So the Primary Topic here is What are the total number of Possible ARO's within a Repeater ZOC? The Basis of this question hinges on this excerpt from the wiki. A "Hacker’s Hacking Area matches their Zone of Control, and the Zone of Control of Repeaters and Deployable Repeaters of either the Player or their Allies." https://infinitythewiki.com/Hacking_Area Here are the questions. 1. Do Repeaters grant ARO's beyond just hacking attacks? If an enemy model enters your repeater net can you declare a dodge? 2. If question one is true, can a hacker declare the aro, Alert! if one of their models is attacked within the ZOC of an ally repeater?
Repeaters don't extend your ZoC, they extend your Hacking Area. So you can't ARO Dodge against an enemy in the ZoC of a repeater unless it is also in the Hacker's ZoC/LoF.
I've heard differently: you can dodge in ARO if you have a valid ARO. Hacking is a valid ARO; therefore if you could hack, you can Dodge. (I'm... mixed on this interpretation. But it's one way of reading it.)
Why not? What requirements have not been met? Did the Hacker have a valid ARO? Yes, it must have had otherwise, for instance, Spotlight would not be valid. The requirement of Dodge is having a valid ARO, that's met. Ergo the Dodge must be valid. Moreover, this is actually the simplest way to play this as it allows Hackers to validly Dodge rather than Hack in situations where they have a Hacking ARO at Step 2 but may or may not need to Dodge vs an attack declared at Step 3. Is it really a problem that a Hacker foregoes the opportunity to declare a valid Hack to have a maybe 60% chance of moving a couple of inches? @psychoticstorm can you move this to the rules forum, it's a generic rules question not a CA discussion.
Sorry, i realize I submitted this to the wrong place. I tried to delete the thread after posting it here.
Also, can someone explain why, if you can declare dodge, you couldn’t also declare Alert!? If a allied model was attacked in your repeater net?
Hacking can produce Alerts, yes. But if you declare dodge or reset, you can't declare Alert (which requires you not have declared an ARO).
You don't declare Alert! like you declare Dodge - Alert! is an automatic skill that you can optionally use and is limited to ZOC: "The Trooper, or an Allied Trooper within their Zone of Control, has been the target of an Attack."
So just to confirm a hacker can declare Alert! if an allied model within its repeater net is attacked by an enemy model outside the area of said repeater .
No, but if the hacker is attacked by an enemy hacking program, models with the hacker in their ZOC can alert.
Thank you, final question. This is because of the Phrasing ZOC and Hacker Area Technically defining two different spaces correct?
Yes. A Hackers Hacking Area is composed of the Hacker's ZoC, the ZoC of all friendly Repeaters and all enemy Hackers if they're inside the ZoC of an enemy Repeater.
I think a look at the rules for a valid ARO aren’t being met. For reference: 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. The only grey area is the third bullet point, but, repeaters don’t expand zone of control. They don’t grant dodges when provoked outside of zone of control.
The simplest way to interpret the ARO through Repeaters provisional ruling is that it gives Hackers an ARO when enemies activate inside their Hacking Area because it has a special skill (Hacker) that let's them react to enemy actions without LOF. If you look at the Requirements of Reset and Dodge it is apparent that they're both effectively the same: "In the Reactive Turn, they have a valid ARO". So it stands to reason that if a enemy activating inside a Hacking Area fulfils that requirement for Reset then it also does for Dodge. Now it's possible this isn't the intent, and the intend is for only very specific AROs to be valid when an enemy activates inside a Hacker's Hacking Area, but honestly that's needlessly complex.
@Mahtamori can you add this to the Unsolved questions thread please. It's a follow up question to the one that the Provisional Ruling solved.
Agreed. As I read the provisional answer, only Hacking and Reset are allowed for Hacking Area AROs, only for Hackers, and regardless if they have a valid program for the target or not, which doesn't seem to work well with certain other ARO requirements such as Dodge and as in this thread Alert. Adding this.
Yeah, as I said, I think the easiest way to interpret it is "Hackers get a valid ARO if an enemy activates inside their Hacking Area", this means any ARO the requirements of which is met is valid. It also helps make the Holomasked Hacker ARO clearer: you certainly have an ARO irrespective of whether the Trooper is a Holomasked Hacker or not, the question becomes how you choose to use it.