(C2.1) GENERAL RULES
Movement is expressed in movement points (also known as
“movement factors” or “hexes of movement”). Movement points are
purchased by expending energy. Each ship buys movement points at
a specified rate based on its size and efficiency.
During the Energy Allocation Phase of each turn, each player
records on the Energy Allocation Form(s) a number of energy points
for movement for each of his ships. This is the amount of energy
allocated to movement.
(C2.11) LIMITS ON POWER USED: Energy allocated to movement
can only come from warp engines or impulse engines.

This clearly says must use warp or impulse to move a hex. Tractoring slows you down so you lose hexes of movement and so that is not an issue. Except...when used to bypass this rule and gain not 1 not 2 not 3 but 4 or even more hexes. Depending on number of tractors and ships involved.

There is even a rule that covers the gain a hex of movement in the rules. It is for between turns. If you manage to hang onto someone into the next turn after the tractor auction. The ships still tractored will gain a movement on impulse 1. But that requires it going over the turn break so this turn. You did not gain a movement.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 08:08 pm: Edit

Feel free to make valid comments to this any time Richard lol. Since this continued after I dropped it...I just came back. Was not me who continued it.

Anyway, there is a difference between being right...and people not wanting to change the way a rule has been allowed to exist even when most people accept that was not how it should be done. It just has been for ever, and changing it will be a real pain and most do not see the need. Different than I lost lol. But hey...join in with anything valid at any time.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 08:16 pm: Edit

Charles wrote:
>>Peter my rule would have nothing to do with reading mind. Only with what happened.>>

Only with what happened? When do you determine "what happened"?

If my DD at speed 20 tractors an FF on impulse 2 and drops to speed 12, and then moves on impulse 3 (when it wouldn't at speed 20), it gains a hex of movement. If it drops the tractor on impulse 3, and remains untractored for the rest of the turn, it has moved 21 hexes in total. When does it pay for the extra hex?

If it holds the tractor on impulse 3 and then misses a hex on impulse 4 that it would have gained if it were speed 20, then lets the tractor go for the rest of the turn, it has moved a total of 20 hexes. Did it need to pay the extra power when it moved on impulse 3?

If it holds the tractor for a few impulses, it loses a total hex of movement, moving only 19 hexes for the turn. Did it need to pay for the extra hex it got on impulse 3? Even though it moved only 19 hexes for the turn, but paid for 20? Even though it moved on impulse 3, when it wasn't supposed to when it was paying for speed 20?

I'll again point out that when you gain a hex from a tractor link, you are already paying for that movement with the tractor power. You are turning a tractor energy into a movement energy. Is this not a sufficient payment?

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 08:26 pm: Edit

"Such as if you tractor a friendly ship it cannot target anyone else because it messes up its fire control."

Tractored ships can only fire at the Tractoring ship or seeking weapons targeted on it anyways....
And you can't fire at Friendly Ships....

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 08:27 pm: Edit

No, it says you can only allocate warp and impulse to movement, and movement is expressed as movement points, which is purchased with said allocated energy.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 08:28 pm: Edit

Mark while true...it is a 1 impulse...2 at most limit. No argument about it. But...when your issue is running away. Or running to get to a specific range you need toward him. You have no intention to fire before you have moved. Once moved...the tractor restriction disappears as you drop tractor. Problem solved.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 08:30 pm: Edit

Peter that is the point. This would only apply if you could see you were going to gain a hex of movement. As the Captain you would know that the intent was to do that.

So you pay for it when you move. What happens later no longer matters.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 08:35 pm: Edit

(C2.21) MAXIMUM INCREASE: When allocating energy to
movement, the player may increase the ship’s practical speed by a
number which is equal to the previous turn’s speed, or ten, whichever
is greater. This includes warp and impulse power.
EXAMPLE: If speed on Turn #5 was three, then it could be
increased to no more than thirteen on Turn #6 (thirteen is ten more
than three). If speed is increased to thirteen on Turn #6, then on Turn
#7 speed could be increased to 26 (26 is double thirteen).


Again...this rule precludes the idea of the practical speed becoming 4 hexes more than what is possible. Unless you have a ship that is moving for the 4 example...at least 8 hexes faster at a tractored speed. So that the ship that tractors imparts 4 extra paid for hexes of movement over what could legally be done. But it is paid for by the other ship.

What is happening here is...we are running side by side. Toss a rope to each other and pull on the rope back and forth and somehow move forward extra hexes. That is not what a tractor does. It hold you in place next to another ship. It does not generate forward thrust.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 08:36 pm: Edit

Alex which means you can only move because of warp or impulse being applied.

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 08:40 pm: Edit

Charles wrote:
>>This would only apply if you could see you were going to gain a hex of movement. As the Captain you would know that the intent was to do that.>>

But whether or not you *gain* a hex of movement depends on *what happens in the future*.

DD moving speed 20 tractors a neighboring FF on impulse 2, drops to speed 12. It moves a hex on impulse 3 that it wouldn't move if it were moving speed 20. But it only *gains* a hex of movement (over the 20 it paid for) if it immediately drops the tractor after moving on impulse 3. If it keeps the tractor link on impulse 3, it then loses a movement hex, and then might end up only moving 20 hexes for the turn anyway. Or fewer, depending on how long the tractor is on, and how the neighboring FF moves.

If the issue here is "ships shouldn't be able to move more hexes than they pay for", you *won't know* if the ship is going to move more hexes than it paid for till the turn is over. Because there are so many variables that determine whether or not the ship is going to move more hexes than it paid for or not. And at the exact moment that the ship might "gain" a hex due to tractoring something, you have no idea if that is actually going to be a net gain hex of movement or not. Till you get to the future, where we see what happened.

And you keep mentioning "the Capitan knows what it is going to do". Which is suggesting that this proposed rule idea works on, ya know, the honor system. Which *doesn't work* in competitive games:

Situation 1: "I'm tractoring this friendly ship to gain a hex of movement. I'll drop the tractor next impulse, I promise, so that I gain 1 hex of total movement. I also promise that I won't get tractored later, and then end up moving less moves than I paid for. So I pay for the hex!"

Situation 2: I'm tractoring this friendly ship to gain a hex of movement. But I promise that I won't drop the tractor next impulse, so then I will miss a move the impulse after, and then not move more than I paid for. So I don't pay for the hex!"

Neither of these things are something that can be an enforceable rule.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 08:50 pm: Edit

"This would only apply if you could see you were going to gain a hex of movement. As the Captain you would know that the intent was to do that."

Oh then it clearly is never my intent to do that, I'm always intending to do something else when I apply a tractor and/or drop it. Maybe by tractor beam officer is really bored, yeah that's it.

(C2.21) refers to practical speed, which is defined as:

(C2.411) PRACTICAL SPEED is the actual speed generated by the unit (or the rate, in terms of hexes per turn, at which it is currently moving), without any effects from objects being towed (or towing the unit) or terrain-induced movement (e.g., black holes). It is used for purposes of acceleration and reversing the direction (and is the only speed used for those purposes). Practical speed can never exceed 31; see (C2.16). Tugs may have their practical speeds adjusted when dropping a pod (G14.34); note that this does not apply to towing a pod which is not attached. Practical speed is used for disengagement by acceleration (C7.1). Note specifically that if a unit were towing another unit even if it were capable of generating a pseudo speed (C2.413) less than Speed 31, it still cannot generate a practical speed greater than 31.

Tractor tricks don't violate this, as the practical speed is that generated by the unit, and that is just warp energy allocated/move cost + 1 possible point of impulse. Moving/being moved additional hexes in any fashion doesn't change the practical speed.

"Alex which means you can only move because of warp or impulse being applied." Re: (C2.1) and (C2.11) No, it means you can only purchase movement points with warp and impulse.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 08:52 pm: Edit

Peter I cannot argue with your belief in human nature since it is close to mine. But then, this also applies in most game situations when someone does something and could have done it one way or another. By the time the turn finishes and he decides to write down what he did when, maybe he shows what happens, maybe he writes something else.

Cheating happens if there are cheaters in a game you play. Can you be sure it has not in any game? Probably not. Especially person to person games. A bit harder with online in most situations.

Anyway, rules can only be enforced to an extent if someone is bending them. So...I say make the rule. Or some version of it. I still prefer coming up with a rule that totally disallows this because it causes a tractor to act as a speed boost which under no circumstances could ever happen. Well other than a rope used to slingshot someone lol. Which is great when water skiing. But an electronic tractor beam. assuming there was one, does not seem to act that way. Gravity on the other hand...well seems time travel is possible.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 08:58 pm: Edit

Would you argue it shouldn't be allowed, if you Intentionally Tractored an Enemy ship to gain that Hex ie to avoid a mine before it armed....

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 09:00 pm: Edit

Alex I will just say your answer left a lot to be desired since there is no question if you apply a tractor and only go straight or sideslip that the purpose was to gain a hex. If...by doing so you slow and turn. Ok then I might buy it. But then I will catch up a hex in the next few hexes as I continue straight. So...I doubt you are doing that. But still that is possible and as stated. I dont care why you did. If you gained a hex of movement the rewritten rule now says pay for it.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 09:04 pm: Edit

Mark Now that is an interesting issue.

But since we are trying to eliminate this bug? As I see it. That rare occurrence might well be illegal. But then your trying to tractor someone who you have no clue what power he has available to fight your tractor. (Or maybe you do) is still an offensive attack. It causes a lot of things he will not want. Besides the you avoid my T bomb. So...normally trying to grab someone for a single hex movement who is an enemy, just is not enough of an issue to worry about really. But...if need be it could be outlawed, or again require you use a point of movement power to do it.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 09:06 pm: Edit

"But an electronic tractor beam. assuming there was one, does not seem to act that way."

Where can we look up the physics of tractor beams? Maybe the "flickering" of a carefully timed tractor beam can cause a resonance effect in a ship's warp bubble, goosing it forward momentarily. The effect tends to be pretty rough on the tractor, engines, and/or other systems of the ship(s) involved, not immediately dangerous such that it matters in a game of SFB but such that the additional maintenance and repairs needed on a scale beyond what we see in SFB make it impractical for ships to just "buddy up" and run along doing this as a matter of course.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 09:11 pm: Edit

"Alex I will just say your answer left a lot to be desired since there is no question if you apply a tractor and only go straight or sideslip that the purpose was to gain a hex."

Maybe my purpose was to discharge some battery energy to have room for next turn. Maybe my purpose was to try and psyche you out. You don't *know* what my purpose was, and the rules most certainly can't. So anything saying "Well, if that's what you intended to, then you have to pay, but if you didn't then you don't have to" is not a workable rule, especially in more complex situations - like with Mark's example right above: am I tractoring you to move next impulse when I otherwise wouldn't to avoid a mine, or am I tractoring you because I don't want you to run awat?

"If you gained a hex of movement the rewritten rule now says pay for it."

Gained as compared to what?

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 09:17 pm: Edit

ROFL thanks Alex I am loving the way your mind works.

I still prefer the slingshot. Maybe I can toss your ship into a space time continuum far away.

But the physics and reality is none of this would exist if it existed. What we have is a faked concept to make tactical decisions based on imperfect concepts of movement.

The reality is our ships simply move at a steady rate of speed forward. There is a way to do this in real using angles and measurements that say your ship moves forward so many millimeters, or inches every impulse. A tractor simply does what it should...and slows you down. There....you would never have movement on an impulse different then any other.

This only happens because we have ships moving every impulse but artificially have them sitting still. And we are artificially making a ship move when it does not move so it moves further than it should or could because of the artificial stop move we use which brought us amazing tactics and a great game.

Anyway...just a side thought about physics and various science lol. Back to our way of moving which ignores what could be.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 09:20 pm: Edit

Alex I could care less what you intended. My rule says...did you Gain a hex of movement. As in move on a hex you were not scheduled to move. If so. Pay for it. Is this in anyway perfect? Heck no. But it stops or at leasts makes people pay to do this. And yes...pay when they did not intend to do this. But then they do know...if this happens they have to pay for it. So it is their choice.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 09:43 pm: Edit

I may have a simple effective rule to handle all of this requiring almost nothing.

New rule.

If you tractor someone. And you end up gaining a single point of extra movement over what you are scheduled to move. You lose the next scheduled movement since you already got to move it.

So you come in and drop tractor after movement either a single impulse of tractor or 2 impulses because you used a movement and got a delayed movement. Either of which caused you to move one more time than you were supposed to. The next actual hex of movement does not occur since you have already moved it.

There ya go. No sneaky stuff. No extra payments required. No go find some warp energy. Just at any time you gain a hex of movement because of a tractor your next movement is cancelled.

Exception. See non moving ships and/or slow moving ships where a second ship tows you and loses half its movement in order to move your ship more than one hex. (If the ship only moves you one hex. You do not gain another using your own power.)

What ya think about this simple solution guys? This happens every time you gain a movement. Now assuming you and a friend hook up...and you move...he moves...you move, he moves. ...well in that case. you each fail to move the second time. You got your two moves already.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 09:46 pm: Edit

"My rule says...did you Gain a hex of movement. As in move on a hex you were not scheduled to move. If so. Pay for it."

Except, by the rules, the ship is either moving on an impulse it is scheduled to move while under tractor, as per its pseudo speed and (G7.36) (having paid for that movement via incoporating the other ship's movement cost in calculating its own pseudo speed) or is being moved by the other ship on its scheduled move per its pseudo speed (which the other ship is effectively paying for via the first ship's move cost being included as part of calculating pseudo speed - indeed, this is the entire point of pseudo speed). Its practical speed doesn't matter here, as that is defined entirely by the energy spent to purchase movement points, and does not check against total displacement across the map.

So your rule needs to define precisely what "gaining a hex of movement" is in the context of the definitions of practical and pseudo speeds (and may well involve changing the rules definitions of those terms but that will really start to cascade across the game system and must be referenced and considered in how this affect every other rule that references and uses those speeds), and it cannot do so based on player intent but the knowable game state and other rules.

"Is this in anyway perfect? Heck no. But it stops or at leasts makes people pay to do this."

So you are proposing replacing an imperfect rule with another imperfect rule - which means really detailed analysis is needed on what the actual trade offs involved are, and you have pretty consistently not engaged with that, but just insisted that the rules as they exist "must" be changed lest it cause massive impacts on the game they somehow haven't had to date, with no actual data but just your description of it happening in one game and claims of seeing it in others.

"And yes...pay when they did not intend to do this. But then they do know...if this happens they have to pay for it. So it is their choice."

And if they don't intend to do it but it happens anyways but they don't have the power, then what?

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 09:58 pm: Edit

"If you tractor someone. And you end up gaining a single point of extra movement over what you are scheduled to move. You lose the next scheduled movement since you already got to move it."

See my just previous post: "gain" as defined how? And what if it's not me that gains that extra move but the tractored ship that gets it? Does it skip it's next scheduled move?

Have you considered the ways this new rule could be used to engineer "gotcha" situations by using a tractor not to gain more hexes than you had plotted, but by effectively moving a future movement "ahead" and then taking advantage of the longer time in that position (e.g. to conduct Mizia fire)?

"So you come in and drop tractor after movement either a single impulse of tractor or 2 impulses because you used a movement and got a delayed movement. Either of which caused you to move one more time than you were supposed to. The next actual hex of movement does not occur since you have already moved it."

"Supposed to", again, will require redefining practical and pseudo speeds and how they work. And again, you must consider the ways this interaction can be "gamed" just like the current rules allow gaming out those extra hexes.

"What ya think about this simple solution guys? This happens every time you gain a movement. Now assuming you and a friend hook up...and you move...he moves...you move, he moves. ...well in that case. you each fail to move the second time. You got your two moves already."

And see, you are back to trying to litigate away the specific case that offends you, but handwaving away everything else that would need to be consider for such a change.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 11:00 pm: Edit

Anyhow, I'm going to bow out here with one last observation: if reading thirty or so years worth of Proposals Board articles in Captain's Log has taught me anything, it's that the simplest suggestions are the most complex.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar3) on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 11:20 pm: Edit

The problem is that it doesn't account for the warp energy spent by the other guy (you are tractored to) to move your ship (which is also ignored by practical speed anyway).

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - 12:27 am: Edit

For simplicity sake and because this works though. I will stand by my last answer. If for any reason you gain movement you did not pay for. You lose it the next impulse that you should move. That would eliminate tractor tricks.