So Experimental Interface says:

Once per round, after you perform an action, you may perform 1 free action from an equipped Upgrade card with the " Action: " header. Then receive 1 stress token.

My question is combining this card with Dauntless (although I suppose PTL is relevant as well)

Dauntless says:

After you execute a maneuver that causes you to overlap another ship, you may perform one free action. Then receive 1 stress token.

So there are two ways this can be interpreted:

1. Overlap ship

2. Dauntless kicks in you get a free action.

3. Dauntless gives you a stress.

4. Experimental Interface cannot activate since you have stress and cannot take a free action while stressed (well it could, but it would be foolish to do it as it would just give you more stress).

or

1. Overlap ship

2. Dauntless kicks in you get a free action.

3. Experimental Interface kicks in and gives you a free action

4. Experimental Interface gives you stress.

5. Dauntless gives you stress.

Which one is right?

Interesting. It looks like Experimental Interface should be able to trigger mid Dauntless to give you a second action before the stress kicks in... But timing in this game is relatively poorly defined and I'd be willing to bet the final answer being the first scenario.

After the Dauntless action there are two things you want to do: Receive stress and trigger EI. According to the FAQ, if you have several effects that resolve at the same time, the player may choose in which order to resolve them. Therefore both ways are legal. You are free to always choose the 2nd one.

Actually it could not take the free even if it wanted to. You cannot perform ANY actions while stressed, not even free ones. Sorry guys, I was thinking about EI wrong.

You are right, and wrong. EI can not be used off of dauntless. But that is due to the stress cost. Dauntless grants you a free action, and free actions normally can trigger PtL and EI.

I was re-reading the FAQ, and I noticed the word effect being used a lot. Basically a game effect is what happens when a card ability is executed. The whole card text to be precise. If you read the FAQ on Captain Yorr, it clearly mentions that the stress from PtL is the part of the result of that ability.

The FAQ states that if two effects resolve at the same time, you can choose the order. But The effect of Dauntless and EI in the OP, do not trigger at the same time, and thus do not resolve at the same time. So you resolve the effect of Dauntless first, and then you can't perform PtL or EI, because you received a stress token as part of the effect of Dauntless.

After the Dauntless action there are two things you want to do: Receive stress and trigger EI. According to the FAQ, if you have several effects that resolve at the same time, the player may choose in which order to resolve them. Therefore both ways are legal. You are free to always choose the 2nd one.

There is no stack, so you must resolve them in their entirety one at a time, in whatever order you want. Since you wouldn't normally be able to use EI first, I'd say the answer is fairly self-explanatory.

There is no stack, so you must resolve them in their entirety one at a time, in whatever order you want.

Then how does Porkin's ability work at all? He must interrupt the effects of some cards (Oppurtunist, Expert Handling), or else it would never work at all.

Uh, what? Porkins doesn't interrupt anything, so far as I'm aware. You simply perform his ability after the effect in question. I suppose part of the problem is how poorly worded the cards are. Ultimately, there are only two ways to resolve a stress-giving effect: either you receive the stress as a cost of the effect (i.e. beforehand), or as a consequence of it (i.e. after). I think we can safely rule out the latter scenario as a cause for debate. If you read Yorr's FAQ entry, I think it actually provides a precedent for Porkins not receiving the benefit of Opportunist if he uses his ability. Perhaps the reason the FAQ doesn't address this issue for Porkins is because they worded his ability as a trigger, not a replacement effect.

At any rate, paying a cost typically occurs outside of whatever normal timing windows may or may not exist in a game, so even if we assume there to be a stack or a system of nested triggers, there's no reason to believe that Porkins' ability interrupts the subsequent effect - especially since his own text lacks the word "immediately." Without the benefit of well defined keywords and timing phraseology, the best thing we can do is take a practical approach to resolving effects, which is what FFG typically does with their ad hoc rulings anyways.

This one is complicated because the trigger for Experimental Interface isn't the Dauntless's ability, but taking an action. If you are using the Dauntless to get an action, it's pretty clear that the action comes before the stress. Can an ability that's triggered by taking an action jump in there before the stress? Possibly. After all, if you wait until after you have the stress you've now done something else other than taking an action and you can't normally delay triggers like that except for other things trigger off of the same thing.

I suppose it could get really hairy if you had Dauntless, Experimental Interface AND Push the Limit. With the nested effect theory, you could get three actions, but three stress tokens. That's just getting a little too stressful.

Tycho Celchu + Daredevil + Test Pilot + Push the Limit + Experimental Interface

3 stress in a turn.... every turn.

And match him with a Co-ordinating Huge for surprise stress stripping.

I suppose it could get really hairy if you had Dauntless, Experimental Interface AND Push the Limit. With the nested effect theory, you could get three actions, but three stress tokens. That's just getting a little too stressful.

Something tells me FFG isn't going to let that happen.

I suppose it could get really hairy if you had Dauntless, Experimental Interface AND Push the Limit. With the nested effect theory, you could get three actions, but three stress tokens. That's just getting a little too stressful.

Something tells me FFG isn't going to let that happen.

Agreed. I fully expect them to rule that you can't nest the effects like that. However, I can't think of any good precedent to prove it from the current rulings.

I suppose it could get really hairy if you had Dauntless, Experimental Interface AND Push the Limit. With the nested effect theory, you could get three actions, but three stress tokens. That's just getting a little too stressful.

Something tells me FFG isn't going to let that happen.

Never heard of the famous Rebel Imperial VT-49-A-Wing Test Pilot Tycho Celchu, flying the Large prototype VT-49-A-Wing Dauntless?

I can totally see this happen with a repaint of a blue stripe down the middle of the Dauntless

My take on the OP's question is the first option. It seems the most logical way to play it to me. Although there's no precedent one way or the other on whether you can nest these things. I'm going to deal with this sort of thing on a case-by-case basis and come to a logical consensus within our group. Seems the fairest way in the meantime. I think there's too many variables involved to cause any specific FAQ entries. We may only get a generalised idea of how this sort of multiple nested use might play.

1. Overlap ship

2. Dauntless kicks in you get a free action.

3. Dauntless gives you a stress.

4. Experimental Interface cannot activate since you have stress and cannot take a free action while stressed.

This is correct.

It's a sequential order. There is no nesting.

Then how does Porkin's ability work at all? He must interrupt the effects of some cards (Oppurtunist, Expert Handling), or else it would never work at all.

This.

We actually have several clear examples of abilities which can interrupt other abilities, but I think Yorr is the clearest. We know that if Yorr uses his ability, the original ship never actually receives the stress token at all. This would be impossible for many abilities if Yorr couldn't interrupt it. Captain Kagi is another good example - if abilities couldn't do anything until after the current one, then things like R5-K6 and Dutch would bypass Kagi, because his "must lock me instead" couldn't come into play until after the lock was in place.

The "can't interrupt anything" theory also runs into serious problems with duration abilities. It's all well and good for something short-duration like PtL that has a trigger and then it's done, but what about "When attacking..." abilities like Wedge or Dark Curse? Do they stop anything else from triggering until after they're resolved? And don't forget that attacks from secondary weapons have effects - Cluster Missiles, when activated, causes you to make two attacks, and can't be done until both attacks are complete. But we know from a multitude of "I hate this card" rulings that any and all abilities that trigger on attacks can do so after the first, and resolve before the second attack is made.

On the flip side, are there any rulings that require the "sequential order" to function?

I suppose it could get really hairy if you had Dauntless, Experimental Interface AND Push the Limit. With the nested effect theory, you could get three actions, but three stress tokens. That's just getting a little too stressful.

Well the decimator has no red manoeuvres...

This.

We actually have several clear examples of abilities which can interrupt other abilities, but I think Yorr is the clearest. We know that if Yorr uses his ability, the original ship never actually receives the stress token at all. This would be impossible for many abilities if Yorr couldn't interrupt it. Captain Kagi is another good example - if abilities couldn't do anything until after the current one, then things like R5-K6 and Dutch would bypass Kagi, because his "must lock me instead" couldn't come into play until after the lock was in place.

The "can't interrupt anything" theory also runs into serious problems with duration abilities. It's all well and good for something short-duration like PtL that has a trigger and then it's done, but what about "When attacking..." abilities like Wedge or Dark Curse? Do they stop anything else from triggering until after they're resolved? And don't forget that attacks from secondary weapons have effects - Cluster Missiles, when activated, causes you to make two attacks, and can't be done until both attacks are complete. But we know from a multitude of "I hate this card" rulings that any and all abilities that trigger on attacks can do so after the first, and resolve before the second attack is made.

On the flip side, are there any rulings that require the "sequential order" to function?

Yorr is a replacement effect, so what you get is actually a modified event. FFG being generally inconsistent about word choice doesn't really make for a clear precedent, but at the very least we can consider the use of the word 'instead' (and similar phraseology) to always be a replacement effect, not a nested trigger. If a ship never received a stress token, then nothing was interrupted, was it?

Duration effects are already a prime cause of confusion, and you yourself admit that the timing windows in X-Wing are ill defined. Sometimes "when" means immediately (a trigger), and sometimes it doesn't. Since a continuous effect is not the same thing as a trigger, I'm not really sure how Dark Curse or Wedge figure into this conversation. Either way, nothing is actually being interrupted by their abilities (nor interrupting them).

Clearly there's cases where one action interrupts an effect, Yorr being the best example, because if you use him with Soontir then Soontir doesn't get his free focus.

To me the question here is, can you interrupt Dauntless with EL, or PtL, or not. PtL doesn't really interrupt anything, it just gives you a stress after preforming the second action.

I'm inclined to say that in this case there is no nesting, because nothing about EL or PtL that would cause it to interrupt the Dauntless effect, no way of inserting it into the chain so it becomes a nested effect. Mostly that's due to the trigger being After you preform an action, so again it doesn't seem like it would insert itself in the middle of the Dauntless effect.

That's not because there are no nested effects in X-Wing, but rather because I don't see how this case becomes one.

Again, a replacement effect is not an interrupt. Nothing is interrupting Fel's ability, he simply never gets a stress in the first place.

Nothing is interrupting Fel's ability, he simply never gets a stress in the first place.

How do you figure that?

Fel does something that gives him a stress. Yorr takes that stress away, before it ever gets to Fel in the first place, so Fel can't use his ability.

How is this not Yorr interrupting the normal flow of the effect? It's not just a replacement effect, you're using one effect to change the outcome of another effect before it finishes. This is IMO a pretty clear definition of being interrupted.

How do you figure that?

Because Yorr's ability uses the word "instead," and that's what instead means. Replacement effects are continuous, and do not interrupt the flow of the game with a trigger. Read Yorr's FAQ entry, and you can see where it specifically mentions Fel. Why do you think Fel doesn't get to use his ability if Yorr gets the stress, if not because Fel never received it in the first place?

I'm inclined to say that in this case there is no nesting, because nothing about EL or PtL that would cause it to interrupt the Dauntless effect, no way of inserting it into the chain so it becomes a nested effect. Mostly that's due to the trigger being After you preform an action, so again it doesn't seem like it would insert itself in the middle of the Dauntless effect.

That's not because there are no nested effects in X-Wing, but rather because I don't see how this case becomes one.

All three of these effects are basically the same: A trigger occurs, you perform a free action, then you gain a stress.

In the case of PtL and EI, the trigger is performing any action. If that action occurs as part of resolving an ability (A) then the trigger occurs immediately, and you resolve it immediately, before continuing on.

It's basically the timing as the OP outlined in his second case.

All three of these effects are basically the same: A trigger occurs, you perform a free action, then you gain a stress.

In the case of PtL and EI, the trigger is performing any action. If that action occurs as part of resolving an ability (A) then the trigger occurs immediately, and you resolve it immediately, before continuing on.

It's basically the timing as the OP outlined in his second case.

Which I "basically" suspect will be quashed by FFG the moment wave 5 hits the shelves, supposing that such an interpretation is legitimate in the first place. Permitting nested triggers without an explicitly defined set of timing rules, and a method of resolving them that amounts to "do what you want in the order you want" is going to cause no small amount of chaos.

Also, I like your new approach to my posts. I can now safely read your silence as tacit agreement.