with an 18 mass bay.
> My comments above marked by [Bri]
Aye... that is true...
> >
What I was trying to say though, is that in competition games, maybe only
"official" designs should be used. This gives everyone an idea of what they
could face. Everyone starts on the same footing.
> not to do so. That's why some kind of agreement
I beleive that is what I was saying. Playing in a genre is agreement by all
involved.
Without everyone's agreement, you can't really have a consitent genre. IMagine
playing Star Trek and having spelljammers attack, not in genre. Wheras
carriers with many many fighters, and purely defensive weapons are in genre
for say Battlestar Galactica, while in Star Wars, the Battelships also double
as carriers.
I've always seen Full Thrust as a game meant (and needing) to simulate a
specific background, even if its made up by the local gaming group. Any wide
open point based system like Full Thrust, and the Hero system among others is
broken without a set of limiations. Playing in an agreed genere usually
provides those limitations.
If games are played in the vacuum of no background, then there's room for all
kinds of abuse.
It is my belief, though I could be wrong, that the game was not designed to be
a
point-based-build-the-deadliest-cheapest-fleet-and-detroy-everyone-game
like GW games tend to be. I had the impression that the game was wide open
to let people make up, or play in the sci-fi genree's that they love.
George
> ...
Okay, perhaps CONVERTED to FT they are corvettes. Could be, I don't think it
really matters that much. In SFB they are for all intents and purposes
fighters. You could be right though, perhaps they would work a lot better as
corvettes if modelled in FT.
> In the Star Trek genre, it would be hard to imagine
That could be. The illustrations I've seen tend to show only one crewmember.
One illustration though does tend to give the impression that a Fed Heavy
Fighter is about as big as a shuttlecraft.
George
> What does it list as the weight of this supposed
I was mistaken, or at least I can't find the entry for it now.
George
> Ryan Gill wrote:
> Note all of this is for the sake of argument and discussion. I'm not
They cannot get to the components in the cargo bay, it takes less mass because
the extraneous volume and equipment to maintain the fighters have been left
out. the launch bay includes facilities and equipment to fuel, arm and
maintain the fighters. The cargo bay probably does not include enough space to
move a fighter
around another fighter, and the fighters are loaded first-in, last-out.
The launch bay includes space for servicing, the cargo bay does not.
> >and moving a fighter from the cargo to flight deck requires an empty
Wet navy carriers have different problems. The reason as many planes are on
the deck as there are is to make room in the hanger deck for servicing. As a
gross percentage of total tonnage, the Nimitz carries a pittance. Less than
five percent of its mass is its airgroup (unless the average carrier aircraft
is fifty tonnes). At one point per fighter, the typical FT:FB1 carrier usually
triples that number.
> >
> On Wed, 6 Jun 2001 17:23:15 -0400, "stranger" <stranger@cvn.net> wrote:
> What I was trying to say though, is that in competition games, maybe
For the GenCon tournament games, we (well, Dean Gundberg, mostly) built some
fleets based on "official" designs, but we also allowed players to submit
their own designs.
Now, to balance it, Dean came up with a really good idea. Players had to have
at least one capital ship. For each capital ship they had to have at least one
cruiser. For each cruiser they had to have at least one escort. Fitting that
into a 1500 point limit, and the fact that no ship could equal or exceed 750
points (including fighters with carriers), it kept things fairly even. No one
tried a soap bubble carrier or anything like that. I'm not sure if it would
work or not. It might. It's something someone should test...
> I've always seen Full Thrust as a game meant (and needing) to simulate
Any
> wide open point based system like Full Thrust, and the Hero system
I have to agree. You need to have limits to the ship designs. There are too
many design "niches" that you can exploit. You may not want to put limits is
when creating a campaign game. But, in those cases, you have feints and probes
to get an idea of your opponent's design philosophy. You also may not want to
put limits on a tournament, if your tournament has -- say -- multiple
rounds with the loser able to make any design changes they want, but the
winner can't. (In which case, that soap bubble carrier is going to win once,
and then lose the next round.)
> It is my belief, though I could be wrong, that the game was not
Yeah, that's my impression too. The point system is only to act as an aid in
balancing ships. I prefer scenarios, myself. I like games where one side may
be badly outnumbered, but the victory conditions give them an even chance of
winning. I also like campaigns, but I don't know of anyone willing to put the
time into one.
G'day Allan,
> Now, to balance it, Dean came up with a
I take it you didn't see much above a BC or BB?
Beth
> At 10:04 PM -0400 6/6/01, Richard and Emily Bell wrote:
Funny how they carry a larger air group. 80+ aircraft... The Ark
Royal carrier that the NAC uses only has 36...
> If your cargo space has the facilities to fuel and arm the fighters,
Aye...
> Did they operate more fighters than they were designed to, or did
Its my understanding that Carrier ops have wiggle room as to the number of
aircraft you can operate. Typically British WWII carriers didn't have any deck
parking, the US went with deck parking in addition to below deck parking.
Combine that with the arrangements of the armour and deck numbers (US had 2
below deck aircraft areas vs 1 for the British iirc) and we had more larger
air groups.
Its my understanding that the Hermes and Invicible operated more aircraft than
they normally did. Whether that was budget constraints or just making due, I
don't know, but they did have more aircraft there for combat. I think a trip
over to sci.mil.navy is in order....
On Thu, 07 Jun 2001 13:09:11 +1000, Beth Fulton
<beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au> wrote:
> I take it you didn't see much above a BC or BB?
My web page has the fleet listings. Each race had a BDN fleet, and there were
two SDN fleets.
There were essentially 5 types of fleets: SDN, CV, BDN, BB, BB-BC,
BC-BC. The
NAC had SDN, CV, BDN, and BB-BC fleets. The NSL had SDN, BDN, BB-BC, and
BC-BC
fleets. The ESU and FSE had CV, BDN, BB, and BB-BC fleets.
And I may have just made the record books for the most acronyms in the least
number of words of any post to this list! :-)
G'day Allan,
> FSE had CV, BDN, BB, and BB-BC fleets.
Some one took a Bonaparte?? Mighty courageous move, did they get extra
"daring" points for that?;P
Beth
> David Reeves wrote:
[...]
> >>>>>>>>>>
wrote:
> >
the B5W
> > game also has per-turn launch limitations as well, especially the
I'm piping in here mainly because I just watched "Severed Dreams" again
the other night. :-)
There is no official set rate for fighter launches in B5 that has ever been
mentioned [by any of the characters or JMS]. That said, in "Severed Dreams",
the two Omegas defending B5 ("Churchill" and "Alexander") both
launched 20+ fighters in one fell swoop. I didn't time how long it took
to get the fighters out (I didn't count them this time, either, but once in
the dim distant past on this list this same discussion came up and
a few people did go back - I included - and counted the number being
launched; iirc the on-screen shot showed 22-24 before they cut to
another scene), but it was about one or two (or more) a second. If you assume
a
granularity in FT of 15 minutes/turn, you should be able to get all your
fighters out with no problems. If you go the B5 route and take the "Severed
Dreams" episode as canon, you should still get out about a fighter
a second - so launching 4 or 5 flights of 6 fighters each in 30 seconds
should not pose any difficulties.
Mk
> On 6-Jun-01 at 17:36, stranger (stranger@cvn.net) wrote:
Depends on what feel you want, after all the list suggests modelling HH LACs
as fighters, and they have a crew of ~20.
The Babylon Project (RPG) Earthforce Sourcebook already converted all the
ships over to full thrust.
The interceptor battery can fire as a PDS. I can't remember offhand if normal
pulse batteries can as well, but I can look it up.
If you can find a copy of the Earthforce Sourcebook your worries are over.
> --- Chan Faunce <chanfaunce@toast.net> wrote:
This brings up something I've been playing with, specifically in a B5 setting
where most weapons are able to fire on fighters as well as
ships. It comes out of trying to re-convert B5W to FT. Since most B5W
ships don't have a dedicated fighter defense weapon I was thinking of
allowing all pulse-type weapons to fire as PDS with 1 die and rolling as
normal PDS but subtracting the class of the weapon from the damage done. This
way if you really wanted to use class 4 weapons you could but would have to
roll a 6, reroll a 6, and then roll 4 or better to do any damage.
Comments?
> David Griffin wrote:
> Wet navy carriers have different problems. The reason as many planes
As a gross
> percentage of total tonnage, the Nimitz carries a pittance. Less than
Tell ya what, I'll happily take 5% of my total tonnage for my airgroup if you
give me fighters that are as effective against thier targets as the Nimitz
carries.
FT fighters remind me of WWI aircraft.
> If your cargo space has the facilities to fuel and arm the fighters,
Almost? You must have no idea what it would take to have an external door
capable of launching a "fighter" in a combat situation in space! Airlock, some
sort of
grapple/arm/tractor beam capable of moving the craft out the door and
dropping it
off/picking it up, necessary armoring and structural strengthening to
keep the doors from being achilies heels...
That doesn't include the necessary misc stuff that could be done without but
really wouldn't... The control crew (launch 60 fighters in a few moments time
and just TRY to keep them from coliding with anything especially themselves,
the carrier, or any escort vessels.), Safety and rescue crew and vessels, all
the launch crew, specially outfitted medical crew, etc...
Rand.
> At 3:22 PM -0400 6/7/01, Randall L Joiner wrote:
They are, the big difference between FT and wet ships is that if you provide a
big hole in the side of a ship in water, it sinks. The hull is typically still
intact (thats why vessels can be reparied and refloated). In space you have to
pummel the ship to death. Now, if we used core systems, things would be more
realistic.
> Ryan Gill wrote:
> At 10:04 PM -0400 6/6/01, Richard and Emily Bell wrote:
Using the masses in FB1, the US CVN has a mass of about 900 (fully loaded). An
Ark Royal scaled up that large would carry 27 squadrons of six fighters.
> >
> From: Beth Fulton <beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au>
Hi, Beth!
> Some one took a Bonaparte?? Mighty courageous move, did they get extra
> "daring" points for that? ;P
Well, the Bonaparte was available to be used. Everyone could choose one of
those stock fleets or build a fleet of their own to the fleet specifications.
I don't know if anyone actually used it.
So, ummm... what's wrong with the Bonaparte (he says, eyeing is almost,
finally, completely painted FSE fleet)?
Oh, I just realized the reason no one built soap bubble carriers. It's because
the ship had to be in the Fleet Book, or it had to be listed in the
description as an "official" variant. D'oh!
> David Griffin wrote:
> The Babylon Project (RPG) Earthforce Sourcebook
Provided that you don't include things like Shadows, Vorlons, Brakiri, Drazi,
Pak'Ma'Ra, Vree, Drakh or Ranger ships in the "all", and that you're satisfied
with a conversion to something closer to FT2 than FB1. (EFSB was IIRC
published during or soon after Season 2.)
The ships in EFSB are human (Nova, Omega, Hyperion and Olympus, plus a bunch
of generic shuttles and freighters), Narn (G'Quan and T'Loth),
Centauri (Vorchan and Primus), and Minbari (Sharlin). More-or-less
(usually
-less) official stats for the other races' ships can be found in various
places on the 'net.
> The interceptor battery can fire as a PDS. I can't
In EFSB the only starship weapons able to attack fighters are Interceptors
and Anti-Fighter batteries (neither of which can harm starships), and
Minbari beam weapons.
Regards,
> Allan Goodall wrote:
> So, ummm... what's wrong with the Bonaparte (he says, eyeing is
Too much engine and not enough weapons.... A Jerez heavy cruiser practically
has the Bonaparte outgunned. A Roma battleship definitely does.
G'day
> FT fighters remind me of WWI aircraft.
That would explain carriers not trying to recover fighters then (the earliest
carriers had launch facilities but to land the fighters had to ditch into the
sea and the pilot was picked up);)
Would also require all fighters to sit on deck with a white picket fence
around them;)
Cheers
Beth
G'day Allan,
> So, ummm... what's wrong with the Bonaparte
As ST^3 Jon once said... someone related to the designer must have had
incriminating photos of the Minster for Defense;)
The BB is a much better buy as the engine speed of the Bonaparte is way to
high to justify the very reduced punch it has for a vessel its size.
Cheers
Beth
On Fri, 08 Jun 2001 10:34:40 +1000, Beth Fulton
<beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au> wrote:
> The BB is a much better buy as the engine speed of the Bonaparte is way
I'm not too up on the FSE fleets. This is all going to be fun. I have painted
almost all my FSE fleet. I looked over the Bonaparte, and I laughed! I see
what Jon was hoping for, a very fast BDN. No other BDN is speed 6. For, uh,
good reason... It's not even that much better gunned than the Bologna CVL.
It is interesting considering that the BB and the SDN are both slower. I'll
have some fun redesigning an effective FSE BDN.
You are also welcome to use the PAU variants of the FSE ships. See
http://www.ftsr.org/ft/ft25/registry.asp?sort=govt under PAU.
-----
Brian Bell
-----
> -----Original Message-----
For,
> uh,
> On 7-Jun-01 at 17:42, Jon Davis (davisje@nycap.rr.com) wrote:
In my personal opinion this may well be the worst design in the Fleet Book. I
didn't realize this until I tried using one in combat. If you look back
through the archives I'm sure my rant will show up.
From: "Allan Goodall" <awg@sympatico.ca>
> I'm not too up on the FSE fleets. This is all going to be fun. I have
For, uh,
> good reason... It's not even that much better gunned than the Bologna
Put a couple of B4s on it and use it for commerce raider. Add some PDS if you
do that, though Or forget the B4, add a slew of PDS, and lure the fighters
in....
> From: "Chris DeBoe" <LASERLIGHT@QUIXNET.NET>
> Put a couple of B4s on it and use it for commerce raider. Add some
I intend to design it more the way I think it should have been designed, to
fit in with the other FSE vessels. I'll use the Roma, Foch, and Bologna as a
basis for the weapon design philosophy, but with a Drive 4.
It was an interesting experiment, but it appears that a ship that big
sacrifices too much for the speed.