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Hit and Run vs. Tractors

 
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Kang
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:15 pm    Post subject: Hit and Run vs. Tractors Reply with quote

When tractoring drones, Rule 5D4b says that the ship owner can decide if a given tractor [one holding a drone] is the one destroyed with a particular volley.

However, I always understood hit-and-run raids with Marines to be 'surgical' precision strikes agains certain specific boxes. This meant in SFB that you could see which tractor was holding a drone [or anchoring your ship] and then take it out specifically. Ok, the enemy could always light up another tractor but it would cost him more power.

Is that sort of surgical strike permitted in Fed Commander? Can I knock out a tractor beam and say 'I'm attacking the specific one that's holding my drone/ship' or whatever, despite Rule 5D4b which as far as I can see applies only to weapons fire volleys?

Any comments gratefully received!
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Mike
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

rule 5F1b...

"The player launching the raid indicates the ship making the raid and the target of the raid (a specific box on the Ship Card of an enemy ship..."

rule 5D4 (tractor beams)...

"Designate the tractor beam being used and the weapon being tractored..."

It is true that the owner of the ship using a tractor to hold an impacted drone can choose which tractor beam box to mark as damaged if his ship takes a tractor hit during a weapons volley. However, from the rules I quoted above, it looks as if a hit and run raid specifies a box to hit. Therefore, it seems that a raid can knock out a specific tractor that is holding a drone.

What say you, Mike West?
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Scoutdad
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 3:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mike wrote:

It is true that the owner of the ship using a tractor to hold an impacted drone can choose which tractor beam box to mark as damaged if his ship takes a tractor hit during a weapons volley. However, from the rules I quoted above, it looks as if a hit and run raid specifies a box to hit. Therefore, it seems that a raid can knock out a specific tractor that is holding a drone.

What say you, Mike West?

It may not be correct, but this is the way we've been playing it since FCs inception.
Although - and this may be a stretch - if the target has another tractor and the energy available, we will let him grab the drone in another tractor beam.
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mjwest
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 4:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mike wrote:
However, from the rules I quoted above, it looks as if a hit and run raid specifies a box to hit. Therefore, it seems that a raid can knock out a specific tractor that is holding a drone.

What say you, Mike West?


I agree with your interpretation. The rules are fairly specific in this regard.

As for what happens after that, I will kick it up. Rule (1E2c) says that if a tractor that is holding a drone is destroyed by another seeking weapon, the drone hits immediately. Rule (1E2d) says the same thing for seeking weapons. There is no similar note for H&R raids. Therefore, I have to say that, right now, the drone will NOT hit until the next impulse's Defensive Fire Phase, where it could be tractored again.

However, (5D4b) is ambiguous on the issue. So, I asked.
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Mike
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mike West:

Now I'm curious as to why the drone would not hit until the *next* Impulse's DFP. If it immediately explodes in both those other cases where it is suddenly released, why wouldn't it explode immediately after a H&R knocked out the tractor box holding it?
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Mike
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Somewhat related to the issue of this thread is the issue of whether tractors have to powered during Energy Allocation to continue to hold a drone that impacted during a previous Turn. I remember that this was discussed awhile back. I think the outcome of the ruling was that the player whose ship was impacted could elect to not power the tractor(s) during Energy Allocation and simply fire at the drone during the DF phase of Imp. 1 of the next Turn. If the fire did not succeed, the tractor could be powered up at that time.

The rules specific to this state:
(5D4b) The tractor is destroyed, in which case the weapon hits immediately without any defensive fire, resolve the damage after finishing the volley which destroyed the tractor beam emitter. The owner of the ship, if it has two or more tractors, may decide if the one destroyed was the one holding the drone or not).
(5D4c) At the end of the turn (if another Energy Token is not paid during Energy Allocation of the next turn, the weapon will hit during the Defensive Fire Step of Impulse #1 during which the ship can fire defensively and even tractor the same drone again!).

Does 5D4c need a clarification for the meaning of, "the weapon will hit"?

It seems as if this means that the drone will hit the ship and cause its 12 points of damage, but then it turns right around and says that it could still be fired at or tractored during the DFS of Imp. #1.
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mjwest
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 3:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't think (5D4c) needs any clarification. It is just saying that a released drone doesn't affect the target ship until the defensive fire phase of the first impulse. This allows the target ship to fire phasers at it, or even re-tractor it. (It does NOT allow a second opportunity for ADD fire.)

The problem is (5D4b). It unambiguously states that a drone held by a just destroyed tractor will hit and apply its damage immediately. That would imply any reason for the destruction, including a H&R raid. (Which is what I was initially going to rule.) However, (5D4b) then says the damage is applied after the volley that destroys the tractor. Well, a H&R raid is not a "volley". Thus the initial ambiguity.

Also, the (1E) rules specifically state that the effects of (5D4b) apply from damage caused by seeking weapons in the defensive fire phase, and by direct fire weapons in the offensive fire phase. There is no corresponding statements around H&R raids. Thus the rest of the ambiguity.

Therefore, I made the ruling I did, but also said I was asking for the final decision.
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mjwest
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 7:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Now that I read your question again, let me try again with (5D4b) and (5D4c).

In both rules, the drone is counted as "hitting" again. In both cases the "hitting" means that the drone will cause damage if nothing is done about it. In the case of (5D4b), the target ship is specifically prohibited from doing anything. In the case of (5D5c), the target ship is specifically allowed to use his full range of defenses. Regardless, the drone "hits" in both cases.

As for the larger question on a H&R raid disabling a tractor holding a drone, the target ship uses the (5D4c) procedure, not the (5D4b) procedure. So the ruling stands. (I got a quick response from Steve.)
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Kang
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mjwest wrote:
As for what happens after that, I will kick it up. Rule (1E2c) says that if a tractor that is holding a drone is destroyed by another seeking weapon, the drone hits immediately. Rule (1E2d) says the same thing for seeking weapons. There is no similar note for H&R raids. Therefore, I have to say that, right now, the drone will NOT hit until the next impulse's Defensive Fire Phase, where it could be tractored again.

However, (5D4b) is ambiguous on the issue. So, I asked.


Mike, sorry to revive an old thread, but did you ever get an answer on this? I ask because I have also seen the rule about Direct-fire weapons hitting a tractor holding a drone, and in that case too the drone hits immediately. However, given that the choice of which tractor is hit rests with the targeted player, he can always say that a not-in-use tractor is the one that it hit.

Logically then it would seem, for the case of DF weapons, that only if the holding tractor is actually hit does it matter, because if that was the last working tractor then there would be no further tractors to grab the drone, so it will hit anyway. I think that makes sense, at least....
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mjwest
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As I mentioned parenthetically in my last message, I did get the answer.

If a tractor holding an impacted drone is disabled by a H&R raid, then the drone does not hit immediately, but rather is resolved on the following impulse.

FWIW, this is in the CRUL ...
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Kang
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 9:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bah. How come I didn't know that, seeing as I was [even only partially] involved in its construction....
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Kang
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 1:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mjwest wrote:
FWIW, this is in the CRUL ...

Can't see it....
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