> The gist of the argument is this (as I read it):
Evidently, the problem is not necessarily with fighters, per se, but with
massive amounts of fighters overwhelming a single ship?
So then, perhaps the solution resides in preventing or deterring overly large
massed fighter attacks.
I haven't looked in the archives on the main list, and I'm not a member of the
playtest list, so I don't know if this has been suggested
before.....
But what about a short ranged EMP style weapon, something similar to the
weapon found on the 'hovercraft' in the Matrix?
Create a one shot weapon that people can mount on their ships that they can
detonate that affects all fighters within 6" of the ship, disabling their
craft based on a target number roll, or some such mechanic. (I have no idea
what would be a fair number, I'm just bouncing a
concept.....)
That way, the defender has one saving grace shot. If a small amount of
fighters attack, the defender can choose to use PDF to engage, the EMP bomb
(for lack of a better term) being a waste to use for such a small return. If a
large amount attack, the ship has a chance then.
Forces the fighter playing character to make more tactical decisions than just
the en masse attack.
Options......
1) If you don't want another weapon system, base it off of shields. The
defender 'overloads' his shields for an area burst attack, however his shields
are destroyed for the rest of the encounter (or perhaps reduces a level 2
shield to a level 1 shield). This restricts this kind of tactic to larger
ships that normally equip a shield.
2) The EMP burst affects everything, not just fighters. Possibly requiring a
straight threshold check for all systems if caught within the EMP blast. The
EMP causing ship, being in the 'eye', is safe from such thresholds. (Or maybe
not, it being a last ditch effort....) This gives an interesting 'near ram'
attack. Also could cause problems to friendly ships if everyone gets too close
together......
Again, I don't know if such an idea has been brought up before. If it has, my
apologies.
owner-gzg-l@lists.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU wrote on 25/04/2005 19:12:14:
> 2) The EMP burst affects everything, not just fighters. Possibly
Ooo - cool. Just like the smart bomb from Defender.
> Mike Hudak wrote:
> Evidently, the problem is not necessarily with fighters, per se, but
The problem with fighters in Full Thrust is two-fold:
1) Massive amounts of fighters overwhelming a single ship *while the ship's
formation buddies are unable to help out*.
This is the side of the problem most players see, and indeed stare themselves
blind at. In itself it isn't a problem at all; it is easily solved by putting
an ADFC and some extra PDSs (or scatterguns, if you play
KV or use mixed-tech designs) on every single ship in your fleet. The
real
problem is that when you load up on anti-fighter weapons in this way,
you run into the *other* prong of the issue:
2) *Any* number of fighters, from the few squadrons carried by a
FB-style
battledreadnought task force all the way up to a pure soap-bubble
carrier force with no offensive weapons except the fighters themselves, can be
defeated by massive amounts of scatterguns or ADFC-directed point
defence fire. The fighters might inflict some damage before they die, but they
will die against this type of defences.
When 1) happens, you get short and boring battles where the fighters crush all
opposition. That's pretty boring even for the fighter player, at least after
the first few battles.
When 2) happens, you get battles where the fighters are wiped out without
doing much... which means that there's no real point in using fighters at all.
That's pretty boring too, particularly if you play in the Star Wars
universe or some similar fighter-heavy setting.
Of course, since the anti-fighter weapons are nearly useless against
larger
ships a fleet with anti-fighter defences this heavy is at a disadvantage
against a non-fighter fleet with few or no anti-fighter weapons; and if
one side's point defences are this heavy, the other side will eventually build
just such a "pure anti-ship" fleet (OK, it'll have some point defences
to fend of enemy missiles, but that's all)... which in turn will give rise to
new massed fighter swarms. This gives you a rock/scissors/paper
situation
where the pure anti-ship fleet beats the PD-heavy fleet but is smashed
by
the fighter swarm, the fighter swarm beats the pure anti-ship fleet but
is
smashed by the PD-heavy fleet, and the PD-heavy fleet beats the fighter
swarm but loses to the pure anti-ship fleet. The battle is essentially
decided by correctly predicting which fleet your opponent will bring to the
battle, instead of by the on-table tactics. That's fun, don't you think?
What you *don't* get in this situation is the FB-style fleet with
moderate
numbers of fighters and moderate anti-fighter defences: its anti-fighter
defences are far too weak to give it a chance against the fighter swarm,
its fighters are completely wasted against the PD-heavy fleet (allowing
the
PD-heavy fleet to achieve at least firepower parity and often firepower
superiority in spite of spending so much on PD weapons), and yet it doesn't
have enough fighters to give it an edge against the "pure anti-ship"
fleet
that isn't outweighed by the latter's heavier anti-ship armament.
The ideal would be to find the middle ground where the fighters give about
as good as they get, which would allow the FB-style "moderate" fleet to
be
competitive against all three of the extremes - but with the current FT
fighter rules, that middle ground is damn hard to find even if both sides
cooperate in searching for it (which essentially means scenario games where
both sides are created by the same person, who must additionally be quite
experienced with the game), and if the two sides *don't* cooperate it is
effectively impossible. When one side has massed fighters and the other heavy
point defences, the middle ground between "fighters sweep all before
them" to "fighters are utterly crushed" is very narrow indeed - so
narrow that I usually refer to it as the "knife edge".
As described above, over-powered anti-fighter weapons is one of the two
prongs of the FT fighter balance issue. If you retain the rest of the FT
fighter rules and only introduce new, more powerful specialized
anti-fighter weapons (like Mike does below) or increase the cost of the
fighters, all you achieve is to make it easier to reach the "defeat any
number of fighters" level of defences - ie., you change the *location*
of the knife edge, but you don't make it any easier to *balance* on it.
In order to improve the game and get out of the "rock/scissors/paper"
situation, it isn't sufficient to just *move* the knife edge. We need to
*blunt* it - to transform the change between "fighters sweep all before
them" and "fighters are crushed" from a sharp flip-flop switch into a
gradually sliding scale.
In my experience the way to accomplish this that works best in game play, and
which is used in several other space combat games already (including
Starmada, which has implemented it gradually over the course of several
editions) is to make anti-ship weapons capable of hitting fighters at a
reduced effect. This allows the defenders to adjust their anti-fighter
defences according to the current tactical situation: if the enemy has few
fighters but lots of heavier ships the anti-ship weapons will
concentrate
on the enemy ships leaving only the specialized anti-fighter weapons to
engage the enemy fighters; but if the enemy has lots of fighters and only a
few larger ships most of the anti-ship weapons will help out against the
enemy fighters instead.
> So then, perhaps the solution resides in preventing or deterring overly
> large massed fighter attacks.
This moves the knife edge but does not blunt it, and it also shifts the
balance between large and small ships further towards the large ships
(ie.,
large enough to carry enough PDS to defeat the "maximum size" fighter
attacks).
> I haven't looked in the archives on the main list, and I'm not a member
Very similar concepts have, at least.
> But what about a short ranged EMP style weapon, something similar to
> can detonate that affects all fighters within 6" of the ship, disabling
> their craft based on a target number roll, or some such mechanic. (I
> fighters attack, the defender can choose to use PDF to engage, the EMP
Just *one* saving grace shot? What stops you from putting *multiple* "EMP
bombs" on a single ship, much like the Kra'Vak ships have multiple
scatterguns? Or, if you can't put more than one EMP bomb on each ship, what
stops you from stacking all your ships literally on top of each other so
they can all support each other?
> Forces the fighter playing character to make more tactical decisions
The
> defender 'overloads' his shields for an area burst attack, however his
So the NSL should be left defenceless against massed enemy fighters?
> 2) The EMP burst affects everything, not just fighters. Possibly
That makes it effectively useless if the enemy has any combat ships *other*
than the fighters, since the fleet have to disperse greatly if it wants to use
its "EMP bombs" without crippling its own ships. Dispersed ships become easy
prey for a more concentrated enemy squadron.
***
To Damo and the other "screw points systems; play scenarios instead" people:
Scenario games need someone to create the scenarios before you can play.
Campaign games require a set of campaign rules, and someone to coordinate the
campaign. Both types of games are viable in stable gaming groups who
are experienced with the game... but when most of your games are against
relative strangers who lack the time to play campaings, or against newbies who
lack the experience to create interesting scenarios, you're pretty much
left with one-off pick-up games.
That's where the points system is really needed: to provide a common ground
between strangers, and to help newbies to set up reasonably even battles
before they've gained enough experience to create unbalanced scenarios which
are still enjoyable to both sides.
Regards,
> On Monday, April 25, 2005, at 05:12 PM, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> That's where the points system is really needed: to provide a common
I can see and understand this. I guess I'm just lucky in that the majority of
my FT games have been designed by a GM. I've only played a
few "you take N points and so will I" type of games-- but those ships
were from the Fleet Books. I've played in one game where it was "take N points
and design your fleet."
Side Question: Has anyone tried to build a fighter group design
subsystem? Something where you could shake-n-bake a flight to your
specifications? Probably a topic for another discussion.
Damo
> Ryan Gill wrote:
> At 5:58 PM -0500 4/25/05, David Rodemaker wrote:
Ah... Rollback. Enguage as many of the defense at once so something leaks
through. Make sure there is a bouttload of harms in that 1st wave and usually
they never see the second.
> To Damo and the other "screw points systems; play scenarios instead"
Well, let not go too far. I think points are a great tool when not used to
exclusion...
> Scenario games need someone to create the scenarios before you can
> left with one-off pick-up games.
Then when's the book or PDF of various and sundry canon scenarios for the FB
fleets? ;-) How many people reading this got their start in the
gazillion SFB scenarios? Not that it's the final solution, but it's a start.
Or how about getting each Polity/Race Playtester to write up a doctrine
paper, PDF it, and provide it free on the website?
> That's where the points system is really needed: to provide a common
> between strangers, and to help newbies to set up reasonably even
I'd think that just as helpful or more would be some hardcore examples of FB
fleet design. And a series of explanations about where the game does break
down...
How novel!
"Yes, gentle reader, a soap-bubble fleet is nigh-on unstoppable in a
one-off
game... etc. etc. etc. Here's an example of a classic soap-bubble
carrier: Yadda, yadda, yadda. Here's how to balance out a game where somebody
wants to play one. Blah, blah, blah."
> At 5:58 PM -0500 4/25/05, David Rodemaker wrote:
I got my start on Harpoon. Even there, the surest way to kill a Carrier Battle
Group with 2 Aegis Cruisers and a mess of Tomcats was to get as many missiles
in the air from as many bear and backfire bombers as possible.
The job of the Tomcats was to get your bears before hand, but the name of the
game was swamp the defenses.
> On Monday, April 25, 2005, at 07:15 PM, Ryan Gill wrote:
> of the game was swamp the defenses.
That same tactic should still apply...even after all the balancing takes
place.
Damo
> Or how about getting each Polity/Race Playtester to write up a
Well, as others have commented - overwhelming the defenses is often the
goal. And will remain as such for the foreseeable future in fleet or small
unit actions instead of 1:1 duels.
If fighters get 'balanced' (and I'm happy for that to happen, though I'm less
convinced that it's needed) then the next thing will be strikeboats, or
whatever...
> 2) The EMP burst affects everything, not just fighters. Possibly
A more balanced rule might be:
Overloading Screens.
Screens can be overloaded.
Cross off 1 screen generator (it can't be repaired), and do 1 pt of damage to
everything within 6 MU. "Everything" means ships (no matter what side),
missiles, plasma balls,
> --- "Hudak, Michael" <mihudak@state.pa.us> wrote:
> 1) If you don't want another weapon system, base it off of shields.
I don't think I like this idea...
> 2) The EMP burst affects everything, not just fighters. Possibly
This is a little more like it... I'd say give it a a shot at something more
like this....
EMP Burst - 5% Mass, 3"(vector, possibly 6" for cinematic) Range
Disables 1D6 fighters per group. Each group has to test separately for EMP
burst. Unaffected fighters may spend 1 CEF to regroup with unaffected fighters
from other groups in order to press their attack. Against ships in range, the
EMP burst causes a threshold roll against surface systems (weapons, sensors,
engines) similar to needle beams. To use the EMP system, a ship must either
shutdown all systems the turn before, or take a threshold against all systems.
Remember, even light is shaped by the darkness that surrounds it, and the true
crafters are seldom ever seen. Welcome to the shadows kid.