If I have no GF and only PDS units on a planet, are they still allowed to fire at invading GF?

This is an interesting question. My group has always played it so that PDS on a planet without ground forces still get to fire. However, I didn't want to give an answer without first making sure it was correct, so I looked in the rules. The way it is worded in the rules, it would appear that PDS on a planet without defending ground forces do not get to fire at invading ground forces, as no invasion combat is ever initiated.

Well, I have to disagree.

Rulebook, page 17 : " Before the actual Invasion Combat begins, players
must resolve pre-combat actions such as planetary
bombardments and defensive PDS fire ." (Emphasis mine)

PDS fire is not part of the invasion combat, it happens before - so if after you fire PDS, it turns out that there is no combat to resolve (either because the attacker or defender has no GFs left), how were you to know?

"After the attacking player has finished his bombardment,
the defending player may fire a single shot with
each PDS unit on the contested planet."

Again, no mention of defending GFs needing to be present.

It's much like the situation where ships enter an empty system - just because there's no space battle, doesn't mean the PDS can't fire.

Another question on PDS...

I have a PDS with the Deep Space Cannon tech and an enemy fleet closes in ("has activated") on the planet with the PDS.

How often does the PDS fire?

Once when the enemy fleet is one map space away, twice when it reaches the planet and a third time when GF invade that planet?

possumman said:

I can see where you are coming from, but you are not reading all of the rules.

If a player lands units on a planet that is controlled by
an opponent, but does not contain any enemy Ground
Forces, the planet falls without resistance. The invader
simply removes the opponent’s Control Marker and
takes the corresponding Planet Card from the opponent,
placing it exhausted into his play area.

...

After the active player has landed one or more
Ground Force units during the Planetary Landings
step of a Tactical Action, an Invasion Combat must be
fought if the destination planet holds any enemy
Ground Force units.

Bombardment and PDS fire during invasion combat are "pre-combat" abilities similar to those that happen before a Space Battle. PDS fire at ships, on the other hand, happens as soon as someone activates a system and moves units into it, and is not a "pre-combat" ability in a Space Battle. If a Space Battle does not occur, neither do any of the "pre-combat" abilities that happen in the Space Battle sequence. The same should hold true for Invasion Combat.

rashktah said:

They would fire once per activated system. If he activates the system containing PDS and moves ships there from four, three, two, or one space away or already has ships in the system and doesn't move any additional ships in, the PDS fire exactly once. If you have Deep Space Cannon and he activates a system adjacent to the system containing the PDS, you can fire at him once on that activation. If he then activates the system containing the PDS, you can fire at him once on that activation as well.

edit: To be clear, you can only fire at ships that are currently in the activated system. If your opponent activated the system, you can only fire at that player's ships. If you activated the system, you can fire at whatever ships are in the system (except your own, obviously).

But my PDS could fire once on his ships in orbit and then once on the landing GFs, right?

broken said:

I think you've taken that rule out of context - that's just from the summary of teh entire turn on page 12. "Details" and more explicit rules are on page 17. PDS haven't even really been mentioned at that point in the rules. So to take that as a basis for argument doesn't stand with me.

broken said:

I see your point, but I don't think you can draw such a strong parallel between space combat and invasion combat. Also, your argument rests on the fact that PDS do not fire if there are no defending GFs.

Your argument is negated if I use the fact that PDS do fire, meaning that in GF combat, it is possible to have pre-combat without combat.

To be honest, the rules aren't explicit enough - but to me, the fact that it does not state that GFs are required to fire the PDS means it does fire. Why would it fire at incoming ships but not incoming GFs? It makes no sense. I suggest you take this question to http://www.ti3wiki.org/forum/YaBB.pl?board=general and ask the opinion of the TI3 community.

possumman said:

Ok, I'll do that.

Thanx for the respones

The TI3 community doesn't make the rules, though. I would much rather ask Corey.

And my argument rests on the fact that PDS do not fire if there are no defending Ground Forces at the end of the Planetary Landings step of the Tactical Action. I would agree that the rules as written seem to allow PDS fire on invading Ground Forces even if the defending Ground Forces were killed by Bombardment.

rashktah said:

Yes.

I'm interested to see what Corey says about this. Make sure to post his reply in the FAQ thread.

blarknob said:

That reminded me to dump the most recent ones in my email to the thread.

Where do I ask Corey?

Use the "rules questions" link at the bottom of the page.

I've submitted the question to him, though others are certainly welcome to also do so.

I also did on the 31st.

Perfect. I hope you'll ad his answer to this thread.

Yes, the PDS will fire at you.

I hope this answers your question!
-Corey Konieczka
Lead Game Designer
Fantasy Flight Games

Glad to see that.

Nice one Corey.

and here's another happy gamer.

Thanx.

And not surprising at all

sigmazero13 said:

It isn't particularly surprising that he ruled it that way, since it does seem more logical, but it is inconsistent with the rules governing Space Battles. Still, it was not a clear distinction in the rulebook in any way and there was no reason to believe from the text in the rulebook that they would fire.

The ruling makes sense because it is intuitive, but it certainly drives how inconsistent the TI3 rules are.

I don't know why my response from Corey was so late in coming, but it basically said the same thing:

"Yes, PDS Cannons can always be fired at invading ground forces."