Re: Another tack on fighters

On Fri, 3 May 2002, Donald Hosford wrote:

> While I don't do fighters much myself, this has raised a question:
> 
> (here I use PD meaning all Point Defense type systems.)
> 
> If the fighters are overpowering vs FB1 ships, is it because:
>   A) FB1 ships don't carry enough PD?

Partly the problem - some of the FB ships are under-defended wrt PDS.
Not
enough Area Defence firecons, as well.

>   B) The fighter-vs-ship attack rolls are too good?  (ie they have a
> higher hit rate than the PDs.)

I think this is the main problem. Fighters basically have a Beam1 w/
half
the range. There's SIX of the damn things in a full fighter unit (six
fighters). Fighters kill ships faster than PDS kill fighters. 

Fighters also have the **HUGE** advantage against big ships that you've
got to wait until fighters close to within THEIR effective firing range
before you can do anything about them. If you can shoot at them, they
can
- and in fact are - shooting at you.

Every other system in the game can, usually, be engaged outside it's own
engagement ranges. Put a big enough Beam on a ship, and you can swat
anything before it gets within the usual B3/B2/SM ranges. Even with the
stock FB ships we're discussing, a cap ship can and will swat DDs & FGs
at
ranges the little ships can't reply at. Fighters can fart around all
they
want, and you can't do a damn thing about it until THEY come in on you!

Think of an FT fighter as a system for getting 6d of damage anywhere you
want on the table, while being invulnerable until you attack. See why I
think stock fighters are grossly underpriced?

The only 'cure' is more fighters on the table, and that, in my
experience,
swiftly ruins any hope of actual on-table tactics. It just comes down to
ship design, specifically "How many PDS are you mounting, and how many
fighter squadrons did you bring?". You may as well use a spreadsheet to
get your results, and leave your ship miniatures in their box... Firing
arcs, maneuverability, etc all cease to matter entirely. (except that
those systems take up space that you "obviously" should have devoted to
PDS & fighter bays...)

>   C) The PDs don't do enough damage to fighters/ect.?
>   D) Is it some combination of the above?
>   E) Or is it really down to player tactics/ship designs/random
results?

D, then, but some of E. See my other post - you can 'correct' this
problem
with custom designs (so E works) but the FB designs still stink vs
fighters as written.

> Any educated answers?

Just my opinions... and everyone else's.

See my other post on my ideas for fixes to the FT fighter system. 

Brian - yh728@victoria.tc.ca - 
- http://wind.prohosting.com/~warbard/games.html -

> Donald Hosford
> 
> 
> Thomas Barclay wrote:
> 
> > I don't agree with Mr. Foley on all his points.
> > Perhaps the thing to keep in mind here is this:
> > The models we mostly buy are FB ships. The
> > ships used in most games (esp tournament or
> > convention) are FB ships. So if fighters
> > operating within the FB1 universe are
> > overpowering (which they actually are), then the
> > FB1 ships would not have evolved. Taking from
> > the ex cathedra presentation of the FB, we then
> > work backwards and say "how could this have
> > come to be? why do ships only have 2-3 PDS?
> > why isn't everyone using carriers galore? or
> > SMR ships?" Obviously one approach is to toss
> > out FB1 designs, but that isn't realistic for most
> > people/situations. So the attempt is to try to
> > find a band-aid for the problem.
> >
> > One interesting idea not yet discussed is the
> > idea that fighter weapons are perhaps not as
> > effective against all targets. A big slow SDN is
> > an easy target perhaps, but a small high thrust
> > scoutship might be quite a task to hit. Perhaps
> > the issue may be addressed by changing the
> > attack resolution for fighters so that the
> > number of hits scored had some relation to
> > mass or thrust or both, thus large slow targets
> > could meet them less effectively (but they have
> > armour, more PDS, and escorts) and smaller
> > ships would not get gnawed up so fast.
> >
> > Also, letting ships engage fighters that are NOT
> > attacking is one way to help prevent fighter
> > swarms from forming in the middle or rear of
> > your formation.....
> >
> > And lastly, another thought (why I don't like the
> > fighter group limitation): If we're dealing with
> > 100 or 1000km measuring units, then fighters
> > can attack from 600 or 6000km. Just put that
> > in a sphere and imagine how many fighters
> > could attack.... the number would be pretty
> > damn large. Yes, we can PSB this inconvenient
> > basic physical fact away with some handwaving,
> > but it isn't really that satisfying (or so says I).
> >
> > And one last thought - 25 PDS wouldn't even
> > have slowed down the fighter swarms that
> > came after my three Komarov mods in the
> > CanAm a year and a half ago. Would have
> > helped, but wouldn't have got the job done.
> > And any escort in this game smaller than a CL is
> > pretty much mincemeat after (at most) one
> > round of ADFC duty.
> >
> > So much of how FT plays depends on which
> > weapons you use, which rules, etc. You can
> > build an SDN with 18-25 PDS, but a swarm of
> > SMR corvettes will really ruin your day anyway.
> > And an enemy SDN built with no PDS will equally
> > ruin your day. Why? Because any situation
> > where such insane matchups could occur makes
> > no accounting for evolutionary design, fleet
> > intelligence, etc - you don't generally have no
> > idea what your foe is bringing to battle. In fact,
> > you generally have some decent idea of the
> > capabilities/designs of most of his classes. You
> > might not know which ships will arrive (although
> > you might have a good guess), but you
> > probably know most of the types of ships that
> > could show up reasonably and how many. But
> > in a lot of one off games, it is an oddball
> > version of paper-scissors-nuclear device.
> >
> > Tomb
> > ---------------------------------------------
> > Thomas Barclay
> > Co-Creator of http://www.stargrunt.ca
> > Stargrunt II and Dirtside II game site
> >
> > No Battle Plan Survives Contact With Dice.
> > -- Mark 'Indy' Kochte
> > ---------------------------------------------
>