Re: Fighters and Hangers

[Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jared Hilal wrote:

>We assumed that the GZG setting was a stable basis, then any scaling f
>fighter facilities necessitated a reduction in fighter power.

Understandable assumption since many other games are written to reflect 
specific backgrounds; but the GZG games aren't written to reflect the 
GZGverse - on the contrary, the GZG setting was written to give those 
players too lazy to make up their own background a setting to play in, but 
it doesn't drive the game design in any way.

> >  >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.
>
>May be so, but since the implied posting of those test rules after ECC
>never occurred, I included what we use for completeness.  Otherwise I
>would have said something like "we use something similar the beta rules
>posted last week".

You're replying to the wrong part of what I wrote :-/ My point here wasn't 
that your rules concepts are similar to the beta test stuff - that's more a 
case of "great minds think alike", or something; the point was that these 
concepts aren't specific for large-scale backgrounds.

> >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,
>
>We use the costs from FB1 per fighter group, and allow common-sense 
>multi-specialties, such as Heavy, Fast, Intercepter (like F-14, F-15, 
>A-wing, etc.).

IOW you have in effect cut the cost of each fighter group in half or more, 
since the cost of the bay usually provides some 50-70% of the total fighter 
cost. Ouch. It is probably fortunate that your group is friendly rather 
than competitive :-/

> >>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?
>
>O.O.'s example:
>3 x flight bay-3 (18 MASS)
>vs
>1 x launch bay-6 +
>1 x hanger bay-6 +
>1 x landing bay-6 +
>taxiways to transfer 6 fighters LdB->HB +
>taxiways to transfer 6 fighters HB->LaB
>total 19.5 MASS
>
> >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,
>
>you mean "even if you use the 9x class cost" or "especially if you use
>the 3x MASS cost", right?

No, the other way around, just like I wrote - especially if you use the 9x 
class cost, but even if you use the 3x MASS one:

3xFlight Bays cost 3x (3*6) = 54 pts with the 3x MASS cost, or 9*9 = 81 pts 
with the 9x class cost.

1x [launch+hangar+recovery] + 9 extra taxiways costs 3x (5+5+5) + 9x 1 = 54 
pts with the 3x MASS cost, or 6x [6+6+6] + 9x 1 = 117 pts with the "9x 
class" costs.

IOW the "3x MASS" cost makes the two combinations cost the same amount of 
points (54 pts each), BUT since the launch/hangar/recovery combination is 
1.5 MASS larger the carrier as a whole will cost slightly more than the 3x 
flight bay carrier.

The "9x class" cost OTOH makes the 3x flight bay combination cost 36 pts 
less than the launch/hangar/recovery combo even before you add in the 
effect from that 1.5 MASS difference.

> >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),
>
>1) Taking out the Hanger requires a 2nd row threshold check.

The hangar isn't of much use if it can't launch or recover any fighters, 
and the risk for losing at least one of the launch and recovery bays on the 
first threshold is far greater than the risk of losing all three flight 
bays on the flight bay carrier in the first check (31% compared to 0.5%).

>2) depends on where in the launch cycle the ship is,

Of course. But the flight bay carrier doesn't have to worry about it at all.

> >and it carries 50% more fighters (which of course have to be bought
> >separately).
>
>Your 3x class-3 flight bay design could exchange 1 flight bay for 2x
>class-2 hangers (total 10 groups) or 1x class-8 hanger (total 14
>groups) feeding the launch bays.

In which case it couldn't launch or recover all of its fighter groups at 
once (and in the latter case would also have to spend 2.5 extra Mass on 
taxiways, but that's a very minor point). More on this below.

>Looking back I see that I wasn't clear that fighters can be stored in
>the Launch tubes/bay and landing/recovery bay, so the
>Launch-Hanger-Landing design has a transport capacity of 18 groups vs 9
>for the 3x3 flight design.  I also left out that we allow fighters to be 
>readied (loaded/fueled) in landing and launch facilities but count at 
>double size.  I.e. your class 6 launch bay could reload 3 fighters at 
>once, as could the landing bay.

OK; that could make a bit of difference - your previous post indicated that 
the launch and recovery bays *couldn't* store fighters. Unfortunately it 
doesn't change my main point; all it does is to potentially reverse which 
of the combinations is favoured and which is redundant.

> >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.
>
>I guess because I wasn't clear in my original post, but your L-H-L
>design  actually allows playing more complex flight ops, where a group
>is launched and waits to form up with successive launches for a single
>strike.

As long as you either launch the fighters before the tactical game starts 
or you have several game turns in which to launch or recover your fighters 
before the enemy can take advantage of the carrier's total lack of 
manoeuvring while launching (unless you've changed the FT fighter launch 
rules, of course), that works nicely.

Unfortunately my old 120 x 80 gaming table wasn't large enough to allow the 
latter - staying on the same course and speed for three consecutive turns 
to launch fighters was pretty much the same as writing the carrier off.

> >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
> >ree 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 :-(
>
>These were the numbers that we have used without anyone trying to "break" it.

I suspected as much. The problem is that this kind of design systems give 
the munchkins too many variables to play with; it is extremely difficult to 
keep them all balanced - and the munchkins will very quickly find the ones 
which aren't.

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