Gunboats, was Re: RE[FT]Starfire...

>I was reading some past mail, and reading some of the comments about
>gunboats raised an idea.

[snipped Bug Gunboat stuff]

Another idea is to treat them as shuttles from B5:EFSB

Essentially treated as fighters with 2 damage points instead on only 1.

Now I diverge into FT2.5-speak...

I think that keeping basic fighter movement 24/12 is more in keeping 
with their "built for speed" concept.

Groups of 3 works for me. 3 Gunboats require a standard "Mass 9" hangar.

May only be attacked by Class 1 batteries from any ship, but only 
during the normal fire phase. Only ships being attacked may use Class 
1s for defensive fire. This is more simple than adjusting all the 
rolls. PDS treat them as "Heavy" fighters. Rolls of 6 always kill one 
gunboat, as they do 2 points of damage to the same one, but otherwise 
damage is allocated as desired by the defender. [NOTE: I'm thinking 
about saying that PDS have no effect on gunboats. This makes up for 
the fact that everyone can shoot at them during the turn. Opinions?]

Acts as a heavy fighter in dogfights.

Weapons. I'm torn between these two ideas:
Option 1) Each gunboat has the equivalent of 2 Class 1 batteries.
Option 2) Each gunboat has the equivalent of a "Class 1.5 Beam" (acts 
in all ways as a submunitions pack, but is reusable so long as the 
gunboat has the CEFs to attack).

POINT COST: 12 each (36 per squadron of 3)