One of the great attractions of FT is that it generally doesn't
require lots of plusses, minuses and modifiers. This seems to take
mechanisms that are *mostly* optional rules in FT2.5 and make them
core in FT3, and a *lot* of extra chits, markers etc. are going to
be needed to keep track of screening, escorting, evading etc.
Apart from the complexity, this "fighter fix" also smuggles in some
pretty major changes to other non-fighter "ordnance"-style systems:
1) Arbitrary bonuses for certain weapons systems: "Salvo Missile,
Plasma Bolt, and AMT markers AUTOMATICALLY gain a -3 target DRM to
any non-PD-mode fire against the marker." Why? For example, an AMT
has the same mass as a Heavy Missile, so why should it be harder to
hit? In fact the privileged projectiles that receive this -3 DRM
seem to be not just harder, but *impossible* to hit with non-PD
weapons, while Heavy Missiles are laughably easy to knock down (see
next comment).
2) Evasion and missile range: The "burn an endurance point for
evasion" rule is very hard on standard Heavy Missiles which have
only three CEF, greatly reducing their effective range if they
evade. My feeling is that missile ranges are already short compared
with beams, and this only exacerbates this. On any turn when an HM
*doesn't* evade, by the way, a B4 anti-ship battery (for example)
could knock it down with one shot at 48mu as easily as a dedicated
PDS would at point-blank range! That feels completely artificial and
gamey, and *certainly* puts my suspension-of-disbelief meter in the
red zone.
Finally I was left a bit gob-smacked by this comment: "Similarly the
fighter morale rules are GONE. They were always dubious from a PSB
point of view (why would robotic fighters be scared of being
destroyed?)".
Since when have FT fighters been robotic? With the exception of the
Cylons in Blunderstar Gargantua, does any movie or TV background
feature robotic fighters? The whole *point* of space fighters is so
that spunky young things with great hair and teeth can zoom round
the galaxy packing attitude and disobeying orders...
Best regards, Robert Bryett
rbryett@xxxxxxxx
On 27/06/2006, at 5:43 PM, J L Hilal wrote:
Beta fighter rules from the list archives
http://lists.firedrake.org/gzg/200403/msg00286.html
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