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Race conditions; Engineer vs ARO

Discussion in 'Rules' started by Mahtamori, Dec 2, 2020.

  1. wes-o-matic

    wes-o-matic feeelthy casual

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    Nope, I inferred the implicit dependency chain. RAW you roll saves and apply effects simultaneously, but you can’t know whether or not the state will be applied until the save is resolved, so one of those gets queued up behind the other in that instance. It’s not in any way a widely applicable thing, it’s just basic logic like a flowchart, which isn’t the same as an order of operations, which would be that you resolve any A, then any B, then any C, then...
     
  2. wes-o-matic

    wes-o-matic feeelthy casual

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    If you dump a bunch of degreaser on a dish simultaneously to dumping some grease on it, the degreaser will still act on the grease applied simultaneously. Logically it is possible to do this?

    To make your example that much more complicated, add a second ARO against the Haidao by someone with a glue gun or similar gear. The Haidao made a normal WIP roll so he clears Targeted for sure. Does he end up ISO and IMM, just IMM, or neither?

    I think he ends up just IMM; at what point prior to the application of ISO via ARO was the Haidao not already ISO and therefore eligible to re-receive ISO? If state application is really simultaneous, the answer is “not during this Order.” Likewise, at what point prior to the removal of states by Engineer was the model IMM and therefore eligible to have IMM removed?

    No clear directive I can think of in N4 exists yet, and this probably ought to go in your unresolved questions thread.
     
  3. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Degreaser is a continuous chemical reaction that works over the course of a large number of minutes and is not analogous to a one time single event. As in; if Engineer worked like the degreaser then successfully conducting Engineer on a unit will not remove all states from the unit at the end of all orders for the rest of the turn/game even if the Engineer isn't activated by the order.

    Look at it this way. Bob swings a broomstick over the table once, smashing everything lightning fast. Alice puts down a single vase on the table. Bob and Alice does this at the exact same time. Is there an unbroken vase on the table afterwards? To solve this, the official text needs to state an order of operations for resolution, make the actions opposed, make the actions collide, or be clever in another way.
    After all, for Alice' vase to be broken, it needs to be put down before the broomstick passes over the spot she's putting the vase in and if she puts the vase down after the stick has passed over the spot the vase will not break. Putting it down on the stick as it is in motion of being swung is what I see happening now and I have no idea if the vase breaks from that or not, so to speak.

    More states being applied from more sources should not matter, regardless of number of sources or what states they are, so let's not complicate things when they don't need to be more confusing?

    P.s. I'm trying hard not to go too ADHD here; the likelihood of this being an issue is not particularly great unless you're playing Invincible Army, the issue turned up when I was thinking about how to solve Krit's Hackable issue and figured that ISO doesn't apply a -9 MOD to Engineer and Engineer will clear ISO - my favourite Krit Kokram load out has Forward Deployment +8" and is a Hackable Engineer without Marker State, so it will happen to my units sooner or later.
     
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  4. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

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    This seems like the best guess to me as well. It's the only proposal in the thread that doesn't require an order of operations.

    Another way of putting it: there are two possibilities: (a) the new state is activated, but also cancelled, so the trooper doesn't end up in the new state, or (b) the new state is activated, and not cancelled, so the trooper ends up in the new state.

    (a) can only be true if there is an order of operations. You can't cancel a state that doesn't exist, so the new state can only be cancelled if it is first activated. I don't think there should be an order of operations, and on that basis I conclude that (a) is incorrect.

    (b) doesn't require an order of operations. It could be arrived at via an order of operations (you cancel and then activate), but it could also be arrived at via wesomatic's reasoning above. Or via the reasoning that cancellation and activation happen simultaneously, therefore at the moment they both happen, the state does not yet exist (it is only in the process of being activated) and therefore can't be cancelled.

    Although the logic isn't compelling either way, given that (a) requires an order of operations and (b) doesn't, it seems to me that (b) is likely correct.
     
  5. Nuada Airgetlam

    Nuada Airgetlam Nazis sod off ///

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    Wait, what? It needs an order of operations for the new state to not be cancelled.

    In "a" all states get cancelled by Engineer. All states, no matter what, through and through. There's no sequence, so there's no "after Engineer ends" or "not affected by the Engineer Skill". There's no sequence, there's no structure, there's no exception for the new state being applied.

    Only if there were a sequence / structure, then we could assume there's a chance the new state is applied "later than / beyond the scope of Engineer's state removal".

    The model is On Fire, the Engineer is a hose that floods him with water / foam making him Not On Fire. There's no way another model can ARO to the usage of Engineer's hose and make that model On Fire After All, unless there's a "later".
     
  6. Sabin76

    Sabin76 Well-Known Member

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    It would be a rules change, but how would making the Engineering Roll be a FtF in this type of situation feel? (Perhaps as a house rule until this is resolved?)
     
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  7. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    I think that would be the least messy solution.
     
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  8. wes-o-matic

    wes-o-matic feeelthy casual

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    Concur, strongly. It makes sense to add "interfering effects" to the category of things that qualify for two models affecting each other, thus invoking FtF, which is the system's go-to way of handling this kind of thing and bypassing order of operations questions like this.
     
  9. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    I don't because it would prevent the Engineer removing other states. So in the case of an LI engineer you could prevent them removing ISO by applying Targetted.

    I still think that removes existing states, applies new states functions most like a Normal roll should.

    In the above example you'd remove ISO but add Targetted.

    I think the least messy solution is to treat the states to be removed as a detail of the Engineer declaration.
     
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