Some feedback on the "unofficial (play-test group) beta
limited public release revised full thrust fighter rules" These were posted a
fair while ago, but I haven't seen anything more recent, so apologies in
advance if any of these issues have already been addressed.
1. There's no recognition of friendly fire danger. "See those fighters buzzing
the admirals flagship? Point the
mega-cannon in that direction and let off a few rounds.
Risk? What risk?"
2. Anti-ship weapons are very effective against attacking
fighters, often more effective than the ships PDS. While
it's good to remove the rock-scissors-paper effect, the
beta rules swing too far the other way.
In particular, pulse torpedoes are better than beam-3s
against fighters, and beam-2s better than beam-1 or 3.
There's already a slight imbalance in favour of these
weapons (especially beam-2) and the beta rules amplify
it.
OK, those are fixable. The big, big problem is
3. We have to write orders for fighters. Deciding to attack or evade, and if
evading by how much, may not look like movement orders, but in game terms it's
the same. You have to decide in advance what you're going to do, which means
measuring distances, trying to do probability calculations in your head,
comparing options, and otherwise standing around going "hmmm" instead of
playing the game.
Proposed new system:
1. Anti-ship fire may not be directed against fighters
that are screening another ship, including the new meaning for fighters that
attacked an enemy ship last turn and are staying in contact to do so again.
PSB: the targeting systems aren't able to discriminate with enough precision
and will lock onto the ship instead.
2. Anti-ship fire may not be directed against fighters in
a dogfight. PSB: the fighters are zipping around at high speed (expending a
CEF on violent manouvres) which, while
not actually intended to dodge anti-ship weapons, has the
same effect. Not to mention the friendly-fire risk.
3. New procedure for anti-ship weapons fire: phase 7
becomes just "Declaration of attack runs." Evasive manouvres don't have to be
specified.
In phase 8, any ship may target a fighter group subject to FCS availability,
range, and weapon arcs. The player
declares intent as usual, "3 beam-2 against the attack
fighter group and 4 beam-1 against the other."
BEFORE dice are rolled, the fighter group has the option to evade. (The player
must decide in a reasonable time
frame - no calculators allowed!)
If the group evades, it expends 1 CEF and breaks off any
attack run. The anti-ship weapon fire automatically misses.
PSB: fighters have warning receivers that indicate a ship has locked on, and
unlike bigger vessels they can actually
move fast enough to break the lock. OR, anti-ship weapons
have to be 'steered' onto the group, water-hose style, so
the fighters can predict and avoid the fire.
If the group does not evade, roll 1D6 per firing weapon
in range and arc. Each 6 kills 1 fighter, no re-roll.
An evasive manouvre lasts for the rest of the turn, so any
further anti-ship weapons fire against that fighter group
will also miss. (The firing player must be told that he/she
is aiming at an evading group and can switch to another target. PSB: evading
fighters can't be locked on by normal FCS.) Evading is NOT retrospective
though: if the fighter group took casualties earlier in the turn, those still
apply.
Example: a fighter group attacking a battleship is fired
at by a medium cruiser with 2 beam-2 at 7 MU range. The
group elects not to evade. The cruiser rolls 1D6 per beam, getting 5 (miss)
and 6 (hit). Then the battleship declares intention to fire with all 12 of its
beams: the fighter group decides to evade this, expending 1 CEF and breaking
off the attack. The previous casualty still stands, but the battleship fire
misses without rolling dice. The battleship can't fire its weapons at another
target this turn, but isn't under attack either: whether this is a waste or
not would depend on the situation.
cheers,
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn 6/17/07, Hugh
> Fisher <laranzu@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
The decision to evade should be made before the player owning the fighters
finds out what is being fired. Announcements should be made about which
fighter groups are under the eye of an FCS and then one player secretly writes
down whether the fighters are evading and the other player secretlywrites down
what, if any, weapons are firing (irrespective of weapons committed, the FCS
is 'used' for the purposes of fire. After orders are written, both sets are
revealed and resolved.
PSB: The warning receivers will register the fire control signals, not the
weapons fire. As the FCS can handle the tracking for anything, the pilot has
no idea what is inbound. During the Cold War, illuminating an adversary with a
tracking radar was a good way to 'rattle his cage', as there was no way to
find out if a missile had not been fired. A fighter that evades has
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lDo fighters get to
"pin" enemy fighter squadrons in a 'dogfight and prevent them moving?
I thought fighter groups just ended movement within 6Mu and opened fire. I
don't think of that so much as a dog fight. More like long range combat with
missiles.
If 1 mu = 1000 kms or even 1km that would be a very long range to hit a target
with a railgun round from one fighter to another.
The best radar systems today don't have separate scan and track modes because
it gives away the fact thet they are locked up and the target can evade. Why
can't the firecontrol represent how sphisticated the ships comupter system is
at calculating intercept vectors rather than it's own active sensor intensity.
With lightspeed weapons it is very likely that you might know that you had
been detected and then a light speed particle stream passes through your
fighter.
I'd expect that a fighter would be evasively manouvering with a randomised
course change all the time to prevent being zapped by capital ship weapons.
My groups experience was that it was too complicated to record evasions for
different groups of fighters. We allow ship weapons to target
fighters but with a flat -2 drm representing the ability of the fighters
to dodge.
Fast and simple and produces the effect that massed ship weapons can damage
fighter groups but that specialist anti ordnance are still better.
> Richard Bell wrote:
> The decision to evade should be made before the player owning the
In the proposed rules firing at fighters happens at the same
time as all other anti-ship firing by that ship. It's simple
and fast, why change it? Plus, unless *all* weapons fire by the ship in
question is secretly written down, it's not going to be hard for the fighter
player to figure things out. "My
Jerez is firing the port and all-round beam-2s at the destroyer
and, uh, some other weapons at your fighter group."
And now we've got *both* players writing things down instead
of just one - though not for every fighter group.
> PSB: The warning receivers will register the fire control signals,
In Full Thrust an anti-ship FCS isn't the same as a point or
area defence firecon. The pilot should know the difference. That's a
technicality though: the idea of PSB is to decide
on the effect wanted (no before-hand fighter planning here)
and work backwards to a cause.
cheers,
> Do fighters get to "pin" enemy fighter squadrons in a 'dogfight and
Around here it's always been interpreted as fighters can only fire on other
fighters by moving into contact, so yes they pin them.
> I'd expect that a fighter would be evasively manouvering with a
That could be the interpretation of the current rules that prevent fighters
being zapped at all.
Full Thrust already distinguishes between 'CEF' activity and just cruising
around, so I was trying to simplify the proposed mechanism that lets the
player decide when to spend CEF on evasion.
> My groups experience was that it was too complicated to record
I like it too.
The -2 DRM = 6 to hit for beams. I'm not happy with K-guns
and pulse torps being better at knocking down fighters than beams though (they
are at short range), as I think of them as slowly firing big, dangerous
projectiles that move a lot slower than lightspeed. I also think that the
bigger beams are something like heavy tank guns, massive overkill against
something like a fighter, hence the one die per beam regardless of class.
cheers,
> Hugh Fisher wrote:
> Some feedback on the "unofficial (play-test group) beta
Noted and recorded!
Unfortunately most of us involved in FT development are deluged with acute RL
issues (in my case moving house), so it might take a while before we get
around to responding properly :-( (...which FWIW is why there has been
no response to your Graser report posted a while ago either...)
Later,
This one caught my eye:
> Hugh Fisher wrote:
> Do fighters get to "pin" enemy fighter squadrons in a 'dogfight and
This is not the way the beta-test rules were intended. Fighters have a
6mu
range against other fighters, and moving into base-to-base contact with
enemy fighters have no extra effect whatsoever that you don't get by simply
being within
Regards,
> I wrote:
> Do fighters get to "pin" enemy fighter squadrons in a 'dogfight and
> enemy fighters have no extra effect whatsoever that you don't get by
To clarify: In other words, no, in the beta-test rules fighters DON'T
pin one another in dogfights.