Is it when it's set during the setup phase, when it's first activated, or something else?

I would assume the dial itself is public knowledge, so your opponent knows what it is at the time it is set (which, if I recall, is when the ship is deployed).

Yeah you don't ever really reveal the dial, it's just set and is public knowledge from that point on.

From the moment you set the dial after declaring what speed your deployed ship is at. It remains public knowledge from then on. The only hidden information once turn 1 starts is the command dials.

As stated, when ship is deployed.

The reason is the "transparency" of strategy in Armada compared to, say, X-Wing. You are expected to make strategic and tactic decisions..not play poker. This is why pre-measuring is defacto allowed carte blanche. To illustrate, take Fleet Ambush. Player 1 must deploy their first ship in the ambush zone, it is trivially easy to tell how fast it's going with your own ships, so he sets the speed, allowing player two to see if he's running or making a stand. It directs the play extremely well and removes the guess-work that detracts from X-Wing.

Also, the tokens vs defense dice take out more randomness...so the game plays like a tactical/strategy dream, instead of favoring people with good spacial sense on a board and good insight

Apologies for the thread necro, but I thought this would be more productive than starting a new thread...

Saw this post on reddit regarding this topic

Also when you set your speed put your dial facedown on your ship. The enemy doesn't need to know your ISD is going speed 3. Let them find out when you start the 1st round. This has made deployment for me vastly more enjoyable.

I was about to refute that, and went to my handy RRG to point the user toward a specific rule, but came up empty. I've been under the impression since the beginning that speed is open information, but can't point to where I got that notion.

Any help?

Well you have to declare what speed each ship is going. You can't really secretly declare things.

I think speed dials are public information, are they not?

Well you have to declare what speed each ship is going. You can't really secretly declare things.

[internal Monologue] THE SHIP IS GOING AT SPEED 3! [/internal Monologue]

Well I declared that!

There is no mention of speed dials being face-up or face-down anywhere in the Learn to Play or the Rules Reference.

In the Learn to Play Guide, under Learning Scenario Setup Step 6:

6. Prepare Ships: For each ship, place a speed dial set to “2” near that ship’s card. Then set all four of its shield dials to the maximum values shown on its ship card. Then place one command dial near the CR90 Corvette A ship card, two command dials near the Nebulon-B Escort Frigate ship card, and three command dials near the Victory II-class ship card.

The only dials ever mentioned specifically to be "secretly" set are the command dials.

Under Setup in the RRG:

6. Deploy Ships: Starting with the first player, the players take turns deploying their forces into the setup area. A single deployment turn consists of placing one ship or two squadrons.

◊ Ships must be placed within their player’s deployment zones. When a player places a ship, he must set its speed dial to a speed available on its speed chart.

Because there is no mention of facedown or faceup - it should be implied that it is public information, as opposed to Command Dials, which are explicitly said to be placed facedown and secretly.

Ok. Thanks for the quick response on that! That was about as much as I had found, but was wondering if I was missing something, which is quite possible.

Your opponents need to also be able to verify that you have a speed selected that is on the chart so another reason it would be open knowledge

RRG, page 10, Setup:

6. Deploy Ships: Starting with the first player, the players take turns deploying their forces into the setup area. A single deployment turn consists of placing one ship or two squadrons.

◊ Ships must be placed within their player’s deployment zones. When a player places a ship, he must set its speed dial to a speed available on its speed chart.

Confirming that, this is the point when the Speed Dial is first Set...

There is no mention of it being concealed or face down or anything of the sort in the rulebook - but on the flipside, there is no mention it is face up - merely common sense that we keep things face up unless we're told otherwise.

Confirming that, this is the point when the Speed Dial is first Set...

Also since there's no rule about revealing your dial, you could in theory play with it face down the whole time... Which I think clearly goes against RAI anyway.

Confirming that, this is the point when the Speed Dial is first Set...

Also since there's no rule about revealing your dial, you could in theory play with it face down the whole time... Which I think clearly goes against RAI anyway.

This would definitely not be abusable. You'd never need a Nav command to change your speed.

"No, I'm positive that I've been going speed 2 this whole game, even though it looked like I went speed 3 last turn."

Personally wouldn't have a problem with "initial" speed being hidden. Kind of a cool deployment special consideration.

However, after that, there's no reason for hidden as it is completely track able. It's pedantic to hide it at that point since movement is visible and speed adjust requires a clear expenditure of dial or token.

All that sums to, I'd think they're face up. As a fun house rule you could start face down.

I think the trick is to recognize that unlike command dials or facedown damage cards (which no matter what they are, are indeed "valid" states for the properties they describe), speed dials actually have "illegal" states for the vehicle they are assigned to.

My VSD can't go speed 4. The dials -must- be face up to verify this. The dial has clearly been assigned at the moment of deployment, and thus it must be verifiable that the dial is set to a legal value. I mean I guess there is a similar problem in the game of things like command dials being set to indeterminate positions, but that would seem to fall more under the purview of cheating.

Basically its a game design thing. The rules ought to be such that players can't accidentally cheat. Other than command dials, which arguably a player could accidentally assign to an indeterminate value, all other parts of gameplay are visible and verifiable. If you actually look at many modern games, any time the player deals with hidden information, its usually something without restrictions. If there is a restriction, then that info is public. E.g. if I'm playing a card game where I can draw 5 cards, and if I draw a XYZ card, I can add it to my hand, and discard the rest, the rules of that game will generally require that I show that I reveal the XYZ card that I drew - I can't just add a card to my hand without showing anyone (unless the rule in play was actually draw 5, add one to hand, discard the rest). That restriction of only adding card XYZ to hand meant that I must reveal it. Same thing here in Armada. Assigning a speed to a ship during deployment does have a requirement/limitation, and as such it must be public to verify it.

Command dials can always be one of the 4 values they are assigned to, facedown damage cars are just dealt that way.

Also perhaps its more that there are rules proclaiming that certain information is hidden, and it should be presumed that all other information is public.

EDIT: I would say its a "cute" house rule to say they're hidden until it actually starts moving (and I'd certainly be up to it in a friendly game), but that is clearly counter to how the speed value is assigned at the moment of ship deployment.

there are rules proclaiming that certain information is hidden, and it should be presumed that all other information is public.

QFT

Personally, I don't see it as much of a question - or a "cute" house rule - as KomissarK referred to it.

I think (unless I missed something) that everyone seems to be focusing on the syntax of wording, while missing the bigger picture here. Think about this - if you reveal the speed dial when you deploy your first ship, your opponent immediately has some idea of your intentions, and then might change their mind about what speed they were planning to set for their first ship! [Then it will keep happening back and forth!]

FFG's mindset here? - in X-wing it's hidden speed and maneuver together - and this game came out later. What I'm trying to say is that even though your opponent will see all of your ships base speeds relatively early on, the rules still promote the "secrecy" of how you will maneuver UNTIL YOU ACTIVATE each of your ships individually. Unlike X-wing, there's a tad more secrecy here on top of it, since there are NO pilot skills that can "give away" part of the order in which you must activate - even more of a guessing game.

More so, since the command dials are secret until revealed, an opponent has no idea if you even have a navigation command ready - or just how much you might change your maneuvering because of it. And as for the idea of secrecy, your fleet build is unknown to them until it's deployed!

My point here is that regardless of ambiguously written wording, with all the other aspects of "secrecy" involved, it goes against common sense to think that speed dials would be revealed before all of the ships [on both sides] have even been deployed!!! It makes a lot more sense to think that the speed dials would be revealed in round one when each ship is activated for the first time - and then no longer be secret!

Steiner

I think the idea is that the games we are playing are a snapshot within a larger engagement. Theoretically these two fleets have been drifting towards each other for a while before they cam into firing ranges. The commanders would have seen the other side moving into position from just off the board, so the speed value at deployment is the speed the fleet entered the table at.

Fighters are a lot faster to change their relative velocity, so in X-Wing it makes sense that you can execute surprise maneuvers.

This may also just be me making stuff up to defend a game design decision, but it works in my head.

I can not say how it is supposed to be done. How we do it is after setting it, I place it on top of my command dials upside down. First time I activate that unit I turn it over and tell everyone what my speed is, at this point on it is face up for all to see.

FFG's mindset here? - in X-wing it's hidden speed and maneuver together - and this game came out later. What I'm trying to say is that even though your opponent will see all of your ships base speeds relatively early on, the rules still promote the "secrecy" of how you will maneuver UNTIL YOU ACTIVATE each of your ships individually.

And as for the idea of secrecy, your fleet build is unknown to them until it's deployed!My point here is that regardless of ambiguously written wording, with all the other aspects of "secrecy" involved, it goes against common sense to think that speed dials would be revealed before all of the ships [on both sides] have even been deployed!!! It makes a lot more sense to think that the speed dials would be revealed in round one when each ship is activated for the first time - and then no longer be secret!Steiner

Secondly, this point is actually incorrect. Fleet lists are public knowledge. You reveal your list before determine initiative (so the person with the lower bid/coin flip winner gets to know good opponent's full list, all ships, upgrades, and squadrons before choosing who goes first.) Initiative and objectives are both determined after players have revealed their lists.

Edit: and of course what feels like it makes the most sense to you isn't necessarily what makes the most sense to everyone. Most things in this game aren't secret, and nothing in the rules allows you to keep speed secret at any point, nor do the rules mention revealing speed after deployment, or when you activate your first ship or whatever. If there is no point at which you reveal your speed it makes the most sense to assume that it is always revealed.

The only things in this game that are secret, are Command dials, the maneuver tool outside of a ships "determine course step" and facedown damage cards.

The speed dial is set - and revealed, as in placed face-up - when you first deploy any given ship.

Elijah; I can follow some of your thinking in your response, such as the reference to the fighters in X-wing being more maneuverable.

Also, I understand that everyone has various frames of reference in how they see things (including me) but I'm afraid it seems to me that your main point can actually be looked at in more than one way. First, a fleet travels together at the same speed when it's closing on the enemy (or it's not much of a fleet) and we don't have stragglers coming up as second waves as per the current deployment rules.

No doubt you would counter me on this by saying that certain ships suddenly cut their speed in "the nonexistent previous round" which brought the fleets to their engagement, which is why all the ships in that fleet don't enter the battle at the same speed. On the other hand, someone could say that certain ships suddenly sped up instead My point is that after [theoretically] traveling as a fleet - which would be governed by the slowest ship(s), any speed differences (call it drawing up the lines of battle in the deployment phase) would then represent sudden tactical speed changes that the enemy ships (not fighters as you made a very good reference to) could never instantaneously react to with their own speed changes! In defending and trying to further my point, if you never use the NAV command you're stuck at the same speed through the battle - so on deployment it's really only about your own fleets battle plans just as much as your fleet build. Again, speed differences in a fleet represent last minute orders, and don't allow for immediate reaction by the enemy (hens hidden command dials) so on deployment speeds should be secret until each ship is activated - or it would look real nice when your opponent picks up a speed dial to change it [immediately] after seeing what you had set when you deploy your first ship - which they can't do during the battle - so why should they (or yourself either) be able to do it in the deployment phase when it can never happen at any other time? Call me a whiney baby, but it's late, I'm tired, and I have a headache - but I'm doing my best to put my view out there, which was prompted by people asking questions about an important (sort of nonexistent) rule point.

Overall, it just seems to be an overlooked point of syntax in the rules writing, but the point is that it HAS raised questions and that (if you think about it) it has actually opened a sort of "loophole" which allows a weird "sort of cheat" that can take place only during the deployment phase. Let's face it, whoever places the first ship has already given away some idea of their plans by it's position in the set up area; if they have to reveal the speed dial as well, then they've revealed that much more.

How do I say this? - it's not X-wing, but I took it for granted that certain ideas were the same. When you reveal a maneuver dial or a command dial your opponent can't suddenly change theirs - and in Armada your speed dictates your basic movement - so when you deploy ships you shouldn't be revealing your speed immediately, or you're also giving your opponent info about your maneuvering! This "loophole" during deployment lets your opponent go "Oh, if your going to do that (changes his or her speed dial) then I'm going to do that"! The whole idea is absolutely ridiculous, once again, because neither of you can do it at any other time throughout the game.

Steiner