Giving Fighters Teeth

[Achiles]

Ouch didn't know about the Kotha. Well we could give them the E-Mine trait that gives a -1 on damage rolls. Though I did catch the problem with the Vorlon fighters. See my P.S. above.

As for bookkeeping and clutter, I have found those little colored glass life counters work great. They fit pereftly in the center of a flight of fighters and the fighters keep them from falling off.

Another solution I considered is to change the fighter damage chart to a 1-2 nothing, 3-6 kills. With the modifiers for Precise and Emine weapons applying as normal.

 

[Obsidian]

I gotta say that instead of adding precise back in (except for those ships with missiles like Wulf has mentioned), the real fix here would be to change the deployment and firing orders. For starters, make it so that you can deploy all your fighters at the start of the battle. This allows you to form squadrons and get a general idea of what you plan on doing with your fighters. Second, make the firing order so that Auxiliary craft count the same as a regular ships. You have to choose between firing your Warlock or that single flight/squadron of Thunderbolts. One might be in a better position than the other to take a shot so it's a tactical decision that has consequences. Fire the Warlock and you're Thunderbolts are now at risk from opossing fire. Fire the Thunderbolts and you give up the damage potential from the big guns on the Warlock. One or the other might be the correct choice at the time so it becomes something you have to think about while playing.

Yes, there is a minor problem with the book keeping in terms of which squadrons a fighter is in, but I really think Achiles' idea of using the glass counters is the perfect solution. Form your squad and put the same color counter on each one.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Yes, there is a minor problem with the book keeping in terms of which squadrons a fighter is in, but I really think Achiles' idea of using the glass counters is the perfect solution. Form your squad and put the same color counter on each one.

Mine all get little coloured dots on the bases anyway (or they will when I get everything properly based & painted...). Like I've said, you already have to trace Wings and ship's flights for CQ anyway, so it's not THAT much harder!

Wulf

 

[Chernobyl]

I think they'd be OK if I could just get some of them to the target without being completely wiped out.

1) change the firing order. having the fighters go last is silly. there are a couple ways to implement this.
a) "activate" by wing or with mothership's firing.
b) activate by firing group (ie all fighters attacking a paticular ship constitute a group) see the 5 house rule discussion.
c) old way of "all fighters at once" (far from ideal, I'm not in favor of this, but thought I should include it for completeness)

2) remove the 30" range restriction on fleet carrier ability. They're too close to the battle. Consider that most battle-level (a common level for fleet carriers) ships will have some hard hitting 30" weapons and suddenly your carrier isn't helping any at all, because its either crippled, skeletoned, or dead.

3) give back some precise. They should be able to call shots (cause crits) on a lot of exterior targets. They should be given back precise on a majority of weapons, but a new type of critical modifier should be introduced to limit the kinds of crits caused. (I considered a new table for criticals caused by fighters, again see the 5 house rules discussion)

Chernobyl

 

[madpax]

Currently, for the sake of simplicity and not wanting to try anything new, I added the precise trait for all fighters (AP or Super AP added if precise was already there). It doesn't make them overly powerful as they have been reduced in every department. I even no more buy squadron, even if I like having some carried by ships (but no poseidon for me...). Of course, anything giving them a little bit more teeth, just for them to have a real (AKA antiship) use, would be more than welcome.

Marc

 

[Chernobyl]

Fighter Critical Hit Table

2D6 Location Result Dam. Crew Effect
2 Crew Local Decompression +1 +3 --
3 Crew Fire! +0 +2 --
4 Engine Engines Disabled +3 +1 Spd 0, no special actions
5 Engine Fuel System Ruptured +2 +1 -4 Speed
6 Engine Thrusters Damaged +1 +0 -2 Speed
7 Engine Power Relays Destroyed +0 +0 -1 Speed
8 Reactor Capacitors Damaged +0 +1 -2 Speed
9 Weapons Targeting System Damaged +0 +1 All weapons lose 1AD (Min 0)
10 Reactor Reactor Gas Leak +0 +3 No Special Actions
11 Weapons Weapons Offline +2 +2 No firing from 1 random arc
12 Vital System Bridge Hit +0 +1 No Special Actions

from the 5 house rules discussion

 

[Rorschach]

Our current "House Rule" idea is three-fold:

1) Give Them Twin Linked instead of Precise. Barn Door Theory.

2) They ignore Stealth. Barn Door Theory.

3) Make AF a -2 Modifier to Dodge, instead of absolute death. Otherwise you have to mod the firing sequence into something fiddly so they can even survive to deliver one attack. Even if you let them go first, losing almost all in the follow-on AF feels just too expensive.

Right now, we pretty much scoff at carriers and fighters. No combo yet has fielded where they were worth the cost and effort. (Again though, we play at Battle most of the time).

Looking at the show, Fighters are always treated as a major weapons system. They should be better.

-D

 

[demonllamma]

Something that I have been wanting to try for some time, but haven't yet, is simply give each flight of fighters two damage points. Book keeping on this would be fairly simple, use a small marker at the center of the base and take it off when they have suffered a hit. Dogfighting would still remove the base outright. The problem that I see with fighters is not thier offensive punch so much as thier survivability. We do not see them doing serious damage to major ships, however we rarely see them wiped out altogether. That's just my 2 cents and I have not playtested this at all, however, it would make it a little easier to overwhelm AF weapons.

 

[Morpheus1975]

One thing to think on is is the Poseidon with its fighters an even match to ANY of the other War level ships?

If not what is the problem with the fighter?
Too easy to kill?
Cannot reach target?
Don't do enough damage?

I think giving fighter precise represents them being able to pick specific targets on a ship. You should't have to have a special command because all fighter pilots would normally try to target weak points on a ship and having a special command to do so would be redundant in my opinion.

Giving those with precise already AP and those with AP SAP would be the next step as already mentioned.

I would also change AF to be a -2 to fighter dodge rolls this makes the instant kill of AF go away since most fighters already have low hull scores in order to balance out the dodge traits.

 

[Chernobyl]

about the only this that make me consider taking a poseidon is it's command 3. With the prevalence of boresights in an EA fleet, a higher initiative is desireable. But, I've found initiative sinks to be just as good as a better initiative. Otherwise, taking 2 avengers allows you to get your fighters in the field faster, and they have better armor and DP combined.
Chern

 

[Pigeon Smythe]

if fighters went precise then drazi would have a bomber that far outclasses drazi patrol,ships.

4x AP precise
+
4xTwin Linked Precise

That pretty much 2 guaranteed criticals per fighter that gets a shot off, even against a hull 6 target

That would be absolutely insane, and I play drazi.
some fleets would suddenly become far better if all fighters had precise
esp EA, and Drazi

A Nightfalcon would have to be a war level candidate carrying 3 super bombers (that it gets to catapult out 8") to the front

 

[Morpheus1975]

True BUT the Sky Serpent is only 2 Flight per patrol point AND it already has a very poor dodge (4+) and dogfight traits (-1) which help balance this.

This also means that the star snakes become that much more valuable as escorts to protect the Sky Serpent because other race's fighters are that much more uselful and will become more abundant.

 

[Slightly Norse John]

I like the idea of removing the instant kill from Anti-Fighter, but I'd go further than that; call it a new trait, Volley Fire, and give it a numerical factor. -1 to in extreme cases -4, so that a dodge of 2+, which really is fairly beardy in and of itself, becomes a dodge of 6. If there's going to be a new fleet list anyway, which the tournament list seems to be prefiguring, why not?
I'd activate fighters, for firing but not movement, with the carrying vessel, or as a unit in the normal sequence for Independent wings.
Part of the problem is that none of the existing fighters seem to be designed for antiship work. They strafe. This is not how you go about hurting an armoured ship.
This is NOT a serious suggestion, but picture a proper bomber, with a proper bomb- by which I mean a Thunderbolt, say, with the other weapons removed, carrying one of the fusion bombs from the Fall of the Black Star special scenario in EMW.
Utterly unbalanced, isn't it? And yet perfectly possible.

 

[sidewinder]

except you'd loose you fighter unless they gave the missle more range. I agree with doing away with the auto kill AF, -2 dodge would be fine with me. Making a 2+ dodge go to a 4+ aint bad, still survivable but you'll miss it eventually. As to fighter weapons, giving missles precise would be nice since most if not all missles get it anyway. Giving precise to all fighter weapons might be a bit much though. There have been times when I got 3 or 4 crits from like 5 T-bolt flights. 3 AD for the T-bolt gatling cannon would be nice though with the TL like the starfury has. And the barn door thing would be nice, I'd almost say any ship within a couple inches or so of a ship should ignore stealth.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

And the barn door thing would be nice, I'd almost say any ship within a couple inches or so of a ship should ignore stealth.

There are PLANETS only a couple of inches in diameter...

Base contact I could agree with.

Wulf

 

[emperorpenguin]

yes base contact only just like in dogfights, stealth is ignored there. Dodge for the same reason.

 

[Morpheus1975]

Ok so far

Giving fighter precise represents them being able to pick specific targets on a ship. No new special commands because all fighter pilots would normally try to target weak points on a ship.

Giving those with precise already AP and those with AP SAP.

Change AF to be a -2 to fighter dodge rolls.

Fighters ignore Stealth if in contact with ship or fighter.

Or

Add 1 AD to fighters.

Change AF to be a -2 to fighter dodge rolls.

Fighters ignore Stealth if in contact with ship or fighter.




Now

How about giving fighters precise BUT also give all fighters a -2 on the crit roll. This means that ships will get crits more often from fighters but nothing killer!

This represents the fact that fighters are excellent at blowing away outer visible targets on a ship but do not have the penetration of heavy weapons for a ship killing crit.

This would also include normall fighters missiles. Fighters could have an option to pack heavier missiles that only have a -1 or no - to them.

This rule would be a simple add on with little difficulty in using when playing the game since it requires no chart or complicated rules.

 

[Obsidian]

I think you're starting to go down the path of over complication Morpheus.

 

[Morpheus1975]

How is giving fighters a -2 to their crit rolls overcomplicated?

 

[Wulf Corbett]

How is giving fighters a -2 to their crit rolls overcomplicated?

I think he's talking more about the first and third options on your list, which would involve re-writing virtually every fighter stat block. The middle option looks acceptable.

Personally, though, I think activating fighters in Wings or ship's flights would do on it's own.

Wulf