What is Not There is Mine to Assume in My Favor
This is Steven Petrick posting.
One of the problems one can have in a game is "the things not there."
An example of this turns up in the battle group article for the next Captain's Log (#45). The scenario for the article is (SH38.0) "Out of Time, Out of Luck" found in Module S1. Players are to try to retrieve "data crystals" from the surface of an airless planet before it is consumed by a black hole. The rules very specifically provide for recovering the data crystals by shuttle and transporter, and there are rules for landing on the planet as it wildly careens through space towards immolation.
Some players decided that the solution (since their ships could do so) was to land the ships on the planet in order to transfer more data crystals faster.
The original scenario includes two ships (Romulan King Eagles) able to land on the planet, but there is no specific mention of using them to do so, only a specific mention in the scenario's tactics of using the ships to fend off attackers while other ships not able to land on a planet use their transporters and shuttles to recover data crystals. Landing ships to do the task was apparently never part of the designer's concept.
Some players, however, make the assumption that they can land their ships right next to the sources of the data crystals and rapidly fill their ships available storage with as many crystals as they will hold.
They are making the assumption that obviously there are nice, big, flat, open spaces just sitting next to the data crystals where their ships can land (something not defined either way in the scenario because the author did not consider the concept). Further, that while the ships are clearly configured [as per (G25.0)] to receive cargo they can do so when landed on the planet. The problem here is an assumption that the there are adequate cargo handling facilities in place to move the data crystals on the ground (they are defined as both very large and very fragile) which again is not borne out by the scenario set up.
When the question was asked in the topic, I decided to allow at least some capability for a landed ship to receive crystals (obviously its shuttles would have a short trip not having to reach a ship in space but operating on the surface as an advantage already) and limited a landed ship to recovering only one such data crystal without taking off and landing again. (Otherwise the Andromedans would transport their satellite ships to the surface, fill them up, transport them back aboard their ships, empty them, and transport them back to the surface again, repeat.)
If the ruling was disagreed with, the time to disagree was after the ruling was made, not write the tactics assuming the ruling was wrong because your reading of the scenario says there is no rule that says you cannot land ships and load crystals, just as there was no rule saying you could.
One of the problems one can have in a game is "the things not there."
An example of this turns up in the battle group article for the next Captain's Log (#45). The scenario for the article is (SH38.0) "Out of Time, Out of Luck" found in Module S1. Players are to try to retrieve "data crystals" from the surface of an airless planet before it is consumed by a black hole. The rules very specifically provide for recovering the data crystals by shuttle and transporter, and there are rules for landing on the planet as it wildly careens through space towards immolation.
Some players decided that the solution (since their ships could do so) was to land the ships on the planet in order to transfer more data crystals faster.
The original scenario includes two ships (Romulan King Eagles) able to land on the planet, but there is no specific mention of using them to do so, only a specific mention in the scenario's tactics of using the ships to fend off attackers while other ships not able to land on a planet use their transporters and shuttles to recover data crystals. Landing ships to do the task was apparently never part of the designer's concept.
Some players, however, make the assumption that they can land their ships right next to the sources of the data crystals and rapidly fill their ships available storage with as many crystals as they will hold.
They are making the assumption that obviously there are nice, big, flat, open spaces just sitting next to the data crystals where their ships can land (something not defined either way in the scenario because the author did not consider the concept). Further, that while the ships are clearly configured [as per (G25.0)] to receive cargo they can do so when landed on the planet. The problem here is an assumption that the there are adequate cargo handling facilities in place to move the data crystals on the ground (they are defined as both very large and very fragile) which again is not borne out by the scenario set up.
When the question was asked in the topic, I decided to allow at least some capability for a landed ship to receive crystals (obviously its shuttles would have a short trip not having to reach a ship in space but operating on the surface as an advantage already) and limited a landed ship to recovering only one such data crystal without taking off and landing again. (Otherwise the Andromedans would transport their satellite ships to the surface, fill them up, transport them back aboard their ships, empty them, and transport them back to the surface again, repeat.)
If the ruling was disagreed with, the time to disagree was after the ruling was made, not write the tactics assuming the ruling was wrong because your reading of the scenario says there is no rule that says you cannot land ships and load crystals, just as there was no rule saying you could.
posted by Federation Commander at 4:30 PM
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