Re: FT: Carriers & Fighter Capacity

On Fri, May 03, 2002 at 12:32:34AM -0700, Eric Foley wrote:
>And once again, you're missing the point.  There is _no_such_thing_ as
"too
>many fighters"... only "not enough preparation for _dealing_ with
fighters".
>The system gives any player with a brain plenty of tools for handling
>fighter assaults in whatever bulk.

Yes, but it also channels designs of equal point value. This implies
strongly that the point value system doesn't correctly reflect the
combat power of ship systems (even given Oerjan's corrections for hull
sizes).

My standard comment is this: it looks like Rock-Scissors-Paper, but it
isn't. Say I have three major choices for a weapons loadout:

(1) conventional anti-ship weapons;
(2) heavy PDS+ADFC;
(3) fighters.

In general, what seems to happen is:

	I bring:   normal weapons	PDS+ADFC       fighters
Enemy brings:
normal weapons	   even fight		I lose	       I win
PDS+ADFC	   I win		even fight     even fight
fighters	   I lose		even fight     even fight

Which means that, if I want to increase my odds of winning, I should
always bring fighter-heavy fleets. Certainly, on the few occasions I've
seem munchkins playing FT, fighters are what they've always gone for.

And with all due respect, even the fighters vs PDS+ADFC (which I've
characterised above as an even fight) tends to swing in the fighters'
favour unless the target has neglected anti-ship weapons completely in
favour of PDS. Your experience is different, and that's fair enough; but
to dismiss anyone who doesn't have your particular experience as
"stubborn and stupid" is not helpful.