From: Alan and Carmel Brain <aebrain@w...>
Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 16:04:15 +1000
Subject: Soap Bubble Carrier Prevention
Some ideas about de-fanging the "All Soap Bubble Carrier Fleet", without needing too many changes to the rules. a) Limit the number of fighters that can attack 1 target. It's the ability of a zillion fighter groups to all attack one vessel and overwhelm its defences that's the problem. b) Limit the number of fighters that can be launched to some multiple of the *hull boxes* of the carrier. Say 1 fighter per 2 hull boxes per turn. So a soap-bubble carrier capable of launching only 1 group per turn would require 12 hull boxes, plus the 9 mass for the hanger. c) Make PDS more deadly vs large numbers of fighters. One thing I've been thinking about is as follows: Only 1 PDS can fire at a single fighter group. Each PDS kills D6-1 fighters, or D6-3 heavy fighters. Any PDS that misses can fire again at a target that hasn't been fired at yet. So a ship with 4 PDS vs 7 fighter groups can shoot at 4 fighter groups initially. Say it rolls 3,5,1,6. This kills 0+2+4+5 fighters. The PDS that missed can fire again at one of the other 2 groups that hadn't been fired at. Say it rolls 4, killing 3 fighters. Of the 6 attacking groups, their strengths are now 6,6,4,3,2,1. Note that if a single fighter group had attacked, only 1 PDS could fire at it (so on average, it would only take 3 casualties, regardless of the number of defences). This mechanic makes fighters *less* vulnerable when used in small quantities vs targets with heavy defences, but *more* vulnerable to ships with only 1 PDS. Anyone out there care to try making some PSB that will fit this