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mj12games.com/forum → Starmada → Point Defense, Anti-Fighter Batteries, and Carronades
I'd be interested in the FDN as well.
John
Hello everyone!
Fighters can be nasty in swarms! When I was down in South Florida playing Starmada with Gaming Glen, with my nephew (who was a big fan of crew-erasers), and others, I was faced lotsa fighters. I have four secondary weapons that meet the need for fleet AA defense. These weapons fire out to 18 so that fighters will get shot at at least once b4 they get into range to attack my ships. These weapons are all 3+ to hit, and 3/1/1. 0ne of them (the 6 Inch guns) has Rerolls-to-hit and the other (the 5 Inch Guns) has Range-based-ROF. Some of my ships have the "5 inch guns" as secondary weapons, the others, the "6 Inch guns". Escort ships, such as my CLAA, have the ECCM suit to remove the "-1" to hit fighters.
I also have expendable AA weapons, 'cause they are less expensive. 0ne is "Terrier Missiles"; Range=18, 3+ to hit, 3/1/1, special weapon abilities: {Rerolls to hit + Repeating + Increased damage} (for firing at ships). [Note that we limit all repeating weapons to a max of only 6 shots]. Down south, one friend used exclusively heavy fighters! For them I have "Talos Missiles" which are identical to Terrier, except that they are 3/1/2 to give the extra damage need to destroy heavy fighters with one shot. These inexpensive expendable "Terrier&Talos Missiles" are great! They are all fired with a big woosh <LOL>; then they are gone and so are most of the hostile fighters&drones. These CGAA ships have an ECCM suite to remove the "-1" to hit Fighters. All escort ships also have an Anime-style spinal mount for long-range fire at fighters or ships. My ships have been attacked by fighters b4 and have been able to ...defend(!) themselves...
I use US Navy type weapons because, in the late 1970s, I was a Gunners-mate in the USA Navy 
Steven Gilchrist, former US Navy GMT3, Jacksonville, Florida, USA
PS, what does everyone think about these ideas?
Hello everyone!
Down south, one friend used exclusively heavy fighters! For them I have "Talos Missiles" which are identical to Terrier, except that they are 3/1/2 to give the extra damage need to destroy heavy fighters with one shot.
Unfortunately, the 3/1/2 missiles don't help with the Heavy Fighters. You don't roll PEN or DMG against fighters, just the hits. 
Other than that, it is a good idea. Heavy fighters are a tough nut to crack.
cricket wrote:You know, we did have an "active" fighter defense in the Compendium... the Fighter Defense Network (FDN). Anyone think it might be worth ressurrecting?
How did it work?
IIRC, it worked by having up to five attacks against fighters within 5 hexes(?). You'd roll a dice for each fighter flight targeted...
But I think a more complete explanation will soon pop up...:D
IIRC, FDN was a 10% space system, and the mechanic was something like "designate one or more fighter squadrons as targets, roll 1d6 for each subtracting one for each hex of range and one for each target beyond one, kill that many fighters." Functionally speaking, about the best you could hope for was 1d6-1 kills (for shooting up a single squadron at range one). I remember experimenting with FDN on small escort hulls, and not being real impressed.
Rich
Hello everyone,
My Friends and I in Jacksonville used the Starmada Compendium rules until six months ago or so. I looked at the Fighter Defense Network as a possible supplement to the many Laser Cannons that I put on my ships to shoot at fighters. This only allowed you to shoot down a maximum of 5 fighters, if they were next to your ship and if you rolled a 6 on a D6. It was cute, but not cost effective.
A foot note on the earlier described Talos & Terrier missiles: { 3/1/2 and 3/1/1 respectively with 3+ to hit and range=18}. The special weapon ability should only be "Rerolls to hit. If you fill up all of C & B batteries with them, you will shoot down an average of 50+ fighters at long range, provided you have Long Range Sensors, which most of my ships do. Many people, including those I play with, use a "home rule" that weapons doing 2+ dice of damage can shoot a heavy fighter down with only one hit. And if there are no fighters, this barrage of Talos or Terrier misslies can devastate regular ships also...
Steven Gilchrist, Jacksonville, Florida, USA.
What if dedicated anti-fighter weapons fired in the Fighter combat phase? "Ordinary" weapons would still fire after the fighters in the regular comat phase.
What would be the modifier be for "Anti-Fighter" to add to the weapon design rules?
don't forget Sunbursts as valid anti-fighter weapons
they completely destroy an entire flight when they hit, no matter the hevay or not.
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
and the battle sattelites, they actually fire during the fighter phase, don't they? maybe options to build those tougher
although we can fix this also by doubling the cost of the fighters 
Maybe anti-fighter battle satellites......
The have smaller range 3 or 6 3/1/1 weapons and can only target fighters..... ect.
Small defender gunboats that are attached to the hull and release when the enemy comes in.... I'll need to try it once and see.
John
BeowulfJB wrote:Hello everyone!
Down south, one friend used exclusively heavy fighters! For them I have "Talos Missiles" which are identical to Terrier, except that they are 3/1/2 to give the extra damage need to destroy heavy fighters with one shot.Unfortunately, the 3/1/2 missiles don't help with the Heavy Fighters. You don't roll PEN or DMG against fighters, just the hits.
Other than that, it is a good idea. Heavy fighters are a tough nut to crack.
A 2+ damage weapon should kill a heavy fighter. You don't "roll" damage against a fighter since it doesn't have a damage track.
don't forget Sunbursts as valid anti-fighter weapons
they completely destroy an entire flight when they hit, no matter the hevay or not.
I wrote and erased many reasons why I don't like them for this, and instead I shall say...
I don't see the Battlestar or B5 firing Sunbursts as anti-fighter weapons.
Nahuris wrote:Anyone else have ideas?
I've said this before, and I'll say it again:
1) Massacre the fool things with Anime Spinal Mount fire from beyond their movement+attack range. Fighters hate area effect weapons, and even the smallest hulls can hurt them badly with this trick.
Rich
Not everyone has "anime" spinal mounts. I have many miniatures from Star Trek, mostly from the Star Fleet Battles game. Name me one "anime" spinal mount, or anything that closely resembled it, in that universe, particularly from any of the major races (no monsters, please). Now ST has very few fighters (I think one DS9 space battle had some in it) so that's not a good example. But I don't recall any such SM in Star Wars (the Death Star's ray doesn't count as it isn't quick enough to fire at fighters), B5 (I got a few miniatures from this series, also), or Battlestar Galactica, all of which are heavy fighter dependent. Seems to me that in those shows what is shown as AFB shoots down the fighters BEFORE the fighters attack.
Some of us design ships according to what we think represents particular races.
jimbeau wrote:don't forget Sunbursts as valid anti-fighter weapons
they completely destroy an entire flight when they hit, no matter the hevay or not.
I wrote and erased many reasons why I don't like them for this, and instead I shall say...
I don't see the Battlestar or B5 firing Sunbursts as anti-fighter weapons.
You could justify BSG at a stretch if you call the sunbursts flak from defense guns.
Been watching this tread for a while and I came up with something. What about different levels of AFB? This allows ships to be better at destroying fighters and it doesn't add any additional die rolling.
Currently AFB kills an attacking fighter on a roll of a 1, uses 5% space and has a Drat of 1.2
What about a IAFB (Improved Anti-fighter Batteries), kills an attacking fighter on a 1 or 2, uses 10% space and has a Drat of 1.5?
Finally a AAFB (Advanced anti-figher batteries), kills an attacking fighter on a 1-3, uses 20% space and has a Drat of 2.0?
Thoughts,
-Bren
I thought of a way to allow ships to have more survivability against fighters. No actual offensive value, but still...:
Secondary shield:
x1.25 Shield SU, x1.5 for purposes of DR Calculation.
The effect is that fighters don't halve the shield rating of a ship when attacking. Has no effect on standard ship-based weapons.
Example:
The SS Evil Empire Dreadnought (TM) has a shield rating of 4. Due to the fact that the Evil Empire (TM) knows all about the Plucky Hero Fighter Tactics (TM), they decide to equip all of their heavy combat vessels with a secondary shield. When the Plucky Hero Fighters (TM) swoop in for a kill, they find that, instead of facing a weak shield, they face shields that are much harder to crack, and the Evil Emperor's Henchman (TM) laughs maniacally as the Plucky Hero Fighters (TM) die when the anti-fighter guns massacre them.
Dude! Plucky Hero dies?! But I wasn't done reading the book, yet. Now you've ruined it for me.
A 2+ damage weapon should kill a heavy fighter. You don't "roll" damage against a fighter since it doesn't have a damage track.
An interesting conundrum, here...
Any to-hit die that hits a fighter flight automatically destroys one fighter; no penetration or damage rolls are necessary. Thus, weapons with PEN>1 and/or DMG>1 waste these capabilities when attacking fighters.
So, the first sentence implies that one hit=one kill; but obviously heavy fighters take two hits to kill. At the same time, the second sentence states that DMG 2+ has no effect on fighters.
Hmm...
Would it be possible to apply the concept of the Fighter Defense Network (Defense Grid?) in the following way:
Any ship unit equipped with this system rolls 1 die per remaining Hull, hitting righters at a roll of 5+. This fire is omnidirectional and may be applied to one or more fighter flights located within 1 hex of the firing ship.
The quandary comes in when this benefit should be used. Perhaps the best way to use it, as far as the current discussion trend is going, would be to have ships equipped with FDN be considered "fighters" for purposes of Fighter Phase initiative. This doesn't allow them to fire first against incoming fighters, but it would allow for some degree of response during the fighter phase.
That all being said, I think AFB is still a very valuable system; there have been many circumstance in which having AFB would have been a life saver, and in Starmada X VBAM campaigns it is one technology that is routinely attempted just so that, given the need, the empire will be able to provide passive fighter defences for its ships.
-Tyrel
Okay...
What if we allowed weapons with a DMG value of 1/2?
Since PEN and DMG are ignored when attacking fighters, each successful to-hit die would still destroy one fighter... but against ships, the weapon's usefulness would be limited.
e.g., a weapon has ROF 3, PEN 2, DMG 1/2, for a cost of 3. Against fighters, it is still as effective as the current 3/1/1, but against a ship, it would work as follows:
Three dice are rolled (assume 4+ to hit), resulting in 3, 4, and 5.
Two hits x PEN 2 = four dice are rolled (assuming shields 3): 1, 1, 3, 4.
Two penetrating hits x DMG 1/2 = one die is rolled for damage.
All fractional damage points are discarded.
This would give some VERY cheap anti-fighter weapons...
As far as Tyrel's idea of giving ships an initiative value during the Fighter Phase, I can buy into that, but I would make it a separate "system".
Why allow them to do damage to capital ships at all? Give them a limited range and make them fighter only. I don't mind giving up a little of my destructive capability for a better overall defense.... I want my crews to survive....
John
It's been my expreience that Fighters are devastating on the turn they move into contact. Therefore, my anti fighter weapons would have to have at least 12 range to be effective. That way they can hit fighters outside the fighters effective range.
I think any solution to this percieved problem should be as flexible as possible. I should be able to design a ship to match the one in my brain.
I like Dan's 1/2 dmg weapons as it requires no changes to the existing system to work and is very elegant.
However, I also like the idea that a DMG 2 weapon kills a heavy fighter flight.
I guess that one will have to be a house rule if I can convince noel to allow it in the Stars Divided campaigns
jim
Hello everyone,
I read with mych interest the idea of designing AA weapons with a damage value of 1/2; very clever. Is there a way to input a damage value of 1/2 in Computerized ship designer?
Steven Gilchrist; Jacksonville, Fla, USA.
I read with mych interest the idea of designing AA weapons with a damage value of 1/2; very clever. Is there a way to input a damage value of 1/2 in Computerized ship designer?
1) Tools > Protection > Unprotect Sheet...
2) Select cell G11
3) Data > Validation...
4) "Clear All" then "OK"
5) Repeat steps 3 and 4 for cells G15 and G19
Now, you should be able to give weapons a ROF of 0.5.
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