In Federation and Empire "Fighter Operations" module, the Federation E2A and E3A SWACS can add three and six "fighter factors" to a batle force above the "Three Squadron limit."

A E3A SWAC can adding "six fighter factors" to an F&E battle force works out to the following Federation fighters in SFB:

12 F-18, F-16, F-4, F-8, A-6, or F104
10 A-10
09 F-14/F-15
04 F101
04 F111
03 A-20

The E2A would be half of the above, rounding up for the F-14/F-15s and A-20s. (I would leave bombers out of this rule as they are planetary defense units and not fleet units.)

I would expect the rule to require the special sensors of the E2A and the E3A to be dedicated to this mission to the exclusion of any other SFB mission they can do now.

I mentioned this as a possibility in the Captain's Log 36 topic. This topic was created to keep the CL 36 topic uncluttered with debate on this proposed rule.

By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 07:40 pm: Edit

Trent: To start with, I doubt that the SFB version would be anything other than a squadron of F-18.

Second, don't we already have "Third Way" rules for SFB? (and if we don't they're easy enough to add.)

Third, I've never got the idea that an F+E battle-space was limited to a single SFB scenario. It's possible that the SWAC could be "in the area" to provide fighter control, but not on the mapsheet itself.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 07:41 pm: Edit

I'm not sure I understand what you're proposing. Are you suggesting that a SWACS get a "summon various amounts of fighters" spell?

Where do these fighters come from?

How does a SWACS make them appear?

For that matter, how are scouts handled in F&E and why can't that be applied to SWACS?

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 08:02 pm: Edit

Trent, when I wrote the rule (yes, blame me for it), I specifically said the SWACS controls F-16 / F-18 (standard carrier fighters for the timeframe) ONLY. They do NOT control any of the weird fighter types. That said, it doesn't mean that you can't have any weird fighter types in the battle ... just not ALL weird types.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 08:04 pm: Edit

John T.

"Where do these fighters come from?" From another carrier too far away from the battle to get there itself, but close enough to send its fighters into the fray.


Garth L. Getgen

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 08:09 pm: Edit

...So in F&E, where the player governs all production and ships, I assume there has to be a carrier in the hex that for whatever reason (usually command limits) can't participate in the battle, right?

In SFB, this sor tof thing would be settled by S8.0

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Friday, August 24, 2007 - 07:07 am: Edit

Ah. Great. Just what we need. A rule to make carrier battles in SFB even more awkward and unplayable.

I hereby make a counterproposal.

In F&E, all fighter factors must be represented on the map with three counters. One for the fighter, one for each of its seeking weapons. You must track which seeking weapons come from which fighter counter, or the factor ceases to exist. Direct fire fighters give half as many fighter factors, but only have counters for the fighters.

To someone who plays F&E, adding six more fighter factors to a battle that has, say, 42, is just adding 6 to 42. To someone who plays SFB, dealing with more than 18-24 fighters makes the game unplayable for both sides for most people.

Therefore, to keep F&E from further complicating SFB, and help mitigate the Free Fighter Factors problem in F&E, I propose that we increase the player handling cost of fighters in F&E to match SFB.

Furthermore, to reflect the reality that these fighters have to be shipped from wherever it is they're made, you must designate an FCR to transport every fighter factor forward to the front line, and that FCR has to spend time going back and forth to where the fighters are and where they're needed. This will bring carriers back into line with other units, rather than being the unkillable god units of F&E.

(Tongue only mildly in cheek on this. SFB really doesn't need any more complexity - and any game that already has a SWAC in it is on the slippery edge of what can actually be played in a reasonable period of time.)

By Trent Telenko (Ttelenko) on Tuesday, September 04, 2007 - 06:42 pm: Edit

>Trent, when I wrote the rule (yes, blame me for
>it), I specifically said the SWACS controls F-
>16 / F-18 (standard carrier fighters for the
>timeframe) ONLY.

Garth,

The F-8, F-4, and A-6 were standard Federation "naval fighters" just as the F-18 was and all pre-dated the F-18. SWACS would be "Backwards compatable" for those fighter-shuttles at the very least.

The F-16 is a National Guard fighter, thus is less likely to be "SWAC control capable."

My approach to this rule proposal would key off the fire control of the fighter used. The standard SFB fighter control fighters would get 12.

Those with more advanced figher-shuttle fire control like the F-14, F-15 or heavy fighters would not be as "SWAC-able." A sinple table would give you the number of fighters a SWAC could control.

By Gary Bear (Gunner) on Tuesday, September 04, 2007 - 07:09 pm: Edit

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Quote:

Second, don't we already have "Third Way" rules for SFB? (and if we don't they're easy enough to add.)

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By Trent Telenko (Ttelenko) on Wednesday, September 05, 2007 - 01:39 pm: Edit

Gunner,

One of the Captain's logs had SFB rules for the Federation 3rd way, F&E battle groups and F&E ISC gunline battle groups.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, September 05, 2007 - 07:25 pm: Edit

Trent, that's why I said "standard fighter for the timeframe". So, yes, I suppose if the standard fighter is F-18s, but you have an Aux-CV with old F-104s, the SWACS can control them.

What I did not want was the nightmare complexity of allowing it to control A-10s, F-111s and such. It would make no sense that a SWACS can control 12 fighters but only five or six heavy fighters (for equal F&E COMPOT), so I eliminated the problem by taking heavies out of the rule. Now, is there some techno-abble reason for this?? {shrug} Perhaps the fire-control systems on heavy fighters were built by a different contractor.


Garth L. Getgen

By Gary Bear (Gunner) on Wednesday, September 05, 2007 - 07:40 pm: Edit

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Quote:

One of the Captain's logs had SFB rules for the Federation 3rd way, F&E battle groups and F&E ISC gunline battle groups.

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By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Wednesday, September 05, 2007 - 07:48 pm: Edit

The 4th squadron part of the Federation 3rd way has not been published for SFB.