If I ram into a ship with the tie phantom and shoot the ship behind the ship I am touching (I do not have stress) can I take a free action to cloak from ACD? In other words if something grants me a free action and I am based with something can I still take that free action?

Yes, when you bump into another ship, you skip your perform action step, but this is not the same as being stressed and not being able to perform actions at all. You can still perform other actions besides your default one on turns you collide. Same is true with asteroids, but in this exact case (advanced cloak device), you'd still be screwed if you happened to stop ON the asteroid due to not being able to attack for the round.

Keep in mind that you cannot perform any actions at all, including a free cloak action if you have not yet cleared an existing stress token.

You played it correctly. Overlapping another ship causes you to lose your perform action step. You still can take free action at any time as long as you are not carrying a stress token.

Yes, when you bump into another ship, you skip your perform action step, but this is not the same as being stressed and not being able to perform actions at all. You can still perform other actions besides your default one on turns you collide. Same is true with asteroids, but in this exact case (advanced cloak device), you'd still be screwed if you happened to stop ON the asteroid due to not being able to attack for the round.

Okay, help me understand this. You skip your perform actions step, but you can still perform actions? How does that work?

Okay, help me understand this. You skip your perform actions step, but you can still perform actions? How does that work?

Basically, the Perform Action step lets you perform an action. Simple enough.

But it's not the only way you can perform actions. A number of other abilities let you take actions under certain triggers. These are universally called "free actions". Basically, a free action is any action other than the one you take during your Perform Action step.

A number of events will make you skip your perform action step: overlapping another ship, overlapping an obstacle, maneuver template overlapping an obstacle. To date, only one thing prevents you from taking actions completely: stress tokens.

So if you overlap with another ship or obstacle you skip your Perform Action step, and lose your "normal" action. But if you have an ability that comes along later and lets you take a free action - Lando, Airen Cracken, Squad Leader, Advanced Sensors/Cloak, etc - you can still perform those actions normally.

What if there were no ship behind the one you rammed? Could you shoot at nothing and re-cloak? Or do you lose your chance to recloak? Some things occur during a ship's opportunity to attack, would this be among those?