SV: Carrier and fighter questions

> Fighter Questions:

The target's player determines which of his weapons will fire at which fighter
group. Whether or not he knows what type of fighter each group is, well...
that depends a lot on the local house rules.

> Can a fighter group within range of several frigates target

Full Thrust page 15, under "FIGHTER ATTACKS": "All fighters in the Group must
engage the SAME target ship."

> Obviously each of their targets

Why do you send torpedo fighters against ships that can't have any weapons
if they carry more than level-1 screens? Torpedoes are capital-killers
(...well, capital-hurters, at least...). Attack fighters are
escort-killers
- and normal fighters work well in this role too :-)

> I understand that some people play without the restriction

<g> That limitation, fortunately, doesn't really exist for space
fighters... Look at the Starfuries in B5, for example - they seem to be
"heavy" at least when compared to the Raiders, and they don't have any runway
at all.

> I don't know what sorts of extra

Why? In your game universe, maybe, but not very much so for FT play balance
IMO.

> As I understand how fighters work, they get half their

Cost (with a fast torpedo fighter squadron): 149 points.

> A fighter group attacks targets within 6", right? So the

Should be 10.5 points - they hit at a roll of '4' or better (50%
chance), and do on average 3.5 pts of damage. 6*0.5*3.5 = 10.5. An *DAF
reduces this
by, on average, 1.17 pts - and most of my destroyers have at least two
PDAF, bigger ships have more.

An Interceptor squadron (which costs only 40% of the fast torp squadron)
would _love_ to fight an enemy like this :-) (It doesn't have to be
fast, as long as your ships don't move at too high speeds...)

> This is more damage than submunitions do at

Why _9_ submunitions, when the fighter group only uses _6_ mass? OTOH,
the fighter bay and its squadron costs 50 pts, while the 9 SMPs are only 27
pts.

> And unlike submunition equipped ships,

Possibly, depending on which arc the Needle beam points into - if it is
a
side-arc mount, it might be useful. If I had re-loading carriers, I'd
sure as hell try to keep them far beyond 9 mu from the enemy ships... since
that is pretty much guaranteed to be in range of each and every weapon the
enemy has!

There aren't any printed re-loading rules, but I've seen several
floating around on the 'net.

> Fleets would need to seriously up their anti-fighter defenses!

_Your_ fleets would need to seriously up their anti-fighter defences,
yes.

> There is of course the question of whether the Swarms would

Launch? Sure. But will the fighters return to re-load? <g>
...
> Fighters may get left behind some high speed combats, but

Depends which fighter movement sequence you use. If you use the MT one (p.10,
fighters move BEFORE ships instead of after) you'll find the fighters toned
down quite a lot (especially if you're fighting fast enemy ships).

It depends even more on what _speeds_ you use. I often - nay, usually -
see escorts flying around at speeds of 40 or higher; speed 20 for capitals
isn't unusual. You have to time your launch well to catch them, even with fast
fighters. Torpedo fighters are better than others, though, since they don't
have to (and don't want to) stay in range for long.

> As for how I got on this topic, I was trying to design an

Not me. How long does it take to re-arm a figher on a wet-navy carrier?

> Does it make a difference what the mass of the Carrier is?

Why should it? What matters is the size of the fighter bay, IMO.
...
> And on

If your house rules allow that, yes. It all depends on how you imagine the
cargo hatches.

> By having in-the-thick-of-it Carriers to recover and rearm

Put it like this: If you use the normal fighter movement rules (ie, fixed top
speed for fighters), you won't be able to use the tactics described above very
well against me. Even your fast fighters will have severe
problems to catch my ships - especially if they launch far away! The
exception is, of course, if you attack fixed positions (space stations and
similar), which forces me to stand and fight - but if you threaten to do
that, I'll go straight for your fleet carriers instead. Yes, straight into the
teeth of your fighters... but my ships will fire first, and they have
longer range than 15 units :-)

> I'd like to point out that in terms of both cost and mass,

Only in star system defence. They'd be pretty useless for attacks, since they
require tenders.

> Swarm II non-ftl version

Any ship, as long as you have space enough.

> fighter squadron

Or Nova Cannon, Railguns or Waveguns... Or missiles, of course <g>

Regards,