Re: Fighters....

> "Can't be done." accompanied with much hand-waving
> doesn't erase the
> fact that the TMP thread that started this fighter
> discussion (again,
> *sigh*) includes opinions that Starmada appears to
> have accomplished a
> favorable approach to fighters than the extant FT
> rules.  

objection your honor :)
I admit I awkwadly raised the subject of fighters out
of the grave since someone said i should be clean in
FT3, I just wanted to know what the pb was and not
compare FT with starmada : I never played starmada and
never encountered this fighter pb since in my group
we're playing with logically build forces and
litterally eradicate (physically if needed :) every
munchkin attempt ! (ie we play by the spirit not by
the rule)

Anyway if changes are to be done here is my humble
opinion based on my humble experience.
Fighters could be a bit more "specialised". 
You'll have bombers and torpedo bombers which are big
ships killers but very vulnerable to enemy fighters
(ie bomber hunters). If you want to build up a biiiig
bomber force you should pay for some escorts that are 
useless against bigs ships but necessary to keep your
bombers alive against enemy fighters. The point is we
may reach a degree where space superiority should be
acheived before launching your bombers "safely". That
doesn't solve at all the pb of swarming bombers but a
few squadrons of defending fighters should delay
enough the attack to allow ship to enter beam rang and
attack the carriers. This is tactic now, not
paper-scissor :)
In game terms make real fighters and interceptors
effectve against enemy fighters/bombers and lot less
effective against capital ships, the opposite for
bomber and forget the multirole-good-at-everything
fighter-bomber.
A defensive squadrons should shoot and distribute its
hits at will among the attacking bombers. Escorting
fighters beeing allowed to shoot simultaneouly the
enemy only during escort, not during the attack of the
bomber on the big ship. (it's getting complex may be
...)

Anyway if you're outnumbered and bombers still comes
to your ships like flies to a pot of honey how can you
survive ? Here comes the considerations :
* if you see entire waves of bombers, the flak could
be more effective with the increasing number of enemy
... when does the flak/DCA/PDS becomes more efficient,
I don't have the optimal figures to propose ! But it
would allow small bomber groups to be still usefull
and bigger groups to be more usefull but at a higher
cost in losses terms so such attack should be meant
tactically.
In game term a simple ratio of group vs PDS could give
the result ( up to 2 to 1 , have the same hit numbers
for PDS, above increase this capacity via hits more
often of more reroll or both, it's just math and stats
afterwards)
* your bombers can then take the choice to attack at
long range, less effective but less risky in terms of
losses, a bit like in WWII tactics ...

I give no exemple explicite limit numbers nor dicing
to reached these results since I don't know the
expectation of the test group, dicing can always be
forged to match your mathematical expectations, well
at least I can try to make it myself (see my own FT
pages :D )

/morp



	
		
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