I will try to get a look at things tomorrow and provide answers.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - 01:27 pm: Edit

Charles Carroll asked on 22 Sept 19: Question about drones and lock on in an unusual situation. A ship launched drones toward a planet to hit the planet on side E. Last impulse of the turn the drones move into atmosphere of side E. Here is the question. The ship is now five hexes away from the planet. It is straight out along the F/A hex spine. It has a line of sight to the hex the drones left. It has the planet in its line of sight. But I believe at this time it could not shoot the base on the ground in E if there is one. So...does the ship lose tracking on the drones even though they are not on the ground.
Planet is in 3130.
Drones hit planet on side E.
Controlling ship is in 2927 end of turn.
2927 is a blind hex for any ground base facing E or B.
Does ship lose tracking on the drones hitting planet on first imp of next turn from side E?
ANSWER: I am assuming that these drones are not self-guiding, as otherwise they would have achieved their own lock-ons in the given situation. It is unclear what the drones are targeted on in the question. Is there a ground base under attack, or is this a "general bombardment/damage the planet’s infrastructure" (P2.525) situation? This gets you into a question of how far away from the planet were the drones launched, as if they were launched from four hexes range they could have been launched ballistically (P2.713) and not need any guidance. Otherwise (if you are targeting a ground base) the drones had to be launched from no further than five hexes range (R1.14C2). The ship has ended the turn four hexes from the planet, making this a possibilty. If the drones are being guided, then under (P2.322), lock-on has been lost (a straight line from the ship to the seeking weapons will pass through a part of the planet’s hex). The drones have to be resolved on Impulse #1, and there will be no opportunity to regain lock-on between Impulse #32 and Impulse #1 (the ship cannot move, the planet cannot move, and the drones are committed to impacting the planet). So (P2.3222) comes into play and the drones are removed.
Follow up question: And a secondary question, if a different ship not the drone controlling ship was there...an enemy ship. Could it shoot the drones?
ANSWER: Assuming you mean the only ship referenced in your question, no, it could not as it would not have a line of sight to the drones.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - 01:30 pm: Edit

Marcel Trahan asked on 22 Sept 19: Another question regarding ECM drones.
If a ship that is using Tactical maneuvers while being protected by an ECM drone, does the drone TAC at the same time as the ship or its facing remains the same?
ANSWER: No. It is in the hex of its target, and will follow the target if it leaves the hex (which may delay it and even need to use its high energy turn to follow the ship quickly but the use of the high energy turn is still voluntary at the discretion of the player). But the ECM drone will not perform tactical maneuvers or change its facing until it needs to do so to follow its target.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - 02:04 pm: Edit

Jeffrey Coutu asked on 23 Sept 19: I have some questions on the order that damage is applied for rules (D3.3413) and (D4.34). I include the text for those two rules below for reference (from the Master Rulebook):
(D3.3413) On any given impulse during any given damage step, if damage from more than one direction strikes a unit with General Shield Reinforcement (GSR), even against the same shield facing, the larger damage total is resolved against the GSR first before any of it is combined into volleys (D4.22). If equal damage is scored from two or more directions, roll a die to determine which is resolved first.
(D4.34) MULTI-SHIP VOLLEYS: It is possible for a volley striking a given shield during a given impulse to include hits scored by two enemy units firing from two slightly different directions. This causes a problem when "phaser" hits (which have a directional restriction) must be resolved. In such a case, first resolve the damage points from the unit which caused the most damage, then from other units in the order of the damage they caused. (If two or more units caused equal damage, toss a coin or roll a die to determine which to resolve first.) The volley is still resolved as a single volley; this procedure governs only the direction of fire for the phaser hit restriction. This procedure is also used if multiple volleys strike a given target from multiple directions on the same impulse. The larger volley will be resolved first. If two (or more) volleys are equal, roll a die to determine which volley struck first.
Q1) For (D3.3413), if two units are in different hexes but directly in line with the target (for example, both directly in front of the target but in different hexes) are they considered in the same direction for this rule, or would damage from different units always be in different directions?
ANSWER: If a ship is in hex 2222, and an opposing enemy ship is in 2221 and another opposing ship is in 2220, and the two opposing ships fire on the ship in hex 2222, all the resulting damage would GENERALLY be resolved as a single volley and only phasers able to fire at the enemy ships would be subject to damage (short an "Any Weapon" damage point). The reason I note "generally" is that there are exceptions to the combined into a single volley, e.g., hellbores scoring their own damage (E10.43).
Q2) If two units were in the exact same direction (say both directly in front of the ship) is their damage combined for purposes of (D4.34) or is each unit always considered separately for purposes of this rule?
ANSWER: Again, if a ship is in hex 2222, and an opposing enemy ship is in 2221 and another opposing ship is in 2210, and the two opposing ships fire on the ship in hex 2222, all the resulting damage would GENERALLY be resolved as a single volley and only phasers able to fire at the enemy ships would be subject to damage (short an "Any Weapon" damage point). The reason I note "generally" is that there are exceptions to the combined into a single volley, e.g., hellbores scoring their own damage (E10.43).
Q3) Is there a rule that covers the order that damage is applied to specific shield reinforcement and the actual shield boxes? I have assumed that that largest damage is applied first, similar to how internal hits are applied (D4.34), but do not know where this is covered in the rules.
ANSWER: The example after (D3.343) and (D3.347) make it plain that specific reinforcement is lost before any damage is resolved against the shield the reinforcement energy was applied to. As a result, under the rules for determining which weapons fire damage is resolved first, the largest damage amount is scored against any specific reinforcement energy and then against the shields. Unless the largest damage amount fails to completely eliminate the specific reinforcement, subsequent damage amounts on the same impulse will be resolved directly against the shield, and if the shield is destroyed against the ship itself.
Q4) Is the order that damage is applied, after being reduced by GSR and hitting the shields, or when being applied as internal damage under for (D4.34), the larger damage based on the current damage value (after the effects of shields) or is it based on the initial damage value? For example, target A has no boxes remaining on its shield #1 but has 5 general reinforcement points. Ships B and C fire on shield #1 of ship A from different directions doing 10 and 8 points respectively. Per (D3.3413) the 10 points is reduced to 5 by the GSR. When applying the internal damage per (D4.34), is the 5 (originally 10) points of damage resolved first or the 8 points of damage?
ANSWER: You completely resolve the largest volley of damage first, thus the 10 points destroys the five points of general shield reinforcement and is resolved as five points of internal damage. The eight points is then resolved for purposes of phaser-direction damage, and all of it is a single volley (D4.22). Thus the first five internals (assuming an unrefitted Federation heavy cruiser’s #1 shield is being hit) fired from directly ahead (Federation ship in hex 2222, Klingon ship in hex 2219) can destroy the FH, LF+L and RF+R phasers (Federation player’s choice. The volley continues with the eight damage points fired by the Klingon ship in hex 2315, but these can only damage the FH and RF+R phasers. Further, if it just happened that the five internal damage points from the first Klingon ship destroyed FH and RF+R phasers, the eight damage points from the second Klingon ship could not destroy any phasers (other than by an "any weapon hit") since the LF+L phasers are out of arc and the ship does not have 360 phaser-3s (unrefitted). So you can see that when resolving damage you might (as the Federation player in this instance) consider where the damage is coming from to try to protect some of your phasers. Note, to be clear, this is assuming that previous damage to the Federation ship has left it otherwise vulnerable to phaser hits deep in the DAC (e.g., the "H" column) and the four "one time only" hits for the volley destroyed the first four phasers.

By Francois Lemay (Princeton) on Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - 07:05 pm: Edit

You have answered my question SPP.
Thank you !

Cheers
Frank

By Marcel Trahan (Devilish6996) on Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - 09:18 pm: Edit

Hi Steve

If a ship transport a TB in 1 hex in front of itself on imp 3 and then sideslip right on imp 4. Ship did not move on imp 5. Mine is set for detection range of 0 and the transporting ship is still in the explosion radius of the mine (range 1)that he has transported. The ship never left the explsion radius. Does the TB becomes active on imp 5 (because of the dectection range of 0)or does it becomes active once the transporting ship leaves the explosion area (which is range 1)?

In simple words, does the activation depends only on the detection range or on the explosion range?

Marcel

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - 10:30 pm: Edit

Marcel,
Sequence of play, it will not be triggered until impulse #6 (two impulses for transported T-bombs, M3.223), activation dependes on the detection range.
Captains basic set rules (M2.31) Point of arming, (M2.34) Sequence,(M2.35) Detection range.

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - 11:50 pm: Edit

I my opinion, the transported T-bomb is activated two impulses after transportation. The T-bomb will not explode because the ship is at range 1 and the T-bomb detection range is 0. I assume that the T-bomb was set to the ship's size class and the number of passes designated would be reached.

However, if you dropped the T-bomb out of the shuttle bay (or a mine rack), then the T-bomb is active after the ship leaves the T-bomb detection range and two impulses have passed. Usually this is range 2 as most T-bombs are set to range 1. Note, such T-bombs are hidden, implying good record keeping.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 01:08 am: Edit

Yes transported (M3.223) on imp 3 the t-bomb is active impulse 5 after the 6A. Movement segment, T-bomb laying is at 6B7: Marines activity stage in the Sequence of play (so can be triggered from imp 6).

Yes, after T-bomb is set and ready, the T-bomb activation is detection range.

By Jeffrey Coutu (Jtc) on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 03:54 am: Edit

Thanks for the answers SPP but I have a follow-up question.

Assuming no special weapons fire such as hellbores, and that a target ship A in 2222 is fired at by ship B in 2221 doing 5 damage, ship C in 2220 doing 10 damage, and ship D in 2120 doing 12 damage, so all damage is hitting the shield #1 as a single volley.

For determining which damage is applied first, is it ANSWER 1) ships B and C are firing from the same direction so their combined damage of 15 (5+10) is applied first followed by the 12 damage from ship D, or is it ANSWER 2) fire from different units is always treated as from different directions so the damage is applied as the 12 damage from ship D, followed by the 10 damage from ship C, and then the 5 damage from ship B?

The only reason for my doubt is that while (D3.3413) indicates that damage from the same direction would be combined, (D4.34) only references individual units, so I wondered if different units are always different directions for these rules. I presume that ANSWER 1 is correct but want to be sure.

Thanks.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 04:06 pm: Edit

Jeffrey Coutu asked on 26 Sept 19: Assuming no special weapons fire such as hellbores, and that a target ship A in 2222 is fired at by ship B in 2221 doing 5 damage, ship C in 2220 doing 10 damage, and ship D in 2120 doing 12 damage, so all damage is hitting the shield #1 as a single volley.
For determining which damage is applied first, is it ANSWER 1) ships B and C are firing from the same direction so their combined damage of 15 (5+10) is applied first followed by the 12 damage from ship D, or is it ANSWER 2) fire from different units is always treated as from different directions so the damage is applied as the 12 damage from ship D, followed by the 10 damage from ship C, and then the 5 damage from ship B?

ANSWER: Rule (D4.22) says in part: "All damage points scored against a given shield in a given damage step must be resolved together and are collectively known as a "volley." Note that fire from several directions which all strikes the same shield is still resolved as a single volley, see (D4.34)." Rule (D4.34) says in part: "This causes a problem when "phaser" hits (which have a directional restriction) must be resolved. In such a case, first resolve the damage points from the unit which caused the most damage, then from other units in the order of the damage they caused." In your example you are going to resolve the damage done by ship D first. There is no rule for combining the damage of two ships to get a greater total, each is resolved by the order of the damage it, alone, scored. So, literally, if you had four ships firing on a fifth, all of which had their fire hit the #1 shield, with ships #1 and #2 directly head and ship #3 to the left and ship #4 to the right. If ship #1 scored 5 points, ship #3 scored 6 points, Ship #2 scored 7 points, and ship #4 scored 8 points, the damage would be resolved as 8, 7, 6, 5. Note that the damage is normally going to be resolved against the target's shields first (and then any armor), but the 8 damage points is resolved first (the largest damage total).

ANSWER CONTINUED: Rule (D3.3413) is dealing with General Shield Reinforcement which has to be resolved first before any other damage. Thus the largest damage amount is dealt with first since that damage amount can be coming from ANY direction (general shield reinforcement is 360). So if 9, 7, 3 damage points came from direction A and 8, 8, 8 damage points came from direction D, the 9 damage points would be resolved against the General Shield Reinforcement, and if any damage points remained after the General Shield Reinforcement was destroyed it would be combined with the 7 and 3 from that direction. If any General Shield Reinforcement remained after the 9 points was resolved, then the first 8 in the fire from direction D would be applied (and you might have to roll a die to determine which of the three 8s would be resolved against it first). If any damage points remain, they would be combined with the other two 8s.

By Marcel Trahan (Devilish6996) on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 05:12 pm: Edit

Hi Steve,

Just in case you missed my earlier question, i am reposting it.

If a ship transport a TB in 1 hex in front of itself on imp 3 and then sideslip right on imp 4. Ship did not move on imp 5. Mine is set for detection range of 0 and the transporting ship is still in the explosion radius of the mine (range 1)that he has transported. The ship never left the explosion radius. Does the TB becomes active on imp 5 (because of the dectection range of 0)or does it becomes active once the transporting ship leaves the explosion area (which is range 1)?

In simple words, does the activation depends only on the detection range or on the explosion range?

If only the detection range is used, does it means that a mine droped by the hatch with a detection range of 0, it would become active as soon as being 1 hex away from the laying ship and still within the blast area if triggered by another unit?

(example: a ship running at speed 16 drops a mine with a detection raduis of 0 at the same impulse that he moved (imp 2) while a drone speed 20 is 2 hexes behind. The following impulse, the ship and the drone do not move (imp 3). On imp 4 both the ship and the drone move 1 hex, the TB is now 1 hex behind the ship and the drone is 1 hex in front of the drone. Since the laying ship is now out of the detection range but still within the blast area, does the mine becomes active and will be triggered by the drone mouvement on imp 5 or you have to wait until imp 6 after mouvememnt for the mine to be active?)

Marcel

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 06:14 pm: Edit

Marcel Trahan:

Sorry, but I thought this had already been answered by others.

You chose to set the detection range to zero, as allowed by (M2.34). You then deployed the mine by transporter. At that point, (M2.31) does not apply because it is specific that the mine (a transporter bomb) arms when you are outside of the mine's "detection zone," which you automatically are at that point because you cannot transport the mine into the hex of your ship (M3.22). So even though you place the mine in a hex adjacent to your ship and are thus in its "blast radius," you are outside of its "detection radius." So the arming of the T-bomb is entirely governed by (M3.223). Your T-bomb became active on Impulse #5, and if a unit within the limits of its targeting instructions enters its hex on Impulse #6 (or later) it will attempt to trigger (an otherwise acceptable unit moving slowly enough might not trigger it).

As to a ship laying a mine out of a hatch or from a mine rack, (M2.34) is specific that it would be armed: "Also note that as the detection range could be set to zero, the mine would become active when the minelaying ship entered the next hex, and that ship would still be in the blast radius if the mine was detonated by something before the ship moved again."

By Marcel Trahan (Devilish6996) on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 06:25 pm: Edit

Thanks Steve for the clarification.

Marcel

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 06:28 pm: Edit

Marcel,
in (M2.31) Point of arming: Arming takes place automatically at the instant that the unit which dropped the mine leaves the mines Detection Range (M2.35).
Transported bombs placed by transporter have a delay before they will arm; see (M3.223)

in (M2.34) Sequence:

Also note that as the detection range could be set to zero, the mine would become active when the minelaying ship entered the next hex, and that ship would still be in the blast radius if the mine was detonated by something before the ship moved again.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 06:31 pm: Edit

was writing same time

By Francois Lemay (Princeton) on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 10:15 pm: Edit

My knowledge of drones is very weak leading to a few questions re drones and how they operate.
Its Y166 and the Kzinti CBT has 6 D racks and 8 cargo boxes.
My belief is it can upgrade to 50% ready racks speed 20 drones.
The other 2 magazines will have same load out.

Cargo boxes also have 50% speed 20 drones.

Re Cargo boxes, are these 400 drones [50 drone per cargo box] free or must they be paid for some how ?

Re Reloads, can the CBT reload from cargo boxes directly to a D rack magazine in 1 step ?
Can this be done during combat ?

Re the Kzinti CD next.
It has 6 B racks and 6 cargo boxes.
Can it reload drones from cargo to ready racks or must the drones be loaded into storage and then into racks ?
Same question re cost of cargo boxes drones, is there one ?

Next up is unloading drones from racks into cargo boxes.
Seems it can be done directly but can it be done if the cargo boxes are already full of drones?
Basically, my opponent unloaded a bunch of slow drones from racks into cargo and then loaded up speed 20 drones from cargo directly into the rack magazine of the CBT and rack of the CD ships bypassing storage.

Thanks.

Cheers
Frank

By Francois Lemay (Princeton) on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 10:42 pm: Edit

To follow up my post above, how many speed 20 drones can the Kzinti CBT have in Y166 ?
I believe it is 36 ?

Thanks.

Cheers
Frank

By Charles Carroll (Carroll) on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 10:43 pm: Edit

Also ref to Frank's question....are all the drones in cargo....all 400 of them...available for use in a single encounter if it goes long enough? And if so...are they also based on the percentages...if so...in a regular encounter if he can just pull and pull and pull from cargo...he should never run out of speed 20 drones. Well not for like 20 turns or more.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Friday, September 27, 2019 - 12:34 am: Edit

Frank,
(FD2.43), (FD2.44), (FD2.442), (FD2.4421), (FD2.445), Y166 (FD10.65) the Kzinti Tug with two battle pods, D racks up to 50% speed 20 type I drones, a total of 36.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Friday, September 27, 2019 - 01:35 pm: Edit

Just a curiosity question regarding answer from Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, September 26, 2019 - 04:06 pm:
How are these multiple weapon strikes resolved at the same time different (if at all) from experience "points" if multiple players are involved and the point of the scenario is to win by victory conditions? How are simultaneous impacts differentiated between different players, especially if reinforcement offsets any weapon damage? And again, this reflects on victory conditions in a scenario, which can include "shield damage" scoring a few token points.
The rule that was singled out, "ANSWER: Rule (D4.22) says in part: "All damage points scored against a given shield in a given damage step must be resolved together and are collectively known as a "volley.", strikes me as a touch ambiguous regarding my question/s above.
THanks.

By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Friday, September 27, 2019 - 01:44 pm: Edit

As an example. Three players. player 1 fires a phaser and scores 4 points on player 3. At the same time, player 2 fires a phaser and scores 2 points on player 3. Thus, 6 points of damage on same shield on player 3. But player 3 has 4 points of shield reinforcement on that exact shield. You get 1 victory point for doing a point of damage on a shield. Who gets the victory point (at that point of the game, no pun intended).

Or better yet, player 1 scores 1 point of damage on player 3, and player 2 scores 1 point of damage on player 3, same shield, same conditions and only 1 point of reinforcement. Who gets the victory point?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, September 27, 2019 - 03:32 pm: Edit

Glenn Hoepfner:

In your first case, the larger part of the damage volley is resolved first, so it only destroys the shield reinforcement. The smaller part of the damage scores two points of shield damage.

In your second case, since the two are equal, you would roll a die or toss a coin to determine which point of damage hit the reinforcement and which hit the shield.

Note that the combining of damage on a single shield into a "volley" is because of the BOLD only once per volley hits. And the subdivision is (usually, but slightly different in your case) because of the "phaser directional damage" rule. So even though the damage scored by ships A, B, and C all hit the #1 shield of Ship D, the fact that ship A can only be hit by the FA and LF/L phasers, and ship C can only be hit by the FA and RF/R phasers, and ship B can be hit by all the phasers means that as part of the volley you have to account for the damage scored by each ship individually. Thus if ship A scored the most damage, its damage would be resolved first, and if any of its damage penetrates, any phaser hits would be resolved on phasers that can fire at it. If its damage does not penetrate the shield, then you go to the next largest damage amount and resolve it, but it is still all part of one volley for BOLD damage and phaser direction has to be taken into account.

If ship A's volley penetrated the shield and scored two phaser hits, and ship B's damage (if ship B had the second largest damage amount) scored two phaser hits, then the only way ship C's damage could strike a phaser is if you got deep into the DAC (the "H" column or deeper) because ships A and B have already scored the four BOLD phaser results for the volley.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Friday, September 27, 2019 - 06:37 pm: Edit

Frank, Charles - unless either ship (CBT, CD) is doing drone bombardment, they have 0 (zero) drones in the cargo bays intrinsically for D-racks (CBT) have no reloads (FD3.44), while the CD uses (FD2.43).

On a DB mission, each ship would have 100 III-XX drones stored in the racks and its reload (for the CD) with excess drones stored in the cargo bay. The CD would have 18 in the rack, 18 in reload storage and the remaining 64 in cargo (after Y175, 18 more would be in second reload [18/36/46] and not in cargo), the CBT would have 36 in the racks and the remaining 64 in cargo.

For purchased drones (Commander Options) they are stored with the reloads (FD2.442) except that the CBT (D-racks) don't have reload storage so would be added to the cargo bay.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, September 27, 2019 - 06:43 pm: Edit

Francois Lemay asked on 26 Sept 19: My knowledge of drones is very weak leading to a few questions re drones and how they operate.
Its Y166 and the Kzinti CBT has 6 D racks and 8 cargo boxes.
My belief is it can upgrade to 50% ready racks speed 20 drones.
The other 2 magazines will have same load out.

ANSWER: Under (FD3.44) you pay for the drones of one (1) of the three magazines and the other two magazines have proportional reloads. Proportional means that the drones in the other two magazines cannot be more restricted or more expensive than the drones in the magazine you paid for, just as normal reloads for non-type-D drone racks cannot be. As Speed 20 (medium speed) drones are "Restricted availability" in Y166 (FD10.65) and the Kzintis are allowed to have 50% of their drones be restricted types (this includes the 20% that could be limited types), two of the drones in the magazine you pay for can be medium speed (50%), and two of the drones in each of the other two magazines can be medium speed at no additional cost. So the six type-D drone racks could have (total) 36 type-IM drones (two in each magazine), but could have no other special drones. (An exception is that a type-IM drone might be further modified, e.g., with ATG guidance, armor, extended range etc. Or you could fit it with "limited" technology but that would also affect the drones in the other magazines).

Cargo boxes also have 50% speed 20 drones.

ANSWER: Correct under (FD2.445).

Re Cargo boxes, are these 400 drones [50 drone per cargo box] free or must they be paid for some how ?

ANSWER: Under (FD2.445) they are free and again are proportional to what you purchased for the one magazine of each of your six type-D drone racks.

Re Reloads, can the CBT reload from cargo boxes directly to a D rack magazine in 1 step ?
Can this be done during combat ?

ANSWER: Under (FD2.442) and its subsections this occurs automatically unless you as the player forestal it, and you can choose which drone spaces are moved from cargo storage to the magazines.

Re the Kzinti CD next.
It has 6 B racks and 6 cargo boxes.
Can it reload drones from cargo to ready racks or must the drones be loaded into storage and then into racks ?
Same question re cost of cargo boxes drones, is there one ?

ANSWER: (FD2.442) defines the movement of drones from cargo to the drone racks. When you load a drone from reload storage, a drone is automatically taken from cargo storage to replace that drone in reload storage, but it seems pretty clear that a drone taken from cargo must go to reload storage first before it can be loaded into a drone rack. There is a specific exception for a type-D drone rack (no reload storage), i.e., in that case the drone goes directly to a magazine.

Next up is unloading drones from racks into cargo boxes.
Seems it can be done directly but can it be done if the cargo boxes are already full of drones?
Basically, my opponent unloaded a bunch of slow drones from racks into cargo and then loaded up speed 20 drones from cargo directly into the rack magazine of the CBT and rack of the CD ships bypassing storage.

ANSWER: The drones have to be someplace. And (FD2.442) specifically allows you to unload a rack, but notes that you cannot unload a rack (or a type-D magazine) and load it on the same turn (cannot take out one drone space a load a new drone space on the same turn). But, yes you can do this, but you cannot have more than two spaces of drone "in transit" for a given rack in a given turn. Under (FD3.43) you could unload two drone spaces from each magazine of a type-D drone rack, but if you do so, the rack cannot launch a drone on that turn. You could also unload two spaces from two of the magazines and launch a drone from the third, or you could unload two drone spaces from one magazine and still launch a drone from one of the other two magazines. Note that two spaces is the maximum that can be loaded or unloaded, and it would be perfectly legal to only unload one space. But you cannot load and unload from a given drone rack or type-D magazine on the same turn. You could load one magazine, unload the second magazine, and launch a drone from the third magazine all on the same turn.

To follow up my post above, how many speed 20 drones can the Kzinti CBT have in Y166 ?
I believe it is 36 ?

ANSWER: At the start of a scenario each type-D drone rack can have two medium speed drones in each magazine for a total of 36 in the type-D drone racks, and it would have another 100 type-IM drones in its cargo boxes. It would only pay to upgrade 12 (two per type-D drone rack) of these 136 drones to medium speed.