Re: Fighters and Hangers

--- Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:
> If you want large ships vs small fighters, the two easiest options
> are to play with actual large ship designs and to say that each 
> fighter group actually represents more than 6 fighters even though
> the group as a whole has 6 "hit points".
>

> ***
> If you want large ships vs small fighters, the two easiest options
> are to play with actual large ship designs and to say that each 
> fighter group actually represents more than 6 fighters even though
the > group as a whole has 6 "hit points".

That only works up to a certain point, and that point is very low on
the scale.  Anything above about 3:1 (18 fighters per FT group) and
small ships (like the Corellian Freighter / Millennium Falcon) start
dropping off the bottom of the ship scale because 1 "ship" is
approximately equal to the firepower/damage capacity of X fighters,
where X often equals 3,4, 5, or 6 fighters.

Keep in mind that compared to both modern navy/air and popular sci-fi,
the FT fighters are very,very large (or merely very large if you take 1
fighter = 0.5 FB mass = 50 tons) and the FB ships are quite small.

Most popular SF, like SW, BSG, and B5, have fighters comparable to
modern fighters in size, when comparing the fighter prop to the actor
standing next to it or in the cockpit.	Modern light fighters (like the
F-16 or F/A-18) are about 20-25 tons.  Heavy fighters (like the F-15,
F-14, A-6, or A-10) are about 30-35 tons (and only the A-10 would
qualify as a FT "Heavy" IMO).  The largest is the F/B-111, which is
more a light bomber than a fighter, at almost 50 tons max. TOW. 
However, at 100 tons, FT/FB fighters are 2-5 times larger than modern
fighters.  Even at 50 tons (0.5 MASS), a FB fighter is comparable to a
F/B-111.

Further, the FB ships are small compared to modern naval ships and tiny
compared to SW (films ,not books, and excluding Super SDs), BSG, and B5
ships.	Compared to any of David Weber's settings, they are downright
miniscule, many FB capitals comparing to Weber's parasite STL daughter
ships.

All of the FB "super-dreadnoughts" are smaller than the real HMS
Dreadnought of 1906 (and comparable in size to the SW Corellian
Corvette/Gunship/Blockade Runner).  The 1922 "Treaty Battleships" would
be around TMF 400-450 in FB terms, the "post-Treaty" ships built in the
late 30s/early 40s would be TMF 600-750, and a modern USN supercarrier
would be well over TMF 900.  All this is with fighters that are 1/2 to
1/5 the size of the FB fighters, depending on which definition of FB
fighters you use.

So if you want your game to resemble, for example, Star Wars, you have
to realize how much larger the SW ships are than the FB ships.

Example:
Keeping in mind the cube law of volume (doubling the dimensions of the
object and increase the volume, and presumably mass, by x8);  at 400m,
the Nebulon-B is twice the size of a late 1930's BB (like the King
George V), so might be 8x larger (ignoring the significant additional
mass from the extra draught of the bow section of the Nebulon, as it
compensates for the skinny section in the middle), giving 44,000 dwt
(KGV) x 8 = 352,000 dwt, or about TMF 3500.

A 1600m ISD is 4x longer than the Nebulon, meaning that an ISD should
be at least 64x larger than the Nebulon-B, ignoring the much larger
hull form which gives more mass per length.  350,000 dwt x 64 =
22,400,000 dwt, or at least TMF 224,000.

The smaller 1200m VSD is 3x longer than the Nebulon, so a VSD should be
at least 27x larger than the Nebulon-B, ignoring the different hull
forms as with the ISD.	350,000 dwt x 27 = 9,450,000 dwt, or about TMF
95,000.

That is two orders of magnitude larger than FB ships for a light
cruising escort and three orders of magnitude for a ship of the
battlefleet.  BSG and B5 are both on this scale.  Although I have not
tried it, I have a gut feeling that a game of FT involving  TMF 3500
escorts is not going to be enjoyable. 

Scaled at 10,000t = 1 MASS (100:1 compared to FB), the Nebulon is about
MASS 35 (an escort) and the ISD is MASS 2240, still 10 times larger
than any FB capital ship.  Seems OK until you apply the 100:1 factor to
the small craft.  Then the entire complement of small craft of the ISD
(a 72 TIE wing and all shuttles, transports, etc.) equals a single FT
fighter.  Not a group, but a single fighter.

If the fighters are scaled even at only 12:1 rather than 100:1 (each
12-strong TIE squadron = 1 FT fighter), the entire wing of the ISD is
reduced to only 1 FT "fighter group" containing 1 bomber, 1 or 2
interceptors, and 4 or 3 standard fighters.  At this rate (12 TIEs = 1
FT fighter), other small craft, such as Lambda class shuttles, Assault
Shuttles, Assault Transports, and the M. Falcon can each be defined as
equal to X TIEs, so that perhaps a Lambda = 3 TIEs, an Assault Shuttle
= 4 TIEs, etc..  At this scale, it only changes the rate at which these
small craft convert to a FT fighter (4 Lambda and 3 AS in the example).
 So the ISD also has a FT fighter group made up of shuttles, assault
shuttles, etc..  Maybe they count as Slow, Heavy, Attack fighters (very
poor in a dogfight, but good for hunting down small ships.

So both the "play with large ships" and "1 FT fighter = X genre
fighters" solutions are useful only to a very limited extent.

The large fighters and small ships of the FBs are quite reasonable for
the setting, given that some PSB had to be found to justify having
fighters take up a large amount of MASS in the design system combined
with their power vs. ships under the FT rules.	It is just difficult to
translate the system to other settings.

My point is that, as a generic game (which is where FT can really
shine), I think it would be reasonable to have an optional second set
of rules for fighters covering their effect verses ships and ship
design (hanger, launch and recovery facilities, etc.) for settings
where the ships are much larger than those in the GZG background.  This
would not affect the FB designs (which use the standard rules),
fighter-fighter combat, or movement.  Only fighter-ship combat and ship
design would be affected.  We have tried several schemes for this for
SW, B5 and home grown settings and it works well.  Having a single set
of such a variant, which has been vetted by those who have close
knowledge of the FT design process, would be a benefit to the game by
increasing its adaptability.

J