Second sheet:

I have a question about the mission "Capture the officer". In the game today the shuttle was pretty close to one of the table edges, but not the escape edge. It just got enough damage to go into flee mode.

Now, every possible maneuver would fly it off the board. The rules say that it swerves until it doesn't leave the board. Does this include the 0 Maneuver? If so is the shuttle then just parked and waits to be disabled? this seemed strange to us, with the officer trying to not be caught, so we decided to not swerve to speed 0 - just rolled the die, with 1 + 2 being the speed 0 move and everything else having the shuttle fly off, thus failing our mission (of it was a 3 bank off the board).

Now, would the shuttle actually just stand there and be shot? Waiting for reinforcements (which would never arrive, by the way)? How do you guys handle such a situation?

What we did was when it got a bit close to the edge, we wouldn't allow any move that would fly it off the board or place it in a position so that it would fly off the board the following turn. Sometimes that meant we had to select from the valid manoeuvres for the ship rather than roll for them until it was safe to roll.

I have a question about the mission "Capture the officer". In the game today the shuttle was pretty close to one of the table edges, but not the escape edge. It just got enough damage to go into flee mode.

Now, every possible maneuver would fly it off the board. The rules say that it swerves until it doesn't leave the board. Does this include the 0 Maneuver? If so is the shuttle then just parked and waits to be disabled? this seemed strange to us, with the officer trying to not be caught, so we decided to not swerve to speed 0 - just rolled the die, with 1 + 2 being the speed 0 move and everything else having the shuttle fly off, thus failing our mission (of it was a 3 bank off the board).

Now, would the shuttle actually just stand there and be shot? Waiting for reinforcements (which would never arrive, by the way)? How do you guys handle such a situation?

What we did was when it got a bit close to the edge, we wouldn't allow any move that would fly it off the board or place it in a position so that it would fly off the board the following turn. Sometimes that meant we had to select from the valid manoeuvres for the ship rather than roll for them until it was safe to roll.

Yeah. Letter of the law it would sit there on full stop. Spirit seems to go with whittaker007. Can't say I've had that scenario yet! Considering our luck with that mission it'll be our next outcome. One day I shall capture that officer!

The other option is to just allow it to straddle the edge of the map so long as its entire base doesn't go off, and then ensure its maneuver next round brought it back on the map using the rules for swerving.

Ultimately, the object of HotAC is to defeat the scenario , not to defeat the limitations of a scripted AI, lol. We don't allow Imperial ships to leave play unless they've been forced off, like with an ion attack.

Sounds reasonable.

I agree with what VaeVictis said. In general, the AI should never lose a ship because a limitation of the AI mechanics.

If it were to go out, then it swerves with whatever maneuver in its dial that allows it not to go out.

If it doesn't have any, then what we do is to actually allow it to perform whatever maneuver in it needs to avoid going out, even those not in their dials, and consider it red.

If still it goes out, then we just push it back in, until it is just touching the edge.

You are fighting a blind, non-sentient die roll and chart. It feels wrong to demand it to have the same skills as a human opponent.

The problem wasn't the shuttle flying off the board, I'm perfectly fine with that (and by flying off the board the shuttle ensured an imperial victory!) - after all the officer is not to be captured, I'm sure his commander made that clear when they took off.

Our problem was that the shuttle would just sit there and do nothing according to the AI rules (swerving until Speed 0 is the only viable move). And I didn't like that approach. Just wanted to hear how other "Heroes" solve such a situation.

Thanks for the answers

I've been helping to work on the imperial version over in the Villains of the Aturi Cluster thread, and have a question (mainly Armorgear7, but anyone that knows). What program was used to create all the stat and pilot cards? I have been using MS paint to modify imperial ships, but would like to go further, but I have no idea what was used? I've looked through the topic, but after almost 40 pages, it's alot to look though.

I wouldn't be surprised if Armorgear7 used professional grade software (say Adobe Photoshop or equivalent) to create his work. It would be very easy to do with the layer functionality in the program. Using a flat layer graphic editor is definitely the hard way to do this as you end up getting right down to pixel editing to make sure everything blends nicely.

try Gimp, works with layers too and it's free. Great software to work with.

So, played my first game of HotAC tonight, was a blast but I wanted to pose a couple of things, just to confirm that what we did was "right"

Now the Tie on the left is the Formation leader...

The turn before, they were due to "bank right" this put both on the rock, so the left "swerved" straight to it's current position, the one on the right, tried to copy, but it would of ended on the rock, so it stayed on course and landed on the rock (Should it of right turned, Turning away from the lead and it's target?)

Anyway, this turn they are still R1 and thus in formation, 3 bank is the dialled move. Is this right (see picture above)?

In this picture, the dialled 3 bank, puts the formation Lead on the rock, 3 turn is a bump, so we went with 3 straight, but that puts the 2nd Tie on the rock, the original move ends up a bump with the Formation lead and a right turn is deliberate attempt to break formation and didn't seem quite right.

Here's a random picture of us being Outflown by the AI...

The AI will break off if that's the way to avoid hitting the rock. The first example No2 would have gone right. They don't care about bumping at all.. If swerving causes a bump, they bump. They get rock fixation. The rock has a chance for damage and crowiding your wingmate just gets you yelled at by the squad leader. They're not total idiots. Though they do look like morons when they don't plan ahead for that and have the rock centered between the nubs a mere inch ahead...

And yeah... It's funny how these dumb TIEs end up looking brilliant all of the sudden...

The AI will break off if that's the way to avoid hitting the rock. The first example No2 would have gone right. They don't care about bumping at all.. If swerving causes a bump, they bump. They get rock fixation. The rock has a chance for damage and crowiding your wingmate just gets you yelled at by the squad leader. They're not total idiots. Though they do look like morons when they don't plan ahead for that and have the rock centered between the nubs a mere inch ahead.. .

And yeah... It's funny how these dumb TIEs end up looking brilliant all of the sudden...

Thanks for the reply

Re Bold: If they were that close to a rock, we forced a BR to avoid, though I think in one instance they still picked a move that took them over it...

More Questions

- Do they lose actions if they bump?

- Are you meant to track Crits on them?

Correct. A bump causes loss of actions. Note, if they have a free action before they move that of course happens as it is before they move...

Yes, crits are still tracked. We put the card next to the TIE.

Yes, crits are still tracked. We put the card next to the TIE.

Speaking of which, I found a really easy, clean way to track damage to TIEs. Since you have to number them all anyway, just put an extra number token for each TIE off to the side of the board. Then, when a TIE takes damage, you put the damage cards under that TIE's number token. Easy, and doesn't clutter the board with damage cards or tokens.

Yes, crits are still tracked. We put the card next to the TIE.

Speaking of which, I found a really easy, clean way to track damage to TIEs. Since you have to number them all anyway, just put an extra number token for each TIE off to the side of the board. Then, when a TIE takes damage, you put the damage cards under that TIE's number token. Easy, and doesn't clutter the board with damage cards or tokens.

This is pretty much what we do. We put a academy pilot card with corresponding number on the side, we line then up by squad (alpha, beta, etc...) and track damage with the little hit tokens, and use cards for crits. We place a token on the ship to remember they have a crit effect. We tried putting the card, but as one ship had Ethan's EPT, we found tracking all the cards became cluttered.

Yes, crits are still tracked. We put the card next to the TIE.

Speaking of which, I found a really easy, clean way to track damage to TIEs. Since you have to number them all anyway, just put an extra number token for each TIE off to the side of the board. Then, when a TIE takes damage, you put the damage cards under that TIE's number token. Easy, and doesn't clutter the board with damage cards or tokens.

This is pretty much what we do. We put a academy pilot card with corresponding number on the side, we line then up by squad (alpha, beta, etc...) and track damage with the little hit tokens, and use cards for crits. We place a token on the ship to remember they have a crit effect. We tried putting the card, but as one ship had Ethan's EPT, we found tracking all the cards became cluttered.

We do the same thing, that or mark it down with a piece of paper and pencil to the side.

We simply out damage tokens on the TIE bases.

When you are drawing a ship type that is replacing a TIE when deploying an AI squad, do you include the shuttle and decimator? The 2 attacks and pile of HP on the decimator can turn a close mission into a rebel-stomp in short order compared to drawing a defender or something else.

When you are drawing a ship type that is replacing a TIE when deploying an AI squad, do you include the shuttle and decimator? The 2 attacks and pile of HP on the decimator can turn a close mission into a rebel-stomp in short order compared to drawing a defender or something else.

Yeah, we draw from the pilot list at random. Nothing says remove cards from the deck except certain mission conditions. And yeah, capture imperial officer went south fast when we randomly drew a second shuttle...

When you are drawing a ship type that is replacing a TIE when deploying an AI squad, do you include the shuttle and decimator? The 2 attacks and pile of HP on the decimator can turn a close mission into a rebel-stomp in short order compared to drawing a defender or something else.

You can't draw a decimator as a random. It only has an AI card, not pilot cards.

When you are drawing a ship type that is replacing a TIE when deploying an AI squad, do you include the shuttle and decimator? The 2 attacks and pile of HP on the decimator can turn a close mission into a rebel-stomp in short order compared to drawing a defender or something else.

You can't draw a decimator as a random. It only has an AI card, not pilot cards.

Ahh, that's it. We've been drawing an AI card then drawing from the stack of pilot cards corresponding to the drawn AI. That led to the confusion. So shuttles=yes decimators=no

I have downloaded everything and we are getting ready to try this out but there is one thing I can not find. What is the starting amount of points each player begins with?

I have downloaded everything and we are getting ready to try this out but there is one thing I can not find. What is the starting amount of points each player begins with?

In the rule book, you get points based on which ship you choose. I dont have the book next to me. I hope im ninja'd with the correct page and points. I think its 5pts for an xwing and 8 for a Y. Its probably on the section defining things, many rules hidden there.

My friend gave me a copy on a flash drive. Going to play all summer long!!!