Federation Commander

edwinfeds · Ensign Joined: 05 Jan 2013 Posts: 23

Battle of Andromedans vs Tholians. The Tholians cast a web in front of an Andromedan mother ship with a frigate onboard,5 hexes in front of Andromedan ship. The andromedan beams the frigate 5 hexes into said web and before the web activates is on the other side and stops. The mother ship hits the web on second turn and frigate pulls mother ship thru the web on other function phase.
Question on other function phase the frigate pulls the mother ship thru the web, can the mother ship then in the same other function phase transport the frigate back aboard or does it need to wait till the next other function phase and then transport the frigate aboard. If timed correctly mother ship hardly loses a hex of movement, thus need to know if frigate can be beamed back aboard in same other function phase or leave tractor beam on mother ship and be dragged till it can be beamed aboard next other function phase.
thanks.

Kang · Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2015 7:50 am Post subject:

Clever trick, although I'm not sure how legal it is, in that if the frigate is stopped, how can it pull the mothership through the web? You can't do 'tractor rotation' in FC, y'see, so the frigate could not 'pull' the mothership through - it could only do it during a movement phase. Could you clarify how you pull the mothership clear? If you do your 'stop' by using decelerations, then you could pull it clear during movement, drop your tractor and then transport back aboard; the tractor beam would be broken by the transporter action (5V1b6).

However the frigate may have trouble pulling the mothership; firstly it would have a speed of 8 on launch (5V1b5) and the mothership may have spent more power on movement, in which case it would have control of the movement - but it is stuck in web.

I'm not sure it would work, then, and it's a complex problem - but I'm sure some of the guys on this forum are better rules gurus than I am. Let's see what others think....
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mjwest · Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2015 2:16 pm Post subject:

Rule (5M2h) describes how one ship can pull a second ship out of a web hex. This requires the un-stuck ship to be stopped, so he is doing it correctly. It will take a lot of the frigate's power, so we can see why he wants to recover it immediately. Also, the frigate is limited to a speed of eight and can't use its tractors (or much of anything else) for the first impulse after launch. I am assuming this was all considered and taken into account.

So, it looks like it is a viable strategy and approach, assuming the frigate has the power to actually pull the mother ship through.

For the actual question asked, I am afraid it isn't in the Andromedan's favor. Rule (1E2e) outlines the order of events in the Other Functions Phase. Specifically, step #2 says, "[s]hips could then use their transporters and tractor beams, (in that order) to perform the functions provided in the rules for those items." So, transporters work first, then tractors. For you to use tractors, then transporters requires the Andromedans to wait until the following impulse to retrieve the frigate.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

Kang · Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2015 7:32 pm Post subject:

Excellent, thanks Mike. I'm glad he's doing it right, because as I said above it's a clever trick. I guess I have never had the opportunity to pull a ship out of a web, so that's why I didn't know about that rule!

About the rule sequence not being in the Andromedans' favour, well if the frigate can survive one more impulse 'outside' the mothership, it can always be recovered the impulse afterwards. The mothership is unlikely to be more than 5 hexes away after a single impulse - unless, of course, it displaces, which may have been part of edwinfeds' strategy all along, of course.

Still, well done, and good thinking outside the box.
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mjwest · Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2015 10:35 pm Post subject:

It can guarantee that the frigate is zero hexes away, if it wants, as it already has an active tractor. Just drag it for that impulse. Unless, of course, the tactics of the situation forces you to drop the tractor for some reason.
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edwinfeds · Ensign Joined: 05 Jan 2013 Posts: 23

Thanks for your responses. The actual cast web strength was 6 and the Frigate was pulling a Dominator out of the web with the Dominator having spent two sub pulses in the web to lesson amount of energy needed to be pulled out of web. The Tholians had 6 cruisers chasing the Dominator. As it was early in the turn did not want to use displacement yet as was closing on an earlier damaged Tholian which the Tholians were using the web castors to try and slow me down to protect there damaged cruiser which was held back from the rest of his fleet. Since the frigate has to stop to pull a ship out of web I did not think to leave tractor on and drag frigate with the Dominator till it could be transported back on board, thus the Tholians caught the frigate and destroyed it.
As for power used to pull the Dominator with 2 movement points completed in the web hex and leaving 4 movement points to escape would only require 6 movement points from the frigate to be free from the web to move normally at start of next turn.
A rule clarification I do have is the rule states after a ship is pulled from a web it can be turned so that it is not facing the web. Does this mean I can point the ship in any direction or only turn the ship the least number of hexes to not face a web hex?