Re: FT-Fighters and launch bays

Ryan M Gill wrote:

> At 7:51 AM +0100 6/5/01, Bif Smith wrote:
> >I was thinking of my post about deployed SMR pods, and I came up with
this
> >idea for fighters. The fighter bays can be considered as the launch
bays
> >(after all, a ship can launch all it`s fighters at once), we could
have the
> >fighters carried as cargo in cargo bays, with the fighter bays use
for just
> >[snip]
> >Any comments?
>
> I like. This makes sense too. Fighter racks like on B5 are more like
> the launch them all at once kind of fighter bays. A more traditional
> carrier would have a number of bays that can could be used for
> recovery or launch. Though I suspect the recovery evolution would be
> more protracted.

The awkward problem is repairing fighters.  They cannot be repaired in
the cargo
bay, and moving a fighter from the cargo to flight deck requires an
empty
space.	The evolution goes like this: launch a fighter, move fighter
from cargo
to flight, move fighter from flight to cargo, recover launched fighter.

Balance is another issue.  The only way to reflect the disadvantage of
not
carrying all of the fighters in launch bays is to disallow launches
before the
game starts.  The launch evolution would then be: turn one, launch ready
fighters.  Turn two, move squadron of unready fighters to launch bay and
determine when they will launch (they cannot launch before turn three,
probably
will not launch until turn four, may not launch until turn five [is the
battle
still going?], no recovery until the second group is launched/struck
back to the
hold, which also takes a turn).

Hmm, surprising a carrier with many of its fighters in a non-ready
condition is
quite the coup.  That may be why noone carries fighters in that fashion.