Declaring Emergency Decel vs. Accel

[chazrobbins]

How do you declare Emergency Deceleration? Does it have to be before or after announcing acceleration? Or what?

[mjwest]

Since (2D3a) says that this occurs at the start of the impulse, I am going to say that it happens right at/before (1E2a). So, you declare Emergency Deceleration before you declare acceleration.

[Hod K'el]

I fail to understand the thinking. What would it matter in a 'me too' atmosphere?

[mjwest]

The tendency in Federation Commander is for each decision point to be discrete. So, for example, in the Other Functions phase, the decision to raise/lower shields allows for me-too activity, and the decision to use transporters allows for me-too activity, but shield activity occurs before transporter activity, so you cannot me-too dropping a shield when an opponent declares transporter activity.

As such, I view emergency deceleration as a discrete step independent of acceleration.

[chazrobbins]

Let me clarify the question. Is this legal?

At the beginning of an impulse:

Me: "Are you accelerating?"

You: "No"

Me: "I am accelerating" I spend the energy cost

You: "Ok, I will also accelerate" You spend the energy cost

Me: "Ok, now I declare Emergency Deceleration"

In other words, can you announce acceleration and Emergency Decel in the same declaration phase of an impulse?

[mjwest]

Let me clarify the answer: No. You declare (or not) whether you are using emergency deceleration before any declaration of acceleration takes place.

Me: "Are you accelerating?"

You: "Wait! Before we get to that, I want to perform an emergency deceleration."

Me: "OK. I guess that means you won't be accelerating. Neither will I."

[chazrobbins]

Thanks Mike. That's exactly the answer I needed. You are awesome.

[Kang]

Why is it not legal? Chazrobbins' example may still be a valid 'trick' if, for some reason, he wants to 'sucker' his opponent into accelerating before he does his Emer decel. Perhaps he wants him to spend his last point of power or something.

In the example he gives, he spends a point to accelerate, and so does his opponent, then in the discrete step of Emer decel, he loses that accel point - and naturally all his movement for that turn - by doing Emer decel. But his opponent has still accelerated and spent the power.

I think that the problem lies in that it does not define in the rulebook what order things are declared in the speed change phase. The rules simply state that ED and accel are declared in the speed change phase, not in what order. For transporters and tractors, the order is clearly defined in (1E2e)-2, but the same is not the case for these movement functions.

The only place I can find it is on the MITS cards in Orion Attack, where the order is accelerate-Emer Decel-Cancel Evasive Maneuvers. Then again, on the MITS cards, I'm afraid the Tractors and Transporters are reversed from their order in the rulebook

Perhaps the correct speed change phase sequence needs to be 'officially' published, that will answer the problem.

[Savedfromwhat]

because emergency decel comes before acceleration it looks like

[junior]

Why is it not legal?

In this case pretty much because Mike - who is second only to SVC himself when it comes to resolving Fed Com rules questions - has decided to define this particular grey area in the fashion described. It is a grey area in the rulebook. I was watching the game that inspired the starting post in this thread, and looked it up myself. And one of Mike's jobs is to answer "grey area" questions to the best of his ability.

Note also that there's nothing in the rules to go against Mike's ruling, either.

As to why there's currently no list that shows when Emergency Deceleration is announced in relation to when Acceleration is announced? It probably hadn't occured to anyone that there might be a grey area here. Otherwise it would have been clarified within the rulebook itself.

[mjwest]

Also, remember that all of my rulings can be appealed to Steve directly, if you so desire. In this particular case, I plan on doing so, anyway, but I have to wait for him to get back from his trip to Colorado. (And it could be changed because of the MIT card that Kang referenced.)

Communique 46 (not 45, but 46) is going to have a few rulings anyway, so one more isn't going to be an issue. (Regardless of which way it goes, there will need to be a ruling.)

As for why it isn't in there, the most probable reason is that no one had thought to both accelerate and use emergency deceleration on the same impulse before.

Why did I choose the order I did for the ruling? Because of two main reasons:
1) To prevent the very "mind games" that Kang references. FC has gone to great lengths to keep the "mind games" out. I see no reason to make rulings that bring them in.
2) There is a delay to declaring ED and stopping. Such a delay makes no sense in FC, but forcing the ship wanting to use ED to telegraph their intentions would seem to be a fair requirement.

[Kang]

As for why it isn't in there, the most probable reason is that no one had thought to both accelerate and use emergency deceleration on the same impulse before.

That's what I suspect, although I was thinking more about the context where one player does ED and one accelerates - or doesn't, depending on the sequence of play. There's been no reason to specify the order; with a ruleset like this one, we're always going to find loopholes, or perceived loopholes, as people play the game and develop new tricks. This is a relatively minor and fairly obscure point; this is why it hasn't surfaced until now.

I'd still be interested to know the 'correct' order for Emergency decel and Acceleration declarations in this phase, even if only for completeness' sake

One day, it might be important!

[Savedfromwhat]

I have totally misinterpreted ED anyway I thought it was done during any subpulse like deceleration whoops.

[Bolo_MK_XL]

Saved,

Group I play with (not in awhile though), did ED the same way ---
It'll be a long time before SFB players get all the little things that changed straight ---