Had a strange situation today.

A VSD with its side at a slight angle to the side of a AF2.

The VSD have just a small corner of the AF2 rear arc within its own front arc, but the line of sight, from yellow dot to yellow dot, passes through the AF2's side arc, which are not inside the VSD front arc.

So in this strange case of geometry, can the VSD shoot the AF2 in the rear arc or not?

Is this a situation where a ship actually can hide behind its own side arc?

FYI: It happened during a friendly game, so there was no hard feelings between me and my opponent, but my opponent and I would really like to know what to do, when the odd chance of this happens during a tournament game?

No, the VSD cannot shoot the rear of the AFK.

Line of Sight CANNOT pass through other defenders hull zones. p7 of the Rules Reference Guide.

"If a line of sight is traced through a hull zone on th edefender that is not the defending zone, the attacker does not have line of sight and much choose anther target."

Yup, its happened to me before. No shot allowed.

That's great to hear, then I won a 133pts vs his 125pts, a respectable 6-5 win with a MOV of 8

If he had been allowed the shoot, I would have lost that AF2, which costed (upgrades included) 94pts.

That's great to hear, then I won a 133pts vs his 125pts, a respectable 6-5 win with a MOV of 8

If he had been allowed the shoot, I would have lost that AF2, which costed (upgrades included) 94pts.

Yea, it is a good trick

It's a fairly common occurrence.

While I accept the verdict (and that it's how the rules work) I reserve the right to roll my eyes at not being able to shoot at the ship because the ship is in the way!

Yours truly; The Opponent

(At least it can somewhat be explained by the commander not seeing the same thing as the gunners....and lasers aren't free)

It would be rare that you can't shoot the ship, but in my experience with this maybe you can't use the hull zone you want to to shoot at the hull zone you want to target. It looks like your side arc would have had a rear shot and your front a side.

Pic please. I'm not seeing where the issue is.

If I'm reading it right, he's talking about this situation:

That is definitely naughty, front arc is clearly in arc on the enemy ship, but because of the rules, the side is blocking the shot?

They need to fix that, as the guy said, how can the side of the ship be blocking an attack? surely it would sustain the damage instead of the rear.

That is definitely naughty, front arc is clearly in arc on the enemy ship, but because of the rules, the side is blocking the shot?

They need to fix that, as the guy said, how can the side of the ship be blocking an attack? surely it would sustain the damage instead of the rear.

Not really. It is thematic, it is in the arc of the guns but when the guns turn they cant draw a bead on the ship.

It is a common occurrence and one reason why Nebulon B's are so good at Superior Positions.

That is definitely naughty, front arc is clearly in arc on the enemy ship, but because of the rules, the side is blocking the shot?

They need to fix that, as the guy said, how can the side of the ship be blocking an attack? surely it would sustain the damage instead of the rear.

But what use would the LoS dots be if not for this exact situation? You're pretty much advocating for an arc-only system, which I think would take away quite a bit of the depth that makes maneuvering a challenge in this game.

The alternative I think would be for them to just drop the yellow dot to yellow dot. Problem there is that it would make double arcing incredibly easy. Remember in the example the Star Destroyer CAN fire broadside to broadside, the shot in question is looking for the double arc. It's only a guess but I'll bet they playtested while making the game and it was too easy to double arc, so they put in the dot to dot.

That is definitely naughty, front arc is clearly in arc on the enemy ship, but because of the rules, the side is blocking the shot?

They need to fix that, as the guy said, how can the side of the ship be blocking an attack? surely it would sustain the damage instead of the rear.

But what use would the LoS dots be if not for this exact situation? You're pretty much advocating for an arc-only system, which I think would take away quite a bit of the depth that makes maneuvering a challenge in this game.

I dunno? but I think its poor form that something like this can happen.

Usually a ship is inside an arc or not, I mean I have never seen this happen, until reading about it here. How can the side of a ship block an attack? I totally get the point of arcs and the dots, but this ship is using itself to stop an attack, and that makes no sense.

Pretty sure if we email this to FFG, they would have something to say about it. They have changed this stuff several times already.

That is definitely naughty, front arc is clearly in arc on the enemy ship, but because of the rules, the side is blocking the shot?

They need to fix that, as the guy said, how can the side of the ship be blocking an attack? surely it would sustain the damage instead of the rear.

But what use would the LoS dots be if not for this exact situation? You're pretty much advocating for an arc-only system, which I think would take away quite a bit of the depth that makes maneuvering a challenge in this game.

I dunno? but I think its poor form that something like this can happen.

Usually a ship is inside an arc or not, I mean I have never seen this happen, until reading about it here. How can the side of a ship block an attack? I totally get the point of arcs and the dots, but this ship is using itself to stop an attack, and that makes no sense.

Pretty sure if we email this to FFG, they would have something to say about it. They have changed this stuff several times already.

Nah, this is definitely as intended.

Can you think of an example where LoS, but NOT arc, is the cause for having no shot, that isn't the same as this one? Legitimately asking: I'm having a bit of a mental block right now, but I can't think of one. If there is no such example, then this is the general case for checking LoS for shots--a core mechanic of the game.

The idea that this is unintended is equivalent to saying that, say, tying down engaged squadrons is unintended: there is no situation where the RAW come into play that is different from the general case, so how could it be unintended to work as described?

I can't, but don't you usually have a shot at the part that is obstructing the LOS?

But I see what you are saying, I guess the only time I have seen this was a shot that could hit 2 arcs, then you measure dot to dot, and find out you cannot actually shoot one of the 2 zones, I guess this is just an extenuation of this, except you can't shoot at all.

My games, stuff is usually in, or out before dots get involved, its the only explanation I can think of for never seeing this.

This happens on a regular basis.

It's a design feature.

It's a design feature.

Yeah, I just took it as a rather nice way to provide some simple way of describing the shape of the target and the shape of the attacker into account. By putting the yellow dot closer to the base edge or further in you get a differences in LOS in a ship by ship basis.

That is definitely naughty, front arc is clearly in arc on the enemy ship, but because of the rules, the side is blocking the shot?

They need to fix that, as the guy said, how can the side of the ship be blocking an attack? surely it would sustain the damage instead of the rear.

But it isnt. Front arc is clearly on a patch of space near the assault frigate.

That is definitely naughty, front arc is clearly in arc on the enemy ship, but because of the rules, the side is blocking the shot?

They need to fix that, as the guy said, how can the side of the ship be blocking an attack? surely it would sustain the damage instead of the rear.

But what use would the LoS dots be if not for this exact situation? You're pretty much advocating for an arc-only system, which I think would take away quite a bit of the depth that makes maneuvering a challenge in this game.

Gods remember when people would just measure Dot to Dot never checking arc. . . I still have some people who have not played in some time doing that. . .

It's a design feature.

Yeah, I just took it as a rather nice way to provide some simple way of describing the shape of the target and the shape of the attacker into account. By putting the yellow dot closer to the base edge or further in you get a differences in LOS in a ship by ship basis.

Agreed! I have noticed this on vassal mainly where you can get a top down view of the dots. It allows a wide variety in the difference styles of arcs and dots .

Aye Ardaedhel has convinced me to see it the "correct" way.

Is there another rule that prevents people from shooting through the front of a ship and into it's rear? Since I always figured that was the main reason for the LoS rule.

Is there another rule that prevents people from shooting through the front of a ship and into it's rear? Since I always figured that was the main reason for the LoS rule.

I agree, that's pretty much exactly what we're talking about there. If there's no LoS rule, the orientation of your target doesn't matter and you can shoot any facing on the ship that you want as long as it's in arc, even through the ship itself. Which is, of course, silly.

I think what's tripping people up is that the illustrated case is kind of at the edge of the rule. You're being prevented from shooting at the rear of the AF2 by one of the AF2's own hull zones, but just barely, so it's kind of hard to connect that intuitively into why the rule is there in the first place. You are supposed to be able to prevent an attacker from shooting into a given hull zone by blocking it with another: that's the whole point.

That's my take on it, anyway.