S.B.schoonmaker wrote
> They do NOT fire at the same time; they must wait to be activated as
Why not allow the ships to fire at the same time?, as long as the target is
within the range of the firing ships. This would have advantages if you do not
use simutaneous firing, but would also, if firing most or all of your weapons,
leave you vulnerable to any counter fire from other ships and unable to
respond. You would have to balance the advantages of being able to overwhelm
or destroy a target with all the ships firing simutaneously, against the
disadvantages of leaving your ship(s) vulneable to other ship(s). After all,
there would be no advantage, that I can see with most weapons, to having all
ships firing as if from a closer point, because there is no separate role to
hit (excepting p.torps)
Just a rough idea.
> Why not allow the ships to fire at the same time?, as long as the
First: having ships fire at the same time would make the system virtually
impossible to balance. Having more than one ship fire out of sequence is a
major advantage, as you can destroy smaller ships
and/or cause threshold checks that will leave the opposing ship
unable to respond.
Take the example of a strikeboat squadron loaded with submunitions
packs. In a normal "I go/U go" sequence, some of the small ships are
going to be killed before they can unload their ordnance; with CFC, all of
them would be able to fire "first" (assuming the CFC ship is not eliminated by
the first shot IF you lost the initiative). At that point, destroying them is
a empty victory.
Second: with the exception of Class 1 batteries, which can be used as PDS in a
pinch, I'm not sure how firing first leaves you vulnerable to return fire.
SMLs, Plasma Bolts, and fighters are the only things that allow defensive
fire, and they all make their attacks before the Ships Fire Phase of the turn.
Being "unable to respond" is actually a good thing. It means that all your
weapons have had a chance to do their damage. The specter of a looming
threshold check taking out that important Class 3 or FireCon is gone (for this
turn at least). This is why choosing the order in which your ships exchange
fire is an important part of the game.