Can I choose to fire phasers separately?

[Captain Jonah]

Hmm, I think I'm beginning to understand why the SFB rulebook is the size it is! :twisted:

Book, a collection of pages containing writen information, a single object.


Book, rule BOOK. What is this book you speak of. I have a collection of BookS that is a foot high if you pile everything in :lol:


A ship can fire only during its attack phase, all offensive fire is split between targets as required. The limit is that a single weapon mount (a line) must be entirely offensive or Defensive.

If you want to fire by lines that’s fine, if you want to fire all Phasers at once and use common sense that is also fine. Hey it’s a game, more importantly it’s your game.

Still I agree for tournaments and such like it needs to be settled so everyone is playing the same game. Too much assumption, too many ambiguities, too much interpretation.

 

[gord314]

As some people pointed out, allowing separate attacks from each weapon system would really slow the game down, and allow for more damage then was intended on Klingon shields. The question for me then is what does penetrate mean with respect to shields.

 

[Madstoat]

As some people pointed out, allowing separate attacks from each weapon system would really slow the game down, and allow for more damage then was intended on Klingon shields. The question for me then is what does penetrate mean with respect to shields.

It really doesn't slow the game down.

 

[storeylf]

Hmm, I think I'm beginning to understand why the SFB rulebook is the size it is! :twisted:

That's not huge because of things like this, it is huge because of the level of detail they went to - things like what type of drone, what type of drone rack, Is Bob the engineer in the right section of ship to repair X this turn, were your marines on the bridge or on deck 3, were they marines or just crew, it even has categories of power that are important! etc etc

Being clear doesn't require a large rule book, it just requires using precise language and using it consistently. ACTA tries to be a bit too informal, and that results in ambiguities and different interpretations. What constitutes an 'attack' should be well defined in a game like this.

 

[Stealth7]

Hmm, I think I'm beginning to understand why the SFB rulebook is the size it is! :twisted:

Yeah, rules lawyers. Always adding complexity where there is little or none.

 

[gord314]

Ah yes, asking questions about rules we find unclear on the forums where people answer questions about stuff like this. Rules lawyering at its finest.

 

[Iain McGhee]

As long as there's at least 1 point of forward shield left all hits on it are halved. That's the rule. You really should be resolving each line separately when you fire, so the first two phaser hits would take down the 1 point of shield and the rest wouldn't be halved (so no, it's not going to block 5 of the 10 hits from a Kirov).

For speed and simplicity I'd go with Captain Jonah's suggestion of just rolling all the phaser dice together and doubling the front shield's remaining points if it's outside the Kill Zone. I've been generally rolling each weapon type as a group, only rolling individually against Klingon front arcs if the total possible damage exceeds the shield rating (and then just rolling the remaining AD together once it's down).

 

[Zarash]

Ohh what did we do before the internet. We lost our own thinking somehow..... all joking aside, and just to be curious how many tournaments does people go to in a year to worry about this anyways? I thought that there was a thing called house ruling stuff.

 

[Finlos]

When firing a volley of AD you could just note how many shield points the Klingon ship in question has left (it is assumed you're firing into his Fore arc), halve enough AD to drop the shield and then apply the remaining AD as hits on the Attack Table.

For example, a Kirov centerlines a D5 (5 shields left due to previous fire) 6" away and fires all 10 AD of phaser-1s at it. 8 AD connect causing 16 hits, of which 10 drop the shield and the remaining 6 hits are rolled on the Attack Table. Then come the photons... :twisted:

Mind you, a little math doesn't bother me much either.

 

[mojo]

I think we want to treat this like its fed com or SFB- but I think that the shield number is a number of shield strength instead of actual boxes of shields - its more abstract- so when the klingon ship still has a shield number above 0 all hits to the SHIP are affected- not the hits to the shields- so 8 hits are halved to 4- if the shield number is 2 subtract 2 hits- the rest go through to the hull-

-any 6's that may have been rolled would have ignored the shields anyway-

 

[gord314]

@Zarash, before the internet we discussed the rules among ourselves and if we couldn't decide on an interpretation we diced for it. We can and do still do this, in fact we have about a page of house rules written up for our gaming group. However, I'm interested in the intent of the game designers and I'm interested in how other players interpret the rules. I honestly can't understand why anyone has a problem with this. Reading the responses to this topic it is clear that there are different opinions about in what order attacks are worked out and how Klingon shields work so I think its been a worthwhile topic and I look forward to an official response.

 

[Captain Jonah]

I think we want to treat this like its fed com or SFB- but I think that the shield number is a number of shield strength instead of actual boxes of shields - its more abstract- so when the klingon ship still has a shield number above 0 all hits to the SHIP are affected- not the hits to the shields- so 8 hits are halved to 4- if the shield number is 2 subtract 2 hits- the rest go through to the hull-

-any 6's that may have been rolled would have ignored the shields anyway-

Erm Nope. :lol:

I have fired my Phasers against incoming drones and all I have left are those 4 overloaded photons against the Klink with the one point shield. I hit with 3 photons, Yay that’s 24 damage, huh, what do you mean the shield halves the whole lot to 12 and stops a point as well :roll:

It’s not hard to say the shield has one Box/Point/Value/Strength left and its takes half damage so two points and Mr shield is no more. The rest hits the hull.

Considering that all firing takes place in a single action treating the shield as halving all hits from a single weapon type grossly adds to a race already blessed with advantages.

If you feel that firing by line on your Phasers to take down the shield first gives you some advantage then do that, me I hope I'm playing someone reasonable who accepts that from the front his shield is twice as good and simply stops twice its remaining strength, no fuss, no odd calculations.

Eat Phasers Klingon scum, followed by eating flaming plasmas death soon to be dead Klingon scum :lol:

@Zarash, before the internet we discussed the rules among ourselves

Reading the responses to this topic it is clear that there are different opinions about in what order attacks are worked out and how Klingon shields work so I think its been a worthwhile topic and I look forward to an official response.

Nice to see someone who can remember before the Internet, too many damm children round here :lol:

Also the order of firing is settled, you fire by types with all of a type firing in one go so all Phasers, then all plasmas/photons/disruptors then all drones.

Within a type they can fire by separate weapon battery (each line of the stat sheet). Its only odd cases, well and people trying to power game the Klink shields, that cause these topics.

Also also every new player that is confused and doesn't want to go back 200 topics to see where something has been covered ten times already, ADDs anyone :roll:

 

[storeylf]

Erm Nope. :lol: ........

me I hope I'm playing someone reasonable who accepts that from the front his shield is twice as good and simply stops twice its remaining strength, no fuss, no odd calculations.

......

What you say may make sense from some 'realism' POV, but what is the rule. I can query almost any game from a 'realism' or 'sensible' point of view, but prefer to play by what the rules say. I'd prefer my opponent plays by the rules, rather than argue that is isn't fair and he thinks it should be another way.

It seems there are a fair number of people who are reading it different to you and others. I'm not bothered who is correct and am happy either way, but would like an actual official clarifiaction.

Also the order of firing is settled, you fire by types with all of a type firing in one go so all Phasers, then all plasmas/photons/disruptors then all drones.

Really? - can you point me at the official clarification, I've read a few threads on this and not seen a response from mspange. As far as I can make out it is far from settled, and again even in this thread there are others saying different to you.

 

[Captain Jonah]

There is, or was, somewhere in the depths of ACTAs section a consolidated rules document of all of Mspranges rulings up to that point, unfortunately this was weeks ago and therefore hundreds of posts ago.

Perhaps someone could remember where it was.

I have asked before for a sticky thread just to cover the rules according to Msprange as he has made rullings that a week later are 50 topics and two pages back.

 

[storeylf]

There is thread in the rulemasters forum asking the very same questions as here. What constitutes an attack, and in the process how that interacts with klingon shields. The post isn't that far down page 1 and was posted in December (2 months ago). Still no official reply. The reply that is there is from Scoutdad, who also says that a mass photon volley would indeed be halved in its entirety even if there are only a few shields left.

That is the sort of thing I was getting at in my other post about lack of official respones. Surely the game designer who seems to frequent the forums could reply to those threads, they certainly seem useful ones for him to reply to.

 

[Zarash]

I don't have the rulebook yet, but in B5 Acta its per weapon system. So an attack would be per weapon system. I am not sure if its done the same in Noble Armada, but if so I would imagine that its the same for this game as well.

I would imagine if you wanted to roll all the dice per weapon type ie Phaser 1's, total the hits done then halve the hits per shields LEFT since thats the Klingon special. The remaining go through.

So we are looking at 2 ways of doing it.

If we are going by individual per weapon system as constituting an attack..

A Klingon ship has 2 shields left. You fire the phaser grouping getting 6 hits, the 2 shields would take 4 of the hits and 2 hits make it through. I would play it this way.

A Klingon ship has 2 shields left. You fire the phaser grouping getting 10 hits, the 2 shields would take 4 of the hits and 6 hits go through. I would play it this way.

to me this way seems much easier and is going with the original system.

Or this way with all weapon systems constituting an attack?

A Klingon ship has 2 shields left. You fire the phaser grouping getting 6 hits, the special would halve the hits making it 3, and then the 2 shields would take 2 hits and the other 1 pt make it through?

A Klingon ship has 2 shields left. You fire the phaser grouping getting 10 hits, the special would halve the hits making it 5, and then the shields would take 2 hits and then 3 make it through?

 

[Totenkopf]

Easy answer, house rule it. As for an official answer, ask scoutdad how he will rule on these in the first official tournament in the US for ACTA:SF.

 

[Zarash]

Yet my first example is semi- flawed in itself because I am grouping all the single weapons fire in one group. I would still do it this way instead of the second example because a little more damage is being done. Even tho it more or less doubling the shields that it has left...

If you rolled each individually then it would make things much slower.

I would house rule things if I actually had the book. My local shop does not have it. I have been waiting for mine to come. On the website I went to buy it from it says its in stock, yet when I went to buy it, it said that I had a 2 week wait. I am calling them tomorrow because its been 4 weeks now. On there website it says in stock ready to ship. That is really misleading as its not in stock ready to ship....

 

[mojo]

It would seem that the first weapon system to be rolled at the klingons would suffer from the shield rule- then if the remaining hits would take down the remaining shields to 0- the shield rule is null- just my opinion , but I think the shield rule is just to try to quantify rule wise and stat wise, the "massively reinforced" front shield of the klingons- its an abstract- like the 40k cover save that says that saved hits represent the target ducking under cover or moving out of the way or the shot generally being "spoiled" by something or someone in the environment- even if on the table- the target is pretty much completely visible to the shooter- at times it makes no sense- but its an abstract to speed game play-

and the rule does say "so long as it has a shield 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 SHIELDS [(ROLLED TO HIT SCORES OF 6)] . These are treated as normal"

And please know that I'm not trying to stick up for klingons ...I'm going to be playing with romulans!LOL...just reading rule as written in book- an official answer would be nice though-

 

[scoutdad]

I'm not Matthew, but until the man with the red name tells me otherwise, here's how it will be handled at the NashCon tournament (should it arise).
During early turnswhile the Klingon shield are at full strength, the attacker may (if he chooses) roll all phaser-1 AD together and distribute the damage.
During later turns, when the shields are weakened, he may still combine all AD of the same weapon type together, but the combined total will count as an attack and the damage will be halved as long as the shield strength is greater than 0.
He may however; roll the attacks in saperate groups as well.
So to take the previous example:

Kang's D7 is down to one shield box remaining and I have it centerlined with my Federation heavy cruiser. It's now my choice to either,
A) Roll all eight Phaser-1 AD together and then halve the damage even though that means the single box is effectively stopping as much as 5 points of damage, or...
B) Roll them as 4 groups of 2 AD each (FH, PH, SH, and T). This means that the first group will effectively drop the shield and the remaining 3 groups may get as much as 6 points through.

Of course, there's no question how everyone will choose to resolve it, but then again I think this is a case of us reading too much into the rules.

If you go back to the designers intentions, I think that each line on the stat block should be classified as a separate attack and its AD rolled alone. I think the choice to combine the rolls to speed game play is simply that... a choice.
My two Quatloos wroth, YMMV.