[1e] Turn Orders and (Field) Repair

[virtutis.umbra]

Given that the 3.7 Construction Completion Phase occurs after 3.6 Combat, are 3.7.14 Field Repair operations intended to be allowable without explicit Turn Orders? How about regular 3.7.10 Repairs involving a shipyard or other planetary facilities?

[Tyrel Lohr]

My interpretation has always been that you can only order repairs or field repairs during your turn orders. This means that units that are damaged in combat this turn can't be repaired until the Construction Phase of the next turn.

The best way to think about it is that the ships or troops spent all turn this turn fighting, so their earlier opportunity to go in for repairs is next turn.

[virtutis.umbra]

That's coherent to me. I like the general idea that EVERYTHING you want your units or systems to do has to be explicitly noted in Turn Orders. I just want to make sure I know all the pockets where that doesn't hold true.

It seems like the only mid-turn decisions that players get to make are in the operational (3.6.2) and tactical (3.6.3) layers of ship combat and the tactical (3.6.5.1, 3.6.5.[3-8]) component of Ground Combat, specifically disregarding 3.6.5.2 Invasion and 3.6.4 Orbital Bombardment which explicitly require Turn Orders.

There's also free diplomatic actions in 3.4 Intel Phase, like signing an offered treaty, or agreeing/disagreeing to a withdrawal from a treaty offer, or spending Intel Points to oppose the breaking of a treaty, all of which one might not have been expecting when one wrote one's orders.

Is that right? Am I missing any other points during the turn where a player needs to provide more/newer input than what's on their Turn Orders or does it pretty much run 'on rails' apart from the diversions I've mentioned above? (Not that those are small things, mind you )

[Tyrel Lohr]

That seems to cover it. In most cases, the treaty offers can actually be deferred until the start of the next turn, too, as their effects rarely change the outcome of the rest of the turn. Still, it is a good idea to get into the habit of getting those offered so they can be signed or rejected before it becomes an issue. Luckily there aren't that many treaties that players can offer each other, so treaty offers should be fairly infrequent.

Combat is where turn generation slows down or stops most often. In a PBEM game I usually recommend the CM handle combat resolution just to keep the game going, but in-person or over IM it shouldn't be a problem to get everything played out in rapid fashion.

You're right that the turn does run on rails for most of the turn sequence, and it's only when something important happens that you have to pause generation and go back and handle the conflicting events. For that reason, when playing solo games, I tend to run through turn generation empire-by-empire and then only double back when there is a battle or some other event that involves two or more of the players. That's just force of habit, though.