That is what I was hoping to add with the Anti-fighter batteries....
A basic die roll during the fighter phase that actually helps the ship, and doesn't rely on enemy fighters flying into each other's line of fire.......

If you actually look at AFB, it only helps when the fighters shoot at you. With drones, it resembles ECM, and against kamikaze fighters, it doesn't help at all.....

Drones, they are 4+ to hit, although AFB makes that a 5+. Any drones that miss are removed as well as the ones that hit..... so there is a difference there, but vs. kamikaze you have the following

ramming fighters hit on a 2+ (no modifier for AFB) and if they penetrate, do 3 dice of damage. Any fighters that miss are destroyed..... That means the fighters that roll a 1 and would have gotten destroyed by AFB are pretty much going to be destroyed anyways, because they missed.

I was looking for something that would give the capital ships some fire capability during the fighter phase, but isn't a huge fighter killer. I don't want to negate the fighters, but I do want to move away from the situation that has been happening, where a swarm of fighters rushes in during the fighter phase and either kills, or cripples a capital ship before it can even fire back at them. I have seen a trend among the gamers in my area, where he who has the most fighters wins..... and yet, I want to avoid the issue where any fighter getting near enough to the ship dies.

I am sure, though, what with everyone here, we can find a good compromise.

John

Trust me when I say, that although that sounds like a great idea... my skills with Excel are not in league with that thinking.......LOL

John

I hate replying to myself, but I was looking at something. I tried it the way that Dan put in earlier, and realized that the point cost of the hanger on the carrier changed depending on the tech level of the ship it was carrying.....  that didn't seem entirely right.... so I looked for a way that would be more even, based on the carrier.... and that would keep the actual hanger space used about the same.... even if special equipment had improved costs due to higher tech levels......

Just and idea, and one I hope other people look at as well.

John

Plus, any fighter doing a kamikaze attack gets 3 dice damage and hits on a 2+..... and if you have AFB, the fighter is destroyed if he rolls a 1.... which during a kamikaze attack, happens anyways.

I was emailing a friend while working on this, and we found that the following are some ways of dealing with fighters.... and if anyone else has ideas, please put them in too !!!

1: If you opponent rushes his fighters foward, you rush yours foward and hope he doesn't have more flights than you do. Unfortunately, this usually results in a lot of dead fghters, with the side having surviving fighters gaining the advantage.

2: Hold all of your fighters back right next to your ships, and as the enemy gets in, try to make it so that you can move your fighters into the same adjacent hexes as his... that way you can declare a dogfight and keep his fighters from firing on your ships at half shields. However, this only works as long as you declare no movement of your capital ships. If your ships are moving, then you have to move your fighters first, and then have your ships move into the adjacent hexes during their movement, and hope your opponent doesn't have a few wings of fighters that can swoop in after you moved your fighters, but before your ship moves.

3: Equip all ships with PDS, since fighters can't halve that form of protection.

4: Have AFB, but remember that it only works if your opponent rolls ones..... and if the enemy is performing kamikaze attacks, a 1 results in destruction of the fighter whether or not you have AFB... so, it's not too much help.

5: Equip your ship with either carronade, or shockwave, and hope you survive until you can fire it, while remembering that you have no control of what hexes a carronade fires into, it might totally miss.

6: Equip all ships with weapons that have long range and high rates of fire, and play as a bunch of mobile turrets.

Anyone else have ideas?

John

I tried an idea over the last several days..... I designed 2 ships that were of equal size, and nearly equal cost. One carried 3 wings of fighters, and the other didn't, but had AFB... the ship without fighters lost every battle out of 3.... and on one of those battles never even got to engage the enemy ship, as the fighters killed it in one round, at the loss of only 1 fighter to the AFB.

I then tried the short range 3/1/1 anti fighter guns, and while they worked.... they weren't as effective as they might have been. The fighters would get in and damage a lot of them before they got to fire....even with AFB mounted again. The ability to halve the shield means that you will get about 3 dice of damage for every flight of fighters on the board, unless they are killed before they get to a target. I think the last thing we want is to have our games devolve down into he who kills the fighters first wins.....

However, on the last battle, I tried something different... during the fighter phase, I allowed the defending ship to roll 1 dice for every hull point, and on a 6 the AFB got 1 fighter... It didn't add that many die rolls, and it made sense that an anti-fighter battery would work against the fighters in their own phase of the turn....
As a balance, any dice that rolled a one, negated a one rolled by the fighter wing....

Yes, the fighters paid a slightly higher cost coming in, and I am thinking of another battle without the one rolls negating each other... but the AFB actually did apply something to that battle, and yet, unlike the carronade.. it wasn't massively deadly.

The only other really effective means of giving ships without fighter cover a counter to waves of fighters was 3/1/1 weapons with at least a range of 12, and preferrably, a range of 18. That way, you have a chance of thinning out the ranks of the fighters coming, BEFORE, they get the chance to halve your shields and hurt you really bad.  This is going to be even more true as more and more players start using fighters as heavy drones and having them ram capital ships. Especially now that the newer Star Wars movies kind of pushed the idea of droid fighters.... you are going to see more fighters used in kamikaze attacks.

I think that in some ways, this is why we are seeing the hull factors of the ships constantly increasing. Players are constantly looking at ways to have ships survive longer, and making them massive not only gives them a longer survival rating, and the ability to load more defenses.... but also minimizes hits by changing the ratios of hull points to other item hits. 

Case in point. I designed a hull 1 ship with engines 8, and almost nowhere on the damage track did I see less than 3E... and yet when I did the Hull 8 ship with engines 8... there was no location greater than E.

These are the damage tracks from the construction assisstant with only the hull and engines entered in... although hyperdrive is defaulted

Hull 1  H3E  3EQ  H2EQ  3E  H2E  3E
Hull 8  H      E      H       E    H      Q

The reason I bring this up is that if a wing of fighters got in on these two ships, they would halve the shields, and fire first... and assuming that all damage die rolled a 2, 4, or 6... you can see where the smaller ships are rapidly crippled by them. Having an active way to at least shoot back, or maybe deter a few of these hits would go a long way towards increasing the survival of your ships.

Dan, if you feel that I am giving the AFB too much for the game, then I have no problem as it stands... but if it isn't too much to give them a die roll and a chance to actively take out some fighters during the fighter phase, it would give  fighters a more tactical edge, and the need for your players to consider not only how to use them, but what defenses you should include on your ships

John

The problem with active anti-fighter batteries, is that they basically become the same thing as the carronade..... but you get to choose the hexes fired in......

I rarely use AFB as they don't seem to do enough to really deter the fighters.... you basically get the same effect that your wings of fighters get, but without the ability to shoot back..... if your wing of fighters gets into a match with another wing, every 1 your opponent rolls costs him a fighter, but you still get to attack with your own... with AFB, you rely on your opponent to roll ones.......and that's it....

I'd like to see a more active anti-fighter defense, but am not entirely sure how to design one... I'll have to think about it.

John

As soon as I manage to get a digital camera.........LOL

I scratch build all of my figs from balsa and small bits of styrene, or anything else I get my hands on......
And I enjoy designing my own ships, so my fleets tend to be unique.

John

I will admit that I am getting fond of range 3 and 6 rotary guns with
3/1/1 for anti drone and anti fighter work....

I'd love to see a mod that can be added to a weapon... 
Anti-fighter: normal to hit vs. fighters, but -1 vs. capital ships,

or even -1 to capital ships, and must re-roll penetration.

John

The  Kayeshi Fleet I was designing also carried drones on a number of the ships in the fleet.....  I would launch them and have them stick near the launching ship... finally, when I had enough to do what I wanted, they would all head off for the target......

Dan, outside of the one shot expendible weapons, and the unlimited shots normal weapons... do  you think there is a way to incorporate ammunition costs into the weapons??? 

John

Actually, I think there will be more than one happy dance.......

John