I just had a quick question about Target Locks, and what they are, when they are used etc.

I know that during the action phase, you can choose to gain a target lock on someone as long as they are in range 3 of your ship. My question then would be, if you can gain a TL on someone no matter where they are (provided they're in range, even though they are out of your arc), why can you not dump a missile on them as well if they are TL'd yet out of your firing arc??

Also, what are the advantages to a TL other than using them for ordnance? Is it just to re-roll dice?

When or more to the point, how do you escape a Target Lock? I know that certain ships allow you to barrel roll to lose a target lock against you. Does this apply to every barrel roll, or to these specific ships/upgrade cards? Also, if you manage to get beyond range 3 of the person who has TL'd you, can you then shake the Target lock??

A lot of questions I know, but my friend and I have only just played a few games since Christmas, and I wanted to make sure we were playing them correctly..

First off welcome to the game and the board

My question then would be, if you can gain a TL on someone no matter where they are (provided they're in range, even though they are out of your arc)

Yes you can TL on any ship with range 3 of you, the effective arc of a TL is 360 degs.

why can you not dump a missile on them as well if they are TL'd yet out of your firing arc??

When or more to the point, how do you escape a Target Lock? I know that certain ships allow you to barrel roll to lose a target lock against you.

You don't really. Either the person uses the TL to either fire a torp/missile, or to reroll dice, or else they gain a TL on a different ship.

There's an Elite Pilot Skill card that lets you break a TL with a barrel roll, it's called Expert Handling. But only if you have that upgrade can yo do that.

Also, if you manage to get beyond range 3 of the person who has TL'd you, can you then shake the Target lock??

No, getting out of range doesn't remove the TL, only if the person uses it, gains a new one, or else the target is destroyed. TL's also lasts past the current round, unlike a Focus or Evade token, it's there until it's used, or removed with Expert Handling.

TL's are pretty useful even if you don't have a secondary weapon. They let you reroll any dice you want. So lets say you roll 3 dice get 1 hit, 1 focus and 1 blank. You can reroll the blank and have a decent chance at getting either a hit, crit or focus. That's why the TL+Focus is such a potent thing. With both you have a really good chance of getting all your dice to be hits.

The other thing TL is good for, is when you have a ship you can't shoot at, because it's out of your arc, but it can't shot at you... No reason to take a focus if nothing can shoot at you, so instead you TL and save it for latter.

This also adds a psychological effect to the game, because the other guy knows you now have a even better chance of landing hits on that ship, with the one that has the TL on it. So if they're smart they'll try to avoid giving you another shot... Which can sometimes work to your advantage.

beat me to the punch VanorDM... lol

Target Lock is basically radar, or something similar to it. You can tell it to tag and track a specific target.

Torpedoes and the like generally fire from front-mounted launchers, and my guess is that as a practical matter they don't carry enough fuel to launch out ahead of you and then pull some hard turns just to get pointed in the right direction before chasing down the target.

Checking on a question we had in a game. Can a stressed pilot "use" a already aquired target lock? We couldnt find a ruling against it so we played it as a yes but want to double check.

Checking on a question we had in a game. Can a stressed pilot "use" a already aquired target lock? We couldnt find a ruling against it so we played it as a yes but want to double check.

Yes. Stressed pilots may use tokens they have assigned to them.

Using a token is never an action. If you can distribute tokens to ships that can't get them through their own actions, they can still use the token. (Like if they're stressed/already had an action, but also including Col. Jendon giving Target Locks to Tie Interceptors...)

Can a pilot who has a target lock on a ship remove his target lock in order to gain a new one? A guy I was playing said he could. I had not site that said he could not so we just rolled off. I am looking for a site, rule clarification thanks.

It's been answered in the other thread you started about it.

Can a pilot who has a target lock on a ship remove his target lock in order to gain a new one? A guy I was playing said he could. I had not site that said he could not so we just rolled off. I am looking for a site, rule clarification thanks.

Kinda. Its on page 9 of the rules.

"Target lock tokens are only removed if the locking ship either acquires a target lock on a different ship or spends the target lock during the Combat phase".

So you dont remove the lock so you can place it on another, you place a new lck on another ship as your action but that means the existing one is lost.

Which amounts to the same thing!

Where does it say in the rules that a lock on is held if a locked on ship moves out of range?

As I read the rules target locks cannot be made at more than range 3. Therefore target locks cannot be held if ships move further away.

Niall, maybe more importantly where does it say it is lost, also there is one shuttle pilot if I remember that can target lock any ship on the board regardless of range. And note the comment of the post just previous to yours concerning removal of target locks.

You may only ACQUIRE a target lock at range 1-3 (unless you're ST-321).
You only LOSE a target lock if you spend it, acquire a different one, one of the two ships involved dies, or the locked ship uses Expert Handling.

As DraconPyrothayan says. You may only acquire the TL against a target at R 1-3 but once you have the lock it's there until something else changes.

If you combine a couple things for the Lambda Shuttle it can TL something anywhere on the board and then pass that TL to one of its allies. If the TL just "goes away" because the distance between the two ships is greater than R3 that ability would be pretty useless.

You only LOSE a target lock if you spend it, acquire a different one, one of the two ships involved dies, or the locked ship uses Expert Handling.

There are two more way to loose a TL:

1. Jendon may hand one to a buddy. The TL itself is not lost but Jendon no longer has it.
2. Wes Janson (still unreleased)