Fighter Tactics

[unclejoe]

OK, so we got to play a few more games today and once again, came away less than impressed with Fighters. This time the Fighters were in a 1000 point game. One side brought 'em, the other side did not (6 squadrons of Strike and 3 of Ints). There were no Grape Shots or Cluster Missiles or anything on the non-Fighter side and I really thought would get to see Fighters tear some stuff up, but they really didnt amount to much.

Granted the BCF of the non-Fighter fleet mounted 13 Gatling Lasers in various arcs, but the highest PD on any of them was only 2. It seemed like the Fighters were whittled down in the important arcs before firing. And the range 1 limitation precludes anything but hitting multiple shields and thus not really being decisive. Also, by staying in tight and 'circling the wagon', the defenders can cut off access by blocking hexes around important targets.

Fighters cant be used in the role of 'shield scrubbers' for the main fleet because they dont fire until AFTER the heavier combatants (a role I think they could otherwise fulfill admirably). Their damage is low enough that even a full strength squadron of StrikeFighters really cant even get through the shields on most CAs let alone anything bigger. Granted they do 'pressure' the shield regen, but they seem like an awfully expensive and fragile way to do that. I'm sure they can find use scrubbing away DDs and maybe CLs, but that hardly seems worth the tonnage and usage of a 'role' on CA+ sized vessel.

Also note that this is without tech level 5 in Fighters (granting the torpedo which would be quite deadly). But for just level 3 or so, they still dont really seem worth the tonnage.

What are we missing here? What are other people doing with their Fighters to make them effective? FWIW, we are playing with TL 15 Choose-your-own tech so getting up to the TL5 Fighters is a significant sacrifice. I'd also like to see if others are using them to good effect WITHOUT the torpedo ability.

[TheDreadnought]

Could be a function of your game size. You are playing really small games and the fighters had to be designed from the perspective of people trying to flood the map w them. Our big fighter guy in our play test would often bring a carrier stuffed to the bulkhead w fighters. That carrier alone would usually mass close to a thousand tons. . . So one carrier as big as your whole fleet. Might be that w out fusion torps fighters are most effective in bigger games.

[unclejoe]

Possibly, but I'm not sure. I mean there are still only 6 hexes max you can attack a ship from regardless of whether you have 6 squadrons or 16 squadrons. And the defending player can block some of those hexes and interfere by using ships to occupy spaces that might be adjacent to weaker shields.

And even with 5-6 squadrons adjacent, by the time ships fire and PD fires, they are prolly a bit reduced in strength (which gets weaker as the game goes on) and they are attacking multiple shields. Yes, the ship cant rebuild ALL of it's shields, but 'digesting' a ship like that takes time which is something I dont see players have a whole lot of so far, especially when the Fighters are degrading in strength each turn (although granted having swarms and swarms allows for replacing the ones 'on the line' but again, I'm just not sure it's worth the tonnage.

Dont get me wrong, I dont want to see dominating Fighters that function like WW2 (or worse, modern) attack aircraft unless they had some other serious limitations. But as it stands, I'm having a hard time envisioning what makes them worth their tonnage if you dont have the fusion torps.

[unclejoe]

BTW, how did this post get to be an 'announcment'? Is that something I did by mistake?

[Jester]

Jul 2, 2010 20:01:32 GMT -5 TheDreadnought said:

Could be a function of your game size. You are playing really small games and the fighters had to be designed from the perspective of people trying to flood the map w them. Our big fighter guy in our play test would often bring a carrier stuffed to the bulkhead w fighters. That carrier alone would usually mass close to a thousand tons. . . So one carrier as big as your whole fleet. Might be that w out fusion torps fighters are most effective in bigger games.

So im going to run a few test games tomorrow and one of them will be testing out fighters. What size game would you suggest to get a good feel for them?

Also, as a follow up to Unclejoe's question, what do you see thier role as? In my very limited experience with them so far, they were a medium danger to smaller ships and or overloading shields on medium ships. I will probably play with Fusion torps to make them as deadly as possible.

Any other ideas for the game tomorrow?

Thanks!

2k per side?

[warchariot]

"Dont get me wrong, I dont want to see dominating Fighters that function like WW2 (or worse, modern) attack aircraft unless they had some other serious limitations. But as it stands, I'm having a hard time envisioning what makes them worth their tonnage if you dont have the fusion torps."

You're right, fighters are a supporting weapon. They are not the all powerful weapon they are in FT but are very much in line with the other weapons in the game, something we like a lot. I also think they belong in some settings and not others. B5 and BSG games should/will have lots of fighters based on the ships/setting, while Trek type games wouldn't have any. I think of it as WWI vs WWII/modern. (I do wonder about their use in Starwars type games where there is a mix of WWI and WWII-Oz what do you think?)

We use fighters to attack each other and hitting ships with torps, or with plain strikers, to attack smaller targets like screening ships. You can swam ships, but as you pointed out, ships can screen each other. Our tactic, is to use fighters in conjunction with ASGMs to spread out the enemy, pick off the screening ships with strikers, and then isolate bigger ships with missiles.

Fighters are better at hitting ships where shields are down, so they have a chance to do a critical and take out hard points. Remember that a squadron gets to fire with each fighter, and only one has to penetrate to do a critical. If you get ten hits on a 40 hull ship, that's still 25% damage, a crit or two (from different squadrons) can put that ship out of the game.

[warchariot]

Jul 2, 2010 22:06:50 GMT -5 Jester said:

Jul 2, 2010 20:01:32 GMT -5 TheDreadnought said:

Could be a function of your game size. You are playing really small games and the fighters had to be designed from the perspective of people trying to flood the map w them. Our big fighter guy in our play test would often bring a carrier stuffed to the bulkhead w fighters. That carrier alone would usually mass close to a thousand tons. . . So one carrier as big as your whole fleet. Might be that w out fusion torps fighters are most effective in bigger games.

So im going to run a few test games tomorrow and one of them will be testing out fighters. What size game would you suggest to get a good feel for them?

Also, as a follow up to Unclejoe's question, what do you see thier role as? In my very limited experience with them so far, they were a medium danger to smaller ships and or overloading shields on medium ships. I will probably play with Fusion torps to make them as deadly as possible.

Any other ideas for the game tomorrow?

Thanks!

2k per side?

Use them with ASGMs and have a good 20 or so on a side. I don't think a big point battle matters, I think it is the number of fighters you have overall. Hope this helps.

[unclejoe]

You're right, fighters are a supporting weapon. They are not the all powerful weapon they are in FT but are very much in line with the other weapons in the game, something we like a lot. I also think they belong in some settings and not others. B5 and BSG games should/will have lots of fighters based on the ships/setting, while Trek type games wouldn't have any. I think of it as WWI vs WWII/modern. (I do wonder about their use in Starwars type games where there is a mix of WWI and WWII-Oz what do you think?)

We use fighters to attack each other and hitting ships with torps, or with plain strikers, to attack smaller targets like screening ships. You can swam ships, but as you pointed out, ships can screen each other. Our tactic, is to use fighters in conjunction with ASGMs to spread out the enemy, pick off the screening ships with strikers, and then isolate bigger ships with missiles.

Fighters are better at hitting ships where shields are down, so they have a chance to do a critical and take out hard points. Remember that a squadron gets to fire with each fighter, and only one has to penetrate to do a critical. If you get ten hits on a 40 hull ship, that's still 25% damage, a crit or two (from different squadrons) can put that ship out of the game.

Yep, that is prety much what I think too. But if that is correct (and I think it is), then the opportunity cost to do that seem pretty high with Fighters.

For example, I have a BC which carries 12 Squadrons of Strike and 3 of Ints. That totals out at 234 tons on that BC. Using them as described above, I need to gang up on a few ships, target already downed shields, survive opposing fire first, lose a few to PD fire and THEN I cam maybe do 40 hull damage and a minor crit or two (1d10, not 2d10 like normal crits).

With that same 234 tons on that BC invested in Fighters, I can get 8 Turbo Lasers, 4 AN-Torps, and 4 ASGMs with 8 rounds in the magazine. In addition, I get to ditch the 'Carrier' role and plug in something like Battleline or RDF. Now that kind of firepower is going to SHATTER anything that those Fighters can kill, likely in a single turn. And it can seriously cripple even larger capital ships which the Fighters can NOT do (without a ton of work, luck, and time).

So I'm certainly not saying that Fighters can't do anything or that they are weak per se, but I have yet to see what they CAN do that I can't do just as easily or better by investing the same tonnage in other weapons (AND getting to put my tech point elsewhere - remember that if you're assigning tech points, you have to PAY for the priviledge of bringing Fighters to the table). I just dont see it.

I think perhaps the rules are little too harsh on Fighters and not only made them not dominant, but quite possibly not worth their tonnage/role/tech. Time will tell, but that is definitely the way we are feeling after a handful of games with them. And yes, they were smaller tonnage games, but like I said above, that shouldnt matter to their overall effect since the number we DID have was enough to surround the entire enemy squadron. Also, as I said, we didnt even use ANY of the myriad of anti-fighter weaponry/equipment (Flak, Grape, Cluster Missiles, Ints). So to me, that should have been a FIELD DAY for the Fighters. Instead, they barely had an effect.

I'm hoping I'm missing some sort of tactic or utility with them short of going to the top of the tech tree for them to use torps.

[theoz]

One thing to keep in mind about CB fighters; they are missiles that never miss, have range 24, and can re-attack again and again. If the fighter carrier keeps his distance his fighters are all free damage on the enemy. And with a Fleet Auxiliary ship in a campaign the fighters come back automatically between battles.

For a STAR WARS game fighters are not as dominant as people think. Yes, they blew up the Death Stars but in both cases there were special circumstances. SW fighters are dangerous to smaller ships and can nibble bigger ships to death, which is exactly what they do to CB ships. I do think that the TL5 ability for Fusion Torps would be accurate for SW fighters.The only real ability SW fighters have that CB fighters don't is the range. Most SW fighters can travel interplanetary distances on their own, and of course most Rebel and a few Imperial fighters can go interstellar on their own, which is not CB tech at all.

SW purists would want to argue that an X-wing should be different from a Y-wing which should be different from a TIE Interceptor, etc. etc, etc. At the scale of CB operations, I don't think it makes much of a difference but some way of tweaking the fighters (say, giving TIEs one more Speed at the cost of a worse Survival roll) would keep the purists from whining too much.

[kashre]

I have been thinking that fighters are a little weak too... we've only used them twice so far, and in smaller scenarios as well, so time will tell. We're doing a 1700/2550 Ambush scenario and my side (the 1700 side) has a 884 ton carrier... so we should see how well they work.

But, one thing I was thinking that might improve fighters somewhat: give vanilla strike fighters some kind of one shot stand-off weapon similiar to the fusion torps at TL5... just something not as cool. Say, a mass 4 or 5 "light torpedo" that does 4/4 damage and has d6 pen. That would keep them from being able to do much to heavier ships (aside from shield stripping), and give them a little bit more punch against medium sized ships.

[warchariot]

All three of you make good points and taken together are what fighters are about.

Unclejoe said: "So I'm certainly not saying that Fighters can't do anything or that they are weak per se, but I have yet to see what they CAN do that I can't do just as easily or better by investing the same tonnage in other weapons (AND getting to put my tech point elsewhere - remember that if you're assigning tech points, you have to PAY for the privilege of bringing Fighters to the table). I just dont see it."

Yes, you can find more hit for the tonnage and the tech level is high for the better weapons. Again, once Fleetbooks come out, there are settings where fighters are the main weapon. These setting, I assume, are based on history like ours, that every nation will develop the same tech and steal from each other. Yes, in space you can play different techs and that is part of the fun, but the Fleetbooks won't do that, I hope.

[i]Oz said: "One thing to keep in mind about CB fighters; they are missiles that never miss, have range 24, and can re-attack again and again. If the fighter carrier keeps his distance his fighters are all free damage on the enemy. "[/i]

Yep, this is the way for carriers to fight and live to tell about it. They do give up 3-4 hard points for fighters and need to get the best use out of them.

Also: "SW purists would want to argue that an X-wing should be different from a Y-wing which should be different from a TIE Interceptor, etc. etc, etc. At the scale of CB operations, I don't think it makes much of a difference but some way of tweaking the fighters (say, giving TIEs one more Speed at the cost of a worse Survival roll) would keep the purists from whining too much."

I believe this is what should and could happen within Fleetbooks. Different fighters should be a little better or worse. Maybe Jedi pilots could be added ect. Remember, the fighter rules so far are two basic types, no glam about them and everyone has the same. Most space combat rules have expanded the role/type of fighters, I think we will see the same. The danger here is people picking and choices items from across the Fleetbooks.

Finally, Kasher said: "But, one thing I was thinking that might improve fighters somewhat: give vanilla strike fighters some kind of one shot stand-off weapon similar to the fusion torps at TL5... just something not as cool. Say, a mass 4 or 5 "light torpedo" that does 4/4 damage and has d6 pen"

I think the reordering of tech levels started elsewhere begins to address this, also, again, think Fleetbooks. Well, I'm off to play a couple more games with my group, I'll let you know how it goes.

[unclejoe]

Unclejoe said: "So I'm certainly not saying that Fighters can't do anything or that they are weak per se, but I have yet to see what they CAN do that I can't do just as easily or better by investing the same tonnage in other weapons (AND getting to put my tech point elsewhere - remember that if you're assigning tech points, you have to PAY for the privilege of bringing Fighters to the table). I just dont see it."

Yes, you can find more hit for the tonnage and the tech level is high for the better weapons. Again, once Fleetbooks come out, there are settings where fighters are the main weapon. These setting, I assume, are based on history like ours, that every nation will develop the same tech and steal from each other. Yes, in space you can play different techs and that is part of the fun, but the Fleetbooks won't do that, I hope.

Agreed, but I'd like see the Fighters be viable in the core rules. If you can get more bang for your buck with other weapons AND you have to allocate tech to Fighters, then I don't there is a compelling reason to use them.

Personally I think a simple way to make them more attractive would be to move the Fighter combat step(s) ahead of the Capital Ship combat step. That would allow them to begin to 'digest' the enemy ships BEFORE your ships fire and thus they become the support element that I believe they should be. They would be a minor force mulitplier for your larger craft rather than the opposite.

[TheDreadnought]

Well the fleet books are worth discussing. For instance, the fighters in the forthcoming Ravenstar/Fox fleet book are deadlier than vanilla CB - and even more so considering the lack of shields in that setting. For the core setting the design goals for fighters included:

1. Fighters should be support for the capital ships, not the other way around.

2. Soap bubble carriers should never be a problem.

3. Players should be able to field vast throngs of fighters, without breaking the system.

4. Bringing your own fighters shouldn't be the only viable counter to somebody else's fighters.

As to effectiveness - In CB, fighters can engage and destroy lighter targets without help, but generally should not be attacking a capital ship unsupported. Against capital ships, I think you're under-rating the effectiveness of their shield chewing role. When every shield facing is getting chewed up, the ship's controller is going to have to choose which shield to regenerate. If you choose the tactical strategy, it should then be possible to maneuver one or more ships into a nearly or completely un-shielded arc on the target ship. So your fully shielded capital ships are going to be engaging their capital ships with little or no shield strength remaining. That's quite an advantage that should bring the engagement decisively in your favor. Maybe it's not as sexy as fighters swooping in to wreak havok and devastation on the hapless capital ships -- but that's exactly the sort of thing that results in broken fighters in other systems.

As far as numbers go, our playtest games generally involved 12 - 16 squadrons of strike fighters on one side. The advantage of large numbers of them, is that you don't suffer degradation when confronted with thick anti-fighter defenses as you can simply rotate in fresh squadrons all the time, as well as if the enemy has any interceptors, it limits his ability to protect his ships from your fighters - because he can't stop them all.

Unclejoe - I'm curious about your mentioning of PD against fighters. A P DEF of 3 is pretty solid for a major ship. But if you're being attacked by 5 squadrons of fighters (30 total) the chance of losing a total of 3 fighters during that attack doesn't seem to be much of a factor of degradation. Are you giving the ship it's P DEF vs. every squadron?

[TheDreadnought]

Jul 3, 2010 9:29:45 GMT -5 unclejoe said:

Personally I think a simple way to make them more attractive would be to move the Fighter combat step(s) ahead of the Capital Ship combat step. That would allow them to begin to 'digest' the enemy ships BEFORE your ships fire and thus they become the support element that I believe they should be. They would be a minor force mulitplier for your larger craft rather than the opposite.

Hmmm. . . that's an idea worth considering.

[unclejoe]

Unclejoe - I'm curious about your mentioning of PD against fighters. A P DEF of 3 is pretty solid for a major ship. But if you're being attacked by 5 squadrons of fighters (30 total) the chance of losing a total of 3 fighters during that attack doesn't seem to be much of a factor of degradation. Are you giving the ship it's P DEF vs. every squadron?

I* think* we are doing it right? Only the target ship(s) get to use PD and they only have as many dice as they their PD rating TOTAL to allocate to defend against attacks (+1 possible for having a Screening ship nearby).

Example - my CA is surrounded on 5 sides by Fighters. It has a PD rating of 2. It'll get 2 dice total against any 1 squadron.

Granted that is not a lot of kills against the Fighters. However, Gatling Lasers shred them very quickly when fired by a larger ship (which tend to have Mass to carry quite a few them). If I'm reading the rules for attacking Fighters correctly, a Laser Gatling at Range 1 (with 3 FC) would need to roll merely a 4+ (d10) to kill a Strike Fighter. You can PACK those Gatlings on a larger ship and they also serve admirably as shield strippers so they aren't wasted. And EVERY ship that has those can fire them at the Fighters, not just the ships under attack. Up close, confronting a CA, CL and DD cluster, that could easily be 8+ Gatlings firing each turn.

So in our case, the defending ships sort of 'circle the wagons' to defend the weakest spots with hulls, fire all of their Gatlings and then the designated target(s) fire with PD. Added up, it means a handful of Fighters die each round in exchange for taxing the shield regen and/or doing some minor hull damage and possibly a weak crit or so. I just dont see the pay-off there (at all) for the expense of the Fightesr (again, in tonnage, tech, and also roles).

They DO 'accomplish something', but not nearly as much as I could do with a different investment of the same resources. And again, this is without the dedicated 'Fighter killer' equipment/weapons present for the defenders. If they were present, I would expect the Fighters to have been COMPLETELY ineffective (and wiped out).

Consider - Instead of buying 3 levels of Fighter Tech (to get to Strikes), someone could increase their Quantum Manip to level 4 (or 5 on revised tables) and get the SD torp. WIth the tonnage allocated to Fighters, you could carry a LOT of SD torps (like in the dozens!).

Which do you think is going to have more effect on the battle? Something that can't be defended against, can't miss, causes heavy damage, and ignores armor or something that degrades each round, can barely scrape armored targets, does low damage, can't gang up well, and has myriad counters to face?

Now I know you can't necessarily make 1 to 1 comparisons across tech levels, but I wanted to convey the EXTREME sense of opportunity costs that Fighters represent. You could simple replace the Fighters with equal tonnage of any hard-hitting weaponry though and I would wager that the latter would exert far more effect on the battle than the Fighters would.

[warchariot]

"Example - my CA is surrounded on 5 sides by Fighters. It has a PD rating of 2. It'll get 2 dice total against any 1 squadron."

Yep, this is correct, or 1 die against two different squadrons.