Perhaps this is more of a mechanic clarification as opposed to a bug. I did send an email before, during, and after the particular play.

My sub included a pirate, navigator and a double agent.

The enemy sub includes a smuggler, saboteur, and war hero. The enemy sub was also in range an enemy outpost holding a diplomat.

I'm not sure what triggers when during the combat phase, so maybe some clarification is needed? My thoughts on it:

1. Subs collide and combat starts.

2. Specialist priorities are ordered, with the saboteur having the highest priority at 3. His ability tags my sub as the enemy sub and causes a malfunction to it if it survives the combat to return to the owner's nearest outpost (Boxlighter in this case).

3. Next specialist with priority triggers. My double agent. All drillers are destroyed, and the double agent's malfunctioned sub and the saboteur's healthy sub switches ownership.

4. The malfunctioned sub now should return to the outpost is was triggered to (Boxlighter), though it is owned now by the enemy. It has the double agent, pirate, and navigator. The pirate's ability triggers to set speed to 4.

5. The healthy sub (war hero, smuggler, saboteur) continues on it's original course to Boxlighter but is now owned by me and so the smuggler sets speed to 3.

6. Malfunctioned sub arrives at Boxlighter first, specialists are captured. The diplomat owned by the enemy releases them so the specialists are released. During that time, I chart a sub with a single driller to intercept that specialist sub with the Double Agent triggering his ability and switching ownership again.

7. Healthy sub returns to Boxlighter.

8. Double agent sub is now owned by me and the sub is now healthy. I use the navigator to turn it around and arrive at Boxlighter again.

What really happened:

The saboteur's abilities never triggered.

Before picture:



After picture:



BTW: Champinoman had a great move using the diplomat, smuggler, saboteur, and war hero - he could have hit every single incoming sub to his last mine saving himself. Awesome move.

Just a small amendment to the above. After the combat was resolved my new sub (that probably should have been malfunctioning) was heading towards Boxlighter like Braxo expected to happen. I used my navigator to turn it around.

My thoughts on this issue are fairly similar to what Braxo has said with one difference. The saboteur states that if the enemy sub survives combat then it returns to its closest outpost. I agree that Braxo's original sub (the one I now control) should be the one that is malfunctioning, however I believe that the resolution of it's destination should be resolves at the end of combat when the "if it survives combat" part of the action is resolved. Therefore I believe that my new malfunctioning sub should have been heading towards my nearest outpost and not Braxo's nearest outpost like it did.

Braxo wrote:BTW: Champinoman had a great move using the diplomat, smuggler, saboteur, and war hero - he could have hit every single incoming sub to his last mine saving himself. Awesome move.

I went too early though and allowed for you to intercept with the pirate causing the above dilemma

Thinking about it more, I agree with your assessment Champ.

If anybody is familiar with Magic: The Gathering, there is a concept called the stack. With that in mind, the Sabtoteur's 'after combat' trigger would fire after the Double Agent returning the Double Agent sub to Champinoman's outpost malfunctioned. The Pirate would also trigger setting the speed to 4x.

However, malfunctioning never happened.

here's what i think should have happened (and did happen):

1. Subs collide and combat starts.

2. Specialist priorities are ordered, with the saboteur having the highest priority at 3. His ability changes the destination of the pink pirate/nav/DA sub to boxlighter (immediately, not if it survives, latest description is more precise about this: "Redirects enemy sub to its owner's nearest outpost when participating is sub-to-sub combat.").

3. Next specialist with priority triggers. My double agent. All drillers are destroyed, and the double agent's malfunctioned sub and the saboteur's healthy sub switches ownership.

4. The malfunctioned sub now should return to the outpost is was triggered to (Boxlighter), though it is owned now by the enemy. It has the double agent, pirate, and navigator. The pirate's ability triggers to set speed to 4. and it does, BUT ITS NEW OWNER CHANGES COURSE AND SENDS IT BACK TO GARFIELD, causing the sub to lose its 4x speed (it only has that when it's headed back to its intended location as determined when combat begins). you can see the course change right when the combat happens because there's a dashed line from the sub to garfield.

5. The healthy sub (war hero, smuggler, saboteur) continues on it's original course to Boxlighter but is now owned by me and so the smuggler sets speed to 3.

6. Malfunctioned sub arrives at Boxlighter first, specialists are captured. The diplomat owned by the enemy releases them so the specialists are released. During that time, I chart a sub with a single driller to intercept that specialist sub with the Double Agent triggering his ability and switching ownership again.

so i think everything happened exactly as it should have. if you're confused or disagree, let me know, because that means there's probably some text we need to fix in order to make this clearer.

ron wrote:BUT ITS NEW OWNER CHANGES COURSE AND SENDS IT BACK TO GARFIELD

but you said:

ron wrote:2. Specialist priorities are ordered, with the saboteur having the highest priority at 3. His ability changes the destination of the pink pirate/nav/DA sub to boxlighter (immediately, not if it survives, latest description is more precise about this: "Redirects enemy sub to its owner's nearest outpost when participating is sub-to-sub combat.").

So should the new owner of the pirate/nav/DA be able to redirect the sub considering it's meant to be malfunctioning?

we removed the malfunctioning thing a build or two ago, realizing that it's not really necessary. the latest description of the saboteur reflects that (might not be out in the current version, not sure).

originally we had it there so that (a) you couldn't counteract a saboteur with a navigator, (b) we used it to make sure the pirate (if traveling with a nav) doesn't change course while traveling 4x, and (c) when the diplomat releases a captive navigator we don't want it to be able to change course (because we didn't want a general/diplomat/navigator combo to mean that you can bounce off an outpost killing 10 drillers each time).

but in the end, we realized that (a) a navigator can go around a saboteur anyway, (b) we can just remove the 4x bonus if a pirate is no longer headed for the nearest friendly outpost because he's traveling with a navigator and change course, and (c) if you happen to have that very rare combo, one of which is a promoted specialist, more power to you. there are a few counters to it so we're ok with it.

anyway, that's probably more than you wanted to know, but thought maybe you'd find the back story interesting

That all makes sense then. I don't think that either of us realized the malfunctioning function had been removed.