Ship Identification Etiquette

[cheirisophus]

When you place a model of a ship on the table and that model could represent any of several variants (e.g., Vorchan, Vorchat, Vorchar, Demos), do you tell your opponent exactly what it is, or does he not get to find out until you empty your missle rack at him?

 

[phoenixhawk]

I think that the sporting thing to do is to tell your opponent, especially in a friendly game.

I am not sure what the rules are on official tournaments, but I would imagine you would have to declare it before the game starts since if you don't declare it, all the sudden that Avioki just became a Kaliva when it came time to roll dice and that's not very fair in a competitive environment.

Most games allow the opponent to inspect your list/army/deck, etc. before a competitive match begins.

Chris

 

[Banichi]

I've seen no official ruling, but it seem like the polite thing to do. Especially if you have a fleet with several variants on the same hull. eg centurion/prefect or any one of the variants based on the vorchan hull. Basically consider how you would feel if half way through a game your opponant declared that something you were targeting, or discounted as not a threat, was anounced to be something you were not expecting. The avioki/kaliva example is spot on. You might think "its recharging its slow loading beams this turn, I'm safe." only to be riddled with gravatic lances, When if you had been told at the begining of the game what it was you wouldn't have parked your ship there.

 

[Right Hand of God]

It is in the oriinal rules, although please don't sk me to quote the page number, that you are supposed to identify any and all varients at the start of the game.

 

[Burger]

Telling your opponent up-front is only fair.

At tournaments you normally have to submit a full fleet list at the start, including all missile or e-mine types.

 

[cordas]

What we do is draw up our fleet lists seperately and in private, then swap fleet lists so we can see what each other has.

Given that ships are deemed to have good enough sensors to be able to always hit the other ship when they shoot, it seems obvious to me that those same sensors are good enough to find out what variant of a hull is being fielded.

Also there is the fact that different variants of the same hull can be at different priority levels you also need to check this to make sure your opponets fleet is legal. The Hyperion hull for example can either be used as Skirimish, Raid or Battle for 3rd age Earth Alliance.

 

[B_Steele]

All ship sheet information in a game is open information. You could easily house-rule that someone does not get to see what variant it might be, but for such a fast and friendly game, it is not likely necessary.

Because if your game isn't friendly...why are you playing?

Bry

 

[H]

I think their is a "possibility" in campaign games that the opponent "might" not know what ship they are facing, but general good sportsmanship in any other arena should allow the opposition to look at your fleet.

 

[Valen is my name]

letting your opponent know which variant is the sporting thing to do, otherwise you could change what it is to suit you and your opponent wouldn't know. if you were playing in a tourny that had bonus points for ssportsmanship i doubt very much you would get them if you didn't make it clear which variant you were using

 

[CZuschlag]

While not directly stated, ACtA is a game of open information, as noted by some of the scenarios. Consider Assassination: you have to select an opponent's ship of the highest priority as a target. Unless you know what variant of a ship is what, how can you know what is the ship with the highest priority?

Example: 3 G'Quan figures are on the table. If playing Assassination, you will need to know if any of them are the G'Quonth variant (which is a higher priority).

So, while it is not explicitly stated, it is a fundamental assumption of the scenario generation system.

 

[emperorpenguin]

Given that ships are deemed to have good enough sensors to be able to always hit the other ship when they shoot,.

they do?! :shock:

 

[cordas]

Given that ships are deemed to have good enough sensors to be able to always hit the other ship when they shoot,.

they do?! :shock:

Yup, thats why you don't roll to hit, before you roll against hull to see how much damage you can do... I am sure it says something like that in the basic rule book.

 

[Valen is my name]

i've just checked the rulebook and it says this:

When Attack Dice are rolled, the resulting number on each dice is compared to the target's Hull score. For every Attack Die that equals or beats the target's Hull score, a hit has been scored. A roll of 1 on an attack die is always a miss, a roll of a 6 is always a hit.

It says a 1 is a miss, so it looks like 1s wil miss the ship, but the other numbers probably represent a mixture of missing the hull altogether and just not damaging it. It looks as though you can miss a ship without it dodging or using stealth. Also, a roll of a 1 on a successful hit is a bulkhead hit, so maybe a fail to beat the hull score is a miss OR a bulkhead, and then there is another chance for the hit to be a bulkhead hit.

 

[emperorpenguin]

Given that ships are deemed to have good enough sensors to be able to always hit the other ship when they shoot,.

they do?! :shock:

Yup, thats why you don't roll to hit, before you roll against hull to see how much damage you can do... I am sure it says something like that in the basic rule book.

whether it says it in the book or not is bull, you watch any battle scene in B5 and the sheer number of shots that miss targets is staggering

hull score also represents how hard a target is to hit, not a good idea IMO but what we're stuck with. VAS has a much better system

 

[Valen is my name]

they do?! :shock:

Yup, thats why you don't roll to hit, before you roll against hull to see how much damage you can do... I am sure it says something like that in the basic rule book.

whether it says it in the book or not is bull, you watch any battle scene in B5 and the sheer number of shots that miss targets is staggering

hull score also represents how hard a target is to hit, not a good idea IMO but what we're stuck with. VAS has a much better system

thats what i was trying to say with what it has in the book but i didn't explain myself very well.

 

[cordas]

Yup, thats why you don't roll to hit, before you roll against hull to see how much damage you can do... I am sure it says something like that in the basic rule book.

whether it says it in the book or not is bull, you watch any battle scene in B5 and the sheer number of shots that miss targets is staggering

hull score also represents how hard a target is to hit, not a good idea IMO but what we're stuck with. VAS has a much better system

thats what i was trying to say with what it has in the book but i didn't explain myself very well.

Hey I didn't write the book, I seem to remember such points being raised in the forums when this was debabted.

 

[emperorpenguin]

I know Cordas, not getting at you. I seem to recall such comments being put forward ages ago.
Just think it's incredibly silly to state such a thing when it hugely goes against the feel of the show.

 

[Harry Lonsdale]

The only information that I can possibly see being kept secret would be refits in a campaign.

 

[Jhary]

You have to declare what ship is on the table. Also you have to show youre fleet list.

 

[Burger]

The only information that I can possibly see being kept secret would be refits in a campaign.

Except they need to be witnessed by another player, to stop cheaty players simply choosing the best one!