Soap bubbles?

Being new to FT, I am wondering what exactly a "Soap Bubble" Carrier is?

Thanks!

On Mon, 17 Feb 2003 06:40:36 -0800 "Bradley, Jason (US - Minneapolis)"
> <jabradley@deloitte.com> wrote:

> Being new to FT, I am wondering what exactly a "Soap Bubble" Carrier

One that is basically a large box to carry fighters in -- lots of
hangar bays, but weak structure and little else in the way of weapons,
defences and other systems (so that it has the spare mass, etc. for all those
fighters without costing too much). It has a lot of
long-range hitting power, courtesy of the fighters, but let the bad
guys get close to it, and it goes pop very quickly.

Phil
----
"Sic Transit Gloria Barramundi" (Or, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!)

On Mon, Feb 17, 2003 at 06:40:36AM -0800, Bradley, Jason (US -
> Minneapolis) wrote:

Approximately:

> On 17 Feb 2003 at 6:40, Bradley, Jason (US - Minneapo wrote:

> Being new to FT, I am wondering what exactly a "Soap Bubble" Carrier

A carrier with minimum hull and drives, no armour, no shields, no weaponry, no
point defences, no fire control. All they can do is launch fighters and move
about a bit. They go 'pop' as soon as they're hit, hence soap bubble.

Thanks for the info guys!!

Jason

[quoted original message omitted]

Four of us ready with answers in a matter of minutes. We gotta get a
life...

The_Beast

Following this discussion with interest, I designed the following vessel to
match the soap bubble carrier with 1 flight of 6 standard fighters. More
expensive fighters would give a little more to work with. I'm sure there are
more effective designs, but I'm a novice to FT/FB having only played
with other players designs or the book designs only a few times.

Item Mass Points
Basic Hull		     (14)     14
Hull Integrity (in 4 rows)	3      6
FTL Drive			1      2
Main Drive (Thrust 4)		3      6
Sub-total                       7     28
FCS				1      4
Class 1 Batt (6 arc) x 3	3      9
PDS x 3 			3      9
Sub-total                       7     22
Total			       14     50

So my question is would my anti fighter ship, resonably handled, defeat the
fighters of a soap bubble given average dice luck? I balanced the firepower
between batteries to engage ships and PDS for fighters. Obviously you could
increase the PDS 1 for 1 with the bats, but that would leave you without much
anti ship fire. It also presumes that the fighters attack it, which would have
to occur in a 1 vs 1 engagment. But would 10 soap bubbles overwhelm 10 of
these? I think so given that the fighters could gang up on a couple of my
ships a turn and probably only lose a few fighters in the process.

I also designed a pure anti fighter ship like so:

Basic Hull		     (14)     14
Hull Integrity (in 4 rows)	3      6
FTL Drive			1      2
Main Drive (Thrust 4)		3      6
Sub-total                       7     28
ADFC				2      8
PDS x 5 			5     15
Sub-total                       7     23
Total			       14     51

By itself could only deal with the fighters, but provides protection against
fighter swarms in numbers. Is it worthless?

So far from my overly simple analysis, it seems fighters themselves are
underpriced for what they can do. Perhaps with other designs I would see
different. But if a 6 pt fighter group has resonable odds of taking down a 50
pt vessel even with dedicated anti fighter weapons, it seems to me that
something's amiss there.

Glady awaiting someone to point out my erroneous thinking.

Chuck

> -----Original Message-----

Chuck said:
> So far from my overly simple analysis, it seems fighters themselves are

Well, fighters don't cost 6 points. Roger posted this soapbubble:

> Item Mass NPV

So that's 45 points to bring a fighter bay to the table--and you'll need
to actually buy the fighters too. So you're at total 63 points or more,
depending on what fighters you buy--does that look better when compared
to your 50 point escort?

Oops... missed that little bit. That's what I get for try to discuss rules at
work without the material handy:) BTW, my only experience with fighters is
watching my ships go poof when they come near. Always the escort
commander, never the carrier admiral :/ But my group has never employed
soap bubbles either. The carriers have always had bark and bite too, so I've
never experienced the fighter swarms others have seen.

Thanks for the catch Laser, back to the design tool....

Chuck

> -----Original Message-----

> Chuck Parrott wrote:

> Item Mass Points

Given average luck with the dice, they won't defeat the *fighters* - at
least not if the fighters are also reasonably handled and double up against
them. (Without ADFC, these corvettes can't support one another.)

They can however defeat the *carriers* by flying fast enough (ie., faster
than 48 mu/turn) that the fighters only get one turn to attack them
before each turn the corvettes can fire at the soap bubbles. Once all the
carriers are dead, the corvettes can leave and let the fighters die. Be
careful that you don't overshoot the carriers though... if the fighters get
two attacks in in a row without the corvettes killing any carriers inbetween,
the corvettes lose.

> I also designed a pure anti fighter ship like so:

Worthless? Not at all; enough of these you will defeat the fighters. They
even has a small anti-ship capability, though it is extemely
short-ranged
:-/ Unfortunately they can only protect one other ship each against
fighters, so you'll need quite a few of them.

> So far from my overly simple analysis, it seems fighters themselves are

There ain't no such thing as a "6 pt fighter group". The cheapest fighter
group available costs 18 pts, and you also have to pay for the bay in which
the fighters ride to the battle and the ship in which it is mounted. All in
all the minimum cost to bring a figther group to the table is *61.5* pts,
not 6 :-/

Later,

[quoted original message omitted]

Chuck-

If it's a group new to FT, you'll see the soap bubble philosophy pop in at
some point. Some joker always pushes it. There are a couple of well known
tricks to handling it, from least effective to most effective (Effectiveness
order is my personal take, not to be taken as gospel): 1. ADFC (There's a
design philosophy debate on whether it's better to
mount ADFC on all ships and a hand-full of PDS, or a mission specific
ship
designed with ADFC and mainly/mostly PDS to provide cover for
ship-killer
ships.)
2.  Fast ships/High initial V.  Zoom in ~ 48+ speeds, hit the carriers,
and zoom out leaving fighters either dead in bays or unable to reach you and

carriers unable to escape. 3. Krack scatter guns. These are considered fairly
effective vs. fighters, but if you're not playing Krack, you're mixing
technology which has it's own serious flaws. 4. Fight fire with fire (or in
this case, fighters with fighters). Use

soap bubbles yourself. 5. Ban, or significantly reduce custom designs. "Book
fleets only" fights.

To comment on a previous question of yours:
The majority of the list think fighters are under-priced as it is.
There's a minority (I am included) who disagree and actually think they're
over-priced.  It's almost unanimous, though, that fighters are
overly-powerful given their current incarnation.  The specific problem
involves many vs. few, where 1 (or a few) fighter groups are usually
ineffective at best, but 10+ are overly-effective (at worst).  The
standard arguement for this is usually stated along the lines of: 1 group of
fighters points times 10 does not equal 10 groups of fighters. Or 18*10
!=
180.

There is a bit of circular dominance involved, with fighters beating
ship-killers who in turn beat PDS boats who dominate fighters.  (IMNSHO
PDS is more effective than it should. However, long and heated debate has been
held over that land-mine already)

Hopefully that should sum up several years of debate for you. Some Free
advice: The best solution I've found for people who want to play fighters, but
don't want to see them dominate, is to have a friendly house
rule that disallows extremism ship creation and/or limits numbers of
fighters either on the board or allowed to target a ship at a time.

A question for the rest of the group: I haven't had a chance to playtest it,
but perhaps a solid rule limiting

the number of fighters allowed to target a ship at any time? Perhaps 1 fighter
(not squad) per 10 mass, with one group always being allowed?

Rand.

> At 01:27 PM 2/17/03 -0500, you wrote:

From: "Randall Joiner" <rljoiner@mindspring.com>

> A question for the rest of the group:

One idea that's been mooted on the playtest list for over a year is as
follows:

a) Max 6 fighter groups allowed to attack one ship in a turn, but no limits on
SMs or MT missiles.
b) PDS fires twice vs fighters (only), OR once vs SM/MT Missiles.

Currently this idea is out of favour, but I still like it. Requires no change
to points values, no change to FB1 fleet design philosophy,

> Alan and Carmel Brain wrote:

> a) Max 6 fighter groups allowed to attack one ship in a turn, but no

I like the differentiation between SM's and Fighters, although I'm not sure I
follow the PDS firing twice.

I do like the KISS, and no change to points/designs/etc.

The major problem I see is that it weights bringing the single largest ship
possible to a game... If I bring a single SDN and the enemy brings 18 soap
bubbles, I only have to worry about PDS for 6 groups of fighters (With firing
twice rule meaning I only need half as much PDS) which is a small percentage
of weight devoted to fighter defense. If, on the other hand, I bring 3
cruisers, each one has to bring PDS enough to deal with 6 groups of fighters,
(if it's possible to mount that much) making them devote a much larger
percentage of weight to fighter defense.

You know, I just thought of another idea... Taking a page from Anime, what
about Frat-a-cide?  Has the playtest list done anything along those
lines? If
done right, it would drastically reduce fighter/missle pile-up, without
reducing smaller numbers of said being effective.

Rand.

> You know, I just thought of another idea... Taking a page from Anime,

I wouldn't mind killing fraternity members, but bear in mind that a 6mu
fighter attack range is usually construed as 6000km. You've got room for lots
and lots of fighters without them interfering with each other. This
is the same problem with the "limited amounts of fighters" idea--it
would probably work, but it's hard to justify.

Hrm... I've always found that making the rule first, then figuring out a
justification works well.

Justification in this case, given the game system as it stands, doesn't strike
me as an insurmountable arguement against. I can come up with a whole slew of
BS/justification, if the rules work for a better game.  I'm most curious
currently about something that balances fighters out... Allowing them to be
used, without allowing them the exponetial swarm problem.

*shrug* Worst case scenario, we can make it a genre specific rule, for those
who play anime style games, where fratacide is an accepted realism.

And what'cha got against frat boys? Eh? You'd be surprised who might
be/have
been one.

Rand.

> "laserlight@quixnet.net" wrote:

> >You know, I just thought of another idea... Taking a page from
This
> is the same problem with the "limited amounts of fighters" idea--it

> *shrug* Worst case scenario, we can make it a genre specific rule, for

True, but we'd like to have something which works for generic games as well as
genre backgrounds.

> And what'cha got against frat boys? Eh? You'd be surprised who might

<grin> But I wasn't the one who came up with "frat-a-cide" instead of
"fratricide".

I've yet to see a generic game that can't incorporate genre specific rules, if
the players want them. And I figure genre specific may give the new rules a
chance to play, but without the necessary ligitimacy (or thorough playtesting)
of core rules. Considering I'm sick to death of the negatives with fighters,
but really enjoy the positives of them (at least the flexibility and "yet
another weapon/defense choice"), I've been wracking my brain for
corrections.

I understand the playtest group is in a similar boat, but without access to
that list, and only the occasional hint as to what they're working on, and no
hope of FT/FB3 anytime soon (I'm impatient by nature, patient by extreme
force) I'm trying to come up with something to tide me over...:)

Ah, the problems with a deficiency in language... And the lack of a proper
crutch^H^H^H^H^H spell-check.  Although, as I think about it,
frat-a-cide does
seem to work...:)

Rand.

> "laserlight@quixnet.net" wrote:

> >*shrug* Worst case scenario, we can make it a genre specific rule,

Being new to FT, and not having really seen the rules as of yet, may I ask how
fighters work in FT? The only game where fighters were an issue that I have
played was BFG and there seemed to be some similar issues to what you guys are
talking about, minus the soap bubble thing. We fixed that by switching
fighters from actual minis you moved around the table to a representative
fighter "attack" that was used much like any other weapon in the game with a
range, damage
etc..

> Alan Brain wrote:

> One idea that's been mooted on the playtest list for over a year is as

The main drawback with it (and the reason it is out of favour) is that
playtests of it showed that it does not solve the fighter imbalance except
for BDNs and larger (and if the ships become large enough, TMF 300+ or
so, fighters become effectively useless against them), which makes large ships
even more powerful than they already are - cf. the recent CPV vs NPV
thread...

Regards,

A couple of things...

While genre-specific ideas are encouraged, the thread had been about the
generic rules, and I would assume that's why the fratricide idea was
discounted. Dangerous thing, assuming...

FT fighters are not the only thing requiring representation. Likewise SML's,
but the whole fighter groups being able to loiter is a system we'd hate to
lose unless absolutely necessary.

I'm having trouble remember particulars, but it seems to me part of the
problem is fighters saturating PDS's. I'd try an adjustment based on that, but
I don't think it went very far here. It's especially unfortunate that I try to
reply to these items when I don't have rules around, though, in deference to
our noble benefactor, I wouldn't quote whole rule stretches.
Buy the game. ;->=

You can get an idea on the fighter rules in the More Thrust available on GZG's
game, though. And you'll notice they're being restricted by endurance options
and the newer movement structure. This doesn't effect, in the main, 'the soap
bubble problem'.

The_Beast

> You can get an idea on the fighter rules in the More Thrust available

*ahem* Make that available for DOWNLOAD on GZG's game SITE.

http://www.gtns.net/gzg/
See Downloads

*sheesh* Have pity on the old man.

The_Beast

Is this a problem where raising the points just doesn't fix the issue?

Jason

[quoted original message omitted]

Guess you missed my summation a few days ago...

While the representational attack may correct the problems, I feel that it
would also strip many of the positive and interesting tactical possibilities
that fighters bring to the board.

The biggest problem (at least that everyone can agree on) involves the
non-linear combat effect that fighters have.  1-2 is almost meaningless,
where
10+ completely dominate.  Effectively, the combat power (measured in
points in FT) gives 18 for a fighter squad, but 10 groups of fighters does not
equal 180. More on the effect of 180^2 (not really, but it is much larger than
180 points of stuff).

Soap bubbles are a different problem set in thier own right, but rely heavily
on the above and then adding thier own particular stink. It's hoped that any
change to fighters or thier rules would help curtail soap bubble carriers
(okay, I shouldn't talk for an entire group... It is my, and I beleive most on
the list's hope). The main grief on soap bubbles are that they abuse the
design system to carry the most fighters possible, thus compounding the above.
It's also extremely frustrating to play against... In effect very similar to
beating one's head against a wall. It only feels good when you stop.

Rand.

> "Bradley, Jason (US - Minneapolis)" wrote:

> Being new to FT, and not having really seen the rules as of yet, may I
Any
> disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking of

On Tue, Feb 18, 2003 at 12:43:33PM -0800, Bradley, Jason (US -
> Minneapolis) wrote:

Yes. _Non-linearity_ is the key. You can balance the cost so that a
player who brings X fighter groups to the table will be at an even fight with
another player with no fighters but equal points; but that won't
give you a balanced solution for X/2 or X*2 fighter groups.

Thanks for the recap, I must have missed your post a few days ago.

So if I understand you right then it is fighters in large numbers that begin
to become a problem, sort of a loophole in the rules so to speak because of
their cost vs. effectiveness in numbers? Is it possible to keep the numbers in
check by limiting how many groups can be on a ship at any one time? It
seems reasonable to me from a fluff/gaming standpoint, if you look at
today's Aircraft carriers, they are limited in the amount of craft they can
support and carry, money being the biggest reason. I suppose you couldn't
limit the idea that a player may have only so many carriers but there has to
be an inherent weakness in that style of play? That leads me to the soap
bubble thing... Is it absolutely necessary to come up with a rule to limit
this sort of ship building? I am not sure if you guys are in the process of
rewriting a new edition to the rules but I know locally, players who tend to
use beardy tactics like that find they have fewer and fewer people interested
in playing them. Is it a popular tactic and is there strong opposition to
basically outright boycotting that type of craft? You will have to excuse me
if that last idea sounds a little optimistic or naive, I like to think that
most gamers can enjoy and play within the "spirit" of the rules sometimes.

Thanks Jason

[quoted original message omitted]

> devans@nebraska.edu wrote:

> While genre-specific ideas are encouraged, the thread had been about

I originally proposed it as a generic ruleset... In response to justifying a
rule, I, rather flippantly, expressed that it is already justified in certain
genre specific settings. In the same post, I also said I beleive I could
justify it for a generic ruling.

So, discounting via genre specific doesn't help.

Unfortunately, I meant the comment as flippant, a hand-wave if you will,
in order to get some feedback on how fratricide might be actually implemented,
instead of arguing whether it could be justified within context or not. To
further belabor that, I was conceeding in part, that justification would be
needed, but hoped to do so after a rule-set was worked out.  I was
desparately trying to avoid the sticky mess that justification brings about,
since it's rare that everyone will agree that something is justified or not in
setting. In my experience, it's always best to avoid it until the end,
delivering a
fate-accompli.  Ie. here's how it works, figure out how you justify it
on your own.

That, and frankly, much of FT isn't hard and fast, (how exactly does FTL
work?) and let's the player[s] work it out for themselves. It's what makes the
system so setting independant and generic.

> FT fighters are not the only thing requiring representation. Likewise

Agreed. However, it's my humble opinion that SML's and less so MT's are
actually fairly well balanced, or over-balanced, and thus don't need any
more
restrictions.  They're hard-enough to handly, and have no reload
capability... But that's exactly why I don't want to mess with PDS itself...
By changing it, you chance changing everything... By changing fighters, you
only address thier problems.

I definitely don't want to lose loiter, or the other tactical and strategic
fun fighters bring.

Rand.

I think I'll talk it over with my partner in crime and make a house rule
that each fighter bay requires at least 2 Hull boxes - for structural
integrity and to have the launch AND recovery option. We can allow soap
bubbles but that would be a fighter transport and would not be capable of
recovery or rearming. That means that a carrier with 8 bays also needs 16
hull - a reasonable design within the spirit of the rules..
.

> "Bradley, Jason (US - Minneapolis)" wrote:

> Thanks for the recap, I must have missed your post a few days ago.

No problem... You can always skim the archives if you want more detail.

> So if I understand you right then it is fighters in large numbers that

Yes.  Sorta.  It's a non-linear problem...  Low numbers of fighters tend
to be near worthless (I say near because there are some "special" tactics one
or two groups of fighters are still good for) for the points paid, whereas
high numbers of fighters are worth much much more than what was paid.

> in check by limiting how many groups can be on a ship at any one time?
 It
> seems reasonable to me from a fluff/gaming standpoint, if you look at

I was actually originally approaching that from the other direction...
Possibly limiting the number of fighters that may actively attack a ship.

There's a slippery slope here somewhere... Let me say it this way. Unless you
minimize the number of carrier's in a fleet to ridiculus levels (like
1-2
period) you can't keep someone from bringing all carriers to any given fight,
unless your number of points for a pick-up game exceeds the number of
points of carriers in a fleet. It restricts creativity, in design
philosophies, in tactics and strategy, and in creativity.

> Is it absolutely necessary to come up with a rule to limit this sort

Ah, I knew there was a slippery slope...

Define to me what is beardy tactics? I'll grant you the extremes, Soap Bubbles
are dodgy/abusive.  How about a true carrier though?  Perhaps 4-6
squadrons of fighters? How about that same carrier that has no offensive
weapons? Perhaps a
bit of PDS, some armor, and a somewhat weak hull (10-20%?)...  Still
beardy? Abusive? Perhaps... Yet that's effectively what a modern CVN is. It's
not meant to see combat. That's what the fighters are for, and the screening
ships and subs if it comes to that. How can you build a modern day equivelant
battlegroup if you don't allow the specialized carrier? Ok, still a bit bad.
Well, what if I put some armament on it? How many B3's and B2's do I need to
put on it before it becomes acceptable? See where it's going?

Another example... B4's and greater... Nothing in the rules says I need to
mount anything specific... So I mount a B4 (or higher) on the smallest fastest
craft I can. With 1 hull. Then I sit back and plinck. Cheesy? Yep. But how do
you solve that? (Yes, I know the basic tactics to resolve this, rhetorical
question!)

So now we get to the fundamental problem...   How do you allow a design
system, allow different "flavors" of ships (who wants to redesign what already
exists in the books?), without having people push the limits? And how do you
define pushing the limits? Is it cheese to push a little? Alot? Where's the
line?

True, people who push to far tend to lack playmates. But then people who are
tactically better tend to win more... Should you not play with them? I mean,
it's not alot of fun to know you're going to get beat in a fair fight from the
start, right? How about those who are praeternaturally lucky? You know the
ones... They roll more 6's than all other numbers combined... (Especially if
you're the one's man?) You shouldn't play with them... etc. Extreme's can be
reached, but before then you start running out of people to play with...

While I can't change someone's luck, and I can't beat the genius, rules can be
changed to level the playing field and hopefully allow the most creativity
with the least amount of cheese possible. Especially when there is a
fundamental flaw in a part of the game.

Wow... Long winded way of saying that taking your ball and going home isn't
always a good answer.

For the record... I've managed to design a fleet that I beleive (and have
play-tested some) is fairly balanced against book fleets.  It has it's
strengths, and weaknesses. It has fleet carriers that have no armament
(Although hull, screens, armor, PDS, ADFC, etc) that are big and meant to
carry fighters but stay out of the fight. I like fighters, and make extensive
use of them. But I also don't like that swarms are as effective as they are.
And possibly most of all, I dislike how crippled a single squadron is, but I
know (from bad experience) that that won't be addressed until the swarm
problem is fixed. (Aside: PDS is too powerful, IMHO, but keep that quite since
it's a
_very_ minority held view...)

Rand.

Perhaps... But you inadvertantly just increased the cost of fighters...
Without changing the cost of a swarm by equatable means.  (By 4+ points
per fighter bay)

Rand.

> Mike Hillsgrove wrote:

> I think I'll talk it over with my partner in crime and make a house

"I was actually originally approaching that from the other direction...
Possibly limiting the number of fighters that may actively attack a ship."

I have been watching the thread so far and noticed that. Ultimately I think
anything that needs to be done to "fix" a game is fine, however limiting the
amount of fighters might seem a bit desperate depending on the scale of the
game and what a "fighter" or "squadron" actually represents. If things are
left sort of open to interpretation I think it works well, but it you have
even roughly defined scales, like several hundred meters for a capitol ship of
the line, and each squadron represents say 6 fighters, then it seems odd that
only 10 squadrons can attack, a total of 60 fighters. It 'feels' artificial if
you understand what I am saying.

I also understand your point about soap bubble carriers and modern day CVN. Of
course with out getting too much into a "reality" debate, you will never see
carriers unescorted enter into a war zone, hence the idea that carrier groups
are beneficial for some, another "spirit" of the game thing I think. I know I
would not be willing to field even mostly carriers in a battle unless it was a
special scenario or some such situation. Of course we all don't play the same
way! However, restricting creativity is another one of those things I would be
against, as long as the game did not suffer too much for it. Take my earlier
example, BFG. We found that in that game, fighters and bombers were also
extremely effective if used in large numbers, we also found that in those
large numbers it almost doubled or sometimes tripled the playing time of the
game! I hated to see all those nice little starfighters and bomber models, "go
away" in the new home rules, but the game became a much more enjoyable game to
play. Of course only my opinion... I guess the big question, and it may be
self evident by the debate going on so far on this list, is does the rule as
it stand now skew the game too far in one direction? Are there ways to destroy
carriers and carrier groups easily? Is it something that only needs to be
limited in say a tournament type situation?

Instead of a hard limit, wouldn't a scaling limit rectify those problems? Ie.
X
number of fighters for Y tonnage/hull/points/foo?

Rand.

> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

> Alan Brain wrote:

In case I came off wrong in that last post Randall, I pretty much understand
all your points. I have been war gaming, as I am sure most of you, for along
long time now and I see this sort of thing all the time. One of your main
points I think is the crux of the issue when it comes down to it, is
creativity, and not limiting. Human beings, and especially gamers:) are going
to find these odd little loopholes, and they will find them almost every time.
That's why I always talk about the "spirit" of gaming or a game. I loose
almost as much as I win when I play war games, but I enjoy it almost every
time, and I think for me part of that has to do with not sticking harshly to
the letter of the law so much as the idea. In the area I live I end up
introducing a lot of younger kids to war gaming. Almost every time, some kid
shows up a few weeks after learning to play a game and he has an army in hand,
but it's all one type of the baddest miniature you can have in the game, or he
has tweaked his army to ridiculous lengths. Eventually though they find that
those sorts of games get old. In this case, I would love to see mobs of
starfighters swarming the table, that sort of Star Wars feel, but at the end
of the day, I think personally I would mostly just like to walk away having
enjoyed playing the game!

> Mike Hillsgrove wrote:

> I think I'll talk it over with my partner in crime and make a house

This increases the cost of an optimized soap bubble carrier from 43.5 pts
per fighter bay to 47-48 pts per figther bay (not including the cost of
the fighters themselves, of course). Doesn't sound like a very big difference
to me...

...and when a TMF 103+ ship has only 16 hull boxes, it still qualifies
as a
soap bubble in my book :-/

Regards,

The problem as someone pointed out is that fighters have a high utility
threshold.

In my opinion, the game should have provisions for the carriers to be off
board and a phase in the operations side where the carriers launch from off
board. A hunt by the other side for the carriers should be a possibility for
the other side to deal with. Carriers are far more valid as a platform if
they're beyond visual and sensor range.

As far as soap-bubbles being valid, what were the CVLs classed as?
Those certainly seem soap-bubbly. But then so does the Atlantic
Conveyor. Both types were valid units in a tactical sense. Both

I think fighters pose sort of a conundrum in sci fi gaming at this scale. If
you include the idea that shields help to protect a ship, energy shields of
some sort, then you probably have to assume that those shields are strong
enough to resist a few shots from another capitol ship, otherwise why bother?
Then you have to decide whether fighters can carry the sort of weaponry that
could penetrate a ships shields. If not then like you said, they get relegated
to the role of vulture, attacking ships whose shields have finally dropped.
This doesn't seem like a necessarily bad option in my book. However some
people want their fighters to be more like bombers as well, together united
they pose a threat to those larger ships and so you have to swarm them to make
them effective. In my own opinion I don't see fighters as necessarily being a
decisive factor in a space battle. There are the exceptions (the Death Star
fiasco comes to mind) but in general it would seem to me that at the level
most sci fi games are, they are generally for harassment and picking off the
limping ships that have basically been softened up. If you so choose to make
fighters a decisive factor in your background then you have to decide how to
limit them, because ultimately if they are effective, why not go out into
space with tons of them and just swarm your opponents to death? You could put
limiting factors like ammunition fuel and all that but really, in a sci fi
universe, are those really a serious matter with lasers and fusion generators?
I think ultimately you have to deal with one side or the other, either they
are going to be so decisive in numbers as to seem skewed, or they are going to
be so ineffective even in numbers that you may not see them much at all!

Jason

[quoted original message omitted]

> Mike Hillsgrove wrote:
A
> soap bubble is really a cheat, a way to build a killer force that no
Imagine
> if our warships had cardboard walls and were held together by duct

Strangely enough the move modernly is to thinly armoured warships. Ships with
bulkheads thin enough to let missiles pass through without setting off the
warheads are more survivable then those that have hard armour and let the
missile explode.

Not really. The attendent benefit includes survivability. It does force you
to build a ship that a sane individual would be willing to serve in.   A
soap bubble is really a cheat, a way to build a killer force that no
responsible military could ever sanction. Looking at it from the perspective
of "my sons and daughters have to serve on that ship". Imagine if our warships
had cardboard walls and were held together by duct tape. Why use steel when
wax paper or doped canvass will do?

Soldiers are kinda funny about suicide missions. Far less liketly to volunteer
than we are to volunteer them.

> Perhaps... But you inadvertantly just increased the cost of

> At 4:54 PM -0800 2/18/03, Jaime Tiampo wrote:
Ships
> with bulkheads thin enough to let missiles pass through without setting

The through and through hits of bombs (or UXBs) during the Falklands war is a
good example of this. Missile warheads are pretty fragile things though. They
seem to break up rather quickly and cause more damage by virtue of their
propellant burning than by explosive effect.

Doesn't help when you open up to vacuum:) Given that most FT ships are

probably built like aircraft to begin with, a "Soap Bubble" is more on line
with a dirigible.

PSB / genre oriented of course.

Michael Brown

[quoted original message omitted]

No harm, no foul. (Yeah, I've been to thinned skinned at times, not here)

I apologize if I came off as negative. Half of that was working it out in my
head as I typed.

I hate to be a rules lawyer, or appear to be, but having a good foundation (as
FT is most definitely) can be extremely helpful... Which is why I'm

trying to work with them, instead of player wise.

Basically, I want to use fighters, I do, I really really do. Not to many,
but they appeal to my tastes extremely well.  But I _really_ don't like
them the way they are. If you bring them in small groups, say a NSL or NAC
ship that mounts a single fighter bay, they should be worth something.
Certainly worth the points you spend. But they're not. If you DO bring enough,
it's always going to be TOO many. Both in effect, AND in that they then become
your primary strategy. I want the middle ground,
where they're part of a mixed/balanced fleet, and having them helps, but

they're not everything. Right now, the only real use I can get out of them are
as vultures and "unfair" scouts. Neither of which are they really suited for
as they stand (although the SWAC Ryan has is a beautiful construction, and
great idea).

I grant that spirit of gaming is a good and necessary thing, but it doesn't
solve the fighter problem...

Rand.

> At 02:08 PM 2/18/03 -0800, you wrote:
are
> going to find these odd little loopholes, and they will find them
Any
> disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking of

*shrug* 1 hull box or 50, if it can't move, and can't shoot, it's paper

thin in FT.

If you're looking for semi-realistic paper hulls, that military forces
might realistically serve on, Q-ships come to mind.
And frankly, anyone suicidal enough to get in a FT fighter probably isn't
going to mind paper thin hulls either. Conscripted soldiers come to mind...
Then there are always those who will try things even if they appear to be
suicidal to others... I'm thinking those brave lads who sank in the
Confederate subs. Then there's alien races... What humans do may or may not
reflect on what aliens will do.

*shrug* PSB is PSB. Justification is in the eye of the builder.

*sigh* And now I feel dirty. I just justified soap bubble carriers... Ick.
Gross. "I've been slimed!"

> At 08:04 PM 2/18/03 -0500, you wrote:
A
> soap bubble is really a cheat, a way to build a killer force that no
Imagine
> if our warships had cardboard walls and were held together by duct

*shrug* Considering all the other suspensions of disbelief, fighters are small
potatoes, IMHO.

Things like, energy shields stop beams, not fighters, come to mind. Or,

fighters have specialized equipment to pierce shields. etc. etc. etc.

I like em. That's usually enough for me to come up with whatever Justification
I need for something to "exist" in a given universe. They're not magic hand
waving technology, and I think, when the rules finally come out of the
playtest group, they'll be useful but not
overly-powerful.  (Cause I gotta have faith, de-faith de-faith...)

Rand.

> At 03:46 PM 2/18/03 -0800, you wrote:
are
> >going to find these odd little loopholes, and they will find them
Any
> >disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking
Any
> disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking of

I will keep that in mind in about 2 months!! (TRXFR to Norfolk in mid April!)

> If you ever get to Maryland/Virginia, USA, let me know. 3 excellent

> Strangely enough the move modernly is to thinly armoured warships.
Ships with bulkheads thin enough to let missiles pass through without setting
off the warheads are more survivable then those that have hard armour and let
the missile explode.

The vacuum of space kinda precludes that design philosophy. Also while armor
is gone (no amount of armor would stop a missile), systems are designed with
great survivability. Reference a US warship that took a major blast, causing a
large hole at the waterline recently. Hurt badly but not sunk, being rebuilt
now.

The wonderful thing about games is that no one dies at the end of the day. I'm
very fortunate to game with folks that play to the spirit of the rules and not
the letter. A fun group.

If you ever get to Maryland/Virginia, USA, let me know. 3 excellent
clubs in
the region. Mine - AoCM, NOVAG and HAWKS.

> Randall Joiner wrote:

> While I can't change someone's luck, and I can't beat the genius, rules

<big hand of applause>

This is precisely why the playtest list is looking at ways to balance
fighters-vs-everything and large-vs-small ships, respectively.

If, which Stiltman kinda suggested, you *must* use scatterguns to be able to
handle enemy fighters, and you *must* use plasma bolts to allow your fighters
to be of any use against enemy scatterguns... then the game isn't very generic
at all, and the space for creativity is getting rather
restricted :-(

As for PDS being too powerful - that depends very much on how many you
have. One single PDS isn't very powerful at all, like :-/

Regards,

[quoted original message omitted]

From: "Randall L Joiner" <rljoiner@mindspring.com>

> Alan and Carmel Brain wrote:

Another idea for MT missiles is an EMP warhead on the short-ranged
variant. This causes an additional threshold check (usually) (and 1 pt of
damage). It's an
alternative to the other short-range warhead, which does 3D6.

Basically, the two warheads are statistically equivalent vs things slightly
smaller than a Jeanne D'Arc or Komarov, the EMP is significantly less
effective
than the standard warhead vs standard dreadnaughts, and semi-useless vs
cruisers and below.

Against Komarovs and Jeanne D'Arcs, the EMP warhead is just a tadge more
effective than the normal 3D6 one, the difference is almost unmeasureable. But
against things larger than Jeanne D'Arcs, the EMP warheads become killers:
superships become not just bad ideas, but REALLY bad.

The consequence is to make the FB1 designs, if not optimal, then at least not
outclassed by either massed Soapbubbles or Dreadplanets.

But note, these are still ideas under discussion, and odds are, like most
ideas, they'll end up on the cutting-room floor.

> You know, I just thought of another idea... Taking a page from Anime,
If
> done right, it would drastically reduce fighter/missle pile-up,

If you can come up with some simple rules that have the same effect as the "no
more than 6 groups attacking" due to fratricide, go for it. Fratricide
is the PSB for the 6-group limit.

[quoted original message omitted]

On Tue, 18 Feb 2003 18:31:19 -0800 Randall Joiner
> <rljoiner@mindspring.com> writes:
<snip>
> ... your primary strategy.
<snip>

In my DS2 setting I purposely designed a starting 'feel' to the various groups
and more or less followed that in FT and now SG including the whys and
wherefores and less than optimal aspects of that for each group.

Therefore there is an alien group whose FT ships like lots (and I mean lots)
od smaller Beam weapons on their ships even if that may not be optimal in many
people's minds.

Maybe committing to a "national" design policy (in most cases known in advance
to your opponents) would help people not be surprised by quirky fleets. No
force in 'reality (patent pending) are truly developed in an (intellectual or
informational) vacuum.

Gracias,

Also, it's not that they are using less armor so much as more modern lighter
armor.

Jason

[quoted original message omitted]

> Randall Joiner wrote:

> Instead of a hard limit, wouldn't a scaling limit rectify those
Ie. X
> number of fighters for Y tonnage/hull/points/foo?

Aside from the problems with PSB logic (when even fighter weapons have ranges
measured in hundreds of kilometers and each game turn represents
several minutes - which are the orders of magnitude most FT scales I've
seen use), it is hard to come up with a reason why the number of fighters
attacking a single ship should be restricted which is better PSB-wise
than
"because I say so" :-/ ), it is difficult to get the scaling limit
right.

For example, the "1 fighter group per 10 Mass of target ship" idea suggested
recently (IIRC that one was yours?) has very little effect except against
ships of TMF 10 or less (which can only be attacked by a single
group each) - 4-5 fighter groups is usually sufficient to take out a
light
cruiser, 8-9 groups will almost always nail a heavy cruiser, 20-30
fighter groups will make a very nasty dent in most superdreadnoughts and fleet
carriers, etc. If you make the limit too restrictive instead you can easily
risk neutering the fighters completely... and exactly what "too restrictive"
is depends a lot on how strong the enemy point defence is.

To elaborate on the PSB logic problems, here's an example (note that the

numbers were chosen to exaggerate the size difference between the ships
involved - with more "realistic" values, the difference will be
smaller):

For the purposes of the example, let us assume that * Fighter weapons have an
effective range of 10 km (extremely short
compared to the more commonly used time/distance scales in Full Thrust)
* An SDN is a cylinder 1 km long and has a diameter of 200 meters (extremely
large in GZGverse terms, but not in other backgrounds) * A strikeboat is
cylinder 10 meters long and has a diameter of 2 meters

(*very* small, no matter what background you're gaming in - indeed, in
most backgrounds this wouldn't even rate as a fighter, but for the purposes of
the example let's consider it equivalent to a small Full Thrust scoutship).

The volume of the SDN is 3.1*10^7 m^3, while the volume of the strikeboat is
31 m^3. The SDN therefore has a volume one million times larger than the
strikeboat; in FT terms it can be estimated to have a TMF about one million
times larger than the strikeboat.

The surface area of the SDN is ~690,000 m^2; the surface area of the
strikeboat is 69 m^2 - ie., the surface area of the SDN is ten thousand
times larger than the surface area of the strikeboat.

The volume in which a fighter needs to be in order to fire at the ship (below
referred to as the "engagement volume" of the ship), is the volume stretching
from the ship's surface and 10 km straight out into space (since the fighter
weapons were assumed to have a range of 10 km in this example). For the
strikeboat this volume is 4.2*10^12 m^3, and for the SDN this volume is
4.6*10^12 m^3... so the the SDN has an engagement volume about

10% larger than that of the strikeboat.

If the size of the engagement volume is what restricts the number of fighters
able to attack a given ship in a single turn (which is what most proponents of
the "restrict number of fighter attacks per turn" concept
argue), a million-fold increase of the target ship's mass would only
increase the number of fighters able to attack it by *one tenth*! And this is
with fighter weapon ranges which are shorter than what today's ASMs can
manage - if the space fighter weapons can fire out to, say, 100 km
instead then the size difference between the two engagement volumes disappears
when you round the fractions...

***
Jason Bradley wrote (in reply to another of Randall's posts):

> I also understand your point about soap bubble carriers and modern day

The reason you never see WET NAVY carriers unescorted in a war zone is that
the aircraft they carry can't deal with all types of threat to the carrier. If
they could, the carrier would be able to provide its own escort. Full

Thrust fighters are capable of handling most threats (the main exception

being enemies which load up on scatterguns), which makes Full Thrust
carriers rather less dependent on escorts than their wet-navy
counterparts.

Question for Jason: Do you have access to the Full Thrust rules, and if so
have you read them? At the moment it seems as if you're trying to discuss
fairly intricate details of rules you don't know how they work, which makes
some of your suggestions look a bit impractical or even non-sensical.

The point you (Jason) make about space fighters not necessarily having to
be decisive are important, though - in the current version of Full
Thrust (ie., with the Fleet Book rules), a single standard fighter group plus
its bay costs about as many points as a frigate. Seen as a unit, the fighter

group also has about as many "hit points" and about as much firepower as a
frigate.

So, a question for Randall: when a fighter group has about the same firepower
and durability as a frigate, and also costs about as much as a

frigate, should it not also have about as big an impact on the battle as a
frigate would have? Frigates usually don't contribute much in the middle of
a capital-ships battle either, after all - they do a lot better on the
fringes of the battle.

(Of course frigates also tend to be rather too weak for their NPVs -
that's
what the CPV system is intended to fix, cf. the other thread - but even
with the CPV making small ships worth their points cost a single frigate

will only rarely be very decisive in larger battles since its points cost is
so small compared to the fleet's total points value...)

Finding a middle ground where fighters can be useful in moderate numbers

without risk of being totally overwhelming en masse is exactly the goal the
playtest list is aiming for. Whether or not we'll succeed, well... we have
some promising ideas. Hopefully they'll live up to their promises :-7

Regards,

> Aside from the problems with PSB logic (when even fighter weapons have

> "because I say so" :-/ ), it is difficult to get the scaling limit

With all due modesty, I'm thinking we're talking at cross purposes.

In spite of the fact they're in someways interchangeable, you keep mentioning
'space', while I'm speaking of 'time'. I'd like to suggest in such vast
spaces, trying to synchronize attacks within the 'refresh period' of the PDS
suite might just be PBS'able.

Anyway, it's a thought.

The_Beast

Beast said:
> In spite of the fact they're in someways interchangeable, you keep
of the PDS suite might just be PBS'able.

Hmm...what Oerjan was replying to was the idea of "limited numbers of fighters
can attack per turn." It sounds as if what you're thinking of is more along
the lines of "PDS can shoot at multiple targets per turn."

How about if fighters (and missiles?) come in waves of 1d6 squadrons each and
PDS engage each wave separately?

For instance, let's say you have 1500 points of soap bubbles for 22 squadrons
of fighters. They pick on a DD with 3PDS. On average it will face six waves,
so each PDS gets to fire 6 times and will on average kill, what, 6*.8 = 4.8 x
3 PDS = 14.4 fighters? But if you only brought 3 fighters to the party, they
can probably get into one wave and won't get shot at any more than they would
have anyway.

> Hmm...what Oerjan was replying to was the idea of "limited numbers of

You're right, I'm wrong...

> How about if fighters (and missiles?) come in waves of 1d6 squadrons

Sounds like definite potential, but someone will have to run the numbers.

The_Beast

> Haven't had that much experience playing with/against sosp bubble

I'm not joining your navy. I would assume that the enemy has fighters as well,
or that space has other dangers that might test the structural integrity of
the ship. Even an accident with your own fighters, perhaps a damaged fighter
trying to land.

The other thing about forcing Hull points on carriers is that it reduces the
number of fighters that can be carried, which should be a good thing.

I don't think any of my friends would conceive of building a soap bubble. The
cost is too high in risk for the ex military gamers locally.

> Haven't had that much experience playing
...
> is a successful tactic and soap bubbles rarely get

This is not directed a Karl, or anyone really...

If someone woule care to play a PBM game with me
using 'soap bubbles' feel free.   I can use an
ego boosting enguagement right now!

The entire 'soap bubble' quesion is one of a failure in the 'new' fleet book
to persue the sensor rules and the 'desire' of the rules to keep the ships on
one table.

'One of' games 'breed' abuses of the rules, much like flies are attacked to
things that stink.

Problems that 'breed' rules abuses: 1) Sensors have ceased to exist as a part
of the game. 2) Jammers have ceased to exist. 3) Tacitical 'jump' recycle time
is not specified,
    stratigic is 6+ hours.

Bye for now,

> If you can come up with some simple rules that have

The last time I looked, the time span was 15 minutes
per turn.   One would hope that in a couple hundred
years one SQUADRON per minute woule ba able to attack.

Bye for now,

> --- Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:

In a campaign run a couple of years ago in the FTII rules, it was found that
the elimination of ranged combat for fighters pervented the 'he who
moves first/has more fighters' rules abuses.

Bye for now,

[quoted original message omitted]

From: <laserlight@quixnet.net>

> How about if fighters (and missiles?) come in waves of 1d6 squadrons

"The last time I looked, the time span was 15 minutes
per turn.   One would hope that in a couple hundred
years one SQUADRON per minute woule ba able to attack."

Actually, you could look at it like, 15 minutes is the amount of time it takes
for a certain amount of squadrons to set up and successfully enact an attack
run. It sounds weird but in a game where turns cover longer periods of time a
lot of what goes on in a turn is more representative then specific.

> At 07:16 AM 2/20/03 +0100, you wrote:

> The tactical question is not; is a soap bubble carrier unsafe when hit

Depends really... Conventional vessels, unless constrained, will
bug-out
ASAP. Failing that, and they're much more likely to strike the colors than try
and fight it out against any military craft. (Who can blame them?) Unless, of
course, they know that it's suicide to surrender. Or

they've a culture of non-surrender/die fighting.

> Unless, that is, the SBC regularly gets slaughtered while its fighters

Soap Bubble tactics can be summed up in 2 statements. 1. Fighters do the work.
2. Bug out in any other case.

If they're being attacked (or about to be) warm up the FTL. If there are
fighters on the board, our fighters kill them first! (Most likely you've
brought more than enough) If for some unknown reason you didn't bring enough,
then run, run run run run run run run run.

> BTW: what happens if two fleets of SBC meet ?

Heh... Depends... "Most efficient design" wins, or most lucky wins.

Rand.

It could also represent several attack runs that were aborted, several
faints, simple manuevering to avoid AA (or is that anti-spacecraft? :)
fire, getting into and out of actual range (just cause the range of a fighter
is 6" doesn't mean the weapons have that range...) It could also

involve several time slices of killing inertia (fighter engines are never
explained) then reaccerating, etc.

Rand.

> At 06:42 AM 2/20/03 -0800, you wrote:
Any
> disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking of