What I never understand in these kind of discussions (they tend to pop up now and then): If the distance is THAT clearly out of range (say Range 5+) what the hell useful info will my opponent get that gives him an advantage in following round? We are talking about the first turn here?! I personally will not loose the game because my opponent checked R5 in turn one during TL step, or when his ship is that far away from any action. Period. Maybe he uses it to check if he is able to pass a certain Asteroid the next turn, yes. But I have to play at my best anyway, assuming that my opponent is the best gamer ever (especially during tournament), even if he uses that little TL trick and therefore passes an asteroid very close. Plus, as stated before, whenever my opponent places the RR on the table I get info too.

What I never understand in these kind of discussions (they tend to pop up now and then): If the distance is THAT clearly out of range (say Range 5+) what the hell useful info will my opponent get that gives him an advantage in following round? [...] Plus, as stated before, whenever my opponent places the RR on the table I get info too.

It's not about range 5 or anything like that, mate. It's about all the situations of "is it in range or not". See, you're missing the main point of doing so:

1. Ship A makes it's maneuver. It's action time.

2. Ship B is at unknown fairly close range. May or may not be in range 3, hard to tell.

3. Ship A calls for Target Lock, points at Ship B.

Now there are two options:

4a. Ship B turns out to be an inch out of range 3, target lock doesn't happen. Ship A couldn't shoot, action can't be performed, gets to make another one. Decides to do a barrel roll/boost in Ship B's direction. Suddenly he can shoot it. Only because he was able to decide that due to Target Lock exploit attempt.

4b. Ship B is in range, target lock happens, ship A can shoot and has a lock on it.

This way you have a comfortable situation where you can shoot in both cases if the target turned out to be in your reach, be it through roll/boost or regular shooting. Get it? It's a way to give yourself a better chance to actually be able to shoot without having to rely on eyeballing the distance and you can clearly tell that there's a difference between being able to deliver 3 die to enemy (even at range 3) and not being able to do that.

And it doesn't give you any info at all as he only uses it to get benefits this particular turn for this particular ship's action.

I fail to see how that's abuse, my first choice is TL, but you're a sneeze out of range so TL isn't allowed, therefore I opt for the less optimal but still useful reposition into range. Abuse would be if my ship B was between ship A and your ship, and I was looking to see exactly what range it would be after its maneuvre for reposition purposes.

What about the opposite. Measuring for TL that is obviously in range because you want to see what the range is, so you can use a second action to change the range.

That doesn't make any sense for it to be anything other than legit- you have to measure the range for a TL anyway, technically speaking. Knowing that measurement and using it to take your second action accordingly is legit.

That doesn't make any sense for it to be anything other than legit- you have to measure the range for a TL anyway, technically speaking. Knowing that measurement and using it to take your second action accordingly is legit.

I did it with Vader recently. TL just barely at range two, BR into range one. Proceeded to have hot dice that with the added crit making a mess of Wedge. Didn't think anything of it at the time and my opponent was fine with it. But this thread does make me wonder if it could be seen as against the spirit of the game.

Yepp. That's perfectly okay and 100% legit. Even if you try to use common sense as explanation, a target lock should show you the distance to your locked target, giving you the knowledge whether you want to close in or not.

What you can't see, Nyxen, in this situation is spamming that repeatedly each turn. Yes, it's perfectly okay with the rules as there is nothing said about that, but if one acts like it's not a way to get an advantage (when doing it deliberately for that sake) it's just being silly. If someone does that every turn probing all of your ships in front of him carefully like that it might be obvious enough for everyone to notice it, maybe this way it's easier to see the point.

You simply just can't say that it's not an easy way to get an advantage of the possibility to do that. I probably wouldn't call that an exploit per se (although it's using a rule that allows you to measure in a game that generally forbids it knowing very well that it might not happen for the sake of probing it), but it clearly lets you gain valuable info and increases your chance to attack the enemy. In any case, just look at the example from my earlier post and compare it to, say, just taking a focus (and not shooting) or taking a blind boost/barrel roll if unsure when you could just TL probe it.

EDIT:

I did it with Vader recently. TL just barely at range two, BR into range one. Proceeded to have hot dice that with the added crit making a mess of Wedge. Didn't think anything of it at the time and my opponent was fine with it. But this thread does make me wonder if it could be seen as against the spirit of the game.

This is not the same. You have two actions and it's perfectly alright and sporty to use the second one for better success. That's what Vader is for after all! The difference is when you deliberately use your only action knowing that if it fizzles you still get to make one and then use that advantage to perform one that will give you success with the info you gathered by that.

If TL attempt, even if failed, wasted your action it wouldn't be such a useful exploit.

I'm going to revive this thread after a game I had on vassal tonight.

I've actually had this target lock situation happen before on vassal, with a player I've witnessed do it multiple times because he was flying Dash.

However this was the first time in awhile I think that I've had it happen again. Of course on vassal it's much easier to abuse than in real life.

In my game tonight my opponent had fel and vader, and several times used vader to declare target locks out of range to determine how his ships would boost and/or barrel roll. The first few times were "sort" of credible so I didn't think much of it. But then later in the game he clearly used it to his advantage. He had a target lock on one ship already, and checked for a target lock on a ship behind him. Considering he was flying away from me, made no sense to move the lock anyways, but it was also clearly out of range of the further back ship, he just wanted to see if my ship in front could shoot at him, which I could, so of course he then boosted out of firing range.

I do hope FFG addresses this at some point (or have they in recent FAQ updates??). Not sure how the best way to handle it is though. I think losing your action for the turn is too harsh. Perhaps say if you check for a TL , and it's out of range, you cannot perform any boost or barrel roll actions. That way you still get an action, just not a repositioning action.

I'm going to revive this thread after a game I had on vassal tonight.

I've actually had this target lock situation happen before on vassal, with a player I've witnessed do it multiple times because he was flying Dash.

However this was the first time in awhile I think that I've had it happen again. Of course on vassal it's much easier to abuse than in real life.

In my game tonight my opponent had fel and vader, and several times used vader to declare target locks out of range to determine how his ships would boost and/or barrel roll. The first few times were "sort" of credible so I didn't think much of it. But then later in the game he clearly used it to his advantage. He had a target lock on one ship already, and checked for a target lock on a ship behind him. Considering he was flying away from me, made no sense to move the lock anyways, but it was also clearly out of range of the further back ship, he just wanted to see if my ship in front could shoot at him, which I could, so of course he then boosted out of firing range.

I do hope FFG addresses this at some point (or have they in recent FAQ updates??). Not sure how the best way to handle it is though. I think losing your action for the turn is too harsh. Perhaps say if you check for a TL , and it's out of range, you cannot perform any boost or barrel roll actions. That way you still get an action, just not a repositioning action.

In general, I've not seen this happening, but it would be something that you'd have to call a TO on and is a judgement call (obviously not possible in Vassal). There are enough close calls that at a certain point it's hard to penalize someone.

With regard to the opponent on Vassal, if you feel like someone is abusing a feature and gaining too much information and using it, you can ask them to use a more appropriate tool (the range ruler or pixel measurement, both of which would be more direct lines). Otherwise, I just tend to avoid replaying him or her again.

That doesn't make any sense for it to be anything other than legit- you have to measure the range for a TL anyway, technically speaking. Knowing that measurement and using it to take your second action accordingly is legit.

See I can 'justify it' to myself quite easily from both a rules and fluff perspective but don't want to be 'that guy'. Ok I play to win but I am just playing at the end of the day.

I did it with Vader recently. TL just barely at range two, BR into range one. Proceeded to have hot dice that with the added crit making a mess of Wedge. Didn't think anything of it at the time and my opponent was fine with it. But this thread does make me wonder if it could be seen as against the spirit of the game.

No there's nothing wrong with that at all.

Just last week I was playing Rexler tried to TL but was a few mm out so I instead barrel rolled closer and used PTL to focus and scored three hits killing the a-wing.

I'll add that if it does become a problem (and I don't think it will), a very easy fix to instances like these would be making target lock an option only as the last action of the activation (rules on cards as an exception, of course).

Has anyne seen this triedd with R7T1?

It specifically measures from the opponent not you, measures the opponent's arc AND it's limited to range 2, but the ruler goes to range 3.

It seeems like R7T1 is more a Sensor droid than a TL/boost droid.

Personally the rules should be changed that that if you declare an action or a decloak or whatever and you can't actually perform it, you simply lose out on your action/decloak.

Pre-Phantom nerf, watching a Phantom player check literally every god **** possible decloak in a cluster of TIE Fighters before he could finally get one through with a MM to spare was super irritating and not in the spirit of the no pre-measuring thing. Not cheating of course, but come on. There should be some degree of skill to this, not just get to try literally everything until you finally get one through.

One of the things I enjoy about this game is having to judge ranges and maneuvers in your head. Having that same process apply when selecting actions would be beneficial to the game. Players will see a boost that would be optimal that's cutting it close to an asteroid, so they'll try it anyways because there is no actual consequence should the asteroid block their boost. Would be nice to actually have some weight to that decision.

But the above is not what the actual rules state (unfortunately). You are absolutely allowed to measure target locks that are clearly out of range. I've done it while saying, "legal cheating" and me and my opponent had a good laugh about it.

One of the things I enjoy about this game is having to judge ranges and maneuvers in your head. Having that same process apply when selecting actions would be beneficial to the game. Players will see a boost that would be optimal that's cutting it close to an asteroid, so they'll try it anyways because there is no actual consequence should the asteroid block their boost. Would be nice to actually have some weight to that decision.

There are certain aspects of that to this game, especially with regard to maneuvers, but doing all the measuring in your head just isn't a central tenant to the game. I'm sure that's for a lot of different reasons, but I think it would be far from beneficial to the game and the way it is now keeps things running smoothly. Besides making players become more nitpicky, it would also slow things down a lot as players try to judge whether an action is in range or not.

There are reasons that a couple of popular games that heavily prohibited pre-measuring (to the point where estimation was enough of a skill in and of itself to define a good player) changed that rule. In my experience, I generally liked it but it does change the overall nature of the game significantly and it also caused a lot of frustrating situations where people argued with each other more than in this game. Overall, it may make for more interesting situations, but in my experience a much worse game experience.

I've seen people measure for target lock within range 2, then not target lock. just so they can know if they boost they whether they will be in range one. I thought if you target lock and can do it, you have to. But twice now in videos I saw people measure for target lock at range two. Obviously. Then not target lock and boost to range 1.

I've seen people measure for target lock within range 2, then not target lock. just so they can know if they boost they whether they will be in range one. I thought if you target lock and can do it, you have to. But twice now in videos I saw people measure for target lock at range two. Obviously. Then not target lock and boost to range 1.

I thought that you have to declare the action and it's target just like you have to declare the direction of a barrel roll and/or boost. Don't you have to firstly declare the action and then nominate the target before you check the range?

What I never understand in these kind of discussions (they tend to pop up now and then): If the distance is THAT clearly out of range (say Range 5+) what the hell useful info will my opponent get that gives him an advantage in following round? [...] Plus, as stated before, whenever my opponent places the RR on the table I get info too.

It's not about range 5 or anything like that, mate. It's about all the situations of "is it in range or not". See, you're missing the main point of doing so:

The OP was talking about "well beyond attack range, like R6+". Then people got heated up on that point, that someone was TL when it is clearly obvious that the range is far to great.

The situation that you describe is not questioned here at all - the TL could have worked, it was really close. That is intended by the designers of the game - see if you can lock on, if not take another action. If you happen to have a craft that then may perform some movement tricks then good for you, most don't have that luxury (either lacking TL or lacking boost or BR).

I would really like to get those discussion out of the window by simply allowing Range Checks with RR at all time; didn't hurt Armada, and range is even more sensible there (at least the difference between long and medium, makes quite a difference on many attacks).

Enforcing a "that is clearly out of range, you may not TL-measure or be punished if you do by (whatever weird consequence like loosing action etc)" is silly.

I've seen people measure for target lock within range 2, then not target lock. just so they can know if they boost they whether they will be in range one. I thought if you target lock and can do it, you have to. But twice now in videos I saw people measure for target lock at range two. Obviously. Then not target lock and boost to range 1.

This is clearly against the rules. Period. Nothing to do with being nice if you allow it, plain "cheating" or not using the rules as they are.

I can see that being a thing when someone starts playing, for the first 5 or so games, so they get a feel for the whole thing.

I am amazed that you are still trying to enforce a personal opinion as a fact. Also still waiting for that rule citation.

You've had one... in fact you've had several. Just because you disagree doesn't make the ruling invalid or non-existent

Also how do we know the dimensions of the board? If we had no knowledge of the board's size beforehand we would have to measure it or acquire the knowledge from someone who did. And if we know the dimensions of the board we got accidental information on the game which seems to be a big no-no to some people.

You know because the board is 36", as per the rules for standard tournament play (which we know is Range 9, as each range band is 4")

Being a new player and not having it in front of me I thought the range ruler was in CMs.

I am amazed that you are still trying to enforce a personal opinion as a fact. Also still waiting for that rule citation.

You've had one... in fact you've had several. Just because you disagree doesn't make the ruling invalid or non-existent

Also how do we know the dimensions of the board? If we had no knowledge of the board's size beforehand we would have to measure it or acquire the knowledge from someone who did. And if we know the dimensions of the board we got accidental information on the game which seems to be a big no-no to some people.

You know because the board is 36", as per the rules for standard tournament play (which we know is Range 9, as each range band is 4")

Being a new player and not having it in front of me I thought the range ruler was in CMs.

it is, but each range band on the ruler also happens to be very close to 4" (10 cm) ;-)

I've seen people measure for target lock within range 2, then not target lock. just so they can know if they boost they whether they will be in range one. I thought if you target lock and can do it, you have to. But twice now in videos I saw people measure for target lock at range two. Obviously. Then not target lock and boost to range 1.

I thought that you have to declare the action and it's target just like you have to declare the direction of a barrel roll and/or boost. Don't you have to firstly declare the action and then nominate the target before you check the range?

Competitive and casual play are different, but yes, if you attempt to check range for a lock you must take it in competitive play.

Still waiting for a rule citation.

Well pulled it from the rules refrence glossary page 3.

......

I am actually on the camp that you can measure to any range for a target lock. So i agree with you, i think?

And ofc if you are in range of target lock when you measure it you have to take it, that was the rules the last time i checked. The entire point of targeting computer on sontir fel is having the knowledge of range anyways.

I've seen people measure for target lock within range 2, then not target lock. just so they can know if they boost they whether they will be in range one. I thought if you target lock and can do it, you have to. But twice now in videos I saw people measure for target lock at range two. Obviously. Then not target lock and boost to range 1.

I thought that you have to declare the action and it's target just like you have to declare the direction of a barrel roll and/or boost. Don't you have to firstly declare the action and then nominate the target before you check the range?

Competitive and casual play are different, but yes, if you attempt to check range for a lock you must take it in competitive play.

Well, the FAQ is pretty clear on that:

After declaring the intended target of a target lock action, the active player

may measure range to the intended target, and only to the intended target.

Usually we try to stick as close to the "proper" gameplay as possible, even in casual games. Sure, we accept mistakes and often let the opponent fix them, although most of us take full responsibility for them. For example - we've only modified our dice results after both players rolled, but then we found out that attacking player has to modify his rolls "blindly", not knowing how the defender will roll, so we started playing it the right way. It being a casual game shouldn't let anyone override rules unless openly agreed to by all players.

Personally I always kinda assumed that the ability to do a bit of distance checking is an in-built feature of the targeting computer. Almost like they have a little mini-map they can check briefly to get a better hold of their surroundings.

I've seen people measure for target lock within range 2, then not target lock. just so they can know if they boost they whether they will be in range one. I thought if you target lock and can do it, you have to. But twice now in videos I saw people measure for target lock at range two. Obviously. Then not target lock and boost to range 1.

I thought that you have to declare the action and it's target just like you have to declare the direction of a barrel roll and/or boost. Don't you have to firstly declare the action and then nominate the target before you check the range?

Competitive and casual play are different, but yes, if you attempt to check range for a lock you must take it in competitive play.

Well, the FAQ is pretty clear on that:

After declaring the intended target of a target lock action, the active player

may measure range to the intended target, and only to the intended target.

Usually we try to stick as close to the "proper" gameplay as possible, even in casual games. Sure, we accept mistakes and often let the opponent fix them, although most of us take full responsibility for them. For example - we've only modified our dice results after both players rolled, but then we found out that attacking player has to modify his rolls "blindly", not knowing how the defender will roll, so we started playing it the right way. It being a casual game shouldn't let anyone override rules unless openly agreed to by all players.

Sorry, maybe I was remembering the old rulebook or quick start guide where things were allowed to be measured much more loosely or I'm remembering a different rule...happens occassionally:)