Topic: Fighter Tenders

[broodhunter]

For those of you military minded folk:

I am planning on running a Spacemaster campaign, where the players are fighter pilots on a fighter tender.  I understand that the Tenders are smaller than an actual Carrier (I am guessing even smaller than an escort carrier (but presumably bigger than the warhounds that carry fighters (Aosho, Saladin, Nebula, etc)

How many fighters would a tender carry?  I am guessing a squadron of fighters would be about right, seeing as a modern aircraft carrier houses a fighter wing, if my memory serves.  Or would it be more like a flight?  a truncated squadron?   

Any idea on the command structure of a Tender.  I have the command structure for a modern carrier, but a tender would have a smaller structure clearly, as a modern carrier has a population if the area of 5000 personnel. 

If it might make a difference, I am planning on having it be an ASP group. 

Any ideas as to what mix of ships they would have in the squadron?   

Any other ideas are welcome.

[markc]

 IMHO, it would be a small group of craft maybe 4 to 16. Why? Well you should have a number of craft in the air, a number on stand by and a number in maintenance at any one time.
  I do not know what warhounds are but I think it refers to destroyers, which IMHO would carry a small number of craft and be mainly a gun boat. Where as a carrier would IMHO have less large offensive armament and more space devoted to carrying of craft.
 You might even do a scout carrier/patrol carrier (made up name, but sort of like a jeep carrier or escort carrier) that has more protection that an old WW2 escort carrier but less protection than a front line carrier.
 The other main factor as you said was crew size, just how big or how small do you want the group to be part of?



Does it matter if it is SM2 or SM:P? IMHO yes as in SM:P you have a lot more reliance on robots for personal and in SM2 the ships in general are bigger.
You said ASP which I think rings a bell as weapons talked about in the SM:P Blaster Law book as being a faction in SM2 but I am not that familiar with SM2 factions so I cannot be of help there. 
As you have probably already looked at I found this to be helpful  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escort_carrier  with lots of good basic info.


 I am trying to remember is there a carrier that is small in SM2 Star Strike Vessel Compendiums? I think there is a large carrier and I remember a large carrier in the SM:P Data Nets.
MDC

[broodhunter]

ASP is Allied Science Proliferators, a group of corporations that banned together to form a minor house.  They mentioned briefly is SM2, and are one of the "Big 12" from Silent Death (which is based shortly after the collapse of the Imperium of SM2.

Warhounds are destroyers and escort ships.  A few of them carry fighters, but most of them that do carry a max of 8.  Warhounds are around 10000 ton displacement ships max. (They are bigger than a gunship, but not large enough to be considered a capital class vessel.)  To give you a force size it breaks down like this:
Element: 2 craft
Flight: 2-4 Elements (4-8 craft total)
Squadron:2-4 Flights (8-32 craft total) This is what I was guessing.
Wing: 2-4 Squadrons (16-128 craft total) IIRC this is what a modern carrier has.
Starfighter Force: 2-10 Wings (32-1280+ craft total)  This is what some of the carriers in Star Strike Hold. IIRC.

[anvil]

I would have twice the number of PC pilots worth of SMAC or TMAC. At a guess, something so small would have no more than 10 at any rate. If you get much larger than that, you risk minimizing the PC's contribution to story.

[markc]

  I figure that SMAC and TMAC patrol in wings of 2 or elements of 2 craft by your terminology. And you would want at least 2 elements out patrolling at a time with as I said some on stand by, some ready to go and some in maintenance.
  I do not know if you have seen the newer Battlestar Galactica where they had small ships dedicated to Electronic Warfare and detection but I could also see 2-4 of those craft being on board as well, depending on the roll of the carrier. They would also go out with the elements to aid in the detection of craft or be assigned a corridor to patrol.


 IIRC, the roll of the escort carrier was to help provide air cover and recon for various mission but they worked with group of other such tasked vessels. So I do not think you would see on alone on a scouting mission.


 I myself as I said think a scouting carrier/patrol carrier with strong EW, above average speed, excellent cargo space (for long voyages, and supplies), some armor and some weapons (but rely mostly on the other small craft for its fighting capability).
 I guess what comes to my mind was the Tiger Claw from the old Wing Commander movie.


If you have SS Vessel Comp #3 look at page 24 the Darfonian Eagle light cruiser and see if you can/could make changes so it would work for you. It has been a while since I played with the SM2 SS rules and do not remember off the top of my head just how easy it is to add craft and what exact space they take in the equation. You might also be able to mod the two ships on the next two pages to help you out.
I only have SS VC #2 and #3 so there might be something in SS VC #1 I do not know about.
The biggest thing I remember about SM2 faster than light travel was that you needed a special material to make that happen and that material began to degrade after a set time. So that material IMHO would also be a limiting factor on how long the ship could and would stay out on patrol.
MDC 

[broodhunter]

yeah. I have everything for Star Strike and Armored Assault, that won't be a problem.  Hilariously, that you mentioned the Raptor from BSG, not only do I have them as Silent Death ships already, they are on my list of available ships for the PCs to pick from.  I was planning on having at least twice the pc # in ships, maybe 4x...Silent Death ships can die pretty fast, especially as one of the PCs has already picked his ship the Thunder Bird. (light strike fighter)

[markc]

  I thought a good adventure might be the group be part of a converted freighter/cargo carrier that over time gets shot out from under them. Like the jeep carrier/escort carrier it would have little to no armor but lots of fighters and I could see it being mainly used to escort other cargo ships on their voyages. You could also have such ships be mainly used to transport fighters from point A to B for some reason (they have to be maintained at a higher tec facility every X months, As you said they "die" fairly fast so replacements are always needed and cargo ships and escort carrier are a way to get them to the asteroid bases and/or other remote outposts.)
MDC   

[markc]

Can you provide any more details on the game or is it s secret?
MDC

[markc]

I also just had a thought that there might be a ship in the Armored Assault units book that you might be able to use. I am away from my books at the moment so I do not know but I thought that there was a carrier type vessel in that product.
MDC

[broodhunter]

Can you provide any more details on the game or is it s secret?
MDC

Sure the other players are not on the Forums, so ask away.

[egdcltd]

As modern carriers are too large, you could take a look at some of the first carriers. HMS Hermes (95) was the first purpose built carrier and had a complement of 566 plus 20 aircraft.

[markc]

My internet modem is really acting up and for some reason it has decided to work this morning after not working since Friday night.
After doing some looking there are craft in Armored Assault that are MIRC carriers that fit your need. But for me again I think I would design a craft that had a lot more stealth, speed and stores.
Both craft are slow 3/3 and 3/4 (N-space/FTL), no great stealth, do not remember and 7000 ton for fighters, the smaller has a lot more storage than the larger, and IMHO fairly heavy on the armaments for pure carriers.
MDC

[markc]

Did not ask a question as I wanted to get stuff done while the modem was not acting up but here goes,
1) What type of adventures do you plan on having?
2) Is the party away from supply bases for extended amount of time?
3) As you said ships die easily, so do PC's die easily also?
more later.
MDC

[broodhunter]

Well MIRCs are not the same as SMAC or TMAC (fighters) so using armored assault won't work.  Now, if you meant Star Strike, there is nothing in there that I think works for my needs, I am going to have design my own. 

[broodhunter]

Did not ask a question as I wanted to get stuff done while the modem was not acting up but here goes,
1) What type of adventures do you plan on having?
     Well, I can't get too far into it, as now that the Spacemaster FB page posted my question, my players ARE on the forums. (Looking at you Mr. Gurke).  But there will be adventures to be had at ports-of-call, space stations, and other places...so it won't be just fighter combat.

2) Is the party away from supply bases for extended amount of time?
    They will be away from supply bases for a few weeks at a time.  Their will be a support craft traveling with them carrying more ammo, replacement parts, etc.

3) As you said ships die easily, so do PC's die easily also?
more later.
     Well I ran a campaign like this before a ways back, and most of them that died did not die in their fighters.  With their PCs in the fighters, I have found that they fly more conservatively, and retire from the field when their ship starts taking a real beating.  Also, each ship does have an ejection pod,  Ejection pods work in the following fashion: as long as the fighter is not destroyed by a "ship destroyed or Crew Killed Critical" and the fighter did not suffer over 20 pts of damage this round, it ejects on a 1-5 on a d6 roll.  and if it does eject you roll another d6.  on a roll of one, the pilot is killed, on a 2 the pilot is injured, and on a 3-6. the pilot is unharmed.  Assuming your side holds the field at the end of the battle, you are recovered no problem.  If your side does not hold the field, your captured by the opposing side. (which could lead to a rescue mission!)

MDC

[broodhunter]

Here is a question, does anyone have any ideas for the cost and volume requirements for external fighter racks in Star Strike?  They have to be smaller than regular fighter bays (volume of all fighters x5 in volume, 50 elmonits per cumit of space.)  but bigger than a Payload Pallet (volume =MK#, cost = mk# x10)

I am thinking volume of fighters x2.25, cost of 25 per cumit?  That sound about right?  (I got these numbers by taking the average of fighter bay volume/cost, shuttle bay volume/cost and payload pallet volume/cost, then rounding to the nearest easy number.  External racks could handle shuttles and fighters of the appropriate tonnage,   Thoughts?

[markc]

Actually it says in the AA craft book that the ships uses the same numbers for MIRC's as fighters and they are SS vessels, so you should be able to just use the MIRC holds as fighter holds. 


As for external connectors for ships I think I would use the rules from Traveller if you have them, but the main reason I think they are not used in general is that IMHO you would need each fighter to have a full airlock to be of any use.
In the past I have allowed specialized fighter bays/launchers for reduced space but they can only launch one type of fighter or a very small number of fighters.
MDC

[broodhunter]

Actually it says in the AA craft book that the ships uses the same numbers for MIRC's as fighters and they are SS vessels, so you should be able to just use the MIRC holds as fighter holds. 


As for external connectors for ships I think I would use the rules from Traveller if you have them, but the main reason I think they are not used in general is that IMHO you would need each fighter to have a full airlock to be of any use.
In the past I have allowed specialized fighter bays/launchers for reduced space but they can only launch one type of fighter or a very small number of fighters.
MDC

I ask, because, from numerous people on the Silent Death forums, the main difference between a carrier and a tender is that a tender has external fighter racks...

[markc]

What are the rules for fighter racks from SD? And how do the ship construction rules compare from SD to SM2?
MDC

[broodhunter]

There are no fighter racks in SD as a rule set.  It's just fluff.  Silent Death only has up to  10000 ton vessels (and those stretch the rule set, as it was originally designed to just do fighter battles, so the few ships that have fighter racks (there are only like 3 vessels that can carry fighters and one of them carrys only one.)  The star ship construction rules are vastly different. SD ships are super simplified.  (the joke of it is, the original ship designs that came with the game do not even work with the construction system)