Re: [GZG] Microcarriers (was: NewCampaign)

[Eric Foley <stiltman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, I've got a long and storied history of carrier tactics in this game before my old gaming group broke up, so I figure I'll give my $0.05 (adjusted for inflation over the years) on this...

-----Original Message-----
>From: john tailby <John_Tailby@xxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Oct 1, 2007 3:12 AM
>To: gzg-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: [GZG] Microcarriers (was: NewCampaign) [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
>
>Well it's been an interesting weekend.
>
>We had a big battle there were 4 players with with about 2500 points of 
>ships.
>
>The Micro Carrier fleet launched about 27 squadrons of heavy fast attack 
>fighters. Supported by a missile attack from their allies it was pretty 
>effective.

So does this mean that they're able to attack as both heavy fighters and attack fighters?  If so, what was the cost of these things?  I calculate it as 42 per group even without the double-duty powers.

If that group isn't able to shoot other fighters at at least normal strength, I'm seriously going "ewwww" over here.  In my experience, "all attack" means "no attack", because you can usually figure that the opponent's going to tear up most everything that comes in like that.  If I was allowed to mix fighter specialties, I'd be going with heavy interceptors in a first wave of about 20 or so with a backup group of (possibly heavy) torpedo bombers.  If you get to mix "heavy" with "attack" and use normal fighter-to-fighter capabilities, most likely I'd mix in "heavy" with "interceptor" in the same light, as well as "heavy" with "torpedo".

>The Dalek ships had a defence net of scatter packs (doing the play test 
>variation of D3 damage against ordnance) supported by escorting robot 
>fighters. The Heavy fighters burned through the defence net and ripped the 
>Dalek fleet apart.

Which really surprises me, unless either the guy was packing fighters that could shoot normally at other fighters or the defensive fighter wing wasn't very strong at all (i.e. enough that 27 heavy attack fighters would still win the attrition fight with enough left to still retain significant striking power).

>The Daleks gave better than they got though and only about 4 micro carriers 
>left the battle zone.

>When you can make a mass 13 carrier for <90 points with a persistent 36Mu 
>range attack weapon you get a lot of them very quickly. Compare that against 
>a light cruiser. 2 squadron of fighters would burn through its defence net 
>and kill it in one go. In larger games it gets worse. Either the fighters 
>attack ships individually forcing them to defend themselves or get eaten 
>alive or they concentrate.

>There's no rules in FT that give fighters / missiles a maximum range that 
>they can operate from their mother ship. So carriers can do a dump and run 
>attack.

>The carriers have to spend at least 3 turns on the table before they can 
>escape so there is quite a bit of opportunity to kill them, but their 
>fighters are eating you alive.

The main thing I would ask is, do the carriers get to FTL out without the fighters dying off?    The games we played, it never would've occurred to anyone... particularly since the best method of striking (i.e. torpedoes) pretty much required the carriers to stick around and reload.  Attack fighters just didn't give enough firepower for the die-off they encountered against the defenses we typically packed to make it worth the capability of just dropping them off and forgetting about them.

>We play that all ordnance is replaced at the start of each turn provided 
>ships are in supply. Cutting off their supply is viable.

Oh, yuck.  That'd leave all sorts of things open to abuses.

>None of our palyers think that any sane individual would volunteer for the 
>space fighter core. Not even the year long training regime at resort hotels 
>provided by galactic playbeing centerfold models make people want to enrole 
>in the 20 seconders.

I agree.  In the vague PSB stories that we drew up for our pseudo-campaigns, it was generally accepted that the attrition rate of fighters was so high that no interstellar nation would use sentient beings for them unless they were either drugged out of their gills, suicidally brave, or had most of their brain functions for self-preservation slaved to a cyborg control system that used their conscious minds for strategy and little more.  The rest would generally use robots, maybe remote control.

Eric/Stilt

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