[Arcs] Survival Override and "do as much as possible"

[turmoilbyrd]

There has been discussion about Survival Overrides, whether it is possible to

1. destroy 1 Loyal ship to destroy 0 rival ship. Or
2. (!) destroy 0 Loyal ship to destroy 1 rival ship

Since destroy is defined with return, and return is governed by Do as much as Possible.

[turmoilbyrd]

My opinion is that both should be No

Reasoning:

Martyr (Move): Destroy... to destroy...

Is a shorthand for

When you spend a pip or a resource to move, you may instead (destroy... to destroy...)

So the "destroy to destroy" clause is put under a "may", this means DAMAP rule, which requires a "must", doesn't apply anymore.

And we can apply Guerric's reasoning about "X to Y" construct on the "destroy to destroy" clause

"To" is a load-bearing word as the community has understood up to this point. If an action initiates with an "X to Y" structure you must be able to do Y to initiate the action and perform X

So both actions must be possible (and no DAMAP)

[jdyearsley]

You cannot. Broadly, the "X to Y" construct should be read as "To do Y, you must do X as a prerequisite." Do you feel this rises to the level of an FAQ entry?

[turmoilbyrd]

You cannot. Broadly, the "X to Y" construct should be read as "To do Y, you must do X as a prerequisite." Do you feel this rises to the level of an FAQ entry?

So how about the other way around, can you destroy 1 Loyal ship to destroy 0 rival ship?

(This is what I referred to as Guerric's logic)

[jdyearsley]

Yes, I will bite this bullet. Thematically it's justified—normally you can't just make ships blow themselves up, but now they've got overrides installed. I'll add this as an FAQ.

[turmoilbyrd]

Yes, I will bite this bullet. Thematically it's justified—normally you can't just make ships blow themselves up, but now they've got overrides installed. I'll add this as an FAQ.

Ok, I am still hoping the "X to Y" constraint works both way (you cannot do X even if you cannot do Y). Because that provides answers for

• [Arcs] Discarding cards without legal Targets #31

[jdyearsley]

Adding retroactive logic like that is incredibly thorny. It would have to exclude cases like Gatekeepers—can I discard it even if I can't place all those ships? No, that would be silly and unintuitive. So at that point I would have to distinguish resolution of Y in cases of full, partial, and none.