To death-drag, or not to death-drag

Spacecowboy87 · Post by **Spacecowboy87** » Mon Nov 26, 2012 2:09 am

Can a ship going speed 24 tractor a shuttle and AVOID destroying it if it decelerates each impulse the tow lasts?

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Mon Nov 26, 2012 3:12 am

That is a bit of an ambiguous case. It appears that merely having a speed of 24 or 16+1 (or, of course, 24+1) will cause death dragging to occur. However, it also appears that it is needed for the actual movement to occur before the destruction takes place. So, given that, I would say that each deceleration will delay the death dragging. However, the first movement during a qualifying impulse will cause the shuttle to immediately be destroyed. In other words, once the tractor is established in a qualifying situation, every movement must be cancelled, or the shuttle is destroyed.

ncrcalamine · Post by **ncrcalamine** » Mon Nov 26, 2012 9:00 am

Mike
Respectfully disagree
Death drag destruction should occur when speed is exceeded to destroy
Not before

Nicole

storeylf · Post by **storeylf** » Mon Nov 26, 2012 9:47 am

Maybe its my age/memory and me not liking having to remember who has done what so far for things like that, but I prefer the die as soon as you move rather than after moving so many hexes. Certainly that seems to be the rule is at the moment, it even states in the note that speed 24 = death on subpulse 2.

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Mon Nov 26, 2012 2:50 pm

Quite frankly, I personally do like the die when when the movement is finally exceeded. (Interestingly, this is how the cloaking rules work.) Unfortunately, that is not how the rule is written. The rule very specifically states that the shuttle dies on first movement when the speed restriction is exceeded. So, I have to stay within that construct.

Now, if the rule had said to die on first sub-pulse, I would have gone with that and said deceleration does nothing. If the rule had said to die on the third sub-pulse, then I would have applied deceleration that way. The rule, however, doesn't do either of those, but instead says that the shuttle dies on the second sub-pulse. To me, this implies that the shuttle dies on first movement. Thus my ruling.

Spacecowboy87 · Post by **Spacecowboy87** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 1:29 am

I should have specified -- the shuttle in question was my own, towed by my ship, i.e. I was not trying to destroy it. My ship was at baseline 24 and decelerated once per impulse for half a turn until I released the tractor. So I was travelling at "16" for those impulses. I would think that since going 16+1 destroys a shuttle, 24-1 would not. I guess I don't grasp the logic of it.

Captain Jack · Post by **Captain Jack** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 5:38 pm

I understood where you were coming from. But as far as I am aware you cannot tractor your own suicide shuttles.

As far as admin shuttles, why? (other than ESG sponge)

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 6:18 pm

Captain Jack wrote:I understood where you were coming from. But as far as I am aware you cannot tractor your own suicide shuttles.

Correct. (5D5a) says that if you tractor your own (or an ally's) seeking weapon, the seeking weapon goes inert and is removed from play. This includes seeking shuttles and drones.

Also, let me provide a bit more clarification. First, while there is a concept of speed 16+1 or 24+1, there is no such concept as 24-1. If you are moving speed 24, then whether you cancel one, two, or all three moves, you are still moving speed 24. So, if you have a shuttle tractored (yours or anyone else's) while you are going speed 24, that shuttle will be destroyed the first time you move, regardless of how many movements you have cancelled.

Example. You have a base speed of 24. You tractor a shuttle in the Other Functions Phase of Impulse 3. The shuttle is fine for the first sub-pulse of Impulse 4, as you don't move. In the second sub-pulse, you cancel your move. Because of this the shuttle lives a little longer. In the third sub-pulse, you cancel your move again. Again, the shuttle lives a little longer. For whatever reason, in the fourth sub-pulse, you do not cancel your move and you move one hex. At that point the shuttle is destroyed even though you only moved one hex that turn.

So, as a tactical conclusion, do not tractor a shuttle you don't want to destroy if you are moving speed 24. And don't tractor that shuttle when you have base speed 16 if you know you are going to accelerate on the next Impulse, either.

Thinking more about it, I can't see why you would ever need to tractor a friendly shuttle when going fast. If you do tractor it when going fast, you effectively cannot move while the tractor is present, or the shuttle is destroyed. If you really just want the shuttle to temporarily stop, remember that it can always cancel its own movement at will. (Unless it is a seeking shuttle, but if you tractor a seeking shuttle it goes away the instant the tractor is established regardless of your speed.)

Really, I am completely confused as to why this issue would even occur in the first place ...

Mike Zebrowski · Post by **Mike Zebrowski** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 6:22 pm

I've always read the rule as destruction occurs if the shuttle moves on Sub-Pulse 1 or 3.

storeylf · Post by **storeylf** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 7:03 pm

mjwest wrote:Thinking more about it, I can't see why you would ever need to tractor a friendly shuttle when going fast. If you do tractor it when going fast, you effectively cannot move while the tractor is present, or the shuttle is destroyed. If you really just want the shuttle to temporarily stop, remember that it can always cancel its own movement at will. (Unless it is a seeking shuttle, but if you tractor a seeking shuttle it goes away the instant the tractor is established regardless of your speed.)

Really, I am completely confused as to why this issue would even occur in the first place ...

You are begging the question there. Had the answer been that you destroyed on the 3rd move then you would be able to tow an admin shuttle at speed 16/24 so long as you didn't move that 3rd hex. There may be reasons for doing that, either scenario specific or as Jack said above to bring your ESG sponge with you.

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 7:07 pm

storeylf wrote:You are begging the question there. ...

Fair enough.

In other words, the ruling invalidates the reason, not that there was no reason initially. I'm good with that.

Spacecowboy87 · Post by **Spacecowboy87** » Wed Nov 28, 2012 12:01 am

We were doing a version of The Stasis Box and were using admin shuttles to do some of the searching. A group of my opponent's shuttles was heading for a cluster of asteroids. I grabbed a couple of my shuttles (from a different ship, i.e. towing ship had no space to land them) and towed them to where they could search the asteroids before the opposing shuttles could reach them under their own power.
It was a spur of the moment idea, and my opponent didn't think it was legal (you were right Dan

), but we couldn't find it in writing in the heat of battle

so we let it happen this time.