RE: [FTFB] "Needle" fighters?

(well, if you're going to break a vow, break it good and hard ...)

On Fri, 8 Jan 1999, Robertson, Brendan wrote:
> I wouldn't give them the attack fighter benefits as well as needle
> beams.

absolutely.

> How about an entirely new type of fighter, instead of rehashing old
> ones?

or my favourite idea, in two strengths:

weak - allow all ship-attacking fighters to do needle attacks. the whole
squadron (6 fighters) gives up its attack. instead:

- nominate primary and secondary target systems
- roll a die. if you score under the current strength of the squadron:
-- roll a beam die:
--- 2 pts - primary and secondary targets destroyed
--- 1 pts - primary target destroyed
--- 0 pts - failure!

count turkeys as one fighter less, ie a 5-strong turkey group needs to
roll under 3.

you might want to ignore the target's shields - the fighters fly in
*real*
close (think death stars here). you might want to disallow pds/ads fire
(too close), but say the squadron takes one die of damage from crashing 
(no bonus for being heavy - ramming a warship is terminal). these are
all
solid Space Opera options.

strong - replace anti-ship attacks with needle attacks; thus fighters
are
no longer able to actually sink a ship, just batter its systems. i never
liked the idea that my lumbering city-sized battleships were so
vulnerable
to those little swarming pests ...

> Needle fighters attack ships using the needle beam rules & attack
> fighters using the needle beams as their antifighter weapon (5-6 kills
1
> fighter, no rerolls).  Cost it at 30 points/squadron (5 per ship).
> Every fighter in the squadron must target the same system & each
fighter
> rolls needle beam vs that system.   Having only the one mode of fire
> shouldn't unbalance play, as needle beam damage can be repaired
(unlike
> needle missiles).

iirc, needle beam damage cannot be repaired (by DCPs, at any rate). only
threshold-check damage can be.

> Hmmm... I quite like this idea.

definitely some promies in here somewhere.

Tom