Re: Fighters and Hangers

[Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jared Hilal wrote:

 >>Could you post these 'alternative fighter schemes' on the list
 >>please, I'd be interested in seeing them.
 >
 >I don't have the file handy, but I'll try to summarize from memmory.
[...]
 >For settings with very large ships and relatively small fighters, treat
 >each fighter group as a single battery with a class equal to the number
 >of fighters remaining.  Like a regular battery, the fighter group rolls
 >that many dice in the first range band only, reducing the number of
 >dice rolled by one for each further range band.  Use either 2 MU or 1
 >MU range bands.

IOW, if you use 2mu range bands the fighter group as a whole gets 
*longer*-ranged weapons than before at the same time as the individual 
fighters grow *smaller* relative to the ships?

Also, why would this be specific to settings with very large ships and 
relatively small fighters, as opposed to settings with relatively small 
ships? It has exactly the same level of abstraction as the current FT 
fighter rules, so is just as suitable for the low-level GZGverse mass scale.

 >Point Defense Batteries
[...]
 >Dual Purpose Batteries
[...]
 >Point Defense Fire and Area Defense Fire

These rules are conceptually similar to the fighter rules playtested at the 
ECC (though the exact details differ quite a lot) - but these concepts have 
nothing at all to do with the relative mass ratios between fighters and 
larger ships. They work just as well in the GZGverse as in the B5 or SW 
backgrounds.

The bay design methods are a problem area. We worked on similar systems for 
StarFire many years back, but had to drop them because of their inherent 
abusability:

 >Flight Bays
 >Flight bays are facilities for launching, recovering, and servicing
 >fighters.  We use the symbol from EFSB for a flight bay, with a number
 >in the circle.  This is the class of the flight bay.  The class
 >represents the number of fighter groups that can be handled in a single
 >turn.  A flight bay may either launch, service, or recover during a
 >turn, but may not do more than one at the same time.  E.g. a class 3
 >flight bay may launch up to 3 groups on one tun and then recover up to
 >3 groups on the next turn and service them on the third, but may not do
 >all three at once.  Fighters may be stored in flight bays.  All bays
 >benefit from economies of scale.
 >class 1    3 MASS
 >class 2    5 MASS
 >class 3    6 MASS
 >+1 MASS per additional class
 >Cost is 3 points per MASS (alt: 9 pts per class).

 >Launch Bays
[...]
 >class 1    2 MASS
 >class 2    3 MASS
 >class 3    3.5 MASS
 >class 4    4 MASS
 >+0.5 MASS per additional class
 >Cost is 3 points per MASS (alt: 6 pts per class).

[Recovery and Hangar bays use the same mass and cost ratings as the Launch 
bays]

If you recalled the various bay masses and costs correctly, a "classic" 
Mass-12 soapbubble carrier can now carry 6 fighter groups instead of 1. 
Have you changed the cost of the fighters themselves in any way, or do you 
find the increased DP and PDS capabilities to balance extreme numbers of 
fighters by themselves?

 >This system gives several design choices.  For example, do you have a
 >single bay for economy of scale, or several separate ones in case of
 >damage?  Do you have just flight bays or also hanger bays for second
 >(or more) launches?  Do you have mulipurpose flight bays or seperate
 >launch and recovery bays so that you can conduct both operations at the
 >same time?

The problem with systems that have several different ways of achieving very 
similar results - eg., "carry X fighter groups and make sure you can launch 
or recover all of them in a single turn" - is that they tend one of these 
different ways over the others - which makes the choice of way very simple.

Eg., with the bay masses and costs you listed, let's compare two different 
carrier designs: one with 3x Class-3 flight bays for a total of 18 Mass and 
either 54 or 81 pts depending on which cost system you use, and one with 1 
each of Class-6 launch, recovery and hangar bays + 9 extra taxiways for a 
total of 19.5 Mass and either 54 or 117 pts.

With identical "extra" equipment (hull integrity, thrust rating, defensive 
armament etc.) the flight bay carrier is cheaper overall (even if you use 
the 3xMass bay cost, since its slightly smaller bay Mass means that the 
basic hull structure, engines etc. will be a little cheaper than for the
specialized-bay carrier), runs a smaller risk of getting knocked out 
completely due to failed threshold checks (the specialized-bay carrier's 
fighter ops are shut down if any *one* of its three bays is damaged; on the 
flight bay carrier you have to take out all three bays to shut its fighters 
ops completely), and it carries 50% more fighters (which of course have to 
be bought separately).

Its drawbacks are that it is somewhat more likely to take damage from 
fighters exploding inside its bays if it is hit while reloading the 
fighters (though it has fewer fighters in each individual bay than the 
specialized-bay carrier can have in its single hangar), and that it can't 
recover another carrier's entire brood in the same turn as it launches its 
own... but those drawbacks are very rarely sufficient to compensate for its 
advantages. The choice between these two designs becomes pretty easy.

With other choices for the bay masses and costs - eg. if you reduce the 
mass of the launch/recovery bays enough, or increase the number of free 
taxiways - you can easily make the choice trivial in the other direction 
instead... but it is very difficult to create a "multi-way" system where 
these choices *aren't* trivial :-(

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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