Exploding ships and cumulative damage

[polemarch]

A quick question.

Once a ship reaches 0 damage it counts as being destroyed.

You roll on the damage table adding plus one for every point below 0 the damaged ship has taken.

Is this test taken at the end of the turn, or once a single ship has finished firing or as soon as one weapon has reduced the damage to below 0?

If the result is "running adrift" or "ship destroyed" can you choose to target this ship in subsequent turns in order to obtain a "ship explodes" result?

Likewise if can a ship running adrift due to crew at 0 also be targetted this way?

 

[Burger]

Is this test taken at the end of the turn, or once a single ship has finished firing or as soon as one weapon has reduced the damage to below 0?

As soon as one weapon has reduced the damage to 0 or below.

If the result is "running adrift" or "ship destroyed" can you choose to target this ship in subsequent turns in order to obtain a "ship explodes" result?

No.

Likewise if can a ship running adrift due to crew at 0 also be targetted this way?

No, but according to Matt it can still be boarded for double VP.

 

[polemarch]

So how do you board a ship which is adrift and not immobile?

I thought that a ship needs to be immobile to use the Launch Breaching Pods and Shuttles SA, and how can you use stand down and prepare to be boarded when the ship has no crew to stand down.


:?

 

[Greg Smith]

Is this test taken at the end of the turn, or once a single ship has finished firing or as soon as one weapon has reduced the damage to below 0?

As soon as one weapon has reduced the damage to 0 or below.

It's as soon as one ship has finished firing. Matt clarified this at the last tourney.

So how do you board a ship which is adrift and not immobile?

The only way would be breaching pods.

 

[Locutus9956]

It must be imobile to use the 'launch breaching pods and shuttles' special order, you can use breaching pod flights on any ship you can catch with them though.

 

[Burger]

Is this test taken at the end of the turn, or once a single ship has finished firing or as soon as one weapon has reduced the damage to below 0?

As soon as one weapon has reduced the damage to 0 or below.

It's as soon as one ship has finished firing. Matt clarified this at the last tourney.

Oh yeah you're right, sorry brainfart!
The ship must continue to fire all of the weapons which were declared to be firing at the target, before the explosion roll is made. Other ships in the squadron, however, do not fire.

 

[Greg Smith]

The ship must continue to fire all of the weapons which were declared to be firing at the target, before the explosion roll is made. Other ships in the squadron, however, do not fire.

Now I would have thought that if a squadron declared fire, everything would have to fire.

 

[Alexb83]

Me too - if not, they should be allowed to re-declare what they're firing at. It either all happens at once, or it doesn't.

But then typically in squadrons, I would declare all the weapons firing at one target, and roll all those weapons at once, rather than one ship at a time - since the squadron counts as one ship in terms of initiative and the assumption is that they're all moving/firing simultaneously.

 

[Reaverman]

The ship must continue to fire all of the weapons which were declared to be firing at the target, before the explosion roll is made. Other ships in the squadron, however, do not fire.

Now I would have thought that if a squadron declared fire, everything would have to fire.

IMHO, I reckon its the weapon system on one ship. Since technically, you are meant to roll per weapon system not per squadron!

 

[Voronesh]

I definitely do remember something about having to stop at the current weapon battery, and then doing the roll.....

I guess this one needs clearing up.

What does happen though, is that once a ship is adrift you cant fire at it again to make it explode.

 

[Locutus9956]

personally Ive always played it that you resolve all declared fire for that initiative step before making the 'boom today?' roll. It just makes sense.

 

[animus]

We play that it's after the ship has finished firing. All the fire was declared and the order in which your roll them shouldn't matter. I like hearing that Matt has ruled for this.

 

[Jhary]

Normaly we play it liked this. One ship fires all its wepon then we see what is intercepted and how mutch damage the ships take.

 

[Chernobyl]

Ships that have rolled on the Ship Explosion table do not roll again under any circumstance.

I don't know about the squadron fire declaration, I've never come across that one. My instinct would be to say they don't get a re-direct of their fire. I do agree that you ought to roll after one ship is finished firing at the target.

Chern

 

[Obsidian]

Now I would have thought that if a squadron declared fire, everything would have to fire.

I'm pretty sure that is the case. It is the reason why Declaring fire is such an important step and why the downside of squadroning at times can be over declaring fire on a single target. Typically it isn't a problem, but once ships get down near the end you need to watch what weapons you declare since the target will take all declared fire no matter what.

I've had more than a few times where I had to declare weaker weapons like pulse cannons and twin particle arrays over ones with double/triple damage because I didn't want the target to blow up. Usually works out, but every now and again I hit that 6-6 crit and roll out 15 - 20 extra damage on a ship that only had 5 points left.

 

[LordClinto]

personally Ive always played it that you resolve all declared fire for that initiative step before making the 'boom today?' roll. It just makes sense.

This make the most sense to me and thats how I've always played it. A squadron fires at the same time/initiative.

To have a ship stop it's firing would bring up too many issues like: having a ship in a squadron from Fleet X stop firing at a ship from Fleet Q when it reaches 0 or -1 damage to prevent an explosion that might harm additional Fleet X ships.

 

[Target]

If the Squadron had CAF at the target what happens then, they can't redirect. We play that we roll all the same type of weapons roll at the same time, if reduced o zero or beyond it's up to the player to fire the rest of his weapons or not. Depends whats around the enemy ship i guess whether you do or not.

 

[Ripple]

We've played whatever is declared must be finished. This is tough on squadrons and fighters.

- Vaguely related is that fire is not simultaneous. You do resolve ships by ship, weapon system by weapon system. This is important because you can saturate interceptors with weaker weapons before moving up to heavy hitters, or hit with beams first in hopes of hitting crippled status to remove the interceptors for you following pulse. If damage was not applied immedeately but at the end of the sequence this would be different, but that was our understanding.

Ripple

 

[Target]

It would be good if MGP would clear it up espicially with whether squadrons fire singlely (thats not spelt right) or all together if the weapons system is the same. Real bad spelling in this post

 

[Triggy]

We've played whatever is declared must be finished. This is tough on squadrons and fighters.

- Vaguely related is that fire is not simultaneous. You do resolve ships by ship, weapon system by weapon system. This is important because you can saturate interceptors with weaker weapons before moving up to heavy hitters, or hit with beams first in hopes of hitting crippled status to remove the interceptors for you following pulse. If damage was not applied immedeately but at the end of the sequence this would be different, but that was our understanding.

Ripple

This is entirely correct and how it should be played