Federation Commander

Would anyone mind if I posted one of my terrain questions here, or should I start a new thread?

Mike wrote:Kang: By the way, I forgot to ask about this is my last post... If you have access to a SFB map, can you send a description of the same situation, but using SFB map hex numbers instead? I don't have any FC map panels, but I would still like to set this up to see exactly how it looks.

Indeed I will, Mike - thanks for pointing that out. To help you visualise my example, let's say firing ship in 1019, target in 1219, planet in 1119 or 1120 - doesn't matter which. Hope this helps.

pinecone wrote:Would anyone mind if I posted one of my terrain questions here, or should I start a new thread?

rofl No offence meant by the chuckling, Pinecone; altho' I'm not an Admin, I'd see no reason why you shouldn't post a terrain question on a terrain thread.

And yes I do understand and appreciate your comment in the light of certain recent exchanges in these forums - but that would be going off-topic!

Kang:

If the firing ship is in 1019, the target in 1219, and a planet in 1119 or 1120, this is a sticky wicket.

Without the planet, the target ship player could choose either shield facing through which to take the fire. There seems to be two possible outcomes:
1. The fire would not be able to occur if the target chose the shield that was more in line with the planet, or
2. The fire would occur on whichever shield the target chose, but it *would* occur because the line of fire does not pass through the planet.

The way I read the seeking weapon rules, in this case a seeking weapon could still be launched because the planet is not "blocking" the line of sight to the target. Once it is launched, it can move to avoid the planet no matter what. The target cannot maneuver in such a way as to force a seeking weapon to impact the planet.

That's my opinion.

Thanks Mike. My question, though, mainly relates to whether the line of sight is blocked by the planet, not so much which shield is hit - although of course that question will come in once I have found out whether I can actually shoot or not. Your answer does raise more points as well! Very interesting; I hadn't thought about one shield being blocked and one not....

Okay then, here it is (it's come up twice, both in scenarios where ships land on planets): The rule book says that a ship landed on a planet is protected from fire from three different directions, but it never says what those directions are or how you determine them. Any Ideas

Pinecone

That one seems easy ---
Determine which hex the ship landed in --- the hexes to the left and right of it would have line of sight -- the other three wouldn't --

what about on a one-hex planet?

The one-hex planet was what he was referring to.

A one-hex planet has six hex-faces pinecone.

He said full hexes, not hex faces. And wouldn't there be two hexes to the left and two to the right?

pinecone:
Think of it this way...

here's your planet:

/-\
\_/... say you landed on the bottom hex face,

__ B
B/-\B
C\_/C
__C
The hex faces labled "B" block enemy fire to you as they can not fire through the planet itself,
The hexes labeled "C" allow a clear line of sight to your ship.

I hope that helps.

Oh, that makes sense. Thanks Scoutdad.

Mike wrote:Without the planet, the target ship player could choose either shield facing through which to take the fire. There seems to be two possible outcomes:
1. The fire would not be able to occur if the target chose the shield that was more in line with the planet, ...

I don't think that's right.

You seem almost to be assuming that the positions of the ship's 6 shields are identical with the 6 hex-sides of the hex it is in. And they aren't.

The hexes are VAST compared to the ships. Imagine placing a tiny hexagonal pin-prick in the defender's hex. That's his ship. IF it's placed so that the attacker can see and shoot it, you could imagine a very tiny adjustment of facing giving the defender the choice of the two split shields.

And that's true regardless of whether the attacker's line of sight is deemed to pass through the planet hex or not.

(FWIW, I think the attacker has LOS - and if he does, I don't think that in any way determines which of the two shields the defender allows him to see).


[response to scoutdad deleted, because I read his post wrong]

dstancliffe:

I understand your explanation and think it makes sense.

I'll back up and say this, though: after carefully reading the rule (6A1d) about planets blocking direct-fire weapons, I do not see the planet blocking fire in the example mentioned in this thread. The line of sight for the fire is occurring along the edge of the planet hex. A strict reading of the rule says that the planet blocks the fire if the planet hex intersects the line of fire. In this case, it does not.

Which shield of the target ship is impacted by the fire is a separate issue. Like I said above, I think it would be whichever shield the target ship wants.

Good explanation.