Clarification for 'The Art of Duty'

Paul Grogan · Post by **Paul Grogan** » Sat Aug 16, 2008 10:33 am

mjwest wrote:The note about cloaking is there to say they have spent the power. It doesn't mean they have to stay under cloak. It just means they start under cloak, and have spent the power for four impulses of cloaking costs. The effect of this rule is that the Romulans start cloaked without having already used their one allowed "fade-out" per turn. It also means they have spent the power outside the normal operation of the rules (which is why it is a special scenario rule).

Erm....

The scenario says "The ships must pay for cloaking for the first four impulses"

My english might be wrong here, but if it says that, I cannot see any other way that this could be interpreted

It says that during the first 4 impulses of the game, they *must* pay for cloaking. Thats what it says, plain and simple. Impulse 1 - I have to pay for cloaking. Impulse 2,3,4 - the same "I must pay for cloaking"

Impluse 5 onwards, no special rules, so back to normal - I could pay for cloaking if I wanted to, but I'm not forced to.

If this indeed not what was meant, then some errata needs publishing for this scenario.

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Sat Aug 16, 2008 12:14 pm

The intent was that the Romulans have to prepay for the cloak for the first four impulses. In other words, it is like they are just first activating cloak, except that they are already cloaked. (Which is why it is a special rule.)

The purpose of the special rule is to be a power drain. In the original SFB rule, the ships had to pay for an entire turn's cloaking, even if they didn't use it. This was an attempt to get a similar power drain using an FC rule (prepay for four impulses of cloak) that wouldn't ordinarily apply (they were already cloaked).

I am sorry if the wording isn't perfect.

Paul Grogan · Post by **Paul Grogan** » Sat Aug 16, 2008 1:40 pm

Are you saying that the energy for the 4 impulses of cloak does come out of the energy they get for turn 1?

If this is the case, then it doesnt really make a difference game-wise.
If they pre-pay at the start of the turn or just pay on the first 4 impulses, the effect is the same.

The question is that if they can decloak before turn 5 or not. If they can, then the wording is even more misleading.

Kang · Post by **Kang** » Sat Aug 16, 2008 2:24 pm

It does make 4 points of energy difference, it's just that if you do choose to de-cloak during one of the first four impulses, you don't get any of your money back [literally in our case

] [at Paul's gaming group we use coins for our energy tokens...]

The impression I get from Mike's posting is that you pay for the first four impulses just as if you have started to cloak, but you don't have to suffer the fade-in period of vulnerability. Also he's trying to get as close as possible to the original scenario where it cost the whole turn's cloaking cost, not just half a turn as it is in the FC scenario.