One thing I have been thinking about with SF is the need for maned space fighters. In shows like <i>Star Wars</i>, and <i>Battlestar Galactica</i>, fighters and their heroic pilots are the focus of these epic war stores, but in Star Frontiers, <i>Fighters</i> take a backseat to <i>Assault Scouts</i> because a whole party (5-8 men) can full out a ship of that size, and there have also been no adventure produced around fighter squads - why tie yourself to a static <i>Carrier Group</i> (an <i>Assault Carrier</i>, plus the ships needed to protect it), when an <i>Assault Scout</i> is the perfect combat RV for spaceborne adventures?<br />
<br />Realistically, a space fighter would be a more effective weapon if you removed the fighter pilot, and then replaced them with a tactical computer. The disadvantage of a living pilot, is the added weight of the pilot and life support systems, and the acceleration limits a body can endure in high-speed maneuvers. I know about <i>Burnside's Zeroth Law of space combat</i> (see below), and I know that converting a fighter into a drone fighter would make it an automated rocket platform, and potentially a pricey guided missile/suicide bomber (when ordered to slam into larger ships). For those who don't know about the <i>Zeroth Law</i>, I pulled this from <a href="http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html">Atomic Rockets</a>:<br /><blockquote><b>Burnside's Zeroth Law of space combat:</b> Science fiction fans relate more to human beings than to silicon chips. That is, while it might make more logical sense to have an interplanetary battle waged between groups of computer controlled spacecraft, it would be infinitely more boring than a battle between groups of human crewed spacecraft.</blockquote>To me, the lack of focus with fighter pilots in the setting makes their use in the game somehow feels rather moot (I also never been a fan of the low fighter capacity of <i>Assault Carriers</i> - I generally count their fighter capacity as a Flight of 3 Fighters/Mecha, or 1 Bomber/Gunboat for each Fighter slot). Even when you do play as a fighter pilot, the KH rules seem to focus more on the big ships, as their are no fighter and anti-fighter weapons (forward lasers and decoys for Fighters, and point-defense systems for ships) in the game - all you do is deploy, fire missiles, return, reload, repeat, and nothing else!<br /><br />So what is everyone's take on this?
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