Thematically it never made sense why you don't get actions when you bump someone. Bumping is just a way of dealing with having a 3 dimensional fight on a 2 dimensional plane. Just assume one ship is above the other. That makes sense that they can't shoot, but why can't you take your action?

How would the game change if you could actually take your action when bumping?

I would imagine the greatest impacts would be on players who use blocking to deny actions to make enemy ships less powerful or easier to kill, and people would be less careful about how they fly because collisions don't deny anything crucial. So swarm flying would require less thought.

I wonder how Dash Rendar is going to change this - he ignore the effects of obstacles for the activation phase and when he performs actions. Do ships count as obstacles??

Fortresses would work. The game would be rendered into literally a game of dicerolling chance, the gameplay would be eradicated.

Fortresses would work. The game would be rendered into literally a game of dicerolling chance, the gameplay would be eradicated.

Except, you know, arcs and rangebands are still a thing and you can still fly off the board.

Perhaps one day we'll see a pilot who does not lose their action after bumping. Something kinda like Arvel Crynyd but for actions not shooting.

I agree it makes sense gameplay wise, I just like being able to come up with a thematic explanation for game mechanics. Vader is a tough one for that lol. (I figure he used the force to pull pieces off of his ship and throws them at the target )

Fortresses would work. The game would be rendered into literally a game of dicerolling chance, the gameplay would be eradicated.

The game needs that consequence for crashing. Hell, we have a lot of people that cry the other way. Crashing intentionally is broken, you should take damage when you do it.

Losing the action is the best option out of the 4 I've seen. It's a good punishment for mistakes, and a good balance for not moving. It adds a level of strategic depth to blocking that adds to the game quite a bit.

Arvel would be considered better. He's still terrible but he'd be "better"... oh wait... everyone would be better.

I think the game would lose a whole lot of tactical depth. Actions really matter right now, if you got them every time you'd play different and not worry about the bump. It would also make low PS really useless.

Thematically it never made sense why you don't get actions when you bump someone. Bumping is just a way of dealing with having a 3 dimensional fight on a 2 dimensional plane. Just assume one ship is above the other. That makes sense that they can't shoot, but why can't you take your action?

How would the game change if you could actually take your action when bumping?

Tactically the penalty for bumping has a big impact; forces players to carefully consider maneuvers, predict enemy movement, etc... I think that without action denial the game would lose a great deal of tactical subtlety.

The game needs that consequence for crashing.

I agree, if you could crash into each other and just pass it off as 3d space... The game would have less depth. You could just pack Ties together and not worry about where they go, because there's no penalty for crashing into each other.

Also you'd lose the whole defensive nature of blocking, which I will admit I feel is sometimes a bit gamy... "You go crash into that YT-1300 so everyone else gets a better shot at it."

But yeah it's a needed mechanic because the game would be a lot less deep without it.

Fortresses would work. The game would be rendered into literally a game of dicerolling chance, the gameplay would be eradicated.

Except, you know, arcs and rangebands are still a thing and you can still fly off the board.

A large turretship fortress can cover the whole board. The action thing is necessary, otherwise the gameplay would be destroyed in favour of WAAC fortress strategies.

it makes sense thematically as well. when you get in close.....your action is to not crash. that is why you can't focus or get a target lock or whatever. When you are parallel parking, do you also change the radio station?

I wonder how Dash Rendar is going to change this - he ignore the effects of obstacles for the activation phase and when he performs actions. Do ships count as obstacles??

Two groups of ships would fly straight towards one another, run into one another, and proceed to roll dice until the game is over. Pretty much all maneuvering of any sort would go away.

In other words, it would play out like a space borne version of Warhammer. Make your list, put it on the table, make a couple of mostly irrelevant moves, and proceed to have everyone roll dice for half an hour.

Personally. I'd like to see a change that when ships collide they receive a stress token.

The fear of seeing a ship bearing down on you and the slight rocking that a near miss would cause. Would stress the pilot. Not to mention the looking over shoulder to see where it went.

Look at Empire Strikes Back when Han buzzies the Star Destroyer. They duck.

We may yet find out. There is a title in the Decimator whose partial text appears to give you the ability to perform actions after colliding.

Probably stipulates enemy ships.

I agree, if you could crash into each other and just pass it off as 3d space ... The game would have less depth.

More depth , surely?

Personally. I'd like to see a change that when ships collide they receive a stress token.

The fear of seeing a ship bearing down on you and the slight rocking that a near miss would cause. Would stress the pilot. Not to mention the looking over shoulder to see where it went.

Look at Empire Strikes Back when Han buzzies the Star Destroyer. They duck.

It would be like Attack Wing.

I look at it like this. The pilot is trying a planned maneuver, that suddenly he can't complete because another ship is in the way. He's too busy hitting the brakes/reverse thrust to avoid a collision so he can't try and get a target lock or focus on the target or even evade. Starfighter combat is meant to be fast paced and the game mechanic handles it well. Adding a stress token for overlapping would kill the flow. Losing an action is penalty enough.

you could also look at it like this,

all propulsion is space has an engine wash or wake. this is indiscriminate of friend or foe.

if you fly to close to a propulsion source you run the risk of being shoved off your current trajectory or fight the wash/wake to hold your heading.

look at mannuevering thrusters on modern space craft, small bursts are good enough to get them moving in another direction and then an opposite thruster needs to fire to stop that movement.

so in my mind there are several things going on when a ship bumps.

1- flying close to another ship and trying to avoid hitting it

2- trying to avoid the other ships engine wash/wake

3- actually being caught in that wash/wake and compensating for any change to your current vector

I think THEMANDALORIANCANDIDATE hit it on the head. Loss of Actions when colliding...

1. Represents the pilot focusing on NOT colliding with the other ship/object and thus NOT focusing on attacking or defending

and...

2. Is an important GAME mechanic that adds consequences for failing to plan your/your opponent's movement. Without it, IMO, the game would suffer. The fact that there are some pilots/ships/situations that violate that rule does not invalidate it or make it obsolete

Agreed with the "the pilot is spending his action to not crash" camp, though that does make me think it might be nice to be able to choose to lose your action or take a damage, through shields since a deflector shield probably can't deflect something as big as what's carrying it.

I always found blocking to be far to gamey though, I think a ship being crashed into should lose any focus or evade tokens for the same reason the crasher loses a full action.

Agreed with the "the pilot is spending his action to not crash" camp, though that does make me think it might be nice to be able to choose to lose your action or take a damage, through shields since a deflector shield probably can't deflect something as big as what's carrying it.

I always found blocking to be far to gamey though, I think a ship being crashed into should lose any focus or evade tokens for the same reason the crasher loses a full action.