Re: FB designs & fighters

At 12:36 PM -0500 5/6/02, Allan Goodall wrote:

>The problem, to get back to the essential issue, is the costing of
fighters.
>As we have shown, FB1 ships are well balanced against each other, which
means
>they are well balanced against ships with a small number of fighters,
say in
>the less than 10 squadron range. The way FT is now, there is no option
against
>a fighter heavy player than to go fighter heavy, or _very_ PDS heavy,
in
>response. Since even PDS is under priced versus fighters, going heavily
in the
>PDS without buying fighters will mean that you will lose, just not as
badly as
>ships without heavy PDS or fighters. The ship points can be equal, but
that
>doesn't matter if you don't bring the same technology.
>
>In FT, the fighters are underpriced. Sort of. Actually, the price of
fighters
>works out rather well in the Fleet Books. A fighter's usefulness
increases in
>a non-linear fashion. Twenty squadrons are more effective
point-for-point than
>the cost of one squadron multiplied by 20.

But you have to carry that squadron of 20 around. The problem with 
this argument is that fighters have to be used en-masse in order to 
be useful. The way things are now, I find fighters tricky to use when 
I have an Ark-Royal and what I consider to be a realistic escort of a 
CA, 2 DDs and a FF or three.

That task group usually gets waxed pretty quick after the 6 fighters 
get destroyed. Their one option is then to turn tail and run after 
the 1 shot weapon of fighters gets fired and destroyed.

Making fighters more expensive will make it harder to use fighters in 
a reasonable amount.

>Depending on how this is fixed, it won't hurt fleets with large numbers
of
>fighters. Those who like fighters can still continue to have massive
fighter
>versus massive fighter games. What it should allow is for a player with
a
>balanced fleet, one that would work well against fighters (though maybe
have
>to work for it) and against battleships to hold its own.
>
>Right now the only way to be effective against a min-maxed fleet is to
come in
>with fighters. This gives those of us who don't particularly want to
fight
>with huge numbers of fighters to produce a fleet using a different
philosophy
>and still have a good game against min-maxed designs. A 5000 point
fleet
>should be effective against a 5000 point fleet. Right now, a 5000 point
fleet
>made up of soap bubble carriers is _far_ more effective than any other
kind of
>fleet. All that's being suggested is that a 5000 point fleet of ships
made up
>of balanced designs have at least a fighting chance against a 5000
point soap
>bubble carrier fleet. Right now it does not.

How well will 5000 pts of ADFC cruisers and DDs do?

>However it's handled, I suspect the heavily "pro-fighter" people are
going to
>scream and cry that the game was "wrecked" because fighters have been
made
>less potent.

Not less potent, but useless. Folks that try to make up balanced task 
groups are already limited by the excess cruft that the NAC carriers 
have. Why do I need Class 2's on a ship that shouldn't ever be within 
48" of enemy ships? I'd rather put that into added bays.

The game already dis-favors true carrier group actions. A carrier 
should be off on a second table somewhere with a portion of the game 
placed on the enemy Carrier or Space Action group trying to find that 
carrier.
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