Fighters and Drones

[RTGRuss]

I'm going out of town this weekend (after I get this turn out, of course!) but will be updating the Space Combat document when I get back.  Expect considerable detail concerning fighters, drones, point defenses and general defensive systems  

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Where is this "Space Combat document"? Or is it a yet to be released document?

 

Kevin (impatiently awaiting my setup)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hi Kevin,

 

It is a pinned thread in this section (Rules & Mechanics) - the first post of that thread has a Naval Combat PDF that you can download. Pete will be working on a new one but that one is still a useful read.

 

Russ

[Kevin.C]

Hi Kevin,

 

It is a pinned thread in this section (Rules & Mechanics) - the first post of that thread has a Naval Combat PDF that you can download.  Pete will be working on a new one but that one is still a useful read.

 

Russ

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Got it. Thanks, Russ.

 

By the way, shouldn't that file be put in the FTP area?

 

Kevin

[RTGRuss]

Hi Kevin,

 

It is a pinned thread in this section (Rules & Mechanics) - the first post of that thread has a Naval Combat PDF that you can download.   Pete will be working on a new one but that one is still a useful read.

 

Russ

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Got it. Thanks, Russ.

 

By the way, shouldn't that file be put in the FTP area?

 

Kevin

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'll probably wait until Pete gets the new one done now. Website stuff is another one of my chores that I need to get current

 

Russ

[Galreth]

There are strategies to pursue if you are a fighter/drone fan and there are strategies to pursue if you have to defend against them.  There are both tactical and strategic considerations to weigh.  Mismatches can create overwhelming victories or humiliating defeats (and everything in between) depending on the circumstances and many variables. 

Russ, we can only devise those strategies if we actually know what the rules ARE. Suddenly we find out at this late date that fighters actually transit a WP without their carriers. Was that written somewhere? This was hardly a point that passed the logic test and thus could hardly be determined. Don't you think such info would have been useful many many months ago when players were determining what to research and what to build?

 

I understand your point on mismatches--of course there are strategies to devise to create those mismatches if only we know the options. I'd much rather have the mismatch I researched, devised, and built instead of the accidental mismatch, whether it creates victory or defeat. I truly mean that. I play the game because I want to determine whether my empire goes down in victory or defeat. There is enough chance involved when an enemy enters the equation--I don't need more induced by unknown and arguably indiscernable battle simulation. In a word, it is disappointing.

 

Ok, rant is over and I play on with a 60% solution.

[octagon999]

So a Carrier can send through fighters or drones (which do not have interplanetary, let alone interstellar capability) before they transit, but a laser, cold, plasma or any other weapon system-based ship cannot.

 

How does this mean that fighters/drones are not unbalanced?

[hobknob]

Fighter and drone are mostly unbalanced for several reasons but one is that they continue to function until the end of the battle. Assuming that combats are not over in a few rounds of firing I really wonder what a fighter is doing after 50 rounds of battle without being able to reload missiles and other armaments.

 

[RTGRuss]

So a Carrier can send through fighters or drones (which do not have interplanetary, let alone interstellar capability) before they transit, but a laser, cold, plasma or any other weapon system-based ship cannot.

 

How does this mean that fighters/drones are not unbalanced?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Fighters and drones have advantages of course but they can't be protected by armor or other defenses as can shipboard weapons and they can't be protected by screens. If the defender has sufficient CIDS to knock out the fighters and drones in one combat round then they are gone in one combat round after one firing pass. If the defender has no CIDS at all then they'll make attack runs as long as the attacker hasn't been eliminated. Defending against fighters/drones isn't a piece of cake - it takes a fair amount of tonnage devoted to systems that are of little value IF the enemy does not deploy fighters or drones but it can be done.

 

Russ

[RTGRuss]

Russ, we can only devise those strategies if we actually know what the rules ARE.  Suddenly we find out at this late date that fighters actually transit a WP without their carriers.    Was that written somewhere?  This was hardly a point that passed the logic test and thus could hardly be determined.  Don't you think such info would have been useful many many months ago when players were determining what to research and what to build?

 

I understand your point on mismatches--of course there are strategies to devise to create those mismatches if only we know the options.  I'd much rather have the mismatch I researched, devised, and built instead of the accidental mismatch, whether it creates victory or defeat.  I truly mean that.  I play the game because I want to determine whether my empire goes down in victory or defeat.  There is enough chance involved when an enemy enters the equation--I don't need more induced by unknown and arguably indiscernable battle simulation.  In a word, it is disappointing.

 

Ok, rant is over and I play on with a 60% solution.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

That's a very fair critique. We should have been discussing it some time ago and we clearly should have more comprehensive rules on the subject. I wish it was easier for us to get everything on our 'to-do' list done but wishing doesn't make it so. Time evaporates around here and every time I or Pete get something done it seems like several other things have popped up to take its place.

 

SN is a complex game and we often have to face decisions on whether to answer questions on the board (which gets to a lot of people fast) or hold off for a rules update (that seems to take forever to get done but would reach everyone once distributed). Board Q & A sessions tend to be stressful and massively time consuming as the current thread shows. We knew the thread posed a question that would generate a lot of activity once we answered it and keeping up with a group of players posting questions, examples, criticism, etc. is a chore to say the least. The GM is outnumbered from the start and has the added disadvantage of having to be extremely careful about his posts. Be accurate, don't give away information that you shouldn't, be careful not to offend anyone, etc. Exciting Given that this question needed to be answered sooner rather than later I jumped in and am now reaping the whirlwind

 

Anyway...I appreciate your position. Believe me, I do wish we had a complete set of rules that were done in every aspect complete with examples, graphs, pictures, etc. and that were immediately updated and distributed as soon as any change/addition occurred. We just don't have the manpower to achieve that ideal at the moment. We'll do the best we can with our time and resources and hope that is good enough to keep the game running on schedule and fun for our players.

 

Take care & good gaming,

 

Russ

[Ur Lord Tedric]

OOC:

 

Pete & Russ,

 

Whilst I do think we should have known about this sooner and indeed my initial worry about this sudden revelation has actually been justified, I have had time to digest it over this week - mainly due to lying in a dark place whilst suffering 'man-flu'

 

Thank you for answering the question - I suspected your answer would generate sudden furore.

 

Like Fire Control and Flagships operating from rear areas before even entering WPs, fighters and drones now operate exactly the same in WP Assaults as they do in open-space battles - so we can 'defend' gainst them in exactly the same way. It gives us another tactical conundrum to solve and certainly gives more options than the sudden thought surrounding 'junker' screens!

 

I shall look forward to the updated Naval Combat Supplement.

 

Please can I ask for the outstanding additional elements be covered (or emplaced elsewhere) such as:

 

- Weapon, and particularly missile, ranges

 

- Fighter & Drone Tactics and how we're supposed to use them (the anomaly, now confirmed, that F&Ds are held at fleet level, but tactics are assigned to ship classes.

 

- Defense numeric explanation and DL defense 'reduction' covered

 

2005 will be an interesting year!

 

Regards & Looking forward to turn(s)

 

Mx

[Eldred]

Thanks for the quick response Pete & Russ...the answer was not entirely unexpected, but not what I had hoped to hear!

 

As F&D are held at fleet level they cannot be tagged to individual ships. So....does this also mean that the limit on the number of ships able to pass through a WP at any one time can also not be enforced (as the whole fleet passes through in one pulse)?

 

I appreciate that in practice these issues will seldom matter (as most WPs let a decent number of ships through in one go). But what if you have chosen to defend behind a size 2 WP, only to discover that you may as well be sat behind a size 50!

 

Surely there must be a way for RTG to come up with a fix for the F&D situation? Frankly it makes a mockery of the game mechanics and will result in the success of a number of unlikely strategies. I presume the problem is that the programme has to assume the fleet is either at one side of the WP or the other. Is it too difficult for the programme to temporarily split the fleet as it progresses through the WP? This would enable F&D to still be held at fleet level, but in the correct proportions.

[ShadowKitsune]

I'm a little confused.

 

So to be absolutely clear in my understanding of how Fighters & Drones work in the Warp Point assault scenario, if I deploy all of my Carriers, Drone and CnC ships in the "back" - Deployment Location 12 - and have a few heavily armored "junkers" (i.e. 10kTon ships that are nothing but armor, engines and jump drives) in the "front" - Deployment Location 1 - all of my Fighters and Drones will go through the Warp Point with my first "junker"?

 

If so, why can't I "tow" Orbitals through Warp Points? Effectively, I am "towing" Fighters & Drones through the Warp Point without the benefit of having Magnetic Grapples or Tractor Beams, or an upper limit of Fighter & Drone tonnage that can be brought through.

 

Brain hurting

Need Beer ...

 

-SK

[Hughestrog]

So to be absolutely clear in my understanding of how Fighters & Drones work in the Warp Point assault scenario, if I deploy all of my Carriers, Drone and CnC ships in the "back" - Deployment Location 12 - and have a few heavily armored "junkers" (i.e. 10kTon ships that are nothing but armor, engines and jump drives) in the "front" - Deployment Location 1 - all of my Fighters and Drones will go through the Warp Point with my first "junker"?

 

ShadowKitsune, did you notice this:

 

Some points to keep in mind are that fighters/drones are tied into your fire control just like any other offensive weapon system (so you won't see the equivalent of an SN II drone strike regardless) and point defense (CIDS) systems are not (i.e. if you have sufficient CIDS you can smoke every last fighter/drone in the first round then go back to engaging enemy units as they continue to transit). 

 

So I suppose if you sent in some heavily shielded CinC's as well (in DEPLOC 1), this might work. Otherwise you'd have poor fire control and all those fighters would be tageting one or two ships.

 

Now, is my understanding of FC right?

[RTGPete]

Like Fire Control and Flagships operating from rear areas before even entering WPs, fighters and drones now operate exactly the same in WP Assaults as they do in open-space battles - so we can 'defend' gainst them in exactly the same way.  It gives us another tactical conundrum to solve and certainly gives more options than the sudden thought surrounding 'junker' screens!

 

Absolutely. The carriers must come through - indeed they are forced to come through, to prevent the zero-risk Drone Strike strategy that dominated SN II. There are a wide variety of strategies that can be employed to protect one's carriers, such as trying to send through as many screens or other ships as possible before the carriers arrive. Good. That's the meat and potatoes of strategy, and invalidates simple tonnage comparisons out right.

 

I shall look forward to the updated Naval Combat Supplement.

 

As do we all

 

Please can I ask for the outstanding additional elements be covered (or emplaced elsewhere) such as:

 

- Weapon, and particularly missile, ranges

 

- Fighter & Drone Tactics and how we're supposed to use them (the anomaly, now confirmed, that F&Ds are held at fleet level, but tactics are assigned to ship classes.

 

- Defense numeric explanation and DL defense 'reduction' covered

 

Ranges, right - from the old battle reports that showed the 0.1, 0.2 degradation info. I'll look at getting that into the supplement.

 

Fighter & Drone Tactics definitely.

 

Defense system details absolutely. Also umbrella coverage for point defense weapons, critical to this particular discussion and warp point defense versus the so-called "unbeatable" strategy of massed fighter/drone strikes (unbeatable, ha ha ha).

[ShadowKitsune]

So to be absolutely clear in my understanding of how Fighters & Drones work in the Warp Point assault scenario, if I deploy all of my Carriers, Drone and CnC ships in the "back" - Deployment Location 12 - and have a few heavily armored "junkers" (i.e. 10kTon ships that are nothing but armor, engines and jump drives) in the "front" - Deployment Location 1 - all of my Fighters and Drones will go through the Warp Point with my first "junker"?

 

ShadowKitsune, did you notice this:

 

Some points to keep in mind are that fighters/drones are tied into your fire control just like any other offensive weapon system (so you won't see the equivalent of an SN II drone strike regardless) and point defense (CIDS) systems are not (i.e. if you have sufficient CIDS you can smoke every last fighter/drone in the first round then go back to engaging enemy units as they continue to transit). 

 

So I suppose if you sent in some heavily shielded CinC's as well (in DEPLOC 1), this might work. Otherwise you'd have poor fire control and all those fighters would be tageting one or two ships.

 

Now, is my understanding of FC right?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I don't know, I thought that Fire Control was calculated Fleet-wide not just based on the Fleet that had transited the Warp Point. My understanding is that I could have a "Flagship" in the back loaded to the gills with CnC gear (e.g. Fire Control techs) and as long as it isn't destroyed it will adjust my entire Fleet's FC rating, even if the fight ended before it came through the Warp Point and thus became a valid target.

[RTGPete]

Thanks for the quick response Pete & Russ...the answer was not entirely unexpected, but not what I had hoped to hear!

 

As F&D are held at fleet level they cannot be tagged to individual ships. So....does this also mean that the limit on the number of ships able to pass through a WP at any one time can also not be enforced (as the whole fleet passes through in one pulse)?

 

Apples and oranges here. When a fleet passes through a warp point it *does* pass through in entirety. It just does it piecemeal, but ships can defend themselves and can be at varying range lines. There are a huge number of strategies to assaulting a warp point. Fighters and Drones have tactics that modify their strength in battle, but they always drop into the lap of the defenders right away. This can be good - it can be bad.

 

I appreciate that in practice these issues will seldom matter (as most WPs let a decent number of ships through in one go). But what if you have chosen to defend behind a size 2 WP, only to discover that you may as well be sat behind a size 50!

 

2 is not 50. A size 2 warp point means that the defender knows that you can only send 2 ships through per battle pulse. He can drop his fire control to 2 and still know that as long as he has enough firepower, he will obliterate 2 of your ships every round, forever. He knows that the attacker will automatically lose all warp assaults through that warp point so long as the defender engages him in battle and is strong enough to survive until the enemy carriers come through. Given sufficient point defenses, he can achieve this much, much more easily in a 2 situation than a 50. I might also add that if the attacker has to come through with 50 Peanut class Corvettes instead of only 2 every battle pulse, that's a minimum of 50,000 tons of shipping that he is losing every single battle pulse. The defender can indeed have a fire control of 50 - if you know what he's got, doesn't he know what you have? Doesn't this guy build piont defenses? Put out patrols to see you coming? Or is he a potted plant?

 

Surely there must be a way for RTG to come up with a fix for the F&D situation? Frankly it makes a mockery of the game mechanics and will result in the success of a number of unlikely strategies. I presume the problem is that the programme has to assume the fleet is either at one side of the WP or the other. Is it too difficult for the programme to temporarily split the fleet as it progresses through the WP? This would enable F&D to still be held at fleet level, but in the correct proportions.

 

There is no mockery, there is no "situation". There are many bad assumptions being made. Many will be cleared up when I publish the updated Space Combat supplement. Sure, it could have come out a year ago, but it didn't. As it turns out, it doesn't matter. Fighters and Drones are just another weapon system. They can be defended against and defended against very well indeed. They have several glaring weaknesses, and several wonderful strengths.

 

The fact that fighters and drones are able to attack en masse can be used to advantage by the attacker. It can be exploited as a fatal flaw by the defender.

 

I can defeat any fleet, made up of any composition of ships, fighters, drones, forts, orbital installations or screens. It can have any types of weapons or defenses. I can do this because I know that the system is balanced by the players, not the system.

 

If the defender has the same sort of intelligence that is being granted to the attacker in this thread, he can stop him cold, fighters or drones notwithstanding. The attacker, in turn, can come up with ways to overcome a staunch defense. That, after all, is the whole idea