I understand that the term free action prety much means nothing, but I have a hell of a time telling a new player it does not grant an extra action, I tell them to consider it a very poor choice of words and say it just gives you and action that is not in your action bar or allows you to tack an action outside of normal timing.

Would you say I am explaining that right or is there a better way to explain it?

What were they thinking when they wrote the term free action???

That is just stupid, it could have been worded so much better.

allows you to take an action outside of normal timing.

This. It's the official meaning, and the best way to explain it.

If it's the one action a ship can normally take during the Perform Action Step, it's an Action.

If it's anything else, it's a Free Action.

As mentioned above

The core rule book states a free action is another action that is taken outside of the action step.

It also states in the rule book you cannot take the same action twice

(I think its bottom of page 12)

So after you move a ship the next step is your perform action step

A free action let's you take an action outside of this step.

That's all you really need to say

And it can't be the same as another action that same round.

It's also worth to point out once they understand, stress you cannot take a free action.

But if you bump/collide with another ship, or fly over an asteroid, you can still gain free actions. As they are again, performed outside the action step

When you bump collide, or fly over an asteroid you lose your action step.

Again free actions are not taken in this phase

Hope I made sense

I'm exhausted so I maybe talking in circles lol

The free action is 'free' in that it is not bound by the limitations of the Activation phase. Sometimes it is freeing because it lets you break the one action rule but getting it normally has some cost with it and sometimes that cost is doing another action.

I think Barrel Roll is the best example of an action that has many uses.

1. You have the traditional Barrel Roll action.

2. You can have a free Barrel Roll action that is specifically triggered by taking a different action. (Expert Handling and others)

3. You can have a free Barrel Roll action that triggers when you get something else. (Jake Farrell)

4. You can have a free Barrel Roll that is triggered when you perform a different type of activity. (Turr Phennir)

The timing on all of these can vary but even with all of these options you could only perform a Barrel Roll action once each round and you can only perform it when circumstances allow.

Oh! Now I like the idea of using the term action step, step refers to timing and is very helpful