So I am wondering about how a ships actual energy limit (on its card) interacts with the energy limits on the ships upgrade cards, like hardpoints or ionized reactor. Is the energy limit on the ship its maximum energy for the entire ship, including the upgrades or is that just the energy limit for the ship itself and does not include upgrade energy limits. For example if I a basic GR-75 with ionized reactor can I only every have 4 energy tokens total on the ship and its upgrades (making it so the ionized reactor could never go off) or does it mean I can have 4 energy on the ship and also 5 energy on the ionized reactor (for a total of 9 energy) at the same time?

It's the limit for the ship card itself, once energy is transferred to an upgrade card it no longer counts against the ship's energy limit.

Think of it as a bunch of baskets. Your CR-90 basket, and then a Quad laser basket. You can put 5 potatoes in the CR-90 basket, but then you can also move two potatoes into the laser basket.

You cannot move potatoes back from the laser basket to the CR-90 basket. Anything in the laser basket is reserved for that laser. The laser can only eat potatoes from his own basket. And nothing else may eat potatoes from that basket.

In other words: Upgrade cards do not store energy for the ship. They store it exclusively for themselves.

Ok, that's what I was thinking. Thanks for the help.