O Beck
United States
California
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I'm having a hard time understanding how the jet suits and cargo movers move outside of the ship. Do they move one skin area per turn or one space area per turn? The rules are not so clear in that matter. I'd assume it's one space area but in the case of the jet suit, they mention that it can move one adjacent area either inside or outside the ship, so that leads me to believe it's one skin area outside the ship. And if that's the case, I assume that it's also one skin area for the cargo mover as well. I'm also assuming that all 3 boats can move one space area. Any help clarifying this would be extremely appreciated.
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John "Omega" Williams
United States
Michigan
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The space and skin area are one and the same really. According to the rulebook they can move one space per movement turn. The only diffrence is that crew and monsters walk along the shell while vehicles and jets hoover above it.
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Ben Post
United States
Madison
Wisconsin
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Omega2064 wrote: The space and skin area are one and the same really. According to the rulebook they can move one space per movement turn. The only diffrence is that crew and monsters walk along the shell while vehicles and jets hoover above it.
I think you're wrong here (at least based on the rules from the newest edition). From the rulebook:
Tom Wham wrote: Jet suits, cargo movers, and the ship's boats can float in space. Green Things cannot attack them while they are in space. There are four space "areas," as shown below. A unit may move from any area to an adjacent one on the movement phase of its turn. A unit in space can attack any Green Thing on the skin adjacent to that area. Green Things on the skin cannot attack units in space.
Green Things and pressure-suited crew members move by walking along the ship. Each portion of the skin outside a room of the Znutar is a separate "skin area."
The rules draw a fundamental distinction between the four Space Areas and the 25 Skin Areas. As the paragraphs I quoted state, pressure-suited crewmen and AGTs may only enter Skin Areas, while jet suits, cargo movers, and the three boats move around in Space Areas.
In response to the OP, the phrase "Six small thrusters let the suit move from one area to any adjacent area, inside or outside the ship, once per turn" does seem confusing. Can jet suits enter Space Areas as well as Skin Areas? The next two lines, I believe, give us the answer: "When out in space, a jet suit is considered to be beyond the reach of any Green Things. Thus, outside the ship, a jet suit can attack Green Things without any danger of a counterattack". When a jet suit isn't inside the ship, then, it's in one of the four Space Areas. Like the cargo movers and boats, it attacks the AGTs, not from the Skin, but from Space.
If the jet suit rules still don't seem clear, we might conclude that jet suits, outside the ship, are amphibious--they can move around in Space Areas or Skin Areas. That's not the case, I'd suggest, for two reasons. First, it seems that the crew can only walk on the Skin if they're wearing their "Universal StickyFoot Suits". In other words, they need something to hold them onto the Skin (the AGTs don't need suits because they're already sticky). A crew member in a jet suit, though, has no way to stay attached to the Skin. He should be floating in Space.
Second, if the jet suit is in a Space Area he can attack any AGTs in any adjacent Skin Area (5 areas from the Stern, 8 from the Top, 4 from the Bow, and 8 from the Underside) without fear of counterattack. He's got much greater mobility (one Space Area per turn is faster than one Skin Area per turn), and he can use any weapons he's carrying as if he were adjacent to the AGT he's attacking (if he can make a "1-die hand-to-hand attack with its manipulative arms", it follows that he can use any weapon to attack from his Space Area). So even if jet suits could choose to move on the Skin or in Space, why would you ever choose Skin?
That's my take on the Outside the Znutar rules, at least. But hey: it's Ameritrash. The only right rule is the one that makes the game more enjoyable.
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O Beck
United States
California
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Thanks for the responses and I think they're along the lines of what I went into it thinking which is basically that if the Jet Suit is inside the ship, it can move one space per turn and if it's outside the ship, it can move one space area, so that it has much greater mobility. For the cargo mover, I'll assume it can move one space area per turn. If I find that using those rules completely unbalances the game, I'll scale them back to one skin area outside of the ship.
I really wish the rule book were more clear as it really is confusing by the wording since there's a huge difference between space area and skin area.
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John "Omega" Williams
United States
Michigan
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hmmm.
Re-read the section and looks like miss-read that bit.
Sooo. Going by the rules you get the following.
Movers, Boats, and Jet suits outside the ship move one Space "section.
Crew and Green things on the skin move one skin "section" using the rooms on the other side of the hull as the guide.
The mover cannot move inside the Znutar other than the designated rooms. Whereas the Jet suit can move through the ship using standard crew movement rules and having a movement effectively of 1 inside the ship.
So Top area stretches from Bridge to bow-side of the Fuel pod.which is 6 or 7 spaces depending on wether or not you count the passage as a section. Stern area is either 3 or 4 spaces depending on wether or not you count the engine block as a section. Underside area stretches from the bow-side of the lower Fuel pod around to the Atmosphere Probe Launch which is 7 spaces. Bow space is Atmosphere Probe Control to captains Cabin which is 4 rooms.
(Since the bow and underside have 4 and 7 segments respectively Id rule for evenness sake that the stern and top have the same. Thus counting that passage space next to the bridge and engine block as sections.)
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