Post by Stephen on Apr 21, 2014 12:06:21 GMT -5
For the sake of open discussion, I'm pasting Rick's article on the topic below for easy reference during this thread.
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A Counterpoint to the Previous Article, "RBF XXV Produces Controversy Over Movement Limits"
by Rick Lacy
In the Indy Squadron Dispatch there appears an article on a rules controversy (no surprise there really, considering Indy Squadron traditions). I feel that it needs to be addressed to correct a couple of (what I perceived) misstatements.
Awhile back we had a situation awhile back where someone was being tailed. The person played a climb and then moved one square too far and thus had to dive rather than climb due to the existing Indy Squadron rule that mandates once a plane is in a square, it CANNOT be moved backwards. As a result, the plane would be ruled as out of control. As this penalized the tailing player (who would have lost his shot), we enacted a rule that WHILE UNDER CARDS if a player performed a simple FitS lapse and moved one square too far or didn’t do his wingover correctly or turned too tight (or something similar), that the plane would be moved back to make it conform to the card maneuver restriction and not penalize the tailing player by making them lose their shot. Thus we created a rule (the under cards rule) to make sure that another rule (the no backward movement rule) would not cause conflicting rules (tailing restrictions and no-backward-movement) to mess up a turn. Seems a bit cumbersome, I admit, but under the Indy Squadron house rules something that needed to be in place.
Now, in RBF XXV, what we had was a completely different situation. Ethan had taken a wing critical that forced him to bank left. He was NOT under cards and the above rule did NOT apply to the situation. He was, however, under a movement restriction due to the wing crit, so I could see where Stephen thought the situation was the same. I will agree with Stephen that the issue was based on a movement/maneuver restriction, but where I disagree with him is that the two situations are the same.
They are not.
Ethan, who was having an uncharacteristically hard time moving, did NOT move his plane in the required left bank. Very simple mistake, but one he did not take the time to understand before moving.
Under the Indy Squadon no-backward-move rule, as soon as he ignored the restriction, he immediately went out of control. Stephen maintained that Ethan ‘tried’ to do a left bank, but the rule was pretty clear that since he didn’t actually DO it even though he may have TRIED, he was ruled out of control and the turn resolved itself that way. Then he did it again the very next turn and was again ruled out of control. In a low level fight this can be very costly very quickly.
So, from my point of view, the issue does not center on the tailing cards rule as Stephen thought, since no tailing was occurring, it is actually about the no backward movement rule. Had this rule not been in place, Ethan could simply have started over and moved correctly. While it is always preferable to actually move a plane through it’s squares as opposed to placing, the whole argument could have been avoided had Ethan had the ability to redo his move.
I would propose that the Indy Squadron as a whole eliminate the tailing restriction rule and in addition eliminate the no backward movement rule. This would eliminate a whole host of conflicting rules issues. Or perhaps loosen the no backwards rule to allow for things like what happened to Ethan to be corrected instead of causing issues and rules discussions. We could still require people to move through their squares but if they make an illegal move the plane is backed up until the move is legal, for example. Note that this will not be a way for players to correct mis-movement that results in a missed shot if their move was legal, but it will be a way to insure that an illegal move could be corrected and not penalize the following players if they planned on shooting said plane. I’d be willing to vote on this as opposed to pointing at the wrong root cause and not correcting things properly.
__________________
A Counterpoint to the Previous Article, "RBF XXV Produces Controversy Over Movement Limits"
by Rick Lacy
In the Indy Squadron Dispatch there appears an article on a rules controversy (no surprise there really, considering Indy Squadron traditions). I feel that it needs to be addressed to correct a couple of (what I perceived) misstatements.
Awhile back we had a situation awhile back where someone was being tailed. The person played a climb and then moved one square too far and thus had to dive rather than climb due to the existing Indy Squadron rule that mandates once a plane is in a square, it CANNOT be moved backwards. As a result, the plane would be ruled as out of control. As this penalized the tailing player (who would have lost his shot), we enacted a rule that WHILE UNDER CARDS if a player performed a simple FitS lapse and moved one square too far or didn’t do his wingover correctly or turned too tight (or something similar), that the plane would be moved back to make it conform to the card maneuver restriction and not penalize the tailing player by making them lose their shot. Thus we created a rule (the under cards rule) to make sure that another rule (the no backward movement rule) would not cause conflicting rules (tailing restrictions and no-backward-movement) to mess up a turn. Seems a bit cumbersome, I admit, but under the Indy Squadron house rules something that needed to be in place.
Now, in RBF XXV, what we had was a completely different situation. Ethan had taken a wing critical that forced him to bank left. He was NOT under cards and the above rule did NOT apply to the situation. He was, however, under a movement restriction due to the wing crit, so I could see where Stephen thought the situation was the same. I will agree with Stephen that the issue was based on a movement/maneuver restriction, but where I disagree with him is that the two situations are the same.
They are not.
Ethan, who was having an uncharacteristically hard time moving, did NOT move his plane in the required left bank. Very simple mistake, but one he did not take the time to understand before moving.
Under the Indy Squadon no-backward-move rule, as soon as he ignored the restriction, he immediately went out of control. Stephen maintained that Ethan ‘tried’ to do a left bank, but the rule was pretty clear that since he didn’t actually DO it even though he may have TRIED, he was ruled out of control and the turn resolved itself that way. Then he did it again the very next turn and was again ruled out of control. In a low level fight this can be very costly very quickly.
So, from my point of view, the issue does not center on the tailing cards rule as Stephen thought, since no tailing was occurring, it is actually about the no backward movement rule. Had this rule not been in place, Ethan could simply have started over and moved correctly. While it is always preferable to actually move a plane through it’s squares as opposed to placing, the whole argument could have been avoided had Ethan had the ability to redo his move.
I would propose that the Indy Squadron as a whole eliminate the tailing restriction rule and in addition eliminate the no backward movement rule. This would eliminate a whole host of conflicting rules issues. Or perhaps loosen the no backwards rule to allow for things like what happened to Ethan to be corrected instead of causing issues and rules discussions. We could still require people to move through their squares but if they make an illegal move the plane is backed up until the move is legal, for example. Note that this will not be a way for players to correct mis-movement that results in a missed shot if their move was legal, but it will be a way to insure that an illegal move could be corrected and not penalize the following players if they planned on shooting said plane. I’d be willing to vote on this as opposed to pointing at the wrong root cause and not correcting things properly.