Federation Commander

[Kang]

Stingers are shuttles. Stingers also count as 'fire units' or 'ships' for the rule about not more than three units firing out of a single hexside at the same target or targets etc. (4A3)

Now, Rule (5D63) says that a ship being towed (emphasis mine) by tractor beam cannot fire weapons during the Offensive Fire phase or fire seeking weapons.

1) Does this also count for Stingers, even though they are not ships? I've always thought it did....

2) What about in the Defensive Fire Phase? Can a ship (or a Stinger for that matter) fire defensively when under friendly tractor tow? And what about firing seeking weapons [specifically, ISC plasma-F's] in the Defensive Fire Phase?

A ship can tractor no more than one ship at a time.

1) Can it tractor multiple shuttles, assuming the speed is low enough? I'm not talking landing shuttles here, I'm talking towing them for a fair distance.

2) If an enemy ship wanted to tractor a shuttle being towed by a ship friendly to the shuttle, would it have to engage in a tractor auction for 'tractoring an object', as in (5D5b) in order to defeat the friendly (to the shuttle) ship's tractor beam?

3) If a ship is tractoring a shuttle, and here I'm assuming that a ship can tractor more than one shuttle, I take it that an enemy ship tractoring the friendly ship would not break the tractor hold on the shuttle; this is different from if the ship were tractoring another ship, in which case the new tractor link would break it. Is that correct?

4) Can an enemy ship tractor multiple enemy [non-seeking] shuttles simultaneously?

The reason I am asking this is that one of the Battlegroup has come up with a tactical idea in a scenario involving shuttles, and we need to make sure it's legal

I'm also aware that tractoring a friendly Seeking Shuttle will make it go inert, as it would with any friendly seeking weapon.
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[Savedfromwhat]

I don't really see the point kang, even if you could tow them you can't go above speed 16 or you will death drag them, shuttles can already go 16 and are much more nimble.

[mjwest]

1-1) It doesn't explicitly state so, but I think it does. So, let's say that, yes, tractored Stingers cannot fire during the Offensive Fire phase.

1-2) The rule only prevents direct fire during the Offensive Fire phase. There is no restriction on firing during the Defensive Fire phase. This applies to Stingers, too.

2-1) Yes, the restriction is only for Ship ships. The reason is that with two ships, you have a whole host of considerations on who can do what to whom. With shuttles, they just get to tag along for the ride.

2-2) Yup. Tractor auction it is!

2-3) Yes. The "only one active" applies to ship-to-ship tractors. Other tractors are not affected, unless two ships are fighting over the same object (e.g. shuttle).

2-4) Yes. See above.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

[Kang]

[Kang]

Another clarification, if I may, please. For death-dragging, as far as I understand it, it's the actual act of moving the ship/shuttle pair at a speed exceeding 16 - or is it at a speed of more than 2 hexes per impulse as it also says just before the example - that destroys the shuttle. So, then, if I am moving at say Speed 24 and I want to tractor my Stinger, if I pay for decel on that third sub-pulse, so that I move no more than two hexes, can I tractor my shuttle without destroying it?

Another way of putting it would be that I can tractor a shuttle or Stinger no matter how fast I'm going, and as long as I move no more than 2 hexes per impulse, and the shuttles are safe - is that correct?

Bear in mind that (5D5) expresses it both ways; as '...faster than Speed 16...' and as '...i.e. two hexes per impulse'. I'd like a clarification on this, please - is it speed or is it hexes - because the distinction can be important.

Related to this, (2D5c.2) - landing shuttles by tractor beam - says that the ship must have moved no more than two hexes for a shuttle, four for a Stinger - which would normally destroy the Stinger. Is this because the use of the tractor for landing the Stinger is so transitory?
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[terryoc]

As for the first question, I'm not sure. But with landing by tractor, the rule is correct as written. You can land a Stinger at higher speed than a shuttle. It just gets sucked right into the bay before it can be damaged.
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"Captain" Terry O'Carroll, fourteen papers published including six best of issue
"Man, Terry, you are like a loophole seeking missle!" - Mike West

[Dal Downing]

[mjwest]

The (5D5) rules are very clear that the shuttle/fighter is destroyed upon the third movement in an impulse. It is also clear (despite the typo*) that a shuttle/fighter may be tractored at a higher speed than 16 as long as the ship never makes the third movement. The "Speed 16" phrase is simply meant to refer to the speed of the ship that impulse, not to the selected baseline speed.

Now, in the case of Assisted Shuttlecraft Landing (2D5c)-2, the speed restriction is completely different. Note that this speed restriction applies before the tractor is established. That means that, if a ship wants to land a non-fighter shuttle, the ship may move no more than two times before making the landing. If this restriction is violated, the shuttle will not be destroyed, as the attempt cannot even be made. (Let's just say that the tractors' safety interlocks will prevent this.) Also note that fighters may be landed at any speed.

[*] The typo is the parenthetical comment that the destruction of the shuttle "would happen on the second Movement Sub-Pulse of Speed 24..." In fact, the shuttle would be destroyed on the sub-pulse where the third movement was taken.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

[Kang]

[Kang]

Ok - the mystery can now be revealed.

We at BG Exeter have been developing a tactic to prevent the death-dragging of Stinger fighters. The tactic has now been posted on the forum here:

http://www.starfleetgames.com/federation/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=31387#31387

and has also been sent to SPP as a tactical submission.

I recommend you read that article first and then proceed with reading this posting; all will then be clearer.

The reason I was asking about Speed 16/2 hexes per turn is that the tactic went through various stages of evolution, and one of the tricks I considered as the Hydran was to tractor the Stinger even though I was moving at speed 24. As long as there was enough decel going on, the Stinger would not break up.

However the tactic has now been refined to its simplest form: you only protect your Stingers from death-dragging reactively, so as to save power.

The idea of tractoring the Stingers at Speed 24-minus-one was a prototype idea; if you were tractoring them proactively, as it were, while approaching the enemy, then a couple of decel points would be worth it as after that couple of impulses, your opponent would hopefully have flown right by. Or got his tail shot off, preferably.

So, that's why it was important we got the rules straight as to whether it's baseline speed or actual number of hexes moved, that was the factor that actually destroys the Stingers. If you can tractor your Stingers at Speed 24, but prevent death-dragging by decelerating, then it would have worked - and indeed does work, but the 'finished' tactic is better.

That's not to say that you still can tractor the Stingers in advance of closing with the enemy, but there's little point and it's power hungry too.

I hope this has cleared things up
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