This seems ambiguous to me. Does it work with facedown damage cards?

"When you are dealt a Damage card with the Ship trait, you may immediately discard that card (before resolving its effect). Then, discard this Upgrade card."

Note that it does not say "face up" in the card text. Presumably, I could look at what's printed on the face of a damage card dealt facedown, and if it's a Ship trait, I can discard it if it could be deadly to me upon some later game effect causing it to be turned face up.

Realistically, it seems like "face up" should be a part of this card's text, and I feel like its intent is to be relevant only to face up cards. But the RAW/RAI debate has bumped up against my poor lawyering of X-Wing card text in the past, and I honestly don't know what the correct interpretation is.

A facedown damage card is not considered to have the Ship trait.

Therefore, the astromech does not work with facedown damage cards.

well spotted - I suspect that the rule as intended would include the condition that the card is face up

If the intention was that you could check all damage cards, face up or face down, and discard them if they are ship crits, I would think FFG would have been more explicit about it as it's a pretty big deal.

I'm not sure if it's against the rules to see what a damage card is, even if it's dealt face down, but I'd certainly feel pretty shady about doing that - particularly if was running Leebo + Determination

But hey, this is Scum - shady is their middle name so you never know

**Edit** or you could go with Klutz's explanation which gets gets to the heart of the matter

Page 16:

The text on faceup Damage cards is resolved as instructed on the card. Listed above this ability is a trait (either Ship or Pilot). The trait has no effect, but it may be referenced by other cards or abilities.

Klutz has it. The trait only applies to face-up cards, just like the rest of the text.

Would you allow your opponent to look at his face down damage cards before deciding which one to discard with R5-D8? You know, right before you could activate your Saboteur.

Would you allow your opponent to look at his face down damage cards before deciding which one to discard with R5-D8? You know, right before you could activate your Saboteur.

You assume that people run Saboteur.

Would you allow your opponent to look at his face down damage cards before deciding which one to discard with R5-D8? You know, right before you could activate your Saboteur.

You assume that people run Saboteur.

Well, it's a hypothetical. .