Reloading Drone Racks

[SylvrDragon]

Ok, I know you can reload a drone rack befor eit's empty. But if said drone rack is not empty, and I decide to reload it, can I still fire the drone rack while it's reloading?

Example:

Say one of my F5's has 3 drones left in it's drone rack and at the end of the turn it has no internal damage. So, since it has no internal damage, it decides to start reloading its' drone rack; it can't completely reload it since it takes 4 points to reload it and the F5 only has 2. Say this takes place on turn one. Turn 2 comes around and the drone rack still has 3 drones in it, but it also has 2 points put towards reloading it. This would mean that it would have a "partially reloaded" drone rack with 3 drones prepped for launch already and, since it hadn't fired since turn 1 and it's now turn 2, the rack is eligible to be fired again.

[OGOPTIMUS]

Rule 5G5, last sentence:

"You cannot reload a rack or launcher (whether it is empty or only partially empty) on a turn that it launched a weapon."

If I recall from some other rulings, starting to reload has all the negatives of actually reloading. So, since your example has the F5 firing on turn 1, it can't start applying the "relaod" points until turn 2, then not fire it again on turn 3 to apply the last two point, which fully reloads it. So the rack won't be reloaded and ready to fire until turn 4.

[Scoutdad]

Actually, I think that if you have a partially reloaded drone rack, i.e. 2 points of four applied to it and you fire a drone on the following turn, you lose the previously applied points and must start over again on the next turn.

[SylvrDragon]

Actually, I think that if you have a partially reloaded drone rack, i.e. 2 points of four applied to it and you fire a drone on the following turn, you lose the previously applied points and must start over again on the next turn.

That makes sense.

Sorry for all the 'sudden' questions, but I've been playing for a few weeks now, but I just only obtained a rulebook yesterday so I've been absorbing a lot of reading; a friend of mine was nice enough to give me an old book yay!

[texastwister]

I think we've been misinterpreting the ship cards of Kzinti ships in our little battlegroup. We saw below each drone rack (on most ships) a block of boxes with numbered rows with four empty boxs in each row. Four drones in each rack -- ah! Must be reloads for the rack above! So we used those boxes to keep track of how many reloads we'd gone through.

Now, after a forum post about the life-span of a drone drove me back to the rules, I realized those are actually damage track for each drone in flight and also used to track the number of turns they've been out.

So... if those do not (as we previously supposed) indicate the number of reloads available for a given ship, then IS there a limit? Or can I keep reloading as needed for as long as a battle requires?

Scott
Austin, TX

[junior]

There is no limit to the total reloads available. You can keep reloading for as long as the battle lasts.

[pinecone]

There are scenarios that change that, though.

[mjwest]

The answers have been correct.

If you fire a drone from a rack in the middle of being reloaded, you lose any accumulated repair points.

There is no maximum number of repairs that are allowed, therefore you may reload as long as you have a rack to reload.

And, yes, just about any standard rule can be overridden by a scenario special rule. So, in some special scenarios there may be a limited amount of repair points or a limited number of reloads allowed (including none of either).