Rules Discussion

[Dave Baughman]

The current / old incarnation of the blockade rule has allowed for defensive blockades in the past.  I know the Adders lost a good bit of a cluster to the NA while raiding Niops. 

This is basically the old issue we've been struggling with for a long time of the rules saying one thing and the GMs saying another. Josh correctly ruled on the Blockade rules as written - we all know this isn't how they've been run in the past, but that was part of the problem: the rules weren't enforced the way they are written.

Because this issue was brought to my attention, the rule is being changed to reflect the way it was supposed to (and the way it has) worked "unofficially" in the past... but I made a promise to certain folks on this board that I would not do mid-turn errata, so I'm going to stick to that.

In my opinion, Blockades are still not defensive measure even with the new errata. It's not worth blockading systems that only produce the .25 RP in your example, and the systems that could actually benefit from it would break some factions bank, even going to a point past the 50% limit that raiding could inter.

The financial costs of blockade haven't changed since the day FGC was launched - they have always disrupted the hex's RP generation. Ultimately, the decision as to whether or not to put a friendly system under blockade is going to come down to a cost/benefit decision on the part of the naval commander. For obvious reasons, the choice of whether or not to blockade a hostile system is a lot easier to make.

Can there be something in between? Sort of a: "we know a pirate point will open up so we are already looking at that point, but we're not going to stop traffic that is acting properly orderly" type thing.

I'm open to having some sort of a "anti-piracy patrol" order. In fact, Holt and I even wrote one back in the day and were promptly ignored (lol). I will try to dig up the old rules and post it in the turn 41 rules thread once I open it.

The current / old incarnation of the blockade rule has allowed for defensive blockades in the past.  I know the Adders lost a good bit of a cluster to the NA while raiding Niops. 

This is absolutely correct. The combination of the "flexible" interpretation of the blockade rules and the excessively deadly blockade running rules cost many factions - even as recently as the WIE last turn - massive losses. Our issue is that we've hit a case where none of the GMs going all the way back to turn 20 were properly adjudicating "defensive" blockades by the rules as written. As I mentioned above, we're fixing the rule, but we're still trying to uphold the policy of not doing mid-turn errata, even if it seems like a good idea at the time.

Just a question that has been nagging at the back of my mind since I joined and said, why don't the Ravens have any Recharge Stations. Are there any actual benefits for having One?

+5 MP and 1 RP generation seem pathetically insignificant compared to the investment.

No significant MP Generation, no movement bonuses.

The possibility to gain more MP per cycle, or increase maximum jump distance by 1 for KF or 2 for LF drives seems logical.

My stops at Recharge Stations in the past are little more then RP opportunities to stage a trial for charges that do no actual In-Game benefits.

Recharge stations are a waste of money and resources. Basically, they are a cheap, floppy band-aid for the factions that lack the infrastructure or the design access to make warships. If I were a player, the only RS hex improvements I would get would be ones from random events, because I would not be caught dead spending money on them.

That's just my personal opinion as a former player though.

[Fatebringer]

Recharge stations are a waste of money and resources. Basically, they are a cheap, floppy band-aid for the factions that lack the infrastructure or the design access to make warships. If I were a player, the only RS hex improvements I would get would be ones from random events, because I would not be caught dead spending money on them.

That's just my personal opinion as a former player though.

Well, you have my suggestion to make them somewhat useful for the massive costs and to make the Random event mean something. At the cost of 72 RP, if you divided that by 5, you could round to 15 charges per station. Something worth something. Give the stations a +15 MP value that matches the Carrier bunus, and allow each station to add that many extra hexes to units moving thru the hex on the 1 for KF, 2 for LF bonus. Or something like that. RS stations should be something to covet. <<Eyes the Sharks>>

[Iron Mongoose]

I've long wanted to make Recharge Stations more powerful as well.  Either more MP, or more RP (its quite the stimulent to trade to have one, after all) or both would be best.  Or lower the cost.  But I'd love to see more little elements that are non millitary that are still desirable.

[Fatebringer]

Using it akin to the revenue from HPG networks would be interesting.

But going back to some of the other talk, I had to reread a portion of the rules so I could effectively ask the questions regarding the Blockade vs Interdiction arguement, and with the new clear definition of Blockading, I can not find the definition of the Battle / Invasion term for Interdiction. I know that you have to do at least 25% damage to the interdiciting force to get past it, but with the hasty allowances of the intediction nature, it seems like if someone switched their Naval Engagement forces to Interdiction, that they would in effect be cancelling their Naval Engagement and switching to Blockade. Would this force an engagement? Shifting a force away from Naval Engagement would cease putting pressure on a unit to flee, unless of course the unit had the resources to split their attack.

[Dave Baughman]

Using it akin to the revenue from HPG networks would be interesting.

But going back to some of the other talk, I had to reread a portion of the rules so I could effectively ask the questions regarding the Blockade vs Interdiction arguement, and with the new clear definition of Blockading, I can not find the definition of the Battle / Invasion term for Interdiction. I know that you have to do at least 25% damage to the interdiciting force to get past it, but with the hasty allowances of the intediction nature, it seems like if someone switched their Naval Engagement forces to Interdiction, that they would in effect be cancelling their Naval Engagement and switching to Blockade. Would this force an engagement? Shifting a force away from Naval Engagement would cease putting pressure on a unit to flee, unless of course the unit had the resources to split their attack.

I'm not 100% sure I understand the question, so if I don't give you a clear enough answer please elaborate and I'll try again. Changing from naval engagement to interdiction (or some other order) or vice-versa can sometimes impact the flow of battle.

Scenario 1: Ground forces with ASF escort are trying to leave a system; the enemy's ASF indicates they will offensively interdict. In this case, the fleeing ASF escorts could switch from Move to Naval Engagement. Because of the quirks of the offensive interdiction order, this would in turn force the enemy to change from Offensive Interdiction to Defense, causing the ground forces to get away (since they aren't interdicted any more).

Scenario 2: A defending force on defensive interdiction is facing an attacker on naval engagement orders. The defending force (for whatever reason) switches from defensive interdiction to naval engagement and/or defense. This does not/not stop the battle, as a force on naval engagement can legally fight a force on naval engagement or defense.

Scenario 2a: As above, but the defender actually switches from Defensive Interdiction to Move. In this situation, the attacker could actually switch to Offensive Interdiction in response and try to prevent the defender from fleeing. This in turn could lead to Scenario 1.

Scenario 2b: A defending force on defensive interdiction is facing an attacker on Break Interdiction orders trying to brute-force through with a large ground force. In this case, if the defender switched from defensive interdiction to, say, defense the battle would be cancelled altogether as ground forces cannot use Naval Engagement. Of course, the attacker would also be able to land unopposed.

Scenario 3: Defender and/or Attacker is on any orders and wants to switch to Blockade: this cannot occur. Blockade must/must be on the orders sheet.


Does that cover the interactions you were wondering about? If not, let me know and I will try to cover more.

[Fatebringer]

The definition of a Aerospace Interdiction seems to be for the purpose of blocking people from coming or going. What I'm saying is that ...

Someone comes to Invade a planet and the invaders initiate a Naval Engage a forces in space.

Clan Wombat enters the system with the CWBS Wombat Vengeance, a Nightlord Class Battleship. The House Baughman troops realize their Fox Class ADBS Big Poppa transport can't stand up to that much firepower.

Seeing there's no Blockading force, The ADS Big Poppa decides to leave the system.

However, seeing their prey leave, the CWBS Wombat Vengeance, moves to interdict their departure.

It's not a blockade, and is allowable during Battle and Invasions per the rules.

But seeing that CWBS Wombat Vengeance, is set up to hold them, the ADS Big Poppa immediately ends it run for the jump point and stays in system.

If the CWBS Wombat Vengeance, moves in, the ADS Big Poppa  makes a run for it again, rinse and repeat until you're doing the cha-cha.

[Dave Baughman]

OK, I follow what you are saying.

The combat orders system isn't intended to be a perpetual motion machine. Technically, the frustrating and poor-sportsmanship-full runaround that you described below would be a legal way to drag out a battle, but it would only accomplish three things:

• Pissing the GMs off
• Resulting in simple res (which would still kill Big Poppa, since every single legal orders combination in this scenario results in it fighting)
• Losing Big Poppa's player lots of karma as the other players press the smite button of the shenanigans

The situation you described is certainly a way a player could try to abuse the rules, but sooner or later the turn would end and the GMs would come in to clean up the thread - at that point, the two forces would have to clash to resolve that op round's combat.

And honestly, a much more likely outcome would be the GMs intervening earlier in the turn. I'm all about enforcing the "rules as written," but trying to 'win' by giving someone the run around until they get frustrated and give up/quit/whatever isn't cool.

[Jeyar]

After reading the Taurian main timeline history, I thought once again about loans.

I mean if the TC could ruin their economics in part due to loans, is there any chance that we could do some internal loans ourselves?

[Dave Baughman]

After reading the Taurian main timeline history, I thought once again about loans.

I mean if the TC could ruin their economics in part due to loans, is there any chance that we could do some internal loans ourselves?

Well, this one has a two part answer:

• There's nothing wrong with taking a loan from a different faction - that's up to you guys to work out the terms of repayment.
• Internal loans are a different story, because FGC doesn't have any kind of deficit spending rules. Flashpoint has something like that, but we haven't carried it into FGC.

Now, if there's a consensus that FGC wants to import the Flashpoint deficit spending rules, I'd have no problem with doing so.

[Marlin]

I have a clarification question: Trading rules no longer apply, right?

At least I did not see them.

[Dave Baughman]

I have a clarification question: Trading rules no longer apply, right?

At least I did not see them.

Was there a specific part you had in mind? I removed a lot of rules that had been superceded or were no longer in force regarding trade. In general the only rule for trade is that both parties have to agree to the deal and the RP should be either posted on the boards or PM'd with the GMs copied.

Only in extreme or wildly OOC situations would the GMs deny a trade.

[Fatebringer]

I'm sorry if my attempt to bring a little humor into the question was annoying to you. But I'm still not clear on what the definitions of "Interdiction" the battle manuever is.

I would say to avoid the space dance I describled to fall back on the initiative roll.

But also, I wanted to know what happens when a unit tries to break thru an interdiction? As stated many times this is not a Blockade, so we can not apply the rules for Blockade to the interdiction Quiaff?

[Dave Baughman]

I'm sorry if my attempt to bring a little humor into the question was annoying to you. But I'm still not clear on what the definitions of "Interdiction" the battle manuever is.

I would say to avoid the space dance I describled to fall back on the initiative roll.

But also, I wanted to know what happens when a unit tries to break thru an interdiction? As stated many times this is not a Blockade, so we can not apply the rules for Blockade to the interdiction Quiaff?

As for the definition of interdiction, this type of action is covered by two specific orders: Offensive Interdiction and Defensive Interdiction. Both of them are defined in detail in the orders section of the rules page.

Defensive Interdiction
Type: Special
Requirement: Aerospace units
Effect: Successful interdiction prevents attacking transports from landing their troops. This is the default combat order for defensive aerospace and naval forces, and may be changed before the engagement if the defending player so chooses. If an interdiction is cancelled, there is nothing to stop the transports from landing.

Note: Naval Engagement or Break Interdiction orders can be used to penetrate interdiction. If 25% of the interdiction force is destroyed, the interdiction fails and is no longer effective.

Offensive Interdiction
Type: Special
Requirement: Aerospace units
Effect: Successful interdiction prevents defending transports from retreating from a system. Offensive Interdiction is only possible where no hostile forces are on interdicton, blockade, or naval engagement orders.

Note: Naval Engagement or Break Interdiction orders can be used to penetrate interdiction. If 25% of the interdiction force is destroyed, the interdiction fails and is no longer effective.

If a unit tries to break through an interdiction it is done in one of two ways:

• Naval Engagement - in this case the two forces fight and if the interdicting faction takes 25% or more losses, the interdiction is broken
• Break Interdiction - this order allows a force that normally couldn't do naval engagement (like ground troops) a chance to break interdiction at the cost of heavier losses. They still have to do 25% to escape.

The rules for Blockade, which are considerably less favorable - especially for units that cannot use naval engagement - don't apply at all here.

[Fatebringer]

I must be blind as a bat Thanks for the repost. Will look for the Break Interdiction rules for units that have no ASF assets to learn more

[Marlin]

I meant the loop to create boni for the trading factions. Standard trade of course is still in action.

I have a clarification question: Trading rules no longer apply, right?

At least I did not see them.

Was there a specific part you had in mind? I removed a lot of rules that had been superceded or were no longer in force regarding trade. In general the only rule for trade is that both parties have to agree to the deal and the RP should be either posted on the boards or PM'd with the GMs copied.

Only in extreme or wildly OOC situations would the GMs deny a trade.