Dogfighting ???

[Target]

Do people like the dogfights rules?

We changed to having fighters firing because we thought the rules kinda reduced the effectiveness of them.
It makes them pretty static, they get stuck in one place till one side has one. Dogfights aren't static things they go on for miles.
It's really harsh by having instant death ( also made anti fighter & e-mines -2 dodge, they still are quite effective).
Kill your opponent & then every capital ship with a spare weapon system can shoot at you because you are no longer in a dogfight.

Cause we changed to having the dogfight score modify dodge ( all interceptor type get treated if they have +1 dogfight eg Kotha,Star snake) fighters can make attack runs on ships while other fighters try and shoot them down. Supporting flights help by actually shooting, giving more shots to dodge.
We also doubled their speed, scrapped aftreburners ( who needs to keep track of that anyway), fighters are meant to be way faster than ships. This means they can zoom around like fighters should. Also more like the show where fighters zoom at each other, have a little dust up when they met, they can go on to attack caps with some fighters chasing them down while others attack their opponents caps.
Moving them in groups of 4 (dispensed with wings sized groups for a set number for ease of play) in fighter movement phase makes it more tactical, gives your opponent to respond to what you do. Also fire fighters in groups of 4 during normal firing phase, gives you the choice of what to fire.
This has made fighters far better & more fun to use. We used to have big battles where furies would meet Raziks in the middle of the board & basically do nothing except fight each other as they can't escape dogfights & when the dust settles there are to few fighters to do anything. This why we changed and we consider the way we play fighters far superior now just from changing the dogfight rule. It's also less confusing, are you in range if yes then shoot.
Dilgar add a little complexity to it by you have sort out the dogfight score, by the proximity of other flights but that is the same in both systems.
Hope people give this a go, we certainly enjoy it.

 

[LordClinto]

I like the idea of moving & firing fighters in groups of 4, it sounds like it adds tactics to the fighter phase.

 

[Burger]

We use the standard rules, just because the game is a fleet about capital ships, and fighters really should be secondary and quick, not take just as much time to do as the ships.

Dogfights aren't static things they go on for miles.

"Miles" in-game translates to barely 1mm on the table. The scale of ACTA is undefined, however it is generally accepted that 1 inch is roughly 3000km, since an "Earth-like world" is 5-9". So fighters staying still until the dogfight is resolved, is actually accurate.

Kill your opponent & then every capital ship with a spare weapon system can shoot at you because you are no longer in a dogfight.

Yeah, that is harsh. Bit of a silly side-effect of dogfights happening before capital ship fire.

 

[Target]

By miles i was talking jets and they are round 20-30 km at least. 3000 for inch means that fighters will be moving way to fast to dogfight.
There is no scale in ACTA , using planets as a scale is little outrageous of a claim. The game is based off the show so things are probably a lot closer as hitting something at 90000km that is 1km long and moving 24000 (speed 8) is also a little wrong ( a missle hitting ship at range 30 ).

 

[Bubbalo]

How so? Keep in mind that humans aren't doing the targetting, and this is hundreds of years in the future.

 

[Burger]

There is no scale in ACTA , using planets as a scale is little outrageous of a claim.

Well there is nothing else to use. Since planets are really the only large object on the board, and their diameters and gravity wells are defined and known from real-world figures, they make the best benchmark.

The game is based off the show so things are probably a lot closer as hitting something at 90000km that is 1km long and moving 24000 (speed 8) is also a little wrong ( a missle hitting ship at range 30 ).

Well we're talking about space ships in the future, so who can say how difficult it is to hit a 1km object at 90,000km away? Also since the turn length is undefined you can't say what the speed is. They might move 24,000km but if a turn is 5 minutes then its not an unreasonable speed.

 

[Target]

There is no scale in ACTA , using planets as a scale is little outrageous of a claim.

Well there is nothing else to use. Since planets are really the only large object on the board, and their diameters and gravity wells are defined and known from real-world figures, they make the best benchmark.

The game is based off the show so things are probably a lot closer as hitting something at 90000km that is 1km long and moving 24000 (speed 8) is also a little wrong ( a missle hitting ship at range 30 ).

Well we're talking about space ships in the future, so who can say how difficult it is to hit a 1km object at 90,000km away? Also since the turn length is undefined you can't say what the speed is. They might move 24,000km but if a turn is 5 minutes then its not an unreasonable speed.

The game is based off the show, everything is in visual range, jump points aren't bigger than a planet radius in the show. Planets are only there to break up a boring board not for any realistic scale otherwise they would take the whole board.
Speed 8 is 288000km per hour for 5 min turn, don't think a primus is that fast. Fighters could never engage in dogfightat that speeds.
Not that range actually matters.
The point i was making originally is that the dogfight rule is ruining fighters. Move in to attack a ship in your fighter, some fighters come along so you engage them instead. Your Wingman covers you so you can take your shot at the target. Shooting is far simplier than doing the dogfighting with all the supporting flights and so on & makes the fighter effective but not super good or anything because they can target what they want. Try it, hopefully you will see the difference it makes.

 

[Voronesh]

Well the show is actually not something to base combat on (except general guidelines of ship effectiveness aka the fear lvl).

Star Trek Combat happens at visual range, but they often keep telling you at the same time, how many thousand klicks they are apart.

B5 sometimes has the same thing, like Sheridan being told how many hundred klicks the enemy is away. Its visual range......darn. Visual range is there to look cool. Not an actual parameter to go by.

Make the show "realistic" we would have specks firing lasers at other specks and alot less viewers. Cant get atmosphere if you have undefined pixels fighting instead of full warships........


Now OTOH i can see the merit of your rules. But it does open them up to defensive fire while being dogfighted (is that a word?). Normally you would have a "static" dogfight, but at least you stuff wouldnt get shot at for a while, until it wins at least. THis way you have to brave fighters and leftover secondary batteries.... Not that it would be my problem, as i rarely use fighters for offense (my Narn use fighters for defense to get eytra ship-killers on e-mines, Centauri 2nd fleet), but in most games fighters rarely get to survive anything. One game even had an Oct shoot down 4 starfuries/T-Bolts in a blaze of glory with its weaponry, cause the Omega was just a tad little bit out of reach (I know his mistake) but the result was as expected, none survived.

 

[captainsmirk]

I seem to remember the Narn engaging the Shadows at Gorash 7 from beyond visual range, so E-mine range at least is beyond visual range...

And the Primus (or Secundus depending...) that attacks B5 and nearly shears off the docking pylon thing is actually quite far away (not beyond visual but B5 from the Primus's position is quite small)...

 

[Target]

The fighters with double speed- gives them the ability to choose where they are & who can attack them. Thats part of their defense & gives them the ability to attack in an arc thats probably already firing somewhere else. Attacking a Battleship with no support is pretty much suicide.
We know they are way faster than caps but in the game they are not & they suffer for it.
It's unfortunate that the Oct could only target the fighters & result was expected, 1 war pt vs nearly 3 patrol. Always messy
We have been playin without the dogfight for over a year now & it improves fighters out of sight. You still have the numbers to effect the game but not in huge way of 1st ed 1.0. We actually take carriers for their abilities not because they look cool.

Back to the range thing, you can see very far into space. Im just saying it's not at 90000km (105000km for a Octurion), I know it's not the few km is shown on the show (not really since it's fictional).
I would disagree on based of the show thing, when you play you are still thinking the CGI effects not the specks in the distance.
The Primus/Secundas attacking Bab 5 probably is the best example.
Far more believable, double that range and you could still see it, just. It still wouldn't be over 1000km away.
If you are shooting over huge distances even big ships can dodge whats coming, they will have time to adjust their course. Thats why i believe the fighting done at far closer range.

 

[Triggy]

I believe in the show weapons ranges varied from 10km to 10,000km, depending on what was put in the script that week! Yeah, JMS didn't consider this a major factor in terms of plot (and it wasn't) - much like the speed of a White Star ("It travels at the speed of plot"). 100,000km isn't actually that silly a range if you think about weapon and sensor technology progression, near-light speed travel and the lack of a refractive medium (i.e. space). It does mean that shots would almost never be fired manually though...

And as for onscreen CG - this will always be magnified just to get interesting shots. Visual comparisons won't necessarily be of great use in this sort of study, verbal script content is usually many times more accurate.

 

[Target]

I believe in the show weapons ranges varied from 10km to 10,000km, depending on what was put in the script that week! Yeah, JMS didn't consider this a major factor in terms of plot (and it wasn't) - much like the speed of a White Star ("It travels at the speed of plot"). 100,000km isn't actually that silly a range if you think about weapon and sensor technology progression, near-light speed travel and the lack of a refractive medium (i.e. space). It does mean that shots would almost never be fired manually though...

And as for onscreen CG - this will always be magnified just to get interesting shots. Visual comparisons won't necessarily be of great use in this sort of study, verbal script content is usually many times more accurate.

Like Sheridan saying he got the Blackstar & a couple of crusiers.

 

[Iain McGhee]

Mind that in "In The Beginning" Londo was telling the story. Given that, who do you think told the real version ?

 

[Da Boss]

Am quite happy with them - usually we have had various dogfights and all seemed quite tactical as to when and where and how many involved