The Speed of Fighters

T

Target

Mongoose
One thing that bugs me about fighters in the game is their speed.
A lot of them are pretty damn tortise like compared to capital ships.
Fighters are always zipping about, charging into the other fleet at high speeds while the Caps are yet to fire. The game doesn't really show this at all.
I'm a big believer in that fighters should be faster, im talking around 20" movement. they should be able to take advantage of ships getting crippled, losing weapon arc's even though they are on the other side of the battlefield. In my mind this is the job of fighters.
In the show they were at the front , zooming past whitestars & every other ship hurtling headlong at the enemy fleet crashing through the enemies fighter screen to make to the enemy caps & their fighters did the same not getting left behind by Whitestars.
Just doesn't make any sense to me.
 
Think a few people actually agree because when they don't they post their counter arguement.
We have fighters faster & they work a lot better. Makes the Centauri rear arc actually vunerable ( sometimes my spelling is terrible)
 
greenboy said:
Could work may need to increase the range of fleet carrier trait though
Click to expand...

not sure 30" is already a good distance

be interesting - how much more would you increase the fighters? :)
 
+1/3-1/2

After all, there were larger ships that were As fast, if not faster than any fighter they came across.
 
Target and I just doubled the speed of all fighters, have been playing like that for over a year. No problems whatsoever, and fighters get to do something. But we also only move 4 at a time so you can counter the other's moves, only allow 4 at a time to shoot as part of normal shooting intiative, scapped dogfights (fighters shoot at each other as normal, but take their dogfight score of the other's dodge trait). And just to make things even "worse" if a fighter flight dies it "regroups" on a 4+ at the start of each round, but needs to be relaunched from it's source.
 
A bit of Devil's advocate here, but perhaps the speed is taking into account all the evasive manouvres that fighters need to do - whereas the larger ships generally fly in straight(er) lines, these little fighters are weaving "in and out" to dodge the incoming fire / avoid missile lock and all that sort of stuff.
 
Dwar said:
Target and I just doubled the speed of all fighters, have been playing like that for over a year. No problems whatsoever, and fighters get to do something. But we also only move 4 at a time so you can counter the other's moves, only allow 4 at a time to shoot as part of normal shooting intiative, scapped dogfights (fighters shoot at each other as normal, but take their dogfight score of the other's dodge trait). And just to make things even "worse" if a fighter flight dies it "regroups" on a 4+ at the start of each round, but needs to be relaunched from it's source.
Click to expand...

Pretty much a whole new rules set I guess :)
 
I dunno, fighters seem fast enough to me. Fleets typically start off around 24" apart (I know it varies a bit between scenarios) which means that most fighters will be in a position to hit the enemy on turn 2. Some of the faster ones will even be in a position to dogfight their opposite numbers on turn 1 if the enemy advances.

How fast do you want them to be?

Remember that some forces are particularly vulnerable to fighters and making fighters even faster would make them a bit too unbalanced IMHO. A ship takes a crit and loses its AF trait. Suddenly in the next turn, every fighter on the table is swamping it. Sure they are fast but not that fast.

Personally I think that the speed of fighters are abaout right at the moment.
 
Dwar said:
Target and I just doubled the speed of all fighters, have been playing like that for over a year. No problems whatsoever, and fighters get to do something. But we also only move 4 at a time so you can counter the other's moves, only allow 4 at a time to shoot as part of normal shooting intiative, scapped dogfights (fighters shoot at each other as normal, but take their dogfight score of the other's dodge trait). And just to make things even "worse" if a fighter flight dies it "regroups" on a 4+ at the start of each round, but needs to be relaunched from it's source.
Click to expand...

Could you explain this a little more? Does the dogfight rating add to the dodge needed by a fighter? For example Fighter A (dogfight +3) shoots at Fighter B (dodge 2+). Does this mean Fighter B would dodge weapons on a 5+? And if so how does the WS-Fighter factor in with its accurate gun? It makes its dogfight rating kind of meaningless since it would ignore the dodge of the fighter anyway.
 
@ kaheron Thats what would happen though, remember your fighters can counter theirs thats part of their job. If you are silly enough to go in without fighter cover you are really asking for it.
I can't take my Vorchans/Demos in without fighter cover at the moment with double speed fighters otherwise there isn't really that vunerablity that you talking about with the arc's as fighters take that long to get there or no AF.

@ Taran- What ships were faster than fighters, they were constantly passing whitestars. I've never seen a show where caps were faster than fighters, fighters did tend to run out fuel when being chased was their only weakness.
 
Methos5000 said:
Dwar said:
Target and I just doubled the speed of all fighters, have been playing like that for over a year. No problems whatsoever, and fighters get to do something. But we also only move 4 at a time so you can counter the other's moves, only allow 4 at a time to shoot as part of normal shooting intiative, scapped dogfights (fighters shoot at each other as normal, but take their dogfight score of the other's dodge trait). And just to make things even "worse" if a fighter flight dies it "regroups" on a 4+ at the start of each round, but needs to be relaunched from it's source.
Click to expand...

Could you explain this a little more? Does the dogfight rating add to the dodge needed by a fighter? For example Fighter A (dogfight +3) shoots at Fighter B (dodge 2+). Does this mean Fighter B would dodge weapons on a 5+? And if so how does the WS-Fighter factor in with its accurate gun? It makes its dogfight rating kind of meaningless since it would ignore the dodge of the fighter anyway.
Click to expand...
AF is only at -2 under our house rules. But then you lose if you don't have any caps on the board so no fighter only fleets.
 
Yep, kinda like str vs armour save in warhammer. A white star fighter is deadly vs other fighters, -3 or -4 if fleet carrier around to dodge but only any good if fire first. Gives you the dilema about how much i need these fighters.
Escorting fighters get to shoot in the AF phase as well so always strike first.
Give it a try in a game or 2 & see how you like it or hate it. It fits the feel fighters in the show more than current set rule in our opinion. But that is just our opinion

Just in case think our regenerating fighters is a bit insane, it's only ship borne ones regenerate. If have 2 hermes & flight of furies. It means it's not till you get down 2 fighters left that you can start regenerating them, lose a hermes & you are down to 1 fighter that can come back.
 
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