Re: Fighters/PDS

From: "Oerjan Ohlson" <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com>

>  >Plan 1
>  >Restrict the number of fighters that can attack any given ship.
>  >6 groups, 1 per arc, seems reasonable.
>  >
>  >Result (I think): The VF still gets creamed, but not by much. Not a
>  >fair fight, but much closer to it than currently.
>
> Er... well. Depends on your definition of "not much", I guess - if you
> restrict the battle to the same 6 fighter squadrons throughout the
fight
> it'll take "morale-less" standard fighters on average 4 turns to
destroy
> the VF for the loss of 11 fighters, whereas morale-using fighters take
6
> turns to destroy the VF for the loss of 16 fighters.

The key is 6 turns - using a floating map, the VFs can accelerate so
they're out of fighter move, under a fixed map, they're amongst the
juicy carriers.
OK, so morale is required. Check.

> (I haven't counted the VF's own fighters, since the enemy has
overwhelming
> fighter superiority anyway - the soap-bubble force will have at least
6
> intact enemy squadrons available to engage the VF once its fighters
have
> been destroyed.)

Fair enough. call it an extra 9 fighters lost. Total 16+16+9 fighters,
if I
read you right, 8 groups.

>  >Plan 2
>  >Each Hanger requires 12 hull to mount its launching system on

> You have to adjust it all the way down to 5 (PHC Draath

Right. Given this, how many squadrons equals 2 VFs? (ie make a design,
with say thrust 2 and FTL and minimum hull, no armament with max
fighters. About what, 15 fighter groups?
So a soap-bubble carrier will lose about 50% of its fighter complement,
and get within weapons range, or the VFs will escape.

This seems almost right. It's not that I think the matchup should be a
50/50
thing, I just don't want a massacre with no significant loss.

>  >Plan 3
>  >Each PDS on a ship must fire at a different target. BUT any PDS that
>  >misses ( ie doesn't cause a casualty) can fire at a fighter group
that
>  >hasn't been fired at yet.
>
> I see three immediate problems with this:
>
> * This is very similar to how old-style (pre-3rdR) Starfire advanced
point
> defences worked. Having to continously re-assign new targets to PDSs
slows
> the game down by a factor lots.

Good point, I'd like to see it tried before I agree though.

> * "a different target" includes missiles as well as fighters. Are you
> really sure that you never want more than one PDS to shoot at any
specific
> missile salvo..?

OK, missiles anything goes.

> * The formulation means that ADFC suddenly has its value increased by
a
> couple orders of magnitude or so, since that's the only way your idea
> allows multiple shots against a single target. This makes the FB ships
look
> even more under-PDSed than they are now, given their general lack of
ADFC.

A criticism that rather torpedeoes the whole thing. Blast. One neat
theory
slain by an ugly fact.