We had a game this afternoon that had a bit of a conundrum. Two Assault Frigates ended up head to head and could never move past each other for two turns. I was speed 3 and he was speed 2. Is there any possible permutation to maneuver away from each other? There didn't seem to be, and while it worked in my favor in the end; it just left us scratching our heads. We had roughly a starfighter range 1 between us.

Thanks all for any help!

And yes....ramming yielded a viable strategy in that game.

Distance 1, by the way, not range. The starfighter side is numbered distances 1-5, the ship side is close-medium-long ranges.

I suppose it'd be possible to get in such a position where you can neither go slow enough to avoid a collision, nor fast enough to overfly the other ship, but with Speed 3 ships I'd think you'd usually have an out. If you yaw in one direction early in the maneuver, and then yaw the other way at the end of the maneuver, you can achieve a bit of a sideslip. It may be you just got unlucky and ended up at exactly the right angle that escape was impossible.

Two things to remember are: firstly, that you can spend a Navigate dial just for the additional yaw, and use that at the 1st joint of the maneuver (even if you can't normally yaw at that joint) you can change the potential final positions pretty drastically. Secondly, if you reduce your speed to 0 you won't collide, although the ability to use your defense tokens is a big price to pay.

Yeah there's a sweet spot where two medium ships pretty much can't get past each other (worse with two Vic's!)

I think a decent solution might be rules for allowing ships to "slide" past each other.

If a ship can't possibly move without overlapping it can perform a 'last second evasion'

Have to work out the maneuovre that has the least 'base overlap' and then move the activated ship up to its normal speed while lining it up and sliding it along the blocker.

While this is a solution it brings other issues into play, may not be the BEST Solution, which is of course to avoid collisions in the first place haha

Could possibly fix by giving a ship that had reducespeed to zero for that turn a token that ups its speed by one the next time it activates and must be spent. Still wont help when two larges hit head on.

I hope you were you playing Blue on Blue.

You may find Leia on a Corvette helpful here.

Also remember that before a collision happens, you slow down temporarily to speed 2 or 1 and move if possible. The ship at speed 3 may then have the possibility of moving past the opposing ship next turn.

This is funny. This happened to me today (against Beatty I believe) with my VSD and his Space Whale. In the end I had to kill his whole with my VSD after my GSM stripped it of its shields (ACM's are pure gold!)

Yeah. It was blue on blue. Neither of us had Navigate commands for our order, nor the Defense Liason to change the orders. We were kinda scratching our heads on this one. Sorry about getting the terminology wrong. I think what I meant was that the distance between the ships was the range 1 on the starfighter side. We really did try to figure out how to get out of this one.

I'll have to remember the temporary speed reduction rule. I think that may have solved it.

Also remember that before a collision happens, you slow down temporarily to speed 2 or 1 and move if possible. The ship at speed 3 may then have the possibility of moving past the opposing ship next turn.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. The reduced speed is very explicitly a temporary thing for the exact moment you are taking your maneuver. You move at the fastest speed you can that does not cause an overlap, never going faster than your original speed. As soon as you are done moving, the ship goes back to whatever speed it was at before it started moving.

Until you get a navigate command, nothing is going to change from one round to the next if both ships must temporarily reduce to 0 each time they activate.

Also remember that before a collision happens, you slow down temporarily to speed 2 or 1 and move if possible. The ship at speed 3 may then have the possibility of moving past the opposing ship next turn.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. The reduced speed is very explicitly a temporary thing for the exact moment you are taking your maneuver. You move at the fastest speed you can that does not cause an overlap, never going faster than your original speed. As soon as you are done moving, the ship goes back to whatever speed it was at before it started moving.

Until you get a navigate command, nothing is going to change from one round to the next if both ships must temporarily reduce to 0 each time they activate.

You are correct, and that is what I was trying to say. I also misread the OP and thought he was at short range, not distance 1, and therefor may have had the room to move at speed 1 one turn for a collision and then go past his opponent at speed 3 the next turn. My mistake.

Also note, the rrg specifies if a collision is about to occur, and you've reduced speed temporarily, you can suspend the "ship can't overlap maneuver tool" rule. This should do a pretty good job in letting it get out of the way.

I was just rereading the rules for overlapping last night and a question came up.

I have been assuming that when you overlap what you are basically doing is plotting a move for your full speed but then only moving part way along the maneuver tool. What the rules for overlapping actually say is

"Instead, temporarily reduce its speed by one... and move the ship at the new speed."

That sounds more like you recalculate the entire movement at the new speed, including determining course, meaning you might get different yaw values at the new (temporarily reduced) speed. Is that how it actually works or am I missing something that indicates it should actually work the way it seems like it was meant to?

The rules regarding overlap do not instruct or allow you to return to the Determine Course step. Also the overlap rules allow you to occupy a position straddling the range ruler, this would be unneeded if you weren't locked into your chosen course.

Don't forget that what only matters is where the ship starts and ends, the ship ignores everything in between

I just got out two medium bases and did some measuring. At speed 3 (at any distance that would cause overlap at speed 1) you need more then 2 clicks of yaw to avoid overlapping. So hope you have a nav team with a token or Navigation on your command dial to avoid this

Simple solution is to avoid going head to head unless you know you can survive the collision.

We all remember what happened in ESB when a few ISDs tried to ram the Falcon

I bet the waiting room was full at "Lord Vader's Chiropractor clinic" after that happened, I heard his work is so good that no one needs to come back after wards... or can

We all remember what happened in ESB when a few ISDs tried to ram the Falcon

After playing armada some, I have a lot more sympathy for the guys piloting those Star destroyers than I used to.

I was just rereading the rules for overlapping last night and a question came up.

I have been assuming that when you overlap what you are basically doing is plotting a move for your full speed but then only moving part way along the maneuver tool. What the rules for overlapping actually say is

"Instead, temporarily reduce its speed by one... and move the ship at the new speed."

That sounds more like you recalculate the entire movement at the new speed, including determining course, meaning you might get different yaw values at the new (temporarily reduced) speed. Is that how it actually works or am I missing something that indicates it should actually work the way it seems like it was meant to?

There is a little bullet point: "If a ship must execute a maneuver at a reduced speed due to overlapping another ship, it is allowed to overlap the maneuver tool in its final position."

This makes me beleive that the move is just executed at a speed slower than planned. If you were able to change the maneuver tool, would be no need to allow a player to overlap it.