Re: [GZG] Hugh's New Fighter/Point Defence rules

-----Original Message-----
>From: Noam Izenberg <noam.izenberg@jhuapl.edu>

>I've begun looking into Hugh's new fighter/antifighter rules.
>
>A couple quick thoughts, because I've still missed most of the  
>conversation.
>My first reaction is I think they (the new roles) weaken Heavy  
>missiles and fighters significantly (It doesn't take a great deal of  
>fleet modification/sacrifice to make a task force effectively HM and  
>fighter proof.) and leave salvo missiles almost intact, unless you're	
>going to convert PDS systems in to %ship mass systems. I think any  
>system that grants virtual invulnerability after a certain, relatively 

>low threshold is too flawed. An average PD of 11 is granted with an  
>array of 14 PDS - not too much to ask from a DN, or even a BC going up 

>against a known Fighter heavy fleet.

Yeah, this has been a concern of mine as well.	That multiple fighters
can get back into it with suppressive assistance is sort of a plus, but
I think the bar is a bit too low, and virtual invulnerability at any
level is not desirable.

>I was very interested in Eric's playtest, but unless he's made a  
>compensatory (and significant) recalculation of cost, he's misplayed  
>torp fighters. FT 2.5 Torp fighters are one shot. They can't make two	
>attacks, much less three, so the Phalons in the playtest should have  
>clashed nearly full strength with the Kasparovs. The outcome would  
>have been quite different.

Well, if the fighters were not allowed to reload by returning to their
carriers, they likely would've focused on destroying one particular Voth
on their first pass rather than splitting between two.	As it is, we
have always allowed torpedo bombers in my games to reload upon return to
the carriers.  Point defense is usually strong enough in my games that
you usually don't have very many of them left to make a second sortie,
and eventually it became standard procedure to start covering them with
heavy missile or plasma barrages, which in turn meant you were waiting
until you were in missile or plasma range before the fighters went in at
all, and thus the main battle would be joined before any second sorties
took place.

>From my experience, torpedo bombers would be _underpowered_ for their
cost if they were not permitted to reload on their carriers.

>Also I'm unclear why the phalons didn't drop a couple plasma 1's on  
>top of themselves when the fighters attacked. They could take the  
>paint scratching easily to completely wipe out every fighter group in	
>the bolt range.

The Phalons were in a tight formation and their smallest plasma bolt was
a class 3.  Thus, any unblocked plasma would have hit most or all of
their own fleet.  They judged that the fighters would have simply used
secondary movement to evade the plasma and find a safe place to strike. 
While some ships could have fired while the rest shrouded to minimize
the damage, the shrouded ships would have been even worse off if the
fighters could find safe places to hit them from, and the shrouds
would've been worse against torpedo bombers than simply using pulsers to
try to wear the fighters down so that future strikes would be less
powerful.  As such, while it was considered, it was judged that it would
accomplish no better than a delay that would damage most of their own
fleet, so they did not attempt it.

E
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