Re: Fighters

Before I say anything else, I wish to state that Brian Bilderback has
not
said a single thing in this sub-thread that I don't agree with
completely.
To wit:

1.  If you use FB ships only against other FB ships, the rules are fine.

2.  If you use custom ships against custom ships, the rules are still
fine.
There's nothing (including fighters) that you can use too much of
without
taking serious risks, and a balanced overall doctrine is generally what
will
work over the long haul.  (See my other post on "Fighters vs. non
fighters
doctrines.)  Yes, scatterguns are much better at stopping fighters than
PDS... so what?  If you allow custom designs to a degree that soap
bubble
carriers are coming into play, give their enemies scatterguns and see
how
many people still want to use soap bubble carriers.  If you are going to
delve into custom designs and not allow people to use the tools that
discourage such min-maxing with fighters, you're doing something wrong.

3.  Fixing the system so that FB ships somehow become optimized is a
UNILATERALLY bad idea.	FT is _not_ a game that claims to canonize any
ship
designs as what you MUST use, by its own declaration.  Shifting the
rules to
make the FB ships better detracts from that at the expense of what is,
at
its core, a very beautiful and solid game design.  (Loose translation
into
flame-ese:  the tools for dealing with fighters exist within the system
as-is.	Find them.  Use them.  Don't blame and seek to change the system
just because you either can't or won't do so.)

E