Re: Fighters....Re: Full Thrust vs Starmada

> 
> The GZG Digest wrote on 4/28/2005 1:00 AM:
> 
> Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 15:52:59 -0400 (EDT)
> From: "Grant A. Ladue" <ladue@cse.Buffalo.EDU>
> >   
> Ignoring for the moment that TV and movies have fighters "up close and
> personal" with ships because it tends to be boring otherwise, I've
read
> sci-fi where fighter engagement ranges are far greater than that shown
> on TV. I think I've seen some anime where fighters launch strikes at
> ships from a hefty distance, but I'll let the anime experts comment on
> that. Then there's good old reality. Modern fighters can engage
surface
> ships from as far away as 60 km and further. I can easily imagine
"hard
> SF" suggesting similar engagement ranges.
> 

    I understand why televised shows work the way they do, but you can't
just
  ignore the way they do things if you want to to be able to simulate
them.  

> If you encode the PSB in the rules, then the rule makes no sense for
> universes where the PSB makes no sense. This isn't a problem when you
> write rules for a specific universe. However, FT prides itself on
being
> a generic game. If you encode PSB in the rules, you wreck FT's generic
> nature.
> 
    All very true.  My point is that you are *already* encoding a PSB
into the
  rules.  It's easily shown that fighters work very differently in
different
  settings.  The fighters appropriate to the Full Thrust setting, are
not
  appropriate in Star Wars.  Allowing unlimited numbers of fighters to
attack
  Babylon 5 is probably appropriate, but allowing the same number to
attack a
  White Star is clearly not.  You can't write the rules to cover all the
  different varieties at once.	Write the rule to work reasonably well
in the
  standard setting, and give suggestions to how they can be done
differently
  depending on what you want to achieve. 

> > Bottom line, if limiting the number of fighters that can attack each

> > size of ship (perhaps based on mass) makes for a better game, then 
> > the rule is far more important than the "reason" for it.
> 
> Does it make it a better game? What is this supposed to fix, anyway?
It
> makes lots of fighters less powerful. However, it does nothing to fix
> the PDS imbalance. In fact, by limiting the number of fighters
attacking
> a ship you lower the amount of PDS needed to make a ship invulnerable
to
> fighters.
> 
> Let's go back to Oerjan's original rock-paper-scissors comment, where
> fighter heavy fleets destroy anti-ship heavy fleets, PDS heavy fleets
> destroy fighter heavy fleets, and anti-ship heavy fleets destroy PDS
> heavy fleets. What this limitation does is makes it easier for PDS
heavy
> fleets to destroy fighter heavy fleets, and gives anti-ship heavy
fleets
> the capability of doing major damage against fighter-heavy fleets.
> 
> In other words, all viable fleets will be either anti-ship or PDS
heavy,
> with PDS heavy fleets looking more like anti-ship heavy fleets.
Fighters
> would not be viable.

   I disagree.	What it can do is make your decision more reasonable. 
If the
 number of pds you need to buy to make your ship invulnerable to
fighters is
 more reasonable, then you will not be nearly as crippled when facing a
non
 fighter using foe.  It becomes more of a tactics issue.  Do you stock
up on
 defenses, sacrificing firepower, or do you only have moderate defenses
with
 more firepower against ships?	Please note, part of all of these
discussions
 is going to be the limiting of fighter's power.  By doing that, you
also 
 limit or eliminate the "all-fighter" fleet, which in essence takes away
a part
 of the rock-paper-scissors thing.  None of the rules presented so far
prevent
 you from buying enough pds to make you fighter invulnerable. 
Criticizing this
 idea on that premise seems spurious to me.
   In any case, I wouldn't try to argue for this idea alone.  It
certainly can
 be combined with the "all weapons fire on fighters" idea, and in fact I
fully
 support that.

   grant