A Szalamandra moves to within the hacking area of an enemy hacker with its first short skill. The enemy hacker declares Overlord or Total Control. With the second half of her order, the pilot dismounts. What happens?
The game breaks down and stops working. (The hack fails normally, but the game doesn't support dismounting on second short skill) :)
The game does not handle dismounting as second short skill. The reason being is that if you dismount 2nd short skill, your tag never activated that order and so wasn't allowed to walk in that first short skill.
There are a number of skill/action combinations that break down if you dismount as a second skill, so current consensus is that the TAG mount/dismount wording implicitly disallows it.
Mount or dismount is not a short skill but can only be declared for free as part of the first short movement skill, only.
Ok. I was going to ask what happens if, on the next order, the pilot uses Redrum on the enemy hacker, the enemy hacker responds with a Brain Blast, and then the pilot re-mounts with their second short skill. But I think y'all would agree that this causes problems.
As your line of questioning indicates, there are some obvious large problems if you allow this. Therefore, we don't allow it.
Well, your Redrum declaration would fail since the Pilot is no longer present on the table, but prior to that the game breaks since you have to apply the TAG's profile for the entire order.
I think the way it has been worded, if you dismount it is considered as if you have been dismounted since the beginning of the order (or it was decided it behaved like so by applying the common marker states, or something similar, I can't remember), so moving the TAG prevents you from dismounting on that order.
It's the only way to fulfil http://infinitythewiki.com/en/General_Movement_Rules By declaring Move, a trooper may Mount or Dismount a Motorcycle, TAG, Vehicle, etc. at the start of his Movement at no cost, the new troop profile will be applied during the whole sequence of the Order.
It's not immediately clear and should have been phrased more explicitly. The only way for the "...the new troop profile will be applied during the whole sequence of the Order" clause to be applied is if you don't allow any actions (using the old profile) to take place before the mount/dismount skill.
I had a game lately...and I had no chance to prove it. "Why it works with bikes, and not with TAGs" 0_0 they say... And I must admit there was some logic in their words ;(
Bike troops may not change hackability when they dismount, but they can still have issues due to dodge modifiers or bike-mounted weapon use.
And movement, and change of Silhouette: Move first bike move, "dismount and enter central room"... I can kinda see that happening with the JSA box (Kuroshi rider and the central room mission(s))
But it is the same line of Prone/Standing. Do this imply that a model cannot perform a "Move (Standing) - Move (Prone)" order?