Re: [GZG] Hugh's New Fighter/Point Defence rules

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http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Fri, Dec 3,
2010 at 4:34 PM, Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Noam Izenberg <noam.izenberg@jhuapl.edu>
>
> >I've begun looking into Hugh's new fighter/antifighter rules.
> >
> >A couple quick thoughts, because I've still missed most of the
> >conversation.
> >My first reaction is I think they (the new roles) weaken Heavy
> >missiles and fighters significantly (It doesn't take a great deal of
> >fleet modification/sacrifice to make a task force effectively HM and
> >fighter proof.) and leave salvo missiles almost intact, unless you're
> >going to convert PDS systems in to %ship mass systems. I think any
> >system that grants virtual invulnerability after a certain,
relatively
> >low threshold is too flawed. An average PD of 11 is granted with an
> >array of 14 PDS - not too much to ask from a DN, or even a BC going
up
> >against a known Fighter heavy fleet.
>
> Yeah, this has been a concern of mine as well.  That multiple fighters
can
> get back into it with suppressive assistance is sort of a plus, but I
think
> the bar is a bit too low, and virtual invulnerability at any level is
not
> desirable.
>

Concur.

>
> >I was very interested in Eric's playtest, but unless he's made a
> >compensatory (and significant) recalculation of cost, he's misplayed
> >torp fighters. FT 2.5 Torp fighters are one shot. They can't make two
> >attacks, much less three, so the Phalons in the playtest should have
> >clashed nearly full strength with the Kasparovs. The outcome would
> >have been quite different.
>
> Well, if the fighters were not allowed to reload by returning to their
> carriers, they likely would've focused on destroying one particular
Voth on
> their first pass rather than splitting between two.  As it is, we have
> always allowed torpedo bombers in my games to reload upon return to
the
> carriers.  Point defense is usually strong enough in my games that you
> usually don't have very many of them left to make a second sortie, and
> eventually it became standard procedure to start covering them with
heavy
> missile or plasma barrages, which in turn meant you were waiting until
you
> were in missile or plasma range before the fighters went in at all,
and thus
> the main battle would be joined before any second sorties took place.
>

Eric, it was wholly unclear that the fighters were relanding and
reloading
from your AAR. I was sharing Noam's confusion on how you were using the
torp
fighters.

That said, torp fighters as written are one-shot weapons, not reloadable
in
a scenario. There is an optional rule for rearming fighters. But that
rule
also has one roll 1d6 per group rearming to see if or when they will be
refurbished.

How fast were the ships all going? What speeds of fighters were you
using?
At 120 mu apart at the start, the Phalons should have easily been able
evade
multiple fighter attacks.

> >From my experience, torpedo bombers would be _underpowered_ for their
cost
> if they were not permitted to reload on their carriers.
>
> >Also I'm unclear why the phalons didn't drop a couple plasma 1's on
> >top of themselves when the fighters attacked. They could take the
> >paint scratching easily to completely wipe out every fighter group in
> >the bolt range.
>
> The Phalons were in a tight formation and their smallest plasma bolt
was a
> class 3.

Fair point.

>  Thus, any unblocked plasma would have hit most or all of their own
fleet.
>  They judged that the fighters would have simply used secondary
movement to
> evade the plasma and find a safe place to strike.  While some ships
could
> have fired while the rest shrouded to minimize the damage, the
shrouded
> ships would have been even worse off if the fighters could find safe
places
> to hit them from, and the shrouds would've been worse against torpedo
> bombers than simply using pulsers to try to wear the fighters down so
that
> future strikes would be less powerful.  As such, while it was
considered, it
> was judged that it would accomplish no better than a delay that would
damage
> most of their own fleet, so they did not attempt it.
>

What sort of loadout were the Phalons carrying for their pulsers?

It seems as if this was a small recreation of the Can-Am battle at GZG
ECC
lo so many years ago, where the American force fielded a fighter-*heavy*
fleet and the Canadians had a mixed arms force (I don't remember if or
how
many fighters the Canadians might have had; if they had any, it was a
negligible amount, as was their anti-fighter capability). The Canadians
had
their heads handed to them, the Americans took little or no damage.

Anyway, it seems as if the Phalon fleet in question was woefully
inadequate
to and incapable of handling fighters in any realistic manner.

Mk