[SEE SVC ANNOTATIONS BELOW]
Seems to me the issue with carriers comes when someone has (say) 25 damage to take and takes 18 of it on fighters, then runs away.

Brainstorming some ideas to change that. I'm not proposing that we do all of these. One might suffice.

• reduce the attrition limit to two groups of fighters, rather than three.

• You can't take more than 1/3 of non-directed damage on fighters. SVC NOTES THAT THIS IS THE ONLY POSTED IDEA WITH ANY CHANCE OF APPROVAL, ALBEIT AT 50%.

• When taking non-directed damage on fighters, each point of damage kills two fighters.

• Ships of CA size and above have the X-ship fighter kill ability. In other words, they kill an opposing fighter in addition to their other damage. This fighter is removed before other damage is resolved.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Friday, March 01, 2019 - 02:03 pm: Edit

[SEE SVC REJECTION BELOW]
Another to add to that list: When you take damage on fighters, roll one dice per squadron of fighters - that's the amount of damage you can take on that squadron this round. For example, you have 18 fighters on the line, you roll a 5, 4, and 2, then you can take 11 of the 18. SVC SAYS THIS IS TOO COMPLICATED TO GET APPROVED AS IT ADDS STEPS AND DIE ROLLS AND DISCARDS THE PREVIOUS MATHEMATICAL CERTAINTY.

However...

To me, at least, the issue is not how many fighters you voluntarily kill. If I score 60 and you want to take them all on fighters (looking at you, Hydrans!!), then go ahead. It's the carriers that never die that is the problem for me.

That's why I use a carrier dirdam rule. If I score 60 points, and for whatever reason I wish to let the damage fall, and you actually do have 60 fighters handy, go ahead and take them as damage. But in all likelyhood, I directed one of your carriers into a nice hazy ball of expanding gas and debris, and you can take the excess of fighters.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Friday, March 01, 2019 - 04:58 pm: Edit

[SEE SVC REJECTION BELOW]
Part of me thinks the game would benefit from a shift in the way fighters (and PFs) work. If I were doing a redesign I would have each empire produce a set number of fighter factors each turn and keep it as a cumulative total. SVC SAYS THIS WOULD NEVER EVEN BE CONSIDERED AS IT ADDS COMPLICATED RECORD KEEPING.

Every time you build a carrier you subtract a point for each factor. Every time a fighter is lost you subtract that point UNLESS the parent unit is also destroyed.

The gain each turn will increase by a small amount each year until some time just before PFs come out and then you do the same with PFs and an automatic bump for each Empire as it deploys heavy fighters.

Base fighters (new and lost) cost half a point. PDU fighters (new and lost) cost a quarter of a point.

Carriers only cost their base cost to construct. You do not have to pay for the fighter factors except to subtract the factors from the stockpile.

If your fighter ever dips into the negatives each fighter carrying unit only gets 2/3 of its normal fighters (rounded down). If it gets past a lower threshold it goes down to 1/3. Lower still and carriers do not get any fighters. This penalty is assessed and applied at the end of each player turn by both players.

There may need to be a decay rule too if the stockpile gets way too high but I doubt that would come up much.

This makes a fighter shortage a reality, puts a realistic brake on carrier construction without forcing people not to build them. When letting damage fall picking the fighters will be less automatic if it could mean a lot of your carriers and bases and PDUs are running shorthanded on the next turn.

Carriers are easier to replace so there is less of an impetus to target them directly. Fighters become a strategic resource and not an automatic pick for death. Smaller carriers make a little more sense to build.

Obviously this would need to be tailored with the various empires getting fighters based on their historical fighter usage. The Kzinti and especially the Hydrans would get more then the Klingons who would get more then the Lyrans and the Gorn. It also means that the denser Federation groups would eat up their stockpile a little more quickly which makes sense based on their relative rarity due to expense.

By Sam Benner (Nucaranlaeg) on Friday, March 01, 2019 - 05:15 pm: Edit

SVC DID NOT ACCEPT THE PROPOSAL YOU ARE REACTING TO.
You're still counting fighter factors there, but I think that's probably way to do it if you are counting. Slight adjustment: it should be "Every time a fighter is lost you subtract that point, and when you lose the parent unit you gain a point for each factor." That's effectively the same except it's easier to keep track of.

The other big thing that should happen in that scenario is being able to pay to increase your fighter count. At 0.5 EP/factor, it's roughly equal to taking damage on ships (probably too expensive). Maybe 0.25 EP per factor? Either that, or make the supply pretty generous but make buying extra factors happen at an "overbuild" cost of 0.5.

I'd be open to trying this system out.

SVC SAYS THIS HORSE IS DEAD

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Friday, March 01, 2019 - 05:20 pm: Edit

SVC AGREES THAT THE PROPOSAL IS NOT WORKABLE.
The problem is that people will forget to do the accounting. I already have trouble tracking command points, EPs and DBB.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Friday, March 01, 2019 - 07:16 pm: Edit

[SEE SVC ANNOTATIONS BELOW]
Yeah, F&E staff have said several times that they don't want to increase the amount of record keeping. That said, if we combine two ideas above, we might be onto something.

1. Fighters always cost 1EP, not 2EP.
2. You can direct on any ship in a group. But if it's not the outermost ship, it gets the formation bonus.

Now carriers are killable, which they should be. They are also no longer so hideously expensive, so it's OK to get them killed. The Alliance would take a hit under this proposal. There are plenty of different ways to fix that.

SVC WOULD NOT CONSIDER THIS VIABLE

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Friday, March 01, 2019 - 08:45 pm: Edit

[SEE SVC ANNOTATIONS BELOW]
Kzinti CVs would cost 18 EP but be destroyable for 45 (and 6 potential minus points from homeless fighters). Compare this to a dreadnought costing 16 EP and taking 54 to destroy in the formation.

Alternatively, you could just cripple it for 30 and destroy it in pursuit to 15. That will definitely lead to too many dead Kzinti carriers and will definitely change the balance of the game severely.

This will also cause the easy destruction of auxiliary carriers, only needing 18 for an LAV or 9 for an SAV.

SVC SAYS THIS IS WHY THAT IDEA DIED ON ARRIVAL

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Friday, March 01, 2019 - 09:09 pm: Edit

SVC REJECTED THE IDEA AND THIS ALTERNATIVE DID NOT GET IT UNREJECTED.
It would be reasonable to give them a small bonus for escorts.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, March 02, 2019 - 10:25 am: Edit

I would not consider any changes to group structure or rules. Targeting a ship hiding inside a group would disrupt the entire structure of the game. Well, maybe at 4:1 or 5:1 but not even going to consider anything less.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Saturday, March 02, 2019 - 11:23 am: Edit

[SEE SVC ANNOTATIONS BELOW]
Chuck Strong had a proposal for directing on carriers, somewhat similar to my own system. I was under the impression that it was accepted into the ruleset. Was it accepted, or rejected? Is it still in playtest, or given the status of optional rules?

SVC IS NOT AWARE OF THIS, ALTHOUGH GIVEN THE LAST YEAR I LIKELY DON'T REMEMBER MY LAST BIRTHDAY. EVEN SO, IF THERE WAS ANY MOVEMENT ON SUCH A PROPOSAL YOU WOULD ALREADY KNOW ABOUT IT. CHUCK IS WELCOME TO POST IT HERE.

William,

In at least a couple of the proposed ideas from before, the carrier did indeed get a bonus for their escorts. Usually the escort bonus was added to the carrier's defense value, and then it was tripled. So a D7V would take 42-45 pts to kill, and a Kzinti CV would take 51-54 pts to kill.

It's the "cripple for 36 and kill for 21" that messes with the proposal. Make it too easy to kill carriers, and the game breaks. So far, it's working in my game -- but I've modified... well, a lot more than just the way carriers live and die.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Saturday, March 02, 2019 - 11:42 am: Edit

I am unaware of any acceptance of a proposal to direct on carriers.

Where is it and where is the part where it is accepted?

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Saturday, March 02, 2019 - 12:08 pm: Edit

Kevin,

Are you pairing it with making the carriers cheaper? I think you need to do both. And then you will need to do something to help the Alliance, and it will need to be significant. An excellent start would be to remove free fighters from Lyrans and Gorns. But that won't be enough. Maybe add one compot to PDUs, both offensively and defensively?

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Saturday, March 02, 2019 - 12:12 pm: Edit

Next stop, the Scary Door!

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Saturday, March 02, 2019 - 12:31 pm: Edit

[SEE SVC ANNOTATIONS BELOW]
Hi SVC, thrilled to see that you noticed this. I strongly agree with your goal of making it so that carrier groups don't dominate the game. The problem is how to get there. I am trying to do a lot of outside-the-box thinking to get there, as inside-the-box thinking has obviously failed. Please keep shooting down my ideas if you don't like them. Here are two more:

1) Increase the cost of escort conversions, especially EFFs. SVC REJECTED THIS
2) A player making a dirdam attack on a carrier group can do more than just kill the outer escort if they have enough damage. For example, if attacking Kzinti CV+CLE+EFF with dirdam, a player who has 27 damage to spend might be allowed to spend 14 of it to kill the EFF and 13 more to cripple the CLE. Or with 33 damage, they could kill the EFF for 14 and the CLE for 19 more, all in a single round. Unclear if/how this would interact with maulers. SVC DID NOT REJECT THIS OUTRIGHT BUT ISN'T SURE THE STAFF WILL EVEN CONSIDER IT.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Saturday, March 02, 2019 - 01:22 pm: Edit

[SEE SVC ANNOTATIONS BELOW]
William. NO, NO and HELL NO!

With the proper elimination of Out of Phase CEDS retrogrades escort management is a problem that affects both sides. The alliance more so than the coalition. Making escorts more expensive is not the solution to this.
SVC REJECTED THE PROPOSAL SO FEAR NOT.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Saturday, March 02, 2019 - 02:18 pm: Edit

[SEE SVC ANNOTATIONS BELOW]
Going back to the idea that has the most traction so far, namely the limit on dead fighters --
SVC SAYS THAT THIS IS NOT AN ACCURATE REFLECTION OF THE ONLY IDEA WITH ANY TRACTION, WHICH WAS TO LIMIT DAMAGE THAT COULD BE ABSORBED BY FIGHTERS TO 50%.

It seems like the problem with carriers is mostly in one-round fights. So it would likely be enough to have a limit on dead fighters in the first round only.
SVC SEES NO LOGIC IN THIS AMENDMENT TO THE TRACTION PROPOSAL.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, March 02, 2019 - 05:09 pm: Edit

I am trying a new management system to see if I can keep the conversation headed toward something useful. That includes slamming shut a few doors as soon as they open. Do not be afraid to post, but realize what isn't going to happen and what might.

By Sam Benner (Nucaranlaeg) on Saturday, March 02, 2019 - 07:11 pm: Edit

SVC SAYS WE DON'T WANT TO REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF DAMAGE IT TAKES AT ALL, NONE, NOT A POINT. WE MIGHT CONSIDER LETTING YOU DIRDAM TWO OUTER ESCORTS.
Currently, a Kzinti CV group of CV+MEC+EFF takes 42 damage to cripple or 64 to kill (54 with a mauler). We don't want to reduce that too much, because they become too easy to kill if we do. Notably, 54 with a mauler is the same amount as it takes to kill a DN in formation, so there's not much room there.

Has the idea of making carrier losses easier to replace been floated? For instance, if you lose a carrier, allowing the conversion of another carrier of that type in the next production phase, and granting half of that carrier's fighter factors as free fighter factors. Only allow that for 1 carrier per turn and it's possible to chip away at a race's carriers (if this is accompanied by a change making them easier to kill).

If the limiting factor of building new carriers is tooling up fighter production lines, this makes some kind of sense. I'm not sure if this is a good idea overall, but maybe something to think about?

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Saturday, March 02, 2019 - 07:27 pm: Edit

SVC SAYS YOU'D HAVE TO KILL THE OUTER ESCORT TO ATTACK THE INNER ONE IN THE SAME DIRDAM ATTACK, AS HE SEES THE PROPOSAL ANYWAY.
Hmmm, let's see, for the group [CV (10)+ CLE (6) + EFF (4)] we can now
-kill the group with 60 (50/53 w/ [10/7] mauler), cripple the group with 40 (30/33 w/ mauler), kill the EFF (14), or cripple the EFF (10).

The proposal is adding crippling the CLE (+13) but didn't note if killing the EFF is necessary (27 w/o vs 23), killing the CLE (+19) would require killing the EFF (total of 33). This does allow climbing the carrier ladder and kind of prevents using an FCR to continue fighting ([CV+FCR+] still works, just not as good), though the next battle hex can see ad hoc escorts.

Can work as the 'group' is a single entity (can cripple/kill it) and allows more options on how the group is directed upon.

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Sunday, March 03, 2019 - 03:35 am: Edit

SVC ISN'T INTERESTED IN THIS
How about:

In any round, where all (over half of the?) fighters of a side are destroyed, any remaining damage points may be directed towards a CVBG group at 1:1?

Or something like that... 3:2?

The idea is that as the CV closes in to get their fighters rearmed/ rescued, the other side gets an excellent change to zork it/ one of it's escort.

If nothing else, it would give the other side a chance to chip away at a CV group.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Friday, April 05, 2019 - 09:45 pm: Edit

One more idea. Maybe the cost of a carrier conversion should depend on the size of the carrier, and maybe also on the race that is doing it? Currently, it is always 2EP. Escort carriers are seldom built because they are low density and easily blown up.

I think a scheme like the following might make sense:

Escort carriers: 1EP (still probably would not get built often)
Medium carriers: 3EP (but 2EP for Kzinti)
Heavy carriers: 5EP (but 3EP for Kzinti)

The Kzinti get the conversions cheaper because they have done them many times and have become proficient. I could see making Lyrans and Gorn pay more, but I won't go there for now.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Friday, April 05, 2019 - 10:50 pm: Edit

Um, if you go check the SIT, you'll see that carrier conversions are not all 2 EP. Most escort class carrier conversion costs are in fact 1 EP, and I think CVAs are 4, but I'd have to go look to be sure, and generally they aren't 2.

Also, the current conversion costs are probably set in stone until at least the next full version of F&E, of which I estimate it will be released on the 12th of never. Just sayin'.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Saturday, April 06, 2019 - 02:20 am: Edit

So they are. Nevermind then.

By John Christiansen (Roscoehatfield) on Tuesday, August 27, 2019 - 10:53 pm: Edit

Has anyone considered an adjustment to rule (302.565) "When directing damage at a carrier group (or other group) only the smallest escort [or the entire group] can be targeted (308.11)."? This rule allows directing damage on only one ship, or the entire group with no middle ground.

What I'm thinking is that it is always the group that is attacked with directed damage, but in steps and it is only necessary to cripple the smallest uncrippled escort before targeting the next smallest escort in line. Once all of the escorts are crippled, the carrier can be targeted for crippling. At any point, any ship(s) which is(are) crippled may be targeted for destruction without regard to order. No changes are needed to (308.111), and a carrier is not an escort.

By not requiring the escorts to be destroyed, the carrier is easier to reach to damage. Also, this would allow more than one escort to be targeted in a single combat round should the amount of damage points be insufficient to affect all of the ships in the group.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Wednesday, August 28, 2019 - 05:57 pm: Edit

Well in SFB getting to that carrier to kill it is tough. If you are fighting a CVA group. The CVA is back from the battle. All those fighters have to be dealt with. The escorts will be taking out seekers heading for the CVA as well.

So I am going to get my klingon fleet close enough to fire all Disrupters and phasers at the CVA. How close am I to his fighters? All of those drones? Support ships? If you get to that spot you are eating overloaded Photons and drones. You might cripple the CVA but your fleet will be toast.