[FT] Yet Another, another fighters suggestion

This is an off-the-cuff idea, but has anyone considered giving
warships a "built-in" fighter defense value? Something like, for every
x mass of the ship, the ship gets y PDS systems?

This is an off-the-cuff idea, but has anyone considered giving
warships a "built-in" fighter defense value? Something like, for every
x mass of the ship, the ship gets y PDS systems?

I hadn't thought of that but, it's simple and elegant enough to just
work....)

Then to balance it out, for every X mass, a ship would get Y fighters...

For every Z mass it gets A beams, B torpedoes, C shields, D Fire controls, E
...

Watch for the slippery slope... It's slippery.:)

--Binhan

> -----Original Message-----

Then to balance it out, for every X mass, a ship would get Y fighters...

For every Z mass it gets A beams, B torpedoes, C shields, D Fire controls, E
...

Watch for the slippery slope... It's slippery.:)

Hence the gentlemanly agreement not to get to cheesy......Works oh at least
five out of ten try's in most games clubs, not perfect I know. This is gaming
after all not an academic pursuit of perfection......in most
cases anyway......)

Well, it's not unprecedented. In FT2, ships got a certain number of
fire controls based on their mass. That didn't get too slippery :-)

> On 4 Feb 2004 at 15:22, B Lin wrote:

> Then to balance it out, for every X mass, a ship would get Y

That's what I think too. Of course that probably means there is some
fatal flaw in there somewhere :-)

> On 4 Feb 2004 at 16:13, Don M wrote:

> I hadn't thought of that but, it's simple and elegant enough to just

Original idea:

> This is an off-the-cuff idea, but has anyone considered giving

Yeah it's great fodder for the rules lawyers amoung us lol. Oh well nothing is
ever quiet full proof is it?.........)

[quoted original message omitted]

But I notice that free FC's didn't make it into FB1...:)

The problem with that idea is that you are mandating an official requirement
for design. And while most groups will pick and choose
their rules/house rules, it makes it difficult for quick "meet and beat"
battles where you pick from stock ships. If every single stock ship comes
equipped with a PDS for certain mass, then there is no point in taking any
ship that carries only a single squadron of fighters. You then effectively
eliminate the use of small number of fighters as a viable weapons system, even
in small games since you have to pay for fighters (the extra mass and point
cost) but everyone gets PDS for free.

To balance it, the basic cost per mass of ship needs to be increased (so that
PDS aren't entirely free) but then you penalize people who could care less
about mounting a PDS on a mass 20 boat and would rather have a couple extra
points to beef up the weapons to a torpedo or needle beam. Then you penalize
people who want dedicated AA cruisers with 20 PDS's and a couple ADFC's. The
great thing (and biggest flaw) is that FT is generic and allows a huge number
of ship designs and with some adaptation, ships from a large variety of
backgrounds. It's practically the Linux of the starship gaming world. The
variety though, makes it tough to truly balance the point system.

--Binhan

> -----Original Message-----