Re: Fighter CAP and Screens in FT

> 
>   One of the primary roles of the fighter is to protect a ship from
>   other fighters. This usually is accomplished by the fighters keeping
>   close to the ship they are defending, ie TIEs in Star War protecting
>   the Death Star or Star Furys in B5 protecting the station and the
Omega
>   Destroyers in 'Severed Dreams'.

Agreed.  One of the big problems with FT is that because it is assumed
that space is huge and 3D, there is no such thing as LOS, and so it is
very difficult to screen an important ship with any others.  We recently
played a game which involved a small fleet assisting a passnger vessel
'run a blockade' set down by another fleet.  The problem was that the
military vessels were simply ignored whilst the civilian got nuked, and
there was very little they could do about it... In reality they could
have
made an effort to put there own vessel in the way.  

 
>   So in our games when a fighter group is launched it can be
designated
>   as flying protective escort (CAP/Screen). The fighter is moved with
>   the ship it is escorting and is placed anywhere within 2" of the
model.
> 
>   If a fighter group ends the turn within 2" of a friendly ship it
>   may perform CAP as above for that ship in the following turn.
> 
>   A fighter group may only perform CAP for ONE ship per turn even
>   if another ship ends its move within 2" of the CAP fighter group.
> 
>   If a fighter group wishes to attack the escorted ship it can be
fired
>   on by the CAP fighters before the attackers can fire at the ship,
>   rather like an extra Point defence system. A single CAP group can
>   only engage ONE enemy attacking fighter group per turn.
>   If any attackers in the group the CAP engages survive give them
>   immunity against PDAF fire as we can assume the defending ship will
not
>   try to avoid hitting its own CAP
> 
>   The facing of the CAP group does not matter, they are assumed to be
>   in a special defensive formation. (Look at the Star Furys protecting
>   the EAS Alexander at the start of Severed Dreams)

Cool scene aint it ...

>   An attacking player may use a fighter group to Dogfight the CAP
group
>   this results in std fighter to fighter combat and prevents the CAP
>   engaging fighters attacking the ship it is protecting.
> 
>   These rules make 'interceptor' fighters very effective as CAP
> 
>   Additional Comments:
> 
>   Specifically Babylon 5 games. Having watched battle scenes in B5
many
>   times, I think that fighters are helping screen ships against PPG
>   fire from other vessels, this seems to be happening in Voice in the
>   Wilderness and Severed Dreams.
>   In our games a CAP group may be used in this role as follows:
>   The CAP group must not be in a Dogfight or be used to fire against
>   enemy fighters.
>   Roll 1d6, if the roll is less than or equal to the group strength
>   the CAP group acts as one shield. This may be combined with PDF/
> 

Love the look of the rules as a whole.	I am afraid that not being
alergic
to thousands of rules makes me suseptable to ideas like this...  I am
currently working on a very much expanded fighter combat system, in
order
to increase the action that they see and flesh them out a bit, and will
definately try these out.....

-Michael