Question about ESGs.

Sapphire 7 fight yesterday. My ESG comes up at range 3. There is a Romulan shuttle at range 3, and the Romulan ship at range 4.

I could _swear_ I remember a rule that said I could choose if the shuttle is inside or outside the ESG.

But, in searching, we found this.

(G23.562) At the time of formation, all units in the same hex as a forming ESG are considered to be “outside” the ESG for purposes of moving toward or away from the generating ship.

I could not find anything else to back up my memory that the Lyran ship had a choice, so we went with it. But, I want to ask here...

Is this a situation where something changed? I could absolutely swear there is, or was, a rule section that explained in detail that when a target is in the same hex as the ESG that just came up, the ESG-generating ship had the choice to declare that target 'inside' or 'outside' the ESG.

In this situation, I definitely wanted the shuttle inside the ESG, so I could hit the main ship with the full (remaining) 9 points of ESG, and not have to split the damage 5/4.

Thank you,
-DC

By John M. Williams (Jay) on Wednesday, January 27, 2021 - 12:13 pm: Edit

Hi David,

You are probably remembering Rule G23.72. This rule allows the Lyran player to select which friendly units are inside the ESG if the ESG is radius zero. Since it is limited to radius zero ESGs, it would not apply to your example, and the general rule of G23.562 would apply.

Jay

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, January 27, 2021 - 01:48 pm: Edit

Scott Tenhoff Asked on Friday, January 22, 2021

So in F&E, we have been debating a Fed. HDW-Z configuration, which has 4x F-111s. I thought Fed HDW's couldn't have external mech links for F-111s. Has that changed? And if it has, does that allow an HDW-E to have a F-111 mech link to reload F-111s?

REPLY: When heavy fighters appeared, the rules on basing them were not considered, you simply substituted one heavy fighter for two normal fighters. You could have an E4V operate with three heavy fighters rather than six size-1 fighters, or if you wanted you could have a CVA operate with two squadrons of heavy fighters. There was no limit on their deployment save the number of fighters to be replaced. So when Module R6 (1995) was done there were not really any DESIGNATED heavy fighter carriers except the Federation NVH [(R2.56) in Module K] which was a sort of PF tender substitute. So the Federation HDW was prohibited from using the PF tender rule (G33.46) in the errata in Captain’s Log #18 (1999). Many players simply assumed that the same rule applined to the escort, i.e., two ready racks on the escort became a single larger ready rack for one heavy fighter.
Then in 2002 Module J2 was published.
This introduced a wider deployment of heavy fighters on near PFT ships. At that point a look was taken at the HDWs and they were not proscribed from operating heavy fighters, but were simply assumed to use (G33.42) with heavy fighters replacing the fighters. But rule (S8..318-A) was printed prohibiting the escorts from having ready racks for size 2 fighters [and, yes, this applies to HDW-Es under (G33.43)].
With the appearance of Module J2 providing Specialized (Scout Carriers) heavy fighter carriers, it was decided to integrate heavy fighters into Federation & Empire. This introduced several aspects.
One was the decision that except for some Size Class 3 carriers, and an exemption for HDWs, no carrier could carry heavy fighters unless it could operate a full squadron of Six heavy fighters, e.g., the E4V (and other small carriers) was prohibited. Furthers, no heavy carrier could operate more than one heavy fighter squadron. There were other restrictions, but it was decided that HDWs could operate fewer than six heavy fighters because they were "unique," and this includes the Heavy Lancer. As part of such decisions, the HDW when operating in this mode (carrying heavy fighters) lost its two Size 1 Fighers (applies across empires, e.g., a Klingon F5HV cannot have two Z-Ys and five Heavy fighters.
So the result is the Ship Description in the Federation Master Starship Book. Which provides for Six F-111s, no special sensors and four admin shuttles, or four F-111s, two special sensors and four admin shuttles.

Sorry this took so long, but I could not find where the Question was asked even though I swear I looked in this topic.

By David Cheng (Davec) on Wednesday, January 27, 2021 - 03:02 pm: Edit

Jay,

My memory is definitely not related to just radius-zero ESGs.

Maybe it's just my encroaching senility...
Or maybe there was a rule change. Dunno.

-DC

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Wednesday, January 27, 2021 - 06:33 pm: Edit

(G23.562) the rule referenced is in my Module C1 (1991 edition).

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Thursday, January 28, 2021 - 04:49 pm: Edit

(G23.562) is in the SFB Master Rulebook.

(G23.562) At the time of formation, all units in the same hex as a forming ESG are considered to be “outside” the ESG for purposes of moving toward or away from the generating ship. If such units move toward the generating ship (or vice versa), they are treated as “jumping” (G23.571) the ESG. [Note specifically that a shuttle outside of, but in the same hex as, a radius zero ESG field that announces it is crashing aboard (J1.65) will still impact the ESG even though landing is not done during the Movement Segment (6A)]. If they move away from the generating ship (or vice versa), they take no damage. If they move into another hex of the same ESG field, they take damage as per (G23.561), note that an ESG hex might slide into a non-ESG unit and this is resolved in the manner as if the non-ESG unit slid into the ESG hex. There is a partial exception in (G23.72)

By Andy Koch (Droid) on Thursday, January 28, 2021 - 05:04 pm: Edit

Dave,
You can chose which of your units is inside or outside. You have no choice when it comes to your opponent.
-Fellow ESG Masochist (FEM)

By John M. Williams (Jay) on Thursday, January 28, 2021 - 09:35 pm: Edit

In rule M2.47, there is an example in which six mines are in the same hex, with mine 1 set to trigger for target 1, mine 2 set for target 2, mine 3 for target 3, etc. It then says six ships enter the hex at sufficient speed to trigger the mines.

Am I correct that the discussion in the example about which ship triggered which mine is primarily relevant to captor mines so you know which mine fired at which ship? It would seem that if all six mines are explosive, determining which ship triggered which mine is irrelevant. Is this correct or am I missing something?

Also, if I understand this example correctly, since the six ships triggered all six mines, this means that one way to ensure a stack of ships entering the range of a stack of t-bombs will trigger multiple bombs is to have the bombs sequenced for T(target)1, T2, etc. (assuming other criteria met). Is this correct? Otherwise, there is a chance that all the ships could trigger the same bomb and only one explodes.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Friday, January 29, 2021 - 01:56 pm: Edit

John....yes you are missing something.

It matters a lot as to what is triggered and by which ship.

So you have 6 mines and 6 ships.

Here is why It matters.

You roll a 6 sided dice for each ship with each number being a separate mine. Rolls are 1 2 3 4 5 6
Then yes....every mine explodes as each ship rolled a different number.

But...you have each ship roll...and the roll is 1 1 1 1 4 4. Now only 2 mines explode. Since 4 ships were close to the number 1 and 2 were close to the number 4. It is actually possible that only a single mine might be set off with your example. Though normally it would be most of them.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, January 29, 2021 - 03:57 pm: Edit

John Williams:

Rule (M2.47) is not that simple and is actually worse.

You have six mines (for simplicity all in one hex) and six ships that meet the mines' instructions move into their detection zone. You establish the mines order.

It is improbable but perfectly within the rules that when you roll the die for each ship to determine if a a mine was triggered that even though all of the mines could be triggered, ONLY ONE will be triggered. It is not likely, but it could happen. That is why you do not delete a triggered mine from the order list, because another unit might trigger that same mine rather than another one.

By John M. Williams (Jay) on Friday, January 29, 2021 - 07:36 pm: Edit

I still don't think I'm getting this.

Let's simplify it to three ships (A, B and C) and three mines: mine 1 set for target 1, mine 2 for target 2, and mine 3 for target 3.

Can you walk me through what happens if ship A rolls a 2, ship B also rolls a 2, and ship C rolls a 1?

Thanks in advance.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Friday, January 29, 2021 - 10:57 pm: Edit

Mines can be set for size class and skip count not for target.

By John M. Williams (Jay) on Saturday, January 30, 2021 - 09:11 am: Edit

In my example, I am using "target" to refer to skip count. So the mine set for target 1 will trigger on the first ship to enter its range, the mine set for target 2 will skip the first ship and trigger on the second, etc.

By John M. Williams (Jay) on Saturday, January 30, 2021 - 11:08 am: Edit

I've continued to think about this, and the source of my confusion may be that in the example in M2.47 there isn't actually anything to be calculated based on the conditions of the example. It says there are six ships in a stack (call them A through F) and six mines in a hex (call them 1 through 6). Mine 1 is set to trigger on the first acceptable target, mine 2 on the second acceptable target, etc.

Let's say the order of the ships is B C E F A D. There is only one mine, mine 1, set to trigger on the first acceptable target, in this case ship B. Similarly, there is only one mine set to trigger on the second target, in this case ship C, and so on down the line. So for the example created in the rules, no calculation is necessary. Each ship meets the triggering criteria of one, and only one, mine.

Now, keep the conditions the same (six ships/six mines), but change the mines' targeting instructions such that mines 1 and 2 will trigger on the first acceptable target, mines 3 and 4 will trigger on the second, and mines 5 and 6 on the third. With this change, calculations become necessary. Assuming the ships are in the same order as above, then ship B could trigger mine 1 or 2, C could trigger mine 3 or 4, and E could trigger mine 5 or 6. Ships F A and D don't trigger any mines because no mine is set to trigger on the fourth, fifth or sixth acceptable targets. So only three mines will detonate, and ship B needs to roll between mines 1 and 2, ship C between mines 3 and 4, and E between 5 and 6.

Making it a little more complicated, let's keep everything the same as in the previous paragraph, but change mines 5 and 6 to accept any target. Assuming the ships are in the same order as above, then mines 1 and 2 can only be triggered by ship B, and mines 3 or 4 can only be triggered by ship C. However, now any of the six ships could trigger mine 5 and any of the ships can trigger mine 6. So in this case, ship B can trigger one of four mines: 1 2 5 or 6, ship C can trigger one of four mines: 3 4 5 or 6, and ships E F A and D can trigger either 5 or 6.

Do I have it figured out?

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Saturday, January 30, 2021 - 12:26 pm: Edit

Not exactly. One needs to do two things for automatic explosive mines: 1) specify a size class, 2) specify the number of passes. (Your phrasing of "targets" confuse me.)

To do all 6 ships as in your example, you would specify SC2, SC3, and SC4 for each mine. Then specify the number of passes. In this case 1 pass, 2 passes, 3 passes, 4 passes, 5 passes, 6 passes respectively.

The 6 ships would trigger 6 mines, by definition.

If for example, the pass for the 6 mines was 1. Then only 1 mine would explode, as explained above.

(My answer is unofficial of course, but that is the way I see things happening.)

By John M. Williams (Jay) on Saturday, January 30, 2021 - 12:28 pm: Edit

Rewriting my question since my previous use of the word "target" seemed to be confusing people.

I've continued to think about this, and the source of my confusion may be that in the example in M2.47 there isn't actually anything to be calculated based on the conditions of the example. It says there are six ships in a stack (call them A through F) and six mines in a hex (call them 1 through 6). Mine 1 is set to trigger on the first ship which meets its criteria, mine 2 on the second ship, etc.

Let's say the order of the ships is determined to be B C E F A D, and the ships meet the mines' other criteria. There is only one mine, mine 1, set to trigger on the first acceptable ship, in this case ship B. Similarly, there is only one mine set to trigger on the second ship, in this case ship C, and so on down the line. So for the example created in the rules, no calculation is necessary. Each ship meets the triggering criteria of one, and only one, mine.

Now, keep the conditions the same (six ships/six mines), but change the mines' triggering instructions such that mines 1 and 2 will trigger on the first ship (any size class is acceptable), mines 3 and 4 will trigger on the second, and mines 5 and 6 on the third. With this change, calculations become necessary. Assuming the ships are in the same order as above, then ship B could trigger mine 1 or 2, C could trigger mine 3 or 4, and E could trigger mine 5 or 6. Ships F A and D don't trigger any mines because no mine is set to trigger on the fourth, fifth or sixth ships. So only three mines will detonate, and ship B needs to roll between mines 1 and 2, ship C between mines 3 and 4, and E between 5 and 6.

Making it a little more complicated, let's keep everything the same as in the previous paragraph, but change mines 5 and 6 to accept any ship that comes into range. Assuming the ships are in the same order as above, then mines 1 and 2 can only be triggered by ship B, and mines 3 or 4 can only be triggered by ship C. However, now any of the six ships could trigger mine 5 and any of the ships can trigger mine 6. So in this case, ship B can trigger one of four mines: 1 2 5 or 6, ship C can trigger one of four mines: 3 4 5 or 6, and ships E F A and D can trigger either 5 or 6.

Do I have it figured out?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Saturday, January 30, 2021 - 05:53 pm: Edit

John M. Willaims:

I honestly thought this was an easy question to answer, but I have to admit that the answers I thought were obvious are proving elusive. (This may seem like I am not taking you seriously, and it is a problem with a print only board that poor word choices do not reflect the true gravity). I have looked at the rules from my perspective, and I have no choice but to make SVC listen to me and get an answer out of him. They way I am looking at the rules right now is totally contradictory, and has left me as baffled and confused as you no doubt are (and probably a lot of other people reading my words. but as it stands right now I can honestly read it as six ships might possibly only trigger one mine but that flies in the face of a pretty clear claim that all WILL be triggered. So I am going to have to catch SVC when he has some time to discuss this and I apologies for that.

By John M. Williams (Jay) on Saturday, January 30, 2021 - 08:02 pm: Edit

No worries. Thanks for the follow up. I'm actually glad that I am not the only one who was confused by this.

Jay

By John M. Williams (Jay) on Sunday, January 31, 2021 - 02:06 am: Edit

It occurs to me that the example becomes easier to understand if you think of the mines as captor mines. The six mines are in the same hex, and mine 1 is programmed to fire at the first ship entering the hex, mine 2 is programmed to fire at the second ship, etc.

So when the six ships enter the hex, they will start triggering the mines. Although the ships are in a stack and entered the hex on the same impulse, the order of precedence (from my previous discussion) determined that ship B entered the hex first, ship C second, E third, F fourth, A fifth and D sixth. Since only one ship can be first, ship B is the only ship that can trigger mine 1, and mine 1 fires at B. Similarly, ship C is the only ship that can trigger mine 2, and mine 2 fires at C. It continues down the line with mine 3 firing at E, mine 4 at F, mine 5 at A, and mine 6 at D. Because of how the mines were programmed, each mine could only be triggered by a single ship and all six mines had to be triggered.

Modifying the example a bit, if there were only four ships, mines 1 through 4 would have to be triggered, and mines 5 and 6 would not fire because a fifth or a sixth ship had not yet entered the hex.

Which I believe answers my original question. If these are captor mines with different weapons, you need to know which mine fired at which ship so you can calculate the hit probability and/or damage accordingly. On the other hand, if these are all explosive mines, since the six ships must trigger all six mines, it really doesn't matter which ship triggered which mine because all six ships will be in the blast radius for all six mines.

So if my interpretation is correct, programming a stack of mines to be triggered by the first ship, second ship, etc. is a way to set up the stack that avoids the possibility that multiple ships or even all the ships will trigger the same mine.

Jay

By Peter DiMitri (Pdimitri) on Sunday, January 31, 2021 - 03:46 pm: Edit

(S8.334) Some size class 2 ships, designated DNLs and including
light battleships like the Klingon B9, are designed for independent
raids and might appear in a scenario by themselves, or be
accompanied by other fast ships.

Does this mean that if DNLs are accompanied by non-fast ships, that the DNL falls under the restrictions of S8.331 where a size class 2 needs 3 consorts?

Or, since the DNL can operate alone, can it have any fast or non-fast ships even below the 3 consort rule?

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Sunday, January 31, 2021 - 04:23 pm: Edit

Well,

Regarding: "Now, keep the conditions the same (six ships/six mines), but change the mines' targeting instructions such that mines 1 and 2 will trigger on the first acceptable target, etc."

They way I see it is as follows:

All six ships can trigger mines 1 or 2. They would have to roll to see which one actually does the deed. Note that only 1 mine will explode. Let us say 1 goes off. 2 will not. (In my example, 6 ships will trigger mine 1. It is a matter of determining which ship does the deed.)

The five remaining ships can trigger mines 3 or 4. Note that mine 2's criteria was already satisfied and will not explode. Say ship 2 triggers mine 3. 4 will not not explode. (In my example, 5 ships will trigger mine 2. It is a matter of determining which of the 5 ships will trigger mine 2.)

The four remaining ships would trigger mine 5 or 6. etc. (Ibid in my example.)

So with your example 3 of the 6 ships will trigger 3 mines and the rest are safe.

In my example 6 ships will trigger 6 mines. This is because the number of passes for the 6 mines is unique.

(My answer is unofficial of course, but that is the way I see things happening.)

By John M. Williams (Jay) on Sunday, January 31, 2021 - 06:55 pm: Edit

Hi John,

It sounds like we are in agreement. In a situation where six mines are in a hex, and the first mine is programmed to detonate when the first ship enters the hex, the second mine is programmed to detonate with the second ship, third with the third, fourth with the fourth, etc., that if six ships enter that hex on the same impulse, they must detonate all six mines.

Jay

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 01, 2021 - 12:32 am: Edit

Pretty much John, The main thing is most people do not use skip counts. And they set mines to anything unless they want to pass through.

So yes...using skip counts...6 ships would auto set off 6 mines. Using size class and having all different size classes would set off all 6 mines. Setting no skip and all sizes....would mean roll for every ship...see which mine it was detected by and then base which mines went off according to how many saw a different ship.

So with the last possibility. From 1 to 6 mines would go off.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, February 01, 2021 - 01:55 pm: Edit

Peter DiMitri:

If the DNL (or BBL) is operating as a normal command ship (albeit with a lower command rating of 9 rather than the 10), then the normal rules apply. If you want to DNL or BBL to operate as a fast ship on a raid, then any accompanying ships have to be fast also and consorts per-se are not contingent on that, e.g., if operating on a raid it (the DNL or BBL) might be unaccompanied or accompanied by only one other fast ship, or two other fast ships.

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Monday, February 01, 2021 - 05:03 pm: Edit

Hi Charles, methinks I got the example wrong (for triggering mines 1-2, 3-4, 5-6). I know how Steve Petrick feels now!

I was working with the adage that once a ship triggers a mine, it cannot trigger another mine.
And once a mine explodes, other mines with the identical detection criteria will not explode.

If 1 ship enters a hex with 6 mines with the same detection criteria, only 1 mine could explode. But for two or more ships, things are indeed complicated.

The flaw in my thinking is that once one mine exploded I stopped checking.

I've thought of three possible examples. Unfortunately all have slightly different results.

Example "A" - I concede that 6 ships will likely set off both mines 1 and 2. I select ship 1 and 4. For mines 3 and 4, only four ships would roll (2, 3, 5, 6). It was a miracle, no mines exploded. For mines 5 and 6, only ship 2 set off mine 5 (though 4 ships would roll). This procedure is working sequentially because there are three detection criteria. I.E. checking mines 1-2 first, 3-4 second, 5-6 third.

Example "B" - Assume that all mines have technically met their detection criteria (one to three passes respectively) would it be it be correct to have all ships roll a d6? After all six mines are present and one ship can at most set off one mine. (say the ship rolls were 1 3 4 3 4 6). Mines 1, 3, 4, and 6 would explode.

Example "C" - Would things work like this? Assume that ship 1 is the first pass (it will set off either mine 1 or 2). Ship 2 is the second pass (it will set off either mine 3 or 4). Ship 3 is the third pass (it would set off either mine 5 or 6). Ships 4 thru 6 are the 4th, 5th, 6th pass and would set off no mines.

(My answers are definitely unofficial and I am now unsure as to what is supposed to happen for the example - for triggering mines 1-2, 3-4, 5-6).