Besides simply being tagged with a stress marker, what is the negative of having a ship under stressed? Unless I am blind, I cannot find anything in the rule book about stress expect a requirement for flying a green dial maneuver. I have watched videos and read abilities in which stress counter can be pilled on. Shouldn't there be more negative effects to being stressed? ie: loose an action; if the stress equals the hull then take damage?

Sorry for the noobie questions; I just discovered this amazing game!

1. You can't take actions, free or otherwise, while you have stress tokens

2. You cannot reveal red maneuvers on your dial while you have stress; your opponent picks any non-red maneuver on your dial if you do.

You are not required to make green maneuvers while stressed, but revealing one will result in a single stress token being removed after executing. If you have multiple stress tokens you will be unable to act or make red maneuvers until you've spent enough turns performing greens to remove all of them first. More abstractly, having to make greens to shed stress tokens makes a ship more predictable, so it's easier for your opponent to guess where you'll end up and position to block or get unanswered shots.

Page 17 in the old rulebook, in the very first paragraph, in bold.

Page 18 in the new rules reference, fourth bullet point under the "Stress" entry.

Generally there are two drawbacks to having a Stress token on a ship:

1. A ship with a Stress Token can not perform ANY actions. They may be able to acquire and spend tokens but they can not do it through any "action" mechanics.

2. You may not perform any red maneuvers while you have a Stress Token. If you reveal such a maneuver then your opponent gets to choose your maneuver for you.

There are certain pilots that utilize, or ignore, Stress tokens in various ways but they are special cases. The A-Wing pilot Tycho for example gets to ignore the restriction that Stress tokens place on actions which is why he may gain a big stack of tokens during a game; despite that he is NOT immune to the second Stress effect and if he reveals a red maneuver (k-turn in general but perhaps others depending on additional effects) then the opponent gets to set his dial.

Is it wrong that when I read the thread's title, I hear the question being asked in Seinfield's voice? i.e. "WHAT is the big deal with stress?!"

Ditto to all the above. I will also add that if you are stressed - You will suffer the on-going effect of crits, if it requires you to use "ACTION:" to flip it face down.

Yeah, stress isn't meant to break you, it's more meant to force reactions or as an added factor to deal with. Plus, some pilots do more damaged to stressed ships and whatnot so it's important to be aware of that. However the others pretty much covered why stress isn't great. That said sometimes it's necessary to get your ship in place.

Also, *lose an action. Sorry.

That makes a lot more sense. Thank you all for taking the time and making it crystal clear.

Dr. Zoidberg.... "No soup for you!" lol