PT, Blue Shift

[rcbecker1]

My first Fighter.

Armadillo Light Attack Fighter
Armour: 4 Cost: 5450G’s
Agility: +0 Maintenance: 400 G
Traits: None Installed Equipment: None
Equipment Slots: 3 Equipment:
Slow Speed Medium Speed Fast Speed 1.Gun Pod, Hardpoint IV
0-5 6-8 9-14 2.
Slow Turns: 3 Medium Turns: 4 Fast Turns: 10 3.
Hardpoints Weapon Type Range AD DD Traits Cost
Hardpoint II
(BS) Cerberus Canister Gun 6” 6 1 Accurate +3, Limited Ammo 3, Weak 350 G
Hardpoint II
(BS) Cerberus Canister Gun 6” 6 1 Accurate +3, Limited Ammo 3, Weak 350 G
Hardpoint IV (F) Fido Active Homing Missile 18-36” 1 4 Accurate +2, Guided, One-Shot 750 G
Hardpoint IV (F) Fido Active Homing Missile 18-36” 1 4 Accurate +2, Guided, One-Shot 750 G

 

[rcbecker1]

Matt you have 13 items for equipment but you have a couple of fighters that can hold 11 or 12 items is the list going to be expanded to give a wider difference in fighters other wise players with these fighters are going to be the same.

 

[MongooseMatt]

It will inevitably be expanded, but taking one of each item is not really the best approach...

 

[rcbecker1]

So you can take multiples of some but Im assuming you cant use doubles of certain things if this is the case then it should be noted. for now Ill use common sense.

 

[Old timer]

This was discussed in play testing, equipment bonuses don't stack. If you have two fire controls, only one gives the bonus, but if one is destroyed you have a back up.

 

[rcbecker1]

Sorry I was not involved in the rules writing and playtesting just the playing the game part then giving opinions. And if you had to be there to know this then it should be in the rules as a statement for all the new players who were not at the playtesting.
Ray

 

[rcbecker1]

Ok Im testing the rules just using basics first to see if the rules hold up well. Then I will play with the add ons to see the difference it makes on game balance.
any oe else playing the test game have any opinions yet?

 

[GamerDude]

We've noticed some 'twisty' grammar that caused some confusion, and a whole combat mechanic missing (we're writing that up).

 

[rcbecker1]

So are you on the rule writing team? If so I have found several things that if you look closely could be worded better to create less confussion. For several things I have had to reread it several times to figure out what it means.
Also the fighters and weapons both falter at the, it either is to costly and powerful or cheap and weak with nothing in between.
Ray

 

[GamerDude]

So are you on the rule writing team? If so I have found several things that if you look closely could be worded better to create less confussion. For several things I have had to reread it several times to figure out what it means.
Also the fighters and weapons both falter at the, it either is to costly and powerful or cheap and weak with nothing in between.
Ray

Hi Ray.

I'm just a play tester but I have the annoying habit of, when I read a rule that isn't immediately perfectly clear, trying to rewrite it so it makes more sense in fewer words with fewer commas (commas are now thoroughly abused in English, unfortunately gaming books have jumped on the bandwagon of this horrible abuse of the language).

Here's a ruleset my friend and I are working out: With THREE firing arcs that could return fire on a tailing fighter, why is there no mechanic for doing so? Bombers had tail gunners (we have at Fairchild AFB the ONLY B-52 with a confirmed kill in Vietnam, and accomplished by the tail gunner) and many aircraft in WW 1 had two seats, the rear seat being the gunner (often a machine gun that could swivel 360 degrees).

 

[rcbecker1]

Im assuming any gun on a turret is mechanicly controled by the computer. Any gun mounted in the front (no swivel) is controled by the pilot as normal since it only fires forward. now the second pilot / gunner could do more since hes not flying the fighter. But whether he can turn around and shoot is another. Im assuming he adds to the computer defense among other things.
But I agree any bigger fighter could have rear guns. Mainly drop bombers/ rocket bombers in attack missions on planets and bases but these are not in play yet maybe to come since this expands missions. Since it is just a fighter dog fighting game you most likely will not see this. But back to rear guns it makes sense.

 

[GamerDude]

ok.. the firing arcs are:
Fore (F) – 90 degrees forward
Aft (A) – 90 degrees backward
Boresight (BS) – Directly ahead (down center line/spine of the ship)
Turret (T) – 360 degrees all round
Restricted Turret (RT) – 270 degrees to the rear

So we have three arcs that can fire at a tailing fighter: Aft, Turret, Restricted Turret. Having those arcs, particularly Aft and Restricted turret, are useless if guns really can only fire in say the front 180 degrees. Having a firing arc that covers the rear, especially aft, limits the usefulness of the weapon.

Of course having all of these weapons, able to fire all at the same time, mandates computer assistance which would cover rear firing guns against tailing..

Note I keep saying tailing, not just any fighter in the rear arc. A tailing fighter is going to be focused on staying in his target's rear, aiming their shot etc. Basically having made themselves a sitting duck. A pilot could at least use rear firing weapons to make tailing and successfully shooting at them more difficult.

 

[rcbecker1]

Based on most Sci-fi stuff movies, books so on very few fighters have rear guns except in the bomber type instance. So if we follow this format the full tuuret would and should be the only viable rear firing weapon. unless its a bomber or something but even in this case there should just be more full turrets. Now what you should have is flares and things to defeat missles and such to the rear of your fighter to help with tailing vs. missles. This is the reason for those crazy manuevers fighter jockeys pull to gain the advantage over other fighters. Also good reasons for a wingman.

 

[GamerDude]

well, our group today did some necessary hammering on the rules...
Even with five defined firing arcs, only weapons that go in HP 1 or HP 2 have a firing arc (Boresight), and that isn't listed it is merely by definition. Hardpoints 3, 4, and 5 just have a few weapons that can fit in each, but nothing about the HP going under wing, side of fuselage, or on the belly.

There are weapons that really are best suited as flack/flare/anti Electronic Warfare weapons if they pointed to the rear (or could).

We've defined rules for a "Reverse boresight" that can be built into the fighter where tail meets fuselage, as many aircraft have had for years (decades?).

Besides being around aircraft of different types for 20 years while in the USAF, my brother served 23 years as a crew chief on F15's.... ok four of those he was assigned to the Stealth Fighter project while it was still a secret. His biggest observation was technology keeps us from mounting automated rear-facing weapons as anti-tailing devices. Our computer/software tech isn't up to the challenge of dealing with controlling the weapons - hence the "hit a switch and dump" operation of devices like chaff and flares.

The basic idea is that a craft boring down on a fighter's tail at 8" or less is focused on hitting the fighter. Flares and chaff are nice but this isn't an atmosphere, the speeds are probably much higher than today's atmospheric based fighters reach, and so there aren't things like gravity to help disperse flairs etc. Being able to have some simple weapon that fires to the rear possibly catching that tailing craft off guard, even just applying difficulty to their attempts to hit the fighter, would be a big help.

Again there are weapons already in the book, just that they are currently limited to *forward* facing shots which don't make as much sense (and maybe the fighter can end up flying into the cloud of 'buckshot'")

 

[AdrianH]

A tailing fighter is going to be focused on staying in his target's rear, aiming their shot etc. Basically having made themselves a sitting duck. A pilot could at least use rear firing weapons to make tailing and successfully shooting at them more difficult.

That is probably what the British thought when they put a turret on the Defiant. It didn't work very well. Part of the problem was that the turret's armament was much weaker than the fixed guns of other fighters, part of the problem was that the turret made the fighter slower and clumsier, but even those can be discounted if you look at the WW1 Bristol F2. Original doctrine was to let the pilot do the flying and the gunner do the shooting from what in Blue Shift terms would have been a Restricted Turret, and they got shot to pieces. The pilots started flying the exact same type of aircraft as a fighter, using their fixed forward machine gun, and did rather well. Using a turret in a fighter to shoot down something tailing you rather than trying to outmanoeuvre the enemy and get on his tail is historically a very bad idea.

Of course, that's early 20th century air combat whereas Blue Shift is futuristic space combat, in which hand-waving and technowaffle can justify pretty well anything. So the question becomes, what sort of game are we getting? If manoeuvring to get on someone's tail just makes you vulnerable to his turret weapon, nobody will do it - everyone will get turret-armed fighters, close to firing range and exchange fire. That sort of game is already covered by various flavours of A Call To Arms. On the other hand, if turret weapons are at a disadvantage compared to fixed forward guns then tactical manoeuvring and trying to get on each others' tails becomes worthwhile. Turret guns could be less accurate; you're trying to dodge the fire from the fighter tailing you, which throws off your gunnery even more than his. They could be less powerful; yes you can shoot back at the fighter who's tailing you and put a few holes in him, meanwhile he hits you a lot harder and blows you out of the sky. One way or another, the best way to take out an enemy fighter should be to get on his tail and hit him with a big battery of something fixed forwards.

 

[MongooseMatt]

If manoeuvring to get on someone's tail just makes you vulnerable to his turret weapon, nobody will do it -

Bingo.

We may put a 'dump out the back' kind of weapon in (think Jango's seismic charges in Star Wars) but we _want_ dogfights, we _want_ people getting on tails, and we are not going to do much to dissuade that, technology or no.

 

[AdrianH]

I wouldn't be entirely opposed to actual turret weapons, especially for heavier fighters or bombers. But it would be good if they were weaker - returning to the WW2 analogy, you had two .5" or four .303" machine-guns in a turret, compared to two or more 20mm cannon firing forwards in a fighter. The Luftwaffe also had various bolt-on packs to help fighters attack bombers from outside the range of turret weapons, and bolt-on weapon packs seems to be a feature of Blue Shift...

 

[MongooseMatt]

That is certainly what we are thinking of with turrets in Blue Shift.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Turrets for the Transports, ore haulers and mining outposts.

There are plenty of weapons that can be fired backwards. Seeking missiles that fire against someone who locks onto you from behind, proximity canister rounds, a limit traverse cannon ALA an R2D2 point defence which could have enough ammo for a few shops.

Still for a turret you have to look at what is gained against the volume and tonnage and power needs of turret mounted weapons. The turret will be no wider than the hull which will limit the size and length of weapons contained in the turret. Weapons external to the turret will need to be armoured. You will need a second set of magazines for any projectile weapons or a complex system for feeding ammo to the turret, the fixed mount weapons are easy to equip with ammo as they don't move in relation to the hull. Launching missiles or rockets sideways is going to be fun.

I can see a very good case for anti tailing ordinance, in particular for the less nimble heavy fighters but I suspect this will have a more limited accuracy.

Save the proper turrets for the big slow targets… erm I mean civilian shipping. :wink:

 

[GamerDude]

That is probably what the British thought when they put a turret on the Defiant. It didn't work very well. ...

Of course, that's early 20th century air combat whereas Blue Shift is futuristic space combat, in which hand-waving and technowaffle can justify pretty well anything. So the question becomes, what sort of game are we getting?

well first, the entire game is hand-waving and technowaffle so, really is it a point?

You hit the nail on the head without putting "A" with "B" to get the full answer.

This games treats space combat more like its just atmospheric fighter-aircraft just with a nice 'techy space feeling'. In space there is no lift, drag, etc. A fighter moving on a particular vector at X thousand KPH which shuts off its engines... continues to move on the same vector at X thousand KPH. The idea put forth in about every sci-fi movie that a ship must be under constant thrust to maintain a velocity is 'hand-waving'. (C'mon, how many of us are heavy devotees in the "Church of the Holy Traveller RPG"?)

But that hand waving assumption everything is using inertialess propulsion with high-end atmospheric fighter flight dynamics vs the Newtonian physics of space aside...

The problem of rear facing weapons were... well having that second gunner and.. um.. they are in atmosphere! Again the drag of air rushing over the aircraft and what the change in the aerodynamics caused by space for gunner/gear/etc caused to handling in maneuverability.

This is space, no air, no drag, no slowing down when engines get turned off for some reason (i.e. the "Adrift" status). We're not worried about these things fighting in an atmosphere (or are we?) heck they don't need "wings" because they don't need lift. They could be flat faced cylinders and still work the same.

I've accepted this game mechanic is a lovely "physics-less" in the vein of the Original Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Star Treck, etc. even though I am more the Babylon 5 and BSG Remake (yes the engines on the fighters were mounted at the end of each arm of the "X" and swivled to change direction of thrust, which let them spin 'in place', more quickly change direction of thrust etc. banking Starfuries were great to watch and highly accurate).