Federation Commander

Grimmshade · Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2017 1:54 pm Post subject: ESG - how to allocate damage

The ESG rules are really great in their simplicity, but when using them on multiple enemy ships I'm not certain I'm using them correctly.

The rules say damage is equally divided among all ships in same space first. If these are all destroyed, then all ships in adjacent spaces next.
The rules also say that the ESG damage is added to a volley from the Lyran ship using the weapon.

Here's my question:
If there is only one ship in the same space, and it's destroyed in a volley that includes an ESG, how do I know how much ESG damage carries over to the adjacent enemies? Should I just assume all remaining damage is from the ESG and carry it over?

mjwest · Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2017 3:42 pm Post subject:

Most likely none.

Remember, that by rule (1E2d), all weapons fire in the Offensive Direct-Fire Phase must be completely allocated before any dice are rolled. So, for a target to be considered destroyed so that the remaining damage can be applied to an adjacent hex, that target has to be destroyed by the ESG. Practically, that means the only targets you will get past in a single impulse are drones and shuttles.

So, in your case, the ship isn't going to be destroyed by the ESG alone, so it's damage is just rolled into the volley of the other weapons fire on that ship. Any excess damage isn't "ESG damage"; it is just undifferentiated damage that is lost by accidentally over killing the target ship.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

Grimmshade · Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2017 5:01 pm Post subject:

Cool, thanks man! That's actually the way we played it when the question arose yesterday.

Also, ESG's can really hurt!