14 hours ago, EdgeOfDreams said:

There appears to be no ruling for that! I went looking in the Huge ship rules expecting Jam to say something like "Choose a small or large ship...", but it doesn't. It just says "Choose a ship..."

So, it appears that using Jam and targeting a Huge ship is another infinite loop, except this time there's no way to break out of it.

I am yet again reminded of how much I wish FFG would publish a proper Epic FAQ.

There's a simple way to deal with it, using common sense. Huge ships do not take stress. Jam action would not work. Chose a different ship.

1 hour ago, BlodVargarna said:

There's a simple way to deal with it, using common sense. Huge ships do not take stress. Jam action would not work. Chose a different ship.

I think that's not exactly true. Huge ships remove stress tokens right after taking them, just as Nien does (if he has an enemy ship in arc at renge 1). That's not the same as not taking them

Just now, Willy Jarque said:

I think that's not exactly true. Huge ships remove stress tokens right after taking them, just as Nien does (if he has an enemy ship in arc at renge 1). That's not the same as not taking them

And...? End result is the same. I guess there are two kinds of people in this world: Infinite Loopers or ILs (pronounced ills) and normal people.

Well on my side I see the normal people and the infinite loop denier. Insulting other will not make them join your side.

Just now, BlodVargarna said:

And...? End result is the same. I guess there are two kinds of people in this world: Infinite Loopers or ILs (pronounced ills) and normal people.

Personal attacks don't help.

----

Reading the rules as they are written in a theoretical context, and expecting them to be internally consistent and not allow for infinite loops, whilst acknowledging that in practice, a solution would be trivial to decide by house ruling, doesn't make people abnormal. Refusing to acknowledge that the rules are written such that infinite loops occur doesn't help, any more than writing bad code that has a memory leak due to such a loop and inisisting that it doesn't, would help.

You seem to be inferring that such people would in actual play stall until they ran out of time, or declare the game broken and wander off. My solution in practice would be to roll a die or flip a coin, and whoever wins the roll/flip wins the conflict and gets to do their thing. When an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, the players have to come to an agreement as to how to fairly resolve the situation, chance seems the fairest resolution to me until/unless an official answer is given by FAQ or errata.

And for the record, the end result is NOT the same - in your case, there's no infinite loop, but the rules are being read incorrectly. In ours, there's an infinite loop, but the rules are being read correctly.

In neither, would an infinite loop actually take place during a game.

Again I refer you to the canons of interpretation which direct that a rule (law) should not be interpreted in such a manner that would have an absurd result. Reading the rules to achieve a IL is patently absurd and is thus an incorrect reading of the rules.

If you resolve it with a coin flip, you aren't interpreting the rules correctly. There is no provision in the rules reference that I have seen allowing for that method to resolve a game effect.

6 minutes ago, BlodVargarna said:

Again I refer you to the canons of interpretation which direct that a rule (law) should not be interpreted in such a manner that would have an absurd result. Reading the rules to achieve a IL is patently absurd and is thus an incorrect reading of the rules.

If you resolve it with a coin flip, you aren't interpreting the rules correctly. There is no provision in the rules reference that I have seen allowing for that method to resolve a game effect.

[citation needed]

Please do point to the part of the x-wing rules where it says how to deal with infinite loops.

I await your page reference with anticipation.

E: and I openly and happily acknowledge that the coin flip solution is a house rule, as I've stated multiple times. ANY way out of this situation is a house rule, whether it's your way of insisting that the loop doesn't happen in the first place, or my way of creating an exit point for the loop.

You call to apply common sense. Thing is, your common sense interpretation could be different of mine. In this example, Jamming Nien and stressing him is just as fair as Nien getting rid of the stresses. Who are you to tell the Jammer to aim at another ship?

Finding rules inconsistencies is what make the developers realize that there are some mistakes, and allow them to fix those mistakes.

2 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

a (law) should not be interpreted in such a manner that would have an absurd result.

LOL !!!!!!

I like @EdgeOfDreams 's very official sounding ruling options, personally I'd rule it as option 2: incomplete action, choose another. This is consistent with trying for a target lock or boost/barrel roll when it is clearly not going to work.

Title card for that huge ship should be called Bob Marley now. It just wants to jam with Nien.

RE the rules, it seems like it would be a waste of time to target Nien at all.

Common sense isn't a thing, and an appeal to common sense is an appeal to emotion – a dirty trick, essentially a shaming tactic, for someone who doesn't have an explanation.

In a TO-like arbiter situation, I would declare that Nien would end with zero stress. Once you have established that it is a loophole in the rules, you make a ruling (rolla die for it like the rule says, if need be) and move on. There is no sense in claiming that one or other outcome is true when the loop is clearly infinite in nature.

7 hours ago, InquisitorM said:

In a TO-like arbiter situation, I would declare that Nien would end with zero stress.

So what you're saying is you would use your common sense to avoid an absurd result?

7 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

So what you're saying is you would use your common sense to avoid an absurd result?

As literally everyone else in this thread has said including myself. What we would do in practical play doesn't match what the rules say because the rules are broken in this instance.

You have this impression apparently that at the table we'd start sparking and steaming at the ears and yelling ERROR ERROR but this impression is *wrong*.

Wanting the rules to be internally logically consistent and written without mistakes has no impact on practical solutions to those mistakes during play.

15 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

So what you're saying is you would use your common sense to avoid an absurd result?

No. I'd use my experience and judgement.

9 minutes ago, InquisitorM said:

No. I'd use my experience and judgement.

Tomato Tomaahto

On 6/7/2017 at 0:25 AM, digitalbusker said:

Jam is already broken if the ship starts with two or more stress (or more than two if you're not into the distinction between a while loop and a do/while loop). I can see errataing it to say "if the ship has fewer than two stress tokens, assign it a number of stress tokens equal to two minus the number of stress tokens on it currently", but that's just one way it could go.

LOL, this is awesome. Jam Tycho and then just assign stress tokens until time is called. I want to post a pic of the board state after this happens.

On 6/25/2017 at 2:19 PM, pickirk01 said:

LOL, this is awesome. Jam Tycho and then just assign stress tokens until time is called. I want to post a pic of the board state after this happens.

Tycho doesn't like, not get stressed. He just can still perform actions while in a state of stress.

On 6/6/2017 at 0:50 PM, thespaceinvader said:

Infinite loops are absurd, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. This one does.

Also Genesis Red.

"After you acquire a target lock, assign focus and evade tokens to your ship until you have the same number of each token as the locked ship."

If Genesis starts with a focus (from Atani Mindlink, for example) and target locks a ship with no focus --

-- Check to see if Genesis Red and target have same number of focus tokens.
-- Genesis Red has 1 focus. Target has 0 focus. 0!=1. Assign one focus to Genesis Red.
-- Repeat until time is called.

51 minutes ago, Achowat said:

Tycho doesn't like, not get stressed. He just can still perform actions while in a state of stress.

I think @pickirk01 is assuming that Tycho's already going to be carrying around a pile o' stress by the time you Jam him.

28 minutes ago, Bascaria said:

Also Genesis Red.

"After you acquire a target lock, assign focus and evade tokens to your ship until you have the same number of each token as the locked ship."

If Genesis starts with a focus (from Atani Mindlink, for example) and target locks a ship with no focus --

-- Check to see if Genesis Red and target have same number of focus tokens.
-- Genesis Red has 1 focus. Target has 0 focus. 0!=1. Assign one focus to Genesis Red.
-- Repeat until time is called.

I was thinking about this one and whilst a 'at least' in there would have helped, doing a thing 0 times is legit in x wing so you just assign 0 focus tokens and you're done.

5 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

I was thinking about this one and whilst a 'at least' in there would have helped, doing a thing 0 times is legit in x wing so you just assign 0 focus tokens and you're done.

Nope. You assign focus until you have the same number of each token. If you start with zero and they have zero then yes, you assign yourself no tokens, because you already have the same number of tokens. But if you start with more than them, you do not have the same number, so you assign yourself a token. Do you have the same number now? You do not. Assign yourself a token. Same number now? Still a no. Assign a token. Etc. etc.

4 hours ago, Achowat said:

Tycho doesn't like, not get stressed. He just can still perform actions while in a state of stress.

I know but a typical Tycho would often already have more than 2 tokens before getting in range to be jammed. Since jam is worded assign stress until the ship "has 2" instead of "2 or more" or "at least 2" then if the ship has 3, you assign one then check to see if it has 2. Nope, it does not have 2 so assign another and check to see if it has 2 then. Nope. Repeat infinitely. Thats the whole point of this thread.

edit: Ninja'd by @digitalbusker.