Red Alert
Official Rules!
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Step Three: Execute Orders

This is the most involved part of the Turn. Movement, weapon fire, damage resolution and most disk effects occur during this step, with the exception of crew combat, which occurs during Step 4: Boarding.

This step occurs in three phases. In each phase, every ship reveals and executes one of its orders and moves its current speed, and all active torpedoes move.

Determining Command Initiative

To determine which ship goes first in any given orders phase, add up the total command value of the revealed crew on each of your ships. The ship with the highest command total goes first. Ties go to the ship with the lowest current speed. In the case of two or more ships having equal command going the same speed, use a random method such as the highest number of hits dropped on five damage counters to determine which ship goes first in the phase.

The player controlling the first ship may opt to defer to the next player. That player may in turn defer to the next. The last player to go cannot defer, and must execute his or her first order. The option then passes back to the first player, who may defer repeatedly if he so desires, waiting until everyone else has gone before executing his first order.

Diana has revealed Lt. Cdr. La Forge, command value 4. Owen didn’t buy any crew, and has an effective command of 0. Diana has the first option to act, and decides to defer to Owen, waiting to see what he’ll do. Owen must now reveal his first order and execute it.

Movement & Orders

Each ship must reveal an order and move its current speed each phase. A player may opt to reveal his order, but not execute it. In this case, his ship simply moves its current speed in a straight line, along its former course.

A ship can execute an order and move in any sequence. A ship executing a Raise Shields order may move first then raise shields, or raise shields then move. Unless specified by a disk’s effect, orders may not be executed in the middle of movement.

It’s possible, through activating crew, to perform more than one order in a phase. In these cases, each order may occur before or after movement. You may execute all orders, then move; move, then execute all orders; or execute some orders, move, then execute the remaining orders.

Movement

A ship moves by flipping end-over-end in a straight line. It flips a number of times equal to its current speed. During each order phase, each ship must move its current speed. If the ship is at Full Stop, of course, it doesn’t move at all. Tech upgrades that give bonuses or penalties to speed affect the ship’s maximum speed, not its current speed.

Owen’s going first. He decides to move before revealing his Change Heading order. His speed is 3, so he flips his ship three times, then reveals and executes the order by rotating his ship so he’s facing Diana. Now Diana goes. She reveals and executes her Change Heading order first and points her ship in Owen’s direction. She flips her ship three times, ending about 8 inches away from the T’deret.

You may only change speed by one or two (see the Change Speed order description, above). Some disks have the ability to alter this restriction, but these abilities generally do not allow you to increase your speed above your maximum.

As ships move around the table, they’re free to pass over one another. It’s presumed the play area is not to scale—your ship is not actually as large as the space filled by its disk. The disk indicates your ship’s general location and represents its zone of safe operation. But it is possible to collide with another ship, a planet, or any terrain disk—see “Collision,” below.

Any ship that moves out of the play area is considered destroyed.

Torpedoes

Torpedoes have special rules for movement—see “Torpedoes,” below.

Collision

If a ship ends its movement overlapping another disk, the two disks might collide. The collision types cover three possibilities: ship-ship, ship-planet, and ship-obstruction collisions.

If your ship is about to collide with a ship, planet or obstruction, you may declare “Evasive Action.” Evasive action allows your ship to Change Heading right in the middle of movement, regardless of its current order. Upon declaring evasive action you must complete your movement, then immediately remove all remaining orders from your control panel and reduce your speed to zero. You may not take evasive action on the third order phase of a turn. Evasive action also can’t be taken to avoid running into a torpedo.

Ship-Ship: If your ship overlaps another at the end of movement, there is a chance you may collide. Shake and drop five damage disks (described below): if one and only one of the disks shows a critical, you have collided. Your ship takes one hit to its hull, regardless of its current shield rating. In addition, you must reduce its speed to zero, and remove all remaining orders from your control panel just as if you had declared evasive action. Lastly, the player whose ship you hit may pick your disk up and place it anywhere adjacent to (i.e., touching, but not overlapping) his ship, placing it facing any direction.

Ship-Planet: If your ship overlaps a planet, space station, or other terrain disk, drop five damage disks just as in a ship-ship collision. Again, if you get a single critical result, the ship-ship collision results apply with the following exceptions: your ship takes two hits to its hull, and you reposition your ship adjacent to the planet. Some scenarios may present alternate rules for colliding with terrain, typically describing the results on the scenario side of the disk.

Ship-Obstruction: If your ship overlaps an obstruction, remove the obstruction from play immediately and suffer the full damage as defined by the scenario. Generally, this damage is not random—instead of dropping damage disks, you simply take a number of hits equal to the obstruction’s damage value.

Attacking and Damage

When a ship executes an Attack order, it may do one of three things: fire its beam weapon, launch a photon torpedo, or transport any number of onboard crew to another ship.

Firing Beam Weapons

To attack with beam weapons, there must be a target ship within range of your ship’s weapons. A ship is in range if the range template can be placed between the ships such that it overlaps both ship disks. Your ship has a beam weapon rating describing how much damage it does.

Launching Torpedoes

The small depression along the front (not the back) of your ship disk is your torpedo bay. When launching a torpedo, place the torpedo in the bay. Torpedoes have their own rules for movement; see “Torpedoes,” below.

Transporting Crew

To transport crew you must be within range of the target ship or terrain disk and your shields and the target’s shields must be at 0 (use the Raise Shields order to lower your shields). Use the range template to determine if you’re in range in the same manner as when firing beam weapons. You may transport any number of ready crew (see “Ready & Activated,” below). If you’ve transported to a ship with enemy crew aboard, combat ensues during Step 4: Boarding.

Damage

Each weapon has a damage rating. To determine damage, pick up a number of damage counters equal to that damage rating. Shake the disks and drop them on the table. You score one hit for each disk with the “HIT!” side face up. Ignore the rest.

Moving into the second Order phase, Diana still holds the highest command and may act first or defer. She’s got the T’deret in her sights, so she decides to go first. Diana’s current speed is 3, so she flips her ship 3 times, moving in a straight line. She then reveals her Attack order and uses her range template to determine that she’s in range. She fires! Her Beam Weapon rating is 4. She picks up 4 damage counters and drops them on the table: 2 of them land with “HIT” face up. She’s scored 2 hits to the T’deret!

Hits damage shields first, with residual points damaging the hull. A ship only suffers hull damage once its shields falls to zero. If your hull reaches 0, your ship is immediately destroyed.

Owen’s ship has current Shields of 7 and a Hull of 7. Diana’s two hits inflict two points of damage to Owen’s ship. Owen applies the damage to his shields, rotating his shield status counter so it reads “5.”

Had Owen’s current shields been at 1, he would have applied the first point of damage to his shields, removing his shield status counter to show “Shields Down.” Then he would have applied the second point of damage to his hull.

Critical Hits

Any time a ship takes a hit to its shields or hull, regardless of how much damage is inflicted, there is a chance of critical damage occurring.

The back of every damage counter describes a type of critical result. There are five types of criticals possible. Whenever you inflict damage on a ship, select one of each critical counter, shake all five of them, and drop them on the table.

Diana has inflicted two hits on Owen’s ship. She picks up five damage counters, each with a different critical on the back, shakes them, and drops them on the table.

Criticals are unlikely. If your ship takes damage only to its shields, then a critical occurs if only one of the five damage disks shows a critical. If your ship takes any hull damage during an attack, then a critical occurs if one or two damage counters show a critical.

When a critical occurs, apply the effect described on the critical disk. If hull damage occurred, and two crits came up, apply the effects of both counters.

Diana drops her critical counters. Only one of them shows a critical (a “bridge crit”), the rest show ordinary hits. The bridge crit reads “Remove all revealed bridge crew from play.” Owen doesn’t have any bridge crew, so he doesn’t suffer from this effect. Had two or more disks shown a critical, no crit would have occurred.

A ship can only sustain two of the same type of critical hit before being destroyed. After taking a critical of any type, mark the control panel with your own set of counters to keep track of the criticals your ship has suffered and the effects they generate. As soon as a ship takes a second Crit of the same type, it is destroyed.

Owen didn’t lose any crew, but he did take the critical to his bridge. He takes one of his bridge crit counters and places it on his control panel. If he takes another bridge crit this game, his ship is destroyed and Diana wins.

Activating Crew/Tech

One of the most versatile orders in the game, Activate Crew/Tech allows you to use crew and tech disks to perform special abilities and carry out multiple orders.

Ready & Activated

As we’ve already explained, crew & tech disks can be either revealed or concealed. Revealed disks can also be “ready” or “activated.”

If a crew or tech disk is face up, capable of performing its special ability or issuing an order, it’s “ready.” A crew or tech disk that’s been flipped over, for any reason, has been “activated.” Activated disks can’t use abilities, issue orders, be transported, or be used in any other way until readied again.

Special Abilities

Most ship, crew, and tech disks have special abilities. Many abilities produce their effects continuously throughout the game.

The Federation’s Advanced Transporter tech reads: “+1 transporter range.” This increase in range is continuous: the disk produces its effect throughout the entire game (unless destroyed), without requiring activation.

Some disks have special abilities followed by the word “flip.” These disks can use their abilities at any point in the game, but they must be flipped after use. The ability cannot be used again until the activated disk is readied.

The Federation’s Pulse Phasers disk reads: “If you score 3 hits from Beam Weapon, you may immediately fire again, flip.” The player with this tech can, if he scores three hits from his beam weapons, immediately fire again, but he must then flip this disk to its “activated” side (no order required). As a result, he cannot continue to fire again even if his next shot scores three hits.

Finally, some disks require the Activate Crew/Tech order to use. These disks have the Activate Crew/Tech order icon at the beginning of their text. When activating such a disk, you must flip it.

Lt. Barclay’s special ability reads: “: Ready a Tech.” If the player controlling him issues an Activate Crew/Tech order, either from his control panel or from another Crew, he may flip Barclay and ready any tech on the same ship.

Special abilities generally affect the ship with the crew or tech disk onboard. Some disks target other ships, crew, other player’s orders, etc. These disks use the word “target” when referring to an opposing ship.

Crew and tech disks that have been activated—for any reason—generally cease to produce their special ability effects. This is true of all disks, including those that don’t need to be flipped to perform their abilities.

Using Crew to Execute Orders

Some crew have order icons on their disk. In this case, the crew may be flipped to execute those orders. These are the same five orders your ship can execute, and they work exactly the same way.

Many disks have more than one order. Unless the orders are paired together in the same row, you must choose only one of the listed orders when you activate the crew.

Lt. Cdr. La Forge has the Raise Shields, Change Speed, and Change Heading orders listed on his disk. With an Activate Crew order, Diana could flip La Forge to carry out any one—but only one—of these.

Some crew disks have one or more sets of orders paired together in rows. This means you may flip and activate this disk to perform both orders in a pair in one Order phase.

Orders generated by crew can occur in any order, before or after movement, just like those prompted by normal Order counters. If your crew disk has two order icons in a row, they can occur in any order, before or after movement.

Charles reveals an Activate Crew/Tech order. He’s got Cpt. Picard on his ship, and decides to use him. Picard has three order options: Attack and Activate Crew/Tech (paired together), Raise Shields and Change Speed (again, paired), and Change Heading (alone). Charles decides to use the middle row of icons: Raise Shields and Change Speed. Charles activates Picard, and may now move, Raise Shields, and Change Speed in any sequence desired.

The key thing to remember when combining crew orders and ship movement is that each order can be carried out before or after movement.

Cloaking Devices

Ships with cloaking devices can evade detection—and therefore attack—but at the cost of losing offensive capabilities. Cloaked ships cannot fire or be fired upon by enemy ships.

There are three types of cloaking devices. The most basic is the Type I cloak. An Activate Crew/Tech order must be used to activate the cloak. While activated, the ship’s shields are reduced to 0 and it cannot fire at other ships. At the beginning of any Orders phase, before revealing that phase’s order, the player may drop the cloak (flipping the disk back to its ready state), but the ship’s shields remain at 0 until they are raised.

The Type II cloak works like the Type I, but it may be activated (the cloak raised) before any Orders phase, without requiring an Activate Crew/Tech order. It may not be lowered the same phase it was raised.

The Type III cloak works as a Type II, but when the cloak is readied (dropped), the ship’s shields immediately raise to full without requiring a Raise Shields order.

Torpedoes

Torpedoes move when they are first launched, then again at the end of the orders phase, after each player has moved his ships and completed his orders. A torpedo remains in play for two additional order phases, giving it (unless it strikes a ship first) four opportunities to move: once when launched, then again at the end of three order phases. At the end of its third orders phase, the torpedo expires. Remove it from the table.

Torpedoes move much like ships—they flip end over end a number of times equal to their movement. They do not, however, require Change Heading orders. When the torpedo is launched, you may change its heading after each flip. On its three subsequent movements, you may change its heading at the beginning of each move. Torpedoes can’t change their speed, and always move their complete movement rating. During torpedo movement, all torpedoes move simultaneously.

If a torpedo makes contact with any ship at any time, it inflicts its damage immediately and is removed from play (see “Damage", above). This includes the possibility of a ship hitting a torpedo at any point during the ship’s movement. Ships can hit their own torpedoes, so be careful!

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