Re: [FT] Wave Guns, Fighter Racks, Mass/Thrust, & Maneuver Oh My !

John L. wrote:
>      Items 2 and 3 can be handled under the rules by buying 
> a tug and allowing the parasite fighters to come and go 
> as necessary.   The one big limiting factor on the parasite
> fighters is that no special types with expendable ordinance
> could be carried/rearmed.  (I.E. no attack or torp fighters)

Ah, I had forgtten abut tugs. If you are tug to a single fighter group,
do you need a tug capacity of 9 or 6?
Are attack fighters armaments considered expendable?

>      Item 4 will lose the ability of the 'K' to be an interesting
> and dangerous enemy.	 If you want a ship with Kra'Vak maneuvering
> ability, play a Kra'Vak.   The logical extension of this line
> of thought is that everybody can have anything they want.   Where
> is the challenge in that?

Hm. How interesting or dangerous the KV will be depends alot on what
happens to them in FB2. I like the freedom built in to FT to have
ships/forces of my own choosing. I have no particular deisre to play the
KV as I know them - I don't care for railguns or those shotgun things. I
believe that with reasonable justification and work at play balance, you
could easly find a way to add more design flexibility in human ships. A
human ship with beams and torps and 'KV maneuverability' will likely
fight differently from a KV with railguns and KV armor. Is that variety
bad? I think there can be quite a bit of challenge in "everybody can
have anything they want" as long as the play is balanced. Look at the
bavarians - they've set up their history as capturing a KV ship. We'll
probably see a few home grown bavarian designs with Railguns and/or KV
armor as well as needles out the wazoo. That sounds pretty challenging
to me ('Courese everyone knows the Bavarians don't really exist fnord).
I wouldn't mind going after a time-travelling 27'th century frigate with
360 degree waveguns and class 3 shields as long as I could take a
possibly balanced force ( maybe a DN or three) against it.

Long-winded eh?

Noam

Noam R. Izenberg		noam.izenberg@jhuapl.edu