Fighters in Full Thrust

Having read mailing list comments on carriers and 
fighters I have adopted the following rules.

I have dispensed with fighters only available to capital 
ships. With the new fleet book it's harder to define a 
capital ship anyway.
So every ship that I design now has to have separate 
Lunching and Landing bays for fighters.
This also helps decide how many fighter groups can dock 
or launch per turn.

E.g a ship with 3 Launch bays and 3 Landing bays can 
launch or land all groups in one turn.

Having to buy and make space for the extra hanger bays 
pretty much means players build purpose built carriers.
They don't want to waste that kind of space on a 
battleship.
The system also allows players to have faster launch 
methods and sacrifice docking times.

E.g 6 launch bays but only 2 landing bays. The ability to 
simultaneously launch 6 fighter groups is off set by only 
being able to dock 2 per turn.

I find these rules help players mimick popular sci fi.
After a massive search of Babylon 5 sites on the web it's 
clear that the station can launch practicaly all of its 
fighters but docking takes a long time.
The fighters fly out of the cobra bays but dock through 
the main front entrance.

Also for completeness if a ship only has a launch bay 
then it can only dock 1 fighter per round!
This covers again the ship in B5 with external 
mounted fighters.

New house rule (for campaign settings)

Because of the new core systems. Ships are allowed to 
jettison cargo. (interface craft, ground troops etc).
When the reactor of a ship is in danger of blowing the 
player can stop the cargo going with it!

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jeremy.claridge@kcl.ac.uk