Federation Commander

While playing FC the other day, there was a rules "discussion," (which turned into a concussion after the fisticuffs).

I was unleashing a defensive ESG burst at some drones that had impacted. Meanwhile, my opponent had moved one of his ships to range 1 from my ship.

As I called the defensive burst, he claimed I should split the damage between the drones and his ship (citing the rule that defensive fire is at range 1, therefor his ships and the drones were at the same range).

As we reread the rules a few times, it looked to him that (under offensive burst) the rule is any object in range is affected, and that would include on an offensive burst.

As I see it, Defensive and Offensive burst are in separate sections, so they are separate rules. I think a defensive burst only affects the drones.

Another thought: what if a moon is in the same hex as the ship performing the defensive burst?

But we concluded that impacted seeking weapons were acctually at range zero and only fired at as if they were range 1 I believe.

I am just curious as to the interpretation by ADB.

If I was to re-write the rule, I would do it different. I would make it so you can fire in the defensive burst. The defensive burst would be AFTER the tractor phase of the defensive fire round. It would damage all the drones first (which I would rule as closest even if something in in the same hex, as the ESG is used last, so they have moved closer than defensive phaser range).

As you can only fire the ESG once per impulse, you could fire it with more power than is needed to kill a drone. In the offensive fire phase, leftover damage is applied as if it was fired offensively.

ericphillips wrote:If I was to re-write the rule, I would do it different.

So many people say that

Check out this thread:

http://tinyurl.com/379rp87

Defensive burst quite clearly states that you distribute the damage amongst impacted seeking weapons. It doesn't even include any other (non impacted) drones in your hex never mind ships a hex away.

If it isn't an impacted seeker it isn't affected.

Yeah, thats what I thought and we decided in the game. Thanks for the clarification.

Bear in mind I'm not an ADB official rules guy, but I can't see any other way of interpreting it off hand.

If the ESG is fired during the Defensive Fire phase, then it will only affect impacted seeking weapons. Even other units (ships, non-impacted drones, shuttles, etc) are not affected by a defensive ESG burst. There is no "range" to this; it only affects impacted weapons.

Yep, thats the way it reads. Thanks/