Re: FT: Carriers & Fighter Capacity

On Thu, 2002-05-02 at 13:40, Brian Bilderback wrote:
> >From: Flak Magnet <flakmagnet@tabletop-battlezone.com>
> 
> >   Bow and Aft arcs (aft actually being a non-firing arc, really)
could
> >have a lower number of possible attacking fighter, not so much due to
an
> >assumption that ships will generally be linear in shape, but because
the
> >forward motion of the ship along the fore-aft axis would limit the
> >effective attack vectors.  If it wouldn't make it "too complicated",
the
> >bow should have even fewer than the stern, because of the assumption
> >that fighters can't fire through an aft arc just like the big ships,
and
> >to maneuver to keep getting a good head-on attack vector you have to
> >turn away from the target sometime...
> 
> Whoops, just realized one problem with that line of reasoning:  In
vector, 
> the axis of the bow and aft arcs is not necessarily parallel or equal
to the 
> line of movement.....

I had considered that, but if a ship you're "shadowing"  in the bow arc
pulls a high-thrust maneuver you're going to have to bring your
thrusters in line to compensate, swinging your fighter around in the
process... It's always harder to "follow from the front".

Keep in mind that a fighter doesn't want to obtain a static relative
position to an enemy ship, because then it's toast.  The fighter has to
dart and weave, and that means accellerating and decellerating relative
to the target ship.  Something that's harder to accomplish when you're
not following or to the side.
 
> 3B^2
> 
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-- 

--Flak Magnet
Hive Fleet Jaegernaught