I am reading through the rulebook and I noticed on page 8 that it says "If he wants to reserve it for a later round, he immediately spends the dial.." and then on page 12 "When a player reveals a ship's command dial, he can spend the dial to place the matching command token..".

Does this mean that you immediately have to decide whether you want to convert the dial to a token and that you cannot, for example, after choosing concentrate fire and deciding that you do not need to add a die to a roll, then spend the dial for a token?

From my reading, yes. You have to make a choice at the beginning of your turn. Makes you make that tough choice then. It is never easy being in command of a ship.

In the rules reference, page 3 you can read:

When a ship is activated, its owner reveals that ship’s top command dial and places it next to the ship in the play area. It can be spent immediately to assign the corresponding command token to that ship, or it can be spent at the appropriate time to resolve that command.

The way we've played it is that if it was i.e. an repair and the ship was at full shield then it immediately was spent for a Repair token. However when we came in firing distance then we played it as follows (which might be incorrect)

Concentrate Fire: the player revealed the dial. Then he chose a target rolled dice and then (at the appropriate time) decided to either spend it to gain an additional dice or if he would rather spend it to gain a token instead depending on the dice roll

Similar for the other commands

The command dial rules are poorly written in the learn to play book. Specifically, it says for two of the commands that you have to reveal a dial to spend a token. I can't figure out why you would need to reveal a dial if you have saved this token to be used at a a later date. I haven't read the other book yet so hopefully cleared up there.

Revealing the dial is a mandatory step (unless you are forced to discard it without revealing it) and is also one (or the only?) way to track whether or not a given have been activated since an unactivated ship should always have the number of dials assigned to it equal to its command level

In the rules reference, page 3 you can read:

When a ship is activated, its owner reveals that ship’s top command dial and places it next to the ship in the play area. It can be spent immediately to assign the corresponding command token to that ship, or it can be spent at the appropriate time to resolve that command.

So, the same as in the original post then, you either spend it immediately to gain a token, or you save it to be able to spend it during that ships' activation. The same page also states: "After a ship finishes its activation, if it did not spend its command dial, that dial is dicarded".

Could you have a token, and then reveal an action that matches the token and spend both? It only says you can't have two tokens of the same type.

Could you have a token, and then reveal an action that matches the token and spend both? It only says you can't have two tokens of the same type.

Yes. It's shown in one of their examples somewhere

I believe they used engineering or concentrate fire as examples of stacking dials with tokens.

Could you have a token, and then reveal an action that matches the token and spend both? It only says you can't have two tokens of the same type.

Found it:

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2014/9/26/command-your-fleet-to-victory/

About halfway down

In the Ship Phase, the Rebel player reveals the concentrate fire command for his CR90 corvette. It attacks from its forward arc for two red dice and one blue die. After rolling these dice, the player decides to spend the ship’s concentrate fire command to add a third red die. He rolls a blank, but because the ship happens to have a concentrate fire token, he can spend it to reroll the die. He does, and it generates another two hits!

And a bit further down they go bonkers:

Of course, you don’t have to spend your command tokens at the same time you reveal a similar command from the dial. You can spend a command token at any time you could resolve the command from your dial, and if your ship has a high enough command value, you could spend several tokens in a single round, potentially activating a squadron, repairing your shields, and rerolling an attack die – all in the same round that you reveal a navigate command on your dial to adjust your speed and course.

The only catch is that you can't spend the same type of command twice in one activation. For example, If I use engineering on my dial and have an engineering token, I can use them both at the same time or use the dial and save the token for later, but I can't use the dial at one point then the token later in that same round.

The only catch is that you can't spend the same type of command twice in one activation. For example, If I use engineering on my dial and have an engineering token, I can use them both at the same time or use the dial and save the token for later, but I can't use the dial at one point then the token later in that same round.

Right, however I think this only really matters for concentrate fire. You can only use the token and/or dial during the window anyway. Concentrate fire is the only one that has more than one window. Engineering and Squadron are immediately after you reveal the dial, and navigation is when you are performing your maneuver. However you get two shots, and based on the one use per round rule, you could not use the dial for one shot and the token for the next.

The only catch is that you can't spend the same type of command twice in one activation. For example, If I use engineering on my dial and have an engineering token, I can use them both at the same time or use the dial and save the token for later, but I can't use the dial at one point then the token later in that same round.

Where does it specify that you can't simultaneously spend a dial and a token of the same type? I was under the impression that the description provided in the link Forensicus mentioned earlier was accurate:

Nevermind, I misread both of you (Gravis and Cobalt) somehow. I'll blame phone reading.

What it means is there are certain times when each type of token or command are used, and that you couldn't use your engineering command dial to repair, then shoot and move, and then go "oh, and I want to use my engineering token too" you had to do it at the right stage for engineering repairs

so i am new to this and i am still a little lost and confused whith the only one command token rule.

does it mean that i have to use that command dial to use that command token ? and can I use more than one token per command dial.?