ACTA:SF - tractors, crits, and cloak

[OgreMkV]

Hello,

I got my rule book last night and read through the whole thing, in an hour or so. Thanks for making it so easy to follow. But I did have 3 questions that weren't answered or seemed very confusing in the book... these may have multiple parts.

Thanks in advance
Ogre

1) Tractors - can a ship being tractored launch drones? plasmas? shuttles? This is was pretty significant rule in SFB and I was curious if the same applies here

2) Criticals - This whole section confused me. First, the crit tables didn't seem to match up with what the text was saying (I think the text said, "1 additional damage for level 1 impulse crit", but the table showed 0 extra damage at level 1)

I also found the critical levels confusing. Can you go past level six? The repair rules stated that you could reduce criticals, but never below level six... which seems kind of silly since there is nothing higher.

Also, I was confused by the levels of crits... one weapon can only do one point of critical?

3) Cloaking - The rules stated that a ship going into cloak has Stealth+4. While it is cloaked, it only has Stealth+2 and seeking weapons can't target it. That seems to imply that phasers or disrupters could target a cloaked ship and that being cloaked is actually worse than going into cloak. Or is no fire permitted at a fully cloaked ship?

Thanks again

 

[scoutdad]

Hello,

I got my rule book last night and read through the whole thing, in an hour or so. Thanks for making it so easy to follow. But I did have 3 questions that weren't answered or seemed very confusing in the book... these may have multiple parts.

Thanks in advance
Ogre

1) Tractors - can a ship being tractored launch drones? plasmas? shuttles? This is was pretty significant rule in SFB and I was curious if the same applies here

Not sure about htis one. It hasn't come up in playtesting (as we usually try to stay out of tractor range to keep movement options open).

2) Criticals - This whole section confused me. First, the crit tables didn't seem to match up with what the text was saying (I think the text said, "1 additional damage for level 1 impulse crit", but the table showed 0 extra damage at level 1)

If you read the FAQ on the mongoose site, you'll see that the example is incorrect. It's a hold-over from an earlier draft of the rules. The chart is correct.

ound the critical levels confusing. Can you go past level six? The repair rules stated that you could reduce criticals, but never below level six... which seems kind of silly since there is nothing higher.

If you have a critical score of 6 in a given location and take another hit in that location, you take the extra damage ... but not the damage effects. As those have already been scored.
I think you may have misread something. Damage Control can be used to reduce your critical hit level, but only in locations that are not at a 6. Critical Hit Locations at a 6, cannot be repaire in game.

was confused by the levels of crits... one weapon can only do one point of critical?

Not exactly.
Each attack die has a chance to score a critical, so a single Photon Torpedo (multihit 4) can possibly scored 4 critical hits - and each of those are rolled separately, so they could hit one, two, three, or even four locations. [And a bank of four photon torpedoes could score even more].
And to further confuse the issue, Photon Torpedoes are Devastating +1. Which means that when you score a critical hit with them, they score two points of critical damagein the same location.

3) Cloaking - The rules stated that a ship going into cloak has Stealth+4. While it is cloaked, it only has Stealth+2 and seeking weapons can't target it. That seems to imply that phasers or disrupters could target a cloaked ship and that being cloaked is actually worse than going into cloak. Or is no fire permitted at a fully cloaked ship?

You're reading it wrong.
You have to roll a separate die for the stealth bonus to see if the hit actually even scores damage.
When cloaking, you are at Stealth +4 and receive 5 hits from phasers. You know get to roll 5 d6 (one for each hit) and any that roll a 4 or higher, miss.
When fully cloaked and the same 5 hits from the phasers come in, you roll 5d6 and any that roll a 2 or higher, miss.

When engaging your cloak, you are at Stealth +4 and the opposing forces can fire / launch anything at you. And you cannot fire.
When fully cloaked, you are at Stealth +2 and can not be targetted by seeking weapons. Direct fire weapons can still be used, but must overcome the stealth. And you cannot fire back.
When disengaging the cloak, there is no stealth bonus... all opposing forces may fire anything at you... and you may return fire at will.

 

[OgreMkV]

Thanks scoutdad,

For the tractors, I was wondering if I could anchor a ship and prevent it from launching things...


Crits, fair enough on the example. Though I'm going to hate buying a new book when all the rules are worked out.

The rule I was reading about repairs was from the campaign rules. I probably don't even need it.

Cloak: Hmmm... so, the only real benefit to being cloaked is no drones. Going from a 2/3rds hit to a 1/3 hit isn't all that great. Gorn can still shotgun plasmas at close rangel.

With the new drone rules, as long as one isn't actually in the auto-hit range of drones, then going into cloak is much better than actually being in cloak. Except for plasmas and cloaking ships are 50% of the ships with plasmas.

 

[scoutdad]

No... when engaging cloak, it's 50:50 to hit.
1,2,3 and you're hit. 4,5,6 and its a miss.

When cloaked, it's a 1/6 chance at being hit.
1 and you're hit. 2,3,4,5,6 and it's a miss.

 

[OgreMkV]

No... when engaging cloak, it's 50:50 to hit.
1,2,3 and you're hit. 4,5,6 and its a miss.

When cloaked, it's a 1/6 chance at being hit.
1 and you're hit. 2,3,4,5,6 and it's a miss.

Huh?

OK, I'm confused now. Let me go reread the rules and see if I can make sense of them again.

I'll check back this evening.

 

[Da Boss]

May be easier to think of it this way

Cloaked - 2+ save - you get to roll a d6 against any hit and on anything but a 1 you ignore it. 8)

 

[OgreMkV]

May be easier to think of it this way

Cloaked - 2+ save - you get to roll a d6 against any hit and on anything but a 1 you ignore it. 8)

OK. I think I was confused by context. The +4 or +2 doesn't actually change the roll. The +4 and +2 are the new to-hit numbers...

 

[Rick]

Yes - you should be reading them as 4+ and 2+.