Fighters

[Morpheus1975]

Now to repeat with AF and hulls of 4 and 5 for the ships. After all only Battle and above usually have a hull of 6.

 

[E-Mines Hurt]

Now to repeat with AF and hulls of 4 and 5 for the ships. After all only Battle and above usually have a hull of 6.

Double damage for Hull 5, triple it for hull 4.

Assume the Weak, Beam, Twin Linked, AP and SAP all either balance out or distribute themselves equally.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

All the analysis is based on shoting against a 6 hull rated target and the fighters survivability is based on being shot at by vanilla AD. What I am going to do is compare how much damage (assume each crit doing 2 damage and 2 crew) each patrol level of fighters can do and how many vanilla AD are needed to completely destroy the flight.

Erm... hang on, damage DONE by an entireWing, but damage TAKEN by only a single flight? Now, while I do like this study (and it bears out my experience of those damn Double-V), that sounds a bit slanted...

Wulf

 

[E-Mines Hurt]

All the analysis is based on shoting against a 6 hull rated target and the fighters survivability is based on being shot at by vanilla AD. What I am going to do is compare how much damage (assume each crit doing 2 damage and 2 crew) each patrol level of fighters can do and how many vanilla AD are needed to completely destroy the flight.

Erm... hang on, damage DONE by an entireWing, but damage TAKEN by only a single flight? Now, while I do like this study (and it bears out my experience of those damn Double-V), that sounds a bit slanted...

Wulf

Here is the Math for the Double-V

Survivability

4 flights * (hull 4) *2 * (dodge 3+) 3 = 24

sorry, did many calculations, got one wrong... am gonna fix it.

Damage

missile rack 2 AD AP = 4/6 + Twin Light Particle 4 AD TL W = 4 * 11/36 ~= 8/6 (close enough) = 12/6 per flight * 4 flights = 8

 

[Nivad]

As opposed to what everyone else is saying I think that it would be stupid to have fighters go in initative order. Think about it, unlimited init sinks. I am also opposed to makeing fighters stronger because then they get just too lethel. What I am proposing is that instead of all fighters going last they should go last in movement phase(so they can't get out manuverd) and first in firing phase(so they can do some damage). Any opinions on that?

 

[lastbesthope]

Any opinions on that?

Well for one, you wouldn't have infinite initiative sinks, an unnecessary exaggeration. As for moving last, they do that just nolw anyway, and firing first, that would restart the old complaint that fighters can mmove into a ships weapon arcs and fire before the ship even gets a chance to defend itself.

The issue of fighters bears a striking resemblance to the Kobyashi Maru test :lol:

I tyink they're fine as is though. Don't mess till we're sure they need fixed, and that we have a workable and improved solution.

LBH

 

[Obsidian]

As opposed to what everyone else is saying I think that it would be stupid to have fighters go in initative order. Think about it, unlimited init sinks.

Who said anything about them moving any differently. We've all been talking about them firing in order, not moving in order. Under the current rules, fighters move last and fire last. The suggesstion here has been that they continue to move last, but fire as if they were normal ship. I fire my Primus, you fire your squadron of Thunderbolts. I fire my Vorchan, you fire your Starfurys, etc; etc;

 

[Chernobyl]

I voted other.

--give back precise to appropriate weapons (don't want to generalize "all weapons get precise")
--weaker critical selection see the chart I made. (so what if it's "another table")
--distribute the fighter firing sequence by wing & ship. (makes sense! you're basically activating the selection. a wing of fighters, or a ship with its fighters. also an added incentinve to take carriers!)
--remove fleet carrier range restriction
--put wing sizes back to the old sizes (ie, 4 starfuries, 2 Nials, etc) except ISA; keep the ISA fighter wings the size as their Earth/minbari counterparts.
--fighters within 2" ignore stealth. weapons can be fired the old fashioned way - mk 1 eyeball.

Chern

 

[Target]

Come up with another idea on crit charts.
Fighters 1-3( meaning the roll to see what section to roll the other d6 on) on crit chart so you can give them precise back but they won't do heaps of damage.
Ancients could get d6+1 on their crit rolls eg really nasty crits like slicing and dicing ships. Just need a 7 on the crit chart. A pretty simple addition that won't complicate things.

 

[Tolwyn]

I voted for 4.

Seems to me the most balanced option.

 

[texican]

I would also not be opposed to placing them in the initiative order for shooting, or even having them go before shooting for the big ships. The whole reason that they get to go last during movement is that they are more manuverable, why not have the same premise for shooting?

Having all fighters shoot before the big ships is what got us into this mess in the first place. In case you haven't seen it in the other threads, here's what happenned with the most extreme example, the ISA. 5 War points = 180 Thunderbolt flights. All of which would be nominated and fire at the exact same time in the attack phase. Typically at the start as either the first action if the ISA player won initiative or after the other player fired one of his own ships. We're talking about rolling 360 AD of AP, Precise weapons and 540 AD of Precise weapons in one go. It was a freaking bloodbath for the oppossing team.

Had they been reduced to firing in squadrons interspersed with the ships it would still be scary, but not mind numbingly so. You'd at least feel like you had a chance to defend yourself.

This could be addressed by limiting the deployment of seperate fighter wings to a maximum of one per ship and/or space station deployed.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Here is the Math for the Double-V

Right, got it now...

This convinces me of three things.

Firstly, there's nothing wrong with fighters themselves. Deployment rules, maybe, activation sequence maybe, but not the actual fighter stats. Giving them back Precise would be a huge mistake. Bigger Wings (back to original levels) might be fine though.

Second, one of the percieved problems is that fighters should be treated as units, whereas most fighters are only a small part of the ability of a ship. Think of a Nova. It carries more than a Patrol Point of fighters, plus all the ability of the ship. A Nova would still be viable without the fighters, although possibly not worth a full Raid point, certainly more than Skirmish! So what's to complain about if you get some extra fighters?

Thirdly, Double Vs are a bitch!

On this evidence, I now believe the answer to any percieved problem with fighters would be solved by changing the activation sequence so fighters activate by Wing or ship's complement during the normal sequence of firing (but they should still move last).

Wulf

 

[E-Mines Hurt]

I'd suggest allowing players the choice of moving all fighters first and shooting first or moving all fighters last and shooting last. Simple enough. So you can either choose risking fighters for max firepower... or focus on fighter survivability.

 

[Greg Smith]

If you move fighters first, ships will easily move out of their 2" range.

 

[philogara]

I've never understood the all fighters move together and fire together. Its a simplification I suppose, but an OTT one, so I agree - treat them as squadrons.

An indenpendent fighter wing (IFW) = 1 squadron
Ships compliment = 1 squadron

It might be easier for the ships compliment to activate with its parent vessel though to avoid the perceived "unlimited" initiative sinks (lots of single-flight squadrons.

If there is concern over hordes of IFW, I've advocateed before limiting the number of points spent in this way (e.g. 1 per WHOLE 5 points, so in a 5 pt raid game, only 1 pt raid (3 patrol) on IFW can be spent this way. In a 6 pt raid game, still only 1 pt raid, etc.

Alternatively perhaps discriminate against IFW by leaving them at the ened of the init order but ship-borne ones move (and fire) with their parent vessels.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Alternatively perhaps discriminate against IFW by leaving them at the ened of the init order but ship-borne ones move (and fire) with their parent vessels.

I'm going to nick that idea for my list on the other thread :lol:

Wulf

 

[lastbesthope]

Moving fighters in wings could be problematic if the individual flights head off in different directions, you'd need to keep track of who was who. Unless you enforced proximity on wings.

LBH

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Moving fighters in wings could be problematic if the individual flights head off in different directions, you'd need to keep track of who was who. Unless you enforced proximity on wings.

First of all, I don't think mandatory squadroning is such a bad idea, unless flights are assigned to escort duty.

Secondly, the exact same problem happens when you track which flights have which CQ. Where are all your Elite flights from the Poseidon?

Wulf

 

[lastbesthope]

Yeah, I know, but I usuallly play topurneys or games with a flat CQ, so no problem on that score, but the wing thing would still be an issue.

LBH

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Yeah, I know, but I usuallly play topurneys or games with a flat CQ, so no problem on that score, but the wing thing would still be an issue.

You see, Tournament games are nothing but a bloody nuisance... :roll:

Wulf