RE: Re: Fighters

Brian Burger wrote:

>I'm talking FB-stock ships/fleets here, not custom oddness. I'll grant
>that you can balance fighters with custom ship designs with all the
costs
>as they are, but with the FB ships as they are fighters are too cheap.

And see, there's the catch.  If ships can be designed that can defend 
against fighters, then the problem isn't with the fighters, it's with
the FB 
designs.  If that's the case, then the rules should be left well enough 
alone.	If, on the other hand, there's no way to defend against fighters

within a well-designed and well-balanced fleet, then by all means, the 
fighters need to be readjusted.  I can't claim to know enough to say
which 
is the case, and I've heard compelling arguements for both, but my
concern 
is that we don't become too quick to correct the fighters when they may
not 
be the root problem.  Once fighter rules are changed to give FB1 designs
a 
fighting chance, and someone comes up with another way of optimizing 
designs, and it turns out FB1 designs can't hack THAT strategy either,
will 
we again readjust the rules to make them better against THAT strategy
too?  
That really sounds like making the game fit the designs instead of vice 
versa, and that sounds bad for the game.

>Lots of personal preference here, of course. Using historical naval
>examples, I'm much more likely to play 1915 High Seas Fleet vs Germans,
or
>Hunt the Bismark than Midway. Having your real ships just lie there and
be
>swarmed by fighters has always struck me - historically and in FT - as
an
>incredibly boring game.

Boring, but not historically unprecedented -- eg Prince of Wales.

>There are, basically, no tactics beyond the
>ship-design stage if you play FT this way.

Design should be part of tactics and strategy.	A game design that is 
tweaked to make bad designs work well isn't a good gaming system, it's
GW.  
Once the designs make room for fighter defense, then it becomes
interesting 
on-board again (Until someone comes up with another design/combo for
which 
you have to readjust.  Welcome to an arms race).

Real ships can't outrun
>fighters and get creamed by massive swarms when caught. Why bother
putting
>the figures on the table in the first place?

Which is why real ships employ all sorts of intermeshing defenses, and
why 
well-designed FLEETS are as important as well-designed SHIPS.

3B^2

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