So I have done some searching on the forums in an effort to prevent a duplicate question but what I have found is still slightly off what I was looking for. So please excuse me if this is a duplicate question.

Re: Resolving critical hits against a ship with shields.

Situation:

A single non-critical hit against a ship with shields is self explanatory, a shield - not a hull point - is lost.

What if a single critical hit against a ship with a single shield occurs?

1. Is a critical hit face up card even pulled, or is it assumed it hits a shield and does no damage?

2. Assuming option one is not the proper way to play - assume a critical hit card is pulled, I am supposed to read it face up? Do I take a hit (loss of shield) PLUS the card affects (Pilot disorientation, system failure, etc)?

3. Assuming option one is not the proper way to play - assume a critical hit card is pulled, and it reads something like "Roll a die, on a hit or critical it, take one damage and I roll a hit roll. Do I take one damage for the card (eliminating shield) and another for the die roll? Or just one?

Sorry for the various scenario's. We have a bunch of newbies teaching ourselves so rule interpretation is sometimes off.

Crits are resolved after hits.

So if after canceling dice there is a hit and a crit remaining you'd apply the hit then you would apply the crit. If the target had a single shield remaining the hit would remove it allowing the crit to deal a face up damage card.

Situation:

A single non-critical hit against a ship with shields is self explanatory, a shield - not a hull point - is lost.

What if a single critical hit against a ship with a single shield occurs?

The ship loses a single shield token. That's it. Criticals only behave differently from Hits if the damage is being applied to hull.

3. Assuming option one is not the proper way to play - assume a critical hit card is pulled, and it reads something like "Roll a die, on a hit or critical it, take one damage and I roll a hit roll. Do I take one damage for the card (eliminating shield) and another for the die roll? Or just one?

There are only a couple of things that will deal face-up cards when you have shields remaining. In those cases if you were to receive the critical in your example, the extra point of damage would remove a shield token and the face-up card would be flipped over as a hull damage card.

The rules you're looking for are on page 16 of the core rulebook:

SUFFERING DAMAGE

Ships can suffer damage from different sources, such as being hit during combat or by an effect or card ability. Damage cards track how much damage each ship has suffered and are used to determine if the ship has been destroyed (see “Destroying Ships”). When a ship suffers damage or critical damage, it suffers them one at a time following these steps. The ship must suffer all normal damage before suffering any critical damage.

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. If the ship suffered damage (such as from a [boom] result), place the Damage card facedown next to the ship’s card. If the ship suffered critical damage (such as from a [kaboom] result), place the Damage card faceup next to the ship’s card (see “Critical Damage” below).

So the answer to your question is that when you're suffering any kind of damage, you remove a shield token if there's one to remove. You only take a damage card of any kind (facedown if it's regular damage, or faceup if it's critical damage) if you don't have any shields left.

As others have said, an uncancelled <kaboom> result on an attack die against a ship with shields will just remove 1 shield token. And uncancelled <booms> remove shields prior to <kabooms>. For example, a shield has 2 shields left. An attack roll yields <boom> <boom> <kaboom> <kaboom>. The defense roll yields <evade> <blank>.

As such, the evade cancels one <boom>, leaving <boom> <kaboom> <kaboom> remaining. From there, the <boom> does the first damage, and removes a shield. Then a <kaboom> does a damage, which removes the final shield. Finally, the second <kaboom> does a damage, which is then a face up critical card.

As a separate but related topic, there are a few ways to deal a face up DAMAGE card, even if the enemy has shields remaining. The only ways I can think of doing this are proton bombs and Advanced Homing Missiles (and Porkins can do a hull damage, but it is a face down one). These abilities specify that you take a face up damage card. This is different than suffering a <kaboom>.

As such, it would be possible for an A wing to get hit by a proton bomb, pull a direct hit, and die with full shields. If he draws Minor Explosion, and triggers an additional damage, this second damage goes against his shields, not his hull. The A wing would be left with 1 hull and 1 shield.

I hope this clears it up.

...

Situation:

A single non-critical hit against a ship with shields is self explanatory, a shield - not a hull point - is lost.

What if a single critical hit against a ship with a single shield occurs?

1. Is a critical hit face up card even pulled, or is it assumed it hits a shield and does no damage?

...

This one except that there is no reason to ever pull a card as a Shield Token is removed instead.

While the [hit/boom] and [crit/kaboom] symbols are different things (if something is looking for a [boom] then rolling a [kaboom] does NOT trigger it) when it comes to dealing damage they work the same way, with hits being resolved first, until you reach the point that damage cards are actually being dealt.