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Carriers
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Magnum357
Lieutenant Commander


Joined: 09 Dec 2006
Posts: 223

PostPosted: Wed Jan 02, 2013 9:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Concerning PF's/Interceptors, I like MJwest's ideas as well.

As for Fighters overall, I think it is complicated enough with the stingers. I only added my own house rule fighters to my games because they are limited to Auxilaries.
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Monty
Lieutenant Commander


Joined: 23 Aug 2007
Posts: 239

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 10:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In reading the 5QM3c Special Drone rules, we're writing down the launch hex and target. In real world use, whether I'm fighting with them or against them I will want a drone counter on the map in the launch hex so I always know the shield it will hit at any point in time. In reality the time saving is in not moving the counter when called to do so. It doesn't seem like a bad system but may need a little tweaking.

Its not so much the clutter that slows things down its having to do something with or about the clutter.

If the decision is to go with 5QM3c (for Fighters Attack, Carriers Attack, BoM or whatever its called) I'd recommend printing two special drone counters for each fighter that carries drones. The first counter would be identified as a fighter drone with a different silhouette than a standard drone counter. This counter would have the launching fighters id# and would be placed in the launch hex. The 2nd counter would be printed with a targeting glyph or reticle and the same id# as the fighter drone counter. This 2nd counter is placed on the target ship card at launch. With the id#'s on the counters I can easily remove the guided drones if the launching fighter is destroyed.

The obvious complication in all of this is tracking 1st and 2nd impulse after launch.

And to make fighters a little more manageable I would prefer they have no weapons when crippled. This would improve grouping tasks and reduce analysis cycles considerably as battle progresses.

Maybe a drone bolt is good enough.


Last edited by Monty on Sun Jan 06, 2013 3:46 am; edited 1 time in total
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DNordeen
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Joined: 05 Apr 2007
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 3:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just my 2 cents. I stopped playing SFB because of how long it took to play. When fighters and fighter drones were added into the mix, it took FOREVER. Also, the clutter of drones and fighters just got to be too much.

I really, really like fighters and carriers though. <SIGH>. So, if they are added to FC, I am all for it as long as the rules have been KISS'ed to the MAX.

I'd KISS it by minimizing counters, rolls, record keeping, and decision-making as much as possible. This will declutter the board, reduce the amount of counter moves per turn (faster play), and reduce the amount of movement decisions per turn (faster play).

1) Minimizing Counters:

I think drone/plasma waves and Fighter flights is the way to minimize counters. I'd prefer flights of 6, but can live with flights of 3. The drone/plasma waves would contain all the drones/plasma from a single flight. I'd also only allow a flight to control one wave at a time. That only adds 4 counters for a Kzinti CVS and potential 4 more counters for drone waves. I think that's a reasonable number of counters.

Yeah, we'll have less flexibility for tactics, but the counters for the CVS would be reduced greatly. A Kzinti CVS can have 12 fighters and 48 drones out. That's 60 counters. 3-ftr flights with drone waves reduces that to 8 counters. That's an 87% reduction in counters, counter movement, and movement decisions. I'll take less flexibility for that level of clutter reduction.

Also, Fighter Flights and Drone waves should be considered as single units for rule purposes. This would also allow 3 fighter flights to fire from a single hex instead of just a single flight (or 2 flights and 1 ship, 2 ships and 1 flight). Argue it as fighters being built for combat (networked together, formation targeting, highly-trained pilots, etc.) and shuttles are not; therefore non-fighter shuttles are are limited to 3 shuttles firing from 1 hex, but fighters are not. This would also entail one tractor getting an entire flight/wave. Chalk it up to how close they're formations are. A tractor capable of grabbing a ship could reasonably grab a flight/wave in very close formation. It would also avoid splitting up the flight/wave if one is tractored.

2) Minimize Rolls

Rolls slow the game down. I suggest having each fighter flight fire at the same target and make a single die roll. This could entail another weapons chart for fighter weapons that randomizes the number of hits. For example, assuming 6 fighters in a flight firing disruptors at range 8...

Roll #hits
1 5
2 4
3 3
4 2
5 miss
6 miss

Now, I'm just pulling #hits out of thin air, but the general idea would be more hits at closer ranges and better die rolls. It would all depend on the statistics of 6 fighters hitting (or missing) at each range bracket. Hits by all fighters could be rare enough that 5 hits is the max at a particular range (hence 1 resulting in 5 hits above). Disruptors have a 4 in 6 chance of hitting at range 8, multiply that over 2 fighters and you have 16 in 36 for both to hit, 16 in 36 for only one to hit, and 4 in 36 for both to miss. So 1-2.6 = 2 hits; 2.7-5.3 = 1 hit; 5.4 - 6 = miss. I'd round that to 1-2 = 2 hits; 3-5 = 1 hit; and 6 = miss. If MJ and Steve think this is a viable option, I can do the math for each weapon and range bracket. The rules could account for damaged/missing fighters by point out that you can't have more hits than the number of fighters you currently have.

3) Minimize Record Keeping

Big one for me on this one is the drone wave. Drone waves should be done similar to plasma. Each point of damage reduces drone wave damage by 3 (drone damage is 12 with 4 damage boxes). The reasoning could be that fighter drones give up some redundancy to keep the same warhead strength and damage causes them to be less accurate than ship drones.

For fighter's, I think tracking individual fighter damage isn't that big of a deal, but I suggest forgetting the crippling rules for fighters. With Fighter Flights, is it really worth the complications to keep the crippling rule? Would the entire flight slow down? Would the flight break up? etc. To me lose the crippling rule.

4) Minimize Decision-making: Nothing really to add here, all of the above adds into fewer decisions on movement, targets, weapon use, etc.
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DNordeen
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 3:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Also on the seeking weapons moving at the end of the impulse. I like it. It reduces the number of times I have to move and decide where to move some counters. It'll add a problem of targets bypassing the seeking weapons, but allowing drones/plasma 1 HET per impulse if the target is out of the FA arc would resolve that (specify that the target must be in the FA arc after the HET though).
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storeylf
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Joined: 24 Jul 2008
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 12:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

DNordeen wrote:
With Fighter Flights, is it really worth the complications to keep the crippling rule? Would the entire flight slow down? Would the flight break up? etc. To me lose the crippling rule.


I was initially thinking that keep the cripple, but the whole flight slows down, or the good fighters can carry on and the cripple is considered dead (or disengaged).

But losing crippling altogether would probably work for me.

Quote:
Rolls slow the game down. I suggest having each fighter flight fire at the same target and make a single die roll.


Rolling for (direct fire) weapons doesn't bother me too much, fighters don't have many. I would go with the whole flight fires at the same target though.
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Monty
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 5:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Does crippling slow down fighters? (5Q1e) doesn't state that for Stingers.
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DNordeen
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 1:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sorry...channeled SFB there for a second.
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Monty
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 9:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If the simple implementation of fighter rules allow me the ability to effectively control my fighters without the need of fighter-specific grouping rules then I consider that a big win.

Having crippled status simply shut all weapons down while leaving speeds unchanged is a good realism trade off. As the owner I do not have to track weapons state and can simply order the crippled fighters back to the CV as fighter speeds are called out. The opponent is then challenged with finishing them off or deal with the survivors.

I see fighters as tiny ships without EA. The fact that I do not have to deal with a plethora of drone types, flare, chaff, boosterpacks, EW etc. is a huge plus. If I want to play a small scenario with a few fighters then that's a good option to have. If I want to play a huge fleet battle with tons of everything then that's an option I can leave to others to undertake. As long as publication is not ridiculously overwhelmed with fighter platforms, the rest of the game system is unaffected to me.

As far as map clutter I understand the concern. Maybe flipping the map panels over to the larger hexes while using the 5/8ths inch counters would help spread things out.
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DNordeen
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 1:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Monty,

Speaking for myself, map clutter isn't so much that things are too close together, it's that I have to move and decide for all those things each sub-impulse and that slows down the game. One of the reasons I left SFB was that it took so long to get a turn done with all the units out on the map. I would like to see fighters in FC, but it needs to be simple and with as little clutter as possible or it'll end up being SFB part deux. We can't advocate for the same thing and expect a different outcome.

On a different note, I realized the other day, that the FC rule about 1 shuttle launch or land per impulse is shorting the Hydrans (and any future carrier) compared to SFB. SFB had 32 launch or land opportunities per turn, but FC only has 8.

Is it reasonable to allow multiple shuttle landings or launches per impulse in FC?
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JimDauphinais
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Joined: 22 Nov 2009
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 2:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hydran ships can launch all of their Stingers in the same impulse plus land one shuttle or stinger in that impulse. See 5Q1b.
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DNordeen
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 2:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jim you're correct, but I wasn't referring to the launch tubes. The launch tubes allow the Hydrans to launch them all, but they can still only land 1 shuttle per impulse. This means they can (through the shuttle bay door) only land (or launch) a total of 8 shuttles in 1 turn.

In SFB, the per impulse rate is the same (land or launch 1 shuttle per impulse through the shuttle bay doors). However, SFB has 32 impulses in a turn. That means SFB Hydrans and other carriers could land up to 32 fighters in a turn while FC can only land 8. That's a big difference.

Since FC is based on SFB, is it not reasonable to allow the same number of landings (or launches) through the shuttle bay? Would it be reasonable for it to be 4 shuttles landing or launching through the shuttle bay per impulse?
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Dal Downing
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 3:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If your going to play with fighters you need to read the Playtest Rules that were in Captain Log 37. A copy is in the Playtest Section of the Commander Circle.

5QM1b allows carriers to launch 4 fighters per impulse. They can still only land 1 though.
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DNordeen
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Posts: 564

PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 3:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dal,

Read those rules and played them. This topic has been mostly how to improve them.

I did forget about the 4 fighter launch rule for all carriers. Thx for reminding me.

However, landing "may" still be an issue. An 8-fighter carrier requires 1 full turn to recover its fighters, but that only takes 1/4 turn in SFB. That's a huge difference. If that's a purposeful decision that's OK I guess.

If, however, it was an oversight of just bringing the SFB rule over without considering the reduced number of impulses in FC, maybe it should be readdressed.
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mjwest
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 5:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The one per impulse thing was an intentional decision. It was originally done to keep shuttle operations under control. There was some concern about it with Stingers, but considering the ridiculously high mortality rate, even ships with several Stingers would be able to service the survivors well enough.

Whether that maintains for other fighters remains to be seen. I do expect that there would need to be some serious justification to show a change is needed, if one actually is needed.
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csragamemaster
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2013 3:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Running fighters in some type of squadron and switching all thier weapons to direct fire would significantly speed play in both SFB and Fed Com. The Kziniti Fighter Carrier is what first attacted me to SFB and I have been a drone and fighter slinger ever since.
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