Stinger Fighters

[asguard101]

Question: It says Stingers move at speed 16, can they choose to move speed 8 if they wished too?

Also, I know they can use Deceleration at speed 16. But if they can do speed 8, can they use Acceleraion?

[junior]

No. Stingers move at speed 16 and speed 16 only.

They can, however, decelerate at every move opportunity during a given impulse. So they can effectively move at speed 8 or even speed 0 during a turn simply by declaring decelerations at the appropriate times. In short, I can't really think of a reason why you would want your Stingers to move at speed 8 instead of speed 16.

[Mike]

Someone might want shuttles or fighters to move slower or stop so they could land on a planet or large asteroid.

[Davec_24]

You could move at *effective* speed 8 or 0 (or any speed up to 16) by doing baseline speed 16 and then cancelling moves when you want to, but stingers can't do any other baseline speed. I think junior's point was that basically there's no real advantage in baseline speed 8 and accelerate over having baseline speed 16 and decelerating, as at speed 16 you will have the initiative over any shuttles on the board.

As for the landing on planets and things, you would have to be "stopped" to land on the planet (as opposed to speed 0, or any other speed but all your movement cancelled). Come to think of it, I don't think the rulebook ever mentions anywhere that shuttles (including Stingers) are capable of being "stopped", or at least I can't find it with a quick flick through if it does. If this is the case, then shuttles shouldn't be able to land on planets at all. I would have said that they should reasonably be allowed to land on a planet, so maybe I'm missing something here...

[Kang]

Come to think of it, I don't think the rulebook ever mentions anywhere that shuttles (including Stingers) are capable of being "stopped", or at least I can't find it with a quick flick through if it does. If this is the case, then shuttles shouldn't be able to land on planets at all. I would have said that they should reasonably be allowed to land on a planet, so maybe I'm missing something here...

Hmm, an interesting point. I can't recall having seen that either. But they can land on planets; that's what they're there for - and there are scenarios where the shuttles are supposed to be able to land to rescue personnel etc.

I'd like to see others' thoughts on this, too.

However, the procedure for landing a shuttle on a planet is actually illustrated in (5H5) - the shuttle simply ends its move adjacent to the planet and then it lands at the end of that turn.

Plus, the shuttle landing in that example is slightly different from that in the landing rules in (2D5b) - the landing takes place during the first movement sub-pulse. In practice, I would guess that this difference will have very little actual effect on play.

Perhaps the rule that it has to 'Stop' should read 'end its movement', even though I realise that the rules do reference (2C7) in that context?

[asguard101]

In truth, Junior answered my orginal question, I hadn't thought of it from his perspetive, of just using Decel to go what ever speed you wanted.

I agree with Kangs view towards landing, and think it might want to be considered for rewording for landing on a planet.

[Davec_24]

Ah yes, I didn't see that example. Maybe you're right then, and that "stopped" should mean "ends its move in". Certainly in the context of shuttlecraft, this seems like a sensible way of doing it and maybe was just left to the example rather than being put in the rules, or maybe was accidentally left out of the rulebook apart from in the example. If this is the way it should work with shuttles, presumably this is still not the case with starships landing on planets etc., since (2D5b) makes specific refernce to "stopped" being stopped as per (2C7).

[mjwest]

Good point.

Anyway, a shuttle/fighter does not need to be stopped to dock or land. It still has to follow the overall procedure, but does not need to be "Stopped".

(I don't want shuttles/fighters to be able to be Stopped. That opens a whole new can of worms I don't want to get into.)

[Kang]

It appears, then, that unless a ship does emergency deceleration, landing can be a lengthy process. In fact I'd go as far as to say that ED would be the method of choice every time.

Otherwise, it's Tn 1: Arrive next to planet; Tn 2: Spend a turn stopped [because the ship has to end its turn stopped]; Tn 3: Land.

As opposed to: Tn 1: Ship arrives next to planet at Warp n [where n is whatever you want] and performs emergency decel; Tn 2: Ship lands.

No contest.

[Kang]

I don't want shuttles/fighters to be able to be Stopped. That opens a whole new can of worms I don't want to get into.

Oh, agreed. Big time

[mjwest]

It appears, then, that unless a ship does emergency deceleration, landing can be a lengthy process. In fact I'd go as far as to say that ED would be the method of choice every time.

And the rules pretty much explicitly state this.

But, when you think about it, landing on a planet should be a length process. Even if you don't use ED, and take the full two (or however many) turns, that is still an incredibly fast maneuver. (Regardless of how long a "turn" is in game-time.)

[Davec_24]

So it should indeed be how the example in (5H5) says it, i.e. a shuttle doesn't have to be stopped but just has to end its move for the turn in a hex adjacent to the planet or other object that it's trying to land on. Maybe in the revised rulebook there could be a section about landing shuttles in the landing rules (2D5), just to clarify this. It seems to make sense that way and is there in the Revision 4 book, it's just in an example rather that explicitly stated. You're quite right about avoiding the whole idea of shuttles being able to be "stopped", it's not necessary and would cause more problems than it solves.

[Mike]

Modifying the rulebook in the manner discussed here seems to be a "smart" move, rather than the opposite...

[mjwest]

BTW, I moved this to Rules Questions, as that is the more appropriate case for it.

[As an aside, I left a "shadow" to see how that works. In my prior moves I didn't. I was curious, so I tried it this way this time. ]

[Goonius]

Does this mean that stingers must always take asteriod damage at speed 16? That does not make sense to me, they should be able to go speed 8 in order to reduce the damage from terrain.