Re: Carrier design in FT

Charles Gray wrote:
> 
> Has anyone tried Nimitz style carrier designs in FT, (i.e. no weapons
> and lots of fighters?)  When I first started to play, they weren't
> workable, but now, with the new fighter endurance rules from the Fleet
> book, they look much more feasable.

I tried something like this for the PBeM game that Mark Kochte (Hi
Indy!)
ran a little while ago. I ran into some problems:

1)  Launch rates for carriers; you can pack a lot of fighters on a
dedicated
ship, but you still can't spit them out very fast.  (And, we're not
going to get into that huge discussion over 'what makes a carrier'
again,
okay?  (8-) )  You can change this for taste with house rules, but it's
a
limitation.

2)  Operational reality;  you have to be really careful to keep the
range 
open, or dedicated carriers tend to pop real easy.  (Much easier than 
something like the Nimitz would.  On the flip side, I was working on an
extremely small hull; you might have better results with something more
appropriate for a fleet carrier.)

3)  Fighters aren't just as powerful in FT relative to ships as they
would be in the real world.  They can do a lot of damage, but they don't
have that one shot kill capability (unless you go in for Torpedo
fighters,
or Attack fighters, or something like that.)  

Conclusion:  I think the concept is workable, but there are some
limitations
in FT that don't make it the powerful force it is in RL.

Some thoughts,
J.

-- 
   Jerry Han - jhan@idigital.net - http://www.idigital.net/jhan -
TBFTGOGGI
"And it's one more day up in the canyons, and it's one more night in
Hollywood,
	If you think that I could be forgiven... I wish you would."
		    Counting Crows - A Long December