ACTA Space Station Targets Trait

[The_Mhor]

So, playing Severed Dreams Scenario from the book the other day, and a debate came up about the Targets Trait. It's a little ambiguously worded. Does Targets N mean that:

1) You pick N targets to fire any and all of your weapons at

OR

2) You may pick N targets for each of your Weapon systems to fire at?

Our example:

The two Hyperions had closed to close range on the Station. Out in Mid range was a swarm of Starfurys, and behind them the laggardly breaching pods. The B5 player targetted the Hyperions with all three of it's weapon systems, short, medium and long range. That's easy, two targets used. The B5 player was very paranoid about the breaching pods. If you read the Targets trait as (1) then he was done after nominating three breaching pods. If you read it as (2) then the mid range guns can also be fired on some poor Starfury wings.

In this case the targets are all fairly small, but it could make all the difference (in the most extreme case its 5 ships fired on vs 15) in a campaign game.

 

[Na-Po]

A simple exemple :
a target 4 space station can fire all its weapons (if in range and assuming the arc is Turret) against 4 different targets.(with full number of AD each time). But you first say which are the targets and then you see what weapon(s) are usable or not against the target.

That means your second option is not correct (unless you do not choose more than X different target for all your weapons)

 

[Methos5000]

I have always understood targets to be one ship that you can fire all of the space stations weapons. For example Targets 3 means you could fire all weapon systems with full AD listed at 3 seperate targets.
Page 20 of the Rule book:
Targets X: The Targets score of a space station is the maximum number of targets it can engage with its weapons in each turn. If more than one target is in range, then the space station may attack each available target once, up to its Targets maximum, with each of its listed weapon systems. (emphasis by me)

That means each weapon listed can fire at the targets with all its weapon systems however it can only select a target once, meaning you could not fire at one of the Hyperions in your example twice with the full weaponry of the space station.

Also you cannot target fighters (and breaching pods) with Space station weaponry.

Page 35 of the Rule book:
Fighters
Flights of fighters may not be targeted by space station weapons. Their main weapons are not calibrated to attack fast moving targets so close to their superstructure.

 

[The_Mhor]

OK, we missed the fighters rule, that's an interesting point, makes that play out very differently. That also means that as long as one enemy Tbolt survives after B5's fighters and omegas have fallen then B5 can't ever win Severed Dreams, even if all the other enemy ships are dead; since there's no time limit, sooner or later the station will fail to intercept that missile, repeat a few thousand times until B5 is eroded away...

New example, still B5 battle station, (Targets 5), say five Omegas at 26 inches and four chronos at eight inches. If you chose to fire your Heavy Pulse cannons at the Omegas, arguably the larger threat with boresighted beams, you then couldn't fire at the Chronos' with the quad arrays or the light pulse cannons, those guns are just wasted?

 

[Methos5000]

Correct. If you nominate the 5 Omegas as your 5 targets then any weapons not in range of the Omegas can't fire and no other ships can be fired at by the space station (for that turn anyway).

 

[The_Mhor]

I guess it stops Space Stations from being too over-powered.

Cheers.