I believed that if ships collided they couldn't attack each other and that was the penalty.

At a tournament at the weekend I was told the ship was stressed as well, so no actions, which basically cost me the match and 2nd place.

Does anyone have an answer to this?

Yes the ship loses it action but it is in no way stressed.

Edit: You're also correct that the ships that are touching each other cannot shoot each other.

That's sort of right Tiamat. When two ships overlap, the ship stops at the base of the ship it overlapped, and it skips its perform action step. It does not become stressed, and it can perform free actions if it can gain one from another ability. Also two ships in base contact cannot attack each other, so you are correct in that.

I thought stress my first couple of games, but a 2nd pass through the rules showed I was mistaken. You lose your 'perform an action step' on overlapping, also cannot attack a ship you're touching (unless you happen to be Arvel Crynid), but no stress. Looks like your TO needs a refresher...

Don't have the page in front of me, but one of the rules gurus should be able to provide a reference.

*Dang, ninja'd again... Typing on phone is too slow!

Note, however. If you were performing a red maneuver, such as a k-turn, when you overlapped a ship, the maneuver is still red and will still give you a stress, but it is the red maneuver, not the overlap that's is stressful.

Note, however. If you were performing a red maneuver, such as a k-turn, when you overlapped a ship, the maneuver is still red and will still give you a stress, but it is the red maneuver, not the overlap that's is stressful.

And on the same note, if the maneuver that caused you to overlap was green, it still counts as green for the purpose of removing stress and triggering things like R2-D2's text.

Okay, well what was the cause of stress. If you overlap you cannot perform actions, so yes it is almost the same as stress. However stress is not a result of the collide and you can still do any movement next turn.

If the movement on the dial was red and would cause you to stress you receive the stress token even if you were unable to perform the full move, Perfect example overlapping when attempting a K Turn. You will move as far on the straight ruler as possible but you will not turn around completing the K Turn, However since you attempted a red maneuver you still receive the stress.

Stress tokens prevent you from doing actions and red maneuvers not anything else. You can still do white maneuvers the only thing is that they do not clear the stress so you could not perform an action. Sometimes it is better to do white maneuvers even if you are under stress. Positioning is more important than that focus token which you can't use on blank results.

Okay, well what was the cause of stress. If you overlap you cannot perform actions, so yes it is almost the same as stress. However stress is not a result of the collide and you can still do any movement next turn.

Losing your action due to collision isn't the same as stress - not even close, honestly. When you lose your action due to an overlap, what you're actually losing is your Perform Action Step. The ship can still perform actions. This means that anything that allows a free action - Turr after an attack, Squad Leader, Lando, Cracken, Coordinate, or any other action-granting abilities - still work perfectly well after overlapping a ship or even while you're sitting on an asteroid (except Turr, obviously).

Stress, on the other hand, means the ship cannot perform actions at all.

That's a very big, very important difference, and conflating the two things even as shorthand is a bad idea.