We've had a vehement argument over this and we're hopelessly divided.

When you have Deep Space Cannons, can you activate in the system with the PDS units and then fire into adjacent systems?

No, you can only shoot at ships in a system you have activated, and right after moving ships, right before the "space battle" phase.

In conclusion you can however activate the system you want to shoot into, move 0 ships into that sector, and after that "empty" movement shoot at the enemy ships inside that sector.

Thanks very much for the speedy reply! The more input the better.

It may seem like a silly a question to many of you. But we each think our individual opinion is obviously true, so we keep repeating the same "obvious" points to one another to the point where everyone is both incredulous and offended. I'm purposely not sharing my interpretation in order to keep my post as spin-free as possible.

I think Page 11 says it pretty clearly, in describing the tactical action sequence (the only place the active player can really shoot a PDS)

"After the active player has finished moving his ships into the activated system, enemy PDS in range may fire at the active player's fleet"

IE, enemy PDS can fire into the system, and ONLY at the active player's fleet. If the active player moves into a system with another player's ships, the other players cannot fire at the "another player" - only the ACTIVE player.

"After enemy PDS units have fired, any PDS in range owned by the active player may then fire at enemy ships in the activated system."

Here, it specifically says the active player can only shoot into the ACTIVATED system.

This is all reiterated on Page 29:

"A PDS "space cannon attack" is always fired during the third step of the Activation Sequence, and only given one of the two conditions below:

- After the owner of the PDS has activated a system, and after any friendly ship movement into the system, each of the active player's PDS units in range my fire once at any enemy fleet in the activated system before a Space Battle begins"

(The second condition is the "enemy ships firing at the active player" condition, not really relevant to the question at hand).

Again, it specifically says the active player can only fire into the ACTIVATED system.

Thus, if you activate System A, all PDS shots must be directed at the fleet in System A. If System A has PDS with Deep Space Cannons, they CANNOT shoot into other systems - only into System A.

I agree with the posts, but I think the wording could be a little better. I think the tech Deep Space Cannons is a little misleading and this should be something that is specified in the FAQ as an option that you definitely cannot do. It seems that when ships are 'within range' of your pds, you have the option of firing at them from an adjacent system by activating it. I'm not saying that I currently agree with this, but that was my first conception reading the rules over the first couple of times.

I don't think DSC's text is really misleading - all it does is say enemy fleets are in range of your PDS units. It doesn't change the rules in the book that you can only fire in the system that was activated.

In fact, the rules in the book already say that the owner of the PDS can only fire into the system if they are in range to do so; thus, all DSC is doing is extending the range in which they can fire in to the adjacent hexes as well as the activated hex itself.

Granted, there's probably always better ways to word things, but I think in this case, the rules and the tech are reasonably clear when taken in context with each other.

sigmazero13 said:

The PDS rules are clear about when you can shot with them. It is said that you can shoot to an ACTIVATED system and no other (not FROM activated system to any adjacent).

Thanks all around. Our group is in agreement.

About your the trouble of the group getting in two sided heated arguments. We have this houserule (imported from GW games.. ), when ever there are two equal sides of matters and you cannot approach a consensus. Let the dice decide. All agree that we want the game to continue, so the debate can continue later (and people are not anymore so connected to the current events in the game, so the debate might be better).

We also have a system for resolving disputes in the short-term. In this case, we did not agree that we wanted the game to coninue. I continued under protest after being out-voted on the rules interpretation. Now we're figuring out whether we will do a little rewind. I don't like that I had to lose a War Sun because others wouldn't believe the rule as written, and it seems unfair to ignore such a large tangible loss even though we "agreed" to continue. Anyway, resolving how to proceed is the next step.

I don't know if rewinding is the best solution. A potential compromise could simply be to put the WS in your home system. Or just shrug it off (as unfair as it may be) as a learning experience for all involved - even the veterans of the games come across rules issues that can affect the game, and the key is just to live and learn from it and play it right the next time.

In this situation though, I have to ask - how did you lose the War Sun? Was it in the system by itself? If so, that's kind of a foolish strategy, if I may be so blunt. A War Sun is powerful, but vulnerable unless it's protected by smaller ships like Destroyers and Fighters. I'd recommend always having at least some Fighters with the War Sun to absorb damage, especially if you are in range of PDS.

Or was it that in this case, there were more than just a few PDS in range, and the fighters were destroyed by PDS fire in addition to the War Sun?

All due respect, but what is advisable with regard to fleet make-up depends on what is going on with the game. Same goes for a rewind: we played about a round and a half before closing down. That's right, they wouldn't stop for an official ruling with less than an hour to play (we play slowly). Regardless, the argument that it wasn't a good idea for it to be there alone in the first place isn't germane. But since you're curious, I was evacuating the system in stages, and the War Sun was my last piece. He also activated that system to fire PDS at me the previous round. He only destroyed it on the second illegal volley. One player has the ability to attack me, though it's unlikely. Calculated risk. I just want to move it where I was planning.

poprhetor said:

Ah, so it sounds like the PDS-shooter was using the "illegal" activation to make a SECOND shot at your War Sun? IE, the first time, he legally activated the War Sun system to shoot, and then used the second activation to make the illegal shots? (The activation of the PDS system was obviously legal in itself, it was the SHOOTING part that was incorrect).

Anyway, I didn't mean offense by the undefended War Sun wasn't meant to offend; it was just an observation from a relatively experienced (though by no means "the best strategist in the world") player. Even if the War Sun system had been previously activated and shot at, there are just many situations that could leave a vulnerable War Sun at the risk of an easy pick-off. Granted, I don't know the whole game situation, but unless something happens out of my control, I try to leave at least 2 or 3 fighters (or Destroyers, or any other ship) in the system just to absorb a shot or two; you never know what kinds of things a wily Action Card can do, not the least of which can be an Unexpected Action to make the system activate-able again. Perhaps in your situation, there WAS protection that was whittled away by the first PDS volley, though; I just don't know Not being in the game itself, I can only speak on what my perception of the situation was.

Anyway, I have to admit, I still stand by the "do not rewind" thing, but that's just my opinion on gaming in general. Perhaps it comes from some of my background as a high school football referee - there are times when a call is missed for this reason or that, and it isn't discovered until a few plays later; in those situations, we are not allowed to rewind things even if we wanted; heck, by rule we can't even try to "make things right" in other ways at that point (corrections have to be done immediately after the mistake is made, before the next play). Sometimes it can suck for one team or another, but alas, sometimes it happens, even to the best officials. I tend to take that same philosophy with me in general gaming, too; unless it's "right after" the fact, I don't let rewinds happen, though in most cases I'm a little less draconian when it comes to trying to find an acceptable recompense that can at least try to right the wrong WITHOUT rewinding.

Again, sorry if my comments offended you - certainly not my intent at all, I was just trying to offer a solution/advice At the very least, the next time you guys play, you'll know the rules about PDS fire for sure, so it won't happen again. There are always things, little or big, that sometimes crop up. The best thing to do, unless you can get a ruling very quickly (which isn't always easy, unless you happen to be next to a computer), just put it to a vote, a die roll, or something; afterwards, find out the correct ruling and just apply it the next time. Yeah, it can suck to be shafted by such a thing (it's happened to me in other games), but sometimes it happens - the downside of human nature and fallibility.

I hope the next game plays out a little better

(Oh, and for what it's worth, if you need quick rules opinions from some of the long-term players, while many of us do frequent the FFG forums, not all of us do so in a timely manner; at www.ti3wiki.org, a fan-based TI3 forum (and wiki), there tends to be more people actively browsing, which means you may be able to get a quicker answer there sometimes. You can get answers here, as well, but the activity of this site is a lot less (largely due to the forum software, unfortunately, which is more of a pain to use than most forums these days).

Thanks for the advice. One of the problems with checking the Internet is that one of our players will usually only accept rulings made by a developer, which takes a few days. It doesn't matter how many people disagree with him. He's a kind of semantic literalist, which makes sense only to a point. In fact, our change-over to consensus had nothing to do with the forum. Re-checking the rules, one of them found the rule beginning, "A PDS 'space cannon attack' is always fired during the third step of the Activation Sequence, and only given one of the two conditions below." Apparently, it was the "only" that made all the difference.

For those following the saga, this player confirmed during our game today that liability was ours (i.e., "a policy of strict liability on the rules"). In other words, because we failed to cite that specific passage while making our case, we should still be held accountable for failing to convince the dissenting players. Now we're on a new rules clarification. I'll do a new post.

poprhetor said:

With all due respect, that is the worst "rules lawyer" logic I've ever heard. Someone who claims it's up to OTHER people to prove the rules, which indicates that he himself wasn't fluent in the rules himself.

The least a rules lawyer can do is be intimately familiar with the rules, not relying on others to prove him long. *Sigh* every group has one, I suppose. My brother can be like that on occasion (especially when he refuses to read the rules, and the accuses me of deliberately withholding a rule)

Yes, and it doesn't help that he's a very logical person. Any line of logic is only as good as its premises, though. In this case, he believes that the "only" is the lynchpin of that rule, that were it not present the rule would be interpreted as he had. To be fair, we had arguments about the word "only" not being present when the issue first arose--nobody could seem to find it! You read enough text over and over . . . it gets slippery (I had to play TI3 to identify with Derrida???). I kept paraphrasing the rule as "PDS's can only fire into the Activated System," which is not as written. This led us look for the word "only" in that context. *typing deleting typing deleting* I could bore you with details forever . . . We all get irritable, emotional, etc. as we slog through this game. But we're finding as a group that our respective game philosophies take their own directions, which is quite something else.

The lesson here, just so this doesn't seem like idle bitching, is that we've rooted out some of our quite disparate assumptions re: correctness criteria. If we as a group want to enjoy the game, then we need find consensus on some (sub)fundamentals. I guess we always sort of do that, really, but it's never been so prominent(?).

I'm really nerding out over this game. I need a drink.

sigmazero13 said:

We have a one of those floating around too.

It's definitely a fine line to walk between being passionate about a game and being anal about a game. I'm not even sure where the line is (and I'm sure I've crossed it myself on occasion).

Hopefully these kinds of situations happen less often though