John> Well, when I wrote the ruleI hadn't a clue about the existence, let alone capabilities, of bombers.

I don't see that much of a reason why it wouldn' work in a bomber.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 07:16 pm: Edit

Charles,

Sounds okay to me. I was trying to mirror the Stinger's fusion beam. It's limited in ammo, has short range, and does decent damage, but not overwhelming. If a Lyran fighter can carry 2 to 4 of these, I think it would work out pretty well. I'd have to play around with it, though. Sounds like a dead issue, though, from SVC's response. It was just a thought.

By Mark Kuyper (Mark_K) on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 07:36 pm: Edit

Mike,
As an alternative, how about single shot disposable Disruptors? Same basic concept, including it burns out after one use.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 08:14 pm: Edit

I'm assuming the idea is to make Lyran fighters sort of ineffective? If so, the disposable disruptor certianly makes sense. In my old group, in fact, the lyran fighters we used were simply klingon fighters that we assumed the Lyrans bought. They didn't use drones, but did use disruptors like the Z-D does.

The ESG bolt idea I had would be more effective. not quite as good as the fighter fusion beam (a bit shorter range, a bit less max damage, but better average damage.)

I have it worked up, if anyone is interested. I'd certainly appreciate the feedback from those that like carrier campaigns.

I also have 2 lyran fighter designs; the razor 1 and 2. Razor 1 is a 10 box fighter that looks alot like a lyran CA. It has 2xP-3 FA, 1 chaff pod, 1 ESG bolt, DFR 3, Cripple 7, speed 15.

The Razor 2 is a heavy fighter, with 14 boxes, 1xP-3 FA, 1xP-3 RA, 2 ESG bolts, DFR 1, Cripple 11, Speed 10.

Again, if there is anyone that would like a look, let me know.

By Mark Kuyper (Mark_K) on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 08:35 pm: Edit

Mike,
what would the hit/damage look like for your ESG weapon?

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 08:43 pm: Edit

Max of 11, min of 0. Max range is 8. Here's how it averages out:

Range 0: Avg - 8.5
Range 1: Avg - 6.5
Range 2: Avg - 3.5
Range 3-8: Avg - 2.5

It's comparable to the hydran fighter fusion, but the lyran ships carry less of them. They also tend to do slighly better average damage, but have less total damage potential. Still working on the specifics, like how it would interact with a real ESG field. My initial thought would be that they damage each other by half the strength of the bolt when it hits, and the bolt is dissipated.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 09:01 pm: Edit

Mike, now tell me why I wouldn't want a couple on my ship for after the ESG ram? Say replacing some phasers.

It averages more damage than a ph-1 at range 0 and range 1. It is weaker at ranges 2 through 5. But it is actually better than the phaser at ranges 6 through 8.

The only range where a phaser-II is better is range 3. The ph-2 is marginally better at range 2, but this weapon is much better at range 0 and 1, as well as from range 4 to range 8.

Now I could see wanting to keep the ph-1 for their longer range firepower. But why not replace a couple of ph-2 with these? Especially on the smaller ships. Instant firepower upgrade in small engagements (yes the force will lose a bit at long range, but I suspect the few points of damage a fleet would lose would be more than balanced by the much better performance when alone).

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 09:29 pm: Edit

The short answer is that they don't work on ships. They would be one shot weapons, then the fighter has to go reload. If you want this on a ship, get a fusion beam...it's somewhat better, has longer range, and isn't a one shot weapon. Not sure of the technobabble behind why yet, but it's like chaff pods or EW pods; they just don't work for large vessels. And, unlike hydran fighters which can carry up to four fusions, the lyran heavy fighter can only carry two of these. Compared to some other race's heavy fighters, this isn't that bad.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 09:37 pm: Edit

But if the carrier can reload the ones on the fighters, why can't a ship reload its own? Sure a fusion beam is better, but the Lyrans don't have fusion beams. They do have these things...

That fighter defensive systems don't work on ships makes sense (and the converse also applies--fighters don't use WW). A defensive system has to protect the entire unit. An offensive system doesn. It just needs ammo/power and targeting...

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 09:42 pm: Edit

Well, I don't know the official answer, but my guess is this. Fed ships carry fighter photons; the carriers can't launch them. Fed fighters carry phaser-G's in abundance, but the ships don't get them. Gorn ships carry plasma D's in their fighters; again, the carrier doesn't use them. Hydran ships with no hellbores can carry hellbore armed fighters, but not the hellbores themselves. This is the pattern, and I suspect the reason is that they would either take up a weapons mount (and who'd want to trade even a phaser 1 for this?) or that it's just a rule of the game; carriers don't get to use fighter heavy weapons.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 09:52 pm: Edit

I'm not saying the carrier should have them (its probably one of the few ships that isn't interested). I'm saying that some ship of the race would use them. Take all your examples and some ships of that race use the weapon as a ship mounted weapon. Some are less commmon than others in that role (and the few odd cases where the ship mounted version is uncommon--Fed ph-G and Gorn pl-D--always raise questions).

While it might be dubious to trade a ph-1, I can easily see things like FF, DD and DW trading a pair of ph-2 for a pair of these. Significant increase in the ship's crunch in duel and small squadron actions. Try it...

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 09:56 pm: Edit

Not quite. I see what your saying, but my point is, I guess, that no ship carries fighter heavy weapons. The Fed fighter photon is limited to range 12; the Klingon disruptor, range 10. Yes, there are ships that carry these same weapons, but the full-sized version. The phaser-G issue was resolved by Petrick, who said that the reason Fed fighter can carry them is that they are basically disposable, and burn out quickly...not something you want on a ship.

I do agree, though, that there needs to be some hard and fast ruling that prevents a ship from carrying these. I just don't know what that rule would be. Perhaps a very restrictive firing arc, similar to a mauler. Or maybe incompatability with starship sheilds...just something to keep them off ships.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 10:02 pm: Edit

Nit: There are ships with range 10 disruptors. Look at the E4I.

By Charles E. Gray (Cgray45) on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 10:58 pm: Edit

Truthfully, the main reason is that anything that makes the system too close to fusion in effectivness, will probably send it to auto-reject.
OTH-- make it too weak in terms of combat, and it will be useless. So the best thing to do is find some strategic reasons why the Lyrans didn't field it in numbers sufficient to mess up the history-- making it one shot, expensive and another logistics drag seems to work.

By Rodger Burns (Greymystic) on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 11:47 pm: Edit

Actually, I think that a useful Lyran toy would be a Charge-on-Launch Disruptor Pod. Works as a standard fighter disruptor, but with one notable modification - the pod-mounted disruptor has a very limited battery system, and so can't hold a charge for more than 32 impulses after fighter launch.

The result is a weapon that definitely isn't going to be used all the time (as it's fairly useless for any fighter on a long-term CSP, and can result in power-generation problems on even Lyran carriers in battle), but makes for a nice DF punch that can ignore active ESGs completely. The Klingons and Kzinti would both prefer drones, but the Lyrans might be interested enough to put the pod into at least limited production during wartime.

Thoughts?

By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 11:53 pm: Edit

RE: Scout Escorts

An easy way to playtest this would be to allow HDW's to be configured as Escort/Scouts with the rear 2 Option Mounts as Sensors and Aegis added to the weapons.

Just force 4 Shuttles for the APR, 4cargo for the NWO, and 2 Sensors for the Options to have a HDW-ES (escort Scout)

If it works, then further prototypes of CW Escorts could be developed.

Just an Idea.

By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Saturday, August 10, 2002 - 12:54 am: Edit

The Scout Escorts that I proposed are at Scout Escorts.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, August 10, 2002 - 10:14 am: Edit

Here's my idea. Long Phaser Pod. Same size as a space-1 drone. Has a phaser-3 that will fire once per turn. (Possibly: one shot as a phaser-2 burns it out.) Limit of two such items on a fighter regardless of the number of rails. Available to Feds, Klingons, Kzintis, Vudar, and Lyrans, but mostly used by Lyrans because of the ESGs. By the time "cool" fighters with multiple rails become available (and other races have phaser pods AND drones instead of either-or), the Lyrans are building PFs and don't care about fighters.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Saturday, August 10, 2002 - 07:20 pm: Edit

Steve: I've e-mailed you a rough draft of a Captain's Log article for the aforementioned Lyran "Twin" fighters. There's a .PDF file attached. If it presents a problem, let me know, and i'll send a Macintosh-format .TIF file.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 10, 2002 - 08:03 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

Here's my idea. Long Phaser Pod. Same size as a space-1 drone. Has a phaser-3 that will fire once per turn. (Possibly: one shot as a phaser-2 burns it out.) Limit of two such items on a fighter regardless of the number of rails. Available to Feds, Klingons, Kzintis, Vudar, and Lyrans, but mostly used by Lyrans because of the ESGs. By the time "cool" fighters with multiple rails become available (and other races have phaser pods AND drones instead of either-or), the Lyrans are building PFs and don't care about fighters.

---

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 10, 2002 - 08:06 pm: Edit

S.V.C.:

Is the AC-130 analog " off the table " for the J3 discussion or " on "?

By David Kass (Dkass) on Saturday, August 10, 2002 - 09:04 pm: Edit

This "Long Phaser Pod" is so much better than the current ph-3 pod (J11.33). With no apparent drawbacks. It fires every turn (instead of once). The carrier doens't need to charge it. Its carried on the same rails (standard rails). The fighter can carry twice as many (2 pods instead of one (J11.33) pod).

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Saturday, August 10, 2002 - 09:06 pm: Edit

Yeah, I think it would make the Lyran fighters too good.......and with that many more P3s they would be even more drone proof than they are now.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 10, 2002 - 10:16 pm: Edit

D.K.:

Could the fighter carry a Ph-3 pod and 2 Ph-3 rail pods!?!

At any rate the carrier should be required to arm these things...afterall, they have to arm the fighters with drones.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, August 10, 2002 - 10:46 pm: Edit

Actually...if the Lyrans were to use as their main fighter, a Klingon Z-D with RaLADDs mounted on the Type VI drone rails, that would be where their fighter designs would go considing that their main Enemy ( the Kzintis ) used drones and thus RaLADDs would be an important fighter weapon that the Lyran scientists would have created even if no other race in the galaxcy invented them ( because Kzinti drones need to be defended against ) AND the disruptor doesn't interfere with the opperations of Lyran ESGs.