Topic: Nova: Fighter Questions

Ok I've just tried playing with some fighters.  A few questions came up:

1) Do fighters fire at the same time as everything else?  I guess this comes under the rule "fighters are ships".

2) I was using some stock ships in the rules with a weapon listed as "Anti-fighter".  I think I was doing it wrong to start with;  The -1 is a column shift isn't it, it doesn't make you need 6's to hit does it?

3) Unless you use the optional split fire rule you can end up wasting fire from good anti-fighter weapons, once you've done 2 damage to kill 1 flight.  I was thinking of ruling that if flights are stacked, then damage rolls over.  This discourages stacking around a poor arc.  Anyone see any serious issues with this?

Other than I think fighters seem better than SAE so far.  I'm glad they are cheaper and much more simple to resolve that SAE.  We had to reduce fighters down in SAE but now I'll be able to convert 1:1 in Nova  smile

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

diddimus wrote:

1) Do fighters fire at the same time as everything else?  I guess this comes under the rule "fighters are ships".

Yes.

2) I was using some stock ships in the rules with a weapon listed as "Anti-fighter".  I think I was doing it wrong to start with;  The -1 is a column shift isn't it, it doesn't make you need 6's to hit does it?

All modifiers are column shifts.

3) Unless you use the optional split fire rule you can end up wasting fire from good anti-fighter weapons, once you've done 2 damage to kill 1 flight.  I was thinking of ruling that if flights are stacked, then damage rolls over.  This discourages stacking around a poor arc.  Anyone see any serious issues with this?

Not really.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

I dont recall seeing an antifighter trait in the rules, did I miss something?
If not, will there ever be one?

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

koyodude wrote:

I dont recall seeing an antifighter trait in the rules, did I miss something?
If not, will there ever be one?

You did not miss anything. I think I was hoping the "accurate" trait would suffice, but come to think of it, it really isn't the same thing at all... neutral

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

I'm kind of liking the no anti-fighter or no-starship exclusive/interceptor/bomber thing right now.  Might I suggest you just add these all in at a later supplement?

If you want to make an anti-fighter weapon just make a short range accurate weapon. 

-Tim

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

Marauder wrote:

I'm kind of liking the no anti-fighter or no-starship exclusive/interceptor/bomber thing right now.  Might I suggest you just add these all in at a later supplement?

If you want to make an anti-fighter weapon just make a short range accurate weapon. 

-Tim

I've gone back and forth between thinking short & accurate is ok like the ones in the book, to wanting a true anti-fighter trait.  I think I'd prefer a real trait for the following reason:

There's no way to represent a gun that fires lots of low powered shots that will take out multiple fighters but do very little to ships.  Currently, unless I've missed it, to take out lots of fighters you need lots of dice, those dice could be turned on a ship and do a lot of damage too.  This is against what anti-fighter normally is. 

The simplest idea for a trait is to flip the -1 from fighters to ships.  You could then add accurate for more effect.

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

One of the downsides to hit/damage being mostly abstracted into one roll is that a huge spinal-mount doom cannon that rolls 40 dice is just as effective at hitting a fly spec squad of fighters as it is at hitting capital ships.

It makes it sort of hard to draw a line between an anti-fighter weapon and an anti-ship weapon.

The way I'm thinking of handling this is to make it so no weapon can target fighters that's over a certain ORAT (Before you add arcs, and with 0 thrust).

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

Ozymandias wrote:

It makes it sort of hard to draw a line between an anti-fighter weapon and an anti-ship weapon.

Aside from the "Dx2" and "Dx3" and "Catastrophic" traits? smile

The way I'm thinking of handling this is to make it so no weapon can target fighters that's over a certain ORAT (Before you add arcs, and with 0 thrust).

I'm not sure I understand why you would do this...

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

In my opinion an anti-fighter trait isn't really needed.

If you want to simulate anti-fighter type weapons, just design them with range 1/2/3, and use either the Repeating or Scatter abilities.

Kevin

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

Aside from the "Dx2" and "Dx3" and "Catastrophic" traits?

Well yeah, but I tend to use that stuff to add flavor to a weapon, not just to make it cap-ship specific. I certainly don't throw it on everything I consider to be anti-cap ship.

I'm not sure I understand why you would do this...

I'm doing some custom stuff to try to make stronger roles for ship types and create a more combined-arms type feel. Part of this is going to be making fighters super deadly to large ships. Then I'm going to make smaller ships able to mount anti-fighter weapons that fire every time a fighter enters a hex within their range, creating a zone of death that fighters would have a hard time entering.

So I'm finding an ORAT cap on anti-fighter weapons is necessary since they get to fire a bunch of times during the fighter movement phase, and can't be allowed to be too strong.

I'll probably make a thread with all the details once I have it worked out and play tested a few times. I think it's gonna be pretty cool.

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

underling wrote:

In my opinion an anti-fighter trait isn't really needed.

If you want to simulate anti-fighter type weapons, just design them with range 1/2/3, and use either the Repeating or Scatter abilities.

Kevin

I guess this works, I don't think anti-fighter is a must and if it means not creating a new trait so late in the day that might not balance I think the options available are fine.

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

diddimus wrote:
underling wrote:

In my opinion an anti-fighter trait isn't really needed.
If you want to simulate anti-fighter type weapons, just design them with range 1/2/3, and use either the Repeating or Scatter abilities.
Kevin

I guess this works, I don't think anti-fighter is a must and if it means not creating a new trait so late in the day that might not balance I think the options available are fine.

I thought I'd add a little more to the discussion.

The argument against doing what I suggested would be that having a range 1/2/3 weapon with Repeating or Scatter could and would also affect capital ships that that weapon could target.
And this is true.

That being said, what we've found in our playtesting is that most weapons that are constructed with the intent of targeting capital ships have much longer ranges than 1/2/3. The effect of this is that any capital ship relying on range 1/2/3 weapons to target capital ships are not going to be very effective at all. Range 1/2/3 weapons are effective at targeting fighters however, as those fighters must close to within range before they can even shoot. So eventhough there isn't an anti-fighter specific trait, the design of a weapon itself does the job.

Short range, with a lot of dice.

Kevin

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

FWIW, I don't see harm in including an "anti-fighter" trait (although I'd like to give it a better name). Where Admiralty probably went wrong was expanding it to "fighter-exclusive" and "starship-exclusive" (alhtough the latter was necessary for the Dreadnoughts setting).

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

The idea that Larger ships are more vulnerable to fighters than smaller ships certainly was not the case in WW2.  The battleship USS Missouri had many, many more AA guns than any US Destroyers.  The larger a ship is, the more A weapons it can mount.  I make sure all of my ships have batteries that are good at firing at fighters...
Otherwise your opponant could bring some fighters, and have his ships destroy your escorts and then have the fighters ravage your almost defenseless Big Ships...

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

BeowulfJB wrote:

The idea that Larger ships are more vulnerable to fighters than smaller ships certainly was not the case in WW2.  The battleship USS Missouri had many, many more AA guns than any US Destroyers.  The larger a ship is, the more A weapons it can mount.  I make sure all of my ships have batteries that are good at firing at fighters...
Otherwise your opponant could bring some fighters, and have his ships destroy your escorts and then have the fighters ravage your almost defenseless Big Ships...

And I'm also fairly sure that the weapons-fire control on board space-faring warships is of a somewhat higher quality (with the possible exception of Iron Stars).

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

Antifighter functioning exactly as in the past versions shouldnt be a problem (ignore the -1 when firing at fighters), but what about antifighter also applying a -1 to attack non fighter ships.  In effect, reversing the normal penalties vs fighters, and making the trait sort of a comprimise between normal attacks/antifighter attacks and the old fighter/starship exclusive traits.

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

The idea that Larger ships are more vulnerable to fighters than smaller ships certainly was not the case in WW2. The battleship USS Missouri had many, many more AA guns than any US Destroyers. The larger a ship is, the more A weapons it can mount.

I'm going for more of a star-wars feel, you know how the Death Star just can't hit fighters for crap with its big derpy turbolasers?

I make sure all of my ships have batteries that are good at firing at fighters...
Otherwise your opponant could bring some fighters, and have his ships destroy your escorts and then have the fighters ravage your almost defenseless Big Ships...

That's the idea! He's trying to punch holes in your escort coverage, and you're trying to keep it intact.

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

Ozymandias wrote:

I'm going for more of a star-wars feel, you know how the Death Star just can't hit fighters for crap with its big derpy turbolasers?

"Derpy" is such an excellent word.

Fair enough. As mentioned before, I think I can see fit to adding the anti-fighter trait -- but I'm gonna stand firm (maybe) on fighter-exclusive/starship-exclusive.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

Fair enough. As mentioned before, I think I can see fit to adding the anti-fighter trait -- but I'm gonna stand firm (maybe) on fighter-exclusive/starship-exclusive.

Definitely agree. Ignores and Exclusive can tend to make things hard-countery.

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

Too bad for Ignore (never a problem to use it in an specific universe setting), but at least there are rules for conversion.

Marc

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

Anyway, to go back to one of the OP's questions, I plan to reintroduce anti-fighter ("precise"?) which will counter the -1 penalty for attacking fighters and/or minefields.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

cricket wrote:

FWIW, I don't see harm in including an "anti-fighter" trait (although I'd like to give it a better name). Where Admiralty probably went wrong was expanding it to "fighter-exclusive" and "starship-exclusive" (alhtough the latter was necessary for the Dreadnoughts setting).

I think there is a place for fighter exclusive and ship exclusive, if only for specific settings. A "light" gun firing an AA shell can be fighter exclusive, and a big naval rifle firing an AP shell is ship-exclusive. I think the problem is when people abuse the process to make more powerful guns without using as much space. Would it work to include the traits but with a ORAT/DRAT mod rather than an SU mod?
What's wrong with calling a trait specifically geared to shooting down fighters and fighter like objects Anti-Fighter?
Seems like an accurate description of the function and clips nicely to "AF".  smile
Erik

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

Blacklancer99 wrote:

Would it work to include the traits but with a ORAT/DRAT mod rather than an SU mod?

Probably not, since most players would take "exclusive" to cut down the point cost rather than the space requirement -- you've got Tech Levels for that. smile

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

I think there is a place for fighter exclusive and ship exclusive, if only for specific settings. A "light" gun firing an AA shell can be fighter exclusive, and a big naval rifle firing an AP shell is ship-exclusive. I think the problem is when people abuse the process to make more powerful guns without using as much space. Would it work to include the traits but with a ORAT/DRAT mod rather than an SU mod?

I specifically try not to min-max when I play, but any kind of starship exclusive trait that offered even a moderate discount would be worth it to put on the majority of your weapons.

Re: Nova: Fighter Questions

I totally read that as "Min-wax" the first time... smile

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com