Can I choose to fire phasers separately?

gord314

Mongoose
Consider this example: A D7 has one shield remaining and I'm in its forward arc, all I have left to fire are phaser-1s. If I'm in a Kirov BCH with 10 phaser-1s lined up I could fire all of them at once, but then all of them would deal half damage due to the Klingon special rule (since it still has a shield left). Could I instead fire say my turreted phaser-1s first to take down their shields then hit them with the rest of them?
 
I don't have my rule book here, so someone correct me if I'm wrong, but if memory serves, the Klingon double-front shields is only good up to double the current shield rating. It doesn't make any sense that one shield box could stop five points of damage using the double-front rule, does it? Ergo, in your example of having one shield box left, the double-front shield can stop two points of damage, and the next eight (of ten fired, if they all hit) goes to the hull.

You question does touch on a subject that I don't think was "officially" answered, that being how weapon fire is grouped. Some people want to groupe all phaser fire as one salvo, where as others want to fire each line-item of phasers separately at the same target.

If you and I were playing and before the game start had agreed upon grouping all phasers together, I would not allow you to split them up because that would be changing the rule mid-game.
 
Page 7 - Each weapon system listed on a ship's roster has a Attack Dice (AD) score listed. This is the number of dice rolled every time the weapon system is fired.

This appears to indicate damage is resolved by the weapon line item and not by all the line items at once. So in this case the Kirov would have to declare all its attacks at once then resolve the damage by the weapon system (One Line at a time.). So it would have to resolve one bank/line of 2AD to drop the shield then the rest of the phasers (8AD) would not have shield blocking them and would roll on the Attack Table like normal. You can not split that initial Weapon System to resolve as 2 seperate 1AD phasers because you had to declare all firing at the same target before you rolled any dice.
 
gord314 said:
Consider this example: A D7 has one shield remaining and I'm in its forward arc, all I have left to fire are phaser-1s. If I'm in a Kirov BCH with 10 phaser-1s lined up I could fire all of them at once, but then all of them would deal half damage due to the Klingon special rule (since it still has a shield left). Could I instead fire say my turreted phaser-1s first to take down their shields then hit them with the rest of them?

So long as the shield has a rating above 0 the klingon ship will have the number of hits it receives halved round up. Once the shield is at 0 all damage is as normal.

People have many ways of doing this but for ease I just double the shield. One box of shield stops two hits, everything else after that and the shield is 0 hence normal damage.

If you get 8 hits with the phasers in killzone that is 16 damage. The shield stops 2 and goes away. 14 damage rolled on the damage chart. Simples.


Rambler said:
Page 7 - Each weapon system listed on a ship's roster has a Attack Dice (AD) score listed. This is the number of dice rolled every time the weapon system is fired.

This appears to indicate damage is resolved by the weapon line item and not by all the line items at once.

The point of the game is simple SFB, the firing weapon blocks bit is for splitting fire defensively or ofensively and for scouts and such. If you are firing 10AD of phasers roll 10 dice and apply the hits, if you are rolling 2AD then 2AD then 4AD then 2AD you are taking much longer.

The Klink shield has one box left, it takes half damage so it takes 2 damage to drop it, everything after those 2 damage hits the hull at full power.

Keep it Simple, Keep it Quick, Keep it Fun.
 
Rambler said:
Page 7 - Each weapon system listed on a ship's roster has a Attack Dice (AD) score listed. This is the number of dice rolled every time the weapon system is fired.

This appears to indicate damage is resolved by the weapon line item and not by all the line items at once. So in this case the Kirov would have to declare all its attacks at once then resolve the damage by the weapon system (One Line at a time.). So it would have to resolve one bank/line of 2AD to drop the shield then the rest of the phasers (8AD) would not have shield blocking them and would roll on the Attack Table like normal. You can not split that initial Weapon System to resolve as 2 seperate 1AD phasers because you had to declare all firing at the same target before you rolled any dice.

Alot of the time I don't think it will really matter which way you do it if its the same weapon, as with this example the result will be the same, however that being said, There is the possibility that one weapons firing will result in something that will effect the second and subsequent weapons, say via criticals?

We normally resolve each weapon individually but in occassions some of us just roll the whole thing together for speed......It used to be more of an issue with other versions with more varied defence systems/armour.
 
Da Boss said:
Alot of the time I don't think it will really matter which way you do it if its the same weapon, as with this example the result will be the same,

Except it is not the same in this example.

If he fires all phasers together, then all 10AD get halved (barring 6s) as the klingon had the front shield at that point.

If he fires 1 weapon line to take out that front shield then the other 8AD hit for full damage.
 
storeylf said:
If he fires all phasers together, then all 10AD get halved (barring 6s) as the klingon had the front shield at that point.
That doesn't sound right to me. Sadly, I don't have my rulebook at hand, so I can't look it up, but I was under the impression that the double-front shield only works up to the number for shield boxes the ship has left. It makes no flipping sense at all for it to work as you said. How can one shield box, even doubled, stop five points of damage?
 
double front shield is against the number of hits.

so roll all your dice, see how many hits you get, deduct the number of shields (x2 in this case) apply the rest to the hull.
 
Sgt_G said:
storeylf said:
If he fires all phasers together, then all 10AD get halved (barring 6s) as the klingon had the front shield at that point.
That doesn't sound right to me. Sadly, I don't have my rulebook at hand, so I can't look it up, but I was under the impression that the double-front shield only works up to the number for shield boxes the ship has left. It makes no flipping sense at all for it to work as you said. How can one shield box, even doubled, stop five points of damage?

Agreed :) your are doubling shields NOT halving AD - very different.
 
The rule HALVES the number of hits sustained, it doesn't double its shields.

PS I meant it halves the hits the 10AD inflict not the AD itself.
 
storeylf said:
The rule HALVES the number of hits sustained, it doesn't double its shields.

PS I meant it halves the hits the 10AD inflict not the AD itself.

It halves the number of hits sustained on the shields. You don't, for example, halve the number of 6's that bleed through the shields, do you? 2 hits take down the surviving shields, the rest go through without being halved.
 
"So long as it has a Shields score above 0, a Klingon ship suffering an attack from within its Fore arc will have the number of hits it sustains halved, rounding up, with the exception of any hits that penetrate the shields. These are treated as normal." page 81

I took this to mean AD that rolled a 6 to bypass the shields are not effected, but hits on the shields are, even if they spill over onto the hull. If this is not the case, I would really like an official ruling, since it can have a huge impact on the game.
 
It halves the number of hits sustained on the shields. You don't, for example, halve the number of 6's that bleed through the shields, do you? 2 hits take down the surviving shields, the rest go through without being halved.
No, 6s go through. However, probably like the OP, I'm reading the rule as saying if the shields are up at the point you fire then any non 6s are halved. Not that you work out how much would take down the shield then apply the rest normally (which is a level of complexity this game does not seem to get into).

Another far to vague a rule to cause confusion.
 
No, once the shields are at zero there are no shields to penetrate. Penetrate to me implies that you are going through shields, not that you have destroyed them. I woud have expected slightly different termimology for what you are saying. Hence I see penetrate as meaning 6s.

Also, as noted i just don't see this game as being the sort where you work out whether one portion of a volley at half strength took out shields then apply the rest normally. Maybe wrong of course. Also of course an official answer on what actually constitutes an 'attacK' might help.
 
As mentioned, normally we play that you do each weapon in order so given the very small AD that SF ships have in individual mounts its not normally an issue. Although I concede, there are a few ships, like the Klingon Dreanought that do have good sized batteries.....
 
Yesh some of you make this hard work.

If you want to interpret the rules to say that way go ahead. For those people who want thinks simple but reasonable the one point shield stops two points of damage and that’s it.

You can fire individual lines of Phasers or roll the lot together and just treat the shield as being doubled from the front. Yes I know it’s not the exact same number, to be honest I don’t care about min maxing how many Phasers I have to fire to exploit that half round up bit. I just want a fast, fun game.

Klingon shields from the front are doubled, one box of shields stops two damage, EVERYTHING else from that salvo hits the hull. You can chose to fire your Phasers first to take down the shield and your photons second to maximise the Devastation or go with Photons first and Phasers second to get more crits with precise.

I don’t see how you can think the shield stopping 5 hits with one box left is reasonable but that’s just me. If you want to play it that way go for it, it’s your game.

If Matt wanders in and rules on it working that way it just slows the game down for everyone as we all start firing Phasers line by line instead of in one go.
 
I'm not overly bothered which way the rule is meant to go, but like the OP had just read it as I noted.

It is simpler than your way at least, roll and halve the hits, no intermiediate calculation.

Whilst I like simplicity, I also like clear rules where everyone is likely to be playing the same way, nothing worse than playing for an hour or two and suddenly find your plan went up the swanny because someone else says they always played to a different interpretation, or with some house rule.

The rule on what constitutes an attack could do with an official answer for other reasons anyway, it can be important as crits cause shields to go down, or traits to be lost etc. Note that we will only start rolling for each line separately if that is what is meant to constitute an 'attack'. If an attack is all weapons of one type then you presumably have no option to roll each individually.
 
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