Re: Fighters

On Fri, 03 May 2002 10:24:21 -0700, "Brian Bilderback"
<bbilderback@hotmail.com> wrote:

>This would be, IMO, a bad thing, since the designs are flawed according
to 
>most players, and using them as a benchmark ties the system more
closely 
>into the background.  

They aren't flawed. The point system is flawed. Twenty fighter squadrons
are
far more effective combat wise than 20 times the cost of 1 squadron
would
suggest. Twenty beams, on the other hand, are about as effective as the
cost
of 1 beam multiplied by 20.

The Fleet Book designs don't take this into account.

Again, the designs aren't flawed, the point system is. Almost everything
scales up linearly in the game except for fighters (and, to a lesser
extent,
missiles), which scale up in a non-linear fashion.

> Anything that detracts from that generic quality of the games detracts
> equally from my attraction to the games in general.

You will still be able to fight carrier versus carrier games "as is".
The
difference is that if someone in your group wants to walk in with a
fleet of
battleships and battlecruisers, he'll stand a chance. Right now, he
doesn't.

> Again, this is a choice people make, and the better solution is to
reach an 
> agreement with your opponents regarding standardizing designs within
your 
> own setting, campaign format, etc.

Unfortunately you can't always do this (a good example is "design your
own"
tournaments). Right now, people are saying, "FT is broken. If you don't
bring
fighters to the game, you're toast."

>>4) You are always free to ignore the rules and do your own thing
within
>>your group
>
>this is also true of a game set in the Tuffleyverse, and I see no
reason to 
>change the rules to suit that specific setting.

How about "design your own" tournaments? If you don't use fighters in a
heavy
way, you won't win. Why is that? Because the point system is broken. It
has a
flaw in it where by fighters become more and more efficient for the
points the
more of them you buy.

> One option that someone mentioned is to allow PDS and ADFC to defend
against 
> multiple fighter groups.  I'm starting to warm to that idea.

This is something that people are looking at. It would effectively make
fighters less effective for the price. It could bring fighters back down
to
where their cost is linear compared to their numbers.

Allan Goodall		       agoodall@hyperbear.com
http://www.hyperbear.com

"At long last, the earthy soil of the typical, 
unimaginable mortician was revealed!"