Disengage +/- Question

[afterimagedan]

*puts on the dunce hat of shame*

A friend was confused by the disengage rules and it made me question if we are doing it right.

When disengaging, the +1 per blast marker withing 5cm, +3 celestial phenomena within 15cm, and -1 per each enemy ship and ordinance marker within 15cm are all applied to the ROLL for the leadership test and not the leadership value itself. Is this correct?

If so, how does this make sense lore-wise? I would assume that celestial phenomena would shield your retreat and should make your escape easier because you could go through the astroids/gas clouds and be obscured. I understand why blast markers would make it harder to disengage but wouldn't enemies nearby make it harder to get out of there unnoticed?

Someone please help me 

[horizon]

?
Enemies make it harder, that's why they gave -1ld to the roll. Are you asking for a bigger downset? Remember 1cm = 1000km

Blastmarkers (+1) and phenomena (+3) make it easier.

The values are applied to the leadership. So a vessel with Ld 8 within range of 2 bm (+2), 1 asteroid field (+3), 4 enemies (-4) have an effective Ld value of: 8+2+3-4 = 9.
Then the dice are rolled.

From FAQ:

When disengaging, ALL positive and negative modifiers must be added together before determining the leadership check, even though check rolls of 11 or 12 still automatically fail. For instance, a ship or escort squadron with Ld9 attempts to disengage after moving within 5cm of three blast markers and an asteroid field (+4Ld) with no enemy ships or ordnance markers within 15cm (no negative modifier). Even though the effective leadership to disengage is now Ld13 because these must all be added together BEFORE the roll, the player must still roll no higher than 10 to not fail the check.

[afterimagedan]

Gotcha. my mind got so thrown off by this conversation, I don't know where the hell I was going with that whole thing. My gripes about how realistic it is are because I was thinking the modifiers were applied to the dice, not the ld characteristic. Thanks for the help!