If there's a tractor auction in EA when one ship has tractored another, when does the auction take place? Specifically, does it take place before or after allocating the baseline speed? This seems important given that if my ship is caught in a tractor, I may choose to put tokens into an auction in EA or I may choose to try to move both our ships by putting tokens into a high(er) speed.
Dunno..neither 5D6a (Tractor auctions) nor 1E1 (Energy Allocation ) say..good question. We usually play it after setting baseline speed..but that's just how we do it.
mjwest wrote:Well, going by the list in (1E1), and the wording of (1D2), I think that choosing your baseline speed comes before anything else in energy allocation.
"I think"? I expected better from you, sir.
That's certainly a reasonable way to read it, but neither of those sections, unless I'm really missing something, has anything to say about tractor auctions. The best evidence is the use of "first" as in "First you must set your baseline speed" in (1D2).
It can be argued that as the tractor is a carry-over from the previous turn, the tractor auction would take place before setting base-line speed as it would be superseding that step.
But again, we play it as set base-line speed in secret, then do the tractor auction.
mjwest wrote:Well, going by the list in (1E1), and the wording of (1D2), I think that choosing your baseline speed comes before anything else in energy allocation.
The Player Reference Card list 'pay to continue Tractor Beams' as the last item in energy allocation.
We have always played it with the steps taking place in the order that they appear on the card (Baseline speed/Weapon loading/Shield regen/Tractors).
