Fighters.... the furball continues...

Roger (I think) spoke on fighter morale.

Sure your rocket-jocks think they'll live forever. However, somewhere
around mid-battle, with half their squadron in flames, they'll figure
out the opposite. History is full of cases where fighters broke from
combat before taking 100% loses, sometimes even while loaded with
effectual ordinance. (Now there are lots of the opposite cases, but
we're only trying to suggest morale has a place). Humans aren't stupid.
The stupid ones don't come back and weren't worth much.

SG2 handles this idea by a mission motivation. That is to say, mission
motivation affects the things which would cause morale triggers and
their severity. They also have a variable last-stand number. I think FT
can gainfully employ a similar concept where fighter morale and 'strike
the colours' ship morale (and the occaisionally discussed larger scale
fleet level morale) could be affected by mission motivation.

I haven't got concrete suggestions on how to factor this in, but their
ought to be a simple mechanic. Low motivation troops (not necessarily
afraid, though that is one option - so is poorly trained and so is aware
that the resource is far more important than the target) would break
easily in the face of casualties. Regular motivation would sometimes
break. High motivation would press on in the face of apparently
suicidial odds. ("Never tell me the Odds!" - Han Solo).

I liked Noams suggestions of fighter feints. The starburst was "a bit
much" or at least the image from the movie made me cringe. I'm not so
sure about LRFC - I'm thinking normal FC must be accurate at LR or it
would never hit in the first place! As for PDS modes - one could argue
the normal results against fighters and ships are a reflection of the
automatic changing of modes to the most effective counter for that
threat type. Maybe the normal results cover this. Otherwise, PDS should
SURELY be more expensive.

Fighters are tough opponents. I think either a large area effect
anti-matter or plasma mine or a bunch of small stealthed captor mines
with PDS capabilities would make an excellent anti-fighter defence or
ambush method. Good for defending bases, good for laying in the face of
incoming fighter strikes, good for leading them into an ambush.

TTYL
Tom