Fighter of the Week, Issue #039 (repost) - Dagger

[Trace Coburn]

DARO-1 Dagger - 45t, TRO3067

Originally posted 24 Aug. 2005.

  All proposed fan-variants should be posted in the corresponding “FotW Workshop” thread.

  Davion’s over-focus on upgrading their ground-combat arms (especially fielding any and every foundtech BattleMech they could revive, design or steal) came at the price of neglecting to do the same with their aerospace capabilities - a neglect that would prove disastrous over Zurich during Operation: GUERRERO, when the better-equipped Hell’s Black Aces utterly hammered the First Kestrel Grenadiers.  :o  Being that we learn best from catastrophic FUBARs, the newly bisected AFFC set about addressing the weaknesses of its starfighter command.  One of the firms which stepped up to the plate was Johnston Industries, which chose to develop a radical-for-the-time OmniFighter; with OmniTech still in its infancy, the project ended up running two years over its initial timeline, but when the AFFS Department of the Navy saw the result, they couldn’t take delivery fast enough.  And I don’t really blame them.

  The TR-13 Transgressor and SL-15 Slayer are heavy fighters which think they’re mediums.  The DARO-1 Dagger is a light fighter which thinks it’s a medium.  Developing 7/11 thrust from a 225XLFE and five tons of fuel, the Dagger cannot turn with true interceptors... but it can dogfight with some of the best, even the S-4 Sai which gave the AFFS so many fits in the days before ‘Davion/Kurita deténte’ was anything other than an hysterics-inducing punchline.  ::)  The engine includes only the base ten DHS, but the right application of pod-space can address that - and considering that the Dagger has eighteen (18) tons of pod-space, a full two-fifths of its all-up mass, you have a goodly number of options there.  :o
  And the armour, you ask?  Oh.  My.  Frakking.  God.  :o  The DARO-1 is another of the “’67 Bricks”, the designs which have armour-profiles that would have been considered insane in earlier years - the Hydaspes and the Eisensturm being the most visible of the other ‘offenders’.  DARO-1 pilots enjoy the protection of fourteen tons of ferro-aluminium, 77/62/50; Jesus B. Sikking, when Johnston Industries start building a Dagger, they don’t start with a spaceframe and add on armour - they start with a solid block of ferro-aluminium and carve it into an aerodynamic shape!  :o  The Dagger does not fear thresholding by an IS medium laser from any angle, and the nose is immune to (ER) large lasers as well.  This kind of protection on a fighter this light is near-preposterous by earlier standards, but I don’t imagine that the pilots are complaining even one tiny little bit about their improved chances of coming home alive.  ;D

  Dagger Prime strikes me as a very nicely multi-purpose configuration.  Each wing supports twin ERMLs; the nose houses one of those godawful RAC/5s with three tons of ammo, and another DHS does what it can to address the heat-burden.  Not entirely successfully, at that - at +4 on an alpha-strike, I wouldn’t recommend giving a centrelined target all the good news in two turns running - but for a turning dogfight, where only two of the ERMLs are likely to have clean shots at a given target, it’s good enough.  Dogfighting isn’t the Prime’s sole capability, either: Strafing and Striking will certainly tear big, nasty holes in whatever you hit, and a squadron of Primes boasts a 12-Capital RAC bay that will do unspeakable things to ’Ships, with two 6-Capital ERML bays for good measure - and all of the guns reach into Medium range.  If you’re tracking ammunition, admittedly the small RAC magazine is a little concerning, offering only ten turns at max-rate fire... but what the hell is going to survive ten turns in front of a RAC/5 at maximum ROF anyway?  :o  Probably Davion’s favourite Dagger config, and it’s not hard to see why.  }:)
  (Frankly, until the Cluster Hits ruling turned RACs back into 4x5 instead of 1x20, I was starting to think that the RAC/5 had sounded the final death-knell of the AC/10 and AC/20 for aerospace applications, where special ammunition types cannot be employed.  Accounting only for ‘base’ ammo bays (which allow a weapon ten turns of fire), the AC/10 is the same mass and only half as hot, but can only match the RAC’s range and does only half the damage; the AC/20 matches the RAC/5’s damage, but it’s hotter, a good three tons heavier, and can’t hope to match the RAC’s range-performance.  :o  Only their continued ability to deliver single solid clouts has kept those weapons viable in the modern age.)

  Dagger Alpha is a flashbulb, and the only IS fighter I know of which mounts a targeting computer!  :o  Twin ERMLs are fared into the nose; each wing packs a large laser; the targeting computer and three extra DHS are housed in the fuselage.  Please do the maths: 26 heat built, 26 sinked - and all the guns reach into Medium range.  This one’s an alpha-baby, people, and as long as its fuel and armour permit, it can start shooting at Medium range and keep blazing away with everything it’s got.  Strafes and Strikes are also to be respected; as an anti-shipping platform, a squadron’s worth of Dagger Alphas produces ‘only’ a 6-Capital ERML bay and two 5-Capital LL bays, but again, it’s all Medium ranged and it can be sustained for periods that border on the horrific.

  The LB-toting Dagger Bravo is fluffed as a crit-seeker, which strikes me as a little odd from a gameplay standpoint but makes sense from an in-universe perspective.  Retaining the Prime’s wing-mounted ERMLs, the Bravo sets twin ERSLs in the tail for token self-defence and replaces the nose-mounted RAC/5 with an LB-10X autocannon and two tons of ammo.  Without added freezers, an alpha-strike of all the forward guns generates a +2 overheat, which is sustainable for two turns at a time, but again, once a turning engagement develops you’re unlikely to need all of your forward guns at the same time.  Despite the fluff about trying to TAC another fighter’s cockpit or engines, this one is perhaps best-served in an air-to-ground role, following Strikes and Strafes from other Dagger configs to Strike itself and crit-seek with its lasers and the autocannon’s proximity-fused cluster rounds.  }:)

  Note well, folks: if you choose to load a Dagger with external stores, its maximum nine-ton external load enforces only a 5/8 thrust-curve... meaning that if you want to escort a squadron of Stukas to their target, you can pile on external fuel, stay with the heavies until trouble shows up, then punch off the tanks and go get the bad guys with your internal reserves still untouched.  }:)  Not that nine tons of bombs or rocket-launchers would make the other guy any more happy to see Daggers in his airspace.  :o

  On the offensive side of things, the Dagger adds a much-welcome ‘fast dogfighter’ to the AFFS’ order of battle - though as an OmniFighter it can do most things quite well (especially in its Prime loadout) - and would greatly ease the burden of the much-put-upon Corsair jocks.  Foundtech CSR-V14s could easily provide the Long-range fire-support the Daggers need as they try to get to grips with the enemy, then dive in and mix it up themselves.
  Against the Combine, well, it’s still not an easy life - the Dragon has never been reluctant to mix it up in the air, and with his tactical mix of Slayer, Samurai and SL-17 Shilone now enhanced by the S-4/S-7 Sai and ON-1 Oni, I don’t see why he’d be any less keen now.  ::)  But that said, most of the older fighters were not significantly upgraded in the foundtech era (for some weird reason ::)), and the Dagger is durable enough to weather their lighter throw-weights with a little more equanimity than the DCA’s pilots are used to.  As I say, a mix of foundtech Corsairs and Daggers is recommended, preferably in Prime or Alpha configs: the Corsairs ‘shoot in’ the Daggers, which do their best to take the Combine’s fast dogfighters out of the picture (the faster Sai cannot stand up to much punishment, the Oni has shorter legs, and the slightly more durable Samurai can only match the Dagger’s turning performance) while the Corsairs themselves take on the Shilones and/or Slayers.
  Cushions of equipment superiority aren’t especially easy to come by on the Capellan border, either.  While the TR-7 Thrush is no real threat, the TR-10 Transit and TR-13 Transgressor are eminently capable, and with the addition of the DFC-O Defiance OmniFighter and the CMT-3T Troika to the Capellan order of battle, from a planner’s point of view “the fun just keeps on leavin’!”  ;D  On the other hand, you can still make the other guy sing for his supper.  The Troikas would be the Cappies’ primary fire-support platforms, so while the Corsairs mix it up with the Transgressors and any Defiances which show up, you sic the Daggers on the CMT-3Ts and watch their battle-plan go down in flames.  }:)
  In all phases of battle, of course, one must remember The Mantras.  ;D

  Defensively, you’re looking at a pretty fair job of work to counter Daggers.  Combine players have perhaps the best array of options, being that no fewer than three DCA dogfighters can match the type’s agility.  The S-4 Sai can actually threshold the Dagger with its PPC and can out-turn it to boot, but is desperately fragile; one good alpha from a Dagger and a Sai is gonna be hurtin’.  The SL-25 Samurai can match the Dagger’s turning performance and has it beat cold in terms of fuel endurance, but its medium and small lasers cannot generate threshold TACs unless dynamic thresholding is in play, and again it’s rather too fragile to hope to stand up to a RAC/5.  The ON-1 Oni has the agility, the reach and the throw-weight, but is even short-legged than the Dagger and again its armour protection is not overly impressive.  My suggestion would be to use a combination of these platforms and Shilones: the SL-17s and S-4s stand back and plink at/pound the Daggers from Long range, holding their attention while Onis and Samurais try to stern-convert on the DARO-1s, where the ON-1s’ heavy firepower should grind enough chunks off of the Davion machine that the SL-25s’ guns can actually punch through and do some internal damage; the Onis will have to go home for gas early, but the Daggers will be leaving the fight just after them and the Samurais will still have sufficient reserves to chase them a goodly bit of the way home.  }:)
  The Capellans completely lack any fighter in the ‘fast dogfighter’ role, so if they want to fend off DARO-1s, they’ll need to look to their old standby the TR-13A Transgressor and/or their foundtech machines, the DFC-O Defiance and the CMT-3T Troika, along with several swarms of cheap/expendable TR-7s.  The idea is to TAC the hell out of the Daggers from Long range, then send in the Thrushes to finish off the cripples while the heavies keep providing fire-support.  The heavier fighters certainly give you tools adequate to that latter task: the IS2-tech -13A Trangressor mounts three ERLLs; the CMT-3T packs twin ERPPCs and an LRM-20; all of the canon Defiance configs mount the proper kind of weaponry, though for myself I’d use Defiance Primes or Alphas for the fire-support stuff and throw some Bravos or Charlies onto the board to bodyguard the other fire-support types.  Be advised that if the Daggers ignore the Thrushes and blow through to go after your heavier platforms, you are going to have A Bad Day^TM, so remember the mantras and stiff-arm the bastards if you can.

  [VARIANT PROPOSAL(S) REDACTED] All proposed fan-variants - including my own - belong in the corresponding “FotW Workshop” thread: http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,3157.0.html

  Both of the Dagger threads I had saved ran to over 130kB(!) when re-saved as raw text, so I've had to hand-edit them and will post them below.  (Guess you jokers really have a lot to say about this little terror, eh?  ;D)  Some of the attachments mentioned may take a little time to find, though, so please bear with me until I can edit them in.  :-\

[Trace Coburn]

DARO-1 Dagger – Original run discussion, pt.1

FILE SAVED AT: 31-08-2005, 23:53:39

Trace_Coburn, 24-08-2005, 19:09:09

DARO-1 Dagger - 45t, TRO3067

[SNIP]

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the dagger is a truely AWESOME Fighter. as for the armor, I personally think it's great, it means that you'll almost certinly be brining her home again. this means the AFFS can swiftly increase the numbers of em in service, even dureing the FCCW because I bet loosing em isn't terriably common.

when I initally got TRO 3067 I was a little annoyed the FS got the lightest omnifighter of the great houses. but now actually being familer with the rules all I gotta say is "man this fighter rocks"

there are damned few fighters capable of matching the dagger. over all it's a hellva design.

and it looks cool to boot!

I hate this fighter with a pashion purely on principle. It represents the greatest faults of the change over to AT2. This thing carries the sort of armor you used to only see on heavy fighters in the process practically rendering every fighter in existance obselete, Inner Sphere, Clan or otherwise. To make matters worse armor is under valued in the BV system. So while the system is flawed anyway the heavy armor of the Dagger is not taken into account adequately making the fighter relatively cheap.
Finally this tendency to brickiness is not evenly spread. For example I recently had the pleasure of taking a Lancer and Shiva against a Dagger. As you can guess it was ugly. Instead of generally porducing a range of fighters in 3067 that spread the new design theories across all factions fairly evenly there was still a fair batch of traditionally armored fighters even further spread.
As you can tell I am not impressed. And so I like to take my frustations out on this prime example.

Good design, armour, and speed. Perfect!

It is my second fav. fighter.  Grate armor and you can never go wrong with an RAC/5 on any fighter.Now the Corsair jocks can have a weight tacken off a little . Though for suporting the Dag. I will plug my own Lightning II

Seems to be a vicious wee bastard.  Will need to watch out for them.

Meloves em' .The armor on these things are killer,dude.I'm looking forward to more of them in our starfighter arm.They should perform well against Blakist 'shit' ASFs.Now i wished that we had a carrier Warship class ;)

I hate this fighter with a pashion purely on principle. It represents the greatest faults of the change over to AT2. This thing carries the sort of armor you used to only see on heavy fighters in the process practically rendering every fighter in existance obselete, Inner Sphere, Clan or otherwise.
To make matters worse armor is under valued in the BV system. So while the system is flawed anyway the heavy armor of the Dagger is not taken into account adequately making the fighter relatively cheap.
Finally this tendency to brickiness is not evenly spread. For example I recently had the pleasure of taking a Lancer and Shiva against a Dagger. As you can guess it was ugly. Instead of generally porducing a range of fighters in 3067 that spread the new design theories across all factions fairly evenly there was still a fair batch of traditionally armored fighters even further spread.
As you can tell I am not impressed. And so I like to take my frustations out on this prime example.

well occasionally you just get super latitive designs, sides the FWLN as a whole doesn't know the meaning of the word armor.

does the dagger make a LOT of fighters obselete? yes but this happens with improving new tech

Agreed.

well occasionally you just get super latitive designs, sides the FWLN as a whole doesn't know the meaning of the word armor.

does the dagger make a LOT of fighters obselete? yes but this happens with improving new tech

Amazingly irritating that its an FS design that does so.  What a shocker.

You can't blame it.We have the NAIS

The NAIS' brilliant idea was to...mount armour?  Any aerojock could have told you that.

Feddies get the Dagger, Lyrans get the Esinsturm (sp?)...you tell me who wins that one. ;)

Feddies get 4 Daggers for each Eisensturm for the Lyrans,you tell me who wins?

That depends on a few things.

A.) How many can you bring to the party?  The true limiting factor would be number of ASF bays in your DS and WS.

B.) How many Daggers can an Eisensturm kill before it dies?

I have played little AT2, but when I tried the Dagger I was really happy with it. It's truly impressive! (and it's Davion! 8))

Regarding the Eisensturm... well, the Dagger isn't made to tackle the Eisensturm...  (BTW, I think the Eisensturm is very good too!).

As usual a great write-up by Trace.

And of course, wow.  This is the fighter.  I would love to see the Davions take their experience with it and give the Stuka the Dagger treatment.

The only downside to it that I can think of might be cost, but since I can't use HM:A I don't know the cost.

It just looks good.

well as a stuka replacement, how's this?

Flying atrocity Stuka variant

Thats obscene, Brian.  Quit it.  :P

I rather prefer this...

Flying atrocity Omni-Stuka

I rather prefer this...

Uh, all this is nice, guys, but this thread is about the Dagger. The thread for Stuka discussion and homebrews is over there.

;D  You've invented a new career path. Armor carver. ;D.
Still, yet another good article.

Uh, all this is nice, guys, but this thread is about the Dagger. The thread for Stuka discussion and homebrews is over there.

Sorry Trace, I kind of brought it up.  :-[  However, I will say that BD's does seem like a Dagger II.

On another note, how would these fare against typical Snow Raven designs?  It seems like there will be a fair amount of CSR-FS action coming up.

You can't blame it.We have the NAIS

And the Clans "had" the Hyspades 100 years ago yet nothing "since" has had that style of armor. The Cappies, and Lyrans also produced flying bricks in 3067. Its the inconsistency of these bricks with the rest of the game that bugs me. Especially given their "selective" assignment.

The guns and armor are OK, but I still think it's slow . . .

Sweet mother of Cameron. I've always been of the big and bad fighter school but this thing would make me trade in my Stuka in a heart beat.

It does underline the weaknesses of the pre-AT2 fighters that were converted over.

Frankly, I'm starting to think that the RAC/5 has sounded the final death-knell of the AC/10 and AC/20 for aerospace applications, where special ammunition types cannot be employed.  Accounting only for 'base' ammo bays (which allow a weapon ten turns of fire), the AC/10 is the same mass and only half as hot, but can only match the RAC's range and does only half the damage; the AC/20 matches the RAC/5's damage, but it's hotter, a good three tons heavier, and can't hope to match the RAC's range-performance.

You forgot that part that, once properly CASEd, it's ammo only blows up for 5 points of damage, instead of 10 or 20 . . .

You can't blame it.We have the NAIS

And the Clans "had" the Hyspades 100 years ago yet nothing "since" has had that style of armor. The Cappies, and Lyrans also produced flying bricks in 3067. Its the inconsistency of these bricks with the rest of the game that bugs me. Especially given their "selective" assignment.

One of the old Lucifer variants and the Slayer also mount respectable armour

The part of the wing outside the engines look variable, possible swing-wing design?

You can't blame it.We have the NAIS

And the Clans "had" the Hyspades 100 years ago yet nothing "since" has had that style of armor. The Cappies, and Lyrans also produced flying bricks in 3067. Its the inconsistency of these bricks with the rest of the game that bugs me. Especially given their "selective" assignment.

One of the old Lucifer variants and the Slayer also mount respectable armour

Yeah, but by modern standards, the Slayer is noticably undergunned, whereas before, she was just slightly undergunned.  The Slayer really needs an XL engine to be viable against a lot of the new fighters coming out (cutting some of the extra HS and mounting a 400 XL from the Charger would do the trick, thanks).

Ye gods!  The Dagger is a mean little bugger!  It's times like this that make me kinda sad I generally confine myself to 2750 to 3025 fighters.

Uh, all this is nice, guys, but this thread is about the Dagger. The thread for Stuka discussion and homebrews is over there.

Sorry Trace, I kind of brought it up.  :-[  However, I will say that BD's does seem like a Dagger II.

On another note, how would these fare against typical Snow Raven designs?  It seems like there will be a fair amount of CSR-FS action coming up.

Excuse me,we Crucians have never ever fought the Ravens,You have us mistaken for some bloody Dracs

You can't blame it.We have the NAIS

And the Clans "had" the Hyspades 100 years ago yet nothing "since" has had that style of armor. The Cappies, and Lyrans also produced flying bricks in 3067. Its the inconsistency of these bricks with the rest of the game that bugs me. Especially given their "selective" assignment.

One of the old Lucifer variants and the Slayer also mount respectable armour

Yeah, but by modern standards, the Slayer is noticably undergunned, whereas before, she was just slightly undergunned.  The Slayer really needs an XL engine to be viable against a lot of the new fighters coming out (cutting some of the extra HS and mounting a 400 XL from the Charger would do the trick, thanks).

Ye gods!  The Dagger is a mean little bugger!  It's times like this that make me kinda sad I generally confine myself to 2750 to 3025 fighters.

Makes you wish that the Dagger would make an excellent Carrier-based interceptor,ain't it?

Hmm, the thing about the Dagger making the converted ASFs look weak is the fact that most are level 1, with only a few level 2 upgrades at best, while the Dagger fits all the NewTech into one airframe.  I guess if we went from the level 1 Marauder to a Penetrator, Falconer, or Rakasasha without upgraded versions of that mech there'd be similar complaints about how the new designs made older mechs 'death traps'.

Out of all the light fighters, only the Sparrowhawk gets an upgrade. The Stingray gets one of the most extensive upgrades, DHS and ER main guns.  The Stuka gets an XL, DHS, and extra missiles.  But the Slayer only gets an LB-10X, the Shilone only gets DHS (on a nearly heat neutral design, if including the aft missiles), and AFAIK Ferro-Aluminum is used rarely if at all.  I think the newer designs look so powerful because of the in universe (and game designers') decision to ignore LosTech in aerospace applications, leaving us without the half steps of 3050 through 3060, and dumping it all into the FM and TRO 3067.

             Last Edit by Nikas_Zekeval
                  26-08-2005, 04:57:01

Well,that's because they wanted everyone to have max tech before plunging the universe into the 1st Succession War:Round 2 :) (Jihad,similar to 1st SW,everyone had max tech and Warships)

Excuse me,we Crucians have never ever fought the Ravens,You have us mistaken for some bloody Dracs

1: I was making an OOC response to OOC discussion.  I care not for IC rants.
2: If you look at the maps of the 3130, there are 3 worlds in the Raven Alliance that in 3067 belonged to the FS, those being Kennard, Pitkin, and Pajarito.  I don't see how they got their hands on them without fighting (especially since the 2nd Crucis is on Pitkin with an Aero wing at 90% strength and Elite experience).

Maybe Blakists took them in the Jihad and when they were defeated by Snow Raven peacebringers the Suns decides to cede those planets to them?  :)

Maybe Blakists took them in the Jihad and when they were defeated by Snow Raven peacebringers the Suns decides to cede those planets to them?

Why on earth would the Blakists bother to waste their limited resources capturing some worthless FedSuns planets out on the ass end of nowhere?

They could easily land maybe a few lances there and secure them for use as staging grounds :)

They could easily land maybe a few lances there and secure them for use as staging grounds :)

Again, why? And staging grounds to where?

To provoke an attack by the Ravens into the Suns

thats a point, it'd be just like the wobbies to try and provoke mfighting along the FS/OA border to force the FS to say.. redirect many of it's aerospace units to that front

Why would we play the Raven's game on their terms(if it comes to hostilities)?We do what we do best,pound them with our RACs from ground

Why would we play the Raven's game on their terms(if it comes to hostilities)?We do what we do best,pound them with our RACs from ground

That's assuming the Raven's play the FS's game of being on the ground.  They could just as easily strafe the Feddie forces until the remnants surrender, or until a trinary or so of Raven forces could finish off whatever is left.

But again, does anybody know what the primary CSR fighters are?  I'd really like to compare them to the Dagger.

             Last Edit by GreyWolfActual
                  26-08-2005, 09:37:24

Why would we play the Raven's game on their terms(if it comes to hostilities)?We do what we do best,pound them with our RACs from ground

And the Ravens do what they do best...conduct orbital fire missions. ;D

[Trace Coburn]

DARO-1 Dagger – Original run discussion, pt.2

On another note, how would these fare against typical Snow Raven designs?  It seems like there will be a fair amount of CSR-FS action coming up.

I doubt it.

Everyone knows that the Clans were just a Davion military organization whose sole purpose was to leech away Kurita strength, whilst giving the Federated Suns plausible deniability.  ;)

O.K.  I cracked and looked up the info myself.  If the 2nd Crucis had Daggers (and all bets are that they do) and if they fought the Ravens, then the fighters they fought would probably be some of the following:

-Bashkirs
-Sullas

-Visigoths
-Turks
-some Jagatais

-Kirghizes
-Sabutais
-a smattering of Hydaspeses

I'm relatively confident that a Dagger could handle a Kirghiz and especially a Hydaspes one on one.  The Sabutai would be tougher, but again I feel that the Dagger's superior armor (god that's scary, the Sabutai has less armor on 30 tons more frame) and (albeit moderate) speed advantage would allow it to get in on the Sabutai and take it to town.  On the other end, I don't know enough about the Bashkir and Sulla (I have been relying on Trace's articles too much) to a make a fair assessment.

As for the mediums, the Dagger loses in my opinion.  The Visigoths that the Ravens have will eat this up.  The Dagger has no speed advantage and any of the variants will eat through the Dagger's armor pretty quickly.  The Turks I don't know much of, but the Jagatais, if the Dagger can survive the fire, it can take down a Jagatai whether it be by outmanuvering it or simply outlasting it (armor and or fuel).

So this only reaffirms what I believe: the Dagger is the BEST light IS ASF ever made, and probably one of the best ever of any tech level.

IIRC, most of the Kirghiz have some nasty long range rear weaponry.  I'm not terrribly confident about the Dagger's chances approaching them, but if it can get in range without dying, it should do well.

That's why we try to stay on the good side of the Ravens' books

Hmm, the thing about the Dagger making the converted ASFs look weak is the fact that most are level 1, with only a few level 2 upgrades at best, while the Dagger fits all the NewTech into one airframe.  I guess if we went from the level 1 Marauder to a Penetrator, Falconer, or Rakasasha without upgraded versions of that mech there'd be similar complaints about how the new designs made older mechs 'death traps'.

Out of all the light fighters, only the Sparrowhawk gets an upgrade. The Stingray gets one of the most extensive upgrades, DHS and ER main guns.  The Stuka gets an XL, DHS, and extra missiles.  But the Slayer only gets an LB-10X, the Shilone only gets DHS (on a nearly heat neutral design, if including the aft missiles), and AFAIK Ferro-Aluminum is used rarely if at all.  I think the newer designs look so powerful because of the in universe (and game designers') decision to ignore LosTech in aerospace applications, leaving us without the half steps of 3050 through 3060, and dumping it all into the FM and TRO 3067.

So it's kinda like how the original WarShips, when converted over to the current system, often sux0rz, while the newly-constructed ones are l33t?

That's one way of putting it,the way i see it

Uh, all this is nice, guys, but this thread is about the Dagger. The thread for Stuka discussion and homebrews is over there.

Sorry Trace, I kind of brought it up.  :-[  However, I will say that BD's does seem like a Dagger II.

On another note, how would these fare against typical Snow Raven designs?  It seems like there will be a fair amount of CSR-FS action coming up.

i believe a more fruitful question would be to ask how Drac designs fair against the Snow Ravens, quiaff?  8)

Uh, all this is nice, guys, but this thread is about the Dagger. The thread for Stuka discussion and homebrews is over there.

Sorry Trace, I kind of brought it up.  :-[  However, I will say that BD's does seem like a Dagger II.

On another note, how would these fare against typical Snow Raven designs?  It seems like there will be a fair amount of CSR-FS action coming up.

i believe a more fruitful question would be to ask how Drac designs fair against the Snow Ravens, quiaff?  8)

Or, how would Drac designs fare against Snow Raven ASFs piloted by OA pilots?  ;)

Uh, all this is nice, guys, but this thread is about the Dagger. The thread for Stuka discussion and homebrews is over there.

Sorry Trace, I kind of brought it up.  :-[  However, I will say that BD's does seem like a Dagger II.

On another note, how would these fare against typical Snow Raven designs?  It seems like there will be a fair amount of CSR-FS action coming up.

i believe a more fruitful question would be to ask how Drac designs fair against the Snow Ravens, quiaff?  8)

Or, how would Drac designs fare against Snow Raven ASFs piloted by OA pilots?  ;)

indeed

Or if the Ravens make a Dagger IIC.  ;)

faith forbid that.It's bad enuff for the Dracs to face Raven birdds piloted by OA men,the Dracs might as well surrender the Tabayama Prefecture if they got out a Dagger IIC :)

Dagger IIC wouldn't be all that more effective as the clans lack RACs

You want the Clans to mount ATMs and heavy lasers and their advanced TC on a Dagger IIC?

You want the Clans to mount ATMs and heavy lasers and their advanced TC on a Dagger IIC?

Pleaze, Pulse + TC now that is plainly mean.

3 LPLs and an ATC :)

3 LPLs and an ATC :)

That's not a Dagger.  None of the Dagger configs are like that, the A possibly, but a PL+TC boat is hardly original and the clans have plenty of those.

A Dagger IIC would have to have 4 ER Medium Lasers, but since nothing in the clans resembles a RAC/5, I think its futile to even attempt to clan-ify one.

We were talking pulses on Dagger IIC,so it was fictional

We were talking pulses on Dagger IIC,so it was fictional

Irregardless.  You don't replace the LRM's on an Archer with ER PPCS and call that an Archer IIC no more than you replace the PPC's on an Awesome with Streak SRM's and call that an Awesome IIC.  Some things have to remain true to the original design for it to be an offshoot, or at least a credible one.

Well,Hobbes suggested it,so i thought i could put in a few specimens :)

Regardless,fine 4 ERMLs and HLL with an ATC while retaining the excellent armor,enuff for a Dagger IIC?

I think it would be best to replace the RAC with an ATM12 for the IIC version (3 tons of ammo and 14 DHS).

It also has the same medium attack value.

3 LPLs and an ATC :)

That's not a Dagger.  None of the Dagger configs are like that, the A possibly, but a PL+TC boat is hardly original and the clans have plenty of those.

A Dagger IIC would have to have 4 ER Medium Lasers, but since nothing in the clans resembles a RAC/5, I think its futile to even attempt to clan-ify one.

An ultra 10 would work with the extra damage the ER Meds can cause covering the slight loss of firepower.

That's not a Dagger.

`Omni' means `Lego,' Hoss: Once you've all aggreed on the basic platform, it's `Run what you Brung' . . .

Including no pesky Clan-Sphere interface problems (the Sphere coppied Clan specs for the pod connections) so you can put in those Clan Pulse Lasers that 'fell off the supply truck'  ::)

That's not a Dagger.

`Omni' means `Lego,' Hoss: Once you've all aggreed on the basic platform, it's `Run what you Brung' . . .

Thanks Goose thats just what I was going to say.

An impressive and deadly fighter.  Frankly, I think it would be kind of silly if, say, the Dracs or the Free Worlds League got this design, as they already have a rather significant edge in the aerospace department.  Thera+Daggers or Eisensturms would be pretty powerful, I would think.

That's not a Dagger.  None of the Dagger configs are like that, the A possibly, but a PL+TC boat is hardly original and the clans have plenty of those.

The defining feature of the Dagger isn't it's weaponry, but rather it's hideous over-armoring.

Neil,,jealous a Thera can't have em'? ;)

Neil,,jealous a Thera can't have em'? ;)

The FWL seems to have gone for a different paradigm:  Human wave attacks.

At any rate, in-universe I use Norfolk Industries F-200 Starraiders, as all-purpose fighter/interceptors, which compare rather favorably (very similar armor, superior firepower, greater speed), although they are somewhat more expensive, and 15 tons larger.

Besides, I never have had a Thera with me before.

No Warship settings?

Neil,,jealous a Thera can't have em'? ;)

The FWL seems to have gone for a different paradigm:  Human wave attacks.

At any rate, in-universe I use Norfolk Industries F-200 Starraiders, as all-purpose fighter/interceptors, which compare rather favorably (very similar armor, superior firepower, greater speed), although they are somewhat more expensive, and 15 tons larger.

F-200 starraiders? is this a custom?

They're custom alright

Neil,,jealous a Thera can't have em'? ;)

The FWL seems to have gone for a different paradigm:  Human wave attacks.

At any rate, in-universe I use Norfolk Industries F-200 Starraiders, as all-purpose fighter/interceptors, which compare rather favorably (very similar armor, superior firepower, greater speed), although they are somewhat more expensive, and 15 tons larger.

F-200 starraiders? is this a custom?

the name rings a bell

even if the design doesn't

Neil,,jealous a Thera can't have em'? ;)

The FWL seems to have gone for a different paradigm:  Human wave attacks.

At any rate, in-universe I use Norfolk Industries F-200 Starraiders, as all-purpose fighter/interceptors, which compare rather favorably (very similar armor, superior firepower, greater speed), although they are somewhat more expensive, and 15 tons larger.

F-200 starraiders? is this a custom?

Yeah.  It was before I got 3067, and so the FWL was needed an upgrade on the dogfighter/interceptor role (after all, the Stingray spaceframe is centuries old).  So I designed the Starraider, which basicly does what the Lancer out of 3067 does, only bigger and better.  I still used some League-feeling flair on it, like Ultra ACs, lasers and LRMs, but I differed from the canon League stuff in that I actually put armor on it.

http://forums.classicbattletech.com/index.php/topic,26865.0.html
Here's the thread.

             Last Edit by Neil
                  29-08-2005, 14:49:08

No Warship settings?

No, I just don't get to play with the pretty Theras.  I've had Impavidos, but never a Thera.

Mind you, I've never fought a WarShip-to-WarShip battle, although I might get to at some point when my group gets into the Skye/League part of the Jihad.  Whenever I've had them, I use them as giant escorts for my droppers.  Really, using WarShips on company-size raids against FedCom worlds is dirty pool, and the last time I ran a full regimental-level assault was when I dropped the 1st Cavaliers on Huntress, and before that, Schuyler.

The FWL seems to have gone for a different paradigm: Human wave attacks.

At any rate, in-universe I use Norfolk Industries F-200 Starraiders, as all-purpose fighter/interceptors, which compare rather favorably (very similar armor, superior firepower, greater speed), although they are somewhat more expensive, and 15 tons larger.

Never would have guessed ::)  . . .

Just a thought, DARO-1 Mech-Buster config

1 LB-20x, 3 tons ammo, 1 erMLas to the rear or 4 tons ammo or Ultra-20 w/ 3 tons ammo.  It's a Hammerhead with more armour and at 30 tons less!  drape the wings with bombs or RL10s to mix it up a bit and keep some Prime configs for CAP.

note: it is my understanding that in  the AT2r simplified rules, the RAC-5 cannot jam and therefore works as a 10 ton AC/20 with more range.  I assume that using advanced rules or implementing the craft in a CBT setting reverts the weapons to CBT effects; none the less the Ultra offers 50% more damage under the simplified rules, and a chance at 50% more than the RAC-5's max damage with a lower risk of jamming. The LBx is just your usual crit-loving

why a LB20X? if you wanna make something nasty, use the simplified rules and an UAC20 !

why a LB20X? if you wanna make something nasty, use the simplified rules and an UAC20 !

because if you don't use simplified rules you can pair each ultra-20 with a LBx-20 wing mate to nail those insides after blowing open armour

Nope: It's just a 12-point shot . . .

Nope: It's just a 12-point shot . . .

Or an 20-point.

I don't know if that's a rule, but it'd make a good House Rule . . .

You can chose between slug (20) and cluster (12) ammo. Cluster has an -1 to hit.

one intresting house rule to try is rolling 1d20 to detirmine how much damage a LB20X does

Nope: It's just a 12-point shot . . .

even when doing strike attacks in CBT?  ???

I meant in a CAS, because that would just make LBx useless on aeroframes

That what you where asking? Oops.

Damage mechanic does depend on the target in AT2r . . .

3 LPLs and an ATC

That's not a Dagger.  None of the Dagger configs are like that, the A possibly, but a PL+TC boat is hardly original and the clans have plenty of those.

A Dagger IIC would have to have 4 ER Medium Lasers, but since nothing in the clans resembles a RAC/5, I think its futile to even attempt to clan-ify one.

I agree with your statement, but the Clans have a tendancy to butcher many of their IIC Mechs  :-\

*snip*

Damn good article, Trace.  I wish my merc unit could have gotten a few of these, but my campaign has not reached anything near the era when they might be able to acquire some.  Looking forward to it, as my fighters are mostly refit oldtech fighters and none are in the speed range of the Dagger.

That what you where asking? Oops.

Damage mechanic does depend on the target in AT2r . . .

I thought I made clear that the class 20 AC toting configs would useful for ground support.  In the air, there's no point to using either when the RAC is available (when using the simplified rules)

[Trace Coburn]

DARO-1 Dagger, repost discussion, pt.1

FILE SAVED AT: 01-11-2007, 02:00:25

Trace_Coburn, 18-09-2006, 01:09:16

DARO-1 Dagger - 45t, TRO3067

[SNIP]

===================================================================

Scary note: Going from a strict mathematical viewpoint the Dagger is actually under-armored!!!

W/O TACs (treshholding is based on causing enough damage to go through the armor) you want to balance weapons and armor for maximum efficiency.

14 tons armor + 18 tons weapons + 10 (fixed) DHS = 42 "tons".

Half of 42 = 21(!) tons of armor would be optimal!

(f.ex) LL, 4xERML, 12 DHS from the pod space.

As noted by someone in the AT forum: AT2 did weird things to the AT design parameters!

'optimal' is 20% of overall mass according to what Trace mentioned in previous FotW's.

Using that as the standard, the Dagger is extremely over-armoured, the Eisensturm and Hydaspes not so much.

Hydaspes: 22.5 tons armour/ 95 ton spaceframe = 23.7% mass
Eisensturm: 19.5 tons / 95 ton spaceframe = 20.5% mass (almost right on the dot)

however...

Defiance: 15 tons / 55 tons = 27.3% mass - getting up there
Dagger: 31.1% of spaceframe mass(!) - and this is with the hyper-effective magical BT armour!

Scary thought for the day, either the FedCom never splits, or a Jihadless Sphere has the FS and LA trading their fighters, imagine forces built primarily of Daggers and Eisenstrums, with maybe the odd wing of Seylditz or Sparrowhawks for first shell interceptors.

Scary thought for the day, either the FedCom never splits, or a Jihadless Sphere has the FS and LA trading their fighters, imagine forces built primarily of Daggers and Eisenstrums, with maybe the odd wing of Seylditz or Sparrowhawks for first shell interceptors.

Scarier thought of the day - Clan-spec weapons and armour

I wish they'd draw the doral side, not the ventral when they illustrate ASFs...its easily the best light ASF around.  The Configs are ok: I'm nto big on the prime, as I'd want ERLLs, and damn the heat!  but most of the others are ok.  Its a bear to try and counter, and like Trace says, the Transgressor will again have to pull the load.

the dagger is without a doubt the best fighetr in the AFFS arsenal. if I ahdda fly a FS fighter, this'd be it;

I wish they'd draw the doral side, not the ventral when they illustrate ASFs...its easily the best light ASF around.  The Configs are ok: I'm nto big on the prime, as I'd want ERLLs, and damn the heat!  but most of the others are ok.  Its a bear to try and counter, and like Trace says, the Transgressor will again have to pull the load.

I agree with Ian on the illustration. But I think there is a raw pic of a Dagger just before you get to the IS warships sections of TRO:3067.

As for the Dagger itself, I think the Prime wing pair with maybe some Seydlitz Z4s is a nice dogfighting combo. Seds watch the Dagger's back, and the Dagger hammers with that RAC. It worked for me in a pickup AT2 game a while back. My two Daggers went up against a 4 Sabres and two Transits. The RAC was BRUTAL against the Transits who had to get in close to use their AC/20s. But thankfully my Daggers only got hit once each and didn't crit with it (still HURTS). The Seds managed to keep the Sabres at bay and off my back with ER Large Laser shots, but eventually I lost both of Seds for two Sabres. But not before my Daggers made life miserable for the Transits. I chose better pilot and gunnery ratings over more craft and it paid off. Two turns later, both Transits were splashed. One had its wing torn off, the other got a nasty fuel hit. The two remaining Sabres took a few pot shots in the third turn, but I won "innish" (heh). The Sabres decided to run after I did a nice piroette (sp) and trained my weapons on them. Missed them both and they outran me next turn. But two for four...not THAT bad a win.

Only time I played with the Daggers, but it was fun.

So I had a discussion with a Marik fan a bit ago who swears by the Shiva, which I personally think is a piece of junk.  I said that I'd rather have a Dagger, and he said he'd take that matchup any day.  now, admittedly, I'm not the most familiar with AT2, but still, I think the Dagger can win this.  Granted, it gives up about 34 tons of pod space, but 7/11 beats 5/8 any day of the week, and the Dagger actually has more armor.  Literally more points, not just better percentage wise.  Plus it generally has less heat worries that the Shiva.

Thoughts?

So I had a discussion with a Marik fan a bit ago who swears by the Shiva, which I personally think is a piece of junk.  I said that I'd rather have a Dagger, and he said he'd take that matchup any day.  now, admittedly, I'm not the most familiar with AT2, but still, I think the Dagger can win this.  Granted, it gives up about 34 tons of pod space, but 7/11 beats 5/8 any day of the week, and the Dagger actually has more armor.  Literally more points, not just better percentage wise.  Plus it generally has less heat worries that the Shiva.

Thoughts?

Purely my opinion, but the Dagger would, to use a turn of phrase, "leave the Shiva's ****** in tatters"

Here's the rub: The Dagger doesn't have all that much firepower, and it's pretty slow for a light fighter, but it has 11 points more armour than a stock level 1 Stuka.

If you're *not* using the streamlined rules, then the Dagger Prime can only deal damage in 5 point clusters, and actually can't crit the Shiva's nose.  The Shiva has enough weapons to crit the Dagger's nose.  If you're using simplified damge, the RAC-5 becomes an AC/20, and is going to cause more trouble for the Shiva.

However, the Shiva only goes 5/8, has thin sides and rear, and to add injury to insult, has no rear weapons to protect its tail.

It has one chance to use it's mondo guns to deliver a serious crit to the Dagger, because even with all that firepower, I think it would require everything to hit one wing to OSK the Dagger.

After the merge, the Dagger should be able to park on the Shiva's tail and do the nasty all day and night until it starts to run low on gas.

To add insult to injury, a Dagger jock can use RL-10's to soften up the Shiva on the merge - 5 point groups can threshold the Shiva's wings.

If you're *not* using the streamlined rules, then the Dagger Prime can only deal damage in 5 point clusters, and actually can't crit the Shiva's nose.  The Shiva has enough weapons to crit the Dagger's nose.  If you're using simplified damge, the RAC-5 becomes an AC/20, and is going to cause more trouble for the Shiva.

Well, specifics beyond airframe weren't mentioned, so it's not entirely safe to assume the Primes.  I have no idea which he'd prefer, but personally, I like the Dagger A a little more than the Prime.

Well, specifics beyond airframe weren't mentioned, so it's not entirely safe to assume the Primes.  I have no idea which he'd prefer, but personally, I like the Dagger A a little more than the Prime.

True, but it remains that both carry big enough guns to force a threshold and/or rapidly deplete their opponent's armour, while the Dagger has enough of a mobility edge that short of swapping ends, the Shiva might not get any opportunities to shoot the Dagger after the initial pass.

A detail I only thought of recently. With the only TACs being threshold crits in AT2 the Dagger is actually under-armored! The optimal weight of armor is roughly 20 tons (optimal on the Eisensturm is roughly 35 tons!).

Optimal from what standpoint? Going to 20 tons of armor would leave this thing with just 12 tons of pod space on a 45 ton frame. 45% armor is just insane.

In a Shiva vs. Dagger fight I wouldn't put money on the Shiva. The Shiva has once chance to kill/cripple the Dagger, if it doesn't manage to do that the Dagger will be all over its ass and the Shiva can't take that kind of attention... at all. In fact with just 35 points of armor on it's ass the Shiva could go down in one round after the Dagger gets into its six, two rounds is about the limit of its lifespan. Insult to injury the Shiva has no aft guns in any config (though we can't discount customs, it is an omni after all.)  and even if it did the Dagger can't be TAC'd by a ML and I think most Dagger pilots would be willing to take a few ML shots if it means they could bag a heavy 40 tons bigger.

Optimal from what standpoint? Going to 20 tons of armor would leave this thing with just 12 tons of pod space on a 45 ton frame. 45% armor is just insane.

Basic combat efficiency: sqrt(offense*defense)

As heat sinks are part of offense a Dagger currently has CE = sqrt(28*14) = 19.8. Uparmored it gets 21. This is of course based on using all your heat sinks and only works because you can't kill a fighter without blowing through or tresholding the armor.

Actually try again, the fixed heat sinks are weightless. By your equation increasing the armor like that actually hurts your mark going from 15.8 to 15.5. Using your equation the Dagger should move up to 16 tons of armor to perfectly balance things out. That's actually the only way to max the equation you're using, a perfect mass balance between weapons and armor. That's a rather... stupid way of trying to gauge a unit's effectiveness and appropriate armor fraction.

Just for the hell of it I figured up the armor for your "optimal" armor masses. The Dagger would be immune to Clan large lasers or IS PPCs on the nose and wings and to IS larges on the aft. The Eisensturm could take a full on class 20 to the nose and shrug it off or a clan PPC or gauss rifle to the wings. The down side is that you neuter both of them to do it. Six tons of pod space on the Dagger is brutal enough to require completely rethinking every one of its configs and the Eisensturm loses 15.5 tons of space. You'd literally have to land half its nose battery to carry all that armor.

Are you stupidly hard to kill, yep. Are you hitting a full weight class below yourself, yep.

To add insult to injury, a Dagger jock can use RL-10's to soften up the Shiva on the merge - 5 point groups can threshold the Shiva's wings.

To be fair, the Shiva can pull the same trick, and 17 RL-10s WILL hurt someone. Granted, after that it becomes an initiative game. If the Dagger keeps winning init, then yeah, he'll take the Shiva down in very short order. However, if the Shiva can win init once or twice...well, with those guns it only needs a few salvos to connect. Overall, I'd say that the Dagger will win the fight 3 out of 4 times, maybe 4 out of 5.

And if the fight is in space using vector rules, then the Shiva gains a serious advantage, since pivoting to bring those guns to bear suddenly becomes vastly easier. At that point I'd call it a near even fight, with a slight edge going to the Dagger.

I tend to agree with Weirdo, partialy because he's experianced in his field, and partaly because I favor raw power over speed in space fights for the most part.  Despite the Dagger's toughness, the Shiva will be critting it.  Weather it is from the LPLs, Guass Rifles, LRMs or wing crits from ER larges or LGRs, the Dagger will not go un hurt in the fight.  Of course, the Shiva is in the same boat, but by and large the Shiva will have more guns, and more oppertunities to inflict pain. 

Of course, it can't kill what it can't hit, giving the Dagger a massive edge with simple movment or in the atmosphere, but if the Shiva can pull off a simple roll to come to bear on its opponent, it can shatter worlds.

Actually try again, the fixed heat sinks are weightless. By your equation increasing the armor like that actually hurts your mark going from 15.8 to 15.5. Using your equation the Dagger should move up to 16 tons of armor to perfectly balance things out. That's actually the only way to max the equation you're using, a perfect mass balance between weapons and armor. That's a rather... stupid way of trying to gauge a unit's effectiveness and appropriate armor fraction.

Ah, but you're wrong. How much weight do you need to add a LL after you've used up all your "free" DHS? That's right, 9 tons. As long as you actually use those "free" DHS they're part of the weapon loadout, at 1 ton per DHS. If you really want to test it you can try to find the break-even point where adding x% of weapons decreases the armor by the same %.

And that's a very valid way of gauging efficiency. BV1 proved it very well (it was the reason clan mechs were so terribly overvalued).

Just for the hell of it I figured up the armor for your "optimal" armor masses. The Dagger would be immune to Clan large lasers or IS PPCs on the nose and wings and to IS larges on the aft. The Eisensturm could take a full on class 20 to the nose and shrug it off or a clan PPC or gauss rifle to the wings. The down side is that you neuter both of them to do it. Six tons of pod space on the Dagger is brutal enough to require completely rethinking every one of its configs and the Eisensturm loses 15.5 tons of space. You'd literally have to land half its nose battery to carry all that armor.

Are you stupidly hard to kill, yep. Are you hitting a full weight class below yourself, yep.

With 20 tons armor the Dagger still has 12 tons of weapons, f.ex. 2xERLL nose, 2xERML aft and 2 extra DHS. With a standard Dagger you could add half an ERLL to this (I know there are no "half" ERLLs, it's just an example!) for a 25% increase in firepower - but the up-armored Dagger beats it by 40% in armor - and is immune to treshold crits as well!

To be fair, the Shiva can pull the same trick, and 17 RL-10s WILL hurt someone. Granted, after that it becomes an initiative game. If the Dagger keeps winning init, then yeah, he'll take the Shiva down in very short order. However, if the Shiva can win init once or twice...well, with those guns it only needs a few salvos to connect. Overall, I'd say that the Dagger will win the fight 3 out of 4 times, maybe 4 out of 5.

And if the fight is in space using vector rules, then the Shiva gains a serious advantage, since pivoting to bring those guns to bear suddenly becomes vastly easier. At that point I'd call it a near even fight, with a slight edge going to the Dagger.

What do RL-10's hit for in AT2R?  The Dagger is armoured 77/62/50 so with dynamic thresholding, it'll take a couple hits before they can threshold, won't it?  And without, the RL-10's might not be able to threshold except from behind.

Of course, the Shiva has plenty other big guns to chew the Dagger up with without reducing its thrust curve further.

Scary thought for the day, either the FedCom never splits, or a Jihadless Sphere has the FS and LA trading their fighters, imagine forces built primarily of Daggers and Eisenstrums, with maybe the odd wing of Seylditz or Sparrowhawks for first shell interceptors.

Its a sick sick combination.  I love it.

What do RL-10's hit for in AT2R?  The Dagger is armoured 77/62/50 so with dynamic thresholding, it'll take a couple hits before they can threshold, won't it?  And without, the RL-10's might not be able to threshold except from behind.

Well for 6 damage, they won't threshold much, but they'll still ablate a lot of armor, making things easier for the main guns to punch through. Thresholding isn't the only way to hurt a plane, remember. The old-fashioned way still works, and the Shiva certainly has the firepower to go that route.

Its a sick sick combination.  I love it.

The Lyrans are selling the Eisensturm on the open market, right?  What's the odds on an elite Davion unit gets ahold of some that way? Or there's always the merc angle... }:)

The Lyrans are selling the Eisensturm on the open market, right?  What's the odds on an elite Davion unit gets ahold of some that way? Or there's always the merc angle... }:)

The original R3 is being sold on the Merc market. Don't know if these are surplus or if the Lyrans keep building R3s after they have the Omni complete.

I definately would imagine there are a few Ein's running around the FedSuns after the Civil War.

The original R3 is being sold on the Merc market. Don't know if these are surplus or if the Lyrans keep building R3s after they have the Omni complete.

I definately would imagine there are a few Ein's running around the FedSuns after the Civil War.

I'm betting the ones for sale are a special deal... buy one get one free; you pay double and the Lyran Aerospace Corps gets one free.

That's how *I'd* do it, anyway.  Nothing else in the Sphere even comes close except for that one crazy 400 XL using version of the Reiver.  If you're the Kell Hounds or the Davion Heavy Guards, or Hell's Black Aces, you'll *find* a way to pay.  That's what your customers/taxpayers are there for, right?

Ever since I first saw the stats for the Dagger , I loved it. IMHO it is one of the best blends of every thing you could want and with a good pilot can take on most opponents. The fact that it belongs to the FSNS makes it all the sweeter

Ah, but you're wrong. How much weight do you need to add a LL after you've used up all your "free" DHS? That's right, 9 tons. As long as you actually use those "free" DHS they're part of the weapon loadout, at 1 ton per DHS.

And yet they're not. If you want to add a HS beyond the original ten then count it. If you want to invent an efficiency calculation that factors in heat dissipation then count the base ten. If you're using an equation based purely on mass giving massless items a mass makes no sense. The heatsinks are there regardless of what you do with the loadout and they weigh nothing. The actual weapons loadout has nothing to do with those heatsinks. If you could choose to land those sinks and get another ton of weapons payload then you might have a point, but you can't do that.

And that's a very valid way of gauging efficiency.

Its a nonsensical way of measuring efficiency. At no point does your calculation take into account any variables besides raw mass.

With 20 tons armor the Dagger still has 12 tons of weapons, f.ex. 2xERLL nose, 2xERML aft and 2 extra DHS. With a standard Dagger you could add half an ERLL to this (I know there are no "half" ERLLs, it's just an example!) for a 25% increase in firepower - but the up-armored Dagger beats it by 40% in armor - and is immune to treshold crits as well!

Actually with 12 tons of pod space you've only got 2 ERLLs and the 2 DHS. With 18 tons of pod space on the prime you could have 2 ERLLs, 2 ERMLs forward, 2 MLs aft, and 4 more DHS. And the uparmored Dagger is still vulnerable to TACs from quite a few weapons, admittedly mostly heavy hitting ones but in the modern era a weapon doing 10 or 15 damage is getting down right common.

Your Eisensturm is immune to most anything in most any angle, but does it need to be? You've chopped out a lot of firepower for all that extra armor and ultimately the point of ASFs is to shoot things down, not take lots and lots of hits. Heavily armed, paper armored ASFs aren't the best idea, but at some point you do have to declare the protection "good enough" and start adding guns. The Eisensturm in its base config is just about perfectly armored. The Dagger is even a little over armored though I'd look more to giving it a bigger engine rather than more guns.

Ever since I first saw the stats for the Dagger , I loved it. IMHO it is one of the best blends of every thing you could want and with a good pilot can take on most opponents. The fact that it belongs to the FSNS makes it all the sweeter

OTOH I hated it. Mainly because of those three didgits "240". Along with the other 3067 Bricks it totally invalidated 90% of the fighters in the game. And worse at the same time a school of thought permeated the same book that stripped the FWL, DC and most of the Clans fighters of armour.
But mainly it was a gut thing. A 45 ton unit with the armour of an 80 ton mech. Not even the tanks have gone that far yet.

I kinda agree with that point of view.

The Dagger has a nasty habit of simply painting obsolete on the nose of the majority of fighters.

Mind you that's the XL engine for you, halves the weight of the engine for no penalty other than cost.  Like a Jet engine to a piston engine.

Eh, Clantech didn't make Inner Sphere battlemechs obsolete.  This seems much less revolutionary.

Actualy it did.  Its just the Inner Sphere doesn't have much choice but to keep using out of date equipment.  In military terms obsolete doesn't mean the same thing as useless, just suppased.

A 45 ton unit with the armour of an 80 ton mech. Not even the tanks have gone that far yet.

Makes you wonder how the damn thing stays aloft.    (Obviously a moot point in zero-g, I am talking about atmospheric operations.)

With a powerful enough engine, you can make anything fly.

Makes you wonder how the damn thing stays aloft.  :)  (Obviously a moot point in zero-g, I am talking about atmospheric operations.)

Given enough thrust, ANYTHING will fly.

Given enough thrust, ANYTHING will fly.

Just ask F-4 Phantom pilots....

Makes you wonder how the damn thing stays aloft.  :)  (Obviously a moot point in zero-g, I am talking about atmospheric operations.)

With no more difficultly than any other 45ton aircraft.  Weapons, armor, passengers its all just mass when you think about it.

It was supposed to be a joke.  I am familiar with ballistic flight.  :P

             

My apologies

OTOH I hated it. Mainly because of those three didgits "240". Along with the other 3067 Bricks it totally invalidated 90% of the fighters in the game. And worse at the same time a school of thought permeated the same book that stripped the FWL, DC and most of the Clans fighters of armour.
But mainly it was a gut thing. A 45 ton unit with the armour of an 80 ton mech. Not even the tanks have gone that far yet.

Actually, the Eisensturm and Hydaspes are pretty close to the 20% of mass mark for their armour fractions. (20.5 and 23.7%)

OTOH, the Dagger has more armour than the original Stuka (251 points vs. 248)

Insane as the Dagger is for armour fraction (31.1% of mass), one fighter does beat it, and one comes close.  The Defiance is at 27.3%, while the R20 model Lucifer is at a staggering 35.4% (for a total of 368 points of armour)

[Trace Coburn]

DARO-1 Dagger – repost discussion, pt.2

I think its scary that an ASF mounts more armor then some Warships.  :P

I think its scary that an ASF mounts more armor then some Warships.  :P

Grr, remember, each WarShip's armor point is 10 fighter Armor points, so it's apples and oranges.

And are there any WarShips that only mount 20 tons of armor?

Well, a Carrack Transport only has 47 points.

Well, a Carrack Transport only has 47 points.

It's 69 tons of armor in HMAero.

Yeah, 69.5's what I'm looking at.  Just to clarify, you know I meant 47 points capital, right?

Yes.  However, the Carrack seems to be more of a Jumpship with a Cargo Bay and drive, rather than a WarShip worth the name.

Grr, remember, each WarShip's armor point is 10 fighter Armor points, so it's apples and oranges.

And are there any WarShips that only mount 20 tons of armor?

There is the Vincent...

It's got a whopping 76 tons of armor.

My word of advice to any would be spacers on a Vincent:  Hope you only have to run down pirates, or your station at Condition One is really close to an escape pod/lifeboat station.

And yet they're not. If you want to add a HS beyond the original ten then count it. If you want to invent an efficiency calculation that factors in heat dissipation then count the base ten. If you're using an equation based purely on mass giving massless items a mass makes no sense. The heatsinks are there regardless of what you do with the loadout and they weigh nothing. The actual weapons loadout has nothing to do with those heatsinks. If you could choose to land those sinks and get another ton of weapons payload then you might have a point, but you can't do that.

Doesn't matter if I can't remove the fixed HS or not. As long as I use them they are part of the weapon payload. Of course if you don't use them it becomes different. To give you a couple of examples:

4xERML. 4 tons?

6xERML. 6 tons? It's got to be, as it's 50% more than 4, right? But now you can't fire them... So you add 5 DHS, making it 11 tons. But 11 tons is 175% more than 4 tons, despite adding exactly 50% more firepower! So how do you solve this?

Very easy: 4xERML + 10 fixed DHS = 14 tons.
6xERML + 5 DHS + 10 fixed DHS = 21 tons, exactly 50% more. You have to count the fixed HS as part of the payload, if you use them. And all well-designed craft except the very lightest do.

Its a nonsensical way of measuring efficiency. At no point does your calculation take into account any variables besides raw mass.

As we can't know exactly what kind of weapons are mounted, only tonnage can be measured. And as the comparision only works between to craft using the same weapon mix (as well as thrust and fuel tankage) it is imaterial. Fortunately we are comparing two omnifighters with the same thrust and fuel, what luck!

Actually with 12 tons of pod space you've only got 2 ERLLs and the 2 DHS. With 18 tons of pod space on the prime you could have 2 ERLLs, 2 ERMLs forward, 2 MLs aft, and 4 more DHS. And the uparmored Dagger is still vulnerable to TACs from quite a few weapons, admittedly mostly heavy hitting ones but in the modern era a weapon doing 10 or 15 damage is getting down right common.

Ah, sorry. Was tired when I wrote that. So well make it 6xERML+ERML(aft)+5xDHS on the uparmored version, 7xERML+SL+ERML(aft)+SL(aft)+8 DHS on the standard Dagger. Both are perfectly heat neutral, the standard Dagger outguns the uparmored version by 17%-60% (average ~23%) which can in return take ~40% more damage and will win most of the engagements between the two.

Your Eisensturm is immune to most anything in most any angle, but does it need to be? You've chopped out a lot of firepower for all that extra armor and ultimately the point of ASFs is to shoot things down, not take lots and lots of hits. Heavily armed, paper armored ASFs aren't the best idea, but at some point you do have to declare
the protection "good enough" and start adding guns. The Eisensturm in its base config is just about perfectly armored. The Dagger is even a little over armored though I'd look more to giving it a bigger engine rather than more guns.

I'd like a bigger engine on a 45-ton fighter myself (7/11 is OK on a 45-tonner in 3025, not in 3060!), but all those fighters should have a lot more armor. An Eisensturm with 35 tons of armor will beat the canon version most of the time.

Actualy it did.  Its just the Inner Sphere doesn't have much choice but to keep using out of date equipment.  In military terms obsolete doesn't mean the same thing as useless, just suppased.

Oddly enough I don't think it did. It comes back to the light weights of CBT armour. One can get a big gain from little mass.

In the case of XL engines the mass previously went into more guns. To use the Clan fighters as an example, yes they carry a lot more firepower, but their armour is for the most part not much better than existing fighters. In a very real sense they are no more difficult to kill with a 3025 fighter than a brand new 3067 XL non-brick. Heck the parity is so obvious it has even made it into the fiction and fluff.
The 3067 bricks are different. Call it clever design if you like. But they used a light weight design concept to get a major combat advantage. A pre-AT2 45 ton fighter would have perhaps 60% of the armour of the Dagger. And on top of that it gets the extra 40% of weapons offered by an XL engine.

Perhaps if I put this in a simpler way. What would happen if you put a Dagger up against a Clan omnifighter of similar mass? If the answer is a fair fight there is a serious problem.

Doesn't matter if I can't remove the fixed HS or not. As long as I use them they are part of the weapon payload. Of course if you don't use them it becomes different. To give you a couple of examples:

You're still talking gibberish. You're assigning mass to a massless object in order to make things linear. They aren't. The fact that once you start piling on more and more energy weapons it starts to cost a lot more in tonnage is a fact of design with fusion engined vehicles. Giving them mass artificially inflates your perceived "efficiency" calculation. It's just bad math.

Firepower vs. Mass is not linear.

Oddly enough I don't think it did. It comes back to the light weights of CBT armour. One can get a big gain from little mass.

In the case of XL engines the mass previously went into more guns. To use the Clan fighters as an example, yes they carry a lot more firepower, but their armour is for the most part not much better than existing fighters. In a very real sense they are no more difficult to kill with a 3025 fighter than a brand new 3067 XL non-brick. Heck the parity is so obvious it has even made it into the fiction and fluff.
The 3067 bricks are different. Call it clever design if you like. But they used a light weight design concept to get a major combat advantage. A pre-AT2 45 ton fighter would have perhaps 60% of the armour of the Dagger. And on top of that it gets the extra 40% of weapons offered by an XL engine.

Perhaps if I put this in a simpler way. What would happen if you put a Dagger up against a Clan omnifighter of similar mass? If the answer is a fair fight there is a serious problem.

Considering that the IS bricks are new, could we attribute it to the designers learning from the past?

Possibly, since IS designs can't compete with the throw weight of the clan machines they take the other route, piling on armor.

There is precedence in Davion space for a fighter that small to have that much armor, by mass.

The Corsair, it is 50 tons, with 13.5 tons of armor, so the Dagger is slightly smaller, but with a bit more armor (due to the XL) and made ferro.  Actaully well armored fighters is a Davion staple, whil the Dracs went for extra thrust, and the Elsies threw their pilots into over gunned, thinned skinned, flying coffins.  #P

You're still talking gibberish. You're assigning mass to a massless object in order to make things linear. They aren't. The fact that once you start piling on more and more energy weapons it starts to cost a lot more in tonnage is a fact of design with fusion engined vehicles. Giving them mass artificially inflates your perceived "efficiency" calculation. It's just bad math.

Firepower vs. Mass is not linear.

I'm sorry if you don't understand it. According to you it seems like 2 ERMLs are less (or more?) powerfull than than 1 ERML. I stand by my point that two ERMLs are twice as powerfull as one.

I'm sorry if you don't understand it. According to you it seems like 2 ERMLs are less (or more?) powerfull than than 1 ERML. I stand by my point that two ERMLs are twice as powerfull as one.

You managed to completely ignore everything written in the section you quoted and impinged my intelligence. Have I once challenged the assertion that 2 medium lasers can do more than 1? I'm challenging the intelligence of assigning mass to massless items just so you can linearize a non-linear progression of firepower.

Saying the dagger has a 28 ton warload because of its 10 massless heat sinks makes zero sense.

There is precedence in Davion space for a fighter that small to have that much armor, by mass.

The Corsair, it is 50 tons, with 13.5 tons of armor, so the Dagger is slightly smaller, but with a bit more armor (due to the XL) and made ferro.  Actaully well armored fighters is a Davion staple, whil the Dracs went for extra thrust, and the Elsies threw their pilots into over gunned, thinned skinned, flying coffins.  #P

Aye, all Davion fighters were heavily armored, compared to their counterparts, the Sparrow Hawk had 6 tons IIRC,  and the Stuka had 15.

Possibly, since IS designs can't compete with the throw weight of the clan machines they take the other route, piling on armor.

Hydaspes

Oddly enough I don't think it did. It comes back to the light weights of CBT armour. One can get a big gain from little mass.

In the case of XL engines the mass previously went into more guns. To use the Clan fighters as an example, yes they carry a lot more firepower, but their armour is for the most part not much better than existing fighters. In a very real sense they are no more difficult to kill with a 3025 fighter than a brand new 3067 XL non-brick. Heck the parity is so obvious it has even made it into the fiction and fluff.
The 3067 bricks are different. Call it clever design if you like. But they used a light weight design concept to get a major combat advantage. A pre-AT2 45 ton fighter would have perhaps 60% of the armour of the Dagger. And on top of that it gets the extra 40% of weapons offered by an XL engine.

Perhaps if I put this in a simpler way. What would happen if you put a Dagger up against a Clan omnifighter of similar mass? If the answer is a fair fight there is a serious problem.

I was replying directly to the previous posts about clan mechs vs inner sphere mechs.  (abet I was doing so poorly, shouldn't post at night I think)

Noone in my area uses clan tech fighers (for some unknown reason we have clan players for BT) so I'm not so familier with them as I am Inner Sphere fighters so I can't realy comment on that comparison.  What you say does make sense though, especialy with the thresholding rules.  Once your on the ground its a different ball game IMO but thats strictly another debate.


I am of the belief that a well designed XL fighter is far and beyond the power of a similarly designed SFE fighter but thats as much a gut feeling as anything and I can't think of a more convincing arguement than look at the Corsair and Stuka, then look at the Dagger and Eisensturm.

You managed to completely ignore everything written in the section you quoted and impinged my intelligence. Have I once challenged the assertion that 2 medium lasers can do more than 1? I'm challenging the intelligence of assigning mass to massless items just so you can linearize a non-linear progression of firepower.

Saying the dagger has a 28 ton warload because of its 10 massless heat sinks makes zero sense.

That's because those 10 heat sinks are only "massless" due to a quirk of the construction system, every other heat sink weights 1 ton (not counting the idiocy that is CHS, here). That is why I have repetedly stated that you only count those DHS that is used. According to you 4 tons weapons is half the payload mass of 8 tons on a fighter, despite that 4 tons gives you 4 ERMLs, but 8 tons only gives you 5. You must count the effective weight of all heat sinks! Otherwise the comparision is way off.

Take those 3 fighters. Which one will win most often in a fight?

#1: 75 tons, 6/9 XLFE, 12 DHS, 7 tons fuel, 43.5 tons armor, 2xERLL
#2: 75 tons, 6/9 XLFE, 18 DHS, 7 tons fuel, 32.5 tons armor, 3xERLL
#3: 75 tons, 6/9 XLFE, 24 DHS, 7 tons fuel, 21.5 tons armor, 4xERLL

Just state your answer and reasoning, please.

Sabelkatten, that methord is highly flawed.

Sure your fighters would survive, but are they capable of defending anything but themselves? And in any offensive operation they would lack the needed punch to quickly take care of the enemy.

Hydaspes

Never said the clans can't do the same damn thing. The bricks of '67 are just hard to rationalize when compared to everything that's come before.

According to you 4 tons weapons is half the payload mass of 8 tons on a fighter, despite that 4 tons gives you 4 ERMLs, but 8 tons only gives you 5. You must count the effective weight of all heat sinks! Otherwise the comparision is way off.

Welcome to one of the quirks of CBT design. Mass does not necessarily correspond linearly with firepower. When you come up with a system that can acknowledge this I'll rejoin the discussion, right now its pointless.

Welcome to one of the quirks of CBT design. Mass does not necessarily correspond linearly with firepower. When you come up with a system that can acknowledge this I'll rejoin the discussion, right now its pointless.

Don't look at the mass in terms of "firepower" look at it as "offensive capability." Every time you spend a ton you gain either firepower or something else -- range, heat efficiency, etc.

Sabelkatten's exactly right. Just because an item is massless doesn't mean that it doesn't have the same effect as the massive object it acts exactly like. Once you treat a heatsink like what it is (a part of the mass of a weapon) and put Clan ER Medium Lasers in all available mass, firepower becomes linear with mass.

True, his equation doesn't go beyond the masses of objects, but that's also exactly right for an Omnifighter. I would say that the Dagger could probably benefit from a bit more armor.

Never said the clans can't do the same damn thing. The bricks of '67 are just hard to rationalize when compared to everything that's come before.

Yes. Yes, they are.

Never said the clans can't do the same damn thing. The bricks of '67 are just hard to rationalize when compared to everything that's come before.

Yeah. It's like some of the newer warships that carry decent armor (compared to the old SL eggshells). First TPTB change the rules, then they create new canon designs that take benefit from the new rules, but they don't retcon the old designs.

Low armor to weight ratio made sense under AT1, because a single salvo from a Riever could turn most anything into a floating coffin without thrust or weapons. It doesn't make sense under AT2, where a Riever can, at best, cause two crits per salvo.

Welcome to one of the quirks of CBT design. Mass does not necessarily correspond linearly with firepower. When you come up with a system that can acknowledge this I'll rejoin the discussion, right now its pointless.

As JB points out, it does.

5 instead of 4 ERMLs = 25% increase.

8 + 10 (fixed DHS) tons instead of 4 + 10 (fixed DHS) = ~25% (slightly more, as the last DHS isn't completely used).

What so hard about the fact that if you count the fixed heat sinks as 10 tons, firepower scales linearly with weapon mass?

What so hard about the fact that if you count the fixed heat sinks as 10 tons, firepower scales linearly with weapon mass?

Nothing, it works perfectly. But it's not CBT.

Sabelkatten's exactly right.

I can see where Sabel is coming from, but I still don't agree with it. Firepower, offensive capability however you want to say it, it's not linear in CBT. Due to those free heat sinks lighter units tend to be more heavily armed (ton for ton) than heavier units. I don't disagree that if you want to judge a machine's combat ability they have to be taken into account, but using mass to do it is just a mistake. That brings us back to what started this all, just using masses to determine combat efficency does not even begin to address the actual nature of CBT designs.

Ok, visual aid time.

[diagram attached at bottom of this post]

On this really ugly simple chart offensive capability, firepower, DPS, whatever is the red line. There is an inflection point where the curve changes. Prior to that inflection point is offensive capability under the engine provided massless heat sinks. It's a linear progression. After the inflection point is offensive capability after the base heat sinks. The slopes are not the same simply because at first every ton is going to piling on more weapons, but once you exhaust your initial heat dissipation ability you have to start using tonnage on heat sinks*. The green line is Sabel's suggestion, it puts you immediately up on the low slope portion of the line. Now this wouldn't be so bad on really high payload high heat designs where those free sinks make a difference, but you're still packing on maybe another 30 or 40 tons of weapons and ten or fifteen of heat sinks. You're still off, but not so much. The real problem is when you're dealing with small fighters, Sabel's equation makes them look horribly skewed towards firepower and piles on lots and lots of armor crippling their warloads.

I'll make it really clear what I'm talking about. Look at a Sparrowhawk -6D. 6 Small lasers, 7.5 tons of armor. Using Sabel's unaltered equation this fighter has 13 tons of offensive payload. Optimally it should have 10 or 10.5 tons of armor, depending on how you round things. Interestingly enough, in order to get to that armor level you either need to mount a single small laser, or none at all. Get what I'm aiming at? Either way you are probablly the singly most ineffective aerofighter ever, but according to Sabel's equation you are as efficent as you can be. Assigning a mass to the heat sinks screws things up. Now going back and giving the heat sinks no mass and doing it again you should either mount 5 or 5.5 tons of armor. Given the fighter's already somewhat fragile nature I don't think that's a good idea either.

Take a look at what I pointed out earlier in the thread, if you don't add the mass of the heat sinks then using Sabel's equation would indicate the Dagger needs two more tons of armor. Moving to a 16/16 spilt is far more reasonable on the Dagger than a 12/20 split. I still think the method is far too crude, but its closer to reality and proposes something that is at least somewhat reasonible.

*This chart would be different for every single weapon type, but the general shape would be the same.

I can see where Sabel is coming from, but I still don't agree with it. Firepower, offensive capability however you want to say it, it's not linear in CBT. <snip>

Visual aids do not make your argument more valid.

Firepower is linear in AT2, once you account for a small anomaly introduced by the ten free heat sinks by adding them into the total mass of weapons where they belong.

I'll make it really clear what I'm talking about. Look at a Sparrowhawk -6D. 6 Small lasers, 7.5 tons of armor. Using Sabel's unaltered equation this fighter has 13 tons of offensive payload. Optimally it should have 10 or 10.5 tons of armor, depending on how you round things. Interestingly enough, in order to get to that armor level you either need to mount a single small laser, or none at all. Get what I'm aiming at?

You're using an outlying example, and using it wrong. A Sparrowhawk with 6 small lasers only gets credit for 3 engine-internal DHS, as that's all it's using.

Oh, it doesn't have DHS? Eh. 6 SHS=3DHS. You've got that many, so it's a nonissue.

Actually, the red line is what I've been talking about the whole time. That's why I've repetedly stated "...as long as I use them they're part of the weapon load".

The Sparrowhawk doesn't use all it's SHS. In fact it has 11 tons offensive payload. And since it already has 2 extra SHS you can add more weapons!

IIRC it's 7.5 tons armor on the Sparrowhawk. Adding 2 more SLs increases the offensive payload ~28% but only decreases defense ~15%. It's over-armored!

But since the Dagger has a lot of weapons it's far above the breakpoint. And you still need to count the fixed DHS as part of the weapon weight!

Visual aids don't validate points, they help to explain them. Assigning mass to massless objects doesn't account for them, it just makes things nice and linear when they aren't. You claim I'm using the equation wrong, I say not.

I'm treating like Sabel treats the Dagger. 3 Tons of weapon payload plus ten tons of heatsinks. Since we're going to have to change payload you don't know how many heat sinks you're going to use, just like the Dagger. Consequently it pays for all ten heatsinks. I know what you're going to say, but I used Sabel's process to the letter. At no point was the Dagger's potential use of heatsinks addressed in the initial assertion. The 20 tons of armor Dagger could mount a single Artemis'd LRM-20 in one of its configs and only actually use 3 heat sinks but it was charged for the full ten. Same thing I did with the Sparrowhawk, since we don't know what its config will be with the new "optimized" armor so it pays for all ten heat sinks.

In fact there are worse offenders. The Sabre, 3 MLs, 4 tons of armor. Using Sabel's equation and methodology in order to reach the optimum you have to add four and a half tons of armor, well... there's only 3 tons of weapons. All the imaginary mass of those heat sinks has you needing one and a half more real tons that the fighter doesn't actually have.

What I'm getting at is that the equation/process isn't accounting for the free heat sinks properly, if it was then you wouldn't have fighters armed with only spitwads and evil thoughts. The proper way to account for them is with an equation that actually accounts for their effects on the airframe. They have no effect on the mass of the airframe, but since you want to use mass as your measuring point you have to invent a way for heat sinks to effect that mass and it doesn't work.

If you really wanna use mass as your measuring stick then stop including the mass of the heat sinks. Every ASF has the ten to begin with and it costs them nothing. If you simply do not including an imaginary mass for any base heat sinks on any ASF then every single ASF has the ingrained bias. You can also calculate an efficency that doesn't change with weapons load that the pilot might choose to use. Since on fighters like the Dagger the pilot may or may not use all the base heat sinks for his config. I'm not claiming its the best way to choose an armor fraction, but its closer.

Anyways, this is getting no where, I'm done.

I'm with JediBear and Sabel here.

The heatsinks DO count as in offensive power calculations.  Just because they aren't used, doesn't mean they aren't there.  That's the designer's problem, just as they can fit too much or too little ammo (the Lucifer's 5 tons of LRM-20 ammo or the Sabutai's weird AC-20 ammo allocation).  Just because they don't use the chassis optimally doesn't detract from the platform's inherent attributes.

As for armour, check this out:  There are a fair number of heavily armorued level 1 designs.  The main thing though is that they cluster around the 45-65 ton design area.  You see a very pronounced fall in armour fraction as designs get heavier.  The Dagger isn't especially out of place for its size  IS heavy fighters have always only had slightly more armour than medium designs, while the Clanners have always had a 'Guns, LOTS OF GUNS' mentality.

Here are all the fighters that meet or exceed a 25% armour fraction

Centurion
Corax
Spad
Sparrowhawk
Zero
Dagger
Corsair (The V12M has almost the same fraction as the Dagger does, incidentially)
Defiance
Gotha (GTHA-300)
Lucifer (LCF-R20, HM:A file gives it 35.4% armour by mass)

The most armoured (by mass) heavy fighter is the Hydaspes at a reasonably proportionate 23.7%, while the Eisensturm is almost on the 20% mark at 20.5%

A graph of only 3025 dated designs (according to the HM:A files) is included for comparison.

<<<Fighter Armour.xls (33 KB - downloaded 5 times.)>>>

[Trace Coburn]

DARO-1 Dagger – repost discussion, pt.3

Why argue about how to calculate it, if the basic idea is flawed?

Oookay folks this is the Dagger thread not a discourse on calculating the value of one fighter over another.

BSMart if you want to discuss this system you have go ahead and start a post up in the Aerospace section.

Going to get back to this thread.

The Dagger, is horribly, horribly inefficient.  Why?  Consult the efficient mass table atached.

The advantage of lighter fighters (and mechs), is that they can go a lot faster on smaller engines.  By being a 'slow light' like a Cougar or Kit Fox vs. a Timber Wolf or Stormcrow, the Dagger gives up warload and manueverability for a dubious increase in armour.

If you increase the design's mass by 20 tons, you can do the same thing with a SFE and Standard Armour giving up only 3 points of protection.  Use FA armour, and you can duplicate the Dagger with a ton and a half to spare, or use a 60 ton chassis with 1 ton to spare. (Moving from 60 tons to 65 tons only gains you a 0.5 ton payload increase at the 7/11 bracket)

No, folks, I'm not pulling your leg here.  For a SFE fighter with a 7/11 thrust curve, 65 tons is the optimal mass bracket.

Dagger specs: 251 points of armour, 5 tons fuel, 1 fixed DHS, 7/11 thrust, 17 ton payload

The Original: (following specs edited by Trace Coburn for compactness)
-> Dagger DARO-1 [Base]: 45t, 7/11/7/5, 77/62/50 (FAA), 11 DHS, 17t pod-space; per-unit 5.761MC-Bills

The 60 ton SFE duplicate:
-> Dagger DARO-1 [60t/Base]: 60t, 7/11/7/5, 77/62/50 (FAA), 11 DHS, 18t pod-space; per-unit 3.725MC-Bills

Lo-Tek Dagger:
-> Dagger DARO-1 [65t/Base]: 65t, 7/11/7/5, 74/62/50, 11 DHS, 17t pod-space; per-unit 3.951MC-bills

Notice how you shave about 2,000,000 c-bills, and in the case of the 60 tonner, move to one of the most common sized fusion units in use - the 300, also used in the Stuka. <End ASF design lesson>

<<<Efficient ASF Mass.xls (44 KB - downloaded 3 times.)>>>

Yep. The Dagger is in fact a very inneficient use of mass for the chosen performance capabilities, but then the same is true of nearly every fighter currently in existance, or at least the most common dogfighters.

I still am pretty fond of it, though.

Yep. The Dagger is in fact a very inneficient use of mass for the chosen performance capabilities, but then the same is true of nearly every fighter currently in existance, or at least the most common dogfighters.

I still am pretty fond of it, though.

It's a fairly even split, I think.  I posted the topic in the AT2R forum, but several designs are right-on, and many are actually fairly close - within 10 or 15 tons of overall mass, and 5 tons payload, so they don't lose out much at all.  The Dagger, like the Spad, Zero, and Gotha are just far past the point of diminishing returns.  Generally speaking, you lose tonnage faster by being overweight than underweight, SFE fighters miss out less by being underweight, and you lose an average of around 2-3 tons per 5 tons underweight, although again, most SFE birds only lose half a ton or 1 ton for the first 5 ton increment they are under the ideal.  It's just that as underweight as the Dagger is, the penalties accumulate, and then it exacerbates this through design choices.

The Dagger commits a double sin; having traded off acceleration for payload, it again trades off offensive capability for unusually thick armour - armour thicker than a Stuka, in fact.  Once you look past the RAC, you'll find that there's only so much you can do with 17 tons and 11 DHS.  Of couse, the AFFS is lucky in that the DCN's level 2 fighters are so-so, and the Capellans' upgraded birds all move at 6/9.  Along the Clan front though, It would find itself at a severe firepower disadvantage against Visigoths and Turks that have 7 and 10.5 tons more payload on top of clan-grade weapons and a clan-bias towards firepower.  (And for those that will ask without checking the tables, the optimal mass for a 7/11 with an XL engine is 75 tons, but the Visigoth, while 15 tons lighter, only gives up 5 tons of payload to a heavier chassis, so it's fine.)

Attached is an updated mass table with per unit costs for each ton of payload.

<<<Efficient ASF Mass.xls (92.5 KB - downloaded 1 times.)>>>

Sadly, as bad off as the Dagger is in "Efficiency" It still rocks as a fighter compared to most IS models

So what does this tell us ?

ASF designs are even less optimal than most Mech designs.

Sad, but true.  ;D

Sadly, as bad off as the Dagger is in "Efficiency" It still rocks as a fighter compared to most IS models

So what does this tell us ?

ASF designs are even less optimal than most Mech designs.

Sad, but true.  ;D

It's just a slow light masquerading as a fast medium - something no one's built.  If you made a SFE Visigoth, it would be the base chassis equivilent of the Dagger.  Luckily the pilots are in an area of space where their competition is either only moderately upgraded, or just plain slower. (The Defiance, you should not, should also be either bigger or faster).

The Defiance is a light medium pretending to be a heavy medium or a heavy.  You should be able to gain 1.5 tons by again, using a SFE and moving up to a 65 ton platform.  As you would expect, you save a significant amount of dough moving from the XL to the SFE.  Of course, this is on the AT2 field, where the SFE mafia have no say  ::)

I was just going to chime in that the FS seems to have thought they could apply their Warship design philosophy to their Omnifighter.  The Fox and Avalon are heavily armoured and durable (counting the large SI), and asked to do the jobs of ships many times larger.  Seems to me the FS wanted a fighter that had the durability of a heavy, but the speed (and payload) of a medium or large light fighter.  From an in-universe perspective, hard to say if the result is a best-of-all-worlds compromise, or represents the same kind of growing pains as we saw with the 1st generation newtech refits/models and 1st-run IS Omnimechs.

The first thing I noticed about the Dagger is that the Omni technology is totally superflous when considering only the canon configurations.  Each config is a medium range dogfighting setup, and the Prime config dominates the other two in AT2 rules. 

With TW's nerf of RACs to cluster damage now, I look at the Dagger and see 3 mediocre configs, with the A being the best thanks to a TC.  Even that one's disappointing though, due to the use of Large Lasers instead of more efficient weapon choices (for TW, swap out those two LLs for a single HPPC!).  It's still a fine airframe, but it needs a few configs that actually do different things.  As it is this fighter should never have been an Omni - it's just an added expense that provides some sexy to the design that a boring ol' flying brick/rules-abuser wouldn't normally have.

The first thing I noticed about the Dagger is that the Omni technology is totally superflous when considering only the canon configurations.  Each config is a medium range dogfighting setup, and the Prime config dominates the other two in AT2 rules. 

With TW's nerf of RACs to cluster damage now, I look at the Dagger and see 3 mediocre configs, with the A being the best thanks to a TC.  Even that one's disappointing though, due to the use of Large Lasers instead of more efficient weapon choices (for TW, swap out those two LLs for a single HPPC!).  It's still a fine airframe, but it needs a few configs that actually do different things.  As it is this fighter should never have been an Omni - it's just an added expense that provides some sexy to the design that a boring ol' flying brick/rules-abuser wouldn't normally have.

There's only so much you can do with 17 tons of podspace and 11 DHS.  You're simply locked out of many heavier weapon loadouts by the sheer mass requirements.

That's true, but it would've been nice to have at least one config that could reach long range. :(

I was just going to chime in that the FS seems to have thought they could apply their Warship design philosophy to their Omnifighter.  The Fox and Avalon are heavily armoured and durable (counting the large SI), and asked to do the jobs of ships many times larger.  Seems to me the FS wanted a fighter that had the durability of a heavy, but the speed (and payload) of a medium or large light fighter.  From an in-universe perspective, hard to say if the result is a best-of-all-worlds compromise, or represents the same kind of growing pains as we saw with the 1st generation newtech refits/models and 1st-run IS Omnimechs.

Actually the Dagger fits the Davion's fighter design standards, which emphasize endurance, armor, and firepower even to the point of being slight slower than the neighbors (Stuka vs. Slayer or Transgressor, Corsair vs. Samurai, Sparrowhawk vs. Shologar or Thrush), in all cases the Davion fighters have heavier armor and weapons to their opponent's higher thrust.  Sort of the Grumman Ironwork's school of fighter design, their Wildcats vs. their neighbor's Zeros.

That's true, but it would've been nice to have at least one config that could reach long range. :(

Well, it's an Omnifighter, right?  Brew up a custom config with, say, 2 ER LL in the nose, a medium laser (or maybe ER med.) in each wing, 5 pod-mounted DHS, and presto!  Sure, it's basically an upgraded Corsair, but you've got long range now, right?

Well, the problem is that no canon sorce shows that problem being addressed, or even commented on.  Dagger pilots seem content to live up to their fighter's name and fly knife fighters.  Mount some LRMs, for pete's sake. ER PPCs or lasers, or even a standard PPC.  As is, the thing will have some of that thick armor shorn off by enemy LRMs evening up the battle all too often.

[Neufeld]

The only thing that I really need to add is that I am missing a long-range config to replace the Corsair V14s and V18s.

[lowrolling]

The only thing that I really need to add is that I am missing a long-range config to replace the Corsair V14s and V18s.

Just received word from High Command that we will be keeping those operational irregardless.

[FedSunsBorn]

Ah, the lovely Dagger.  How fast it flies(compared to the other Davion fighters anyway...), how powerful are it's guns(relatively speaking) and how freaken thick is it's armor!  [rockon]

[Neufeld]

Just received word from High Command that we will be keeping those operational irregardless.

Of course, but they might not be available when needed, so config that can emulate them would be very useful.

[nerd]

The Dagger is the new standard for fighters, like going from the F4F to the F8F, as a good analogy.  The problem, however, is getting the equipment to the end users.

[DragonKhan55]

An interesting counterpoint to the DARO-1 would be the Marik LX-1 Lancer. Lighter armor and lack of flexibility, but equal agility and, under the new rules, better guns with the twin LPLs. In addition, the Marik machine has a BV that is only about 60% of the Dagger, meaning if you are engaged in a BV-balanced fight, you can bring two more squadrons in for every wing the Davions have.

[Moonsword]

I'm really not sure.  It partially depends on how the crit rolls for the Lancers work out.  If they're not getting that many, the Dagers will be chowing down.  If they go on a tear, the Daggers may get crippled faster than their greater damage can swat individual Lancers out either by crits (everything carried by every Dagger configuration other than the C's rear ERSLs generates a threshold against Lancers) or straight damage.