Re: FT Fighters was Re: FT Newtonian Acceleration

--- Jared Hilal <jlhilal@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Robertson, Brendan wrote:
> 
>As FT is abstract anyway,

That’s the beauty of it, isn’t it?

 I usually abstract out
> the fighters to fit the
> >capital ship scale.

That's true, although you could just as easily go in
the opposite direction, if you wanted. Decide how big
a craft you want a fighter to represent, and scale
your cap ships to match.  Of course, it's dependent on
what kind of a flavor you want.

> Reasonable approaches.  However, at a certain point,
> approx. 2-3 SW 
> fighters per FT "fighter", smaller ships, like the
> Lambda Class Shuttle 
> and the Corellian Freighter (Millennium Falcon) have
> the same firepower 
> and staying power (hull/shields) to equate to 1 FT
> "fighter" (2-3 SW 
> fighters), thus dropping off the bottom of the FT
> ship scale.  The more 
> you scale this up, the more small ships start to
> drop off the bottom 
> end.	You very quickly get to where the Corellian
> Corvette/Blockade 
> Runner/Courier/Gunship drops off.

Not to mention the fact that if you scale too far in
that direction, you also have difficulty with the fact
that freighters and Lambdas have hyperdrive, as do
X-wings, while TIE’s do not.  

In my home-grown universe, this whole conversation has
led me to toy with a shift in the opposite direction. 
I make a couple of house rules and assumptions about
the size of ships that not in line with the normal
flavoring of the game (All of which will probably
change drastically when FB3 and/or DS3 come out some
day).  I pose them here not to say that this is how FT
SHOULD be, just to show how it CAN BE used:

1.	If it CAN be built as a cap ship, it MUST be. 
While I have no problem with saying “This FT rules
6-fighter flight is actually 2 fighters that are 3x
the normal size fighter,” I will not allow
conglomerating multiple fighters into 1 uber-fighter
if it’s mass is great enough that you could build a
small cap ship of the same mass.  IIRC, the smallest
possible cap ship is in the 4 or 5 range (but my books
aren’t handy here at work, so YMMV).

2.	A FT class 1 weapon is, in my universe, comparable
in power to a class 5 weapon, and a FT PDS is
comparable to a DS Superior PDS.  I know, I know, it
plays all sorts of hell with what FT ranges and turns
represent, but I’m working that out too.  However,
that doesn’t mean automatically that 1 FT Mass = 15 DS
Capacity points.  What it does mean is that the 1
would roughly translate into a vehicle capable of
carrying such a weapon (taking into consideration the
need for support structure, crew, etc).  Since a mass
1 PDS is 20 cap points, and a turreted class 5 takes
15, 1 mass in FT terms is roughly equivalent to the
mass of a class 3 or 4 vehicle.  Going with the middle
ground, I therefore allow for taking a vehicle’s class
and dividing by 3.5 to determine it’s mass, round to
the tenths, do determind it’s mass as deadweight
cargo, and for fighters, simplify this to a chart
derived indirectly from the above ratio:

Fighter Class	 # Fighters    # FT Fighters
    1				4		      
1
    2				2		      
1
    3				1		      
1
    4				1		      
1
    5				1		      
1
    6				1		      
2
    7				1		      
2


3. Lightspeed fighters:  Since I’m not recreating SW,
it’s not necessary for me to allow for X-wing sized
hyperdrives.  Therefore, in my universe, I PSB that
there are two types of FTL travel:  Through a set of
jump gates, and using a self-generated jump field. 
The self-jump fields use a special form of matter as
the generating medium and require a minimum critical
mass.  This mass increases based on the mass of the
ship, but cannot DECREASE below a fixed minimum.  For
game purposes, this minimum is 20 capacity when
building a fighter in DS (for later use in campaigns).
 If building a fighter solely for FT, a light fighter
(1 FT Fighter > 1 actual fighter) is not FTL capable,
a standard fighter (1FT Fighter = 1 Actual Fighter)
can be FTL capable at the cost of offensive weapons,
and a heavy fighter (1FT Fighter< 1 Actual Fighter)
can be FTL capable at the cost of 1 fighter’s worth of
offensive capability.

>  * SNIP * you quickly get a ship that is
> huge (in FT terms).
* SNIP *
> The same happens with a Cylon Base Ship,  *SNIP *
Again, a 
> really big ship.

The way to prevent huge ships in my setting is more
campaign related than PSB related.  My universe is far
more balkanized that the Tuffleyverse, and there are
many major and minor powers, but few or no
superpowers.  This means that really huge ships like
CV’s, BB’s, and DN’s tend to be very rare, with a
power being considered major if it has half a dozen of
these spread over known space.

=====
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always
so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."

--Bertrand Russell

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