Re: [FT] Fighters (AGAIN) was: Operational game

On Thu, 30 Jan 2003 10:44:05 -0800 (PST) Brian Bilderback 
<greywanderer987@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I was cleaning out my car the other day and happened to come across a 
piece of scratch paper on which I'd jotted some ideas for increasing 
the effectiveness of anti-fighter defenses. [Snip...]

> First off, anti-fighter fire is divided into 3 types:

> 1. Point Defense (Defending against fighters that are directly 
attacking you)
> 2. Area Defense (Defending against any fighter group that enters a 
certain area around you)
> 3. Zone Defense (I'd like to come up with a better name for this.  It 
covers the current ADFC ability to fire on fighter groups attacking 
other ships near you. <

I like this because it addresses a need in the game -- _offensive_ 
anti-fighter fire, i.e., the ability to attack fighters that are within 
range but are not attacking anyone -- yet! As the rules currently 
stand, fighters can waltz by 1 MU from a flakship and not be engaged 
simply because they're not attacking in that turn (shades of the 
infamous Harpoon rule which says that ships out of weapons can't be 
detected! <g>)

I'd accept a to-hit penalty on "area defence" fire to reflect fire 
control difficulties, but I think allowing ships to fire on fighters 
pre-emptively, as it were, is something needed, particularly in certain 
backgrounds.

Phil
----
"Sic Transit Gloria Barramundi"
   (Or, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!)
   -- not Douglas Adams, but me: Phil Atcliffe
			(Phillip.Atcliffe@uwe.ac.uk)