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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#561437
There oughta be a rule! - If you would like a clarification or example added to the rules, post it in this thread. Maybe you asked a question in this forum, and you think the answer is something that's important enough or common enough be added to the Glossary. Maybe there's a cross-reference that you feel the Glossary should have (but there isn't).

Didn't there used to be a rule? - If you think that something used to be a rule, but now you can't find it, post it here. Often, we'll be able to track down the "missing" rule for you and tell you when and why it changed. But sometimes useful stuff gets deleted from the Glossary simply because the Rules Committee didn't realize it was actually useful. If that happens, we'd like to hear about it so we can put the useful stuff back.

You broke your little rules. - If you find a broken link in the Glossary (or Rulebook), post it here. If you find a place where the Glossary would benefit from another cross-reference, post it here.

Please do not post proposals for major rules changes here. This thread is mainly for proposing relatively small clarifications, and for flagging useful material from old rules documents that has been erroneously removed

The Rules Committee will monitor this thread forever. We do not promise to take your suggestions, but we do promise to read them, and we may even respond. Thank you in advance for your suggestions!
 
By Dunnagh (Andreas Micheel)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Contender
#570484
One thing that is really hard is "coming back to the game". I was absent for quite some time and just wanted to build a casual deck. Apart from the usual "What new cards are there?" I´m seriously suffering from "what has changed?" - I like errata and rules changes / clarifications. But there are so many little changes.

I do love the errata database. The errata file just gives you the current card iterations without any clue as to what has changed. Was it just spelling? Did they exlude murder dilemmas? You´ll never know.

Something similar for rule changes would be cool. There is already "recent rulings" - would it be unreasonable to hope that all recent rulings were put together in one document where you can go back to say August 2020 and see whats changed since then?
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
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Community Contributor
#570486
Excellent request! I have been working on this for quite some time. It is a huge amount of work, but it's nearing a point where it can (finally) be converted to a database.

For now, it's still a spreadsheet (which is what the Errata Database was for a long time as well):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

P.S. Welcome back!
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By winterflames (Derek Marlar)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#586269
Was Patrol ship considered a shuttle at some point?

Edit: I don't think I actually read this thread when you first posted it. I shall redirect my occasional "Glossary Snafu?" questions here going forward.
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Online OP Coordinator
By pfti (Jon Carter)
 - Online OP Coordinator
 -  
2E Cardassia Regional Champion 2023
#586283
Mugato wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 3:20 pm Didn't there use to be a rule that you checked matching affiliation between dilemmas? Not just at the start of the mission attempt and before solving?
Yes. It was changed mostly so you cannot nope out of dilemmas by removing key people.
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
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Community Contributor
#586288
winterflames wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 12:19 pm Was Patrol ship considered a shuttle at some point?
As far as I can tell, no. It was implicit in Glossary 1.7 (August 2000) that Patrol Ship was not a shuttlecraft. ("'Shuttlecraft' include ships identified as a 'shuttle.' A Runabout is not a shuttle; it only 'resembles' one.") By late 2002, with the full-blown characteristics rule finally written, it was explicitly stated that Patrol Ship was not a shuttlecraft.
Didn't there use to be a rule that you checked matching affiliation between dilemmas? Not just at the start of the mission attempt and before solving?
This one has some history!

When the game launched (1994), you checked matching affiliation only at the start of the attempt. If you lost all matching, you not only continued through dilemmas; you could still solve the mission!

This changed in mid-2000. The Glossary decided then that you needed a matching personnel throughout the attempt. If you lost all matching in the middle of dilemmas, your attempt was over. If you had no matching at solve time, your attempt was over. This was generally consistent with other cards that prevented mission attempts: if Radioactive Garbage Scow hits your mission, the attempt is over. If you attempted a mission with Homefront and lost 4 SECURITY... nobody actually knows what happened, because it didn't happen often enough to get a Glossary ruling, but, presumably, your attempt was expected to be over.

This worked fine for a while. There were timing problems that cropped up, especially as Decipher and then the CC started to create more and more multi-effect dilemmas. If you hit Unscientific Method, and it kills your last matching personnel, but you still have CUNNING>24 remaining, does the mission attempt end as soon as your guy dies (reseed the dilemma) or after the dilemma fully resolves (discard the dilemma)? These timing questions could be ruled on, and were, although, as pfti notes, they were messy: Decipher implied that there was a different ruling for if you voluntarily removed matching personnel (e.g. with Flight of the Intruder) vs if you lost affiliation involuntarily.

Then came Disgraceful Assault. This card can guarantee a Quantum Torpedo on your ship mid-attempt, no way around it. Quantum Torpedo prevents you from attempting the mission. Is Disgraceful Assault an impassable wall for anyone using an all-Quantum Torpedo Battle Bridge? Obviously, the answer had to be "no" or the game would break. But Rules precedent up to that point pretty much said "yes." So we had some revisions to do.

The short-term Rules solution was a very narrow interpretation of the relevant Glossary passages. Technically, the Rules Committee concluded, loss of affiliation ended an attempt whenever it happened, and a dilemma card blocking attempts (like Scow) ended an attempt whenever it happened, but a non-dilemma card blocking attempts only mattered at the start of the attempt. So Quantum Torpedo did nothing during the attempt, but only prevented future attempts. But if Disgraceful Assault hit you with Plasma Torpedo instead, and that killed your only matching personnel, that ended the attempt as soon as the dilemma resolved. That was our 2015 ruling on Disgraceful Assault, and we extended the ruling to all cards (such as Homefront) in February 2018, following errata to Scow (we didn't want to break scow).

Still, this was... pretty weird and inconsistent. Technically a viable reading of the rules, but having the exact same gametext have different effects based on its card type was not ideal, so we resolved to standardize. We did so in August 2019.

After considering the possibility of going all the way back to Premiere rules (check conditions at the start of the attempt only), we compromised between old and new and went with a workable middle ground: check conditions at the start of the attempt, and at solve time, but not during or between dilemmas.

That's the rule as it stands today.

TLDR: I don't know why Decipher changed it in 2000, but the CC changed it in 2018/19 because of Disgraceful Assault / Quantum Torp.
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Online OP Coordinator
By pfti (Jon Carter)
 - Online OP Coordinator
 -  
2E Cardassia Regional Champion 2023
#587066
Armus wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 10:17 am
pfti wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 10:06 am SPACE SHOULD GO IN EVERY QUADRANT!
What is this? The Rage Thread?
ONE THREAD CANNOT CONTAIN MY RAGE (I also wanted to post it in a place where it could be recognized as a semi-serious proposal)
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By Professor Scott (Mathew McCalpin)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Trailblazer
1E Cardassia Regional Champion 2023
#587067
pfti wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 10:06 am SPACE SHOULD GO IN EVERY QUADRANT!
Oh right, like next you'll say Nebula should go in any quadrant as if there were nebulas in other quadrants....Don't you know space must obey the artificial lines we draw on a map!!!!

Where does it end, huh? Lol, why not just make it so any mission without a point box can go into any quadrant!!!! Would that make ya happy?
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