The tournament rules say this:

Quote

Custom “setup” templates designed to aid players in ship deployment and other custom-made tools are not allowed. Players can use only their range rulers and maneuver templates within range 1 of that player’s edge to help them set up formations during deployment.

Does this mean that a player cannot place a range ruler or template onto the table during setup such that it would be outside of range 1 of their player edge?

Typing it out it seems kind of obvious but I wanted to check because this is very different from how the rules used to be.

Yep, nothing outside of Range 1, other than during the initial obstacle placement.

It's not a 2e creation, though. They switched into this in late 1e.

I remember when they changed the rules in 1e so players weren’t allowed anymore to use custom templates or maneuver templates during setup, I didn’t realize they restricted the range you could place the template.

Also weirdly I’ve been playing 2e regularly since September and nobody’s called me on doing this until last week. Good to know.

You can use maneuver templates to setup. Even in 1e. You just can not go beyond range 1 of your player edge.

13 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Also weirdly I’ve been playing 2e regularly since September and nobody’s called me on doing this until last week. Good to know.

In my experience, most players don't know about the "no templates outside of R1" rule, and those that do, don't really care about enforcing it outside of VERY high levels of play.

9 minutes ago, emeraldbeacon said:

In my experience, most players don't know about the "no templates outside of R1" rule, and those that do, don't really care about enforcing it outside of VERY high levels of play.

Myself, I know numerous players who do not own a range 1/range 2 ruler as they are not included in the core, have been issued for higher level results at local tournaments, or are not always part of a custom kit. At the same time, with a limited table space available, it's often inconvenient to have two range segments "hanging out of" the mat to use just the last one for setup. This results in putting a range 3 ruler inside the play area starting from the map edge.

While this may offer the slightest advantage of being able to align skimming just by an obstacle easier, I'm all fine with that, as it's easy to assume even the most mediocre player should be able to align that anyways...