Re: Re: Fighters

Roger Burton West wrote:

>Not necessarily.
>
>If the current rules said "each PDS destroys d6 fighter groups every
>turn, no range limit", then it would be possible to design ships that
>fared better against fighters than the FB1 designs. Does it follow that
>the designs ought to be changed, rather than the rules? How about "each
>PDS destroys every fighter on the board"?

That's just being silly, and really doesn't make a point.  For the sake
of 
the arguement, I'll go ahead and imagine, "What if?"  What if you made
PDS 
ultra-powerful to the point that the minute a fighter entered the board,

it's life was endangered and it had no chance of surviving long enough
to do 
any significant damage?  Then yes, the FB1 designs would still be bad, 
because they waste space on fighters at all.  Fighters themselves would
not 
be possible to make effective unless you ran vs. an opponent with NO PDS

whatsoever, which is another design mistake.

Howevever, I believe your point was that in that given case, the RULES
would 
be broken , not the designs, because their would be no way to make
fighters 
useful at all.	And I would agree that in that case, it WOULD be the
rules 
that needed fixing.  But that's not the issue here.  If, as Mr. Foley
has 
argued, it IS possible to design ships/fleets that defend sufficiently 
against fighters, and still require good ship-to-ship tactics, then
fighters 
AREN'T the problem -- there's a difference between a problem that can be

fixed by designs alone and one that can't.  If, on the other hand, as
Mr. 
Burger argues, fighters are so powerful as to become the only concern in

designs, then yes, I would concede that they are too powerful, and do
need 
adjusting.  The best way to do that, well, there are plenty of
suggestions 
floating around.

>There is nothing holy about the current rule system. The only way any
>design can be evaluated as "good" or "bad" is within the context of
>rules. You and Eric are both saying "FB1 designs are bad, other designs
>are better" as if the current rules were the way things "really
worked".
>They aren't.

They aren't what?  The way things really work in space combat?	Probably

not, but how would we know?  Or do you mean by "Really Worked" that the 
rules don't work even within the confines of the game?	If that's the
case, 
then my question would be, "why don't they work?"  Is it because the
rules 
don't allow for any countermeasure that can effectively deal with the 
threat?  Eric among others has argued that there are.  You yourself say,

"The only way any design can be evaluated as "good" or "bad" is within
the 
context of [the] rules."  That's actually what I've been arguing all
along.	
If the rules work, and the designs don't.....

>Don't forget the last page of FB1: if you don't like whatever changes
>get made, don't use them!

I keep hearing this used as an argument against my concerns about
changing 
fighter rules.	And I keep thinking, "this goes both ways.  If you don't

like the way fighters work in the rules now, don't use them that way!"	
employ whatever suggestion has been made so far about how to limit
fighters, 
but employ them as a House Rule.

This isn't Games Workshop with the latest
>"official" rules being the only thing anyone ever plays.

This is true, but the more the rules are changed to suit the designs of
a 
certain setting, the less generic and the more GW-like they become.  I'm

sure if you wanted you could take the GW game mechanics, and ignore
enough 
rules/add enough house rules to make it a more useful system for your
own 
purposes.  This wouldn't make the GW rules themselves any more
"generic."  
What I'm hearing is "The FB1 designs don'tr work against fighters.  
Therefore fighters are too powerful."  The few arguments I've heard for 
changing fighters that I actually respect are the ones, like the other
Brian 
B's, that say, "Actually, fighters are just altogether too powerful in 
general."  That has more significance to me, I'm just waiting to hear
the 
arguements from all sides regarding that.

3B^2

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