How best to fight with a fighter

[hdan]

The recently unveiled Nolrrgarrai (which for some reason my brain keeps converting to "Noriega") fighter has me thinking about space fighters. They're not something I usually have in my games, so I haven't done a lot of "what does this mean, practically speaking" analysis of them.

So here are some of my initial thoughts about how a character might best employ the Nolrrgarrai fighter.

First off, here's brief rundown of the vehicle:
20dt, 12g acceleration, Model 4 (yes 4) computer with FiCon/4 and Evade/2 software, Fixed-mounted beam laser and 12 (yes 12) points of armor.

So this thing is fast as a greased weasel, tough as a boar, has a very powerful computer but only wields a d6 laser, fix mounted to its nose.

I don't remember how the final ruling on "exactly how does a fixed-mounted weapon get fired?" came down, but assuming that the pilot still takes a -2 penalty for both flying and gunning, he's probably better off just flying the ship and using his excess thrust in dodging and helping to line up the shot for the computer-controlled gunnery.

My thinking is that in a fight between this fighter and another fighter like it, the edge is going to go to the best pilot, not the best gunner. My other thoughts are that without a pulse laser or plasma weapon, you aren't realistically going to scratch this baby.

Unless of course you're a hot-shot with Pilot-3+ and Gunnery-3+.

In RP terms, the pilot would lock on sensors then start dog fighting (no pun intended), which would consist of making sure the enemy didn't break the lock and providing piloting assist to the computer's gunnery efforts, spending extra thrust on dodging the incoming fire. The computer would be waiting for the right moment and firing off a beam. If the computer missed, that would be best explained to the player as something like "In spite of your best efforts, the computer just can't get a firing solution."

With a beam vs. 12 armor, you have to roll 6 AND have a +7 DM from your shot's effect (+4 FiCon, +1 each maybe from pilot assist and target lock, Attack roll of 10-12) to even make a dent, so I would guess that a dogfight between two heavy fighters like this would be inconclusive.

(Call me old-fashioned, but I have trouble accepting fighters as "micro-SDBs" and ships with more than 6g acceleration.)

Anyway, enough rambling for now. Anyone else have thoughts about how to use or deal with a fighter like this one?

 

[SSWarlock]

It'll be truly mean vs. lightly-armored targets. Why not use a particle beam in a triple turret in place of the laser? That's give damage of 3d6 plus Effect and an automatic crew hit from radiation. And that will get anyone's attention.

Regarding your tactics, that's pretty much how I use fighters. Even a computer-controlled attack can miss if the target is defending itself robustly enough.

 

[AndrewW]

It'll be truly mean vs. lightly-armored targets. Why not use a particle beam in a triple turret in place of the laser? That's give damage of 3d6 plus Effect and an automatic crew hit from radiation. And that will get anyone's attention.

A 20 ton small craft can't mount a particle beam.

 

[Old timer]

Actually it can, High guards 20 ton multi purpose fighter can mount a particle beam in a fixed mount. It depends on the small crafts power plant rating, page 61 of high guard has the details.

 

[AndrewW]

Actually it can, High guards 20 ton multi purpose fighter can mount a particle beam in a fixed mount. It depends on the small crafts power plant rating, page 61 of high guard has the details.

Sorry, meant particle beam barbettes. Yes with the right power plant you can mount a particle beam on a smaller craft.

 

[apoc527]

Is anyone else bothered by an Armor 12 fighter? I know the rules let you do it, but it seems wrong to me that you can armor a fighter to the same level as a battleship...

Or maybe I'm thinking about this wrong and the "Armor" value is just the resistance of the outer skin and you have to consider the Hull as also a type of "armor" or toughness of the ship.

 

[GypsyComet]

With a beam vs. 12 armor, you have to roll 6 AND have a +7 DM from your shot's effect (+4 FiCon, +1 each maybe from pilot assist and target lock, Attack roll of 10-12) to even make a dent, so I would guess that a dogfight between two heavy fighters like this would be inconclusive.

So a fighter you'll be able to convince a PC to fly. That's a feat in itself.

(Call me old-fashioned, but I have trouble accepting fighters as "micro-SDBs" and ships with more than 6g acceleration.)

Back in the day, 6g was recognized as the "shirtsleeve limit" in Traveller.

 

[DFW]

Or maybe I'm thinking about this wrong and the "Armor" value is just the resistance of the outer skin and you have to consider the Hull as also a type of "armor" or toughness of the ship.

The armour value is just the thickness of the hull armour plating.

 

[apoc527]

Or maybe I'm thinking about this wrong and the "Armor" value is just the resistance of the outer skin and you have to consider the Hull as also a type of "armor" or toughness of the ship.

The armour value is just the thickness of the hull armour plating.

So Armor 12 fighters don't bother you? I guess it's not that big a deal really. If even one point of damage gets through, there's decent odds that "Hull" will come up. And since there's no Hull and only 1 point of Structure...that's fatal.

Which leads to the question: can you use the Reinforced Hull/Structure option on small craft? It certainly seems so, since the table includes Hull size 10-90.

In which case, for the low, low cost of 2 dtons on a 20 dton fighter, I get 3 points of hull. That seems like a pretty good deal. Can anyone tell me why not?

 

[SSWarlock]

In which case, for the low, low cost of 2 dtons on a 20 dton fighter, I get 3 points of hull. That seems like a pretty good deal. Can anyone tell me why not?

Nope. In fact, it's a great idea if the fighter is going to pull duty skulking inside a gas giant atmo. Of course, that in and of itself is a bad idea as far as the fighter pilot is concerned (I wouldn't want to do it!) but reinforcing the structure of any ship that could spend more than fuel-skimming time inside a gas giant is a good idea.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Or maybe I'm thinking about this wrong and the "Armor" value is just the resistance of the outer skin and you have to consider the Hull as also a type of "armor" or toughness of the ship.

The armour value is just the thickness of the hull armour plating.

So Armor 12 fighters don't bother you? I guess it's not that big a deal really. If even one point of damage gets through, there's decent odds that "Hull" will come up. And since there's no Hull and only 1 point of Structure...that's fatal.

Which leads to the question: can you use the Reinforced Hull/Structure option on small craft? It certainly seems so, since the table includes Hull size 10-90.

In which case, for the low, low cost of 2 dtons on a 20 dton fighter, I get 3 points of hull. That seems like a pretty good deal. Can anyone tell me why not?

I tend to think that fighters and dog-fighting just doesn't fit the MgT rules. They are fast, light, SBDs or gun boats rather mis-named (but that can be justified by traditions, after all we have "clippers" and "frigates" as well), and any serious 20 or 40t "fighter" should have a partical beam and thick armour. Can't really see "dog-fighting" as being very likely, with ranges of 1,000s Km, long range exchanges of fire and a lot of dodging seem more likely.

At one point I did play around with limiting, in a fairly arbitary way, small craft armour to no more than 10% of displacement, to create the "fast but fragile" version of space fighters we are familiar from Star wars, BSG etc, but that just reflects a different prediction of the future.

Egil

 

[barnest2]

I think the above actually has it spot on. You won't get dogfighting as we see it in star wars or bsg, but small fast ships with some weaponry and reasonably heavy armour.

I actually don't see them being used by militaries. They are expensive, and a multi-kiloton frigate would be a better investment, because a fighter can be knocked out of the air damn easily.
I see them being used more by space police or the space coast guard or whatever. Chasing down small pirate ships and the like.

Also, you will never need them for air superiority. All you need is a spaceship capable of entering atmo, with a small hanger (and a catapult if you want). For the space you could have 4 10 ton fighters, you could fit 20 atmospheric fighter craft. These would be much better for atmospheric fighting. (I think)

 

[Sturn]

I do have problems with the possible high armor ratings of small craft in MGT, but I love the idea that fighters are something to contend with now. In this5-page PDF is the "Luna" very similar to the OP's (see page 5), a fighter with 11 Armor, 7 Thrust, and armored bulkheads that make it able to take on any standard player craft (scout ship, free trader, far trader, etc) that hasn't been greatly upgraded. There is also a 50-ton military boat in that same PDF that can hold a particle beam barbette (as posted above) or even 2 torpedoes for taking out larger foes. MGT High Guard makes military small craft powerful if you look into the details and design something better then what is given in the examples (put in better weapons, armored bulkheads* for survivablity, etc).

Perhaps there should be a limit on armor plating by the size of the craft to keep fighters from having the same armor thickness as hulking battleships? I don't know how to do this without upsetting the basic rules in place. Armor already takes craft size in consideration (points of armor applied per 5% of hull tonnage allocated). Perhaps add that small craft can't take multiple layers of armor? That would limit small craft to 6 points of armor at TL 14 (looking at Core not High Guard) while allowing larger craft to add multiple layers (as written) and thus still obtain double digit armor.

*Armored Bulkheads allow the component to ignore the first hit.

 

[DFW]

So Armor 12 fighters don't bother you?

Why would they? If one uses the same amount of armour as a BB it would have the same resistance to incoming fire. It's logical.

 

[hdan]

So Armor 12 fighters don't bother you?

Why would they? If one uses the same amount of armour as a BB it would have the same resistance to incoming fire. It's logical.

Unless I'm mistaken, since the armor rating in the design system is a percentage of displacement instead of surface area, it's *not* the same thickness of armor a BB has.

 

[DFW]

Unless I'm mistaken, since the armor rating in the design system is a percentage of displacement instead of surface area, it's *not* the same thickness of armor a BB has.

ONLY because MGT design isn't detailed enough. It is approximated by using volume of the solid. So, that objection can be safely relegated to the circular file given the design system.

 

[apoc527]

So Armor 12 fighters don't bother you?

Why would they? If one uses the same amount of armour as a BB it would have the same resistance to incoming fire. It's logical.

Unless I'm mistaken, since the armor rating in the design system is a percentage of displacement instead of surface area, it's *not* the same thickness of armor a BB has.

Right! Why should a fighter be able to achieve AR 12 with just a few dtons of armor while it takes the BB a few ktons? I understand the concept of percentage of hull, but it doesn't seem right to me. It should require a certain non-relative amount of armor to achieve certain ARs.

 

[apoc527]

I should clarify my position given DFW's point (which is a good one). I understand that armor plating is added as a percent of hull. In my other favorite ship design system, the same is true, though the scaling rules make it a whole different proposition. Even with those other scaling rules, this other system limits small craft to "medium armor," reserving heavy armor for larger vessels and superheavy armor to still larger ships.

What if we simply said the following as an arbitrary set of limits (for those who want them):

Light armor: up to 5%
Medium armor: 6% - 10%
Heavy armor: 11% - 15%
Superheavy armor: 16%+

Edit: hmmmmm. Perhaps this doesn't work given the max armor limits. At TL15, you need 12.5% armor to get maxed out with bonded superdense. A fighter under my rules can achieve AR 12 with bonded superdense with "medium armor." I need to rethink this.

Small craft are limited to medium armor or less.

Spacecraft are limited to heavy armor.

Capital ships have no limit.

Arbitrary? Yes. Does it limit the armor of SDB's (well, sub-3000 ton ones anyway)? Yes, which I like because invulnerable little Sun Crushers are too Star Wars for me.

Thoughts, for those wanting limits?

 

[DFW]

I understand the concept of percentage of hull, but it doesn't seem right to me.

Then you need to work out the math. It is armour thickness that counts. Not total volume. IRL that's how it works anyway.