Re: Fw: Carriers and other updates

Brian Bell forgot to include the supporting systems for the fighter bay
in his comparisions when he wrote:

> On a personal note, I too think that fighters have too low of a cost
> compaired to ships. If you compare the cost of a single fighter (not 
> group) to the cost of a single Class-1 beam.
 
> Pro's for Fighter:
> Effective Range over 2x class-1 beam (18" move + 6" range)
> Same cost as class 1 beam.

No, it isn't. Assuming a ship with 50% of the Mass devoted to hull and
engines (a fairly slow, or weak-hulled, carrier), the fighter costs:

   3 (cost of the fighter itself)
+ 3*1.5 (cost of 1/6 fighter bay)
+ 2*1.5 (cost of hull and engines)
+ 3 (cost of basic structure for 3 Mass of hull)
= 13.5 pts.

The Class-1, mounted on the same hull, costs
   3 (cost of the Class-1 itself)
+ 2*1 (cost of hull and engines)
+ 2 (cost of basic structure for 2 Mass of hull)
= 7 pts.

According to my computer 7 =|= 13.5, so the fighter costs almost twice
as much as the Class-1.

> The comparison is MUCH worse when comparing it to a small ship.
> 
> Pro's fighter group vs small ship (mass 9, md 6, ftl, average hull,
> 1xclass-1 beam, cost 30:

This comparision is off, for the same reason as above. Compare the
fighter squadron with a ship with 9 Mass of *equipment* (weapons, FC,
PDS) instead, since that's what the fighters correspond to. The NAC
Ticonderogas or Tacomas are good comparisions to a single standard
fighter group.

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry