High Guard - the curse of high tech fighters

[ColHut]

Capital ship fighter rules make fighters extremely hard to hit/kill. A typical TL 14 fighter can have AV 14. So without dodging there is a -14 drm, -4 for fighter swarm rules, -3 for reflec against beam weapons - for dodge or evade if applicable. This will make them immune to point defence lasers, and nearly immune to other weapons. (+5 fc +3 good crew +weapon chacteristics) I presume they can evade too. Even against a crew led by Yoda himself with the best FC, we have little to fear. (+5Fc,+5 crew, -14 Av-4 versus fighters) They can be armed with fixed particle beams at relatively cheap cost on tiny hulls, and are great value for money. you have to score 3 or more to get any result so a net result of -9 makes the target immune and there is only a 1 in 36 chance even then of getting 10% hits.

Not sure if this was intended.

regards

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Do opposing fighter swarms get the -4 to hit when attacking a fighter swarm? If not, then it seems high tech fighters are best at taking down other hight tech fighters...?

 

[ColHut]

I assume so - they will be using barrage fire back. Ships can be fired on individually I suppose, and there is much more chance if you use the normal space combat rules where to hit and to damage are separate. However that defeats the whole point of using the capital ship "moderate sized" combat rules.

Some of these issues are caused by design protocols which assume infinitely scaleable modeling. A 10 dton fighter with AV14 BSD would be denser that a white dwarf Armour should be a function of surface area, not volume, and excepting the miracle of contra-grav - structural requirements should depend on mass and G rating. As a crude limitation, their ought to be armour limits based on displacement or we need to go to something like FF&S 1

regards

 

[apoc527]

The thing about fighters is that ONE hit is likely to destroy them, unless they are really big. I agree that some limit should be placed on fighter armor, but it won't be that much less than standard.

I play with Effect adding to damage, so a pulse laser can potentially destroy even an armor 12 fighter.

Finally, just add new weapons. I created turret plasma and fusion weapons that ignore some armor and hurt pretty bad.

 

[dmccoy1693]

fighters do have alot going for them. no jump drive, jump fuel, and no need to carry two weeks worth of operating fuel, they can really be dangerous. When I was writing up fighters and small ships, I quickly noticed these. Some things I did to compensate:

-trick out the engines. I figured fighters should blow the airlocks off of a jump capable ship.
-give them more fuel than needed. sure a dogfight would take 6 hrs. but what if it is stranded. The pilot would appreciate the extra breathing time until it gets picked up.

-detachable bridge. I didn't notice this one until after the book was published, but when a fighter gets hit, I'm sure the pilot would like to eject.

 

[ColHut]

The thing about fighters is that ONE hit is likely to destroy them, unless they are really big. I agree that some limit should be placed on fighter armor, but it won't be that much less than standard.

I play with Effect adding to damage, so a pulse laser can potentially destroy even an armor 12 fighter.

Finally, just add new weapons. I created turret plasma and fusion weapons that ignore some armor and hurt pretty bad.

I think that they are beatable using the non-capital ship rules. It's just the capital ship rules that are a problem. Other things being equal, a starship with a good crew and with the best fc modifier has no mathematical chance of hitting a fighter wing at all against a well armoured fighter. (max roll 12 -14-4+5+3 = 2 no hits) This supposes the target is not entitled to dodge or evade - not sure about that. you could target individual craft but then you would die of old age resolving the attacks.

regards