Fwurg

[Elmer]

While thinking of war plans, Chriz ans I have some questions about engages, fleet combat and retreating.

engages

First: The rules about fleet combat uses the word 'engage' a lot, this creates room for multiple interpretations.

Engage

Enters into combat. You can only engage things in the same sector as the fleet.

Once engaged in combat, the fleet can no longer take normal fleet actions.

You can engage an ongoing combat, doing so will join battle in the next .

A fleet can only engage when it is combat-ready.

Patrol

Patrols the sector. Whenever someone in the sector engages (or blockades), the patrolling fleet has the option to join battle.

Depending on the level of activity of the fleet, this action can be used only defensively or defensively and offensively.

If the fleet is defensive you can only join battle if something of your own faction is engaged or blockaded.

If the fleet is Combat-Ready you can always join battle; regardless of the allegiance of the belligerent fleet. So you could join battle into a fight instigated by your ally.

From the first part, the engage part, it could be read that the combat of a fleet is called an 'engage', because of the '...Once engaged in combat...' part.

In the second part this can be read as well by the "...something of your own faction is engaged or blockaded..." part. However, this is illogical with the patrol rules. The questions Chriz and I have are: how do the following scenarios work?

There are two factions, faction A and B, each with 3 fleets. Faction A sends 3 fleets into enemy territory, 1 combat ready and 2 defensive. The combat ready fleet attacks/engages one of the fleets of faction B. 2 other patrolling fleets of faction B see this and decide to join battle with their first fleet. Now is the first fleet of faction A engaged/attacked. This means that the other 2 defensive fleets of faction A are able to join battle/engage/attack the other fleets of faction B.

There are two factions, faction A and B, each with 3 fleets. Again, faction A sends 3 fleets into enemy territory, and engages/attacks/start combat with its combat ready fleet. This time faction B does not join battle/engage/attacks with its other 2 fleets. Faction A decide to disengage/flee/retreat/leave combat, however faction B keeps on fighting. Now faction A is no longer engaging, but is engaged/under attack/in combat and according to the patrolling rules, the defensive fleets may join combat/engage/attack the other fleets.

There are 2 problems here:

What are the intentions of the rules on this?

How do we call the different events?

As you can see I was able to use up to 4 different words for one event, and the same words for other events and I think this is what happened during writing of the rules as well. With as result that it is unclear what is meant sometimes.

My proposal is the following: We make a distinction between starting a combat, joining a combat, the combat itself and leaving a combat. We note clearly on the wiki what these actions are and how we call them and we do our best to use the terms for these actions consequently.

the party starting a combat: The aggressor
the action of starting a combat: Start combat
joining a combat: Join combat
the combat itself: An engage
leaving a combat: A disengage


next issue:

supply lines

Military fleets require supply lines, otherwise they become inactive. When you have two fleets in a sector, you have two supply fleets for those military fleets.

Can 1 fleet patrol those 2 supply lines in the sector he is in?

How does attacking supply line work in such a case?

Goes the entire fleet of faction B to the supply fleet of faction A, in which faction A can defend his supply fleets with a patrolling defensive fleet the moment it is attacked by faction B. Or is a supply fleet attacked in multiple guerilla skirmishes, making defending against it hard, or do we have to sort out IC what the tactic and the defence are?

Inactive fleets

An inactive fleet may only move, but are the fleet formations still allowed?

Is a disengage/retreat action only possible with the standard formation?

Or does the standard formation only provide a 4 /4 /4 bonus while retreating? So if you retreat without the standard formation, you do not have the bonus dots, but does have the option to fly away in x . And in how many can you retreat?

[Brend]

I will discuss this with Elmer and Chriz off-forum first, to prevent myself from writing an enormous post.

[Brend]

After discussion, Elmer and me agreed to do some work on the military rules to reorganize them (they are a bit chaotic right now), and to add clarifications where needed.

This won't change how the military works (as I intended it to work), but it might change how you thought it works.

[Brend]

To clarify some of the questions right now:

Engages

What are the intentions of the rules on this?
The intention of the levels of activity together with the Engage+Patrol rules are to ensure that defensive fleets can not be used for offence. Therefore, it is not possible to join on ongoing combat while being defensive. Not even if someone else Engages the combat while you are Patrolling (due to the fact that the combat is not 'something of your own faction').

How do we call the different events?
Elmer and I will work on naming when we update the rules. Expect to see an update thread.

Supply lines

Can 1 fleet patrol those 2 supply lines in the sector he is in? and How does attacking supply line work in such a case?
Supply lines are operated by Trade Fleets. You can't directly attack trade fleets (they are very small and nimble when compared to the vastness of the sector they travel through), you need to stop them by blockading. And because space is too big to blockade a sector you need to blockade an 'anchor': either a system or an hyperspace lane.

Inactive fleets

An inactive fleet may only move, but are the fleet formations still allowed?
Inactivity means the fleet is effectively running on a skeleton crew. This seriously hampers their combat abilities. The intention was to only allow inactive fleets the Standard Formation, and not allow them to attack in combat. This seems to be lost during the transfer of my notes to the wiki...

So: an inactive fleet can still use formations as long as it is the standard formation (or any other formation that is explicitly allowed to be used by an inactive fleet).

Is a disengage/retreat action only possible with the standard formation?
Indeed. The only formation currently allowing a disengage/retreat is the standard formation.

Bonus question: Engaging a moving fleet

What happens when fleet Sith uses the Engage action to engage fleet Jedi which is using the Move action to leave the sector?
To be honest, I completely forgot about this scenario when drawing up the rules...

I think the most logical thing would be for Moves to trump an Engage.

The only problem with this is that it effectively allows fleet Sith to jump through a sector which contains fleet Jedi without being vulnerable (i.e. Sith moves out before Jedi has the chance to engage them). I don't actually see a real problem with this, space is big and empty, and things worth defending will always be patrollable.

[Brend]

We are done: Rules reorganisation: Jedi Combat and Military Rules