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i would like to sort out the ' aquire target ' rule.

snario. i and my apponents ships are moving toward each other, my apponent moves first ending his movement at range 2 his action is to aquire a target lock on me. he only has primary weapons (lasers). its now my movemnet and i move to a point behind his ship i also use my action for a target lock as i have a proton torpedo. now my question is who get to fire?
as i am out of my apponents arc of fire does he still get to shoot with the target lock? lets say his ship is an X-wing mine is tie advanced, the X-wing's laseres are forward facing and i am now behind moving away.

I would say no. For any linear weapon (lasers, guns, etc) you should have to be within the designated fire arc.

Missiles (possibly torpedos) may have the ability to do massive changes in direction, so they may be allowed a 360 fire arc with a proper lock.

Generally speaking, you can only fire at something (1) within your arc and (2) within range 3. Target lock does not allow you to shoot something that does not meet both of those requirements.

I don't believe there are any exceptions for secondary weapons (unless written on the card -- e.g., cluster missiles can only be fired within range 1-2). See p. 19 of the rulebook.

Unless I am totally mistaken, the only weapons that can ignore the forward arc of fire restriction are turret mounted weapons.

I believe you are correct, Saldiven.

Yep, saldiven hit the nail on the head, spot on.

The Falcon is another interesting case - 360 degree arc for its primary gun, but it still has a front arc which is just for missiles.

Backstabber's rule reads: "when attacking from outside the defender's firing arc."

The YT-1300 and the Firespray have multiple arcs. The question is therefore "by what is the defender's firing arc defined?" Is it:

(a) the most expansive arc?
(b) the most narrow arc?
(c) the primary weapons arc?
(d) the arc described by unbroken lines on the card base?

The second wave ships were not the first to have multiple firing arcs. Remember the Ion Cannon Turret? That card reads: "Attack 1 ship (even a ship outside your firing arc)." At least concerning upgrade weapons, that means the answer is option (d).

The tricky part is, the YT-1300 and Firespray have 360- and multi-arcs respectively as a matter of their primary weapons and limited forward-fire arcs as a matter of (some) upgrades. This is the reverse of the Y-Wing example.

Backstabber's name seems to indicate that his power is based on the notion of attacking his target via an angle from which his target cannot (or could not normally) attack him. If he attacked a Y-Wing's side or rear arcs, his special rule would apply regardless of whether the Y-Wing was actually equipped with an ion cannon.

I have heard it argued that option (d) above controls in the case of the YT-1300 and Firespray -- but that argument is "it's the firing arc of the ship and not the firing arc of the weapon," which to me is nothing more than begging the question.

Going back to my reasoning about Backstabber's rule, I'd think that a functional YT-1300 could always attack Backstabber no matter what angle from which Backstabber attacked it. Same with regard to the rear arc of the Firespray. That's option (c). Option (c), by the way, also explains the Ion Cannon Turret language.

i don't have the rules on me but i believe my Firespray came with rules that said the front is the firing arc and the rear was aux fire arc.

Sure, if the rules explicitly say "the front 90 degrees is this ship's firing arc" then that's that. But if we don't have something explicit, the issue is wide open. Should a ship's firing arc be determined by special weapons with which it may or may not be equipped or its standard, primary weapons with which every variant is equipped?

IIRC, the Firespray card base has unbroken lines defining the front arc and broken lines defining the rear arc. The YT-1300 has unbroken lines defining the front arc and then a circular arrow wrapping around the stem axis.

 Manchu wrote:
Should a ship's firing arc be determined by special weapons with which it may or may not be equipped or its standard, primary weapons with which every variant is equipped?

I'd never define a fire arc based on weapons that a ship does not have

But I could see situations where different varients of a ship could have different fire arcs for the backstab rule

As I mentioned, the Ion Cannon Turret distinguishes between how it, the weapon, can fire and the ship's firing arc. So if Backstabber is on an ion-equipped Y-Wing's tail, he can still use his special rule even if the Y-Wing can fire on him from that angle. In that case, we're NOT defining a firing arc based on the weapons that a ship DOES have.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay, looking over the large ship rules, the Firespray doesn't answer our question. Then rules insert makes a distinction between its primary and auxiliary arcs inasmuch as the primary weapon uses both whereas secondary weapons only use the primary arc (bombs aside). The YT-1300 rules, however, make the Ion Cannon Turret style of distinction: the YT-1300's primary weapons can fire outside of its firing arc. That is to say, the firing arc of the YT-1300 is NOT defined by the angles from which its primary weapons can fire. Therefore, Backstabber's rule applies when he fires at any angle of a YT-1300 other than its forward 90 degrees.

The question of the Firespray remains open, I guess.

thank you all for your input, i now wonder why there are two arcs of fire on the yt-1300 base?
it has 2 turrets 1 on top and 1 underneath giving it 360 degree arc of fire so why should there ve a 90 degree arc printed on the base facing forward?
could it be that at some point there will be rules that give turrets a HP value? so that when both are destroyed you have to use the fixed forward facing guns?
also as the yt-1300 has 3 sets of guns (2 360 turrets and fixed forward facing guns) could it be that you acn fire on 3 seperate targets or 1 target 3 times?
since the all 3 sets of guns are independant of each other?

and what about a blind spot for the yt-1300 turrets?
e.g. the turrets can only fire at range 2-3 due to the angle (elevation for the underneath turret and depression for the top turret) of fire?

The YT-1300 has a forward firing arc solely for any missile upgrades it might purchase.

HAWK70 wrote:
could it be that you acn fire on 3 seperate targets or 1 target 3 times? since the all 3 sets of guns are independant of each other? and what about a blind spot for the yt-1300 turrets?

Generally speaking, you can attack once per turn with any ship no matter how many weapons it has. (I believe there is currently no exception to this.) As you might imagine, this effectively eliminates the issue of blind spots because at least one turret will "see" the target at any given time.

Also, I think a YT-1300 has only two turrets (one dorsal and one ventral).

The YT-1300's (and Y-wing ion cannon turret's) specific wording about firing "outside its arc" definitely makes it clear that Backstabber's power isn't negated (and that other weapons are still relegated to the front 90 degrees only). I can't say how Slave I works without having the rules in front of me, but I do remember the secondary weapons (missiles, heavy laser cannon) don't use the back arc.

The only way to attack multiple times is with the Gunner or Luke Skywalker copilots on the big ships, which let you get a second attack if the first one missed.

 MythicalMothman wrote:
I can't say how Slave I works without having the rules in front of me

The Firespray rules do not distinguish between the firing arc and "not in your firing arc" but rather distinguish between primary and auxiliary firing arcs. They are both "firing arcs."