But you have to choose the target, and how you intend to hack the target. Maybe this will help: lets take the repeater out of it for a moment. I'm moving the hacker tangent to a target where the hacking area is moving across the target which looks to be about 8" away. If I try to hack, I'd need to declare where the trooper is standing when hacking, no? Because it seems the rules require this for shooting now. Saying "the best spot to shoot you" isn't allowed, why would such a statement be allowed for hacking? No, its akin to indicating where your trooper is firing from, which is required according to the example. As for the skill failing if you declare it wrong, well yes. That's explicitly provided for by not being able to measure ranges and ZoC distances throughout the game and with failures of declaration reverting to an Idle. That applies in several other cases like this one, e. g. if you try to suppressive fire but the enemy is at 25" you lose the shot instead of getting to shoot a single round from the same gun, or you try to guard CC at 9 inches you dont get to revert to a combi bs attack. The stringency of declaration has increased in N4. Most of the time, it will be one obvious "best" choice. But when its on the edge, and thus might mean taking on a -3 modifier to guarantee an attack happens vs. risking an Idle to avoid the modifier, you have to make such choices at declaration. I think this is an English parsing issue. On page 60, it says: In addition, if a Hacker is within the Zone of Control of an Enemy Repeater or Deployable Repeater, their Hacking Area includes all Enemy Hackers on the game table. So i think the above is meant to read "...against any enemy Hacker, but if they do so using the opponents repeater they will have to apply..." But your reading seems equally plausible, and would be kinda neat if you can use your repeaters as cover...
BS Attack requires you to give this information because that's where the measuring is made and that's how BS Attack burst is distributed. Zone of Control AROs like Hacking never asks this of you and instead are validated at resolution. (Note how AROing Reset never asks you to specify where the reference target for your ARO is on declaration) I agree that I think that's what they mean, but I'm coloured by how Hacking worked in N3. With the simplified rules of N4, it could very well be that they just don't care about that distinction and want us to treat the hacking area like a weapon's range band where the enemy Repeater effectively acts like a low visibility zone for hacking hackers if you're in it.
For AROs, your position never changes and has a specific active trooper as target. i think you'd still need to indicate if you are attacking through a repeater as discussed above. For short skill hacking attacks, though, it requires position information in all cases I suspect. Imagine a case where you have a target in ZoC at the beginning of your move, and another in ZoC at the end of the move. You want to split burst of your B2 oblivion to them both. Is that just allowed? Or do you have to know where the hack was made to see if one or both targets was in ZoC? If you need to know where the attack happens from in that case, I think you do in all cases (with the obvious caveat that in a lot of cases it will be moot, just like with BS attack). Reset does not have a target bc you can reset for a whole host of "valid ARO" reasons beyond being targeted.
Not to be too much of a dick but; citation needed. Strictly speaking, because of the All At Once rule (easily the most complicated one-line rule in a game I have ever come across), the hacking area exists throughout the order from both reference points. So yes, because Hacking never demands that you specify where you hack from, you can. Now, I could be wrong, but you really need to show me where it says in the rules that you need to do so for hacking because I simply can't prove that this text does not exist. Yes, but getting those AROs are case sensitive. You don't got "I Reset because your trooper in that specific position gives me the ability", you just Reset and then at resolution you can find out that the initial Reset was declared without having an ARO but the second short skill made it legal.
If I’m not misreading the post, this is about splitting Burst along your movement path? If so, that’s the standard rules for Burst, on p43:
You're not a dick. As for citation, @HellLois just referred to hacking through a repeater in the other repeater thread, instead of just saying in your hacking area. It's ambiguous if this is something you have to declare, which is the whole point of the discussion we are having. I think you are, otherwise a bike hacker can cover a quarter of the board with their hacking area for hitting multiple targets. I suspect that the rule for attacks assumes you make all attacks from a place on the board (extended by the repeater net if you choose to use it). On your last bit, I'm still crunching on what makes an ARO reset valid, but i suspect it is bc it is a no LoF ARO, and therefore always a valid declaration in ZoC or if target of an attack.
When comparing against BS Attack, I have to point out that fully declaring the skill does not include saying what range band you intend to use. That’s discovered later as a consequence of the range measurement. To me, performing various ZoC measurements to discover if firewalls apply is directly equivalent to measuring to see if you’re in your +3 or -3 rifle range band for a target that’s about 16” away.
But firewalls are not like range bands (they're more like cover, but that's beside the point). What you're saying is functionally "I want to hack you from the position/repeater that is to the greatest advantage _after_ measurement of ZoCs," which is what the declaration rules seem to be there to stop for BS attacks where you explicitly pick a spot _before_ measurement. I suggest the declaration rules are designed to stop pre-measuring for Hacking attacks as well.
I agree that the analogy isn’t perfect. Unfortunately, while the examples show us that it’s possible to guess ranges wrong and lose a hack completely, they don’t show how to resolve scenarios where it’s ambiguous which hacking paths may exist.
But do you agree that what you are proposing is functionally the same as pre-measuring the attack? Isn't there a reason we don't measure at declaration?
The hacking rules all just have as a requirement that your target is in your hacking area. Hacking area is determined when you measure ZoC. I can’t see anything that forces you to pick which repeater(s) you’re using before declaring the attack, for either active or reactive hacking.
And the BS attack rules require only a BS weapon, LoF, and not Engaged. Yet you still have to declare additional details and choices, like where the troop is standing when the attack happens. I see this as equivalent. And I'm not proposing _before_ declaration, I'm proposing as part of the declaration details/choices.
Yep, and that's pretty much a summary of this thread. I think we need an official clarification at this point.
Agreed. @HellLois can we get some clarification here? Are the trooper position and repeater(s) being used choices that needs to be specified during declaration of a Hacking skill, similar to choice of trooper position in BS attacks? If not, is it that each player chooses their preferred hacking position/repeater during ZoC measurement at resolution? In either case, I assume if you split burst, you'd be able to use the trooper position as well as multiple repeater(s) for that purpose?
The other important point, if you are required to specify your position you will also be required to specify the target's position. Which breaks: 1. I Move Alice to ~8" of Bob, your Hacker. 2. Bob declares Oblivion from the position he is in now against Alice when she's *places marker* there 3. Alice Moves 4" closer to Bob 4. No additional AROs 5. *measures ZOC* well, Alice was outside the Hacking Area in the position Bob declared Oblivion too, so Oblivion fails. Bob will Idle despite the fact that Alice subsequently entered your Hacking Area. Admittedly, that's already the case for BS Attacks in N4 but I think it should be absolutely resisted for ZOC AROs because it's FAR too easy to exploit to make many ARO declarations meaningless. Whereas, generally, in the case of BS Attacks, the attack won't fail: it'll just be on worse MODs. Aside: Even if you're required to specify where the Hacker and the Target are at the time of declaration of a Hacking attack. It's a separate detail about whether you need to declare the singular specific path you're using to establish the Hacker's Hacking Area vis-a-vis an enemy Trooper. This is because "I use this path through Repeater A, that path through Repeater B, and the Direct path from the Hacker's ZOC simultaneously to establish my Hacking Area to enable my Hack vs that Enemy Trooper" is potentially a valid declaration (ie. Alice, from this position, will use all paths simultaneously to establish my Hacking Area to Oblivion Bob when Bob is in that position). Restricting creating Hacking Area to a single specified option will required a FAQ or amendment of the rules.
first part: as you point out, this is how it works for BS attacks in N4 - you specify at declaration. As for exploits, could you give an example? Are you just saying that a skilled player may try to draw an invalid ARO by being just outside of ZoC? Because that seems to be a grindy but legitimate tactic in other cases with direct templates or ZoC AROs and I don't think of that as game breaking. second part: Agreed it is separate. location of one of the troopers is quite easy, as they don't move. the most complicated version I can think of would be with repeater bots coordinated with a hacker, but in practice that's likely rare and only one or two moving parts on one side of the equation. If there's room for parallel paths, that'd be good to know, but that sounds alot like "from the most advantageous position" to me.
What's your reasoning for that? The obligation to declare your position seems to come from the Burst rule ijw quoted above: "all the Attacks must be declared from the same point." I don't think there's a rule saying attacks must be declared "to" a particular point? In N3 I always played that in ARO, you declare BS attack and then wait until resolution to specify the point on the active unit's movement path where you shoot them. So if they move-move, you can aim at their second movement path if that would be more favourable. As far as I can tell that's still the case in N4? (I only posted because of the BS attack issue, but FWIW, on the main question in the thread my opinion is: you declare the hacking attack, the target(s), and the point you're hacking from. You don't have to declare the "route" your hack will take or the point you're hacking to [if the target is moving]. As far as I can tell, the rules always specify what you need to declare, and there isn't a rule requiring declaration of hacking route, therefore you don't have to declare it.)
For BS attacks I think it comes from two places, but Imp may have more. The first is the "all details and choices related to the execution of the... skill" phrasing for declaration. Since you do your LoF checking at declaration, not resolution, I suspect that's why you need to know where both shooter and shootee are at declaration. The second is from the template weapon rules, where you again lay your template at declaration and to be valid, your target must be (or have been) at least partially under that template during the order at the time of declaration. Again, this supports the idea that the position of the target has to be known when you declare attacks. vide supra on why I think its required for hacking as well, but ymmv and we don't have official word yet.
I haven't looked into it too closely for N4 yet, but templates (impact, in particular) were specifically called out as an exception to the regular ARO timing in N3.
The declaration timing in N4 requires the LoF be determined at that point, not at resolution. Given that you are drawing a line of fire, I suspect that you need two points, attacker and target, defined.
