Thank you SPP.

By Norman Dizon (Ichaborn) on Monday, February 08, 2021 - 03:54 pm: Edit

Bounty Hunters...We don't Need their Scum.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Monday, February 08, 2021 - 04:54 pm: Edit

An SFB turn isn't that long. I would be shocked if a crew started survey within less than 100 turns of finishing a battle where significant damage was taken.

You need to do things like check the destroyed spaces for injured, make sure nothing is on fire, run a partial systems check, and record a log entry.

Then your department heads and the captain and XO need to at least have a brief status meeting to make sure everything that needs to be done is being done.

Poof, 100 turns has passed, and your spare shuttle is out.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Wednesday, February 10, 2021 - 03:01 am: Edit

I was looking in the Masters Index for the updated S8 Patrol rules (things like S8.57) and could not find them.
It was posted before on the BBS however I have not found it.
(it did come out in a Captains Log I think, and I do not have it).

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Wednesday, February 10, 2021 - 05:14 pm: Edit

Ok first off, let me state for the record....the tractor rules specifically allow this at least according to the way they are interpreted as they exist today.

With that said. That is JUST WRONG and it makes impossible situations occur. I just lost a fight because two ships were able to both run speed 30...as in get 30 hexes of actual movement when one ship had a max of 28 from warp and 1 from impulse. So the max it could do was 29.

Because when a friendly unit tractors another friendly unit and they do it specifically to boost speed so they do not miss movement you have two ships that spend warp and impulse to achieve speed 27 both run the entire turn at 30.

The movement rules are very specific about needing to spend warp power or 1 impulse to get movement. Speed changes require covering any movement you pick up...with movement energy.

You want to do a het at 27? Cannot because that requires more movement that you have even though later you will reduce speed.

So how can a tractor...grant you something a warp engine cannot??????

I know...Steve and SVC have told me to shut up...and just deal with it. But this is simply wrong.

Chuck

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Wednesday, February 10, 2021 - 05:24 pm: Edit

As a Plasma Player I feel your pain My Plasma will hit and catch them... nope tractor tricks and they take nothing.

Is it wrong? Is it a broken rule being taken advantage of? It does not fit reality?

I do not know? However i simply have had to find a way to deal with it.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Wednesday, February 10, 2021 - 05:36 pm: Edit

The issue is with a single ship vs 2 ships...I spend all my power to run away so I can then turn and come at them. But two ships...can use tractor tricks that I cannot use. So in this situation I just had...they could ran as fast or faster than I can. And on a closed map...well...things become totally different than if they had to actually use the power.

Add in the fact that if both ships were limited to speed 27 by damage, they could still run speed 30. Really???? And you want to tell me a tractor that is pulling your ship and causing it to slow down makes you able to run physically faster than you can legally run?

I do not think this should be allowed.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Wednesday, February 10, 2021 - 05:42 pm: Edit

Chuck

First answer - rounding error in their favor, using your example there is a 30 (15) ship tractored to a 28+1 (14+1) ship giving both an effective speed of 30 (15+14+01).

Remember that when tractored, the front ship is dragging the back ship while the back ship is shoving the front ship, at the same time! Because both at at (pseudo) speed 15, both ships are moved (either dragging or shoving) over two impulses (leaving only two impulses where neither is moved) ...

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Wednesday, February 10, 2021 - 05:50 pm: Edit

Stewart

Yes...but in your example. They actually are paying for the movement. Other than a rounding error.

But when you have two ships. With the warp and impulse power able to spend 27 movement energy. Yet they each move 30 hexes in a turn. Something is beyond wrong here.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Wednesday, February 10, 2021 - 07:29 pm: Edit

Ok just to be clear.

Per the rules now. A player with two ships...Maximum speed due to damage is 27. That is all the warp and impulse they have period.

They have APR and bats for additional power. They have two tractors each.

They can move at speed 27 and because of tractor tricks. Both ships can move 30 hexes a turn. Neither can legally move 30 hexes using warp/impulse power. But because of a Tractor...can move 30 hexes. I have a serious problem with this since it violates every other rule in the game.

Chuck

By Frank Lemay (Princeton) on Thursday, February 11, 2021 - 03:00 pm: Edit

Question re FLG.
Are these ships considered as leaders or a regular ship ?

Thanks

Cheers
Frank

By Frank Lemay (Princeton) on Thursday, February 11, 2021 - 03:07 pm: Edit

Question re FLG.
Are these sips considered as leaders or a regular ship ?

Thanks.

Cheers
Frank

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, February 11, 2021 - 05:29 pm: Edit

Frank Lemay, If you mean "Police Flagships"

(S8.551) A squadron of police ships could be led by a frigate or by a police flagship. A police flagship cannot lead a non-police squadron. A police flagship counts as a scout unless it is leading a squadron of at least two other police ships of frigate size or smaller.

So if it is not leading a Squadron, it counts as a scout. You can use it as a leader, but only for other police ships.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, February 11, 2021 - 05:46 pm: Edit

Charles Carroll:

You may be offended, and for that I apologize, but it has been in the rules for many, many years. And your situation is dependent on specifics. Two ships each of which (if movement cost 1) have 26 points of warp power for movement, one point of Impulse power for movement, and two points of tractor power available, and still able to pay Housekeeping (Life Support, Fire Control, and Shields) for a total of 33 points of power in total. Or down three points if the ships were two Federation Heavy Cruisers. Did the plasma or drone ship consider that you were going to run? Put all your power for a turn into running, and hold their weapons and simply pursue? Or were they unable to pursue? If you keep running with no power to weapons, are you disengaging with only minor damage (three points of power anc obviously a down shield)? (no sarcasm, sometimes running is a good idea.) But you seem fixated on this and it is part of the game, and the sequence that it comes up is relatively finite .

By Richard Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Thursday, February 11, 2021 - 06:20 pm: Edit

A WE only has 32 power (with batteries) so cannot do the energy expenditure SPP outlined.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Thursday, February 11, 2021 - 06:24 pm: Edit

Maximum speed due to damage is 27. That is all the warp and impulse they have period.

OK (G7.36B) says that if equal then ignore any impulse power (though one could use it if both ships agree). This breaks down to both ship moving at 13 (or one at 13+1 impulse) with is 26 (or 27) at base. Now with dropping and reattaching tractors [watching the 8 impulse delay for using another tractor (G7.332)] with their base of 27, tractors could be dropped on Impulses 8, 16 and 21 (and new ones on 9, 17 and 22) for an effective speed of 29 (don't forget that there was a tractor to start with for all four being used). Impulses not moved would be 1, 2 and 27 (though it might be 22 instead of 27 unless a fifth tractor became involved which does up the overall speed to 30).

So two Lyran CAs could do this (27 base then using tractor tricks to gain 3 extra hexes of movement) though the power destroyed to make this happen is tight (start with 37 each and would need 33 for one and 34 on the other)

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, February 11, 2021 - 06:45 pm: Edit

Stewart Frazier:

I am assuming that for the fist movement the two ships agree that ship "A" will use its impulse, then they drop tractors, and after a few impulses ship "B" tractors ship "A" and both agree that it will use its impulse, then after a few impulses it drops its tractor link. Repeat for the Third and Fourth Movement. There is a requirement that no ship can Attach a tractor beam to a ship which it had voluntarily dropped a tractor link in the last eight impulses, so they have to alternate tractoring one another, and there is no Requirement that the Impulse power being used to move the two ships has to alternate or cannot be used. so either ship's impulse engines could provide the movement while they are linked, they just have to agree that it will done.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Thursday, February 11, 2021 - 07:09 pm: Edit

Re: Tractor shenanigans:

If the rules allow it, then clearly no rules are being violated. The principle ideas behind some of the rules may be, but that's a different question. It's clearly an artifact of the game system - but all games have those to one degree or another, and the question there becomes: "Is the game more impacted by the corner case in question or the rules that would be needed to close it off?"

Chuck, you say you lost a game because of this - where the "this" is three extra hexes of movement. I think it is reasonable to say that if that was the difference in the game is three hexes of movement from ships that weren't doing much of anything else in the process, it was razor-close and much more often being able to engage in such tractor shenanigans won't have such a decisive effect.

So, how would a rule like that actually work - especially without producing its own rules artifacts?

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Thursday, February 11, 2021 - 08:41 pm: Edit

Lol...no argument that this does not happen all that often. The ships involved were a 2/3 move and a 1/2 move They simply used the tractor to slow one ship down to the speed it needed to move. As in 27 drops to say 14...which does move on the impulse the 27 fails to move. And this was done 3 times (Not at the start impulse from carryover.) So look at the Impulse chart...every time 27 does not move. One of the other ships would if...they were locked in a tractor. So...they picked up 3 moves. They ran together...at 27...moved 30 times.

Now as is pointed out...this is a rare thing. Ok I agree. But the point is...every rule dealing with movement requires you have the warp power to move this many hexes in a turn or you cannot.

Now some will say yeah but...I have a sublight ship. It can move only 1 Hex. But a Cruiser tractors me and drags me along for 10 to 15 hexes. Yep....it sure does. But the cruiser does not move his max speed if he was not tractored...and gain 3 more hexes to boot. In other words he loses a lot of hexes of movement to haul you along. Which is what the rules say should happen.

This takes advantage of a rule. Creates new movement requirements. Generates extra movement for all ships involved over and above their warp abilities. That is an issue.

You cannot use speed changes to generate extra movement normally. Without paying for it if you are a ship. You cannot Het...without having the required extra warp energy available. But somehow, you can run speed 30 but only be able to move speed 27.

Now sure...the 2 ships...paid a total of 3 none movement power to move 3 hexes for each of them. So why cannot I HET using standard battery power? Oh because it has to be warp or Impulse. So why can standard batteries in this case generate 3 movement points is exactly why I have an issue. There are a lot of rules making it clear you simply cannot move a ship without expending warp or impulse. Then this comes along and forget all that stuff....do anything you like...use any power...and race across the board.

Just how I am seeing this. And yeah...its been a rule for a long time. But a Friend of mine years ago used a rule...got a write up in captains log...and it was great...but unbalanced...and the rule got changed to fix the obvious error. This is such an error. No matter how long the rule has existed. It is now being abused by someone who figured out what is clearly a cheat.

Again just my opinion. I will play with it as is if I have to. But this is not what all movement rules says is required.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Thursday, February 11, 2021 - 09:14 pm: Edit

Alex, All I can say is...I screwed up at the end of turn 1. I did a lot of damage to a Knight. There was a Knight...a Lancer and a Horseman against my ISC CS and DDL. I misjudged his intent. He came faster than I could turn and evade. His fighters were on the board coming up soon. I made the choice to send in my DDL and sacrifice it...so the CS and its w PPDs could pull back. It worked...did 20 plus to the lancer internally...more damage to the Knight...and trapped all the fighters with t bombs.

Then pulled back...as he finished off the DDL and came after me. I then having recovered my PPDs turned his Knight into swiss cheese...it was alive and was able to escape through what were call a Warp Point. Now I had to contend with a Damaged Lancer and as Horseman on a 60 by 60 map with a barrier on the edges that kill you. I ran all the way across the map at speed 28 to 31. He closed on me every turn. Because I had to avoid the corners. I could not get far enough out to come around. I had hetted once already and really did not want to again. But...I was actually in a position to maybe win...with a CS vs Horseman and Lancer. If I could maintain distance. Get my PPDs into arc and use my phaser 1s better than he could he his phaser 2s and Gs. I also an EW advantage. But...with him running 30 effective. And being able to cut the corners...well it made it none workable and he finally trapped me. I did some more Damage. But nor enough and so died. I might have died anyway. But the losing 3 Plus hexes of range when I spent more power than he did certainly did not make this any easier.

By Dana Madsen (Madman) on Thursday, February 11, 2021 - 09:38 pm: Edit

Another tractor question from Sapphire Star game. I think it's previously answered on 15-Oct-19 link by Marcel Trahan but I'm going to ask again with more detail.

T2, Imp 11. Romulan ship has a Tholian ship tractored at range 2. Rom speed is 14, Tholian speed is 21. Both ships are using impulse. The two ships did not agree to let one of them use impulse so we ignore impulse power. Tholian speed is now 10 ((21-1)/2), and Romulan speed is 6 ((14-1)/2) drop fractions).

Rom HETS, per G7.36, all restrictions and conditions of (G7.32) apply to ships moving under (G7.36) except where noted.

So per (G7.3222) The Het breakdown is decreased by 1 to a 4-6. With HET Bonus, Romulan rolls a 6 for breakdown, so Romulan has broken down.

(G7.3223) If a breakdown occurs, the tractor link is broken and cannot be restored on the current turn. In addition to the damage resulting from the breakdown, the towing ship takes one point of internal damage, distributed directly by the DAC (D4.21), for each point of it's practical speed (C2.411). For the remainder of the turn, the towed ship does not move, while the towing ship automatically tumbles (C6.55).

(G7.3224) If tumbling occurs, the tumbling ship moves at its own effective speed.

Romulan is towing ship. Tholian is towed ship.

Question.
1. Is Tholian ship stopped for the rest of the turn, or would that only apply if it was a non-moving ship. It's a moving ship that is being towed (G7.36) so does the non-moving statement not apply? On impulse 12 does it go back to it's effective speed of 21 (actually on imp 11 after movement it has a pre-planned speed change to 26) so is its moving speed 26 on impulse 12.

1a. The effect of breakdown happens after all movement? So the tractor wouldn't be broken mid-movement allowing the Tholian to move at speed 21 on imp 11. I don't think this happens but can you confirm.

2. The practical speed of the Romulan is 14, not 6(which would be pseudo speed)? So it takes 14 points of internals from the tractor link being broken? Correct?

3. Ships roll for breakdown after changing facing but before moving (C6.512). Then (C6.541), The ship immediately stops [unless it "tumbles" (C6.55)]" So the Romulan is automatically tumbling, Correct? Then (C6.551) The ship CONTINUES (for the duration of the post-breakdown period) moving in the direction, and at the speed, that it was moving BEFORE ATTEMPTING the HET regardless of it's facing.

So, what speed is it tumbling at, it's pseudo speed before rolling the breakdown of 6, or it's practical speed of 14.

Damage taken.

(C6.5422) Every fifth warp box is destroyed (round fractions down when calculating these losses). This is distributed as evenly possible between the ships engines.

So, the Romulan has 4 engines (and 29 warp left after earlier damage). So it loses 5 warp and has to lose at least 1 from each engine (ie it can't take losses just on L.Wp and R.Wp, it has to lose at least 1 C. Wp to each of those engines).

Then per (C6.5423)) it suffers 2 internal damage which is combined with the damage from tumbling. (C6.5555) Roll one die and score this as internal damage. This occurs one time only and is combined with damage from (C6.542) in a single volley.

When is that volley rolled? There would be speed (14 or 6) + 2 + (1d6). Is it all at the end of the post breakdown period, or is it at the start. Does it matter if the Tholian shoots the Romulan during the tumbling period through a down shield?

Thanks

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Thursday, February 11, 2021 - 10:11 pm: Edit

So how would a rule preventing such tractor shenanigans work? In your game, what would you expect to happen after the ships have moved their 27th hex but still have scheduled movement left?

The obvious answer would be to just cancel it - but then you have the situation were two ships at speed 27 are able to complete their movement before a single ship at speed 27 and that's just as non-sensical in terms of the rules and their base principles, plus it also means those ships won't be moving on impulse 32. That's arguably a tradeoff being made, but the game does assume that moving on impulse 32 is something every moving unit gets to do.

That also requires keeping track of the number of hexes each unit is actually moving versus the hexes they paid for *at all times*. While the instance here is particularly egregious and planned to exploit this artifact, how many games over the decades have resulted in ships ending up with an extra hex of movement they didn't pay for completely unintentionally and even unnoticed due to the vagaries of temporary tractor links being mad for all kinds of other reasons than for the sake of that extra movement? How cheated will you feel when you accidently lock yourself out of an expected and crucial impulse 32 move - especially say making the turn you had planned just before the turn break to change a bearing shield or bring weapons in arc for the following impulse 1?

And if that feels bad, imagine someone engaging in such a tractor shenanigan *offensively* by looking at your speed, theirs, and seeing an opportunity to tractor you at the right point to "force" an extra hex on you and intentionally denying you that impulse 32 move?

By Dana Madsen (Madman) on Thursday, February 11, 2021 - 10:16 pm: Edit

Oh, one final question.

If on question #1. If the Tholian is stopped after the tractor is broken. Is it under any restrictions or can it launch a WW immediately on imp 11.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Thursday, February 11, 2021 - 11:21 pm: Edit

Alex while I understand your issues. Mine is more with how can you even move more than you and the person tractoring you paid for?

Realistically. The answer is fairly simple. Anytime you are Gain a movement while tractored to an ally, especially when it is a delayed movement. The delay never happens except on the last impulse because that involves the next turn. You do not get an extra move this turn.

The particular issue with what happened in this game is one ship paid to move 27. The other paid to move 27. So 27 should be the max number of actual movements that can happen. And as with Speed changes, the least you can pay to gain extra movement is what it would cost you to have originally plotted that movement. Which is reasonable. But...as mid turn speed changes show...it can cost you a higher rate to move extra depending on when it takes place.

But in this case you never pay any movement cost based on warp or Impulse and to me that is as direct a violation of the concepts and requirements of the movement rules as there has ever been. Free movement is never supposed to happen. You pay for it. Or even over pay for it. Not you get it without paying movement power.

And as my other example showed. You may not be the one paying...but the guy dragging you paid for yours and for his. Except when you each co-operate and pull yourself along by boosting your speed by picking yourself up by your bootstraps.

So in this case...when a tractor causes you to move an extra hex someone has to pay for the movement. At that time with batteries just like a mid turn speed change but without the limitation of when it can happen. So whoever picked up the movement pays. If both pick up a movement. BOTH pay. And they pay in warp energy.

By Geoffrey Clark (Spartan) on Thursday, February 11, 2021 - 11:51 pm: Edit

It is a good question about what happens to the power allocated to movement of the towed ship. Presumably the Tholian continues to move at speed 21 for several impulses, so, where does this allocated energy go? If it is simply lost by these events, then the practical speed is indeed zero, and per C2.42, a WW could be launched?

I'm suspecting that the G7.3223 rule is simply in error? And the towed ship should resume the allocated and plotted speed?

(G7.3223) If a breakdown occurs, the tractor link is broken and cannot be restored on the current turn. ... For the remainder of the turn, the towed ship does not move ...

(C2.42 & C2.43) CALCULATIONS: The effective speed, pseudo speed, and maneuver rate are all calculated independently of each other based on the practical speed. Practical Speed = Warp engine power allocated divided by movement cost, + (possibly) one point for impulse power.