Moving after ships is fine- the complaints that have cropped up over time have mainly been about firing before ships.

Option two, followed by one/three at equal status in that order of preference for me. Option two because it conveys a slight advantage to fighters, thus allowing fighter jocks to load up on fighters, but firing at ships at the same time so that AF weapons have a chance of dealing damage. Option three would also be okay, but am wary of initiative being used and this option almost screams out for it (as this would be very similar to B5W mode of movement). Option one still allows fighter jocks to dominate a battlefield at the detriment of my favoured tactic--Big Gun Battleships...:P

Based on our play-testing of the initiative based activation sequence, I'd prefer to see option 2.

Allowing fighters to react to capital ships during movement seems logical, while at the same time having them resolve their combat at the same time as the capital ships also seems logical.
Even with an outnumbering mechanic for activation, I don't think I'd allow fighter flights to bump up the number of activations a force has. In my opinion all of the capital ships should be moving at roughly the same time, without the benefit of being able to delay that movement because of fighters.
Kevin

I think Option 2 is best. Because it conveys the idea of fighters are more manueverable than ships so it gives them that kind of advantage. After that, (i.e. when it comes to firing on each other) there is no advantage.

That sounds pretty good to me if it isn't judged to be too fiddly.

To avoid having to remember which weapons have fired or not at fighters, some weapons should only fire before fighter fire. After that phase, they can't fire.

Marc

Dan,
If you're considering making fighters the same as ships, why not open up some of the other aspects of fighters as well?
E.g. Range of weapons, fighters within fighters (missiles), ECM, stealth, etc.  I know I know...the math would be lovely. 

As far as the voting goes, I have an effect in mind that I would like to see.  I'll leave it in your good hands to determine how it's implemented.  I'd like to see escorts (i.e. small ships, not fighters) to have the ability to intercept seekers just by getting in their way.  Kinda like how escorts would take the hit from torps vs capital ships in WWII.

Speaking of torps, it would be cool to see fighters that can't be shot down at all...whatever description this may take.  Perhaps they fly "underwater" through subspace?  Again this may be redundant if fighters could have stealth, ecm, cloaked, etc.

Last request, I would love to see this trait (or something along these lines)....
Suppressable (*0.X): If the flight is targeted by a number of shots equal to half or more than the flight size, the flight cannot attack this turn, regardless of how many of the attacks actually destroy fighters in the flight.

I think that trait would go a long way to getting some value from investing in a little bit of anti-fighter tech.  Otherwise, taking a few flak type guns hardly seems worth it when the ships are getting overwhelmed by fighters.  It's also cool to imagine pilots screaming "There's too much fire!  I can't get a line in!"...before they fly back to base.

Finally, a word of caution.  Despite my obvious love of fighters, I worry that fighters are the one aspect of the core system that can be abused.  A mass of little ships is generally balanced against two huge capital ships.  But a mass of fighters?  I think it starts to become roshambo, depending on how much anti-fighter tech the capital ships have.  And so far you've done a really good job of avoiding roshambo.

I never tried to take a fleet of all independent fighters, but considering my group's collective love of the Starship-Exclusive trait, I think it would have raped the galaxy in our campaign.

But, if you just use the same mechanic as SAE where most weapons shoot at fighters at -1 to hit, isn't that exactly what you are talking about? Why add a trait to do what is already a fundamental rule?
Cheer,
Erik

Agreed. Point #1 is one reason I have never really liked the ability to increase a fighter flight's DEF above 1. I know the argument can be made that it could represent a really nimble fighter able to evade fire directed at it, but to me if you cap DEF at 1, and some fighters are able to survive some hits from starship scale weapons that makes them plenty tough enough to me. We played a couple of games in which fighter DEF applied only to combat with other fighter flights and when taking hits from Fighter-Exclusive weapons, and found that this helped a lot. A player could still get "tough" fighters if he wanted, but if they did manage to get hit by a starship-scale weapon they went POOF.

I found that the best fighter deterrent was to use both the Combat Interception and Dogfight rules. Player A wants to load up on Uber-Death Fighters...fine, I'll throw some cheap interceptors out there to pounce on the bandits and pin them in a dogfight. If they can kill some of the attacking fighters, great. If not, they can often tie them up long enough for other methods of fighter eradication to be usefully employed. This has worked particularly well against powerful strikers which can be deployed much cheaper than a regular fighter flight, but capable of massive damage.
Cheers,
Erik

Me too.

I have an issue with the other options because they don't fit into the SAE type of ship movement, which I believe (hope) will still be an option.  If fighters need orders it'll be slow and they will often be out of range, but how do you move them at the same time as ships if not?

Moving at the same time only works in the initiative style movement which I hate.

Firing at the same time as ships isn't an issue for me, but then what's the point of fighters.

I voted for option 2
My thoughts are based on studying the historical evidence, Star wars, Battlestar Galactica, and Babylon 5 as well as the fantasy stuff like Midway and the Battle of the Coral sea

1. Fighter combat is stuck in the WW2 mold of getting in close and personnel.

2. Fighters always seem to get in close but suffer from a target's defensive fire before delivering their attack.

How about move after ships and fire after ships?

I also think fighters need an abort result for 'failed to press home attack'.  Lots of pilots seem to get home without hitting anything but not getting shot down either.

My 5 Bobs worth...