Multiple Dockings

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Mike
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Multiple Dockings

Post by Mike »

Is there any way to tell how many ships could be docked to a station (base) or to another ship? I couldn't find anything in the rules limiting how many ships could dock together.
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mjwest
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Post by mjwest »

Near as I can tell, there is no limit to the number of units that can dock with each other. Note that docking is a single specific connection. So, if ship A is docked to ship B, and ship B is doced to ship C, there is no "docking relationship" (for the lack of a better term) between ships A and C.

Anything more complicated than that was not really considered by the rules. Before it becomes worth the effort to provide additional definition, I would ask why a bunch of ships are all docking with each other. It would not seem like a tactically advantageous maneuver. Note that docking requires a ship to be Stopped for the entire turn, and the ship cannot perform any kind of maneuver for the entire turn, including tactical manuevers and high energy turns.
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terryoc
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Post by terryoc »

I can think of one reason why you'd want a bunch of ships docked to another: boarding actions.

E.g. I have shot off the Hood's engines, making it immobile, so I dock my ships to it and flood it with Marines (3 ships, 6 marines per turn per ship, plus transporters, potentially 18+15=33 marines in one turn). That'll capture anything pretty quickly.
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Mike
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Post by Mike »

I've submitted a scenario to SVC that features an Orion pirate raider docked to a salvage cruiser on Turn 1. My original intention was to have an additional light raider also docked to the salvage cruiser, but I wanted to go ahead with the playtesting, so I settled for only one docking.

The salvage cruiser can act as a mobile base of sorts for repairs on pirate ships when no established pirate base is in the area, so it is conceivable that two or three pirate ships could be docked to a salvage cruiser getting repairs done or transferring their booty.
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Captain Jack
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Post by Captain Jack »

Multiple docking can be a great help, because a ship docked to any base cannot be displaced by Andros! :shock:

All I would say, if you dock more than 2, then you will have restrictions on firing. (3 units out of same hex facing.)
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Mike
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Post by Mike »

But a ship docked to a ship that is docked to a base is not immune to being displaced.
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