RE: FT-Fighters and launch bays

--- stranger@cvn.net wrote:
...
> FT games played outside of any given background
> really do exist in a vacuum, no 
> pun intended.  I personally think teh argument over
> fighters (as well as 
> several other arguments I've seen) is settled in a
> large part by the univers 
> being played in.
> 
Yes, but even in the Tuffleyverse there's nothing
to stop the French player (for instance) from
creating jeep carriers or supercarriers that get
a LOT more fighters to the battle than you might
expect. I create my own custom SSD's for my 
FT Starfleet, so I can't expect the other players
not to do so. That's why some kind of agreement
(either a formal one, or an informal one) can
be useful.

For myself, My ADFC network tends to lose PDSs
over time if carriers aren't played very much,
and it tends to gain some over time when I get
crushed like a bug by fighter squadrons.

I frankly wonder if balance might be better if
ALL a ships weapons were permitted to fire at
fighters, even at a reduced rate. If for instance
even beam-4's were permitted 1 die at fighters,
kill on a 6, maybe the rock scissors paper effect
would be less severe. AND as an added bonus you
could use fighters to cover your attack or retreat.
As of now, since fighters are shot at with a
different set of weapons, the opponent can 
shoot at your fighters and you too all at the 
same time. For all I know this could produce some
horrendous game balance problem, but it seems
like a reasonable thing to do. After all in 
WWII, battleships used everything up to their
main guns to fire at fighters. The big guns
fired near the ocean to put up huge splashes
to try to knock torpedo bombers out of the air
before they could launch. Why couldn't a big
beam skewer a 6 ton fighter?

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