Re: Massed Fighter issue.....

Mike Hudak wrote:

>Evidently, the problem is not necessarily with fighters, per se, but
with 
>massive amounts of fighters overwhelming a single ship?

The problem with fighters in Full Thrust is two-fold:

1) Massive amounts of fighters overwhelming a single ship *while the
ship's 
formation buddies are unable to help out*.

This is the side of the problem most players see, and indeed stare 
themselves blind at. In itself it isn't a problem at all; it is easily 
solved by putting an ADFC and some extra PDSs (or scatterguns, if you
play 
KV or use mixed-tech designs) on every single ship in your fleet. The
real 
problem is that when you load up on anti-fighter weapons in this way,
you 
run into the *other* prong of the issue:

2) *Any* number of fighters, from the few squadrons carried by a
FB-style 
battledreadnought task force all the way up to a pure soap-bubble
carrier 
force with no offensive weapons except the fighters themselves, can be 
defeated by massive amounts of scatterguns or ADFC-directed point
defence 
fire. The fighters might inflict some damage before they die, but they
will 
die against this type of defences.

When 1) happens, you get short and boring battles where the fighters
crush 
all opposition. That's pretty boring even for the fighter player, at
least 
after the first few battles.

When 2) happens, you get battles where the fighters are wiped out
without 
doing much... which means that there's no real point in using fighters
at 
all. That's pretty boring too, particularly if you play in the Star Wars

universe or some similar fighter-heavy setting.

Of course, since the anti-fighter weapons are nearly useless against
larger 
ships a fleet with anti-fighter defences this heavy is at a disadvantage

against a non-fighter fleet with few or no anti-fighter weapons; and if
one 
side's point defences are this heavy, the other side will eventually
build 
just such a "pure anti-ship" fleet (OK, it'll have some point defences
to 
fend of enemy missiles, but that's all)... which in turn will give rise
to 
new massed fighter swarms. This gives you a rock/scissors/paper
situation 
where the pure anti-ship fleet beats the PD-heavy fleet but is smashed
by 
the fighter swarm, the fighter swarm beats the pure anti-ship fleet but
is 
smashed by the PD-heavy fleet, and the PD-heavy fleet beats the fighter 
swarm but loses to the pure anti-ship fleet. The battle is essentially 
decided by correctly predicting which fleet your opponent will bring to
the 
battle, instead of by the on-table tactics. That's fun, don't you think?

What you *don't* get in this situation is the FB-style fleet with
moderate 
numbers of fighters and moderate anti-fighter defences: its anti-fighter

defences are far too weak to give it a chance against the fighter swarm,

its fighters are completely wasted against the PD-heavy fleet (allowing
the 
PD-heavy fleet to achieve at least firepower parity and often firepower 
superiority in spite of spending so much on PD weapons), and yet it
doesn't 
have enough fighters to give it an edge against the "pure anti-ship"
fleet 
that isn't outweighed by the latter's heavier anti-ship armament.

The ideal would be to find the middle ground where the fighters give
about 
as good as they get, which would allow the FB-style "moderate" fleet to
be 
competitive against all three of the extremes - but with the current FT 
fighter rules, that middle ground is damn hard to find even if both
sides 
cooperate in searching for it (which essentially means scenario games
where 
both sides are created by the same person, who must additionally be
quite 
experienced with the game), and if the two sides *don't* cooperate it is

effectively impossible. When one side has massed fighters and the other 
heavy point defences, the middle ground between "fighters sweep all
before 
them" to "fighters are utterly crushed" is very narrow indeed - so
narrow 
that I usually refer to it as the "knife edge".

As described above, over-powered anti-fighter weapons is one of the two 
prongs of the FT fighter balance issue. If you retain the rest of the FT

fighter rules and only introduce new, more powerful specialized 
anti-fighter weapons (like Mike does below) or increase the cost of the 
fighters, all you achieve is to make it easier to reach the "defeat any 
number of fighters" level of defences - ie., you change the *location*
of 
the knife edge, but you don't make it any easier to *balance* on it.

In order to improve the game and get out of the "rock/scissors/paper" 
situation, it isn't sufficient to just *move* the knife edge. We need to

*blunt* it - to transform the change between "fighters sweep all before 
them" and "fighters are crushed" from a sharp flip-flop switch into a 
gradually sliding scale.

In my experience the way to accomplish this that works best in game
play, 
and which is used in several other space combat games already (including

Starmada, which has implemented it gradually over the course of several 
editions) is to make anti-ship weapons capable of hitting fighters at a 
reduced effect. This allows the defenders to adjust their anti-fighter 
defences according to the current tactical situation: if the enemy has
few 
fighters but lots of heavier ships the anti-ship weapons will
concentrate 
on the enemy ships leaving only the specialized anti-fighter weapons to 
engage the enemy fighters; but if the enemy has lots of fighters and
only a 
few larger ships most of the anti-ship weapons will help out against the

enemy fighters instead.

>So then, perhaps the solution resides in preventing or deterring overly

>large massed fighter attacks.

This moves the knife edge but does not blunt it, and it also shifts the 
balance between large and small ships further towards the large ships
(ie., 
large enough to carry enough PDS to defeat the "maximum size" fighter
attacks).

>I haven't looked in the archives on the main list, and I'm not a member
of 
>the playtest list, so I don't know if this has been suggested
before.....

Very similar concepts have, at least.

>But what about a short ranged EMP style weapon, something similar to
the 
>weapon found on the 'hovercraft' in the Matrix?
>
>Create a one shot weapon that people can mount on their ships that they

>can detonate that affects all fighters within 6" of the ship, disabling

>their craft based on a target number roll, or some such mechanic.  (I
have 
>no idea what would be a fair number, I'm just bouncing a concept.....)
>
>That way, the defender has one saving grace shot.  If a small amount of

>fighters attack, the defender can choose to use PDF to engage, the EMP 
>bomb (for lack of a better term) being a waste to use for such a small 
>return.  If a large amount attack, the ship has a chance then.

Just *one* saving grace shot? What stops you from putting *multiple*
"EMP 
bombs" on a single ship, much like the Kra'Vak ships have multiple 
scatterguns? Or, if you can't put more than one EMP bomb on each ship,
what 
stops you from stacking all your ships literally on top of each other so

they can all support each other?

>Forces the fighter playing character to make more tactical decisions
than 
>just the en masse attack.
>
>Options......
>
>1)  If you don't want another weapon system, base it off of shields. 
The 
>defender 'overloads' his shields for an area burst attack, however his 
>shields are destroyed for the rest of the encounter (or perhaps reduces
a 
>level 2 shield to a level 1 shield).  This restricts this kind of
tactic 
>to larger ships that normally equip a shield.

So the NSL should be left defenceless against massed enemy fighters?

>2)  The EMP burst affects everything, not just fighters.  Possibly 
>requiring a straight threshold check for all systems if caught within
the 
>EMP blast.

That makes it effectively useless if the enemy has any combat ships
*other* 
than the fighters, since the fleet have to disperse greatly if it wants
to 
use its "EMP bombs" without crippling its own ships. Dispersed ships
become 
easy prey for a more concentrated enemy squadron.

***
To Damo and the other "screw points systems; play scenarios instead"
people:

Scenario games need someone to create the scenarios before you can play.

Campaign games require a set of campaign rules, and someone to
coordinate 
the campaign. Both types of games are viable in stable gaming groups who

are experienced with the game... but when most of your games are against

relative strangers who lack the time to play campaings, or against
newbies 
who lack the experience to create interesting scenarios, you're pretty
much 
left with one-off pick-up games.

That's where the points system is really needed: to provide a common
ground 
between strangers, and to help newbies to set up reasonably even battles

before they've gained enough experience to create unbalanced scenarios 
which are still enjoyable to both sides.

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry