• Registered: 2010-12-25
  • Posts: 30

Topic: Emergency Thrust

Hi All,

I recently got Klingon Armada and love the look of it - allowing me to play fleet games in the interesting SFB universe without having to have 3 days to do it. After one solo game I immediately picked up the core rulebook to add even more options.  After reading through that, I did have a couple of questions...

1)  Is the Rules Annex going to come to e23 at any time?  I really like PDF rules, especially for a mdular game like this where I could just print off the sections I might actually use.

2)  When using emergency thrust, you lose an Engine rating for each 1 rolled.  For those larger ships with multiple engine boxes for each rating point, am I correct in assuming that if you lost a rating you'd mark off all engine boxes needed to get down to the new rating?

Keep up the excellent work

Brian

  • Registered: 2009-08-03
  • Posts: 245

Re: Emergency Thrust

Welcome aboard!

1) If you're not bound to e23, the Rules Annex is available from rpgnow at http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=63077 .

2) That sounds like it should work like that...  never actually used Emergency Thrust myself, so I can't tell you for sure.

  • Registered: 2008-11-30
  • Posts: 79

Re: Emergency Thrust

I'm not sure you actually cross off Engine boxes.

Reading the secton on Emergency Thrust it just says your Engine Rating is reduced by 1 for each 1 rolled, so I would just keep track of it and reduce your current Engine Rating (whatever it is after combat damage) but that much.

  • Registered: 2010-03-09
  • Posts: 630

Re: Emergency Thrust

That's what the rules say. But how do you implement that pratically speaking?
If the engine rating is reduced, is it definitively?
Also, suppose an undamaged engine has a rating of 6, for a hull 6 (for simplicity sake, it would be 6 5 4 3 2 1). The ship decides to use emergency thrust, roll 6 dice, and obtains two 1s. The engine rating is then 4 for the next turn (s).
If that ship suffers one engine hit (thus becoming x 5 4 3 2 1), what will be its rating?

And suppose an engine with a rating of 1. You could lose the whole engine (a big one for a big ship) on a bad die roll.
I would propose to scratch boxes (as a regular engine hit) for each 1 rolled.

Marc

  • Registered: 2010-12-25
  • Posts: 30

Re: Emergency Thrust

I guess you could reduce the engine rating without reducing the damage track, but I certainly wouldn't want to recompute the rating distribution on the fly, which leaves you just converting the boxes with the lost ratings to the new ones, effectively giving you a big damage buffer at the top of the engine track. 

My assumption is that you mark off the engine track down to the new rating but was wanting to make sure.  Engine damage is engine damage, whether self inflicted or from the enemy's weapons.

Brian

  • Registered: 2022-11-16
  • Posts: 516

Re: Emergency Thrust

bcantwell wrote:

I guess you could reduce the engine rating without reducing the damage track, but I certainly wouldn't want to recompute the rating distribution on the fly, which leaves you just converting the boxes with the lost ratings to the new ones, effectively giving you a big damage buffer at the top of the engine track. 
My assumption is that you mark off the engine track down to the new rating but was wanting to make sure.  Engine damage is engine damage, whether self inflicted or from the enemy's weapons.
Brian

I wouldn't even mess with the engine track.
I'd simply write a "-X" above the engine track, where the "X" represents the permanent loss of engine capability due to applying emergency thrust. From then on, whenever engine damage is suffered, keep marking it off normally, and then when figuring out the thrust for the current game turn take the "-X" into account.
It doesn't seem like there'd be much calculating at all. For any game turn it'd simply be the current engine rating minus X.
Kevin

  • Registered: 2010-11-15
  • Posts: 298

Re: Emergency Thrust

underling wrote:

I wouldn't even mess with the engine track.
I'd simply write a "-X" above the engine track, where the "X" represents the permanent loss of engine capability due to applying emergency thrust. From then on, whenever engine damage is suffered, keep marking it off normally, and then when figuring out the thrust for the current game turn take the "-X" into account.
It doesn't seem like there'd be much calculating at all. For any game turn it'd simply be the current engine rating minus X.
Kevin

This is my understanding of the rules as well.

  • From: Denver, CO
  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 3,578

Re: Emergency Thrust

Marauder wrote:
underling wrote:

It doesn't seem like there'd be much calculating at all. For any game turn it'd simply be the current engine rating minus X.
Kevin

This is my understanding of the rules as well.

And you are both correct. wink

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

mj12games's Website

  • Registered: 2010-12-25
  • Posts: 30

Re: Emergency Thrust

OK, although that seems like an extra complication that does exactly the same thing as merely marking off the damage.  Since the engine track is more or less evenly distributed, you reach the endpoint (0 effective engine rating) with the same amount of damage.

A side effect of -1 rating versus marking off damage is that in the latter case you could restore lost engine power with Damage Control.  So you could choose to mark off engine track boxes if you wanted the Emergency Thrust damage to be repairable.

Thanks for the replies

Brian

  • From: Denver, CO
  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 3,578

Re: Emergency Thrust

bcantwell wrote:

Since the engine track is more or less evenly distributed, you reach the endpoint (0 effective engine rating) with the same amount of damage.

This is not correct.

Consider the Seltorian CA, with engine boxes of 5-5-5-4-4-3-3-2-2-1-1. If this ship (undamaged) attempts emergency thrust, it would roll 5 dice. Let's say the dice come up 1, 2, 5, 5, and 6. You would gain a net of 2 engine points (temporary +3, permanent -1). If you instead checked off a damage box, the net would be +3. If the dice come up 1, 1, 5, 5, and 6, the net gain per the rules would be +1, while the damage box method would still yield a gain of +3.

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

mj12games's Website

  • Registered: 2010-12-25
  • Posts: 30

Re: Emergency Thrust

I was not thinking of marking off a single engine box (which I agree would give vastly different results) but rather marking off all of the engine boxes down to the new permanent rating.  In the case of the undagaed Seltorian CA, that would be 3 boxes. 

If the same ship then took 5 engine hits it would end up with a 3 Engine rtating with a -1 notation in one case and a 2 engine rating in the other case.  There would be a difference in the two methods if the ship had previousky taken damage and was part way between the two values on the engine trackm

The -1 notation is easy enough, but do like the idea of damage control being able ti repair the effects of Emergency Thrust, which  the damage track plan allows.

Thanks again for the input.

Brian

  • Registered: 2010-11-15
  • Posts: 298

Re: Emergency Thrust

bcantwell wrote:

I was not thinking of marking off a single engine box (which I agree would give vastly different results) but rather marking off all of the engine boxes down to the new permanent rating.  In the case of the undagaed Seltorian CA, that would be 3 boxes. 

If the same ship then took 5 engine hits it would end up with a 3 Engine rtating with a -1 notation in one case and a 2 engine rating in the other case.  There would be a difference in the two methods if the ship had previousky taken damage and was part way between the two values on the engine trackm

The -1 notation is easy enough, but do like the idea of damage control being able ti repair the effects of Emergency Thrust, which  the damage track plan allows.

Thanks again for the input.

Brian

I think your method is interesting and reasonable if you have decent sized ships with moderate speeds.  It doesn't work with ships that have a higher engine rating than hull size though.

-Tim