Re: Fighter CAP and Screens in FT

In message <856521548.99090.0@basil.acs.bolton.ac.uk> you wrote:

> Hi, I am new to this mailing list and apologise if I may be suggesting
> somthing that has already been discussed and thrown in the bin.

Welcome!

>   One of the primary roles of the fighter is to protect a ship from
>   other fighters. This usually is accomplished by the fighters keeping
>   close to the ship they are defending, ie TIEs in Star War protecting
>   the Death Star or Star Furys in B5 protecting the station and the
Omega
>   Destroyers in 'Severed Dreams'.
> 
>   So in our games when a fighter group is launched it can be
designated
>   as flying protective escort (CAP/Screen). The fighter is moved with
>   the ship it is escorting and is placed anywhere within 2" of the
model.

It's something I tend to use my fighters for (since I field NSL
(which look vaguely B5ish), and I have some Starfury^H^H^H^Htiger
fighter models, can you blame me? :) ), though we don't use any
special rules. Most fighters are heavy interceptors, which are
kept close to my own ships until enemy fighters come onto the board,
at which point I engage.

You don't really need special rules for this (since it's very
easy to force the enemy to dogfight in the rules as they stand).

>   Specifically Babylon 5 games. Having watched battle scenes in B5
many
>   times, I think that fighters are helping screen ships against PPG
>   fire from other vessels, this seems to be happening in Voice in the
>   Wilderness and Severed Dreams.
>   In our games a CAP group may be used in this role as follows:
>   The CAP group must not be in a Dogfight or be used to fire against
>   enemy fighters.
>   Roll 1d6, if the roll is less than or equal to the group strength
>   the CAP group acts as one shield. This may be combined with PDF/
>   interceptor screening but still only a maximum of 3 shielding
>   per ship.

Problem with this is, a single group of fighters is equally
effective against an attack from a single beam weapon, as they
are against a dozen or so beam weapons.

Something I'm considering using for sandcasters (ie Traveller
style), which could be used for fighters, is rolling dice as
for damage, with each point of damage being 1d less of damage
taken. For fighters, you might want to say 1d in defence for
every two fighters.

eg: A group of six fighters is protecting a ship from an
attacking ship which is firing two A batteries at medium
range. Normally, the attacker does 4d damage. However, before
damage is rolled, the fighters get their defence, and roll
for 2 pts of defence, stopping two dice of damage, before
it's rolled (so the attacker only rolls 2d for the attack).

Fighter types suffer/gain the same modifiers to their defence
as they would when attacking other fighters. Use this way
uses up a turn of endurance.

-- 
Be seeing you,					     ARM not Intel.
Sam.					       Acorn not Microsoft.