Fighters - version 1.1

[Ben2]

Right guys

I've updated the fighter rules (5 pages for fighters and escort rules), added the escort rules to them, and uploaded them to here. They are now very very similar to the Fighter rules for Noble Armada, with some changes for converting from SFB to ACTA.

http://actauncut.wordpress.com/index/

I will be adding fighters, escorts and carriers back onto the page, starting with the Federation.

I will be providing fast and slow versions of fighters.

I've started with the Federation, converting over all the fighters and giving points costs. I'll upload files tonight.

I need opinions and playtest data on this as well as opinions, as it's at the point where it's alpha playtest type stuff rather than a collection of random thoughts.

I'll also be including heavy carriers so there can be some really fighter heavy fleets.

Edit 1 - I've added Klingons and corrected a couple of errors in the Federation fighter sheet.

If people spot an error please point it out, I'm writing this under the influence of heavy painkillers.

Also if people would like to see heavy fighters, please say. I'm happy leaving them out, and personally feel they don't add anything to the game, but if there are people massively keen on them, or feel they are necessary as an intermediate step to Interceptors and PFs (not that I'm keen to see them either).

Also if someone has J2 and particularly wants something in there converted over, post what it is. I'd be hesitant to add entirely new fighter classes or super heavy fighters, but if there are some nifty light fighters or something chip in.

Edit 2 - added Romulans.

Edit 3 - added Gorn. Going to sleep now as I'm starting to have to triple check things to avoid errors.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Aegis: The ship may contribute phasers, drones and anti-drones to the Defensive Fire of any friendly ship within range and arc of the weapons. Anti-drones have a range of 4” when used in this way. As always each weapon may only be used once per turn and may be used to conduct Defensive Fire or attack enemy ships as normal.

Maybe change the wording slightly to reflect the fact that ADDs only fire once against fighters as they can fire till they run out of ammo against any missile attacks in a turn. Just to tidy it up and avoid any questions about people using this rule to say ADDs may only fire once against missiles.

Fighter dodges, was that not under consideration of being dropped and just replaced with a penalty to hit representing small size (AKA shuttles) plus ecm pods/jinking?

What was the current result of the "How do fighters fit into the Drone fire restrictions" because 2D6 heavy drones are going to be very hairy, range 12 and fired by squadrons of 6 bombers at a time. That is going to smart if several squadrons or all the fighters from a single carrier can fire at the same target.

 

[billclo]

Just to clarify:

The rules assume individual fighter minis = 1 ftr or flights of X fighters?

I like the idea of "fast" vs "slow" mode for the fighters. A couple questions regarding that:

1) When is speed determined? When you pay for the fighters? As I recall, the fighter could be launched with or without warp booster packs. I also seem to recall that they could be turned off or dropped to reduce the fighter's vulnerability to double damage? Can you just pay for "fast" mode when purchasing the fighters, and designate each turn which mode they are in? Been a long time since I've seen the SFB fighter rules.

2) It might be handy to note what date "fast" is available; I recall that warp booster packs were not invented until the late Y170s/early Y180s. Before that date, the "slow" speed is all you can have.

I thought the F14 carried more drones than you have listed. There is no way the F14 carries fewer drones than the Klingon Z-Y. Maybe add 2 Type 3-long range (range 18, auto lock/hit, D6 Multihit, Devastating)? I recall they also carried Type-3 with multi-warhead (3xdogfight drones) Make that range 18, auto lock/hit, 3 x 2AD warhead, targets up to 3 fighters). Total drone loadout would then be: 2 Drone, 2 Dogfight Drone, 2 x Type-3 (either anti-ship warhead or multi-dogfight drone warhead).

I don't have SFB anymore, so I can't confirm my recollection about the F14's loadout is correct.

Drone mounted on fighters are one shot weapons, check them off when fired, when empty you have to return to the carrier to reload?

I definitely want to see "Heavy Fighters" and/or Interceptors as a prelude to PFs. PF's were what made the late war so distinctive; mass-produced expendable attrition units that were cheap enough to allow the faltering Coalition economy to stagger on for a few more years.

As far as fighters reloading, in SFB each deck crew could reload one "space" of drones per turn/one torpedo or disruptor charge. You could have 2 deck crews double up on a given fighter to speed things up. I realize that we don't want to get into extensive record-keeping, but perhaps only allow the carrier to fully reload half it's fighter capacity per turn, or partially reload (one drone or perhaps 2 dogfight drones) all fighters in one turn.

Can the carrier repair fighters? Say one damage point per turn in lieu of reloading?

As for damaging fighters, the rules say that a -1 modifier to hit applies. Does this mean that you take a -1 on the initial to hit roll and then roll the dodge number for each damage point?

 

[Da Boss]

thanks for this - appreciated

some initial thoughts:

Under dogfighting:
Once the dogfight has been resolved, if a fighter has been destroyed then the fighter that destroyed it may make a follow up move to get into base to base contact with an enemy fighter that supported the dogfight. Any friendly fighters that supported may remain in base to base contact with the winning fighter if the player chooses
I'd leave this out as if you have a reasonable number of dogfights - -especially using counters, you don;t want to start moving them around midway I don't think.

Escorting fighters may only do this once per turn. This action does not lock the escorting fighters into a dogfight (this is an exception to the normal rules).

Again I think its easier to say they are locked into a dogfight.

Dogfight Drones - Personally I would have them add to the dogfight rating and avoid having them as a weapon at all

Heavy Drones seem a bit awesome - I would avoid at all costs.

I think you may have to double (or more) the costs of some of the fighters especially those with lots of drones but playtesting will show this

I would have gone for much weaker fighters similar to those I did in the other thread but I don't know enough abput SFU and will let you deicde what you feel is best.

 

[Ben2]

Aegis: The ship may contribute phasers, drones and anti-drones to the Defensive Fire of any friendly ship within range and arc of the weapons. Anti-drones have a range of 4” when used in this way. As always each weapon may only be used once per turn and may be used to conduct Defensive Fire or attack enemy ships as normal.

Maybe change the wording slightly to reflect the fact that ADDs only fire once against fighters as they can fire till they run out of ammo against any missile attacks in a turn. Just to tidy it up and avoid any questions about people using this rule to say ADDs may only fire once against missiles.

Fighter dodges, was that not under consideration of being dropped and just replaced with a penalty to hit representing small size (AKA shuttles) plus ecm pods/jinking?

What was the current result of the "How do fighters fit into the Drone fire restrictions" because 2D6 heavy drones are going to be very hairy, range 12 and fired by squadrons of 6 bombers at a time. That is going to smart if several squadrons or all the fighters from a single carrier can fire at the same target.

You're right, I left a flight in their.

'Any number of fighters may attack a single ship in the Attack Phase, however each fighter counts as one half of a ship for the purposes of launching drone attacks, rounding up. For example, if three fighters and one ship target an enemy craft for drone attacks, then no other ships may fire drones at that target, though one more fighter may.'

The maximum a ship could ever face is 12 heavy drones.

The cheapest way to equip six fighter with heavy drones is six Federation F-14s which swap all their drones for heavy drones and raise the cost to 30 points a fighter, which means 180 points per flight to have a chance to pull it off.

I left dodges in because it gives fighters a save. It stops fighters dropping like flies. However most assault fighters have a 5+, very few fighters have 3+ (and they're the more expensive ones). Without it fighters start getting obliterated once they get within 18" of fleets, and drones simply wipe them out on an almost one for one basis.

Say a Klingon D5 squadron opens up on some F-14s at range 30, without dodge they can assign one drone per fighter, will automatically hit, and only one of the six fighters will survive. With dodge they'll need to assign 3 drones per fighter to be fairly sure of nailing two.

These are still basically one, two or three damage point ships and six of them can cost as much as command cruiser. For every strike carrier you are basically knocking a couple of weapons off a heavy cruiser and giving up a battlecruiser for a squadron of fighters.

 

[Ben2]

thanks for this - appreciated

some initial thoughts:

Under dogfighting:
Once the dogfight has been resolved, if a fighter has been destroyed then the fighter that destroyed it may make a follow up move to get into base to base contact with an enemy fighter that supported the dogfight. Any friendly fighters that supported may remain in base to base contact with the winning fighter if the player chooses
I'd leave this out as if you have a reasonable number of dogfights - -especially using counters, you don;t want to start moving them around midway I don't think.

Escorting fighters may only do this once per turn. This action does not lock the escorting fighters into a dogfight (this is an exception to the normal rules).

Again I think its easier to say they are locked into a dogfight.

Dogfight Drones - Personally I would have them add to the dogfight rating and avoid having them as a weapon at all

Heavy Drones seem a bit awesome - I would avoid at all costs.

I think you may have to double (or more) the costs of some of the fighters especially those with lots of drones but playtesting will show this

I would have gone for much weaker fighters similar to those I did in the other thread but I don't know enough abput SFU and will let you deicde what you feel is best.

I made dogfight drones a munition so they could be used against ships as well, but also so that it didn't simply give drone fighters a big advantage over plasma or other fighters. You can expend one for +1 to your dogfight roll, a lot of drone fighters have two, but in SFB you can do the same with plasma D torps which you have to track in ACTA because they are the anti-ship armament of most plasma fighters.

I've tried hard to balance plasma and drone fighters as in SFB drone fighters dominate, whereas in ACTA I've done it so plasma superiority fighters have a decent chance against drone fighters and they are pretty useful for attacking ships. Whether plasma fighters simply need to be cheaper than drone fighters will be determined once we get some playtests.

Drone fighters with more than one round of drones are largely in the 20-30 points bracket already, meaning you are giving up a war destroyer, light cruiser or heavy cruiser for six of them.

I can see F-14s, F-15s and Klingon Z-Ys going up in cost, and I'm unsure about the Gladiator-I at five points (but it's got a one shot Plasma-F, no phaser, 6+ dodge and -2 to dogfight, so you can just gun them out of the sky with drones and they have almost no chance of survival, they'll lose almost every dogfight they're in, and they have no offensive abilities after they fire their plasma F).

I'd love to have pointed some fighters at x2.5 or x7.5 but adding fractions into ACTA would massively complicate fleet selection.

I think on paper fighters look devastating. Once a few fighter attacks have been repulsed by fleet formations they won't be looking so clever. One on one against ships they will be brutal, but attacking fleets they will not fare so well.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Heavy Drones.

Still OP. 12 Heavy Drones is 24D6 damage, that is the Alpha strike of a Plasma DN plus some.

Also if you can have heavy drones on fighters there is no reason why ships cannot carry them also. Humm. "D6 multihit drones. I'll have those on my Fed BCHs thank you very much.

I can see a case for larger heavy weapons not being possible on smaller frames such as PFs and fighters but if a fighter can carry it then a much larger ship can.

 

[billclo]

Heavy Drones.

Still OP. 12 Heavy Drones is 24D6 damage, that is the Alpha strike of a Plasma DN plus some.

Also if you can have heavy drones on fighters there is no reason why ships cannot carry them also. Humm. "D6 multihit drones. I'll have those on my Fed BCHs thank you very much.

I can see a case for larger heavy weapons not being possible on smaller frames such as PFs and fighters but if a fighter can carry it then a much larger ship can.

I could live with Heavy Drones on ships, but then we'd need to track ammo for them to keep them from getting out of hand...say 3 shots Heavy Drones and then your drone rack is empty. Use a new special Action (Reload Drones) requiring a full turn of no drone fire, allowing you to use regular type-1 drones after that...

 

[McKinstry]

Heavy Drones.

Still OP. 12 Heavy Drones is 24D6 damage, that is the Alpha strike of a Plasma DN plus some.

Also if you can have heavy drones on fighters there is no reason why ships cannot carry them also. Humm. "D6 multihit drones. I'll have those on my Fed BCHs thank you very much.

I can see a case for larger heavy weapons not being possible on smaller frames such as PFs and fighters but if a fighter can carry it then a much larger ship can.

I could live with Heavy Drones on ships, but then we'd need to track ammo for them to keep them from getting out of hand...say 3 shots Heavy Drones and then your drone rack is empty. Use a new special Action (Reload Drones) requiring a full turn of no drone fire, allowing you to use regular type-1 drones after that...

Identifying types of drones and types of fighters and actually tracking variable fighter loads?
At what point does this become SFB-lite or an FC variant? Is this in keeping with playing a 15+/- ship per side battle in 4 hours?

Is ACTA played at a scale where ammunition type should matter beyond overload. Is it really important at a fleet scale that fighter type X is different than fighter type y?

I just see this drifting inch by inch away from an ACTA-NA style treatment and headed toward an attempt to add elements that are chrome at the cost of speed and/or playability.

 

[billclo]

Heavy Drones.

Still OP. 12 Heavy Drones is 24D6 damage, that is the Alpha strike of a Plasma DN plus some.

Also if you can have heavy drones on fighters there is no reason why ships cannot carry them also. Humm. "D6 multihit drones. I'll have those on my Fed BCHs thank you very much.

I can see a case for larger heavy weapons not being possible on smaller frames such as PFs and fighters but if a fighter can carry it then a much larger ship can.

I could live with Heavy Drones on ships, but then we'd need to track ammo for them to keep them from getting out of hand...say 3 shots Heavy Drones and then your drone rack is empty. Use a new special Action (Reload Drones) requiring a full turn of no drone fire, allowing you to use regular type-1 drones after that...

Identifying types of drones and types of fighters and actually tracking variable fighter loads?
At what point does this become SFB-lite or an FC variant? Is this in keeping with playing a 15+/- ship per side battle in 4 hours?

Is ACTA played at a scale where ammunition type should matter beyond overload. Is it really important at a fleet scale that fighter type X is different than fighter type y?

I just see this drifting inch by inch away from an ACTA-NA style treatment and headed toward an attempt to add elements that are chrome at the cost of speed and/or playability.

I think you're right. I'm not sure where the sweet spot is regarding accuracy vs playability and speed of play. It's going to be a delicate balancing act to be sure.

 

[Ben2]

Just to clarify:

The rules assume individual fighter minis = 1 ftr or flights of X fighters?

I like the idea of "fast" vs "slow" mode for the fighters. A couple questions regarding that:

1) When is speed determined? When you pay for the fighters? As I recall, the fighter could be launched with or without warp booster packs. I also seem to recall that they could be turned off or dropped to reduce the fighter's vulnerability to double damage? Can you just pay for "fast" mode when purchasing the fighters, and designate each turn which mode they are in? Been a long time since I've seen the SFB fighter rules.

People have called for both fast fighters and slow fighters, and so I've provided alternatives. I'd personally only use one, and use the fast fighters. The slow fighters have halved speed but damage amended to reflect what it would be without warp booster packs.

It isn't meant to be separate modes.

2) It might be handy to note what date "fast" is available; I recall that warp booster packs were not invented until the late Y170s/early Y180s. Before that date, the "slow" speed is all you can have.

All the ACTA stuff has assumed the full availability of all refits, so I've assumed the availability of warp booster packs, which in the background are available from Y180.

PFs become available from Y178, heavy fighters between 176-179, if all this stuff is going in (and I've assumed the later and better armed versions of fighters.

If there is a specific year which ACTA SFU is pegged to, if someone knows can they post it?

I thought the F14 carried more drones than you have listed. There is no way the F14 carries fewer drones than the Klingon Z-Y. Maybe add 2 Type 3-long range (range 18, auto lock/hit, D6 Multihit, Devastating)? I recall they also carried Type-3 with multi-warhead (3xdogfight drones) Make that range 18, auto lock/hit, 3 x 2AD warhead, targets up to 3 fighters). Total drone loadout would then be: 2 Drone, 2 Dogfight Drone, 2 x Type-3 (either anti-ship warhead or multi-dogfight drone warhead).

I don't have SFB anymore, so I can't confirm my recollection about the F14's loadout is correct.

You're right, the original F-14 has two type I and two type VI, all the subsequent versions (from Y177 onwards) add the extra 4 special rails (and the attendant Type III-MW drones). I'll correct it and reupload the fed fighters later.

Drone mounted on fighters are one shot weapons, check them off when fired, when empty you have to return to the carrier to reload?

Yes. You'll have a little row of fighter markers either on your ship sheet or on a separate sheet, and you just cross off what you use or any damage taken. When you're out you either return to the carrier or carry on with just phasers.

I definitely want to see "Heavy Fighters" and/or Interceptors as a prelude to PFs. PF's were what made the late war so distinctive; mass-produced expendable attrition units that were cheap enough to allow the faltering Coalition economy to stagger on for a few more years.

I think SFB players will probably be divided about this, a lot of people felt the proliferation of attrition units sucked the fun out of SFB. ACTA can do both well, but battles where you exhaust each othes expendable attrition units and then go home aren't very exciting.

As far as fighters reloading, in SFB each deck crew could reload one "space" of drones per turn/one torpedo or disruptor charge. You could have 2 deck crews double up on a given fighter to speed things up. I realize that we don't want to get into extensive record-keeping, but perhaps only allow the carrier to fully reload half it's fighter capacity per turn, or partially reload (one drone or perhaps 2 dogfight drones) all fighters in one turn.

This is where it could get complicated. I'm not expected more than 50% of fighters to return to the carrier. I want to avoid too much paperwork. Fighter munitions can be tracked by using a single sheet with details of the fighters for the whole fleet on it, or ship sheets with fighters along the bottom.

Can the carrier repair fighters? Say one damage point per turn in lieu of reloading?

I've not included rules for it, but it is an idea.

As for damaging fighters, the rules say that a -1 modifier to hit applies. Does this mean that you take a -1 on the initial to hit roll and then roll the dodge number for each damage point?

Yes. A phaser-1 firing at 15 inches would need 4+ to cause 1 point of damage, and the fighter would get a dodge roll.

 

[Ben2]

Heavy Drones.

Still OP. 12 Heavy Drones is 24D6 damage, that is the Alpha strike of a Plasma DN plus some.

Also if you can have heavy drones on fighters there is no reason why ships cannot carry them also. Humm. "D6 multihit drones. I'll have those on my Fed BCHs thank you very much.

I can see a case for larger heavy weapons not being possible on smaller frames such as PFs and fighters but if a fighter can carry it then a much larger ship can.

I could live with Heavy Drones on ships, but then we'd need to track ammo for them to keep them from getting out of hand...say 3 shots Heavy Drones and then your drone rack is empty. Use a new special Action (Reload Drones) requiring a full turn of no drone fire, allowing you to use regular type-1 drones after that...

Identifying types of drones and types of fighters and actually tracking variable fighter loads?
At what point does this become SFB-lite or an FC variant? Is this in keeping with playing a 15+/- ship per side battle in 4 hours?

Is ACTA played at a scale where ammunition type should matter beyond overload. Is it really important at a fleet scale that fighter type X is different than fighter type y?

I just see this drifting inch by inch away from an ACTA-NA style treatment and headed toward an attempt to add elements that are chrome at the cost of speed and/or playability.

It can be done quite simply on a ship sheet. What people will have to do is number their fighters so they can track them, but people have to do that with fighters with one shot weapons in NA anyway.

It can be done simply, without adding much to the game in terms of paperwork, and I'll provide ship sheets to track munitions and fold them into the same sheets as carriers (and should be able to get it on an A5 space).

 

[Ben2]

Heavy Drones.

Still OP. 12 Heavy Drones is 24D6 damage, that is the Alpha strike of a Plasma DN plus some.

Also if you can have heavy drones on fighters there is no reason why ships cannot carry them also. Humm. "D6 multihit drones. I'll have those on my Fed BCHs thank you very much.

I can see a case for larger heavy weapons not being possible on smaller frames such as PFs and fighters but if a fighter can carry it then a much larger ship can.

I could live with Heavy Drones on ships, but then we'd need to track ammo for them to keep them from getting out of hand...say 3 shots Heavy Drones and then your drone rack is empty. Use a new special Action (Reload Drones) requiring a full turn of no drone fire, allowing you to use regular type-1 drones after that...

Heavy drones seem to be causing a lot of fuss. As there are only two fighters that can carry them (F-14 and F-15) then I'll drop them.

 

[Ben2]

Right, is there any more feedback on fighters before I do a minor revision, tidy and add some more units?

I should be getting module J2 in the post soon (along with R8, R9 and R12) so I will go through it for any nice ideas to add, though if anyone has any particular favourites do feel free to mention.

Interceptors and PFs were mentioned earlier in this thread, and I dug out my Module K, which quickly reminded me why so many people dislike them.

Interceptors could be added to the game with no issues. It would be simple, they would only have four damage points and they have two heavy weapons (disruptor/drone, photon/drone, 2 drones, 2 plasma-Fs), a couple of phaser-1/2s and up to two phaser-3s, and would generally have about 8 shields.

PFs are better armed than frigates, and would probably be Turn 2/3 (however turn mode AA would be converted) and agile, so would end up sitting in someones rear arc unloading enormous amounts of firepower. 3-5 plasma-Fs on plasma PFs mean ships going down to the swarm.

Interceptors I could convert over and not feel guilty about it, because they'd all be 4/2 damages (so one killzone phaser/disruptor hit that slips past shields cripples them) and 8 shields and only 1/2 heavy weapons and 1-4 phasers. They aren't so good that you then end up with fleets with large numbers of PFTs meeting and one disengages when all their PFs are dead.

But I want to digest module J2 and see if there's anything that looks fun to play in ACTA and not game breaking before doing a big revision, so I'd like opinions on this and hopefully someone taking fighters for a spin at the weekend to give me some player feedback.

If there are any fan favourites from J2 let me know.

Do people want me to ask Matt if I can throw interceptors into the mix? Or are you guys happy with just fighters.

I'll have plenty of time to do this, as I've had some bad news today on the health front and I won't be getting back to work anytime soon, so in the times when I'm lucid I'll need something to take my mind off it.

As ever if I do something wrong tell me, I'm not going to take offence as I'm on opioid painkillers and keep having to check what day it is, and I'm a fairly easy going guy anyway.

I want a good natured debate on this, as attrition units were hugely controversial in SFB and I'd like to reaffirm I don't want them to become a compulsory choice. ACTA does away with that paperwork, and fighters are easy to handle in ACTA.

Also if someone has the latest F&E annex for scouts and can PM me with the Scout EW capability for the Federation CLS (Old Light Survey Cruiser), Gorn Survey Cruiser and Gorn Heavy Survey Cruiser, as I'll add them in the next update as the Survey Carriers.

 

[Ben2]

Sorry for rambling on, it's the drugs.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Sorry for rambling on, it's the drugs.

Not a problem at all.

Your health is the important thing, if producing the fighter and carrier rules gives you something to keep you occupied then all the better.

Besides some of us ramble without needing any medication. Me for example :wink:

 

[Ben2]

I've digested Module J2.

Interdiction, patrol and scout carriers are fine to bring in.

I'm concerned about heavy fighters as the speed upgrade they all get in J2 makes them very nasty.

Bombers are entertaining but I'm not converting over because they'll have more damage than some ships and carry obscene amounts of drones/plasma.

Plasma-K torpedoes (like a dogfight plasma-D) I'll convert.

The plasma fighters with four torps I'd love to carry over, but are all very late war.

So far the dates for ACTA:SFU have been very vague, and I've converted over all the fighters for each race to leave it up to players what they use and when they date their games.

I've had another read of Module K, which has refreshed in my mind why so many people absolutely hate PFs. Interceptors I could happily convert over and I've got some ideas for them, but PFs have the firepower of a frigate in something that would have 6-8 points of damage and would be substantially cheaper.

Interceptors would all have 4 damage points, somewhere around 8 shields (PFs would be 6 and 12), but a weapon sneaking through the shields would likely be a serious cause for concern (a photon would destroy it, a kill zone phaser or a disruptor would leave it teetering on crippled). They're fragile. PFs would be 6 damage (8 on the lyran one) and around 12 shields.

Interceptors are not massively well armed.

The Klingon one - 2 ph-2, 1 disruptor (range 10), 1 ph-3, 1 drone.
The Romulan - 2 plasma F, 1 ph-1, the Gorn 2 plasma-F, 2 ph-1.

That doesn't look terrifying. Of course they come in groups of 6, so that's the same firepower as a dreadnought at close range.

The Klingon PF has 2 ph-2, 2 drone, a disruptor (range 10) an ADD, 6 damage, 12 shields. With the drone rules PF's won't be swamping drone defense unless you let them count as half a ship each).
Romulan Centurion PF, 1 ph-1, 5 plasma-F. Gorn PF 3 ph-1, 4 plasma-F.

You're then outgunning a Gorn Destroyer with a Gorn PF. They also get a scout per flotilla, which complicates things more.

I'd be very hesitant to add the super fast heavy fighters and PFs to the mix because they shift the game decisively away from ships and onto attrition units. While this fits the background in F&E perfectly (every built PFs, General War ends because every base has 1 or 2 squadrons of fighters plus 1 or 2 flotillas of PFs and it's just a grinding war of attrition where you try to kill the enemies disposable units before you run out of them) I'm not sure how interesting a game it makes it.

Interceptors are vulnerable enough that they are a trade off between firepower and survivability, and if pointed right they aren't a no brainer. PFs are a lot more survivable and have in some cases a huge amount more firepower.

What I will do is stat some up so that people can see what I mean. I'll then do a vote on what people would like to see.

 

[SneakyPete]

Hoping that fighters NEVER make it into the official rules.

House rule them all you want, but as Mckinistry pointed out earlier this changes the whole point of ACtA SF gameplay.

 

[Nerroth]

In terms of plasma gunboats, each would probably have the same kind of firing limit per turn as the New Jersey battlecruiser has for its photons; even in Star Fleet Battles, you can only handle two launches per boat per turn.

(The same is true over in the Omega Octant; a Probr gunboat from Module Omega 5 has four HEAT launchers, but can't fire more than two per turn.)

-----

Personally, I think you're risking overdoing the amount of fine detail you're getting into, at least in terms of how many fighter types you are trying to add into the mix.

The Main Era of Federation Commander broadly runs from the start of the General War through the Andromedan War; but the degree of technogical advancement is far, far less incremental than it is in SFB. Since there are no X-ships in FC yet, essentially the only real difference between battles set after Y180 and those before is the (strictly optional) ability of drone users to pay in order to make their racks launch Speed 32 drones instead of Speed 24 ones. (And aside from speed, there is no variation in terms of what a Main Era drone actually does in FC.)

Essentially, it's better to think of each FC era as its own setting, rather than gradually accumulating points along an advancing timeline.

This is reflected by how the playtest Borders of Madness rules currently handle fighters. The Federation CVS and Klingon D7V have only one fighter class per role per empire (F-18s, F-15s and A-10s for the Federation; Z-Ys and Z-Ds for the Klingons) and no heavy fighters either. (Whether or not the Feds would get F-111s instead of PFs, or use their conjectural* boats instead, has yet to be announced.)

This sort of detail echoes what you see, more or less, over in A Call to Arms: Noble Armada. Even factoring in the new attrition units introduced by Fleets of the Fading Suns, there is still only a handful of fighter types available to each faction; and each carrier now has a list of what their "baseline" attack craft are before you start paying for replacements.

So, to continue the example, the Fed CVA would have 12 F-18s (based on those seen in BoM) in its "standard" squadron; and it would be up to the player to "buy" any F-15s or A-10s they'd want to sub in.

I think that kind of detail is, there or abouts, as far as ACtA:SF should go, in terms of handling true carrier operations. Take only a handful of carriers per empire, give them a "standard" loadout of fighters they deploy (for free or otherwise), and make the player buy their replacements/upgrades as part of their fleet setup.

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I don't want to go too far into things with a derailment into Omega; but were there ever to be a look at carrier operations over there, I would hope to see something along these lines. Yes, there is a range of different increments of fighter types per empire in SFB, thanks again to Module Omega 5; but in FC/ACtA terms, you would really only need one fighter per role per empire, and one "default" squadron per carrier to get by.

(For example, a Mæsron strike carrier has a squadron of 14 fighters; 8 superiority fighters, four direct-fire attack fighters, and a pair of torpedo fighters. Rather than offer each of the 25 different fighter models presented in SFB to this point, I would simply suggest porting over the ASF, ATF and AMF respectively; and state that while a player could choose to "buy" different fighters of they so chose, the CVS simply comes with the 8-4-2 breakdown as standard. )


As a further aside, gunboats are pretty interesting over there. In SFB, they come in different physical sizes, as well as varying numbers per flotilla; ranging from four to eight boats, depending on who you turn to. Plus, Omega boats have no warp booster packs; instead, their "volatile warp" engines have Orion-esque afterburners, that when used allow a 50% increase in warp output, but make the engines even more vulnerable than normal in the turns they are used. (Afterwards, they then need a turn to "cool down" again, so can't be over-clocked continuously.)

In all, these details make for a very different on-table experience relative to how Alpha Octant gunboats work... though, of course, one would need to know how Alpha PF rules end up working before reverse-engineering them into an Omega contest would start to sound like a good idea.

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EDIT: Here's a thought on gunboats; what if you forget about the idea of "casual" PFs entirely, and simply offer the cost of an entire flotilla at once? (And require the presence of a PFT or SCS to bring them into battle, to boot.)

That way, a player using them would have to throw down a chunk of change per squadron, and have a built-in limit (in terms of how many tenders they want to also pay for, relative to everything else they'd need to allocate points for in their fleet) before seeing them appear on the tabletop.

Or, if PFs were to be paid for individually, still impose a requirement for dedicated tenders, and disallow "casual" boats. (Unlike SFB, FC has no rules governing casual mech link refits, as it stands.) And "suggest" what a standard flotilla looks like, akin to the "default" fighter squadron idea above.

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*Conjectural in the "main" timeline, at least; over in the "dark future" timeline reported back from by the USS Darwin, the alternate Feds caved in and started fielding their own gunboat flotillas in Y198.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Add the cost of the standard fighter mix to the carrier. Add the cost of the Interceptor or PF squadron to the tender.

Then buy the ship or not to add to your fleet. You can have an upgraded fighter or two and simply pay the extra to have a few of that type instead of the base.

You need carriers or a base to have fighters on the map, same with PFs so don’t muck around with compulsory buys, none of this you have this model on the mat so you must by this one.

If you want a carrier or tender you buy it and it has its small craft.

I’m trying to talk people out of conditional ship buys for this game.


In terms of PFs, what is not to love. They are fast enough to have the fast trait, a squadron can put a nice dent a DN in a single pass, they are cheap and for campaigns easy to replace as you run the tender of the map to safety. :twisted:

Everyone buys them, everyone hates the fact that everyone else buys them. In SFB the plasma ones dominated. The fed one had its Photon, the Disruptors and Drones on the Kzinti and Klingon ones had some firepower, the Hydran were murder up close.

Then a squadron of Plasma PFs swept round behind you and unloaded 12 Plasma Fs from 4 hexes while you couldn’t use a Wild Weasel (plasma boats launched two Fs a turn regardless of how many they had). Its very hard to Phaser down 240 points of incoming plasma. Plus if the PFs run off they can come back and do the same next turn then go hide and reload.

The HUGE problem with late war SFB was that it was carrier wars not Star Fleet wars. When you have attrition units that are much cheaper than ships but in groups have the same firepower as those ships then everyone ends up using them. You cannot afford not to. If you bring a DN, three cruisers and 5 escorts and the enemy brings in a CVA, a CV, a PF tender and a few other ships you are in a world of trouble.

If that CVA/CV/PFT are from a Drone race and you are a plasma race then you are toasted on both sides. Or a really cheesey Romulan I seem to remember who brings on cloaked PFTs or carriers, wanders them up the side of the map invisible to anyone using the hidden ship rules then launches from a flank since they can launch under cloak. Oh look that’s 6 Centurions just popped up behind my fleet and they look like they are making a run for my CC.

Fighters, Interceptors, PFs etc should be a separate game. You would have ACTA-SF and ACTA-SF-CW (A Call To Arms – Star Fleet – Carrier Wars). In this way the ship based fleets can continue to be viable in SF games while those who want to use carriers can do so knowing that they will be up against other carriers.


Ben2 is doing a great job here but I think he should be looking at doing this as a new game not an add on to ACTA-SF. Adding carriers, fighters, PFs etc to the ship based game will twist it and change it into something new and very different. So why not go for new in the fist place. Then PFs and bombers can be added. Are they silly, yes, are they overpowered ship killers that will ruin the day for any conventional fleet, yes. But if they are not facing conventional fleets and are instead facing other carriers and other tenders and other fighters and bombers then they can be balanced against each other and not against the poor ships.

SFB carrier wars made conventional warships floating targets till the x ships came along. Drone armed fighters or plasma armed PFs are going to kill anything afloat if they are attacking conventional ships. Six plasma PFs can fire 12 Plasma Fs one the first turn and another 12 on the next turn. In ACTA that’s 24AD of plasma each turn for 2 turns before they run off to reload and that doesn’t include the two or three Phaser 1s they will be firing inside the killzone. You have to kill them or they kill your best ships. :roll:

ACTA-SF cannot simply add in all the fighters and interceptors and PFs and remain the same game. So why not make it a new game, same rules, same background. Throw all the late war sillyness into ACTA-CW so that ACTA-SF can remain a game of ship to ship combats.