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#576789
Let's say I am playing Federation/Romulan deck, and the mission I am attempting is Romulan only. When I start this mission I have both, but if I get to the end of the mission attempt with only Federation personnel left, can they solve the mission attempt assuming they meet the requirements?

My reading is that the affiliation check is only at the start of the attempt so this is fine.
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Executive Officer
By jadziadax8 (Maggie Geppert)
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#576797
You need a personnel of the appropriate affiliation to both attempt and complete a mission. In your example, as soon as you lost that last Romulan, your attempt ends.
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#576800
I guess I'm not clear why this would be case based on the rules. From the section on Mission Failure:
Only a few dire conditions can completely stop a mission attempt:

-No one remains in the crew or Away Team. (This may be because they are dead, stopped, disabled, relocated elsewhere, or removed by some other means.)

-After resolving all dilemmas, the crew or Away Team cannot meet the mission requirements with its remaining personnel.
The first one means the entire crew or Away Team are gone. And the requirements mentioned by the second one here refers to the "requirements" which are a different part of the card from the "affiliation". Then when describing the mission card the rules say:
Most missions also define a goal, in which case they show which affiliations may attempt the mission, usually through affiliation icons. They also have requirements, which state what skills are needed to accomplish the mission...
Which seems to separate these ideas just enough to make them independent.
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By pfti (Jon Carter)
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#576802
jadziadax8 wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 7:55 pm You need a personnel of the appropriate affiliation to both attempt and complete a mission. In your example, as soon as you lost that last Romulan, your attempt ends.
I am not sure, but I think we changed this @BCSWowbagger
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
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#576803
pfti wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 9:02 pm
jadziadax8 wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 7:55 pm You need a personnel of the appropriate affiliation to both attempt and complete a mission. In your example, as soon as you lost that last Romulan, your attempt ends.
I am not sure, but I think we changed this @BCSWowbagger
I thought you checked at the beginning to make sure you could attempt, and again at the end to make sure you could solve, but NOT in between dilemmas.

Was that the change you were referring to?

I may be wrong... it's been a minute since this issue came up.
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#576805
Armus wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 9:06 pm I thought you checked at the beginning to make sure you could attempt, and again at the end to make sure you could solve, but NOT in between dilemmas.
This would make sense to me if the affiliation icon part of the Mission card was defined as part of a requirements, but I don't see it referred to in that way.
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By pfti (Jon Carter)
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#576806
Armus wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 9:06 pm
pfti wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 9:02 pm
jadziadax8 wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 7:55 pm You need a personnel of the appropriate affiliation to both attempt and complete a mission. In your example, as soon as you lost that last Romulan, your attempt ends.
I am not sure, but I think we changed this @BCSWowbagger
I thought you checked at the beginning to make sure you could attempt, and again at the end to make sure you could solve, but NOT in between dilemmas.

Was that the change you were referring to?

I may be wrong... it's been a minute since this issue came up.
The part where the attempt ends immediately
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By jadziadax8 (Maggie Geppert)
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#576810
pfti wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 9:02 pm
jadziadax8 wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 7:55 pm You need a personnel of the appropriate affiliation to both attempt and complete a mission. In your example, as soon as you lost that last Romulan, your attempt ends.
I am not sure, but I think we changed this @BCSWowbagger
Huh. Ok. That makes a difference in some games I’ve played in sealed events in the last couple of years.
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
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#576813
I absolutely should not have logged in for the first time today right before I have to run out to the grocer before closing, so this is hasty, but:

Yes, changed in 2019 September: https://starshipexcelsior.com/othersite ... 201908.pdf

You check at the start and end of the attempt. The Decipher history of this rule is more tangled than most gave it credit for.

The lack of public awareness about this rule change was one of the things that led Jon to start posting monthly rule change summaries in late 2019ish, and it's why I'm so fanatical about explaining every single substantive ruling or rule change in the monthly article.
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By pfti (Jon Carter)
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#576829
@BCSWowbagger
So reading the rules. we are clear in a few places that affiliation icons and requirements on missions are not the same thing (see the entry describing mission cards, they are listed as seperate features).

The rules then say in solving, that you only have to meet requirements. I would argue that when rules declared that losing matching affiliation doesnt end the attempt, they never inserted rules that say you need a matching person to solve.

So it seems like we may have made it so as long as you start with a matching person, you can solve even if no matching people remain. (unless you are using alternative requireents that specify only certain people can solve -- via the sidebar on alternative requiremnts).
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By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
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#576831
First, thank you to @DavidofBorg for pointing out this apparent error in the Rulebook / Glossary. Sometimes it takes the fresh eyes of a newer player to notice what the rules documents actually say (as opposed to what everyone assumes they say).

Second, I can assert with complete certainty that nobody (least of all @pfti) intended to make it so you can legally complete a mission with no matching personnel, and nobody has understood it that way for the past couple of years -- although that appears to be something we did at some point. We did this correctly in 2019 September, so whatever error crept in appears to have crept in later on. (I'm still half-convinced I'm missing something.)

Third, it would be a very bad idea to abruptly change everyone's understanding of the rule in the middle of a month because of what appears to be an error. (I'll detail more of the history below, but hold on, I'm warming up to a bluetext.) So let's crystallize everyone's understanding right now:

To begin a mission attempt, or to solve the mission, at least one crew or Away Team member must match one of the mission’s affiliation icons (if any)

That's just the text we released in September 2019, but oh snap this time it's blue!

This ruling is official. It is binding in all sanctioned events, and it supersedes any and all contrary rulings by tournament directors, effective immediately. (Games already played are unaffected.)

This ruling is temporary. It is not fully fleshed-out, does not use final wording, and may be completely reversed in a regular First Monday rules update. If not resolved by the next First Monday (May 8th 2022), it will be published in the Glossary's Temporary Rulings section as part of its monthly update.


HISTORY:

In 1994, the rule was that you needed a matching personnel to begin an attempt. That's it.

In August 2000, Decipher changed the rule: you need a matching personnel to begin an attempt, and the attempt ends immediately if you lose all matching personnel.

A few months later, Decipher changed / clarified the rule further, with a neat wrinkle: you must resolve the current dilemma after a loss-of-matching-personnel. As the number of multi-effect dilemmas expanded over the years, this rule started to bear a heavier (and heavier) load, and caused more difficulties for players.

In February 2018, we added a special rule that "attempt restrictions external to the mission" (such as Homefront and Quantum Torpedo) are checked only at the start of the attempt. This was a way for us to deal with the Disgraceful Assault + Quantum Torpedo combo. It was a very ugly solution, because it meant there was one timing rule for cards like Homefront, and another timing rule for losing matching affiliation. Rules wanted to have one consistent rule for checking mission attempt conditions, but it took a while to find a consensus.

In September 2019, we settled on that consistent rule: you check conditions for attempting at the start and at solve. That's the last time we touched this rule. (I remember this distinctly, because the other proposal on the table was to change the rule back to the original Decipher rule, where conditions are checked only at start of attempt.)

What I think happened: in September 2019, we updated the Glossary but forgot to update the Rulebook. That's probably my fault? Rulebook updates at the time were pretty much unilaterally left to me and not handled through the CRD process at all.

Later on, probably in late 2020, we deleted the Glossary entry because it was redundant with the Rulebook section... but apparently not quite redundant! That moment, when the Glossary entry disappeared, is most likely when this rule "changed." But it didn't really change. We just, uh, misplaced it.

This is, of course, awfully embarrassing to me as a Rules person. Bad enough that there are errors in the Rulebook. Even worse that there are errors in the Rulebook that misstate the rules in a way that completely and understandably misleads one of the newer players in the community. But I think this temp ruling is the best way to deal with it in the short term, and we'll see what the rest of Rules thinks by June!
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