Federation Commander

In several scenarios, there is a scenario rule that says something like 'If the Federation ship is still on the map at the end of Turn #6, it is considered destroyed'.

Now, the above quote was taken from the 'Surprise Reversed' scenario in Romulan Attack. I know there are several ways of disengaging, but I'd like to know when the disengagement is considered to have happened and the counter is removed from the map.

So, in the above example, which taxes place on a floating map of about 100 hexes across, 50 from the centre point where the ships start, let's say that Stocker in the Lexington destroys say four Romulan ships by the end of Turn #5 and cripples the remaining ship.

However, he then realises he's running out of time, so he decides to spend Turn #6 running at speed max to get more than 35 hexes from the remaining crippled Romulan ship. At the end of Turn #6 he's 37 hexes away from it - so is that the point at which he disengages and is removed from the map? So that at the end of Turn #6 the Fed ship has indeed left the map even though he didn't actually leave the floating map by normal movement but instead by being removed by disengagement. Is that right? Otherwise he's going to have to spend a turn and three-quarters running for the map edge in order to avoid being destroyed....

I think that is correct, Although I don't know how the fed did so much damage...

pinecone wrote:I think that is correct, Although I don't know how the fed did so much damage...

Well, he didn't - that was an example.

However, I have just played two and a half turns of the game solo and I have destroyed two and crippled two. If you use suicide shuttles and your drones you can do a lot of damage in a short time.

but the roms can still use phasers, against you or your seeking weapons.

pinecone wrote:but the roms can still use phasers, against you or your seeking weapons.

Yeah but they hadn't woken up yet. Apparently the explosions were not loud enough

The rules didn't say that the Roms couldn't fire phasers while asleep, it just said they couldn't arm plasma.

Sorry pinecone, but the romulans CANNOT use their phasers.

Per 8RA1d Special rules:

Surprise: The surprised ships must obey certain restrictions until they are "released". They may not operate any shields, arm any weapons, arm or launch any shuttles.

The emphasis is mine, but a phaser is a weapon...

We played this scenario the other day as a present to my regular opponent. I got bad release rolls and it was a bloody affair for the Romulans.

Now, maybe I missed an interpretation somewhere, but...

But still my question has not been answered - and it doesn't just apply to this scenario anyway, I was just using it as an example - albeit a 'live' example!

Kang - while it doesn't officially explain it in the rule book, we assume that if you end a turn 35 (or more) hexes from the designated point that you have disengaged and are removed from the map.

we think of it as being headed away from the action and jumping from tactical warp speeds to high warp speeds.

OGREAI wrote:Sorry pinecone, but the romulans CANNOT use their phasers.

Per 8RA1d Special rules:

Surprise: The surprised ships must obey certain restrictions until they are "released". They may not operate any shields, arm any weapons, arm or launch any shuttles.

The emphasis is mine, but a phaser is a weapon...

We played this scenario the other day as a present to my regular opponent. I got bad release rolls and it was a bloody affair for the Romulans.

Now, maybe I missed an interpretation somewhere, but...

It may not Arm any weapons, it doesn't say anything about firing any weapons. Plasma has to be armed, a phaser does not.

My interpretian would be that firing the phaser as well, it makes little sense that it can fire phasers but not launch shuttles or use transporters.

What was the rule in the SFB sceniro? no weapons at all?

pinecone - that terminology is a hold-over from SFB where phasers (and every other weapon) had to be armed (i.e., provided with power) during energy allocation. If a particular phaser was not armed during EA, it could not fire during that turn. The change from this to the Fed Comm "pay-as-you-go" system is part of what speedsthe game up.

The wording should probably have been changed to read "may not arm or fire any weapons" as the original intent of the scenario was to have the ships not be able to fire anything until they had been released.

Theres things in SFB that didn't make it over ---
Active Fire Control, Active Sensors etc, that would knock the to hit numbers so high it wouldn't be worth the power to fire anyways ---
Activation or waking up, is what brings these items online --

The Romulans can't fire phasers.

"Arming" means "putting power into". Therefore, you can't fire phasers as you can't put power into them. Just because they are single turn arming weapons doesn't mean they doing have to be "armed" to be fired.

As for the real question, right now "disengaged" is defined by rule (2E). If it is a "location" or "fixed" map, this makes things easier. If it is "floating", then things become much more difficult.

Quite frankly, any scenario that requires "disengagement" by turn XX on a floating map probably should be reexamined.

mjwest wrote:Quite frankly, any scenario that requires "disengagement" by turn XX on a floating map probably should be reexamined.

Never thought of it like that - but I agree. It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, does it?