Fighters - Rearming and Launching (longish)

Full Thrust Purist Beware :).

We came up with the following system for rearming fighters.  Mind you
we've
never had the fighters, carrier, and enemy survive long enough to need
to try
this out though.

Each fighter bay on the ship produces comes with one deck crew.  Deck
crews
are assigned to fighter groups being reloaded in the same manner as
damage
control parties.  Each deck crew rolls one die and if a six is scored,
the
fighters squadron is ready to launch next turn.  Fighter squadrons of
the
same type may be combined during rearming and no squadron with less than
four
fighters may be launched.  Ace or Turkey effects from the squadrons
reing
reorganized carry over (it is possible to have an Ace/Turkey squadron
this
way).

Re Launch Tubes and Hangar Bays
I would like to see a system such as this since it would eliminate the a
lot
of problems at once.  The carrier definintion would not be needed.  It's
a
carrier if you call it a carrier, just some of them may be better than
others.  The biggest problem is that the current system penalizes large
fleet
carriers.  Fleet carriers (say mass 90+ with six squadrons) must hold
course
and heading for three turns in order to get their squadrons launched. 
On the
other hand, If you put you six squadrons into 3 mass 40 escort cruisers,
you
can launch all of them in one turn.
I think I'll work on this with the idea of one launch bay/two suadrons
being
the average (in terms of keeping the mass and cost close to the
orignal).
 Therefore two standard fighter groups plus hanger bays plus one launch
system should be Mass 12 and cost 40 points.

Something Like This
Hanger Bay
Mass:  4       Cost:  4
Big open space to store and repair fighters.  One required per fighter
squadron.

Launch Bay
Mass:  4	Cost:  12
Space and Machinery to launch and recover fighters.  Each Hanger bay may
launch or recover on fighter group each turn.

Launch Tubes
Mass:  2	Cost:  10
Specialized rapid launch system for ready fighters.  Each set of tubes
carries all of the fighters of one squadron in launch racks ready to go.
 Just scramble the pilots and punch 'em out.  Each tube is connected to
one
hanger bay and may only launch the fighters from that bay.  Launch tubes
may
not be reloaded during combat and are not able to recover any fighters. 

Fighter squadrons
Base cost for a standard fighter squadron is 10 pts, plus hangers,
launchers,
etc.  Advanced fighters add their usual amount to this base cost.

Using this system, the light fleet carriers have the exact same
capabilities
as before (i.e. carry four squadrons, launch 2 per turn) with the same
mass
dedicated to fighters.
Sample Heavy Fleet Carrier
Mass 100
Thrust 2
FTL

Screens:  2
PDAF:  4
3-arc C Battery:  2 
Individual ECM:  1
Hanger Bays:  6
Launch Bays:  2
Launch Tubes:  2
6 fighter squadrons.

This ship can launch 4 squadrons on turn one, and the remaining two on
turn
2.  I'd carry fast interceptors in the launch tubes, long range fighters
ready for launch on turn one, and then push out my heavy attack fighters
on
turn two.

Sample Escort Carrier
Mass 40
Thrust 4
FTL
Screens: 1
PDAF:  3
Hanger Bays:  2
Launch Bay
Launch Tubes

This ship can still launch both of its squadrons right away, but had to
use
two more mass than a conventional escort carrier to get the capapbility.

For one shot games, there is nothing to stop players from optimising
their
carriers for rapid release and slow recovery (i.e. lots of launch tubes
and
only one launch bay).	I don't see such a big deal here,since every
other
ship is optimized for the single combat as well.  Carriers have by and
large
faired very poorly in our games.  They are big sitting targets on
predictable
courses and are viewed as sort of trophy kills.  In a campaign setting,
launch tubes might be restricted (easy to envision some sort of penalty
for
FTL jumps with fighters in the launch tubes) so ships that are suprised,
etc
might be at a real disadvantage if they don't have conventional launch
bays
to get their fighters away.  Also ships which took on fighters from
another
ship could use those fighters from a launch bay, but launch tubes are
configured only for the exact type of fighter originally instaled on a
ship.....

Comments accepted and appreciated.

Brian