Re: Fighters and Hangers

[Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@xxxxxxxxx>]

Strange, this - I still haven't seen Jared's post which started this 
subthread, and can't find it in the list archive either even though Steve's 
reply to it suggested that it was sent yesterday... ah well. Hopefully 
it'll appear in the archive tomorrow :-/ Not that it really matters, since 
Steve, Laserlight and Allan (sorry if I forgot someone!) have already 
pointed out the main problems with differently-sized fighter groups.

Randall Joiner wrote:

>I'm not parsing this correctly...

Not surprising, since the FT fighter-to-fighter rules are currently an 
unholy mess :-(

>A dogfight is only when base to base?

A *dogfight* is only when base-to-base. Unfortunately for your parsing, 
fighters don't need to be in a dogfight to shoot at one another.

>Fine... If Jack doesn't place his fighters in a dogfight, then I can't 
>split fire. If he doesn't dogfight, then there's no dice to roll. No problems.

Incorrect. Thanks to the screwed-up nature of the FT fighter rules, there 
are currently three different types of fighter-to-fighter combat in the game:

1) Ranged combat (FT2 p.17): A fighter group can fire at any *one* fighter 
group (no splitting fire) within 6 mu, as long as neither group is involved 
in a dogfight or furball. Firing is done in initiative order.

2) Dogfight (FT2 p.17): One *single* fighter group is in base-to-base 
contact with one *single* enemy fighter group. Both groups fire 
simultaneously at one another, may only fire at one another (so still no 
splitting fire, since there's only one enemy group in the dogfight), and 
may not be fired at by any units outside the dogfight. If one of the 
fighter groups attempt to leave the dogfight, the enemy gets a free shot at it.

3) Multi-group dogfight aka "furball" (FB1 p.6): A fighter group is in 
base-to-base contact with *more than one* enemy fighter group. As in the 
dogfight none of the fighter groups involved may fire out of the furball 
and no outside unit may fire into it and you can get shot in the back if 
you try to leave early, BUT unlike the normal dogfight firing is done in 
alternating initiative order (just as for ships and ranged fighter combat) 
and the firing group may spread its attacks evenly among those of the enemy 
groups in the furball it wants to attack. (It may choose to attack only one 
single enemy groups.)

>Then how is Jack getting 24 rolls (I use 3/4 for quick math, since .78 is 
>close to .75) if his ships aren't in a dogfight?

Easy: Jack uses ranged fighter combat, not dogfighting...

There's an even nastier scenario for Bob if you resolve dogfights in 
initiative order - ie., you resolve the dogfight when either player 
activates his dogfighting group in the normal initiative sequence. (The 
order in which you resolve dogfights isn't specified in the rules; some 
groups resolve dogfights last instead, which avoids this particular 
nastiness.) Here goes:

Jack uses four individual fighters to lock each of Bob's four group into 
dogfights (not furballs), leaving the remaining 20 of Jack's fighters 
unengaged. Regardless of who won the initiative the dogfights are resolved 
before any other fighter fire - Jack chooses to activate the dogfighting 
groups first, and Bob of course doesn't have a choice since all of his 
fighters are tied up in dogfight. The fighters in each of Bob's groups can 
only fire at the single fighter they're dogfighting; they'll almost 
certainly destroy it, but since this is a dogfight rather than a furball 
fire is simultaneous and that single fighter will get to shoot back.

Now comes the fun part: since they have destroyed their dogfight opponents, 
Bob's fighters are *no longer involved in dogfights*... which means that 
they are now legal ranged-combat targets for Jack's 20 remaining fighters 
and will probably lose at least 15-16 fighters in return for killing 4 of 
Jack's.

***
I've said it before and I'll say it again: The Full Thrust fighter rules 
don't need to be *amended* -  they need to be *completely replaced*.

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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