Federation Commander

PASS THE PARCEL
Terry O'Carroll, HMAS New South Wales

Once a drone or suicide shuttle has impacted, there is not much that other ships can do to help the target of the seeking weapon. However, if the impacted weapon is held in a tractor beam, a friendly ship can "unstick" the seeking weapon with its own tractors, by tractoring the drone with its own tractor beams and winning a tractor auction.

Example: A drone impacts ship A, which tractors the drone during Defensive Fire. In the Other Functions phase, Ship B tractors the drone held by Ship A. Since the drone is already tractored, the two ships conduct a tractor auction, which ship B wins by spending an extra point of power. Ship A flies away, leaving the drone held in Ship B's tractor beam, and the drone can be dealt with in the usual ways.

This isn't a very efficient way of dealing with a drone or suicide shuttle, since it costs 3 points of power and two tractors to deal with one seeking weapon. It would be much better to have ship B tractor the seeking weapon before it impacted on Ship A. Still, it can be handy to clear a friendly ship's tractor beams of impacted seeking weapons, so that tractor beam hits won't result in even more damage.

Man, Terry, you are like a loophole seeking missle!

I am not convinced you can attempt to tractor a drone that has impacted another ship. Quite frankly, I would say you can't do it. But the rules don't address that directly, and I will have to leave it to Steve to rule one way or the other.

Once a Seeking Weapon Impacts its target, it is removed from the map; I'd say that anything not on the map cannot be tractored.

Creeping Rulebook strikes again...we'll end up with the same 800-page monster that SFB had before people are done cracking open every loophole they can find. Indeed, that's why SFB had the monster rulebook in the first place!

Oh well. I suspected that only the impacted ship could interact with the drone, but there's no special case rules covering it (unlike phasers and drones).

Oh my God!!!

I made someone's sig!

I have made it!!

Thanks Terry, you made my day.

MikePowers wrote:Creeping Rulebook strikes again...we'll end up with the same 800-page monster that SFB had before people are done cracking open every loophole they can find. Indeed, that's why SFB had the monster rulebook in the first place!

In all fairness to Terry, each of the loopholes he has found will likely be filled with a sentence each. They are legitimate catches, and won't appreciably add to the size of the rulebook.

SFB turned into a huge rulebook not because people found loopholes that had to be plugged. (As Mike West noted, each takes about a sentence.) SFB developed into a huge rulebook because we kept adding cool new ideas (crew quality, passive fire control, swordfish drones, et al) and every one of those new ideas had to include "interaction rules" with all of the other cool new ideas. FC is designed to streamline the system for fast play. SFB players just can't live without their multi-warhead drones but FC players just don't need the clutter.

Eric, Delete this topic, I have processed it for the file.

I have deleted all of the other topics you request. I just couldn't delete this one, as it is where my quote made Terry's sig. I just couldn't delete it ...

No, please don't close the thread; this is an interesting rules and tactical discussion!

I have a rules question on this as relates to recapturing already impacted weapons.

We know that an impacted weapon cannot be tractored or fired at by another ship.

We also know that an impacted, tractored drone can hit the ship if the tractor is destroyed by direct fire weapons. If destroyed by a H&R raid, though, it impacts again next Defensive Fire phase. This also happens if the tractor is dropped at the start of the turn.

Now, in that intervening impulse, can another ship tractor the weapon while it is not engaged? In other words, is the drone still counted as impacted?

PS Your name has been a part of terryoc's sig as far back as I can remember1

The drone still counts as being "impacted". No one else can fire on or tractor it.

As for the quote, I joined pretty much the day (or the day after) the FC Forums opened. So, the quote, and Terry's matching signature, all happened a couple months right after the Forums opened (going by the post dates and the join dates). So, yes, Terry has had that signature pretty much from the start of the FC Forums.

In that case, then, the 'tactic' would be illegal - to grab the drone once the target has 'dropped' it.

Thanks for clarifying that

Being a sentimental fool too, let me give you some advice:

Don't Delete it!!!

pinecone wrote:Being a sentimental fool too, let me give you some advice:

Don't Delete it!!!

Yes, man. As an "answer guy", you should abuse power JUST a little.

BTW. Don't forget, if you are REALLY desperate to stop a drone, you can always tractor them with ships BEFORE they impact (Range 1) if you can get away with it. Especially if you have used up your guns on other duty.

And you can always tractor drones targeted on a buddy before they impact.