Fighters

[Tyrel Lohr]

Speaking of which, will breaching pods to crtailed in power?

Boarding attacks will take place at the end of the combat round, and will no longer provide guaranteed results; rather, the player will total the Boarding Rating of their surviving units and make an attack roll against the enemy to see how much Boarding Damage they can apply to the unit. A unit is then captured when its Damage + Boarding Damage is greater than or equal to twice its Defense Rating.

If you want to prevent the enemy from boarding your vessels using direct assault ships or breaching pods, you will need to make sure to make use of Directed Damage during the firing phases. Of course, a player could choose to put their Boarding units in higher Formation Levels, which would make it more costly for you to take them out.

-Tyrel

[Bandit]

We still have directed damage? Certinly there has to be a better way.

[Tyrel Lohr]

We still have directed damage? Certinly there has to be a better way.

Directed Damage is still around, but it will be more useful than it was in 1E. It will still probably not be used all that often, as it is not as efficient as standard damage resolution, but there will always be situations where you want to destroy a specific enemy unit or units.

-Tyrel

[Gareth_Perkins]

Planetary basing is something that we still have to revisit. As an off-the-cuff response, I would be tempted to say that the total SIZ of Flights that can be based off of a colony should be tied to its Supply infrastructure statistic. I am not sure what the best formula for this would be, but a straight Supply x 10 = Total SIZ might work. That would allow a homeworld to base quite a few Flights itself.

You could always use some sort of "Aircraft base" installation, and base the total number of flights on the number of installations,

This would to some extent mirror the way carriers work for fleets, and add a little extra maintenance cost for the facilities?

[Tyrel Lohr]

You could always use some sort of "Aircraft base" installation, and base the total number of flights on the number of installations,

This would to some extent mirror the way carriers work for fleets, and add a little extra maintenance cost for the facilities?

Jay never really cared for the concept of a "fighter garrison," but it might be worth it to incorporate planetary basing as an additional colony infrastructure type that can be invested in.

-Tyrel

[Rainer]

Jay never really cared for the concept of a "fighter garrison," but it might be worth it to incorporate planetary basing as an additional colony infrastructure type that can be invested in.

Of course enforcing atmospheric capabilities (and making that attribute expensive at lower tech levels) would also help. If you have to build a lot of bases at every colony to be able to base your fighter death star there if necessary, other options would become attractive.

Given the scope of the CSCR, I don't see forcing Flights to only perform certain fire at certain times making much sense. If tied to specific unit abilities or setting rules, then I could see it, but the length of a scenario is not defined well enough to say definitively that a unit does or does not have the time or ability to fire on capital ships every single turn.

This is purely a game balance and not a realism concern. Fighters on AS are way too effective and there has to be a way to reduce that. That would also help with loss rates (which are often 100% for the looser which is NOT a good thing).

That all being said, Flights should end up with considerably fewer points to spend on abilities, so your smaller and easier to maintain Flights will by definition have very limited abilities, and will have to make sacrifices in one area or another. A low tech Light Fighter (SIZ 1) might only have enough points to purchase 1 Defense and either 1 Anti-Ship or 1 Anti-Fighter, but not both. Or it could forego weaponry altogether and just shove some better Engines onboard so that it can provide Formation Points to support its squadron or strikegroup.

A light fighter with DV 1, AF 0 and AS 1 will still become your ship-killer of choice - which certainly is not the design intent - if it can forgoe firing in the AF phase and gain a net AS 2. Being able to gain a single point AS should not be equivalent to a single point of AF. AS should be a lot more rare and expensive.

CSCR 2 eliminates Flight assignments; both squadrons and strikegroups are simply assigned attack orders during the Assignments Phase stipulating during which point in the Weapons Fire Phase they will be participating in combat (Long Range, Medium Range, or Short Range). All AS/AF fire is then polled from friendly units firing during the same Fire Phase, and scored appropriately. Thus fighter CAPs no longer need to be declared.

It is hoped that this change, even with the integration of three separate firing phases, will vastly speed up CSCR resolution. There is some slowdown if either side has a lot of specialized equipment to be calculated prior to firing, but most of these are straightforward, and don't take long to assign during their appropriate Phase.

At a first glance this looks good.

[Gareth_Perkins]

A light fighter with DV 1, AF 0 and AS 1 will still become your ship-killer of choice - which certainly is not the design intent - if it can forgoe firing in the AF phase and gain a net AS 2. Being able to gain a single point AS should not be equivalent to a single point of AF. AS should be a lot more rare and expensive.

Dedicated missions where certainly one of the things (for me at least) which break fighters,

At the "low" end being able to double your AS is horrific,

[Tyrel Lohr]

If it is of any consolation in regards to dedicated missions, the rules I have in the current outline give squadrons or strikegroups that perform dedicated AS or AF missions a +25% bonus (instead of strict doubling, as in 1E). Almost all modifiers will be on a per squadron/strikegroup basis, not per unit, which will help to prevent some of these problems from reoccurring.

I think the biggest issue with Flight efficiency is that they are too cheap for their benefits in 1E. My design testing for 2E has increased the costs of all Flights to full EPs, not fractional EP as in 1E. The offset is that Flights are cheaper to maintain than Starships, which offsets the need for a carrier to deploy them.

-Tyrel

[MarkG88]

If it is of any consolation in regards to dedicated missions, the rules I have in the current outline give squadrons or strikegroups that perform dedicated AS or AF missions a +25% bonus (instead of strict doubling, as in 1E). Almost all modifiers will be on a per squadron/strikegroup basis, not per unit, which will help to prevent some of these problems from reoccurring.

I think the biggest issue with Flight efficiency is that they are too cheap for their benefits in 1E. My design testing for 2E has increased the costs of all Flights to full EPs, not fractional EP as in 1E. The offset is that Flights are cheaper to maintain than Starships, which offsets the need for a carrier to deploy them.

-Tyrel

This is looking better and better all the time Tyrel. Sounds like the "breakable" fighter issues will be fixed. You're definitely checking off my personal "want list" so far on this topic.

-Mark

[Tyrel Lohr]

The shift to the squadron and strikegroup as the primary CSCR components has allowed us to make quite a few beneficial modifications to the rules. With the exception of some special tech rules, a combat round should run pretty smoothly. The three firing phases may end up slowing things down, but I have a feeling most fire will still be done at Medium Range (given the reduced effectiveness of Long Range fire, and the fact that a unit has to survive to Short Range in order to fire during that step).

I am still debating the merits of how to handle fighters and gunboats, and whether it would be simpler just to make them small special units without distinct sizes but just costs, or have SIZ = Construction Cost and go from there. I have been playing around with a modified version of some ship construction rules that James Pridemore sent me, and if we were to use something like them then I think simplifying fighters and gunboats would probably be the best solution... but I will have to mull it all over in my head for awhile to make sure.

As far as the CSCR is concerned, fighters and other Flight units should end up being a potentially powerful force, but one that can be blunted by attrition on their normal lack of independent movement or combat participation. Granted, we are going to have to allow for independent or jump-capable fighters, to reflect fighters like those from Star Wars, but in those cases I think we can find some workaround to make them fit into the rules without being too obnoxious.

-Tyrel

[Rainer]

This does indeed look better.

One other thing to restrict mass fighter redeployments could be to not make the replenishment network instantaneous and being able to travel far faster than starships. If they are affected by the same movement rules and restrictions, then attrition could actually be meaningful.

[mwaschak]

This does indeed look better.

One other thing to restrict mass fighter redeployments could be to not make the replenishment network instantaneous and being able to travel far faster than starships. If they are affected by the same movement rules and restrictions, then attrition could actually be meaningful.

"Whatever happened to Mr. Waschak?"

The answer can be summed in two words, Federation Admiral. I have been wrapping up another edit of all the material for ADB, and with a rough total page count of 200, it is no small feat.

--

Rainer, this is something we are talking about as well and I think we have some good ideas which should be posted soon. Back in the original (which I refer to often these days because it helps understand what we were thinking a decade ago) it was to add simplicity but it has not weathered as well as the other core rules and really tends to favor the cliche fighter-heavy fleet (100% losses, 100% instant replacements). I think the new compromise will lend to some interesting things as well, such as the need to protect the fighter replacement shipments lest they fall in the hands of pirates.

-Jay

[mriddle]

If fighter bases are not a popular solution..

There are two conflicting goals here, one side wants simple fighter replacement and the other side does not want cheap fighter replacement.

What about a multi-system "fighter replacement convoy" network ? like a trade fleet.. it's cost is based on number of flights it can move per turn and the number of systems in the "network".. a small empire might only have one, a large empire, may have several of these networks a planet can belong to any number of networks

The cost (initial and cost) would be based on a rough approximation of the number of transport fleets to accomplish the task and then reduced for specialization..
example if a transport fleet can carry 10 flights, and a network is 4 systems and can carry 50 flights, the basic cost would be comparable to 10 transports fleets. (5 transports needed at any point to pickup and deliver the 50, and 4 different endpoints) and then cut to 25% to reflect specialization. or .25*20 *10 = 50 points and 3 per turn maintence, but that is to move 50 flights per turn .. if the max capacity is 15 the cost and mainteance would be much less.

This prevents replacing flights in offensive operations. (a headache for players, but possibly more "realistic"..)

The player pays if they want the flexibility..

[Rainer]

I'd describe my goal rather as making logistics more important. Anything which slows down operations is a good thing in my book as it should lead to far better gameplay. The ops tempo is far too high as it is.

[mriddle]

I'd describe my goal rather as making logistics more important. Anything which slows down operations is a good thing in my book as it should lead to far better gameplay. The ops tempo is far too high as it is.

agreed ..

What is that line ?
Amateurs talk tactics, professional talk logistics ..