RE: Soap bubbles?

Thanks for the recap, I must have missed your post a few days ago.

So if I understand you right then it is fighters in large numbers that
begin
to become a problem, sort of a loophole in the rules so to speak because
of
their cost vs. effectiveness in numbers?  Is it possible to keep the
numbers
in check by limiting how many groups can be on a ship at any one time? 
It
seems reasonable to me from a fluff/gaming standpoint, if you look at
today's Aircraft carriers, they are limited in the amount of craft they
can
support and carry, money being the biggest reason.  I suppose you
couldn't
limit the idea that a player may have only so many carriers but there
has to
be an inherent weakness in that style of play?	That leads me to the
soap
bubble thing...
Is it absolutely necessary to come up with a rule to limit this sort of
ship
building?  I am not sure if you guys are in the process of rewriting a
new
edition to the rules but I know locally, players who tend to use beardy
tactics like that find they have fewer and fewer people interested in
playing them.  Is it a popular tactic and is there strong opposition to
basically outright boycotting that type of craft?
You will have to excuse me if that last idea sounds a little optimistic
or
naive, I like to think that most gamers can enjoy and play within the
"spirit" of the rules sometimes.

Thanks 
Jason

-----Original Message-----
From: Randall L Joiner [mailto:rljoiner@mindspring.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 2:44 PM
To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: Soap bubbles?

Guess you missed my summation a few days ago...

While the representational attack may correct the problems, I feel that
it
would
also strip many of the positive and interesting tactical possibilities
that
fighters bring to the board.

The biggest problem (at least that everyone can agree on) involves the
non-linear combat effect that fighters have.  1-2 is almost meaningless,
where
10+ completely dominate.  Effectively, the combat power (measured in
points
in
FT) gives 18 for a fighter squad, but 10 groups of fighters does not
equal
180.
More on the effect of 180^2 (not really, but it is much larger than 180
points
of stuff).

Soap bubbles are a different problem set in thier own right, but rely
heavily on
the above and then adding thier own particular stink.  It's hoped that
any
change to fighters or thier rules would help curtail soap bubble
carriers
(okay,
I shouldn't talk for an entire group...  It is my, and I beleive most on
the
list's hope).  The main grief on soap bubbles are that they abuse the
design
system to carry the most fighters possible, thus compounding the above.
It's
also extremely frustrating to play against...  In effect very similar to
beating
one's head against a wall.  It only feels good when you stop.

Rand.

"Bradley, Jason (US - Minneapolis)" wrote:

> Being new to FT, and not having really seen the rules as of yet, may I
ask
> how fighters work in FT?
> The only game where fighters were an issue that I have played was BFG
and
> there seemed to be some similar issues to what you guys are talking
about,
> minus the soap bubble thing.	We fixed that by switching fighters from
> actual minis you moved around the table to a representative fighter
"attack"
> that was used much like any other weapon in the game with a range,
damage
> etc..
>
> Jason
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