Carriers

[Da Boss]

No. What I actually do want is to play a game that reflects the SFU I've been gaming in for the last twenty or so years. If it gets taken over by Klingon cruisers with dreadnought main batteries and no drones

funny how "tech slosh" applys to certain areas in the SFU............but half the races in the game have to have drone ships..........(and look exactly the same )

or Gorn ships that can turn with those Klingons,

Other SFU people say the Gorns should be able to turn much more than they can now.......and the Klingons can turn to much at present?

or Federation ships designed to look like butterflies, then good luck to you.
But please don't call it Star Fleet.

Oh that chestnut again, the "SFU" seems to be similar but divergent universes based on similar concepts - hence SFB and FC - ACTA is the the same - its a version of the SFU built on similar concepts but hopefully in this case wll grow and evolve its own identiy within certain limits.

 

[tneva82]

No. What I actually do want is to play a game that reflects the SFU I've been gaming in for the last twenty or so years.

If it gets taken over by Klingon cruisers with dreadnought main batteries and no drones, or Gorn ships that can turn with those Klingons, or Federation ships designed to look like butterflies, then good luck to you.

But please don't call it Star Fleet.

PS Thanks for making me laugh!

Okay: Here's question: Are there fighters in SFB?

If yes then by not introducing fighters you make ACTA:SF NOT reflect SFU and ergo will be against what you want.

Ergo by your logic fighters MUST be introduced.

Good thing too fighters work just fine in ACTA without slowing the game and aren't any more likely to break the game than any other new addition. Actually more likely to be too weak than too good.

Fact: There's fighters in SFB.
Almost fact: ACTA will be getting them sooner or later. (I would put this as fact except there's possibility ACTA dies before that happens. Nothing is certain of future except that we all are going to die)
Opinion: Since ACTA rules don't bog down there's no reason to get upset about future fighter introduction, especially before hand. Game speed is no reason to worry and as for game balance...If that's reason to oppose fighter introduction then you are opposing adding ANYTHING! Including changes based on playtesting to existing ships. Ergo game should be frozen as it is NOW with no changes whatsoever if you don't want fighters based on "they could break the game" premise.

 

[Nomad]

but half the races in the game have to have drone ships

In the Alpha Quadrant, the Kzinti rely on drones. The Federation, the Klingons, the later, Klingon-influenced WYN ships and the Orions (when they can steal them from someone else) use them to a limited degree.

That leaves the Romulans, the Gorns, the Lyrans, the Tholians, the Paravians, the ISC. the Vudar, the Jindarians, the Andromedans and the Hydrans who do not.

Compare with the Sidewinder air to air missile, which was used by all airforces in Europe during the cold war (including the Warsaw Pact ones).

Other SFU people say the Gorns should be able to turn much more than they can now.......and the Klingons can turn to much at present

Changes appear to have been made to enhance and emphasize the differences that already existed in SFU. Compare with the ACtA players who are complaining that ACtA:SF is following the SFU *too closely*.

hence SFB and FC

Are way more similar to each other than to ACtA already - they use the same ship diagrams (weapons, shields, engine output, et.c). ACtA obviously cannot do that, and should not try - but basic things like the number of heavy weapons a ship has, or the number of fighters in a flight, can and should be reflected (IMHO).

 

[Nomad]

there's no reason to get upset

Totally agree.

I still think Pavlov's suggestion is elegant and sound, though.

 

[tneva82]

Are way more similar to each other than to ACtA already - they use the same ship diagrams (weapons, shields, engine output, et.c). ACtA obviously cannot do that, and should not try - but basic things like the number of heavy weapons a ship has, or the number of fighters in a flight, can and should be reflected (IMHO).

Just because multiple fighters is abstracted into one stat line does not mean they aren't reflected...

Why people assume abstraction is same as going against background?

But in any case issue is moot point. Whether they go 1, 2, 3, 4, variable or whatever fighter per fighter stand ACTA rules fits. Biggest impact it's going to have is on the models...ACTA: B5 had multiple fighters abstracted to one(barring couple super heavy fighters). ACTA: NA has one fighter per fighter stand.

Both have quick rules, both work. Neither was overpowered(NA was more of underpowered but as shown in B5 they could be useful without being broken).

Just wait with bit of optimism

 

[Lincolnlog]

Okay, I have not kept up with this thread, but it is interesting to me.

I used ACTA-B5 to work out my home fighter rules for SF. In WWII dive bombers don't carry 5" or 14" guns. In SF they do carry Photons, Disruptors, and Phasers (yes and even Plasma). They also carry drones. But in supplement J of SFB a fighter is limited to firing 2 drones per turn. Also, remember, there would be no reloads on the drones. :?

None of the above factors have to cause complication. In B5 a carrier might carry 12 flights of fighters, but the weapons are light and more abstract. :roll:

In SF if you lose a fighter from a flight, you lose phasers, drones and possibly photons (or insert heavy weapon of choice). How do you adjust the fire power of the loss of a single fighter from a flight. It's easier to use single craft versus flights, and a hit on the fighter kills it. Firepower reduced, no fuss no muss. 8)

 

[Greg Smith]

In SF they do carry Photons, Disruptors, and Phasers (yes and even Plasma). They also carry drones. But in supplement J of SFB a fighter is limited to firing 2 drones per turn. Also, remember, there would be no reloads on the drones. :?

Do SF fighters carry the same drones/photons/disruptors as starships? How much ammo/power do these things have? How big are they?

In SF if you lose a fighter from a flight, you lose phasers, drones and possibly photons (or insert heavy weapon of choice). How do you adjust the fire power of the loss of a single fighter from a flight. It's easier to use single craft versus flights, and a hit on the fighter kills it. Firepower reduced, no fuss no muss. 8)

Noble Armada uses one fighter per stand. It would seem to me that that would be the way to go. B5 ACTA is all or nothing for the flight - either you kill the flight or it is intact (something that probably won't wash with the SFB players ).

 

[Nerroth]

Do SF fighters carry the same drones/photons/disruptors as starships? How much ammo/power do these things have? How big are they?

In case anyone missed it from an earlier attrition unit discussion, you can see some trial rules and Ship Cards in the FC Commander's Circle for how a sub-set of fighter/carrier operations may one day appear in Borders of Madness; a system intended to cover certain SFBisms which will likely never show up in "vanilla" FC, but which would be on offer for those looking to try them out on an optional basis (and in a manner which is still somewhat streamlined compared to SFB).

Noble Armada uses one fighter per stand. It would seem to me that that would be the way to go. B5 ACTA is all or nothing for the flight - either you kill the flight or it is intact (something that probably won't wash with the SFB players ).

I would agree; I would expect to see something closer to the ACtA:NA version here. Perhaps with that reported change in another thread as to how fighters sre set to work in that system?

 

[tneva82]

Noble Armada uses one fighter per stand. It would seem to me that that would be the way to go. B5 ACTA is all or nothing for the flight - either you kill the flight or it is intact (something that probably won't wash with the SFB players ).

I would agree; I would expect to see something closer to the ACtA:NA version here. Perhaps with that reported change in another thread as to how fighters sre set to work in that system?

Well. Practically speaking NA, B5, not much of difference except in look of individual fighter stand.

 

[Da Boss]

Noble Armada uses one fighter per stand. It would seem to me that that would be the way to go. B5 ACTA is all or nothing for the flight - either you kill the flight or it is intact (something that probably won't wash with the SFB players ).

I would agree; I would expect to see something closer to the ACtA:NA version here. Perhaps with that reported change in another thread as to how fighters sre set to work in that system?

Well. Practically speaking NA, B5, not much of difference except in look of individual fighter stand.

Agreed you can have 1 fighter equals one counter / model if you want - same as with shuttles - it makes no real difference to how the game engine works.

 

[Rambler]

In SF they do carry Photons, Disruptors, and Phasers (yes and even Plasma). They also carry drones. But in supplement J of SFB a fighter is limited to firing 2 drones per turn. Also, remember, there would be no reloads on the drones. :?

Do SF fighters carry the same drones/photons/disruptors as starships? How much ammo/power do these things have? How big are they?

In SF if you lose a fighter from a flight, you lose phasers, drones and possibly photons (or insert heavy weapon of choice). How do you adjust the fire power of the loss of a single fighter from a flight. It's easier to use single craft versus flights, and a hit on the fighter kills it. Firepower reduced, no fuss no muss. 8)

Noble Armada uses one fighter per stand. It would seem to me that that would be the way to go. B5 ACTA is all or nothing for the flight - either you kill the flight or it is intact (something that probably won't wash with the SFB players ).

Fighters in SFB carry the same weapons used by Captial Shiap in the SFU. Almost all wepons except thier Phaser are One Shot Weapons with a significantly reduced Range. A Photon fired by a Fighter still would be a Multihit 4 Devstating Weapon but would not beable to be Overloaded and would probably have a Range limit of 6" in ACTA. Phasers be they Phaser-3 or Phaser-2 would be treated exactly the same as the Phaser carried by Capital Ships and would usually would not be discharged after just one shot. Drones become the headach here. A F14DM can cary over a dozen of them but once it shoots one it is gone.

Most likely when fighters come over they will follow the same playtest rules in FedCom. Most fighters would take 1 Phaser 3 hits to cripple causing it to lose the aility to fire any wepon except a single Phaser-3. And then would take a second or third Phaser-3 hit to destroy. Drones fired from a Fighter will probably have there Launch Rate reduced to 2/turn and only carry 2 or 4 drones total also they might very well have there range reduced down to 6 to 10 inches as well. Time will tell but I am confident when Fighters make the jump they will not be the Late War monsters they are in SFB.

Fighters have to land on Carriers to recharge there wepons and I beat when that happens a Special Action involving Power Drain will be placed on the Carriers.

The Other Thing to remember is that SFB limits Fighters to a max of 3 Squadrons of 12 per side (72 total). If Gunboats are used the Feds get a 4th Fighter Squadron because they did not develope Gunboats.

 

[Greg Smith]

Fighters in SFB carry the same weapons used by Captial Shiap in the SFU. Almost all wepons except thier Phaser are One Shot Weapons with a significantly reduced Range. A Photon fired by a Fighter still would be a Multihit 4 Devstating Weapon but would not beable to be Overloaded and would probably have a Range limit of 6" in ACTA. Phasers be they Phaser-3 or Phaser-2 would be treated exactly the same as the Phaser carried by Capital Ships and would usually would not be discharged after just one shot. Drones become the headach here. A F14DM can cary over a dozen of them but once it shoots one it is gone.

Thanks for that.

Fighters in previous versions of ACTA can't perform SAs, so no overload. I can see one photon or 2 disruptors with one shot won't be the end of the world, especially with reduced range. Particularly if fighters are slower than ships. Bucket loads of drones will be more of a problem.

Most likely when fighters come over they will follow the same playtest rules in FedCom. Most fighters would take 1 Phaser 3 hits to cripple causing it to lose the aility to fire any wepon except a single Phaser-3.

Or more likely, one shot kills a fighter, but something similar to the ACTA fleet carrier rule allows it to be recovered and repaired.

Fighters have to land on Carriers to recharge there wepons and I beat when that happens a Special Action involving Power Drain will be placed on the Carriers.

There are rules for reloading fighters in Noble Armada.

The Other Thing to remember is that SFB limits Fighters to a max of 3 Squadrons of 12 per side (72 total). If Gunboats are used the Feds get a 4th Fighter Squadron because they did not develope Gunboats.

The Borders of Madness rules sheet suggest possibly reducing the numbers of fighters (the Fed & Klingon carriers to 8 ).

As I said elsewhere, I played a NA play test game with 6 carriers, 48 fighters on one side and it was perfectly manageable. More than that will slow the game down, but won't make it impossible.

 

[ErikB]

I've always kinda liked the (federation) fighter designs in SFB. They do a good job of looking kinda like fed shuttles.

And I find them being named after 20th century aeroplanes kinda charming.

This one is, I believe, a B-52.

 

[Nomad]

That's a bomber, not a fighter.

Much bigger, and it only operates from planetside bases - it is too big to fly from ships, or even orbital bases.

 

[Jean]

Folks, please don't post ADB's art here, especially without any attribution. Links are fine, but when art gets gathered up and posted without any copyright notice, then people tend to repost and repost and things get out of hand.

 

[tneva82]

Most likely when fighters come over they will follow the same playtest rules in FedCom. Most fighters would take 1 Phaser 3 hits to cripple causing it to lose the aility to fire any wepon except a single Phaser-3. And then would take a second or third Phaser-3 hit to destroy.

I forsee 1 shot, 1 kill to fighters, no book keeping.

 

[andypalmer]

I'm a long time SFB Hydran player, and I'd be perfectly OK with fighters being represented in 3-fighter Flights. I can easily create a Hydran fleet with over 100 fighters and would much rather manage that in Flights of 3 than individually. (FYI, the Hydrans have a carrier that carriers 40 and a heavy cruiser that carries 12)

For ships with "odd" numbers of fighters, round and abstract it. As long as the point costs are appropriate, it really doesn't matter that much in the big scheme of things.

Simply have statistics that say, for example:
- after 2 hits, firepower reduced to X
- after 4 hits, firepower reduced to Y
- after 6 hits, Flight destroyed

All you have to keep track of is the number of hits on each flight, and the basic ammunition usage.

For drones, SFB supports that fighters have shorter drone range (different way of controlling drones) so it would be easy to prevent them from being a long range threat.

Also, to give a relative firepower example, a single Flight of Hydran Sting-2 fighters would expect to destroy (or all but destroy) a Klingon D7 battlecruiser at point blank range. Thankfully, for the Klingons, their firepower gets exponentially weaker with range.

 

[tneva82]

Simply have statistics that say, for example:
- after 2 hits, firepower reduced to X
- after 4 hits, firepower reduced to Y
- after 6 hits, Flight destroyed

If you have book keeping like this it's lot faster to have them as individual fighters with zero book keeping.

Again keeping in mind how fighters have worked before I forsee one shot, one kill per flight stand with possibility of carrier recovering it on succesfull dice roll.

 

[andypalmer]

Simply have statistics that say, for example:
- after 2 hits, firepower reduced to X
- after 4 hits, firepower reduced to Y
- after 6 hits, Flight destroyed

If you have book keeping like this it's lot faster to have them as individual fighters with zero book keeping.

Again keeping in mind how fighters have worked before I forsee one shot, one kill per flight stand with possibility of carrier recovering it on succesfull dice roll.

Part of book-keeping is the maneuver aspect and maneuvering 60-120 fighters is not going to be enjoyable. Also, the one shot one kill doesn't work in SFU - General War fighters take 10-16 points of damage to destroy, even the earlier ones take 6-12.

 

[Da Boss]

Movement of fighters (if as previous ACTA versions) is easy - they are SM so you don't need to worry about turns and such like - just measure the distance and move the counter/stand. Only with really huge numbers of fighters does it get to be a pain.

Do SFU fighters dogfight? They seem to be very heavily based on (then, well FEd = US ones anyway) contempoary jet fighters / bombers with L/R missiles etc. Again ACTA has a good mechanism for this.

One shot kill - it is def the easiest method but the system can cope with multiple damage fighters (Shadow fighters had shields so needed mutiple hits to kill them). I would be loath to have to track damage effects etc on flights any more than you have two fighters in the flight left so your AD for your flights weapons is now only 2 (or whatever appropriate value) etc.

Even if you use one shot "kill" method, the fighter may not be actually killed by the attack, just damaged and unable to carry out its mission. If you also use the Fleet Carrier/Carrier rules then those "killed" may be able to get back to their carrier and be launched again.

You can use the same thing for one shot heavy wepaons usage - NA has bombers that need to return to their mother ship to re-arm.

Fighterr are def doable in ACTA- but apparently not till 2013 - uinless of course that all changes!