The Kickstarter rules say that some of the Tech cards you install will have their own Weaponry and Defense values, and that you should keep their tokens separate from your main ship tokens. It mentions that these cards might "grant" their W and D values to the main ship, which I'm assuming means that you add the Tech token to the ship tokens when determining overall W and D values (yes? Maybe that's spelled out on the cards themselves?). The rules further state that if the tokens are ever removed from Tech, the Tech is destroyed. But I don't actually see any rules about how Tech would ever go about losing their tokens.
When you take damage, can you choose to remove tokens from your Tech instead of your main ship? If so, are there any rules about whether to remove tokens from Tech or the ship first? If this stuff is mentioned in the rules, I may have missed it.
Spiff's SotM site: www.spiffworld.com/sotm
The rules are very specific about where to put the tokens (on your ship or on the tech). There rules are also very specific about when/how to remove the tokens (you don't get a choice). Knowing these rules are very important to the strategy, so that you can control what will get destroyed when.
I know I am being a little vague here, but I am trying not reveal any information that GtG hasn;t done themselves yet. Everytime you ask a question I am reviewing the KS update and the example gameplay report in order to see what has and hasn't been revealed. Please ask more questions, I love talking about this game!
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Pydro, I was reading over this post, and I am ok with you giving him both barrels - let loose. Go over how techs are installed, scrapped, and what the tokens do/how damage is treated. I am up for rewarding Spiff's curiousity and your level of comfort with this game system. Plus, it lets me see someone else explain what I think is straight-forward, in order to make sure it's as straight-forward as I believe.
Everyone wins!
"Your goodness must have some edge to it — else it is none."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Techs which have weapon or defense values are installed as a stack, visually by installing then on the left side underneath the ship panel for weapon techs, and on the right side for defense techs, such that the last tech installed is the outermost. When removing energy, defense is removed first, and, when depleted, weapon is removed. When removing from a ship with techs, tokens are removed from the outer most (most recently installed) tech. When the tech is depleted, it is scrapped and the next outermost tech removes any remaining tokens (continue until all techs and ship is scrapped, or until all removal has been satisfied).
Also, any tech which has a destruction reaction will have a symbol identifying it so you know to do something when the tech is scrapped without having to have the text visible.
Do good, I? No! Evil anon I deliver, I maim nine more hero men in Miami, sanitary sword a-tuck, carol I. Lo! Rack, cut a drowsy rat in Aswan. I gas nine more hero men in Saginaw. Reviled I, Nona, live on. I do... o, God!
OK, so installed tech is added to the right/left of the ship's card in a stack, and any time you remove Energy from your ship, you instead remove it from the outermost Tech until the card is destroyed, working your way in to the ship itself, at which point you remove Energy from the ship itself.
If you had 2 Weapon Tech and 2 Defense Tech, how would you determine which Tech to remove the Energy from? Would you remove it from the outermost Defense Tech until it's been destroyed, then move to the next Defense in the stack (meaning that ALL Defense Tech will be destroyed before ANY Weapon Tech are touched)? Or would you destroy the outermost Defense Tech then move to the outermost Weapons Tech, going back and forth so that the stacks of Tech remain roughly the same size?
Spiff's SotM site: www.spiffworld.com/sotm
*cracks knuckles*
Ok give me a min to write this up.
When removing tokens (either from taking damage in battle or through various card effects) you follow the following 3 rules:
1) Remove ALL defense tokens before removing any weapon tokens.
2) Tokens must be removed from techs before taking them from the ship itself (your in a fierce dogfight and they shoot out your brand new [redacted])
3) Remove tokens from the newest tech first.
Using these 3 rules we can come up with a definitive list of how to remove token:
1) Remove defensive token them from the newest defensive tech (if there is more damage proceed to the next newewst, etc).
2) Remove defensive tokens from the ship.
3) Remove weapon token them from the newest weapon tech (if there is more damage proceed to the next newewst, etc).
4) Removie weapon tokens from the ship.
Knowing these rules are very importantn for 2 reasons:
1) It allows you to protect and cover a tech that you want by installing another tech over it.
2) Many techs and effects upon destruction. Planning ahead so that you know what will be destroyed if I do X can have some fantastic effects.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Think of it this way: all of the Weaponry and Defenses of a ship make up its Energy. You can think of the Energy as the HP. However, besides just being HP, the Energy that is Weaponry is also your attack, and the Energy that is Defense is also damage mitigation.
"Your goodness must have some edge to it — else it is none."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ah, so you'll even remove the ship's base Defense tokens before touching any of the Weapons Tech. Got it.
Spiff's SotM site: www.spiffworld.com/sotm