Re: Fighter Fixes was Re: Re: Re: [GZG] Revised Salvo Missiles Update

>Yuk! *This* is the future direction of FT? The game that's supposed 
>to be quick and fun to play? Really?

All I can say at this point, Robert (and all out there), is "don't 
panic!!"  ;-)

The beta fighter test rules that you are referring to are fairly old 
now, having been generated by lot of thrashing around on the playtest 
list a good while back.... please don't consider them "official", 
even from a beta test standpoint. At the moment, as time allows I'm 
working on some VERY much simpler proposals which I believe address 
the most important fighter issues while staying in the spirit of the 
original FT rules. Not a lot has happened for some months due to a 
lot of Real Life(tm) issues getting in the way, but I'm gradually 
getting back on to the development stuff.
I don't want to say too much more at this point because there is 
still a good bit of testing and tweaking needed before I can consider 
releasing a "public beta" to the main list, but watch this space.... 
:-)

Jon (GZG)

>
>One of the great attractions of FT is that it generally doesn't 
>require lots of plusses, minuses and modifiers. This seems to take 
>mechanisms that are *mostly* optional rules in FT2.5 and make them 
>core in FT3, and a *lot* of extra chits, markers etc. are going to 
>be needed to keep track of screening, escorting, evading etc.
>
>Apart from the complexity, this "fighter fix" also smuggles in some 
>pretty major changes to other non-fighter "ordnance"-style systems:
>
>1) Arbitrary bonuses for certain weapons systems: "Salvo Missile, 
>Plasma Bolt, and AMT markers AUTOMATICALLY gain a -3 target DRM to 
>any non-PD-mode fire against the marker." Why? For example, an AMT 
>has the same mass as a Heavy Missile, so why should it be harder to 
>hit? In fact the privileged projectiles that receive this -3 DRM 
>seem to be not just harder, but *impossible* to hit with non-PD 
>weapons, while Heavy Missiles are laughably easy to knock down (see 
>next comment).
>
>2) Evasion and missile range: The "burn an endurance point for 
>evasion" rule is very hard on standard Heavy Missiles which have 
>only three CEF, greatly reducing their effective range if they 
>evade. My feeling is that missile ranges are already short compared 
>with beams, and this only exacerbates this. On any turn when an HM 
>*doesn't* evade, by the way, a B4 anti-ship battery (for example) 
>could knock it down with one shot at 48mu as easily as a dedicated 
>PDS would at point-blank range! That feels completely artificial and 
>gamey, and *certainly* puts my suspension-of-disbelief meter in the 
>red zone.
>
>Finally I was left a bit gob-smacked by this comment: "Similarly the 
>fighter morale rules are GONE. They were always dubious from a PSB 
>point of view (why would robotic fighters be scared of being 
>destroyed?)".
>Since when have FT fighters been robotic? With the exception of the 
>Cylons in Blunderstar Gargantua, does any movie or TV background 
>feature robotic fighters? The whole *point* of space fighters is so 
>that spunky young things with great hair and teeth can zoom round 
>the galaxy packing attitude and disobeying orders...
>
>Best regards, Robert Bryett
>rbryett@mail.com
>
>On 27/06/2006, at 5:43 PM, J L Hilal wrote:
>
>>Beta fighter rules from the list archives
>>http://lists.firedrake.org/gzg/200403/msg00286.html
>
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