Re: Another tack on fighters

Brian Bilderback wrote:
[...]
> then the
> >FB1 ships would not have evolved. Taking from
> >the ex cathedra presentation of the FB, we then
> >work backwards and say "how could this have
> >come to be? why do ships only have 2-3 PDS?
> >why isn't everyone using carriers galore? or
> >SMR ships?" Obviously one approach is to toss
> >out FB1 designs, but that isn't realistic for most
> >people/situations. So the attempt is to try to
> >find a band-aid for the problem.
> 
> OK, let me see if I have this straight, because I don't want to
misinterpret
> or misqoute Tom.  I read this as saying:
> 
> Since fighters in large numbers overpower FB1 designs, and FB1 designs
are
> supposed to be (within the Tuffleyverse) well-designed, yet do not
account
> for defense against large numbers of fighters, then the obvious
conclusion
> is that there must be some reason why large fightewr attacks don't
occur in
> that setting.

If I may make one little point (not having my books here with me ;-),
I believe J Tuffley did state that the FB1 designs were NOT optimal.
I'm pretty sure he did say that in the FB1 book (alas, as I mentioned,
I don't have my books here to double-check). I believe he alluded to
the idea (or may have actually said it at some point, not sure) that
the designs as presented were representative of general use campaign-
type ships, not min-maxed most efficient designs for extended campaign
play (now I may have read this last bit into what he was saying, so it
could all be moot, anyway ;-)

This was just to address the interpretation that "FB1 designs
are supposed t obe ... well-designed", not most of the rest of
the post, or thread.  ;-)   In one-off games against other FB1
designs in the book, the ships work pretty okay. As soon as you
throw in something min-maxed or made way more efficient, the FB1
designs pale.