RE: excrutiatingly detailed fighter/missile interaction sequence

G'day,

> Something that raised a lot of 
> questions was the exact sequencing of 
> fighter and missile attacks...
>
> What we came up with was:
> 
> When missiles attack, defences are:
> 
> (1) ADFC-linked PDSes
> (2) non-screening fighters within range
> (3) PDSes on target ship
> (4) fighters screening target ship

Actually we interpreted the FB1 sequence to run like this when a missile
attacks (it seems pretty clear, at least to us):
1) Allocate any missile attacks and fighter interceptions
2) Screening and intercepting fighters attack the missiles (order not
important)
3) All PDS from target ships and covering ADFC ships allocated and then
resolved (order not important as once allocated they can't be used
elsewhere
anyway whether they were actually need to bring down the missile or
not...
at least that's the way we play it).
4) Any surviving missiles attack

> Shouldn't interceptors be more effective against missiles,
> attackers less effective, and so on? Or is this a matter of "manoeuvre
> in close and fire with basic weapons"?

While it doesn't say so in FB1 we do apply the "interceptors add 1 to
their
roll...attack fighters must roll a 6" etc to attacking missiles not just
dogfights. Its worked just fine for us, so if you want to play it that
way
it doesn't seem to mess anything up. 
 
> We assumed that screening fighters can act normally without breaking
> from their close patrol of the ship they're screening, but still can't
> engage in combat twice in a turn.

When you say act normally, do you mean dogfight/intercept missiles
coming
into attack the ship they are escorting? If yes then I'd agree. However,
we
do say that if they use their secondary move to get into a
dogfight/missile
intercept then they've broken away from the ship they were screening (as
they've moved more than 3" from the ship they are escorting) and can't
just
move with it next turn.
 
> Fighters attacking other fighters at long range attack before 
> dogfights start. (Or is this purely an initiative thing, 
> based on which fighter group is activated first?)

I'm sorry I don't quite understand what you mean here? For fighters to
attack fighters they have to dogfight (its just the name given to any
fighter vs fighter action) - you allocate who is fighting who and where
based on initiative, but there are no "long range attacks" per se.

>Oh, and a slight contradiction.
>
>FT p16 says...
>
>FB2 p5 says...

I know you were only using human stuff, but even then I'd say FB2
overrules
FT regardless.

Cheers