One of the stage 2 Public Objectives states:

"I destroyed an opponent's Space Dock at the end of combat this turn"

However what defines a combat, as it doesnt say Invasion Combat.

Can you claim the objective if:

1) You make a planetary landing on an oppenent's planet containing nothing but a spacedock and thereby destroys it?

2) You use the x-89 bacterial weapons to bombard a planet containing any number of ground forces and a Mercenary, Theryby killing the Ground Forces and making the Mercenary revert the planet to neutral and this way destroy the spacedock?

3) Activate the system with a War Sun and play the action card "Star of Death" (i think its called) killing off all Ground Forces, destroying everything else, reverting the planet to neutral and placing a radioactive counter on the planet?

please elaborate your answer - hope you can help

I think yes to all, although to my knowledge this hasn't been "officially" clarified.

I take the stance of "What was the proximate cause of the Spacedock's destruction?" What is the thing without which the dock would've lived? Did I do that thing? If yes, then I destroyed the Spacedock.

Sakes said:

Well, there are two ways to look at this, the anal way and the not-so-anal way.

The anal way observes that there are Space Battles and then there is Invasion Combat . Since Invasion Combat is the only type of fighting that's actually called Combat , that must be what the objective is referring to.

The not-so-anal way says "c'mon dude, I attacked, your SD was destroyed, end of story."

Sakes said:

Landing on a planet that is not defended still causes an Invasion Combat. It's just one that's over very quickly. So yes, this would count for the objective.

Sakes said:

Shards, pg12: "If a Mercenary is the only unit on a planet, that planet reverts to neutral."

Space Docks are units, so this situation would not cause the planet to revert to neutral, nor would it affect the SD. The objective has not been satisfied.

Sakes said:

Personally, I would be inclined to say this one counts for claiming the objective, although I can certainly see the rules lawyers arguing that it's not technically destroyed "after combat." There's nothing about it in the FAQ, so I guess just take a vote among your play group as far as which way you want to run it.

I think the card is pretty explicit: After combat, thats it! Spacebattle is just as good as invasion combat. I think it says after combat because you need to destroy a defended SD. Just as the other PO's in SE, that forces players to be more aggresive.

My editing screwed up, so my first two answers are in the quotes...

Sakes said:

Sakes said:

Sakes said:

If after Spacebattle, then YES. The dock is destroyed after combat. I personally did this in a PBF game, I had approval by the GM and none of the other 5 players argued the ruling.

I've missread the Mercenary it seems - thought they reverted as soon as there were no other GF's or mechs on the planet.

as for the other two - there are the same amount of Invasion Combat in both cases (none...) however both are an act of war - opposite local unrest, where its not realy you doing anything, thought its your action card.

I would say yes to 1 & 3, no to 2

My reasoning would be the source of the space station destruction was a player's unit. The source of losing the space dock with the mercenary was the merc.

Personally, I would just agree on it the first time it comes up with other players, and play it the same way from then on.

I wrote Corey for an official ruling:

--------------------

Question:

Do the following qualify for the 2VP PO " I destroyed a SD after combat this turn":

1) No spacebattle only planetary landing of GF on an opponents planet with only a SD?
2) No spacebattle only planetary landing of GF on an opponents planet with only a SD and a PDS?
3) Use of AC Star of Death after winning a spacebattle in a system containing a SD?

----------------------

Answer from Corey:

Hello Kristobal,

In order to fulfil this card, you must fight a ground combat against enemy units. Therefore #1, #2, and the Star of Death do NOT complete this objective.

----------------------

Thanks for this, though had I seen it sooner I would've agreed with the ruling anyhow, since a Spacedock according to the rules is on a planet (except for one in the later expansion that can move) it has to be a ground combat to blow it up. For the one that moves it clearly states it's destroyed if the fleet are destroyed and enemy ships are present. I would say that would maybe be an exception to the ground combat rule.

I can't wait to have the add ons, they look so cool.

I went and battled one guy to destroy his space dock, then I used the action card local unrest to “destroy” another players space dock. I revealed the SO at the status phase and asked people what they thought. I figured that it didn’t meet the objective as intended, but it was fun anyway. The group agreed that it didn’t count, and the player who lost the dock to the action card was more adamant than the others. But, then I asked… “How do you feel though? Do you feel like I destroyed your space dock?” lol Of course during the round he was pissed at me cause I “destroyed his space dock”, but now he had to say that he didn’t feel that way. Totally worth the loss of the 2 vp.

Don Kristobal said:

I have to say that's a rather wacky ruling that I'm going to ignore. It creates an incentive to NOT defend your Space Docks with troops -- so other players will not be able to score points off your docks. That doesn't make much sense to me.

I agree with ignoring the ruling. I think if you land on someone's planet and that causes the space dock to go boom, then that's good enough for me.