Fighter Doctrines: An Idea :idea:

[Scimitar]

OK, Dwell on this. Much of fighter combat is not simply the ability of the fighter craft, but the training of the crew and use by command. To this end, and in light of the various concerns on fighters posted elsewhere, I propose the following advanced/optional rule:

Fighter Doctrines:
Each race has its own ideas on how 'best' to employ fighters. Moreover, with the differences between capital ships, each can be said to be 'right' in its own way.

EA: The Earth Alliance believes in close coordination with capital ships. Fighters in battle operate either to aid in the defence of the ships or to deny the other side that option. In game, the EA can use any fighter flight in base contact with a ship, and not in dogfight, to add one interceptor to the defense of that ship. The fighter may not fire in that phase. When incoming fire hits the defended ship resolve as normal and one of the flights declared for interceptor use must roll as if attacked by 1 AD with AF, stealth (not that this exists yet for EA fighters) may not be used. If all decelared flights are destroyed, fire continues normally.

Minbari: The Warrior Caste of the Minbari Federation does not believe in distinct fighter roles. They relay on individual fighter capabilities and in Skin Dancing techniques.

Centauri: The Centauri Republic loves a gambler, they also have great faith in their auto-pilot systems. A Centauri fighter in dogfight can push his craft beyond the inertial dampners to obtain tactical advantage and risk blacking out. Centauri flights can gain a +1 to dogfight but must make a CQ9. Failure means next turn the flight is unable to move or fire and is at -2 for any dogfights as the crew recovers.

Narn: "Remember Us!" The Narn fighters were well aware of their disadvantage with respect to their enemies in close action. They therefore were trained to make the 'ultimate sacrifice' if necessary and ram enemy craft. A Narn flight in a dogfight can attempt to ram an enemy fighter. The Narn gains +1 to its dogfight score but success or tie results in the destruction of both craft (except if the Narn rolls a 6 and the opponent rolls a 1 in which case they panicked and the Narn shot them without ramming).

Dilgar: The ruthless Dilgar considered fighter losses an acceptable part of warfare and may fire into their own dogfights. Such fire is resolved as if the weak trait is added to the AD vs the Dilgar fighter (ie Super AP= AP, AP= normal, normal = weak, weak = -2)

I'm still working on the rest, let me know what you think...

 

[lastbesthope]

I voted too complex, keep it simple, but that's not really what I mean.

Generalising the fighter tactics in such a way is silly, and may play againast an Admiral's strenghts. Let people use fighters what ever way they want, with a general ruleset.

LBH

 

[Rodders]

way too complex and ott almost another rule set on their own

 

[Wulf Corbett]

A ruleset as complex as this belongs in a fighter-level skirmish game, not in ACtA.

Wulf

 

[MarkNorfolk]

I think thia sounds too comlex and different admirals may want to use fighters in ways that play against the doctrines.

One a side note, one element of the old Fleet Action game was the idea that fighter squadron had particular orders. I can't remember too muchof it now but I think there was a straight forward attack (move towards target and attack it), a defence option (hang around a ship to protect it) and space superiority (fighters go to a nominated point and then attack any ship that came within a certain radius).

Cheers
Mark

 

[Phoenixx]

I like it. It adds some flavor to the races. Although the Narn tctic is not really useful...

But cool! 8)

 

[Balance]

I don't know... Yes, they're complex, but edited and compiled it'd be a few lines as part of the existing government-specific rules.

 

[TrueCentauri]

First, it fits the show and character of the races.

Second, I think it is too complex.

(I thought skindancing is already too complex)
8)

Anyway, the rules are complex enough already, but you want to add complexity add some special action like skindancing and keep it unique for a certain race. Or it could be a race trait.

But it just adds complexity

My first game was a ISA - minibar 5 pt raid space superiority battle. I played ISA with 4 white stars filled with starfuries (To be able to distinguish with the minbari players fighters, I traded mine with starfuries)
I also had two Sho'kar scouts.

My opponent had a Tinashi, two tigara and a Leshath. The game took 4 turns before darkness fell. I killed a tigara and a Nial flight, he killed two starfuries, and did some damage to my white stars.

Afterwards, I discovered we had forgotten some important rules. First, when I CAF his Tigara with 3 WS, I did a number of crits in which he was lucky that these were the least damaging he could get, but I forgot to apply the usual 1 damage 1 crew that also needs to be applied when a crit is hit (at tripple damage!) His Tigara was just not skeleton crew and crippled, but would have been an orange fireball if rules had been applied correctly. One turn later I finished it. That turn the tigara fired on my very close WS with a minibeam. And the WS bravely dodged the hits away (while within 4" - forgot the AF trait of the minibeam within 4")

In the same turn one of my WS was CAFed by the Tinashi, and was able to dodge away 7 of the 8 hits. The one hit was a critical one - but I applied the damage on the wrong WS. (And the WS counters were numbered - also the reason I found out afterwards).

Both players moved fighters one at a time. This didn't influence the battle, as fighters only did dogfighting and only once every turn.

I initially forgot to use my scout ability to reduce stealth. When I did use it, the scout also performed a special action.

There is a bonus for guesses the right number of oopsies :wink:


My point is that if you start playing a game like ACTA, the present rules are already complex enough, and especially sometimes difficult to track (comms disruptor do effect on this and next turn, etc). This can be solved by reading the manual continuously, but that has another setback. It is far more difficult to attract new people when the rules are unclear or the learning curve is too steep. I know. I tried.

The most hated :evil: rules are the one that state: 'this means so,


but if within 3.756" it becomes os' And ACTA has a some of these rules.

Example? Skin dancing, allthough SFOS, is allmost a special action. Why not make it a special action:?::?:
The Scout capabilities are also allmost a special action. Why not make it a special action??

Sorry didn't mean to shout in this treat. Just got carried away

 

[Balance]

I agree that complexity without a justified reason is bad. I think we're seeing the more complex suggestions (this, my "not quite Skin Dancing" idea, etc. because there's a definite feeling that Fighters are a bit too weak at the moment.

Just a bit, mind you. Overcorrection is bad.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

The Scout capabilities are also allmost a special action. Why not make it a special action??

One of the main reasons for this is that events which prevent SA do NOT prevent Scouts from operating. Sililarly, launching fighters does not require a SA, but cannot be done if some SA is being done. They are different, they obey different rules.

Wulf

 

[Slightly Norse John]

A thought occurs then, Wulf...why not redefine Scout sensors as a weapon system, along the lines of the Abbai comms disruptor?
Give them a range, arc and AD, and state that a successful hit reduces the target's Stealth by one, or allows a targeting reroll, firing player's choice.
It isn't going to be any more complicated than the existing mechanism, it allows at least one intricate special procedure to be thrown away, and it adds an extra wrinkle, in that different races can have different stats, some people's technology can be more effective than others. I don't think there's going to be anything wrong with it that isn't wrong with comm disruptors already.

 

[lastbesthope]

A thought occurs then, Wulf...why not redefine Scout sensors as a weapon system, along the lines of the Abbai comms disruptor?
Give them a range, arc and AD, and state that a successful hit reduces the target's Stealth by one, or allows a targeting reroll, firing player's choice.
It isn't going to be any more complicated than the existing mechanism, it allows at least one intricate special procedure to be thrown away, and it adds an extra wrinkle, in that different races can have different stats, some people's technology can be more effective than others. I don't think there's going to be anything wrong with it that isn't wrong with comm disruptors already.

Necause if you make Scouting a weapon sysytem then it could be knocked out by a weapons Critical hit, (lose one random arc), or you'd have to give it in multiple arcs meaning it could be used more than once per turn, unless you make a special rule to say it can only be fired once per turn, but then you're back to having a specialist rule, etc, etc.

LBH

 

[Slightly Norse John]

Yes, they could and should be knocked out. Aren't we basically talking about radar dishes here? Large, exposed, fragile items that it's basically impossible to protect. Gravitometers and cloud chambers and hyperwave sensors could be buried in the hull, but except for the Minbari the level of tech isn't generally that high.
Turret arc? Everybody keeps forgetting about that. All of this is already in place, for better or worse, with Abbai comm disruptors- they have so many chances, AD, to achieve an effect which is the same regardless of how many actually impact; no change in rule mechanism at all needed. They exist in specific fire arcs, on the weapon list.
EW gear, which Scout sensors are, I reckon could be dealt with more easily as a weapon, of sorts, than a special ship quality. Besides which, it helps turn an administrative problem into a tactical problem. That's got to be better.

 

[lastbesthope]

Well we don't know what form sensors actually take in B5, I mean, have you ever seen a radar dish on a WS?

As for Turret arc, it's still an arc susceptible to being knocked out. I think Scout is the way it is for a reason.

LBH

 

[Malarion]

But isnt Scout good the way it is?

Because you dont need it at first anyway, plus something so imprtant would be kept kinda deep within the hull. Heck with Technology like Jumpgates Sensors might be totally different too.

Plus since scouts arent really needed in early games, you can simply keep em out, and bring em in when you explain abotu stealth. It is easy to learn when used in that combination.

An by that same reason you shouldnt use Minbari for demo games. The stealth just seems plain complicated and if not, simply too unfair that the destrcution of a ship, can be averted by 3 bad/good (perspective) dice rolls. Instead of a long string of one, as opposed to dodge or Interceptors.

 

[Silvereye]

Also if you weaponise the Scout trait, you would need to 'activate' the scout ship in the firing phase to make use of it.

As it stands you get to use Scout traits after movement is finished, but before firing.

Its kind of like the drifting hulk rules at the start of the movement phase.

However, it would be nice to see a 'disables ship trait or two' somewhere in the critical hit tables.

 

[Slightly Norse John]

Yes, you would- what you're doing with the Scout trait the way it's written is searchlighting the target. That sounds a fairly weapon- like process to me.
Incidentally, I know it's my fault, but aren't we a bit off topic here? I meant this to be an aside before going on to fighter doctrines, and sort of got carried away.
Seriously, what I had intended to suggest, and I think bits of this have come up, is expanding the selection of special orders available to fighters so that their performance can be changed without having to overhaul nearly twenty stat lines.
Suitably wazzy names can be plugged in, but I think the list that seems to have evolved, just to pull it all together, is
1) Defensive Fire, fighter flight on escort duty acts as an extra dice of Interceptors, if it rolls a 1 at any point they get hit, possibly EA only;
2) Skindancing, minbari only so far;
3) Take Evasive Action, half, rounding in the direction of the enemy as usual, firepower, but retain their dodge against AF, get to reroll failed dodge against normal weapons (explains those unnaturally survivable strafing runs);
4) Aim for the Weak Points, attacking a ship adds Precise, but makes them more vulnerable, say -2 to dodge?

 

[Target]

Fighters should be able to run silent or something similar.
It should be quite easy for them since they are a lot smaller.

 

[lastbesthope]

Fighters should be able to run silent or something similar.
It should be quite easy for them since they are a lot smaller.

Being smaller may or may not make something harder to detect, but given the limited number of systems they have, they have less thay can shut off to run silent, whilst still remaining operable.

LBH

 

[Silvereye]

Being smaller may or may not make something harder to detect, but given the limited number of systems they have, they have less thay can shut off to run silent, whilst still remaining operable.

That, and it is probably already shut off to keep the weapons and engines at top power. I would not be surprised it there was no atmosphere in a starfuries cockpit (you always see the pilots in spacesuits)since it stops a lot of nasty things happening if anything breaks.