Re: Figther Thought Questions

Jeff McConnell wrote:

 >I have also read the beta fighter rules (although I should reread
them)
 >and I cannot understand why such a complex system is required to fix
the
 >game imbalance problem.

Roger has already given you the (very) short version, and it is also 
discussed a bit in the "Background" and "Comments and observations" 
sections of the beta-test file; so I guess that leaves it to me to post
the 
long version :-/ I'm afraid it gets rather wordy, but the fighter
problem 
isn't a trivial one... if it had been trivial it wouldn't have taken
over 
ten years to figure out what really caused it, nor would the solution to
it 
seem so radical.

As for complexity, the beta-test rules are actually only about as
complex 
as the current FT fighter rules; although some areas do get a bit more 
complex (in particular both sides have to think more carefully about
their 
tactics than they do under the current rules), this is made up for by 
reducing the complexity and book-keeping in other areas. As Roger wrote
in 
his post
yesterday, the main reason why the beta-test rules file *seems* so
complex 
is that it repeats the main points several times... and of course the 
various notes and comments don't make the file any shorter either!

Another important reason for the size of the beta-test file however is
that 
the rules it is intended to replace are themselves quite extensive; they

take up about five pages of rather fine print (the Fleet Book font is 
particularly tiny) - and that's after you've taken out all the graphics,
redundant or superceded sections (*), and the bits the beta-test rules 
currently don't cover (**). Since these five or so pages are currently 
scattered in smaller portions all over the four books, you don't always 
realize just how long the current FT fighter rules really are though...

(*) eg. the "advanced fighter types" (heavy/interceptor/attack etc.), 
published both in MT and in FB2 with a few minor changes between the two

versions.

(**) The fighter rules that I'm aware of are missing from the beta-test 
rules are: Fighters landing on carriers (from FT2), Fighter Refuelling &

Reorganization (from FB2),  Aces&Turkeys, and Scrambling Fighters (both 
from MT); together these add another half-page or so. The first three of

these work fine as they are; fighter scrambling however needs to be
updated 
slightly from its MT version. (Has been updated actually, but it was
left 
out of the beta-test file since it is an optional rule which only rarely

comes into play.)

But I digress. Back to your question: why this change?

 >From the games I have played the major issue is how quickly a fighter
 >can engage its target and the lack of options the ship has prior to
the
 >figthers attacking.

I'm afraid that you walk into the same trap as so many others have done 
over the years: what you describe as "the major issues" are symptoms
rather 
than the root cause, and treating the symptoms won't cure the real
problem 
- particularly not since you only treat some of the symptoms and ignore
the 
rest.

Basically, the FT fighter balance problem is NOT simply that "fighters
are 
too powerful" - which is the half of the problem pretty much all
previous 
attempts to fix the fighter balance, including yours, have tried to
solve. 
The real problem is that the amount of extra point defences needed to go

from "fighters are too powerful" to "fighters are useless" isn't that
big - 
putting one or more ADFCs and 4-6 PDSs on every ship in your fleet
(unless 
of course your fleet only consists of a few very big ships, in which you

need more PDSs on each of them) is enough to allow you to handle all but

the very largest fighter forces (and makes small numbers of fighters 
completely useless); spending those points on scatterguns instead makes
the 
fighter problem go away completely. Not surprisingly there are quite a
few 
player-designed custom fleets which do put one or more ADFCs and 4-6
PDSs 
on every ship.

Of course such a PD-heavy fleet tends to be at a disadvantage against 
fleets with less PD weapons and heavier anti-ship armament, but the 
PD-heavy fleet nevertheless has a decent fighting chance in this
match-up 
whereas the PD-light fleet will get slaughtered by any serious fighter
force.

IOW, under the current FT rules fighters are almost invariably either
much 
too strong or much too *weak* - but unlike Goldilock and her stolen 
porridge, the chance of finding a situation where the fighters are "just

right" under the current FT rules is very slim even if both players 
cooperate to find it. If they don't cooperate but instead compete the 
chance of them hitting the balance point by accident is effectively nil,
so 
instead of paper-rock-scissors you something like get paper-chain 
saw-submachinegun... which isn't very fun if you're the paper :-(

This means that if you try to solve the fighter balance by making the 
fighters weaker and/or the existing anti-fighter weapons stronger -
which 
is what your suggestions do, and what virtually all of the other
proposed 
"fighter fixes" I've seen over the past ten years (including the fighter
changes in More Thrust and Fleet Book 1) have done too - the only thing 
that'll happen is that you need more fighters before you pass beyond the

point where the balance tips over (and you thereby also make small
numbers 
of fighters even more completely useless than they already are)... but
you 
don't make it any easier to *hit* the balance point. To continue the PRS

analogy you change the submachinegun for an assault rifle, and you might

change the chain saw into a woodcutter's axe, but you don't make the
paper 
any stronger.

Which is why the beta-test rules go the other way: instead of making the

existing PD weapons even more powerful, they allow *all* weapons to
shoot 
at fighters but give the fighters the means to avoid most of the effects
of 
this fire both by sacrificing combat endurance and by manoeuvring to
avoid 
the enemy's main fire arcs (forcing both sides to think about their
tactics
- the fighters in order to minimize their exposure to anti-ship fire,
the 
ships to maximize the fighters' exposure to same).

The basic idea behind this concept - and after almost two years of 
playtesting it still seems to work out this way in play - is that if you

don't *need* to stack up so heavily on PD weapons and ADFCs in order to 
have a fighting chance against massed fighters, you're not that likely
to 
*do* it either since it leaves you at a disadvantage against other types
of 
fleets. Of course a PD-light force may still be at a disadvantage
against 
massed fighters if your point defences are *too* light, but instead of 
being utterly fatal this disadvantage is now only about as big as the 
disadvantage PD-heavy fleets suffer against the PD-light one. 
Paper-rock-scissors restored.

So what about small numbers of fighters? Don't they get completely wiped

out when every weapon can shoot at them? No, they don't - unless of
course 
they attempt to charge the enemy fleet singlehandedly or something 
similarly daft. (Been there, done that :-/ ) It turns out that (as any 
Phalon player can attest) the choice between firing your main batteries
at 
enemy
*fighters* and firing them at the enemy *ships* is usually a rather 
difficult one to make; and if there's only a small number of enemy
fighters 
present, the anti-ship weapons are usually more effectively employed 
against the enemy ships (with some exceptions depending on the tactical 
situation, as discussed in my replies to Grant). The main batteries' 
anti-fighter capabilities only really come into play when there are lots
of 
enemy fighters but few or no enemy ship for them to shoot at.

(Of course, if you *do* send a few fighter groups unsupported into the 
middle of the enemy fleet they'll get wiped out very quickly - but keep
in 
mind that each fighter group is only about as powerful (and expensive)
as a 
frigate. If you sent a few frigates unsupported straight into the enemy 
fleet you wouldn't expect them to last very long either, would you? :-)
)

So, to return to Roger's "short version": we've tried most of the simple

options, and broken them within a week of testing. This one is more 
extensive than the simple options, but it has survived almost two years
of 
testing so far :-/

***
KHR wrote:

 >Complex phrasing is a notorious problem when writing rules, if you aim
 >to be reasonably comprehensive and idiot-proof (*). WRG Ancient period
 >rules (DBM and their ilk) are perhaps the best (worst?) example of
this
 >difficulty.

Best known, at least... there's a reason why the term "Barkerese" was 
coined, after all :-/

 >Examples, graphics, a plain explanation together with the legalese
etc.
 >would go a long way to help make this palatable in a published
version.

Very much so. Unfortunately ASCII graphics don't carry over well emails
:-(

The situation isn't exactly improved by the facts that I (who wrote most
of 
the FT beta-test fighter rules text) am not a native English-speaker,
and 
that I learned how to play the WRG 7th Edition Ancients rules through 
reading the rulebook at the age of 13 - which as put a rather deep
imprint 
on any rules I write... I've tried to get the native-speakers on the 
playtest list to translate the beta-test rules into English, but so far 
they've only made a few cosmetic changes :-(

***
Looking back at the archives, I realize that the acknowledgements in the

beta-test file need to be updated - although I first heard the
"anti-ship 
weapons can fire at fighters" from Jon T. when I visited the GZG
workshop 
(which must've been early May 2002), it was Randy Wolfmeyer who posted
the 
key "fighters can burn CEF on evasive manoeuvres" bit on this list less
than
a week later (and as far as I can see independently of my discussion
with 
Jon). If these beta-test rules make it into FT3, Randy should definitely
be 
mentioned in the credits!

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry