5FW: Why?

[rinku]

Okay. That makes sense- I'd missed that.

Nonetheless... missiles are exempt from the range limits. And fighters remain a close-in force multiplier and a form of stand off attack. They're potentially as dangerous as missiles at dogfight range, and are an additional way to overwhelm point defense.

Or provide additional point defense, even if it's screening out other fighters.

 

[AndrewW]

Fighters have range restrictions that kneecap the ability to use them at anything but very near distances. One firmpoint can be upgraded to a turret, but I’m not sure the range limitation goes away.

A turret on a small craft is still mounted on a firmpoint and would have the same limitations.

 

[Vormaerin]

And if the goal of the fighters is just to put more pinpricks in the air, drones do that just as well or better. Don't need to spend a long time training soon to be corpses. You can keep your drone operators safely on a heavily armored ship.

 

[rinku]

This comes back to something that's been out of joint since classic - despite the old text that says a system defense boat can carry more weapons and armour than a jump capable ship and is therefore ton for ton better in combat... but, mostly they aren't allowed to, and aren't better, just cheaper.

The design sequences have always capped armour and the number of weapons, and until you get to spinal mounts (and even then), you can easily fit a J-1 drive and fuel after weapons and M-Drive have been maxed out.

But... tonnage saved from J-Drives and fuel can be used for carried craft. Trillion Credit Squadron found it necessary to impose pilot limits to deal with this inescapable consequence.

 

[rinku]

And if the goal of the fighters is just to put more pinpricks in the air, drones do that just as well or better. Don't need to spend a long time training soon to be corpses. You can keep your drone operators safely on a heavily armored ship.

Well that's CT mindset vs modern expectations. A drone fighter is still a fighter, especially if they're expected to stay close to the mothership.

 

[Vormaerin]

There's no particular reason fighters need to stay near the mothership. They have to get to close range to fire energy weapons at other targets, but they can launch missiles.

Manned space fighters have always been a Rule of Cool thing. People knew they didn't make sense even back in CT days. But wanted to be able to have folks pilot vipers and X-wings, because they are never the ones blowing up, right?

 

[rinku]

True drone fighters need to stay close enough to avoid excessive communications lag.

But robot fighters can go and play away from mother, as long as you trust them to be good.

 

[AndrewW]

And if the goal of the fighters is just to put more pinpricks in the air, drones do that just as well or better. Don't need to spend a long time training soon to be corpses. You can keep your drone operators safely on a heavily armored ship.

So like when the Japanese started using kamikaze as they where running short on trained pilots.

 

[Condottiere]

I think it was fuel.

You don't worry about bingo.

 

[rinku]

V-weapons instead of bombers might be a better analogy.

 

[actionman]

Fighters should be no danger to large ships, The end. Changing Traveller Third Imperium fighters to be yet more like Star Wars fighters is counter to the Third Imperium setting, not to mention even semi-realistic space warfare.

A Large ship can have a sensor suite bigger then the entire fighter, a large ship can have a weapon system bigger than a fighter, a large ship can power those sensors and weapon systems with power plants larger than that fighter, and finally that large ship can have bigger engines and more armour.

Space fighters have their place in science fantasy cartoon physics cinematic pew pew. I have no use for them.

Consider:

In a fictional scifi setting, I doubt that fighters would be able to carry weapons capable of affecting large ships in any meaningful way. Large ships would be armored or otherwise protected against weapons mounted on other ships their size. Fighters wouldn't be able to carry or power the energy weapons needed to affect large ships, so that leaves them with missiles. The missiles fighters would be able to carry would be much smaller than missiles launched from large ships, with less damage potential. Large ships at higher TLs would have robust sensor and point defense systems, and the sensors and weapons capable of destroying fighters at extreme range. Even waves of fighters would get detected and locked thousands of km out, giving point defense systems or point defense autonomous drones time to do their deadly work.

Naval architects would figure out the threats their ships will face, like how many fighters per enemy carrier, how many carriers in an enemy battlegroup, etc., and how many point defense systems to counter those threats. If fighters aren't in the setting, then the same questions apply to missile threats.

Of course IMO there would be small ships for different roles, even gunboats and small craft, but fighters meant for attacking large ships, I don't find that believable.

Something I hated about Star Wars was the silliness about Imperial ships being so stupidly designed as to not have effective point defense systems when fighters are an established effective part of that setting. But, it's a movie, and we're all supposed to nod along.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Vormaerin]

True drone fighters need to stay close enough to avoid excessive communications lag.

But robot fighters can go and play away from mother, as long as you trust them to be good.

yes, they would have autopilots with human operators monitoring and making macro decisions. I assumed you meant "stay close to mother ship" in a fleet engagement, like being additional point defense. Traveller fleet engagements are at significantly less than a light second.

You wouldn't use drone fighters for long distance system sweeps. Manned Small craft do make good police vessels and patrol craft.

 

[actionman]

Fighters seem to be a good balance for piracy also.

Drop a handful of fighters into a system that is currently experiencing higher than wanted levels of pirate incidents. Pick them back up in a couple of months and move to a new system.

The Fighters would not do well/much against capital ships but spreading out over a system to deal with the adventure class plus sized ships solves the economics of system defense ships issue.

A handful of fighters, dropped in a system for months.

• The pilots would die from burst bladders.
• The fighters don't have jump drives, so they would be limited to whatever asset they were deployed to protect.
• Fighters are built on a 10 ton hull, so a handful, let's say 5, wouldn't even be able to mount the firepower of 1 starship turret.
• Fighters would take damage or losses even against a measly 200 ton free trader / pirate. They would need some kind of support ship or forward base to repair and rearm, which defeats the purpose of dropping a few fighters off to patrol a system.
• Against a 400 ton corsair, the fighters would take losses and would probably have to withdraw or face destruction. (I don't know about this, I'm don't know those rules well at all, and I'm not going to look them up right now. Still, it stands to reason).

 

[Terry Mixon]

They might not be a threat to large ships, but as I originally said, I wanted them to be something larger ships (than them) needed to be wary of. If fighters are a threat to smaller jump capable combatants, that is enough to give them a real role. Otherwise, they have no place in battle.

 

[actionman]

They might not be a threat to large ships, but as I originally said, I wanted them to be something larger ships (than them) needed to be wary of. If fighters are a threat to smaller jump capable combatants, that is enough to give them a real role. Otherwise, they have no place in battle.

Agreed, and I doubt that they would have much use at all. Small 100 or 200 ton battle rider gunboats might be useful and provide the a similar Cool Fighter Pilot vibe.

 

[Vormaerin]

A handful of fighters, dropped in a system for months.

• The pilots would die from burst bladders.
• The fighters don't have jump drives, so they would be limited to whatever asset they were deployed to protect.
• Fighters are built on a 10 ton hull, so a handful, let's say 5, wouldn't even be able to mount the firepower of 1 starship turret.
• Fighters would take damage or losses even against a measly 200 ton free trader / pirate. They would need some kind of support ship or forward base to repair and rearm, which defeats the purpose of dropping a few fighters off to patrol a system.
• Against a 400 ton corsair, the fighters would take losses and would probably have to withdraw or face destruction. (I don't know about this, I'm don't know those rules well at all, and I'm not going to look them up right now. Still, it stands to reason).

1) Presumably there is a starport in the system so they can go to the potty from time to time.
2) Yes, the point is that you drop off non jump ships to protect specific systems.
3) "Light" fighters are built on a 10 dton hull. Heavy fighters are built on a 50dton hull. Various other fighters are in between.
4) Most fighters have very high evasion because they are 6G+. It is quite difficult to hit them without combat software that most small ships don't have the bandwidth for.

Remember, the targets of piracy primarily operate within 100D of a world. So the fighters aren't patrolling 2 weeks away from any base. If you have a huge amount of realspace insystem trade to protect, you'd probably drop off a small carrier.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Agreed, and I doubt that they would have much use at all. Small 100 or 200 ton battle rider gunboats might be useful and provide the a similar Cool Fighter Pilot vibe.

Hence why I created my Skeeter-Class 125-Ton Superheavy Fighter (a battle rider, technically). I'm sure I could make something cheaper and lower tech, but this is what I have at the moment.

 

[Terry Mixon]

And the less expensive TL13 variant.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Just for a change I am going to look at only MgT 2e rules.

Sensors.

Fighters should mount the best sensors for their TL and act as the forward observers for the big ships firing the missiles and drones (you may as well accept the fact that drones now refer to robotic AI enabled missiles). These drones should have the best armour and point defences they can manage, they may be the size of smallcraft themselves. They should carry their own missiles so the drone doesn't always have to destroy itself attacking an enemy, although their survival rate will be questionable.

My model for ship combat still remains that fleet A approaches fleet B, both fleets fill the space between them with fighters, escort class fighter killers, drones, and missiles. The battle is fought in this space until one side has an advantage.

The disadvantaged side now has the choice of committing the large ships or running away.

Note this assumes the two fleets are committed to engaging one another, there is always the option of the high speed pass or the remain at range and avoid combat ploy.

Warfare will not be points balance fleets vs points balanced fleets, also luck will play a part.

One of the reasons I like space combat wargames/boardgames is it allows me to play around with different tactics.