Fighters in Borders of Madness

Hod K'el · Post by **Hod K'el** » Sun Dec 11, 2011 5:52 am

I do not have a proplem because there are restrictions on how many drones can be launched from a given ship drone rack or fighter during a turn. The real trick usually comes from Orions when they use MR-C racks.

Each impulse is logged as a four minute span of time. (Yes, this was arbitrary.) So the launch doors must close, air recycles into the launch tubes, inner launch doors open, missile(s) loaded, inner launch doors close, air cycles out, outer launch doors open. fire control downloads programming, ATG confirms download, and NOW the missiles are ready for launch.

The best loading time for a WW2 submarine was 10 minutes per torpedo. So, I think I'm not that far off.

For fighters, they are not allowed to launch another missile since they may need their sensor track to assist a faulty ATG; therefore, once the missile hits, if the fighter has another ship in its tarcking arc, it may launch.

Savedfromwhat · Post by **Savedfromwhat** » Sun Dec 11, 2011 6:34 am

Drones should never have been allowed to be on fighters in the first place. It doesn't fit the pseudo science and they are wildly unbalancing. ATG drones DO NOT work in federation commander because there is no way to deal with that many drones. No t-bombs, no wild weasels, and no lock-on to break. Adding ATG would be a bad solution that would create more problems then it would solve.

storeylf · Post by **storeylf** » Sun Dec 11, 2011 10:20 am

Hod K'el wrote:. The real trick usually comes from Orions when they use MR-C racks.

Which again is an SFBism I assume.

Are we talking FC or SFB here?

Hod K'el · Post by **Hod K'el** » Sun Dec 11, 2011 10:33 pm

Savedfromwhat wrote:Drones should never have been allowed to be on fighters in the first place. It doesn't fit the pseudo science and they are wildly unbalancing. ATG drones DO NOT work in federation commander because there is no way to deal with that many drones. No t-bombs, no wild weasels, and no lock-on to break. Adding ATG would be a bad solution that would create more problems then it would solve.

I can certainly understand your thinking, but instead of saying it will make more problems, I just said, 'Oh, things are going to get nasty!' And they do.

Do I think missiles on fighters should be limited? Yes, to Type VI only; Type 'D' for Romulans. And with a limited range, 80Kkm. (Range 8 for you nubes)

And for a better understanding, storeylf, I play many science fiction space games where fighters are involved, so I do not just talk FC on an FC site, but like to interject ideas from many. Some may help a player to think beyond here and now. So, yes, I get into SFBism. But the better question is, why don't you? FC and SFB is all part of the SFB Universe!

storeylf · Post by **storeylf** » Sun Dec 11, 2011 10:45 pm

Hod K'el wrote: But the better question is, why don't you? FC and SFB is all part of the SFB Universe![/b]

I played SFB back when I was knee high to a grasshopper. I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole nowadays. Being part of SFU isn't a reason to play a game. I don't play PD, its part of the SFU, but I have no interest in it. It may be a fine game for many, but not my cup of tea.

If you are going to throw in SFBisms, could you at least explain what they are?

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Sun Dec 11, 2011 10:46 pm

Hod K'el wrote:And for a better understanding, storeylf, I play many science fiction space games where fighters are involved, so I do not just talk FC on an FC site, but like to interject ideas from many. Some may help a player to think beyond here and now. So, yes, I get into SFBism. But the better question is, why don't you? FC and SFB is all part of the SFB Universe![/b]

Not to ever speak for Lee, but perhaps because he isn't interested in SFB?

Regardless, instead of using the SFBism, just say the effect. So, instead of saying "ATG", say "drones are self-guiding"; instead of referring to type-C drone racks, say "fast firing drone racks". Then, everyone can understand what you are talking about.

As for the cross-pollination, please do what makes sense to you. However, when your game drifts too far from what FC is and can be, don't be insulted when others say your experience is irrelevant, as it has drifted too far from FC to provide useful input.

Hod K'el · Post by **Hod K'el** » Mon Dec 12, 2011 5:54 pm

I believe my background as an engineer influences my writing and I want to be as precise as I possibly can so I use terms like ATG & MR-C, but I understand where you are coming from with respect to generic terminology, therefore, I will use it in the future, if I can catch myself before I write it.

With respect to being insulted, I feel as I have not been, hope that I have not insulted another, and consider this forum as an excellent form for the free exchange of ideas and knowledge. If a person is afraid to say anything for fear of insult, I pity that individual as I would rather give a thousand ideas and take a thousand insults than to sit by and die with the idea or knowledge in my head.

Moreover, if I drift too far from the concept of FC, I am fully confident that you will cuff the back of my neck. Beside that, I have many 'friends' on this web site that I know will be in my s*&t if they think I went too far...they have in the past, lol!

Sneaky Scot · Post by **Sneaky Scot** » Sat Dec 17, 2011 1:02 pm

Lee,
I don't think you really got a translation of the SFB terms, so a Type-C drone rack gets to fire twice in a turn (there is a 12 impulse delay in SFB that would translate to 3 Fed Cdr impulse) and it is the same size a a normal drone rack (4 spaces of drones). Some special Kzinti ships always had these (e.g. CC) but they became generally available in Y175 when the first 2 drone racks on a Kzinti ship were replaced with these fast-firing racks, others were replaced with Type-B racks that could hold 6 spaces of drones instead of 4. The Feds got extra ammo for their racks, the Klingons replaced all their racks with B-racks, and the Orions replaced their racks with the C-rack.

Hope that's a useful bit of fluff to inform the discussion.

storeylf · Post by **storeylf** » Sat Dec 17, 2011 2:16 pm

I vaguely remember the 4 drone, 6 drone and fast fire rack, though couldn't be sure what they were called, so what does the MR bit of MR-C mean? that bit I have no idea about.

Hod K'el · Post by **Hod K'el** » Sat Dec 17, 2011 5:44 pm

MR = Missile Rack

terryoc · Post by **terryoc** » Sun Dec 18, 2011 7:30 am

Each impulse is logged as a four minute span of time.

Each IMPULSE? One turn is subjectively about 1 minute in SFB. Not more than two hours... (Yeah, I know you meant one turn)[/quote]

Hod K'el · Post by **Hod K'el** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 7:38 pm

Terry, you have a good point there. Yes, I said 4 minutes and meant it. Now that you have brought my attention back to the basics, I think you are right.

I think I should be looking at 4 seconds per sub-pulse, 16 seconds per impulse, and 128 seconds per turn.

Why these numbers? It takes 3.6 seconds to issue a single command. So what happens if you want to target ship A with certain weapons and ship B with these other weapons and want to launch drones against ship C and launch a suicide shuttle against freighter A? This timing builds in enough time per impulse to issue all four of these orders in a single impulse.

This also makes it much easier when recording what is taking place each impulse.

Kang · Post by **Kang** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 8:53 pm

In SFB the scale of the hexes and the declared speed of 1 hex per turn being lightspeed meant that one turn was about 1/30 of a second of 'real' time.

In addition, the [written in the Rulebook] claim of 'relativistic time distortion' meant that a turn felt subjectively like 1 minute to the starship crews, making an impulse (there are 32 impulses in a turn) approximately two seconds of subjective time.

Furthermore, the speed of 1 hex=lightspeed meant that there had to be rules governing the use of power such that any speed over 1 hex per turn had to be provided from the faster-than-light drives, namely the warp engines. And quite right too.

In Fed Commander, however, you can use any power (even batteries!) to move your ship at any speed. There is no declared speed or timescale; only the distance scale is specified. So this basically means that you can pick more or less any time frame you want to imagine it as. I would assume that this 'flexibility' is deliberate.

There are a couple of small provisos to this. The scenario 'Return of the Hood' has a sublight ship in it (the Hood's saucer) and that is restricted to four hexes per turn. See http://tinyurl.com/c63ht32 for details. Now that's not to say that four hexes per turn is necessarily lightspeed ('c'); indeed I seem to recall somewhere that the Trek technical manuals define full Impulse power as being able to attain something like 0.25c, making c about 16 hexes per turn or more.

In addition, there was another thread on this Forum here: http://tinyurl.com/c496fz8 which asked questions about sublight movement, and there were references to it in CL#43 ('A Measure of Fear') and also there are 'proper' sublight movement rules in CL#39.

Some of this is off-topic, I realise, but I hope it helps in getting a handle on the different timescales.

terryoc · Post by **terryoc** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 6:45 pm

Time is wack in SFB/FC. I blame the Andromedans. It's pollution from their Temporal Elevators.

Kang · Post by **Kang** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 8:43 pm

terryoc wrote:Time is wack in SFB/FC. I blame the Andromedans. It's pollution from their Temporal Elevators.

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