What happens when a Trooper declares an ARO they are found to be ineligible for?

Main question: Since losing their ARO means they can't activate that order, mines won't be triggered.

I think what you're asking is about when someone declares and invalidly declared ARO because they misjudged distances. Strictly speaking that shouldn't trigger mines (as that would validate the ARO on resolution now that Dodge can be declared in ZoC) and the players should do their best to revert the game to a state where it's not declared, IMO.

 

So question #1 is about whether or not you declare an ARO when given the opportunity to do so. If you are given the opportunity to declare an ARO and opt not to, then you cannot do so later in that order. This is the same as it has always been and is unchanged from N3.

To your related question, if you declare an ARO and it is determined to be invalid during the resolution phase, the ARO is considered an idle. The ARO was still declared, and will trigger mines. Essentially there's a difference between declaring "Idle" as your ARO (triggers mines) and not declaring an ARO at all (does not trigger mines).

 

Dodge doesn't trigger mines.

Guess it does, there's even an example!

 

Dodge triggers mines if you start in their trigger area. Dodge movement doesn't trigger a mine if you use it to come into the trigger area of a mine you were not previously exposed to.

Mines:

► Once on the game table, Mines must trigger when an enemy Model or Marker declares or executes a Skill or ARO inside their Trigger Area. When this is the case, if, by placing the Small Teardrop Template, it is determined that the Model or Marker is not within the Trigger Area, the Mine will neither detonate nor be revealed.

Dodge movement:

A successful Normal or Face to Face Dodge Roll allows the user to move up to 2 inches. This movement:
► Is measured, declared, and the Trooper moved, during the Effects step of the Order Expenditure Sequence. If both players have Troopers that successfully Dodged, the Active Player will move their Troopers first, then the Reactive Player will move theirs.
► Does not generate AROs or trigger Deployable Weapons or Equipment. Must follow the General Movement Rules as well as the Moving and Measuring sidebar, both of which are explained in the Movement Module.

 

This is indeed quite degenerate, and is one of the fundamental problems of the range-guessing mechanic. Per the rules, charges of limited-use weapons are still spent if your ARO ended up invalid, so I guess you would still set the mine off.

 

Remember that the N3 FAQ did NOT say "The ARO becomes Idle." It says, instead:

In the reactive turn, when can you measure the Zone of Control?

Following the steps of the Order Expenditure Sequence: you declare a ZoC ARO, and in the step of resolution, is when the players take measurements. So, is troop is in the ZoC, resolve his ARO, but if not, the ARO is lost.
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The results are a lot more reasonable if you take "the ARO is lost" to mean "No ARO (not even Idle) is resolved for that declaration."

 

The only times this can happen is because of zoc aros right? Allowing measuring of zoc would be the simplest solution and solve a few problems.

 

So that, at anytime, people can pre-measure a large number of things such as the exact distance when they should be using the Light Shotgun instead of the Rifle, remove any doubt of when you can use or avoid Jammers and hacking, perfectly estimate Assault moves, etc? By extension, you also get to mostly pre-measure the 16" between two troopers as well, which also is significant for any weapon with a difference between the 16" and 24" range band such as all Rifle class weapons and all HMG rangeband weapons.

At that point you may as well allow full pre-measuring. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but I'm arguing that 8" is, by far, the most significant distance to judge in Infinity and allowing that measurement should be the difference between full pre-measure and no pre-measure

 

It seems like you're misunderstanding the way the game is played, and I can no longer tell if that's intentional or not.

In your first scenario under step 2, you use the words "opportunity to ARO", but this doesn't clarify if Bob had a valid ARO at step 2 or not.

If Bob had a valid ARO at step 2, and chose not to take it, then he does not get the chance to do so at step 4. You even said in your description that his ARO is lost. In this scenario, nothing happens if Bob had the opportunity to declare a valid ARO and chose not to, he cannot do so in step 4 so Bob does not declare or execute anything.

The requirements for a valid ARO are on page 22.
► An enemy Trooper activates within its Line of Fire (LoF).
► An enemy Trooper activates within its Zone of Control (ZoC).
► It has a Special Skill, weapon, or piece of Equipment allowing it to react to enemy actions without LoF.
► It is affected by a Template Weapon, or is the target of a Hacking Program or other Comms Attack.

In your second example, I understand what you're getting at, and this has been brought up before with regards to Hidden Deployment, and if I could "attempt" a ZoC ARO from across the entire table in order to reveal myself before my turn. I honestly can't recall if it was ever solved, but some amount of common sense might prevail in that case and you'd likely just have a harder and harder time finding opponents who would give you the time of day.

As far as RAW it may be possible to declare a ZoC ARO when the active model is blatantly not in your ZoC only to have it fail and turn into an idle and I would say this would definitely set off a mine. With regards to C1 since there's no Hidden Deployment it seems like it's only use would be to intentionally set off a mine with a declaration that would obviously turn into an idle, so I guess my answer to someone attempting that would be feel free?

But at this point, why are we bothering to ask questions about a rules interaction that would never occur because it benefits the player in no way?

 

This seems to be the part you're misunderstanding. In step 4 Bob doesn't even get the option to ARO because he gave up his opportunity to do so during step 2.

When Bob declares Dodge during step 4, you don't wait until step 5 to see if the requirements are met, instead you say "Sorry Bob, you declined to ARO during step 2 when you had the chance, so you cannot declare an ARO now in step 4."

If you're trying to push this into the territory of not knowing if he had a valid ARO during step 2 because we can't measure ZoC, Bob would still have to declare his ARO during step 2 and then check requirements to see if it was a legal declaration at step 5.

Bob doesn't get access to a faux SSL1 by pretending he isn't sure if the active model is in his ZoC or not.

I think I understand what you may be trying to get at eventually though, at what point do we decide a ZoC ARO is or isn't valid without being able to measure it? If you're pushing for the ability to declare other AROs without having met their requirements at the time of declaration because you can find edge cases where the alternative kind of falls apart, you might not be technically wrong, but that doesn't exactly mean you're right either. I admit I may be wrong about this though.

Without the ability to pre-measure, this loophole might be extremely difficult to shore up, so you could make your declarations based on what's reasonable or you might find yourself with fewer opponents.

 

The problem is that ZoC AROs are not measured during step 2. Both players have to make a best guess as to whether they were generated or not, and then find out later if they were correct or not.

1. Active model activates 7.9" away from reactive model out of LoF
2. Reactive player incorrectly guesses range wrong and doesn't ARO, because they don't think they have one
3. Active player enters LoF with second skill
4. On the false assumption made in step 2, player declares an ARO based off of LoF

 

Is the underline addition accurate to the problem you are trying to describe?

I'm of the opinion that an ARO can become validated during measuring. E.g.
1. Alice activates and moves closer.
2. Bob doesn't know that Alice is outside ZoC and declares Change Facing.
3. Alice moves even closer and is now in ZoC.
Res: Alice is found to be inside ZoC at some point during the order even though she was not when Bob declared the ARO.

Arguably I don't think such validation should be done in any other order because the game is made to give the active player the advantage of knowing ARO (or knowing that an ARO is delayed) during the second short skill. Declaring a perceivably valid ARO too early should not be punished if it becomes valid through the choice of the active player. (However, this viewpoint is not valid for CodeOne because of how Dodge works - you shouldn't be allowed to declare a clearly-outside-ZOC Dodge to defuse a Mine and have the Mine's template validate the Dodge is what I mean.)

So in the situation you described I would say that Bob most likely violated the rules and definitely violated the spirit of the rules and should lose his ARO.

 

So the entire question is "can I check ZoC before declaring ARO"?