Unit, Planetary Defense System

THE PLANETARY DEFENSE SYSTEM (PDS) UNIT 

Units Available: 9

Cost: 2

Combat value: 6

Ground Unit

Space Cannon

Planetary Shield

Invasion Defense

The PDS unit represents both anti-fleet and planetary invasion countermeasures (missiles and enormous energy cannons) as well as a planetary shield. The rules for using the various abilities of the PDS unit are as follows:

PDS LIMITATION
A player may never have more than two PDS units on a planet. A planet already holding two PDS units cannot produce a third.

SPACE CANNON
A PDS unit is capable of firing its massive arsenal into space in order to destroy nearby enemy ships. The basic range of a PDS reaches only into its own system, but by acquiring both Magen Defense Grid and Deep Space Cannon it can be extended into adjacent systems.

A PDS “space cannon attack” is always during the Activation Sequence, given one of the two conditions below:

• After the owner of the PDS has activated a system, and after any friendly ship movement into the system, each of the active player's PDS units in range may fire once at any enemy fleet in the activated system before a Space Battle begins. Note that the activating player's PDS units (that are in range) may fire even if the player did not move any ships into the system during the activation. In other words, it is possible for a player to activate a system purely for the purposes of firing his PDS at an enemy fleet in range.

• When a player activates a system in range of an enemy PDS unit, the owners of any enemy PDS units in range may, after the movement step of the Activation Sequence, fire once per PDS at any units in the system owned by the activating player. Note that when firing your PDS units during another player's activation, you may only fire at the units controlled by the activating player. It is thus not possible to draw third party PDS fire at an enemy fleet by simply activating its system from afar.

PLANETARY SHIELD
During the Invasion Combat step of the Activation Sequence, after bombardment rolls, deduct one bombardment hit for each PDS unit on the planet.

INVASION DEFENCE
Immediately before the first round of an Invasion Combat, any defending PDS units on a planet may fire, once per PDS, at the invading occupying forces. This is a one-time pre-combat shot only and does not occur before every other round of the subsequent Invasion Combat.

FIRING PDS UNITS
When firing a PDS unit, simply roll one die for each PDS involved. For each result equal to or greater than the combat value of the PDS (normally a 6), the enemy fleet (or invading occupying forces) must immediately take a casualty without being granted return fire.

Magen Defense Grid grants +1 to PDS rolls, and combined with Graviton Laser it allows each miss to be re-rolled once.

TRANSPORTING PDS UNITS
When built, PDS units are always placed on the planet of the producing Space Dock. PDS units cannot move of their own volition. PDS units must be transported to other planets via ships with transporting capability i.e. a Carrier, War Sun or Flagship.

TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES FOR PDS UNITS
Deep Space Cannon

Magen Defence Grid

Graviton Laser