Re: [GZG] Full Thrust: Cross Dimensions

>From: Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se>
>>Eric Foley wrote:

(more snippage and slight editing to reorder things for response)

>>Now higher-quality fighters can blur the line between the two waves
[...] 

>Oh, I fully agree that the swing-role types greatly reduce the risk of 
>bringing the wrong fighter mix. I just don't think that they're any
more 
>evil than a *correctly-guessed* mix of single-role fighters, due to
three 
>compensating drawbacks:
>
>1) High cost.
>2) Rearming time.
>3) Rearming attrition.

Quoting this part in summary to set up for later...

>(Sure, such a mixed fighter force or pure interceptor screen is more
risky 
>to buy than the belt-and-braces swing-role ones, but no more so than it

>used to be under the FB rules... in fact, if the option to take
swing-role 
>fighters makes *you* more inclined to bring fighters to the battle at
all, 
>then *your opponent* also runs less of a risk of wasting points if he 
>brings single-task interceptors! Isn't the pre-battle guessing game
fun? <g>)

Well, theoretically, yes, but this got my opposition burned more often
than not back in the day.  Even when I did use fighters, I was never
playing the Sopi Cleansing Fleets that are getting way too fun to pun
about with their Standard Utility Drone (SUD) fighters and Purification
missiles launched from the base stars to sponge away unclean infidels
from their dirty homeworlds, and when I did use them, they were on
relatively balanced battlecarriers that were designed to have several
different ways to win on a fixed table, as the Masters of a Hierarchy
with multiple Slave fleets with more ship-to-ship capability.  The
Masters _liked_ having fighter superiority, but even if you guessed
right, and were able to take the fighters away from the Masters they'd
still frequently out-fight you the hard way, and if you guessed wrong
and brought interceptors against the Slaves you got embarrassed.  Ditto
guessing Slaves and getting the Masters.

The Masters wouldn't want their Slaves hearing about disastrous battles
where they brought interceptors to a battleship party and got housed, so
they would tend to swing role their fighters to be ready for anything. 
Conversely, if you tried to guess and guessed wrong, the Hierarchy would
enslave or borg entire star systems.  So ultimately I still think it
would be smarter for either side not to guess -- unless I had firm intel
that I was up against fighters, I'd never bring single-role interceptors
to a table, ever.

>Oh, agreed. But this is, at least IMO, something quite different from
your 
>initial response of "I don't know why I'd ever use any other sort of 
>fighter" which very much implied that you considered them the nuke of a

>"rock-paper-scissors-NUKE" game <g>

Well, I _did_ say "if I had the budget" right before that. ;)  In real
games, I would possibly give some thought to a slightly more expendible
superiority fighter like Int/Atk (only 33 points) which would be armed
based on the results of early scans, with the hammer wave of Int/TBs
held in reserve until needed one way or the other.  If I got
out-fightered with that, the only way they'll beat that is if they're
bringing so many interceptors that I don't care very much what's behind
them because it'll probably get killed by PDS anyway, or if I'm running
into the Sopi, which will probably also have so many fighters destroyed
that the remainder won't have enough shipkilling punch left to get by
the PDS either with any great efficiency.  Meanwhile, pure battleships
would have a pretty gross number of attack fighters and torpedo bombers
to deal with right off the bad together with supporting plasma bolts
from the same force... I'm okay with that.  :)

Stilt Man/E

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