Re: FB2... hmmmm...

> So what is your ruling on what fighters do after their escorts go
> away?

Has never really come up.  I can't think of a single instance in our
battles
where the fighters have outlasted the carriers on the field unless the
carriers went into full FTL retreat.

However, we've generally allowed fighters to land on any available
carrier
that has an empty fighter bay.

> You know, I think an equal cost FSE fleet with minor mods (in the PDS
> and ADFC category) could take your supership with 40 Fighter
squadrons.

Eh heh... eh heh... I think most any fleet with [wink wink nudge nudge]
"minor mods" in the PDS and ADFC category could probably take that
critter...

> How?	
 
> 1.  High speed.  High speed can negate fighters.  At 30 fighters just
> can't keep up, and in order to guess where the ship will be you have
> to spread them out so the point defenses are leveraged.

At 30, that's borderline out-of-control.  There's no way you're going to
both meaningfully keep your weapons trained on me and stay out of the
way
of my fighters.  I wouldn't bother guessing or spreading them... I'd
pile
them all up in a position where, if you _ever_ turn in to put your full
firepower on the main ship, you're going to get dogpiled.  I don't have
to
cover a full space of 30 -- I can just go their usual 24 and, since I'm
cutting an inside track nearer my ship than you are trying to stay out
of
their reach, I don't _need_ to go as far in linear distance to keep you
out.  Some of the fighters will probably be outright screening in
numbers
proportionate to your SM capacity.

Then I'll divide up my plasma into half-and-half hunks and put up a
continuous and _focused_ barrage to hit you at the longer ranges.

If you cut a path to the ship, the fighters kill you.  If you dance at
long
range, sooner or later I'll outguess you, and my plasma's going to hurt
a
lot more than your weapons will at that range.

> 2.  SMs.  You are thrust 1 so targetting is easy.  If you stop I 
> don't even have to worry about any small ships getting in the way.
> If you can put out 40 Fighters I'll be able to put out what?	80
> SMs?	:)

Not on an FSE fleet with only "minor mods", you won't.	An FSE fleet is
likely
to have no more than about ten.  If that.  I've got the fighters to burn
on
screens against that without seriously denting their comrades' ability
to
annihilate large portions of your force in a turn or two.

Now, then... let's say we take out the "FSE" part and assume we're
talking
about a bunch of fast missile guys.  First off, our house rules _do_
decree
that these battles are all part of a larger campaign, and a fleet that
was
armed with little more than eighty salvo _racks_ (which is about the
only way
you'll get that many missiles to speak of) is not going to be very
effective
at all at holding a battle line regardless of how well supplied they
think
they are.  A salvo _launcher_ with typical ammo is just as much mass as
a
fighter bay, so you're not going to have significantly more missiles
than I
will fighters.	In fact, if you're flying a fast force, you probably
won't
even have _as_ many missiles as I will fighters.  Which leaves me quite
happy to have the fighters hang back and screen the main ship while it
just
spins and keeps its plasma and beams coming back at you.  I'll
_probably_
last the three turns unless you're a lot luckier than me... and then
nothing's
stopping the fighters from cutting down your ships one after the next.

Either way, speed's only going to do so much good whether you pile on
the
missiles or not.  Sooner or later, if you put up the kind of speed it'll
take
to keep the fighters from zoning you off and taking you apart, you're
going
to suffer in resilience, firepower, or both; FSE ships are simply
outgunned
by this monster by a solid two-to-one margin, which means that unless
they
were given a really big table or a floating edged one, they'd get
pulverized
by this thing.

If they've got a floating edge, then it's a different story... this
thing
wasn't designed for a game with one.
-- 
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