Ok, things got a little touchy tonight at the game over some rules questions.
What are the rules on the following, and where did you read them in the books.
If they're not there, then did you get an email from GZG or did you just make
up a house rule?
1) An interceptor is firing at a heavy fighter. Does he do 1 pt on 4,5, and 2
on 6 with a reroll, or 1 on a 4, 2 on a 5, and 2 on a 6 with a reroll?
2) Can small ships be legally designed as carriers or is there a minimum sized
hull required? If the latter, how big? I had small ones but nobody cared. What
they cared about was another guy with very small, very prolific carriers (FTL
drive, a few hull and the fighters
-- in other words a very minimal carrier). I
thought it was ok, but a lot of the people claimed that More thrust prohibited
it.
3) Is there a maximum sized ship in tonnage?
4) Is there a maximum number of fighter squadrons that one ship can contain?
6?
Most of the FT2 & MT restrictions were lifted under FTFB1-2.
1. It's as written; heavy fighters take losses on 5 = 1, 6+ = 2.
Interceptors add +1 to this results therefore: 4 kills 1, 5-6 kills 2
(reroll on natural 6). See the FTFAQ on the webring.
2. Under FTFB1-2, there is no minimum size for a carrier, as long
as you have enough mass. Theoretically you could build a carrier of 9 mass
(1
hull, MD 3, FTL, 1 fighter bay), but most of the fighters will surrender as
soon as the carriers go pop. MT has been superseded by FTFB1-2.
3. No maximum size either, but ships of more than 300 mass really belong under
the Supership rules from MT, as they're just too big to fight against.
4. No maximum number of squadrons; again, if you have the mass, you can do it.
Neath Southern Skies -http://home.pacific.net.au/~southernskies/
[MKW2] Admiral Peter Rollins - Task Force Zulu-Beta
[Firestorm] Battletech PBeM GM
> -----Original Message-----
[quoted original message omitted]
From: kaime@mindspring.com
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: [FT] Rules Questions
Date sent: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 01:07:32 -0500
Send reply to: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
> >2. Under FTFB1-2, there is no minimum size for a carrier, as long as
Page 11, FB1 does have very subjective evidence that the limitation imposed in
the initial FT book is no more.
Specifically, it talks about customisation of a Cruiser class ("Options for
the Example"), and talks about adding Fighter Bays.
Not the most compelling evidence, but no limitations are otherwise put on it
elsewhere in this book.
[quoted original message omitted]
Robertson, Brendan replied to David Griffin:
> 2. Under FTFB1-2, there is no minimum size for a carrier, as long
An FBx fighter bay is 9 Mass, not 6. The smallest possible FTL-capable
carrier is Mass 12, thrust-2.
The rest of the post was correct though <g>
Kaime asked:
> What about page 16 of the Full Thrust rulebook, top left cornor where
The limitations on which hull types may carry fighters is essentially a part
of the FT2 design system, which is completely replaced (FB1 p.10, first
sentence). At least that was the intent with the FB1 rules, but it could have
been stated earlier.
The FT2 limits on how many fighter bays each type of ship may carry
quite obviously do not apply in FB1 - the "official" designs published
in that very same book don't follow them! The FSE SDN has 3 fighter bays (FT2
p.16 only allow 2 bays on SDNs), and the FSE CV has 7 fighter bays (FT2 p.16
only allows 6 bays on CVs). (The Phalon CV in FB2 has *8* fighter bays.)
The limits on which sizes of ships that may carry fighters aren't *intended*
to apply in FB1, but I don't think there's any rule which actually says so
explicitly. However, Mass 80 carriers *are* explicitly
allowed - see FB1 p. 12:
"Standard Ship Classifications And Typical Mass Ratings:
...
Escort Carrier CVE Mass 80-120"
Regards,
Well, I actually played a small campaign were there was quite a bit of
attrition. Fighters are the best in an attrition war becasue they are cheap
and you can build alot of them very fast. I ended up building 'hollow
carriers' which were really just FTL platforms to get fighters from my home
planet and into the battle. It ended up working great because I had swarms of
fighters, and I would just keep sending my 'hollow carriers' back to home base
for more fighters. I was able to beat them down just becuase it took next to
no time to build fighters and my 'hollow carriers' never really entered the
battles.
I don't know if it's 'legal' but there really isn't anywhere in the book that
I found that said it was against the rules.
> --- David Griffin <carbon_dragon@yahoo.com> wrote:
Honostly, fighter swarming seems like a valid tactic to me, especially if
you're playing a campaign where you are conquering planets and using limited
resources to build your fleet. Fighters are great for system defense (my
starbases have tons of fighters because they are only protecting the
starsystem they are based at and don't need FTL) Fighters are also great as
attrition units as they are cheap and can be produced fast.
In my mind, fighter swarming is no different then building ships with a ton of
missles.
Plus, the race that I use in our campaigns is the Fungarians....heh eh heh
essentially sentient mushrooms. They build 'SporeFleets' which are VERY heavy
on fighters (Spores).
I suppose that it would really depend on if you are playing morale
rules....very few cultures would throw away people to what is essentially
kamakazi attacks.
> --- kaime@mindspring.com wrote:
> Shawn M Mininger wrote:
I have something similar. It's a Hull 10% thurst 1 8 fighterbay ship.
> Honostly, fighter swarming seems like a valid tactic
<snip>
> I suppose that it would really depend on if you are
It would also depend on your supply lines. If you can't supply your attack
fleet with new fighters as fast as they loose them, your carriers end up
virtually toothless after a couple of battles. Lots of variables here, but any
expendable ordinance based fleet (missiles or fighters) can't go too far away
from its core worlds or you must have defended convoys of freighters for bring
new ordinance to the front.
Date sent: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 12:07:37 -0800 (PST)
From: Shawn M Mininger <smininger@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [FT] Rules Questions
To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
Send reply to: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
> Honostly, fighter swarming seems like a valid tactic
I think the big problem the initial poster is having, is one I mentioned a
while back. The difference between using a 'missile boat', and a 'fighter
boat', is that a missile boat's offensive capability can be destroyed by
killing the launching ship. Whereas Fighters fight on, often long after their
main ship(and only ride home) is destroyed.
> Plus, the race that I use in our campaigns is the
The Morale rules as written, help. But they don't remove the problem mentioned
above. Some people on the list, don't see it as a problem. Others don't see an
easy enough change for it. And finally some of us just restrict ourselves to
printed lists to avoid having to play against soap bubble carriers.
> Shawn M Mininger wrote:
> Honostly, fighter swarming seems like a valid tactic
Fighter swarming runs into problems if non-human tech is allowed. If I
suspect that you will be basing your entire fleet strike capability on fighter
swarms, my horde of Kra'Vak scattergunboats (mass 10,MD4, FTL, hull 3, 4
scatterguns, NPV 40) will clean your clocks. The hollow
carriers (mass 12, MD2, FTL, ftr bay, NPV 45 + ftr cost) will have at
least a 2:3 numerical inferiority, so each fighter squadron will face at least
6 scatterguns in an equal point battle, and if I only field one scattergunboat
for every pair carriers, I can loose one blat of
Heh heh heh Shhhhhhhh!!!! don't tell anyone!!
--- Richard and Emily Bell <rlbell@sympatico.ca>
wrote:
> Shawn M Mininger wrote:
The big problem with fighters as attrition units is pilot quality. Look at
what happened to the Japanese in WWII. At the end, they supposedly had 5000
aircraft saved up for a massive Kamikaze strike on US forces invading Japan.
And for pilots, they had a total of (blatant estimate) maybe 25,000 hours of
flight
time - split between the pilots for all of them (some with 100 +, most
with 10+
hours). The USN was giving its carrier pilots about 200 hours each before they
got into combat. This more than completely reversed the situation at the start
of the war when the IJN had some of the best trained pilots (400+ hours)
in the world (and nobody believed they did, so it came as a surprise)
This happened for two reasons:
Loss of trained pilots in battle - killing future instructors
Loss of resources and time for training new pilots.
In a space campaign, time and costs for training pilots must likewise become a
serious consideration. You might still have a dozen CVA's, but if they're
flying off rookies then they will get slaughtered by a smaller force of well
trained pilots.
> --- Dean Gundberg <Dean.Gundberg@noridian.com> wrote:
> Michael Llaneza wrote:
> This happened for two reasons:
Use the turkey and ace rules then.
I had to address this in my campaign rulesets; 50/50 pilot losses with
replacements costing 10 pts per pilot. Roll a d6; if it's less than the number
of replacements, the squadron is down graded to turkey for the next combat.
Upgrade a squadron to Aces after 5 battles where they score 10 hits or more.
Neath Southern Skies -http://home.pacific.net.au/~southernskies/
[MKW2] Admiral Peter Rollins - Task Force Zulu-Beta
[Firestorm] Battletech PBeM GM
> -----Original Message-----
Look at
> what
And
> for