FT: Thoughts on Dropships...

I'm currious to see what players use as dropships.  Here are my
thoughts...

I like the idea of Dropships being based on fighter technology, not ship
technology.  For example, a mass 5 dropship could carry 2 mass of cargo,
have one PDS for defense against fighters, an endurcance of 8, a first
move of 16 inches, and a second move of 8 inches, and is automatically
heavy.	Dropships move in the fighter phase.  A single hit will destroy
a dropship.  Dropships can't be targeted by anti-ship weaponry, but can
be engaged by PDS.  Dropships may form flights of upto 4, that move and
shoot and are targeted together.  Points for this basic dropship is 12,
which is 2 points above FB price of 2 points per mass, but they don't
have PDS.  Options are:
Long range - +4 points, endurance is 12
Heavy - +4 points, treat as level two shields
Fast - +4 points, increase first move to 24 inches, reduce cargo to 1
mass

Because dropships have PDS, they get to fire on attacking fighters
before the fighters attack them.  If the dropships venture to within 6
inches (12 inches if the ship has ADFC) of an enemy ship, they may be
engaged by PDS on that ship during the point defense fire phase iff the
PDS are not also used to engage fighters/missiles/etc.	Why?  Dropships
are both much bigger targets then fighters, and much less manueverable
targets then fighters.

For use with Ogre/GEV, I suggest using the dropship counters on the
Lunar Units counter sheet available at: 
http://www.users.qwest.net/~fjcestero/	The rules for ground side are
at: OGREs ON THE MOON  I suggest changing the armament to 3/4 attack,
and Heavy Dropships are D5.  

If you have different ideas/rules for dropships, please mention them.

ias