A QUESTION OF PLANETS
By Nick Blank
QUESTION: Can I retreat through a planet with only a Residual Defense Factor, or does that create a fighting retreat? Annex (756.0) lists planets as a "non-ship unit" so it would seem this would be a "fighting retreat". Correct?
ANSWER: You forget rule (302.732) which says that (for retreat) a planet with PDUs is a unit. A planet with only a RDF is not a unit for retreat. This is why we quit using the term Residual Defense Unit since people assumed that "words have a meaning" and if it was a "unit" it must block supply, retreat, and spam.
QUESTION: There is a devastated enemy planet in a hex with one of my ships. My ship doesn't have to leave or fight since the Residual Defense Factor is no longer a "unit" under the (sloppily written) rules. There are no ships friendly to the planet nearby. What happens to the planet's EPs?
ANSWER: The planet is an isolated grid all by itself, blockaded by your ship just as it would be if there were ships in the six surrounding hexes, so it retains the EPs until it is captured (the EPs would then be lost) or liberated (at which point the EPs could be moved around by the existing rules).
QUESTION: Does a colony created by a roll of two on a high risk survey count against the "one colony per five new off-map provinces" limit of rule (446.15) in Planetary Operations?
ANSWER: It is a separate limit. The standard rule lets you develop one colony per five new off-map provinces. The high risk rule might give you one in addition to this standard effort, but has its own limit after which that result has no effect.
QUESTION: Are there any provisions in Federation and Empire for glassing a planet (melting the surface into glass, rendering it uninhabitable), rather than just devastating it?
ANSWER: Nope. That would be unthinkable!
