Re: [GZG] Mixed Role Fighters

On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 5:20 PM, Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com>
wrote:
> As much fun as this might be, I personally would only run with it in
> scenario games rather than competitive ones.  Swing role fighters
force you
> to rearm and at least take a hard management choice as to which of the
two
> roles you'd want to use.  Multi-role fighters that can do more than
one
> thing should be forcing you to pay at least the price of both fighters
> individually, plus perhaps a premium of one point per fighter for each
> combined thing it can do... and if you want to swing something else
you pay
> the swing role costs on top of that.  This reflects a pretty simple
> reality:  hardware that can do absolutely everything at once, at the
same
> time, is usually way more expensive than specialized hardware that
can only
> do one of them at a time.

I hope the point system(s) doesn't try to reflect setting cost, I hope
it at least tries to measure game effectiveness in some sort of
overall sense (that can be broken in single specific scenario).  The
simple fact is that one fighter that can do A+B will always be less
game effective than one fighter of A + one fighter of B, if only
because that is two fighters to defend against, not one and because a
single fighter can only do one thing at one time, whereas two
squadrons get to do two, even if its just drawing fire.  Thus there is
no way that charging A + B + premium in any way makes sense to me.

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 12:52 PM, Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com>
wrote:
> I have a single, and very simple objection to the idea of combined
fighters, at the very least allowing it cheaply, probably at all:  heavy
+ interceptor = you win absolutely every dogfight.  We had very few
house rules in our games beyond the basic rules sets throughout our
gaming group's history, and disallowing heavy interceptors was one of
the first.  Allow complete mixed role fighters for any kind of cost
effectiveness and throwing torpedo, attack, or both on top of that
becomes your unstoppable Munchkin.  Thanks, but no thanks... and this is
coming from one of the most manic carrier buffs on the list, for what
that's worth.
>

You have points you can spend on Heavy Interceptors, if you choose to
bring sub-optimal defenses to defend against them then it's your
fault, not the system and I'm sure we can come up with at least one
example of a heavy interceptor equivalent in either the real world
and/or fiction.  Now if you chose to play in a setting where they
don't exist that's one thing, but that they shouldn't exist in the
game at all is what I challenge.

Point systems have flaws, but allowing Heavy Interceptors or other
multi-role fighters isn't one, what they need to cost in points can
certainly be argued, but saying that a Heavy Interceptor should cost
more than a Heavy plus an Interceptor is where I have issues, just
from the basic math.

-- 
Ryan Fisk

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