Hmm... maybe an explicit reference to the fact that you cannot attack a cloaked ship should be made.

And you're right -- a cloaked ship is only vulnerable to area-effect weapons if it has been detected.

Well, as indicated above, I think that's where we are at.

Cloaked ships are immune to damage. Period.

Good point...

:oops:

I think this has been discussed before.
You know, back in the old days.
:wink:
Kevin

I was thinking about this as well.... since you can damage a friendly ship, if it happens to be in the area of effect... how about a rule that states that there must be a valid target in range of a cloaked ship for AoE weapons to damage it?

That avoids the cloaked ship being fired on, because the other player decides to shoot at a random hex (just happens to be one with a cloaked ship). I would further state that the weapon goes off in the hex with the valid, non-cloaked, target..... and if a cloaked ship is in the blast radius, it takes some damage.... but is not revealed? That way, the firing player cannot lob a shell in between a cloaked ship and a valid target, hoping to get both..... ect.

I can see avoiding the "I am going to randomly shoot that hex, as I know that there is something there" type players.... but at the same time, we might want to avoid cloaks being used to completely avoid damage.

Nahuris

So to play devils advocate, it is not necessarily the case that an AoE weapon represents a giant wave of energy.  For example, I could propose a weapon that deploys a big cloud of smart submunitions that then home in on available  targets in the area.  In which case it makes perfect sense, reasoning from "special effect" that cloaked ships would not be effected.

I'm actually pretty much on the side of sticking with strict interpretation of rules effects, and avoiding exceptions where possible.  It's one of the things that attracted me to SAE in the first place

A cloak (as defined in the old TREK series) only makes a ship invisible - it CAN'T make a ship invulnerable to damage.

Cloak ought to affect ACCURACY but nothing else.

Movement into things, like asteroids - no effect.

AOE weapons can still hit - mainly because it's going to be a bi*** to rule on each case - depending on whether it's a swarm of rockets or a gigantic burst of energy.

That's my take....

It's NOT a Black Globe....

nothing like a good frappe.   :twisted:

For what it's worth, my "ruling" on this has nothing to do with assuming that cloaked ships are literally immune to damage (as has been pointed out, minefields and asteroid fields would still have an effect), but to have a rule as simple as possible that does not lead to major abuse.

So, a more correct way of phrasing it would be to state that cloaked ships cannot be damaged by attacks from opposing starships and/or fighter flights, even those with the area effect trait.

I hope I didn't kill the thread.... I just have a player who absolutely loves cloaks... and is always looking for ways to cheese every rule.....LOL

Nahuris

Well, since you uncloak during Orders phase, regardless of the ruling on AoE vs cloak, you could always do this exact same tactic by flying near, AoE weapons fire (end of turn), uncloak, move up, short range fire.  If you can pull this off, good tactic!

This is just silly.  First of all, even if you were considering your own ships as "cloaked, dectected" you wouldn't avoid damage, those ships would attacked with a -1 to hit penalty, and enemy ships in the area will be attacked with whatever penalty is appropriate to the tech they are using. See:

http://mj12games.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1300

You target an AoE weapon on a hex, not a ship.  Each ship in the area is then attacked with whatever penalties would ensue if that ship had been specifically targeted.  If that ship is NOT a legal target (undetected cloak, stealth at long range) then the target is not hit.

I game with John/Nahuris and thought I would add my two cents in as he tries to be a little more diplomatic than I am sometimes. We have a player with a bad case of rules lawyerism to constantly deal with. We don't want to exclude him because a) he owns a lot of the figs we use as he had a lot of time neither John or I had and b) can't exclude him without excluding his wife who is a solid player and tactician that is fun to fight against (not to mention a challenge). Also we do multiple games, Starmada, BattleTech (both tabletop and RPG), Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay ... well you get the idea. The gentleman in question is very enthusiastic, but also once spent 2 weeks with one of the RPG rulebooks working out the shortest way to make himself the most powerful in the shortest amount of time. Even though the mixture made absolutely no sense overall. Consequently we need to be able to say this is the answer or have the entire game day devolve into a this is what the rules say vs. this is what common sense dictates argument which destroys a lot of the fun for everyone (including his wife).