Because...  ?

I really don't know. It just seemed right at the time, and gave fighters an advantage, making them important to the game.

I suppose you could justify it by saying that fighters can get up close to the target and find the "weak spots" in the shielding... but that doesn't make a lot of sense, really...

In the end, they cost CR = to their effectiveness. If they didnt halve shields, they certainly wouldnt be worth 50+ CR each. They die like flies.

Fielding 3 squadrons of Fighters probably actually costs about 180 or so CR. Instead of those three, put in a CL with a shield halving weapon and a decent damage output. I bet you could do the same damage with the DD and the CL.

The Fighters real 'schtick' is that they get to act first. So, they have a chance to wipe out a target and not suffer the return fire. The downside is that they have to be so close to the target that really cheap high RoF weaponry rips them apart with easy.

To me they feel 'correct'. If they didnt halve shields, it would make Shield 5 ships feel really much more powerful. If that is the Sci-Fi feel you are shooting for (Capital ships are the determining factor more than Fighters), then take away the halves shields of the Fighters and cut their CR down to 40 or so. That will make them effective against smaller craft, but they arent worth using on the larger craft.

In that realm, they hit on 5-6, penetrate only a 6 vs a Shield 5 Cap ship. To do even a single point of damage on average, you'd need 3 full squadrons. Even vs Shield 4 ships, 3 squadrons are only going to average 2 points of damage.

So, given their vulnerability to return fire, they have to have some sort of punch or else they dont have much of a reason to be fielded. Any number of things can take out weakly shielded ships, but not much can really touch a Shield 5 rock. The current Fighters make for a more dynamic field IMO. Its one more element in the puzzle.

From an effectiveness PoV, Assault is far better than Bomber any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Assault is also better at killing Fighters than Interceptors. For 10 more CR than either you get a far more versatile Fighter that is better than either Bombers or Interceptors at their assigned role.

So, Bombers probably do need some sort of help. But I would be cautious about reducing the effectiveness of other Fighters (especially stock Fighters).

AA weapons dont have to have a short ranged. A friend of mine ported over the SFB version of the Interstellar Concordium and they bristled with 'Phasers' which are R:9 4+ 3/1/1 weapons. They are mounted in fairly high numbers and in good arcs. Vs Fighters, they hit on a 4+ at Fighter range which means 1&1/2 Fighters per shot per weapon on average. Most ships have between 4-6 Phasers (with the BBs and whatnot having upwards of 10). Its a good all-around weapon and still reduces Fighters with frightening efficiency.

For a 'dedicated' AA weapon, a R:3 3+ 2/1/1 Repeating, Dble Range Mods is almost guaranteed to kill a squadron per turn at range 1 and a R:3 3+ 3/1/1 Range Based RoF is also going to average 1 squadron per turn smoked. Neither of these does much at range, but they make fine 'scrubbers' for anything that remains adjacent. They are also small and will tear up ships that get too close as well, making them 'dual-purpose' weapons.

FWIW, for our games, we allow ships to start with one turn's worth of Fighters deployed. This still encourages Launch Bays while still giving Fighters some of their original ability to mass early. It also means that Carrier Fleets dont spend the first few turns 'wasting' time trying to back up or evade until they get everything in the air. Its just a time saver IMO.

We also dont have ships exploding till the End Phase so the Fighters cant hide behind explosions all the time. That got awful ridiculous awfully fast...

From what I've seen, Fighters tend to more effective the more that there  are (more than in just the added numbers). For example, 20 Fighters seem much more than twice as powerful as 10 Fighters which is way more than twice as powerful as 5. The reason is the first strike. The more Fighters that get to hit first the less return fire that is taken, greatly magnifying the Fighters' survivability. Survivability is the real weakpoint for Fighters so anything that helps there is a force multiplier for them. So, for us, we just tend to 'gentlemen's agreement' to not have more than a dozen or so squadrons in a 1500 point battle.

There has been talk in the past about allowing fighters to be "designed" like ships -- i.e., give them 50 SUs or something and have at it...

Would that be worth pursuing?

And it still took like 8-10 hours to sink the thing, right?

At least, until it was salvaged and reconfigured as a spaceship several centuries later...

Fleet tactics are also a pretty good foil on Fighter attacks. Escort vessels with R:6 weaponry backed up by R:9 weaponry on the main body should produce decent results. Just keep the shorter ranged guys out in front. If the Fighters attack them, the longer ranged stuff behind gets free shots. If the Fighters try and bypass the escorts, they should still be in R:6 to the escorts.

A few LR inverted or no-range mod weapons helps vs Fighters although they can be expensive to field. Use Variable RoF to get the most out of them (Shard Launcher: Range 12 3+ 3/1/1 No Range Mod/Variable RoF). These should get at least one round of fire into any Fighters that dont take a really long way around. Even at that, if you deploy them properly, you can usually get a few rounds off and that is enough to make a nice mess out of a few squadrons.

Luckily, all of these weapons are equally effective against opposing ships. So there is no fear of being defended against Fighters only to lose to the opposing line of battle!

I also like the having one turn's worth of fighters in the air.

I just don't like the huge mass of fighters already in the air on the first turn........  One of my friends fielded 4 Star Destroyers in one game... and we ended up with 48 Wings of fighters attacking my ally's cruiser..... the result was extremely messy....LOL
And yes....... it was all in one turn....LOL (the Mon Calamari Cruiser rushed foward, while sending it's fighters off in a different direction.......)

To shorten the die rolls, the Mon Calamari player decided that his ship was dead........ to quote... " I messed up, here I was, but now..............I'm dead"

John

I would think that 4 wings could stack....... that would give you 24 dice from one "stack" on the attack........

We have had some really strange encounters, as one of the things that we occasionally do is go to extremes just to see how things play out.... like a hull 20 carrier with engines of 1, shields of 3, only 6 lasers at range 6 and the rest of the ship as fighter bays and 1 launch bay per each 2 or 3 fighter bays....... (he fielded 5 of these carriers) 

I don't remember exactly how many fighter wings were on each ship...... but I do know that my friend started losing track of the fighters, as there were so many of them that he filled half the board..........

I do really like the idea of different flavors in a game. The case in point, my Kayeshi do not field carriers yet...... they have some retro-fitted light cruisers that each carry 3 wings of fighters..... and they usually don't launch them, unless the enemy has fighters deployed.......as Kayeshi fighters are very poorly designed (weapon does no hull damage to capital ships, and they have a movement of 9...... they lack good fuel efficiency, and their weapons are re-fitted ballistic weapons from ground vehicles and they have problems with controlling recoil, so the calibers are small) I still pay normal price for my fighters, and that's what I field. Right now, in our campaign, they are attempting to create a better engine to get their speed up to match their opponents.... but they haven't succeeded........ yet.

John

The two extremes.... meant to follow along the general paths of thought... I.E Star Trek..... primarily capital ships, very few fighters, and a old sailing navy feel to the game, and Star Wars...... fighters are the main focus in attack, and individually are quite dangerous. More akin in feeling to the modern navy.

John

Option 3 attempts to model the affect of option 2 (and really the anti-fighter battery, as well).

Now I tend to like option 3, "Fighter tracking" as a weapon enhancement that gives +1 versus fighters and -1 versus ships, just seems to make sense to me. It brings the considerations of how to deal with fighters into the realm of serious ship design considerations. It would end up taking a lot more space than option 2, I imagine, but it would allow true anti-fighter escorts.

Fighters ignoring shields has always honked me off (especially when the fighters are blazing away at my ships), but it also makes some sense if they attack from that close...

Star Wars (taken with a grain of salt I know) seems to use this idea also, how else can an X-Wing fly at a star destroyer (that shrugs off cruiser blasts) and blow big holes in it.

According to the books, it takes several x-wings, and they link their fire so that the torpedoes all hit the same spot, staggerd by a split second.... the first couple of torpedoes overload the shield in that location, and the next couple get through.....

I am still thinking that the halving shields should be a property of bombers, while interceptors concentrate on shooting down fighters, bombers, drones and battle-sats......but am not sure how to put this in game.

John

My fighter jocks are the gutsy buggers who fly up the plasma wash from the engines...which causes the shields in to partially de-stabilize in this region due to the massive energy gradient shifts.  It also explains the really great tans all fighter jocks seem to have...