Hi Guys,

I'm reasonably new to TI. I've got the 3rd edition game, no expansion, and I've gotten in about a half-dozen games so far.
A few rules questions came up in a recent game that I haven't been able to find answers to. I have been searching the forums a bit, and so I apologize if they've already been addressed before elsewhere.

1) We had a player who, rather late into a 14-point game, acquired the advanced fighters tech. and proceeded to amass fighters to a staggering degree. We quickly ran out of counters. The question is: do the extra figher/ground force tokens repesent a hard limit on the number of those units that can exist in a game? Or should we just seek out additional objects to use as counters when we run out of the tokens?
( I fear the possibilty that the answer might be "find more tokens". When your opponent has 48 fighters that hit on a 6 or higher (due to racials, laws, tech, etc.) that's not a pretty thing.)

2) If a player moves a fleet into an empty system and no space combat happens, can PDS units in adjacent systems shoot at that fleet, assuming the owner of the PDS also has the deep space cannon tech? I've checked this in the rules and believe the answer is "yes", but I want to be doubly sure.
2b) Assuming the answer above is "yes", if that same fleet then invades the neutral planet in said system with ground forces, can the adjacent PDS with deep space cannons fire at the invaders a second time during invasion combat?

3) If two players enter into combat with dreadnaughts and they both have the assault cannon tech, do they both shoot at each other simultaneously as a pre-combat action?

I think there were a few other questions, but I've forgotten them at the moment. If I remember I'll add them to this thread.

1.) There is no limit whatsoever on the number of fighters a player can build - however, once you have Advanced Fighters, any fighter which aren't in carriers (or spacedocks) count towards fleet supply . So he can't just mass 40 fighters in one system for a laugh - the most he can get is about 30, and that's with all 4 carriers and some excess fleet supply.

2.) a.) Yes, the PDS can shoot at the ships.

b.) No, the PDS cannot shoot at the GFs - only PDS on the planet being invaded can shoot at the GFs. As neutral planets cannot have PDS, the GFs will land unharmed.

3.) The defender chooses the order of pre-combat events (e.g. Assault Cannon -> Anti-Fighter Barrage -> Mentak precombat shots), but within each of those segments, fire is simultaneous.

I would HIGHLY recommend buying the expansion. Keep the questions coming!

Thanks for the answers. Very helpful.

And after reading through the errata doc, another one we ran into came to mind:

The Hacan racial ability states that trade agreements with the Hacan cannot be broken.If a Hacan player is proposing a trade agreement with another player, does the other player have to agree to the trade first, or does the racial ability allow the Hacan to "force" the other player into the agreement?

No, it doesn't allow the Hacan to force others to trade with them. Not agreeing to trade is different from breaking a trade agreement.

MidLman said:

Most tokens in the game are limiting. Trade goods and CCs for example. Fighter and GF tokens are among the few that are not limited, and you should go find something else to use as tokens in that case. Having said that, Possum makes an excellent point about fleet supply which I probably would have forgotten all about. So, good thing he got here first. =P

MidLman said:

2a) Yes. Firing PDS at an activated hex is a step unto itself in the turn sequence, it's not connected to space battles at all, so it doesn't matter if one happens or not. But they can only fire into the activated hex, not other hexes the fleet might pass through en route.

2b) No. Like Possum said, only PDS on the planet being invaded get to fire during invasion combat, DSC or no DSC. If there were a PDS on the planet (if it weren't neutral) then it would be allowed to fire again after having fired at the fleet, incidentally.

When you get the expansion, there's a Distant Suns token that basically says "surprise! there's a PDS here!" but it doesn't follow the rules of normal PDS, so don't think it shoots at stuff like a real PDS if the initial player fails to take the planet (I mention this only because it has been brought up in our games before.)

MidLman said:

As I understand it, yes.

possumman said:

Technically, if you had all 4 Carriers and 2 War Suns in a system, it would be 6 fleet supply and a max of 36 fighters. With Advanced Fighters, you could MAYBE get up to 40, which would require a whopping 10 Fleet Supply.

But that system is just ASKING for a Signal Jam

As for Assault Cannons, I'm pretty sure Corey's ruling was that although the defender chooses the order of the abilities to resolve, both players resolve the same ability simultaneously.

Oh yeah, War Suns...

But yeah, a Signal Jam on that system.... *drool*