Re: [GZG] beta fighter rules--my impression

Mark Drake wrote:

 >I for one am a proponent of the beta fighter rules. Have tried the
original
 >version and found them to be too much "either/or"--either not enough
to make
 >a difference or massed groups of them were overwhelming!

Yeah, that "either/or" thing is very much the problem the beta-test
rules 
were intended to solve... I'm glad to hear that you like 'em :-)

[...]

 >Also like the further differentiation in fighter types+their
effects,plus
 >how Evasive Maneuvers can be used to offset PDF fire.The best change
is how
 >various other weapons can be used in PDF role. Still not clear about
use of
 >larger beams as PDF.

Not clear how to do it in the rules, or not clear whether or not you
like 
the feature?

If the larger beams were unable to fire in PD mode, the beta-test rules 
would favour the smaller beam batteries rather heavily - which would 
require us to revise the various weapon costs in the ship design rules. 
Since we didn't want to do that, one of the goals with the beta-test
rules 
was to keep the existing balance between the various anti-ship weapons
as 
intact as possible... thus big beams get to fire in PD mode as well.

Whether or not having big weapons shoot at fighters fits your PSB view
of 
how FT weapons work is another question entirely... history and SF 
literature provide precedents for both sides of that argument :-/

 >The only thing I did not like about the beta fighter rules were the
format
 >of how they were written (know they were posted to the list though.)

Yeah, I know :-( The main reason for that is that I learned English by 
reading Phil Barker's WRG 7th Edition Ancients rules and similar
easy-read 
beginner's texts (sic!), and that I included detailed designer's notes
to 
explain the rationales and reasoning behind the rules. Unfortunately I 
didn't get any of the native English/American-speaking playtesters to
edit 
it properly before making it public; all they did at the time was to 
correct some spelling and grammar... Later on LaserLight did a cleaned
up 
version (to which I've lost the URL *again*) which is about a page and a

half long (one page with the actual rules, the rest being the weapons 
summaries); it sounds like you did something similar too.

 >Just made 2 smaller printouts but it is easier to consult (am an
 >ASL fanatic so multiple charts is easy for me--maybe not for all folks
 >though.) Can send them to anyone interested.

I'd like to see them, please :-)

 >One thing I would like to see is some sort of optional fighter morale
rule
 >for use with the beta fighter rules. I did like that from MT!

I like the idea of *a* fighter morale system, but the MT implementation
was 
rather counter-productive... in a rules set where small numbers of
fighters 
were easily wiped out while large fighter swarms were way overpowered,
the 
MT fighter morale rules weakened the small numbers of fighters further 
still while the large fighter swarms were able to absorb the losses and 
just keep coming :-(

 >I seriously hope these will be an integral part of FT3 as this is the
one
 >area that needed to be improved over the original and the beta rules
are a
 >vast improvement,IMHO.

The basic concept - allowing anti-ship weapons to fire at
fighters/missiles 
at a reduced effect - will almost certainly be an integral part of FT3, 
because that's the only way to balance fighters in a capital-ship game 
we've been able to find in 10+ years of trying without imposing *really*

draconic restrictions on ship design and fleet composition (something
we'd 
prefer not to do, since it'd destroy the generic nature of FT). The 
*implementation* of this concept OTOH is by no means cut in stone.

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ariander@rixmail.se

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

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