Re: FT-Fighters and launch bays

Sometimes, my group tries different strategies in the
extreme, just for giggles.  

I remember one 5000pt battle where I took a bunch of
'hollow carriers' (more or less a ship with FTL drive
and a ton of fighter bays).  I don't remember the
exact number of fighters, but it was somewhere around
200 groups.  

In my experience, 200 fighter groups can take out just
about anything.  This was one of those Saturdays when
we were just playing around, nothing serious, so it
was a good time to experiment.

My fighters wiped the board of all enemies with little
trouble.  The only problem is....it took FOREVER!!! 
The logistics of keeping track of combat endurance and
casualties for 200 fighter groups was almost
unplayable.

In the end we all agreed that it was a fun experiment,
interesting to see what happens, but if anyone ever
thinks of actually playing that many fighters again,
they should be soundly beaten with a large stick
before fighters can be launched.

Question one: has anyone else had this experience?

Question two: during current carrier operations,
fighters that are launched to fight are almost always
in line waiting to be launched aren't they?  I was a
Marine, so most of my carrier experience was either
with our amphib carriers, or just short stays on our
big boys, mostly doing helo ops.  I am not an expert
by any means on this subject, so any of you Navy boys
might know this?  The time it takes to bring a fighter
up from below and into launch status would be too long
to matter in most battles wouldn't it?	Don't we
usually have the first group of fighters launch and
have a second group on standby already prepared and
waiting on the flight deck? 

I think the idea of unpacking and preparing a fighter
for launch during combat wouldn't be feasible.	Of
course, that would depend on how long a combat turn is
in FT.....another subject I'm not sure about.

--- David Griffin <carbon_dragon@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> --- Roger Books <books@mail.state.fl.us> wrote:
> ...
> > That's what we do.	Crated fighters take up 1 mass
> > each and
> > you can prep as many as you want between battles.
> > 
> > Of course we tend to have tugs towing 0 thrust
> > hangers which 
> > are left as defenses in recently captured systems.
> > 
> > Roger
> 
> We've talked a lot about campaigns, but haven't
> actually played one yet (or I haven't anyway),
> but we've had FTL capable ships which were
> effectively floating hangers. They tend to put
> so many fighters on the table that they 
> unbalanced the game. The game I remember was
> getting hit with 4 of these, each with 5 fighter
> groups and an additional 2 groups from somewhere
> as part of a multi player fleet resulting in
> getting hit with 22 fighter squadrons at once.
> It's hard to have a reasonable fighter defense
> for that without lots of carriers of your own
> and you don't usually know it's going to be a 
> carrier battle till it happens.
> 
> That's why I prefer more "normal" carriers whatever
> that means.
> 
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=====
Thank You,

Shawn M Mininger

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