Questions concerning beta test Fighter rules

Well, today we fought our first battle that included fighters (ESU vs
NAC, 2000 point task forces, head-on combat) - we only had 5 fighter
squadrons total (ESU had 2, NAC 3) but we used the new rules anyway, and here
are some questions we had to raise:

a) If I have an escorting Fighter group, and the escorted group decides to
take a secondary move, does the escorting group have to pay 1 CEF, too? (The
wording of description of Phase 6 seems to suggest that they get the move for
free, in which case it is better to have 1
'leader group' of long-range fighters escorted by interceptors and
heavies (or is escorting limited to 1 escorting group per 1 escorted group? it
is not clear from the description, and having more escorts
to one group should be possible - for example, if I have 1
full-strength anti-ship fighter squadron, 1 heavy fighter group with 2
fighters remaining and 1 interceptor fighter then having both the heavies and
interceptors escort the 6 attack fighters makes sense)

b) Is fighter weapon range reduced to 3" in vector movement? Or is
anti-ship fighter range 3" (since ships are easier to incercept in
vector) but anti-fighter range still 6" (since fighters move the
same)? Or is it still 6" for both cases?

c) Since those rules make refuelling more important, when are fighters
refueled and re-armed? How long does it take? I know that FAQ
says that you have to house-rule this, but IMO it should be explicitly
included in the New, Improved Fighter Rules (TM). ;->

[How about having 1 CEF returned for every Damage Control Party
available? That way, intact carriers refuel and rearm their fighters much
faster, and rearming occurs during the damage control phase]

d) I assume fighters are recovered in the "launch fighters and ordnance
phase"? This should be in the New, Improved Rules too, since they make
recovering and rearming fighters more important. (During this fight, we
already had to make one refueling and rearming of fighters, and it was a
rather short battle)

Leslie Karlik:

> a) If I have an escorting Fighter group, and the escorted group decides

If the escorting group has to make a secondary move in order to stay in
base-to-base contact with the group it is escorting, it has to pay CEF.
In some cases it is possible for the escorting group to stay in
base-to-base
contact with the escorted group without actually moving - ie. when the
escorting group makes a short secondary move from one side of the escort to
the other; not very common, but it does happen.

> and having more escorts to one group should be possible

As long as you can track which group is escorted and which ones aren't, sure.

> b) Is fighter weapon range reduced to 3" in vector movement?

No.

> Or is it still 6" for both cases?

Yes.

> c) Since those rules make refuelling more important, when are fighters

As specified on FB2 p.4, section "Fighter re-arming".

(FWIW using DCPs to re-fuel fighters would mean that specialized
carriers
generally have a WORSE turn-around time than dreadnoughts, since the
dreadnoughts typically have more DCPs available per fighter group.)

> d) I assume fighters are recovered in the "launch fighters and ordnance

> phase"?

At the end of SHIP movement as specified in the fighter recovery rules on FT2
p.16.

Regards,