[IQ542]

What is the timing interaction between friction and when you play abilities (e.g. Alexander Rozhenko, K'mtar)? Would K'mtar be stopped before the downloads trigger or would the downloads trigger because he was played? Thanks!

[eberlems]

You can use the 'When you play' gametext and then stop them. viewtopic.php?f=14&t=35449 & others

[edgeofhearing]

Edit - Short version: No, you can't use K'mtar, but you can use some other ones.

Here's the order things happen in when you play a card (per the rulebook, page 18):
1) Ability to play the card text.
2) Cost text
3) Costs are paid
4) Mandatory "prevent" text
5) Optional "prevent" text
6) Mandatory "when you play" text
7) Optional "when you play".

At each step, the active player chooses the order of things that go at each step. Friction is at step 6. Here are examples of each step:

1) Playing Kira Nerys, Starfleet Emissary to Bajor. Friction won't stop her from being playable to Bajor (or Cardassia).
2) Matt Decker: Friction doesn't stop him before he can be used to destroy Friction.
3) This step just means that you subtract the cost of the card from your available counters this turn. Friction won't prevent that from happening.
4) This one doesn't come up very much. I can't think of an example that relates to Friction, but Sabotage Program is mandatory prevention, and would trigger before something like Grav-Plating Trap in the case of an event being played.
5) This is where Cascade Virus hits. Any ability that triggers after this point (for example, any "when you play" ability, mandatory or optional, except cost-related ones) would get stopped by Cascade Virus.
6) This is where Friction hits. But, as the active player, you get to choose the order of events. So, if, for example, you play Annexation Drone, you, as the active player, would probably choose to score the points first, then he is stopped.
7) This is after Friction hits; these abilities (such as the one on Alexander Rozhenko, K'mtar) will not happen if Friction is in play, since they are optional (have "may" in text).

[Latok]

Edit - Short version: No, you can't use K'mtar, but you can use some other ones.

Here's the order things happen in when you play a card (per the rulebook, page 18):
1) Ability to play the card text.
2) Cost text
3) Costs are paid
4) Mandatory "prevent" text
5) Optional "prevent" text
6) Mandatory "when you play" text
7) Optional "when you play".

At each step, the active player chooses the order of things that go at each step. Friction is at step 6. Here are examples of each step:

1) Playing Kira Nerys, Starfleet Emissary to Bajor. Friction won't stop her from being playable to Bajor (or Cardassia).
2) Mongomery Scott, Experienced Engineer: Friction doesn't stop him before he can be used to remove Friction from the game.
3) This step just means that you subtract the cost of the card from your available counters this turn. Friction won't prevent that from happening.
4) This one doesn't come up very much. I can't think of an example that relates to Friction, but Sabotage Program is mandatory prevention, and would trigger before something like Grav-Plating Trap in the case of an event being played.
5) This is where Cascade Virus hits. Any ability that triggers after this point (for example, any "when you play" ability, mandatory or optional, except cost-related ones) would get stopped by Cascade Virus.
6) This is where Friction hits. But, as the active player, you get to choose the order of events. So, if, for example, you play Annexation Drone, you, as the active player, would probably choose to score the points first, then he is stopped.
7) This is after Friction hits; these abilities (such as the one on Alexander Rozhenko, K'mtar) will not happen if Friction is in play, since they are optional (have "may" in text).

This is pretty much all correct and you can't use K'mtar against Friction but Montgomery Scott, Experienced Engineer is not a good example for your second point, his only cost related gametext is to allow him to ignore his ability. So you can trigger it and make him cheaper as well as turn off the ability before Friction but you can not use his ability prior to Friction because it's an optional "When you play" ability that is not cost-related. Montgomery Scott, Uncivilized Engineer would happen prior to Friction as his event destruction is cost-related.

[edgeofhearing]

Montgomery Scott, Experienced Engineer is not a good example for your second point, his only cost related gametext is to allow him to ignore his ability. So you can trigger it and make him cheaper as well as turn off the ability before Friction but you can not use his ability prior to Friction because it's an optional "When you play" ability that is not cost-related. Montgomery Scott, Uncivilized Engineer would happen prior to Friction as his event destruction is cost-related.

Whoops, you're right, looks like the example I wanted is Matt Decker.

[Fritzinger]

Lucas dropping knowledge all over the place

[IQ542]

This answers my question. Thanks guys!

[edgeofhearing]

Over on the Dojo, Fritz asked if you still get Temporal Transporters back if it gets prevented but you used the Replicate text. My initial response was no, because the cost is the only thing that happens (discard two) and the effect is prevented (return to hand). He argued that the replicate text if cost-related, so it should come before prevention.

Now, since then, I've actually read Temporal Transporters, and the replicate text is not written like a cost at all. It is not required to play the card, and even within the parenthetical text, the discard is not required to return the event to hand. My ruling in the case of Temporal Transporters is that you couldn't discard cards before prevention hits even if you wanted to.

However

In the process of getting there, Fritz's argument that cost-related text gets around prevention got me thinking that maybe TOS text isn't safe from Friction (or at least, I got the reasoning wrong). The steps of playing a card that I listed earlier aren't just for playing personnel, they are for all draw deck cards; if you count the whole ability of a TOS personnel as "cost related text" that comes before the later steps, what isn't cost related text on, say Grav-Plating Trap.

Right? Why would we consider all of "play this personnel at cost +3 to destroy an event" cost-related text that happens before prevention if we don't take all of "destroy one of your non-Hand Weapon equipment to prevent that event or interrupt and place it in its owner's discard pile" the same way?

I think we have to treat the cost-related part of TOS gametext (like on Matt Decker) as separate from the effect of said text when reading his ability. Now, he'd still be safe I think; the effect of his gametext ("to destroy an event") is mandatory if you've already paid three extra for him. That's true for all the TOS personnel I looked through; after all, it would be awkward to phrase it "you may play this personnel at cost +3 to maybe destroy an event."