I have a question to make sure I'm doing this right

Concussion missiles.

Roll attack dice. If you roll a black crit, then declare that the attack was the missiles and spend the crit. This is during th modify defense stage

Then the defender spends tokens the. Deals damage to the affected zones.

The card doesn't discard and can be used on multiple attacks

Is that all correct?

You're doing things out of order it would seem (at least as far as saying that the defender knows the concussion missile effect is going off at the time they are spending defence tokens; they should not know this)..

(this is off the top of my head, so the exact naming is wrong, and I might be over-simplifying. but I know for certain I have steps 3-5 in the right order), but during an attack you do things in roughly the following steps:

1. Check range/line of sight between the attacking hull zone and the defending target

2. Gather the relevant dice for the attack and roll them.

3. Attacker applies any modification to their dice

4. Defender activates defense tokens

5. Apply Results

5a. Activate any critical effect

5b. Apply damage.

So in this case, you might have a black crit face-up, but at the moment the defender is selecting defense tokens, you technically still have not spent that crit to activate concussion missiles.

Should also be pointed out that tokens like brace or redirect can't mitigate the damage dealt by concussion missiles, as the damage occurs outside the normal "apply damage" step.

And indeed, the card is not exhausted/spent/lost while making an attack like this. Do note however, that you can only trigger one critical effect per attack.

I've got this on copy/paste now as it comes up every day...

Here is how attacks break down with specific mentions for defense token timings and critical timings.

How attacks are worked out...

If the enemy ship's hull zone that you are targeting is within your ships's Fire Arc and within Range and within LOS you may attack.

1. Attacker gathers dice for attack.
   • Use only the dice printed on your ship card, plus any dice granted by an upgrade card that Increases your battery armaments.
2. Attacker rolls dice, these rolled dice are now the dice pool.
3. Attacker modifies dice in the dice pool.
   • Dice can be Added , Re-rolled , Changed , Spent in any order.
   • Any upgrade cards that Add dice to an attack do so during this step
   • Dice Added during this step are not restricted by range unless specified by the effect adding them.
   • Spent dice are removed from your dice pool.
   • Dice can be re-rolled multiple times by different effects.
4. Defender spends defense tokens.
   • The Evade token takes effect here.
   • No matter the point at which a defense token produces it's effects during an attack it must be declared and spent during this step.
5. Resolve damage in this order:
   • You may resolve a critical effect if at least one critical hit symbol is showing in your dice pool.
     • Resolve the effect in full before continuing.
     • Critical effects do not combine with your attack damage unless specified.
     • Because critical effects resolve entirely at this point any damage caused by a critical effect cannot be moved or changed by a defense token effect unless specified.
     • Some critical effects might have delayed resolution, like the default critical effect that is available to all ships but they must all be declared at this stage, no matter when they will take effect.
   • Total up damage caused, add up number of hit and critical symbols present in your dice pool.
     • Brace token takes effect here but only if spent in step 4. ​
   • Apply damage one point at a time. Remove shields first then start dealing damage cards.
     • Redirect token takes effect here but only if spent in step 4.
     • The Standard Critical Effect available to all ships (flipping the first damage card dealt) takes effect here.

I see. My main issue is a misunderstanding of the crit effect. Essentially instead of flipping the first card face up, I get to say: "negative space cowboy, instead take damage in each side zone"

It's also very flexible - you don't even have to get through shields to apply a crit effect. Grand.

And to confirm:

It's repeatable on as many attacks it can trigger on?

And if you roll two crits, you can spend the first one and still deal the face up card.

I think it's all necking clearer

You can only resolve one crit per attack, so if you spent the crit for ACM you CANNOT spend the second crit for a normal crit effect.

Yes you can crit on multiple attacks

Nope, you can only ever trigger ONE critical effect per attack.

Also you don't spend Critical hits. Spending is a specified game term that removes the dice from your dice pool. As long as you dice show one critical hit you can resolve one critical effect. No spending.

I know that, it's just the easiest way for me to think of it, it just unfortunately happens to have the same wording as another rule in this game

Oh I assumed as much, no worries.

I just wanted to clarify for any casual passer by that might read too much into what we all say and then tomorrow there's another question about spending dice to generate critical effects...

I mix the game terms up all the time during actual play...