This comes out of something McPerth mentioned which, due to my unfamiliarity with this new forum, I find myself unable to quote when starting a thread except this way:
Fighters are probably better imagined as PT boats for Space inasmuch as they use most of the same design rules as larger craft, have similar Newtonian performance characteristics (there being no air to be used for more agile performance), and mostly deliver "torpedoes", i.e. nuclear-weapon-tipped missiles. Most fighter mentions I've encountered are CT Book-2 related; they're an important element of the small ship setting, where they can have a significant impact. I don't recall much mention of fighters and their performance in canon related to the big-ship setting other than what's in Book 9, some bits in the games like Azhanti High Lighting, and I think there was some in MegaTraveller; can't speak for other systems, and my knowledge of CT canon is by no means complete.
The general rule of thumb with fighters/PT boats is the higher the tech level, the less relevant they become to CT Book-5 combat as it becomes increasingly less cost effective to field fighters that can influence the battle: providing adequate electronics becomes prohibitively expensive as tech levels rise, and they are obsolescent at TL 12 when nuclear dampers appear and obsolete at TL14+ except in roles in which they're unlikely to be opposed by a nuclear damper. I'm good with that as I see their primary role as ground attack, sensor pickets around a fleet, scouts to search and gather intelligence in star systems, and raiders to harry merchant shipping and frontier settlements to force the opponent to disperse assets to protect those targets. However, I know from past experience that there are those with a strong interest in seeing fighters play a role in big ship combat.
So, if we want fighters to play a bigger role in big ship combat, how can we achieve that in CT Book 5 - and possibly other settings - without rendering the game unduly complex or inadvertently nerfing the big ships?
There are also other points, of course. Do we want fighters to be decisive (as in BG or SW), from decisive to irrelevant depending on TL (HG) or inexistent (ST)? And sure there are others I cannot thing about now…
Fighters are probably better imagined as PT boats for Space inasmuch as they use most of the same design rules as larger craft, have similar Newtonian performance characteristics (there being no air to be used for more agile performance), and mostly deliver "torpedoes", i.e. nuclear-weapon-tipped missiles. Most fighter mentions I've encountered are CT Book-2 related; they're an important element of the small ship setting, where they can have a significant impact. I don't recall much mention of fighters and their performance in canon related to the big-ship setting other than what's in Book 9, some bits in the games like Azhanti High Lighting, and I think there was some in MegaTraveller; can't speak for other systems, and my knowledge of CT canon is by no means complete.
The general rule of thumb with fighters/PT boats is the higher the tech level, the less relevant they become to CT Book-5 combat as it becomes increasingly less cost effective to field fighters that can influence the battle: providing adequate electronics becomes prohibitively expensive as tech levels rise, and they are obsolescent at TL 12 when nuclear dampers appear and obsolete at TL14+ except in roles in which they're unlikely to be opposed by a nuclear damper. I'm good with that as I see their primary role as ground attack, sensor pickets around a fleet, scouts to search and gather intelligence in star systems, and raiders to harry merchant shipping and frontier settlements to force the opponent to disperse assets to protect those targets. However, I know from past experience that there are those with a strong interest in seeing fighters play a role in big ship combat.
So, if we want fighters to play a bigger role in big ship combat, how can we achieve that in CT Book 5 - and possibly other settings - without rendering the game unduly complex or inadvertently nerfing the big ships?
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