RE: [FT] Carriers & Fighter Capacity

On Wednesday, May 01, 2002 9:12 AM, Eric Foley
[SMTP:stiltman@teleport.com]
wrote:
> Fighters are a powerful weapon, but no more than a great many other
things
> that exist in the game, even without morale.	In our games, we usually
bring
> 5000 or 10000 points of ships and slug it out.  My experience from
about
> four or five years of such games on fighters goes like this:
> 
> 1.  Yes, if you bring lots of fighters, and your opponent doesn't
bring
> something prepared to deal with them, you will probably win for free.
This
> much is granted.
> 
> 2.  Dreadnought schemes with 20 fighters or so in a 5000 point battle
can
> work against a carrier force that brings half again to twice as many
very
> well or very badly depending on a lot of other factors.  If the
dreadnoughts
> have no other effective plan for stopping fighters other than their
own,
> then they're dead, end of story.  If the dreadnoughts bring
scatterguns
(PDS
> won't do) as a second line of defense, then they can win.  If the
carriers
> bring plasma bolts (missiles won't do either... too bulky for the
return
> after you've already brought the fighters) to neutralize those
scatterguns,
> then the dreadnoughts are in trouble if they can't outmaneuver the
bolts
> effectively and the carrier admiral is smart enough to keep his
fighters
in
> reserve until the plasma has shut down that second line of defense. 
If
the
> dreadnoughts bring advanced drives to evade the plasma... well, then
things
> get really interesting.
> 

>From my experience in the MKW battles, you actually reach a point of
diminishing returns with fighters, due to the sheer size of the forces
involved.

MKW there was (from memory) about 10,000 pts per side with about 18
squadrons each.
In MKW2, there was 14,000 pts per side with about 21 squadrons each.

Fighters couldn't be everywhere at once, but proved extremely useful
once
the formations start to break up later in the game (those that survive
the
dogfight slaughter and scatterpack or PDS fire).

Brendan
'Neath Southern Skies