In which I begin documenting my collection of aerospace assets. Especially since the way to use Aerospace in Alpha Strike has gotten much easier to use.
Relentless Omni Ground Support-ECM
My Standard Omni-Fighter. 100 tons. 5/8 with an XL, 5 tons of fuel. Pretty standard stuff so far.
38 tons of Heavy Ferro Fibrous Armor. Or more Armor then 2 100 ton mechs can carry. Despite all of this, it still has 44.5 tons of capacity for dealing mayhem.
And 12 Medium pulse lasers tied into a targeting computer with enough heat sinks to fire them with only the most minor of heat issues is the usual means of dealing that mayhem when ground support is called for. Sub Variants usually deal with what to do with the final 1.5 tons. Active Probe, ECM, or even an extra heat sink and recon camera are all good options. (Especially that last one. Just came up with it and it has alpha strike/"Battle Space" applications.)
Version history on this design starts with the Implacable, slower but with slightly more armor. For a brief period they were the space superiority wrecking ball of choice. But they had a down side, they were crap at ground support. They needed a higher thrust to carry enough bombs. Then came the Relentless. Basically this design. Used Ferro Fibrous armor at the time so it actually carried an extra medium Pulse laser. There was a side project called the Adamant, it might show up later, but it did show the limits of the more armor game. Finally came the Relentless Omni. Backing off on armor slightly, making up for it with Heavy Ferro Fibrous Armor, and still able to mount the majority of firepower the Implacables and Adamants carried, the Relentless Omni finally became the lead fighter of my imaginary forces living in the extra deep periphery.
As a fun note in the fluff that I never did write for this omni-fighter, The Relentless does not have a canopy. (Pay no attention to the picture in the alpha strike card. Its there because it does an excellent job of representing "Flying Brick") Instead a section of the hull clam-shells out on myomer bundles allowing the pilot access. More Myomer webbing enfolds the pilot giving them the support they need to survive excessive G forces, like when lithobreaking occurs. Because when this craft crashes.... Its usually able to take off again.
It took awhile to come up with a name for this Thread...
Killing them with kindness and bombs. A story on the true meaning of "Death From above"
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- Last Post 12 September 2019
Scythe Mrk II
This was more of an Alpha Strike design. Intended to balance between cheap PV wise, fast enough to get to the battle field quickly, and effective enough to make a difference. The speed of 11 let it carry a bomb and move 2 zones on the abstract aerospace map per turn. This let it get to the battlefield, and attack every turn once it got there. 3 Damage at only short range cut the cost of having medium range damage it didn't need, while the ENE special ability allows strafing attacks to do full damage. Reactive Armor reduced the incoming damage from classic anti-air weapons giving it a bit more longevity then would be expected.
So of course the rules got changed. Its still a decent little fighter, and the mobility would still come into play lining up attacks. But the entire get there and stay there thing was lost.
Total Warfare side, 25 tons, 11/17 with an XL engine. Weapons of 3 Small pulse lasers in each wing, backed by a targeting computer. Accuracy counts. The drawback is only 2 tons of fuel. It has just enough capacity to get to the battlefield, make a screaming pass dropping off some bombs, and then it needs to return to base. Which at least has the advantage of preventing it from hanging around long enough to pick up some real damage, and a full speed pass with the right rules in place would be very very hard to return fire against.
Still, I think this design is going to be retired. Because it got me thinking...
PS. All those Small pulse lasers give Point defense... So it got tougher against missile attacks, but more expensive... And then I had to go do some work because Errata was needed to fix the conversion rules for some other pieces of equipment... Which leads to more errata...
Kindle
And I think I ended up with a unit somewhat more expensive then I wanted it to be.
But it has some neat features. Heat and Re-engineered lasers as just asking to mess up someone's day. You have special magical armor? Don't care. And have 2 heat. Have fun missing or not shooting. Take your pick.
In the end though all I wanted was a bomber... and I didn't get my wish. The guns are better then bombs in this case.
How do you implement efficient bombs on Aerospace Fighters in the Alpha Strike?
Alpha strike fighters carry bombs equal to their size. Efficiency would be minimum PV cost per bomb.
You could get 4 bombs on a LAM or support aircraft. I suppose ill have to make up official versions of those to write down.
Now my complaint with the Kindle is that it has more gun firepower then bombs. Bombs can only do 2 damage per bomb at best, discounting hitting multiple targets in the blast radius. And you can only use them once.
The other option is the internal bomb bay quirk. I dislike it because its a quirk and not a piece of equipment. But with enough cargo it can drop bombs for days.
Plus, if you use the "Bomb Bay" quirk all your opponent has to do is say "I want no quirks in this game!" and you get a little screwed.
