Feels like sort of a thematic miss that the game lacks fighter launching/retrieving from the capital ships (and, more specifically, even detail on how many fighters a ship CAN bring)

As it is, I could plop 200 pts of TIE Fighters in front of a pile of Raiders, and...how? How did those fighters GET to the system where the battle is happening??

I suppose on the Rebel side, they have a bit more leeway, in that all their fighters have hyperdrives.

While it just feels...odd...thematically for the game in its base state, I sort of wonder how this will work with the Corellian Conflict coming up? Surely, there must be some limit on what Imperial ships can take specific numbers of fighters...and if the 'carrier' is lost in the battle...should surviving fighters be lost, too?

etc...

We don't ask questions to answers we don't wanna know....

It reminds me of a time my foe had two gonzos and 9 tie fighters left...I looked at him and said "pick" and he said "pick what" and I said in a soft tone..."pick the odd man out who gets ditched because the Gonzo can only carry 8 ties"

1) Deployed / Refuelled by Gozantis / Transports / Non-Combat-Space-Tugs who are off-battle site.

2) If not deployed by carriers, even some ships have minimal transport capacity, even if it seems silly... (Arquitens carries fighters between its prows, for example)

3) This is why you lose remaining points of squadrons when Ships are Destroyed - sometimes, they ARE abandoned.

etc etc etc

Before you sorted any of that, you'd have to define how many actual fighters a squadron is, and thusly, how many things a squadron base represents, and no-one is in agreeance iwth that, if you search some older topics.

Before you sorted any of that, you'd have to define how many actual fighters a squadron is, and thusly, how many things a squadron base represents, and no-one is in agreeance iwth that, if you search some older topics.

Well it wouldn't necessarily need to be defined, really. Squadrons tend to very in size in the first place - I'd seen some good arguments that a typical Rebel 'full strength' squadron is 8-11 ships for the superiority fighters (X-Wings) and 4 ships for bombers (Y-Wings). While Imperial Squadrons are...who knows, actually.

But the logistic support of "1 squadron" is going to be more or less the same regardless of the number of ships in it (which is why the concept is used - it's an organizational term as much as anything), so ships should be rated by the number of squadrons they carry...not necessarily specific counts of fighters.

Before you sorted any of that, you'd have to define how many actual fighters a squadron is, and thusly, how many things a squadron base represents, and no-one is in agreeance iwth that, if you search some older topics.

Well it wouldn't necessarily need to be defined, really. Squadrons tend to very in size in the first place - I'd seen some good arguments that a typical Rebel 'full strength' squadron is 8-11 ships for the superiority fighters (X-Wings) and 4 ships for bombers (Y-Wings). While Imperial Squadrons are...who knows, actually.

But the logistic support of "1 squadron" is going to be more or less the same regardless of the number of ships in it (which is why the concept is used - it's an organizational term as much as anything), so ships should be rated by the number of squadrons they carry...not necessarily specific counts of fighters.

But you can look up and see how many "Squadrons" of fighters things like an Imperial Class Star Destroyer carries...

And if you do, and you know what - What does that accomplish?

Squadron Value on a ship represents... What? Carries? Commands? Outfits? Maintains?

Maybe the squad command is on the sliding scale. ISDs can commnd/carry more squads than a Neb, but th scale isn't perfect.

Maybe Armada itself is a sliding scale. The entire game. Just sliding ships around shooting each other with a sliding scale firepower with ships on a sliding scale of relativty to each other. Should have called the game "Sliding Scale Ships in Space" the 4S miniature game.

Before you sorted any of that, you'd have to define how many actual fighters a squadron is, and thusly, how many things a squadron base represents, and no-one is in agreeance iwth that, if you search some older topics.

Well it wouldn't necessarily need to be defined, really. Squadrons tend to very in size in the first place - I'd seen some good arguments that a typical Rebel 'full strength' squadron is 8-11 ships for the superiority fighters (X-Wings) and 4 ships for bombers (Y-Wings). While Imperial Squadrons are...who knows, actually.

But the logistic support of "1 squadron" is going to be more or less the same regardless of the number of ships in it (which is why the concept is used - it's an organizational term as much as anything), so ships should be rated by the number of squadrons they carry...not necessarily specific counts of fighters.

But you can look up and see how many "Squadrons" of fighters things like an Imperial Class Star Destroyer carries...

And if you do, and you know what - What does that accomplish?

Well it tells you how many fighters the ship can bring to or back from a battle.

So if you have two ISDs...you know you can only have up to 12 squadrons of fighters. And if you lose one of your two ships, you can only bring back 6 squadrons (well, I guess you'd need - for a campaign like Corellian Conflict - some kind of 'overfill' limit for rescuing otherwise-abandoned fighters). Since a fighter stand represents 'one squadron' - again, it really doesn't matter how many fighters that IS, just...one stand = one squadron, each ship could carry x squadrons...that's all the campaign needs.

As it is, there are a bunch of ships we don't really know what they can carry. I've heard 2 squadrons or 4 squadrons kicked around for VSDs...but literally no guesses on the GSD (that seems to have been collectively forgotten about by everyone until FFG rescued it from obscurity) or Interdictor...

when you deploy the pair of squadrons thats the enemy scanners picking up fighters being launched, it looks odd from the player perspective but thats what alternate deployment is visioned in most games

Before you sorted any of that, you'd have to define how many actual fighters a squadron is, and thusly, how many things a squadron base represents, and no-one is in agreeance iwth that, if you search some older topics.

Well it wouldn't necessarily need to be defined, really. Squadrons tend to very in size in the first place - I'd seen some good arguments that a typical Rebel 'full strength' squadron is 8-11 ships for the superiority fighters (X-Wings) and 4 ships for bombers (Y-Wings). While Imperial Squadrons are...who knows, actually.

But the logistic support of "1 squadron" is going to be more or less the same regardless of the number of ships in it (which is why the concept is used - it's an organizational term as much as anything), so ships should be rated by the number of squadrons they carry...not necessarily specific counts of fighters.

But you can look up and see how many "Squadrons" of fighters things like an Imperial Class Star Destroyer carries...

And if you do, and you know what - What does that accomplish?

Well it tells you how many fighters the ship can bring to or back from a battle.

So if you have two ISDs...you know you can only have up to 12 squadrons of fighters. And if you lose one of your two ships, you can only bring back 6 squadrons (well, I guess you'd need - for a campaign like Corellian Conflict - some kind of 'overfill' limit for rescuing otherwise-abandoned fighters). Since a fighter stand represents 'one squadron' - again, it really doesn't matter how many fighters that IS, just...one stand = one squadron, each ship could carry x squadrons...that's all the campaign needs.

As it is, there are a bunch of ships we don't really know what they can carry. I've heard 2 squadrons or 4 squadrons kicked around for VSDs...but literally no guesses on the GSD (that seems to have been collectively forgotten about by everyone until FFG rescued it from obscurity) or Interdictor...

GSD Carries 24 Fighters.

So "when a momma fighter and a daddy fighter love eachother..." is not a valid answer?

So "when a momma fighter and a daddy fighter love eachother..." is not a valid answer?

"Love" is making a lot of assumptions.

So "when a momma fighter and a daddy fighter love eachother..." is not a valid answer?

"Love" is making a lot of assumptions.

Wait, so you mean procreation doesn't require love?!?!

when you deploy the pair of squadrons thats the enemy scanners picking up fighters being launched, it looks odd from the player perspective but thats what alternate deployment is visioned in most games

That doesn't really address 'landing' them, though. Again, in the context of the campaign we are getting, you might well want to try to save some damaged fighters rather than leaving them out on the battlefield and risking the entire squadron being destroyed.

Especially if it's a 'unique' pilot.

Looking at the ways and means of it all:

A TIE squadron is 12 ships because... it is; each pilot has a ship, there will be (assuming a 24 hour period) three parts to a squadron, One ready, One resting and One pending. If there is a different clock, there will be more. Some squads will be assigned to the permanent Combat Space Patrols (from CAP to CSP), and these are the first respondents to any issue (see X-Wing for further details).

Here's a point of fact from the real world: There are so many passenger jets in the air that there is no space to land all of them should a need arise. Airports and Hangars aren't like car garages, so from the Imperial mindset, there is a degree of attrition to be expected and if all-hands are required to fly (up from 36 fighters per sqad), as long as 24 can return, all's good yeah?

I wish they would have tied in the number of squadrons you can deploy in a game to the total of the squadron command values your ships add up to but I guess there were balancing issues that took precedence.

Ever noticed how in The Empire Strikes Back the Mellenium Falcon flies out of the asteroid belt and then one of them asks where they are?

If this happened in our solar system we would answer "Still in the same system!"

Seems hyperdrives aren't the be all, end all of small ships getting from system to system.

Anyway, to the question.

Short answer first: It's a game. The aim is to have fun. In Armada, just like in the rest of Star Wars, reality and realism don't get in the way of having fun. Some times you have to ignore realism in order to have more fun

To illustrate. One of the reasons I love this game is because I loved playing the X-Wing and TIE Fighter computer games back in the 90's. Especially cool was when the capitol ships duked it out. Made the whole thing feel epic. In those games, capitol ships moved how you would expect them to (various degrees of slow) and the fighters moved how you would expect them to (about 20-50 times faster than capitols). You play Armada and the fighters can have quite the trouble keeping up with the capitols.

Realistic? No. Reflective of Star Wars? Nope. Fun? Wouldn't change it!

So with fighter transport.....I've discovered that with rules, less is more. Simple, fun and effective always trumps complexity for the sake of realism. This is coming from someone who had to learn this the hard way, by adding lots of extra rules to various game systems to make them more realistic. Some times that works. Most of the time it doesn't. And even when it does work, it'll tend to only work with a select few players.

So to conclude the short answer: If you have some players who enjoy the more narrative aspects of a campaign and want the fighter transport to be internally consistent...house rule time!

Go for it! Make a rule of how many non hyperdrived and hyperdrived squads each ship can support and have the rest not bringable to any fight that isn't a base defence or (maybe) adjacent to a system that contains a friendly base.

Go for it and have fun!

I always took the squadron command value not to be the amount of squadrons that can literally be deployed from that ship, but the amount of squadrons that can be coordinated by that ship while it is busy doing other things as well. A flotilla can't fit two squadrons of X-wings on it, but it can coordinate two squadrons because it doesn't have anything else to do, whereas a corvette does have other things to do and worry about, and thus can only coordinate one squadron.

As I'm saying this though, I'm realizing this is actually made somewhat bogus by the fact that the thing that allows you to have a higher squadron value is "Expanded Hangar Bay"

I'll go back to my corner now.

Oh and asteroid belts are HUGE in Star Wars.

Plus I was totally going to have another answer, but in the end couldn't be bothered typing it

I always took the squadron command value not to be the amount of squadrons that can literally be deployed from that ship, but the amount of squadrons that can be coordinated by that ship while it is busy doing other things as well. A flotilla can't fit two squadrons of X-wings on it, but it can coordinate two squadrons because it doesn't have anything else to do, whereas a corvette does have other things to do and worry about, and thus can only coordinate one squadron.

As I'm saying this though, I'm realizing this is actually made somewhat bogus by the fact that the thing that allows you to have a higher squadron value is "Expanded Hangar Bay"

I'll go back to my corner now.

Which just goes back to the whole realism vs fun thing. I agree with your post entirely. The command value doesn't really reflect fighter capacity so much as bossing fighters around ability. Though EHB would suggest that it does represent fighter capacity.

However, to counter point this: with some of the Armada upgrades, when you stop and think about them, you have to ask how they reflect reality.

eg. Having Ackbar gives you extra broadside firepower to all your ships. When his flagship is destroyed, all the magic Ackbar cannons retract back into the walls of the CR90's?

Madine gives your ships access to special flight control boosters that stop working when he dies?

Motti..........Motti.......don't think I need to elaborate here.

Mon Mothma, yells "DODGE!" at ships in danger, but hey, of the thousands of crew/officers in each fleet, no one else is able to do this?

Dodonna is personally directing every shot fired to the most needed critical system, cause you know, once again, no one else can do that.

Ozzell, needs to slow down before he hits that energy shield on Hoth.

Intel Officer.......um.........lets you......um......kill critical enemy crew.....or stations..... or systems...or things? But only if your opponent actually uses them when the Intel Officer is yelling at the gun teams? And this happens because.......um.....he......um........has an interrogation droid..... that he.......ah..........threatens your crew with? Throws at the enemy? Looks menacing with? Yep, struggling to see any connection between fluff and effect here. Cool card still.

I'm sure we could find more, but the point is Armada is a game first and actually representative of anything second.

It's clear when Motti dies his wookie slave crew goes out and removes all the extra armor plating from the hulls of his ships.

It would be nice limiting the number of squadrons you can have based on your squadron ship value. Makes a bit more thematic sense... I do like the idea of deploying squadrons later too.

But we don't even know how many fighters there are on those bases..

Besides, we don't know anything about the locations of these fights, there could be a base that all the fighters deployed from.

Hell, I want to see MORE swarms of tie fighters before we talk about limiting it. I only ever see a blob of aces in a flying circus for the empire.

I've never seen more fighters than looked reasonable for the fight. But even if someone had 14 ties and 2 ISD and that's all.. that would look MORE like Star Wars to me, not less.

...by adding lots of extra rules to various game systems to make them more realistic. Some times that works. Most of the time it doesn't. And even when it does work, it'll tend to only work with a select few players.

So to conclude the short answer: If you have some players who enjoy the more narrative aspects of a campaign and want the fighter transport to be internally consistent...house rule time!

Go for it! Make a rule of how many non hyperdrived and hyperdrived squads each ship can support and have the rest not bringable to any fight that isn't a base defence or (maybe) adjacent to a system that contains a friendly base.

Go for it and have fun!

Yes, this. But It's very hard to gather such a group, and have it work.

Xanderf (the OP) might be of that mindset, and we'll be doing the Corellian Conflict together with some others. With luck and perseverance, we'll play CC to the end with the RAW, and see where we stand on doing another iteration. I'm more than happy to embellish the experience with house rules, but who knows how many people will come along with that.

Regarding the original question, limiting your amount of squadrons to the lore-inspired carrying capacity of your carrier ships can be fun. However, it also TIEs* your hands in terms of the flexibility you have to bring what you need in order to do the job at hand: defeating your opponent.

If it had been me designing the game, I might have made it so that the Empire had to observe an order of battle, while the Rebels would get fewer points (or some other apropos restriction). But, there's also a reason why they pay Alex Davy et al the big bucks and not me. Most people don't care about the fictional realism, and that's fine too.

*Lame pun intended.

I know where the imperial squadrons come from.....

TIEland.

Chewie get us out of here!

No one mentioned many squads have hyperdrives and aren't entirely reliant on a mother ship for long-range transportation. Of course, the TIE is an exception and has no hyperdrive, and many others, yes?