Wayne Douglas Power:

At best, I think you are mis-reading the text there.

A normal freighter, whether an armed or unarmed version, whether a small, large, jumbo, or heavy version, that has no seeking weapons of its own, can control three seeking weapons under the rules (F3.211). Adding a self-defense skid, even if that skid comes with seeking weapons of its own (the type-1 variant) does not increase the base seeking weapon control rating of the freighter to which it is added, i.e., it remains three.

Some freighters are armed with seeking weapons, typically these are armed with drones, plasma-F torpedoes, plasma-D torpedoes, and quantum wave torpedoes. These have a seeking weapon control ability equal to their sensor rating (F3.21). Adding a self-defense skid that includes seeking weapons has no effect on their seeking weapon control rating either, that is to say that it remains equal to their sensor rating.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Tuesday, November 21, 2017 - 05:26 pm: Edit

Steve Petrick,

Thank you, understood.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Tuesday, November 21, 2017 - 05:27 pm: Edit

Banshees:

Banshees were the subject of the monster article in Captain's Log #41 which noted that they are size class 6 in agreement with Module K. Note that my copy of Module G3 includes a change to both the Starswarm and Banshee monsters as being size class 6 and not size class 5, so this error had been previously reported.

The Captain's Log #41 monster article provided that "Type-VI drones damage Banshees as if the Banshees were ships, perhaps due to their plasmatic nature, i.e., a type-VI drone will score two points of damage. This is regrettable, as otherwise empires with access to type-VI drones could easily defeat swarms of Banshees by employing shatter-pack shuttles if the type-VI drones treated Banshees as shuttles and scored eight points of damage each."

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Sunday, December 03, 2017 - 06:57 pm: Edit

looking for rules about Tugs having landed on a planet can it then release a pod it is carrying. Also can it land on a planet with a pod? The tug i am thinking of can land by AL aerodynamic landing method.

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, December 04, 2017 - 02:42 am: Edit

Slaver?

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Monday, December 04, 2017 - 05:13 am: Edit

Paravian Tug but yeah i think the slaver can but can it carry a pod.

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Monday, December 04, 2017 - 06:51 am: Edit

IIRC Slaver can't carry anything, its a self-contained raider/transport.

By Steve Zamboni (Szamboni) on Monday, December 04, 2017 - 09:44 am: Edit

Freight Eagle can land with a pod.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Monday, December 04, 2017 - 04:51 pm: Edit

Can it then release the pod and take off? I have found no rules on that.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, December 04, 2017 - 05:10 pm: Edit

Gregory S. Flusche:

In the case of the Freight Eagle, the "lack of rules" pretty much establishes that it can.

In simple, the early years sublight Freight Eagle's tractor was limited to Range 0, meaning the ship was unable to lower a pallet to a planetary surface from orbit. As the ship was able to deliver early years planetary defense bases, this requires it to do just about everything but actually land (get close to the ground and hover (atmospheric flight) at minimum. The tractor simply does not have a range to do much more than that, and the existence of planetary defense ground bases and its ability to deliver them says it can do so.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Monday, December 04, 2017 - 05:30 pm: Edit

Then it is not safe to assume the Paravian tug from C6 can not land with its pod? Are can it? As the ship like the Freight Eagle can land on the planet.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Wednesday, December 06, 2017 - 05:20 pm: Edit

Well I found my answer. Sheeesh. read the R sections. Says that yes the tug can land on planets as long as it is not carrying a pod.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, December 06, 2017 - 11:26 pm: Edit

You should know by now, Gregory, that there's a rule for everything. EVERYTHING!


Garth L. Getgen

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Thursday, December 07, 2017 - 06:16 pm: Edit

Just finding it is the hard part

By Jarod Ikeda (Allanon) on Thursday, December 21, 2017 - 01:34 am: Edit

Hello strange question on speed changes I just realized.

Rule c12.313 states "No Mid-turn speed change may be made before Imp #4 (1/8 turn) and after imp #28 (7/8 of turn)..."

This seems contradictory. There are 3 imps you can't actually change speed at beginning of turn (imp 1,2,3). But there are 4 imps you can't actually change speed at end of turn.

So the rule should state "No mid-turn speed change may be made before imp #4 (3/32 turn) and after imp #28 (7/8 of turn).

I've always thought you couldn't execute speed change prior to imp 5, and after imp 28.

Am I missing something?

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Thursday, December 21, 2017 - 02:02 am: Edit

You make the announcement that your speed will change on the next impulse at the end of the impulse, so you announce a speed change on Impulse #4 and it takes effect on Impulse #5. Your speed can't actually change until #5.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, December 21, 2017 - 02:50 am: Edit

Terry: That is not correct. The rule explicitly states that the earliest you can make an announcement for speed change on impulse 3:

"(Because changes are announced on the previous impulse, the earliest announcement would be on impulse #3 and the latest on Impulse #27.)"

By Nick Blank (Nickgb) on Thursday, December 21, 2017 - 08:34 am: Edit

It works that way because you can make at most 4 changes in a turn, and these must be 8 impulses apart. So you can at most change on impulses 4, 12, 20, and 28 with each announcement on the impulse before the change. Then 8 impulses after the turn X imp 28 change is the turn X+1 imp 4 opportunity.

By Nick Blank (Nickgb) on Thursday, December 21, 2017 - 08:38 am: Edit

Another way to think of this is there are 7 impulses you can't change speed and one impulse you can for every 8. So impulses 1 to 3 and 29 to 32 are the 7 you can't change for the change you might make on imp 28. If there were 8 impulses you couldn't change, that would mean a change every 9 impulses and a turn doesn't divide into 9 evenly.

By Jarod Ikeda (Allanon) on Thursday, December 21, 2017 - 01:47 pm: Edit

agreed. My point is the text in the rule is wrong.

"No Mid-turn speed change may be made before Imp #4 (1/8 turn)..." should say ""No Mid-turn speed change may be made before Imp #4 (3/32 turn).

I've played this game for a long time and only now understood you can change you speed on imp4. I always thought you couldn't cause I read the "1/8" turn thing.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Thursday, December 21, 2017 - 02:43 pm: Edit

The SFB rules are many, I have had to re-read some rules at times.
The Changing speed mid turn rule seems fairly clear to me.

From the Captains Advanced Mission Rulebook 1999 Edition:
(C12.313)No mid-turn speed change may be made before impulse #4 (1/8 turn) or after impulse #28 (7/8 turn) of a given turn. (Because changes are announced on the previous impulse, the earliest announcement would be on impulse #3 and the latest on impulse #27.)

By Boyd Steere (Pyramider) on Thursday, December 28, 2017 - 09:35 am: Edit

When a drone rack is reloaded, rule FD2.421 indicates that "The plan to reload must be plotted in advance, taking the rack out of service for that turn".

If Tactical Intelligence is not being used (and therefore the information levels described under D17.9 are in effect), does the owner of the drone rack have to announce that it is being taken out of service for that turn?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, December 28, 2017 - 01:11 pm: Edit

Boyd Steere:

There must be a written record noting the rack is being taken out of service for the turn and what specific drones are being loaded onto the rack, or unloaded from the rack (you cannot simultaneously load and unload drones on a given rack in a given turn). No announcement is made.

By Boyd Steere (Pyramider) on Thursday, December 28, 2017 - 06:19 pm: Edit

Thanks very much, Steve.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, December 28, 2017 - 07:14 pm: Edit

Feeling too lazy to look it up: Is there a limit as to how many ships can tractor a single target at once?

Let's say that there is a convoy of freighters (actually, Free Traders), and one such throwing a tractor on the BadGuy isn't enough to hold him ... but can three or four FTs gang up on him with tractors??

Also, I presume there's no limit as to how many ships can beam boarding parties over to the same target on the same impulse, is there?

Thanks in advance!


Garth L. Getgen