Damage Allocation Quandry

Ask your questions about Federation Commander game system rules here.

Moderators: mjwest, Albiegamer

Post Reply
wedge_hammersteel
Commander
Posts: 578
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 12:42 am
Location: Lafayette, LA

Damage Allocation Quandry

Post by wedge_hammersteel »

Matt and I played a tourny battle this evening. Toward the end, he scored substantial damage on my Hydran Knight Destroyer.

As we marked off the damage allocation, I was left with only one bridge box and 3 frame boxes. All other boxes were destroyed.

Matt had 8 damage points left to mark for damage allocation. Since there were no bridge boxes on any of the six lines that could be hit within 8 damage points, we skipped the damage points and got caught in a circle where the eight damage points were repeated over and over.

We could never get to the end in order to have the three remaining frame boxes destroyed and thus blowing up the ship.

Were we doing something wrong during our damage allocation?

I hope I explained it well enough.
User avatar
malleman
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 307
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2008 3:39 am
Location: Lafayette, LA

Post by malleman »

Training in full swing:
Headbands.....Check
Tubesocks......Check
Waterbottles...Check
Hard bench.....Check (sometimes we even practice standing up the entire time)
User avatar
mjwest
Commodore
Posts: 4103
Joined: Sun Oct 08, 2006 4:30 pm
Location: Dallas, Texas
Contact:

Post by mjwest »

Skipped damage points are added to the end BEFORE you roll again.

For simplicity's sake, let's just assume you have two points of damage to allocate, and you just have a bridge box and three frame damage. You roll something without a bridge box anywhere in the row. You check the first column: no match. No match on the alternative. So, you "skip" the damage point and push it to the end of your available damage points. You check the second column:no match; no alternate. Again, you skip this damage point and push it to the end. Now the first damage point is up again, but you don't reroll, as you have not finished this row. So, you check the third column: no match; no alternate. You continue down the row until you get to the last column. You have no warp, so you must apply the current damage point to frame damage.

Now, after that single roll, you have applied one damage point to frame damage, and now you have one damage point left to allocate. You roll again, getting the same number. You keep "skipping" down the row until you get to the tenth column, and again apply the damage point to frame damage. Since, in this example, you only had two damage points, you are done.

Applying that to your case, after you fail to apply any of the eight damage points to anything after the eight column, the first skipped damage point comes up again and is applied to the ninth column. It is again skipped (for the second time). The next damage point is applied to the alternate for the tenth column, and a frame damage is taken. Since you never rolled anything with a bridge hit in it, you would roll four times: once for each of the frame damage boxes, and one for the last frame damage hit that causes the ship to explode.

Again, you keep applying damage points, recycling any skipped points, on that single row until you run out of columns. Only then do you re-roll.
Image
Federation Commander Answer Guy
User avatar
OGOPTIMUS
Captain
Posts: 979
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 5:38 am
Contact:

Post by OGOPTIMUS »

You can always apply a point of damage, since the alternate of column 10 is a frame hit. You just keep going to the right to new columns until you get to that frame hit.

Then after you apply that frame hit, you roll again. And if there's nothing in the row, you get another frame hit.

EDIT: Cross-post with mjwest. Long time interval, but my computer didn't show the new post. Sorry.
wedge_hammersteel
Commander
Posts: 578
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 12:42 am
Location: Lafayette, LA

Post by wedge_hammersteel »

OK..we needed to finish out the row rather than start over.
User avatar
djdood
Commodore
Posts: 3407
Joined: Thu Feb 01, 2007 5:41 am
Location: Seattle, WA
Contact:

Post by djdood »

Having been trapped in that loop before too, this was a nice refresher. Might make a rules that (didn't) kill addition, since it appears at least two players misunderstood the intent.
ImageImage
User avatar
OGOPTIMUS
Captain
Posts: 979
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 5:38 am
Contact:

Post by OGOPTIMUS »

Make that three.

I was confused for a while too.
User avatar
malleman
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 307
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2008 3:39 am
Location: Lafayette, LA

Post by malleman »

We normally play where if you don't have either of the systems, you take a frame. Makes for a shorter game. We are now trying out the offical rules, which makes a difference in our play.
wedge_hammersteel
Commander
Posts: 578
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 12:42 am
Location: Lafayette, LA

Post by wedge_hammersteel »

a BIG LONG difference in our game
User avatar
Scoutdad
Commodore
Posts: 4751
Joined: Mon Oct 09, 2006 6:27 pm
Location: Middle Tennessee

Post by Scoutdad »

djdood wrote:Having been trapped in that loop before too, this was a nice refresher. Might make a rules that (didn't) kill addition, since it appears at least two players misunderstood the intent.
This has been added to the ongoing lsit of things that kill, in case an article gets written.
Commander, Battlegroup Murfreesboro
Department Head, ACTASF
Post Reply