Yes, it does. But then that small meson bay isn't shooting at the cap ships if it's shooting at fighters. So the fighters can act as a "meat shield" for the caps for at least one combat round. Assuming, of course, the fighter and cap are both in range of the meson bay.F33D said:
Space Superiority Fighter
- Thread starter SSWarlock
- Start date
F33D said:Nerhesi said:Anyways, I think the conclusion is that balanced forces do much better then imbalanced ones (all caps or all fighters)
An all Cap fleet would be more likely to wipe out a mixed fleet as fighters don't bring as much to the table for the cost. Every small bay meson (MCr 50) hit destroys a fighter.
Actually, if you recheck the previous posts - you'll notice fighters bring the most damage/cost to the table of any unit due to their relatively low, non-gun cost. Also, a small bay is not guaranteed to destroy a fighter - it depends on the fighters hull and structure.
As for a Cap fleet vs a balanced fleet. The only way a Cap fleet wins is vs a terribly put-together mixed fleet. Simply due to the fact, the more fighters, the more bang for your buck.
Want to stop fighters? Pony up your own - can't just spam the battle with dreadnoughts/cruisers/whatever
Before I put the wife to bed, sit down, and take a look at cheap-tender prices, I wanted to update my above comments with the following point:
158 Mcr for a 100-ton twin seat assault fighter.
1xPlasma or Particle Barbette (accurate + range increase)
1xPlasma or Particle Beam or torpedo or something
15 armor
6 Gs
22 Hull, 4 Structure
That means on average, even a large meson bay will NOT kill it. 24 damage < 26 Hull + structure. You'd need an 8+ on the barrage roll after modifiers.
Ok - Back to tenders.
158 Mcr for a 100-ton twin seat assault fighter.
1xPlasma or Particle Barbette (accurate + range increase)
1xPlasma or Particle Beam or torpedo or something
15 armor
6 Gs
22 Hull, 4 Structure
That means on average, even a large meson bay will NOT kill it. 24 damage < 26 Hull + structure. You'd need an 8+ on the barrage roll after modifiers.
Ok - Back to tenders.
SSWarlock said:
Doesn't need to be. The fighters cost TWICE as much as the meson gun. On an EQUAL credit basis there is still MORE guns to shoot at the capital ships on the fighters side. Basic math.
This is also without factoring the Cr loss for carrying the fighters in the 1st place. Additions crew, fuel, etc. It's a losing proposition...
F33D said:
Which is what you've been failing at....That is a 9G, +5 fire control, 15 armor, 4 hull 1 structure, fighter. Under 100 Mcr. That is the whole fighters - guns and all.
You're failing to realise Large or Small Meson Bays dont show up on their own, and that not every hit, if you're using a small meson bay will kill a fighter. And the cost of mounting those Meson Bays on Capital ships is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more expensive then the fighter tenders.
"Basic math."
Lets help F33D out with this "basic math" issue.
Sylea: 138,236.92 Mcr
vs
Fighters: Lets say 1000 of them, for 100,000 Mcr
Carriers/tenders:
Dispersed 200,000 ton carrier. 10,000 Mcr.
Jump 2 - 12,000 Mcr / 6000 tons
Thrust 1 - 2000 Mcr / 4000 tons
Power Plat 2 - 10,000 Mcr / 4000 tons
Fuel - 40,000 tons
Command Module - 500 Mcr / 1000 tons
Computer - 70 Mcr (negligable)
1000 x 40 ton full hangers - 10400 mcr / 52,000 tons
50 (yes 50) x 40 ton launch tubes - 10,000 Mcr / 20,000 tons
So, under 50,000 Mcr for something that carry and launch 1000 fighters in 2 rounds. (I was at 44,000 with everything BIG accounted for, so feel free to spend the other 6 thousand million credits on like.. staterooms and a few pinnances, you have around 80,000 TONS - which means a version of this ship can carry double the fighters (2000), for only 10k Mcr more)
So against a Sylea, for equal cost - you have 970/980ish fighters PLUS the tender.
Hopefully the "basic math" is now clear enough for him to understand that fighters plus tender is more firepower than any sort of mass-mesons.
Sylea: 138,236.92 Mcr
vs
Fighters: Lets say 1000 of them, for 100,000 Mcr
Carriers/tenders:
Dispersed 200,000 ton carrier. 10,000 Mcr.
Jump 2 - 12,000 Mcr / 6000 tons
Thrust 1 - 2000 Mcr / 4000 tons
Power Plat 2 - 10,000 Mcr / 4000 tons
Fuel - 40,000 tons
Command Module - 500 Mcr / 1000 tons
Computer - 70 Mcr (negligable)
1000 x 40 ton full hangers - 10400 mcr / 52,000 tons
50 (yes 50) x 40 ton launch tubes - 10,000 Mcr / 20,000 tons
So, under 50,000 Mcr for something that carry and launch 1000 fighters in 2 rounds. (I was at 44,000 with everything BIG accounted for, so feel free to spend the other 6 thousand million credits on like.. staterooms and a few pinnances, you have around 80,000 TONS - which means a version of this ship can carry double the fighters (2000), for only 10k Mcr more)
So against a Sylea, for equal cost - you have 970/980ish fighters PLUS the tender.
Hopefully the "basic math" is now clear enough for him to understand that fighters plus tender is more firepower than any sort of mass-mesons.
F33D said:
F33D - The fact that you said "internal" demonstrates you haven't even read half these posts, nor do you know smallcraft (they dont use "internal" table); and add to that you are saying "5D6" which as no relevance.
The small meson does 5 damage in a barrage;
If your barrage roll is a 3 or 4 - you will not kill any of the fighters as that only does 1 damage or 3 damage.
If your barrage roll 5+ - you will kill most of the medium or light fighter types, but not the heavier one. You cannot score enough damage with light meson barrage to kill a heavy fighter that loads up on reinforced hull.
You don't roll 5d6 in capital ship combat because you're using your fire-control computer on barrages, not on single attacks - if you do so, you'll be hitting only around 5-6 fighters a turn, not a possible 20, 30, 40 or 50 - and you will die even quicker.
Now regardless of whether you kill, radiate, or do whatever you have to remove the fighter - the result is clear. Its not as efficient as having other fighters do it.
So lets please ease-off on the snarky attitude towards other posters; since you seem to be in the dark and not bothering to read some of the posts, feel free to ask questions for clarification rather than insult the other posters here.
I'll look forward to the tender discussion tomorrow. There are some serious issues with trying get away with a low cost tender, I don't believe they work as they are too vulnerable to attack and once they're gone so is the entire fighter contingent. Also they've got to be mobile enough to deliver the fighters to the battlefield and not get left behind by the rest of the fleetNerhesi said:
Chas said:I'll look forward to the tender discussion tomorrow. There are some serious issues with trying get away with a low cost tender, I don't believe they work as they are too vulnerable to attack and once they're gone so is the entire fighter contingent. Also they've got to be mobile enough to deliver the fighters to the battlefield and not get left behind by the rest of the fleetNerhesi said:
I wanted to stay away from the tactical side because that opens up a whole other can of worms - so we were just comparing firepower. I wanted to remove any notions that small-craft dont work in the Traveller OTU as not only do they work, but they require other small craft to effectively counter and they support by the OTU.
However, if you want - with that much tonnage and cost available, you can always make that Tender a Fast-Cycle Jump Drive with enough fuel to jump twice. Jump in and jump out.
Again - I want to make sure something is clear, i am in NO WAY saying fighters kill-everything. Not at all, I'm saying Fighters kill capital ships easily but that they will probably most definitely lose to a well tailored mix of Capital assests AND small craft. This adds, flavour and strategy to the game rather than reduce it to "spam XXX optimised capital ship to win any engagement".
Absolutely agree that we don't want this and believe the balance isn't too far off. Per other comments earlier in the forum and the current review it seems though the heavy fighter balance in the mix is perhaps tilted a little too strongly in its own favor. I'm working through this myself now in terms of high thrust drones and hopefully will have something to add going forward.Nerhesi said:
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
According to the barrage rules in MgT HG yes.F33D said:
It's either a mistake or a deliberate change.
Or maybe errata...
The core rules mention that meson guns ignore armour, and in the HG barrage rules it would make sense if it worked like this: hull configuration, black globe and meson screens provide the defensive DMs instead of armour value for meson guns.
F33D said:
I swear you have a randomizer that just tells you to pick one post and read it. You'll note I've corrected for that within 2 posts, by not applying the armor modifier. :roll:
Although - as someone pointed out, in HG Barrage rules it seems they DO apply armor vs meson; it doesn't matter because in all the calculations in my analysis have been erring-on-the-side-of-cap-ships.
Chas said:
Awesome
I just did have another ridiculous addition based on this morning post-shower reading of high guard.
Highguard, Page 61, "Meson, particle beam and fusion bays can not be fitted."
Highguard, Page 96, Bomber Profile "Weapons 50–ton Missile Bay–9 (Reduced size) 31 (tons) 24 (Mcr)"
:shock: :shock: :shock:
I dont care about Missile bays, but now you do realise that means we totally over-looked Railgun BAY armed fighters? I'm not saying they'd be the new top dog (terrible range) but if they do make it into the range of anything, thats a 12 or 18 as the individual weapon damage value from each fighter...
Ouch.
F33D said:
Even though it doesnt matter for this thread (becuase we are assuming it is the error), can you link the errata where it shows that it is an editing error? Just asking because they already had released a high-guard errata, and re-touched and re-explained barrage rules in Trillion Credit Squadron...
It's not as bad as it sounds.
Remember railgun bays aren't big railguns, they're autofire clusters of standard railguns.
The 12 isn't the individual weapon damage. It's the damage each bay contributes to the damage 'pool', which needs to be explicitely defined because of the way autofire works. The individual weapon damage remains the damage of a single railgun slug - 3 dice.
So ten railgun bays firing is 120-Railgun-Short-3, even though 120 is a crudload more than 3 x 10.
Essentially it's the same as a missile bay.
The 8+-for-a-critical barrage rule is (as was pointed out to me) mostly there for spinal mounts, which have to roll an 8+ minimum to do anything. Doing a net 8+ roll with a standard barrage probably means some serious explodings on the part of the target to the extent that losing turrets is the least of its worries.
The comment about meson bays is a fair one - because it ducks armour (or at least blatantly should), but invites the default lizard/scissors/paper/stone/spock debate: if a fleet fields its secondary guns as meson weapons, then it becomes tempting to field fighters (or drones) with a single layer of crystaliron and reflec (just so he can't get cocky with point defence lasers) and save a non trivial amount of cost and volume.
Ultimately, fighters are up there with SDBs and battle riders; it's difficult to come up with a 'fair' comparison depending on the situation.
I wouldn't necessarily put them up against battleships and dreadnoughts; such ships are hard to put down but also tend to turn up mob-handed with escorts and fighter screens of their own, but I suspect they're a more dangerous foe for cruisers, which (if built imperial style) put a much higher proportion of their displacement into (useless) spinal mounts and are often encountered solo...
I've always assumed that the intended balance (not what the rules may actually produce) in Traveller for fleet actions is that the fighters are there to keep the opposition honest, but not an end in themselves. You might attempt to win a battle with lightly armoured cruisers with big spinal weapons, but they're going to be vulnerable to a fighter screen. But the truly heavily armoured massive battlewagons should not be susceptible to fighter swarms, you need a spinal weapon to go up against them.
Chas said:
Fighters keep you honest in that if you don't bring your own, you will get chewed up - regardless of what you are (heavily armored battleship or otherwise).
Yes, the truly awesome does get wrecked by fighters - and I think that is an important thing to have for balance purposes. There is no one truly awesome ship or ship class.
However, I'm almost sure that if you take your truly awesome ship, make it 80% awesome, then spend the 20% you saved on fighters, the 100% fighter composition will fare very poorly due to the tactical options available (fighter screen order, adding more damage vs fighters than the cap ship, etc).
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