RE: [FTFB] "Needle" fighters?

>
>On Fri, 8 Jan 1999, Robertson, Brendan wrote:
>> I wouldn't give them the attack fighter benefits as well as needle
>> beams.
>
>absolutely.

Another vote for that

>> How about an entirely new type of fighter, instead of rehashing old
>> ones?

Possibly, but I like Thoomas' idea better

>or my favourite idea, in two strengths:
>
>weak - allow all ship-attacking fighters to do needle attacks. the
whole
>squadron (6 fighters) gives up its attack. instead:
>
>- nominate primary and secondary target systems
>- roll a die. if you score under the current strength of the squadron:
>-- roll a beam die:
>--- 2 pts - primary and secondary targets destroyed
>--- 1 pts - primary target destroyed
>--- 0 pts - failure!
>
>count turkeys as one fighter less, ie a 5-strong turkey group needs to
>roll under 3.

How about collapsing that to a single die roll to resolve the attack?
The squadron gives up it's normal attack and instead:
- Nominate the target system (I think only one, but two may work
- Roll a die and compare it to squadron strength (subtract 1 for
turkeys)
-- If above squadron strength, nothing happens
-- If equal to squadron strength target takes 1 pt damage
-- If below to squadron strength target takes 1 pt and system destroyed.

>you might want to ignore the target's shields - the fighters fly in
*real*
>close (think death stars here). you might want to disallow pds/ads fire
>(too close), but say the squadron takes one die of damage from crashing
>(no bonus for being heavy - ramming a warship is terminal). these are
all
>solid Space Opera options.

You will notice my above mechanism does ignore shields.  I would still
allow PDS to take place before the needle attacks

>strong - replace anti-ship attacks with needle attacks; thus fighters
are
>no longer able to actually sink a ship, just batter its systems. i
never
>liked the idea that my lumbering city-sized battleships were so
vulnerable
>to those little swarming pests ...

Possibly...I'd need to think on that one some more.

>> Needle fighters attack ships using the needle beam rules & attack
>> fighters using the needle beams as their antifighter weapon (5-6
kills 1
>> fighter, no rerolls).  Cost it at 30 points/squadron (5 per ship).
>> Every fighter in the squadron must target the same system & each
fighter
>> rolls needle beam vs that system.   Having only the one mode of fire
>> shouldn't unbalance play, as needle beam damage can be repaired
(unlike
>> needle missiles).
>
>iirc, needle beam damage cannot be repaired (by DCPs, at any rate).
only
>threshold-check damage can be.

That's what I thought as well.

>> Hmmm... I quite like this idea.
>
>definitely some promies in here somewhere.

I agree - more comments?

Jared