[SudenKapala]

interesting card. if you get quark with the dilemma can he dl the 4th one before resolution?

downloading – special download – A
card with a special download icon
allows you to suspend any action at any time
(even during your opponent’s turn) while
you download the specified target card and
immediately play it. If the card is played at
(or to affect something at, or to insert
adjacent to) one particular spaceline or
timeline location, the special download icon
must be at that location. (If it is not possible
to play the card according to these rules,
then the target card may not be
downloaded.)

So, yes. (I highlighted the operative terms, and copied the rest because 'present'/'location' are also interesting to these kind of questions.)

when will they be able to engage personal battle?

Yes, but not immediately (which was perhaps your real question). If they have a leader present -- OFFICER or Leadership skill -- they may engane in personnel battle via an action on your part -- and you usually only have actions in your own turn.

[Ensign Q]

well the real question was the resolution part. so whether or not the 4th person is counted for the dilemma or not (which i guess it does, since its on the planet immediately)

which brings me to another question. special downloads are not responses to opponents actions and can be used at split second?

which then brings me to another question or idea. since chaining personnel was too broken, now you have to do it on your opponentes turn as well, right? To me, it doesnt seem to be the best solution, because it eats so much time(looking through the deck twice, shuffling etc.). My idea would be, stunned cards cant s.d. and every personnel after the first download enters play stunned.

[SudenKapala]

also: Female's Love Interest & Garbage Scow. what happens if the only away team member was a female?

The DRG can already tell you a lot -- but not quite what you're asking.

Therefore, another excursion into the Glossary:

combo dilemma – A combo dilemma is a
two dilemma combination in one Dilemma
card. (See card type.) Encountering a
combo dilemma is like encountering two
separate dilemmas: if you meet the
conditions of the first half, you continue on
to face the second half; if not, you place the
card back under the mission and will have to
face the first half again. However, some
combo dilemmas with conditions say “not
repeatable” in the first half; this phrase takes
the place of “discard dilemma” and means
that the first half is conceptually discarded
after you face it; when you or your opponent
encounter that same exact card on another
attempt, the first half of the combo is
skipped. If the first half has no conditions
(e.g., Male’s Love Interest), it is always
conceptually discarded after it has its effect.
See dilemma resolution.

THere you have it.
With no more personnel to go forth and encounter the cond part (the Scow), the card is replaced to be encountered again, but the first part has already been conceptually discarded.

I trust that helps?

[SudenKapala]

well the real question was the resolution part. so whether or not the 4th person is counted for the dilemma or not (which i guess it does, since its on the planet immediately)

The dilemma does not specify which opponent's personnel, and/nor that it have to be those personnel that you previously DL'd there. So... yes, everybody counts!

which brings me to another question. special downloads are not responses to opponents actions

They could seem to be, perhaps; but technically they are not (I think), and they don't need to be (I know).

and can be used at split second?

Well, to be very specifically, "can be used to suspend play". Which is a game term with a clear Glossy definition.

which then brings me to another question or idea. since chaining personnel was too broken, now you have to do it on your opponentes turn as well, right? To me, it doesnt seem to be the best solution, because it eats so much time(looking through the deck twice, shuffling etc.). My idea would be, stunned cards cant s.d. and every personnel after the first download enters play stunned.

I'll have to leave this question for another person or time, because real life calls. (Yeah, I do have one. )

[Ensign Q]

id prefer to have clear rules who has priority and when does it pass, so its more obvious when s.d can happen, hidden agendas can flip and/or interrupts can be cast.

[Latok]

which then brings me to another question or idea. since chaining personnel was too broken, now you have to do it on your opponentes turn as well, right? To me, it doesnt seem to be the best solution, because it eats so much time(looking through the deck twice, shuffling etc.). My idea would be, stunned cards cant s.d. and every personnel after the first download enters play stunned.

In OTF you can't chain download on the opponents turn either you only get one download, so you can't use Quark's right after the Enemies of the State download, you can use like Leeta's, just not for a personnel.

[Ensign Q]

sure, which makes for even more shuffles and stuff lol.

my solution would actually slow chains at the same pace but at least save half the amount of searches.

if you want to cut even more searches every downloaded guy would enter play with a timecounter of X where X is the number of downloaded personnel (-1)

[Latok]

sure, which makes for even more shuffles and stuff lol.

my solution would actually slow chains at the same pace but at least save half the amount of searches.

if you want to cut even more searches every downloaded guy would enter play with a timecounter of X where X is the number of downloaded personnel (-1)

Yeah I don't think 1E needs more rules, you're adding some pretty complicated stuff to either the stopped or download rules.

[Ensign Q]

2nd download enters play stopped is pretty much the same rule text as only one personnel dl each turn. which to me is more complicated actually. (only personnel is limited but not the other ones, when do you have priority to dl stuff anyway, etc.)

also rules should help to have a fluid game and not basically "freeze" it. like in magic they banned cards for "shuffling" too often.

[SudenKapala]

Actually, coming from 'Vintage' (Decipher-era) rules where there was no limit on (hence Latok's correction of / addition to my answer), I kind of like the idea of stopping instead of restricting... at least as something to think/talk about...
And of course, in casual play, you should feel free to make up any house rules, in order to smoothe your gameplay and/or have more fun!

On the other hand...

I don't think 1E needs more rules

... this is the truest thing I read all day.

Your proposal may not comprise more rules per sé, but it would mean changing the rules... again.

[Ensign Q]

cleaning up the rules in magic basically happened when they started running automated software. a program needs to know the "phases" of the game and stuff. so something like downloads at any time would be impossible if you would run a otherwise more or less turn based game.
so the best way to have a consistent ruleset is getting a coder and a lawyer together lol.

like the game could also use a term normalization. (for example "in orbit" and "orbiting") a software would demand those as well.

but yeah, coming to the game after 20yrs i missed all those rule changes that happened, so im not worn out on them.

[AllenGould]

cleaning up the rules in magic basically happened when they started running automated software. a program needs to know the "phases" of the game and stuff. so something like downloads at any time would be impossible if you would run a otherwise more or less turn based game.
so the best way to have a consistent ruleset is getting a coder and a lawyer together lol.

There's probably some correlation there, but I don't know if there's causation - Sixth Edition (the big rulebook rewrite for Magic) released in April '99, but MTGO didn't release until June '02.

Probably more important is that they (and now we) have separate "people who dream up weird ideas" and "people who make things work" departments. They are very different mindsets (and fairly different skillsets as well).

[Ensign Q]

there was the shandalar magic game before which probably lead to the 6th edition cleanup

funnily enough, im still at males love interest. what happens when there is no planet on the spaceline. i guess it wasnt a problem for the single card, since it was a planet dilemma. but the combo one is dualicon so what?


i feel the cc era cards are not completely whack and they basically work with the tools already available. the problems probably still come from decipher era wild-west printings.

[AllenGould]

there was the shandalar magic game before which probably lead to the 6th edition cleanup

True, but one thing computers are good at is keeping track of complicated workflows. (Most of the 6th edition changes were simplification - putting everything on the stack rather than having 1E-style instants AND stack-style interrupts AND after-everything-else damage prevention.)

funnily enough, im still at males love interest. what happens when there is no planet on the spaceline. i guess it wasnt a problem for the single card, since it was a planet dilemma. but the combo one is dualicon so what?

If there's no planet to move to, then you just keep going. (It's not a requirement to pass the dilemma like Hippocratic Oath, so it's no different than killing an OFFICER if you don't have one.)

[Ensign Q]

can you use spacetimeportal to bounce the ship when it would be destroyed or damaged by dilemma?

if cytherians affect the ship but it doesnt have enough range to get to the next mission, its stuck?