Re: Fighter Mounts

Jared spake thusly upon matters weighty: 

> When the Parasite Racks (external mounts) were first bought up, in
relation
> to B5, there was some discussion about them.	Basically this is my
read of
> how they would work.
> 
> 1) External mounts cannot carry specialized reload fighters (I would
> include Attack and torpedo in here - bombers if you use 'em.)

Reasonable.
 
> 2) Anytime a ship is hit by enemy weapons fire, externally mounted
fighters
> still attached must make thereshold checks at the current threshould
level.
> When the carrying ship makes a threshold roll it also tests the
external
> fighters/racks - so yes, they can be forced to take 2 rolls at the
same
> threshold level in the same turn. (but they SHOULD be fragile.)

Also good. Trade off of readiness for vulnerability.
 
> 3) Ships which know they are heading into combat may launch all their
> externally mounted fighters at once (this is the major advantage of
the
> racks.) If a ship is 'surprised' (scenario dependant I suppose)  Then
you
> have a race-to-scramble situation. I propose no launches on the first
turn
> of surprise (fall out of 'jump' in the middle of a fight?). At the end
of
> each turn, including the first, roll one die for each individual
squadron
> and keep a running total per squadron. When the total equals 6 or more
the
> squadron may launch on the following turn.  The launch of any number
of
> externally mounted fighters in one turn is considered a single
> Fighter-Launch operation for control purposes.
> A Carrier with 3 external squadrons, 3 internal squadrons, and 1
FlightCon
> (or just vanilla 50%+ style carrier) could launch all 3 external
squadrons,
> in addition to 1 internal squadron.

If one was using some form of crew quality, I'd think better 
squadrons could launch faster, maybe rolling a bigger die or having 
to reach a lower total before launch. 
 
> 4) External racks MAY NOT be used to recover fighters during combat.
If a
> ship has standard internal fighter bays, it may recover and refuel any
> fighter squadrons. <I'm thinking that only the torpedo bays have
torpedo
> reloads, but other than that, any bay may refuel/rearm any squadron>. 
So
> during combat, a carrier may have a number of squadrons
refueled/rearmed
> equal to the number of internal bays.

It is even possible to conceive of the outboard pylons refueling and 
rearming standard fighters. But not specialized craft. 
 
> Considering the propensity for FT fighters to get wasted, it seems
that
> having the benefit of the rapid launch may make them worthwhile.  When
it
> comes time for the Fighters to return to the carrier for servicing,
enough
> will be dead that maybe the reduced number of internal bays will not
be
> significant.

As pointed out, the internal bays would be required to extricate 
wounded crew, to extract someone from a fighter that was not 
functioning normally, etc.  
 
> BTW - In my opinion it would be very rare to see fleet operations
using
> only external mount fighters with no internal bays in the fleet -
stupid
> idea IMO, except for special scenarios.  Smaller ships could carry
> external-only fighters to supplement the abilities of the Main
carrier, but
> would be much weaker operating alone.

Not many fighter jocks would fly with no hope of repair or 
recovery.... (desparation or special attack scenarios only I'd 
guess).  I'm assuming that rescue/repair ops on fighters performed in 
vaccum due to a lack of internal bay space (due to capacity or due to 
combat damage) would be prohibitively slow and distinctly not within 
the framework of combat time.  

A very nice piece in total. 

Tom.  
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