First up, it's really clear that a controller with peripherals cannot join a fireteam. What's slightly vague is that if a controller loses their peripherals (the peripherals are removed from the table) the controller may then be free to join a fireteam - if they're eligible to do so. But that's also not specified so are there other scenarios where controllers are free of their peripherals and therefore eligible to join/form fireteams? Which of these examples is legal (if any)? Example 1 - Curator with Palbot. The Palbot dies and in the next activation, the player uses a command token to reform a Crosier core with the Curator as a member. Example 2 - Curator with Palbot. The Palbot is in a null state (unconscious). In the next activation, the player uses a command token to reform a Crosier core with the Curator as a member. Example 3 - Curator with Palbot. The Palbot is in a non-null state (isolated/immobilised). In the next activation, the player uses a command token to reform a Crosier core with the Curator as a member. Example 4 - Lawkeeper with Sidebot. The Sidebot is alive but the controller is out of coherency so Sidebot is disconnected. In the next activation, the player uses a command token to form a Lawkeepers fire team with a Lawkeeper as a member and an Oko (for argument's sake). Bonus points are awarded for why you think an example is legal or not with links back to the actual rules. Fundamentally, 'When is a controller no longer a controller?'. Edit: Removed a redundant example (peripheral being possessed). Edit 2: Changed example 4 to a Synchronized peripheral example to better illustrate the point.
I searched for Controller, and it redirects me to this page https://infinitythewiki.com/Peripheral Assuming that the definition for Controller is effect #1 : Peripherals are deployed on the game table at the same time as their Controller. And seeing that Peripheral is an Automatic Skill, and considering that effect #4 of Unconscious is : Automatic Special Skills and Automatic Equipment have no effect while Unconscious. Therefore, my conclusion is that once the Palbot is unconscious, its Peripheral skill turns off, and he stops having a controller. Or whatever, i mean i just saw that peripheral effect #10 is : Peripherals and their Controller cannot be part of a Coordinated Order nor be a member of any type of Fireteam. If the skill is turned off by Unconscious state, then this effect also turns off. And a Curator with a destroyed Palbot can do coordinated order and fireteam just fine.
Counter argument: - You have a controller trooper A and an unconscious servant model B in a combat group. You spend a command token to move Trooper A to a new combat group. Do you reasonably expect B to transfer as well? The servant must transfer to the new combat group, or else you create a broken game state--a servant in a different combat group than its controller. I think for that you also have to accept the corollary: If a trooper is a member of a fireteam and it has a servant which cancels its null state(s), that trooper immediately stops being part of the fireteam. But you avoid the problem of causing invalid game states if you instead use the more restrictive version: A controller is a controller until all of its servants are permanently null.
This rules problem is based off of the fact that Peripheral is an Automatic Skill and those skills have no effect when the trooper is Unconscious. So does a Peripheral get transferred to a new group along with its controller if the Peripheral is Unconscious? No it does not. The rule that governs movement between groups along with the controller is an effect of the Automatic Skill Peripheral, and as such the effect of moving it will not happen. Also, this will not result in a broken game state, either, because the rule that breaks if the Peripheral is not moved are part of the effects of the Peripheral skill which, again, have no effect while the Peripheral is Unconscious. But the rules don't break anyway, because they're actually quite well written and seem to have properly taken this scenario into account. The rules that allows a Controller to be moved says that "A Controller and their Peripherals always belong to the same Combat Group.". That's it. It's as simple as that. As soon as repaired the Peripheral will be the same combat group as the controller. It doesn't say how to move, it simply says that the Peripheral is in the same group and that solves a lot of iffy stuff. That's also the gist of it. Because a Peripheral is an Automatic Skill, just like the logic was concluded in N3, that's where the only reference to the controller being a controller is housed. So if all their Peripherals no longer having functional Peripheral skills, the controller would cease being a controller. This is not the worst case of skill deactivation as the rules actually don't go bonkers if the skill is deactivated, but it is counter-intuitive and people are prone to follow intuition rather than the rules as actually written. Deactivating all Automatic Skills is a bit of a problem with the rules design and it would probably have been better if they had opted to have a specific label for skills like Mimetism that should get deactivated.
I appreciate the side bar about combat groups but does anyone have additional insight on the original question?
If a Peripheral stopped being a Peripheral when it's Unconscious, then it would start taking up a slot in its Combat Group: "Only those Troopers who contribute or spend Orders take up space in the Army List. Peripherals do not contribute or spend Orders, so they do not count towards the maximum limit of 10 Troopers in a Combat Group." If the group was otherwise full, this rule would be broken: "A Combat Group is a closed group of Troopers with a maximum number of members no greater than 10." Also, if the Controller dies while its Peripheral isn't as Peripheral, and then the Peripheral gets repaired, what happens? Peripheral says "If the Controller enters any Null State, the Peripheral will enter Disconnected State at the end of that Order." In this scenario, that rule doesn't trigger because the Peripheral wasn't a Peripheral when the Controller entered a null state. So now we have a Peripheral with no Controller that isn't Disconnected, and probably can't spend Orders but can certainly ARO. I've always played that the Controller still has a Peripheral (and can't be in a fireteam or coordinated order) even if the Peripheral is Unconscious. But that it stops having a Peripheral if the Peripheral is Dead.
Phew I remember this discussion from N3 and the result, the surrounding rules have changed though. What you can find in N4 to go by as RAW would be pretty much this: Condition to becoming a Controller is apparently based on Army List. Not even Dead State would change that. But that's thin at best (and also different than N3).
There is an unfortunate collision between the skill Peripheral and the trooper category type Peripheral having the same name. The Peripheral skill does not say anything about not taking up space in a Combat Group so since that is not an effect of the Peripheral skill it will keep working when the trooper is unconscious. Keep in mind that the Peripheral will not stop having the skill Peripheral when it goes Unconscious, much like with the Hacker skill - it is the effects of that skill which will stop working! As I wrote, the Peripheral skill will not have any effects and as such there are no rule in effect which informs the player that the previous controller is a controller. Hence if the Peripheral goes Unconscious, Dead, or any other state which will either suppress the effect of Automatic Skills or fully remove the Trooper and the corresponding skills from play, the Controller will cease being a Controller. Of course, there is an argument that a Peripheral is listed as part of some Troopers' weapons and this can be used to identify a Controller regardless if the Peripheral exists, but on the other hand the most common Peripherals are the HelperBots (Yudbots, Yaozao, etc) which a) are not listed on a trooper's profile and b) do not have their points added to the Controllers' points total and c) are assigned as part of deployment and not at list building. -- I'd still wishlist for skills to have the Active label when they make the living rules, and for the Active label on equipment and skills to be what Unconscious targets for de-activation. Then we stick the Active label on stuff that makes appropriate sense to have it such as Mimetism or Alert, avoid sticking it on stuff that only causes confusion such as Hacker or Dogged, and avoid stuff that doesn't need it such as Camouflage.
I don't think there is a Peripheral trooper category type in N4? A Nasmat for example is a REM and a Support Troop but I don't see anything on its profile about being a Peripheral other than the Skill. I think maybe in N3, Peripheral was a category and that made it easier to conclude that its controller remains a controller when it's unconscious. I think it's incredibly unlikely that CB intended to change how it works in N4. N4 was supposed to simplify the rules, and I can't imagine they intended to go from "a Peripheral is always a Peripheral" to "if a Peripheral is Unconscious it's not a Peripheral, it can be an 11th member of a combat group, if it gets repaired it teleports between combat groups." Almost certainly, it's a wording oversight that would be easily fixed, if CB were providing even minimal support for their ruleset, with a one-line FAQ entry or forum post. Given that CB has utterly abandoned rules support for more than a year now, I'm not sure there's any way to answer questions like these other than to look back to N3, when the rules were well supported, see how it worked then, and consider whether a change was likely to have been intended. I hate having to say that but I feel like that's where we're at at this point.
https://infinitythewiki.com/Terminology Peripheral Special category of Trooper that is unable to contribute or spend Orders by itself and, therefore, takes no space in the Army List. It is activated when its Controller, the Trooper on which it depends, spends an Order, replicating their actions.
Huh, interesting. So a Peripheral has two troop types listed on its profile: REM, and also the orange circle which says "Peripheral" if you mouseover it or look it up in the "Troop Type" rule. Seems to me that the Peripheral definition in the Terminology section refers to the Troop Type, not to having the Skill, so that an Unconscious Peripheral retains its Troop type and therefore retains the fact that "It is activated when its Controller, the Trooper on which it depends, spends an Order." Which would support @Teslarod 's argument that it still has a Controller while unconscious.
So, is the following sequence of events a valid use of the rules then? If so, that goes in my useful-if-slightly-cheesy-rules-tricks file. As a Nomad/StarCo main-er, I use servant bots for a variety of unconventional things (CC attacks, Discover spotters, mine sacrifices, safeguards against TAG possession via base contact), but then also like to link the same specialists a lot. Being able to just Disconnect and then link up at will would be really useful. I do know that this example is not valid, as you cannot Possess remotes (which would be an AWESOME and totally characterful advance in hacking to add to the rules, maybe as a VoodooTech advance for a single CA unit?). Btw, thanks for raising this topic @Infinity_Gamer . Useful, productive, and well-phrased question.
i don't think a servant can ever be out of coherency as they are allowed to be anywhere on the table. It might be possible if we were talking of a synchronized peripheral; but the controller of those type of troop are (generally?) not in any Fireteam chart (ex: Fiddler FTO doesn't have jackbot; and the ones with jackbot are not FTO). agreed, there are no peripheral at the moment that are TAGs.
You're welcome! I'm not yet sure if any of these examples are valid as it's not clear in the rules but the concept of ditching your peripherals to join a fireteam could be an interesting strategic option.
It's worth remembering that Disconnected does not cause the unit's Automatic Skills to have no effects, it has a much more limited scope to prevent the Peripheral's activation while e.g. Mimetism would still work. They also made sure that there's no Peripherals with Cube so no sepsitoring the Peripherals, either.
