We've played a few times and we still have a basic questions, how many times can a manned viper attack?

Although the rules say a viper can be activated any number of times, can a human pilot just keep attacking until he/she has attacked each cylon? we had decided that it only made sense for the viper to attack once per turn but we played with another friend who said they played that manned vipers could attack all the raiders in the space.

Can anyone add clarity? We've tried searching the forums but haven't found anything.

Ok I think that there is a little problem here. A pilot character on a viper still has one movement and one action in his turn (aside from Starbuck that has two actions). Using his/hers action the character can activate the viper to move again or attack (rulebook p. 10), if he/she has the "Maximum firepower" card can attack 4 times instead of 1. The reference to a Viper that can be activated any number of times (p. 25) refrs to the fact that a character with multiple actions (like Starbuck) can use all of them to operate the Viper, he/she is not limited to activating the Viper once per round, but he/she is still limited by his/hers maximum number of actions per round.

A manned viper can attack once per action, with exceptions granted from Maximum Firepower, or similar cards from the Pegasus expansion.

The part of the rules concerning activating vipers (on page 25) is for unmanned vipers, and states that a viper may be activated any number of times during a player's turn. Manned vipers are never activated, they are only piloted using the rules on page 26. You may only activate a viper using an effect on the board, such as the command location. These require actions; activating a viper isn't something one can do for 'free'.

This means you can spend multiple actions (from executive order, or other similar means) on an unmanned viper. This means also that you can use the Command location, you can activate a single viper twice with one use.

Does that help?

Thank You! I was looking everywhere trying to figure this one out.