ZoC premeasuring!!

Not sure that's precisely what IJW was addressing, I don't recall that ever being clearly clarified. The follow up is of course whether that forces you to reach that position as the position you declare your skill from/at isn't part of requirements so the game doesn't really handle what happens if you declare skills with (potentially) false details.

 

How does this fix albedo/WN baiting? Or were you talking about within ZoC?

 

Outside of ZoC there is no change at all.

 

You can declare AROs against any Active Trooper.
So if a Dakini Link behind White Noise moves out a Combi to trigger an ARO for your MSV Sniper ARO piece, you can declare BS Attack against the Link Leader HMG Dakini sitting in White Noise.

If the HMG Link Leader opens fire on you with the second Short Skill your BS Attack ARO will be valid at step 5 Resolution.

 

I highly doubt pre-emptive BS Attack were intended. Pretty sure the impact of 1.1.1 change was not really thought through and will receive another update.

I suggested allowed any ARO to be pre-emptive a while back, and IJW was pretty clear that it would require a serious rewrite of the rule to be functional with the current ruleset (rewrite that isn't present in 1.1 or 1.1.1)

https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/aro-rules-suggestion.39466/page-2

 

Right now preemtive BS Attack only works if you have LOF blocked by visibility conditions.
The rules just kinda break down if you have to declare template position, position you're shooting from and position of the target BEFORE you know everything.

The removed part of the FAQ specifically blocked this before, so I'm inclined to think CB was fully aware and okay with preemptively declaring stuff and fulfilling the requirements at Resolution.
The Skills themselves just weren't prepared for that and still try to handle a lot of stuff at declaration before you actually know everything required.

Worst part I can think of is an Active Trooper declaring CC Attack behind a wall granting him Total Cover, but passable on both sides to reach the reactive Trooper.
If the reactive Trooper is supposed to be able to react with BS Attack to that with a Chainrifle that's a problem.
Total Cover works at Declaration.
Placing Templates checks for the initial target at declaration.
All of those references would have to be moved to resoution to mirror the changes of the redacted FAQ entry no1.

 

I had made a flow chart to try and help myself understand what I think the rules are for BS Attacks - not sure if it's correct or not.
This is what I came up with - feel free to rip it apart :-P

 

As a small note, I'd bet you that the reason we can check just about any ZoC for ARO purposes is so that you can keep HD troopers secret or otherwise you would only be allowed to check to relevant pieces...

@Lawson You need to check ZoC as well!
No LOF and no ZoC -> Can't declare ZoC regardless of smoke or not.

 

Yeah, that's correct - I initially had a ZoC check in there but at this point I was just trying to wrap my head around BS Attack, and, since as far as I know there are no BS Attacks that check specifically for ZoC, I left it off - if I were to make a more exhaustive chart it might include that.

@Mahtamori with all the various 1.1.1 threads going on and a lot of topics overlapping that I've had my eye on, maybe it wasn't the best idea for me to drop this into a thread that started as a ZoC discussion, since it ultimately had little to do with ZoC.

 

Hmm, I think I see. You can probably skip a bubble by simply go "Is LOF obscured by terrain?"

Btw, as far as I can tell nothing is forcing you to resolve the BS Attack's requirements using the declared positions of your BS Attack, as far as I can tell nothing's preventing a unit from shooting through smoke provided they had LOF at some point in the order. Or at the very least, the LOF should be resolved the same way regardless if it is a direct template weapon or not.

 

I actually made this chart initially because there was another thread where the idea that Direct Template Attacks specifically can measure LoF to anywhere based on the way they work came up (https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/1-1-1-no-lof-preemptive-direct-template.39894/), and I actually took it to mean that they functioned differently than regular BS Attacks - this was actually the inception of this chart for me, because I did find it confusing. I think the rationale is that a template BS Attack uses the template itself to essentially sort out range and terrain legality. A non-direct-template BS attack, on the other hand, needs to measure range from and to somewhere specific (from attacker to target; identifying a position also allows you to determine partial cover, etc.)

So are you saying that it's theoretically possible for a BS Attack to measure the range to a target in such a way that gives a favorable range-band at a point along their movement that the target in full cover, but then use the fact that you had LoF at a different point in their movement fulfill that requirement separately?

 

I'm saying that I'm unable to find a section of the rules that hard-locks you to a certain line of fire. There is a line of fire that passes through the smoke, even if the unit can not draw this for "vision" purposes - but given the FAQ and the subsequent large number of pages IJW and Psychoticstorm spent explaining to me that "draw line of fire" for a trooper's vision is different from "draw line of fire" for a trooper's reciprocal line of fire, that line of fire should still exist and be useable for a range of purposes.

So, when you declare the BS Attack skill there is a requirement that you have LOF, which if the target moves out of smoke you will have.
Beyond that, BS Attack doesn't actually force you to use a specific LOF or use a LOF at all. What's controlling that is Total Cover, and Total Cover doesn't care about the skill declaration.

In either case, you evaluate whether the BS Attack skill has LOF before you pick the BS Attack's target location, so the LOF you use to determine cover and so on doesn't really need to be the same.

 

This may be technically accurate, but it’s so counterintuitive as to be a “gotcha” when trying to apply it in practice or explain it to someone unfamiliar with the idea. Which, given how unintuitive it is, is gonna be almost everyone.

The intuitive play is always going to be that once attacker and target positions are declared, the LoF between those two positions is used to determine range, whether an intervening visibility zone applies, who has cover, etc.

 

You evaluate whether any LoF exist before you’re required to actually choose one to use for the attack. (It’s a line—you’re choosing a position on the attacker, a position on the target, determining range and cover.)

Otherwise you’re just making up game mechanics.

 

I really hope so. If N4's purpose was to make the game easier to understand, be an upgrade from Code 1 and to increase flow, these changes are the opposite of that.

Pre-measuring feels like it goes against how Infinity has played for years. Pre-emptive orders is complicated and counterintuitive for seasoned players, imagine how it will be for new players, especially graduating from Code 1. Why CB did this, well, maybe to fix the hidden LT thing, but they did it wrong. It could have been fixed without changing the whole order sequence of the game.

Definitely not a fan of these changes!

 

Hello,

pre-measuring is not my favourite thing, but I belive is an step forwards to gain some "simplicity". Only in "control zone" make it easy a lot of interactions. You don't have to worry if your hacker is or isn`t inside Control Zone, you will know it for sure. Of course this come with some issues: the active player could avoid a lot of "things" easier than before, but the game should go faster, so I believe is only a "good think". A lot of "game pauses" will be remove, so we will give the chance of this "fix" to work.

About the "requirements" in the 5. step I really don't see how this could be use to avoid to shoot from the point where you truly have the LoF. I think some players are doing an overthinking about this matter. Because you have to "fullfil" the requisites in that exactly steps it looks like the understanding were "no matter the requisites". If you declare "BSAttack from some point" you will need to have LoF in that point, not from the "other corner". It will be the same if we try to shoot behind a wall. It will be don't truly difference with smoke if we are talking about a troup without visor.

Yes, some "interactions" will be differents, but in the end the most cases will be the same. Right now I was thinking on how "declaring BS attack inside smoke from a troup without visor against a troup with SS, if the SS ARO enemy decides to shoot back then the BS attack will be valid in step 5", funny thing.