So the damage can be taken to the shield and does not go directly to the hull is what you all agree on, or is it only the one guy? I take it literally to mean what it says. The ship suffers 1 damage.

Page 16 of the rulebook:

When a ship suffers damage or critical damage, it suffers them one at a time following these steps.

1. Reduce Shields: If there are any shield tokens remaining on the ship's card, remove one of the tokens and skip Step 2. If there are no shield tokens, proceed to Step 2 below.

2. Damage Hull: Deal one Damage card to the ship based on the type of damage it suffered.

Ok works for me. I was just taking the card to literally I guess.

I was just taking the card to literally I guess.

I don't think you did. You were mistaken about the meaning of "suffer one damage".

we were going straight through shields to start with before someone spotted the deal damage and take a damage CARD bit.

The problem we have is though:-

After suffering an Ion hit in one turn, at the end of the following activation you remove all Ion tokens ...

then you get Ionised again and so on so you just die.....???

However you can do actions....so although you can only move one forward.....you can still

barrel roll or boost.....which we think seems a little odd????

then you get Ionised again and so on so you just die.....???

Yes in theory you can keep shooting a ship with ion's until they blow up.

which we think seems a little odd????

It may not fit with the lore exactly, in the movies and games ion's make it so you can do nothing. But in X-Wing the effect of an ion token (2 on large ships, and Huge ships treat them differently still) is that you do not set a dial, and make a white 1 straight maneuver.

So yes you can still perform actions and the like. Although the best use of a Ion is on a stressed ship, since it's a white maneuver it doesn't get rid of the stress, and that does prevent it from taking any actions.

Ooh, ooh, can I say something? Buwahahaha. ;-)