Quick question, if the Ship that is set aside contains the Fleet Admiral does the Fleet still benefit from the admiral's ability while they set aside?

Also if the ship never deploys does it count as destroyed?

Is the Critical hit used to activate the Overload Pulse lost, for example if I were to roll 1 blue Critical, and say 2 Red damage would that mean I can do 2 damage and exhaust all the opponent's defense tokens, or do 3 damage one of which is a critical and exhaust all the opponent's defense tokens?

Thanks in advance.

1) No. FAQ, Page 4:

Hyperspace Assault

Ships and squadrons set aside are not in play . Their abilities and upgrades are inactive and they cannot be affected by any abilities.

The Admiral is still an Upgrade card.

2) Yes.

(I have no specific quote for this one, but essentially - if you're off the board, you're destroyed. Normally this is because you leave play, but safe to say, if you never enter play, you're not scoring any points.)

3) No. RRG, Page 5,

Dice Icons

• Critical "Crit": If the attacker and defender are ships, this icon adds one damage to the damage total and can trigger a critical effect.

RRG, Page 4, Critical Effects:

A critical effect, denoted by the “Crit:” header, can resolve if there is at least one Crit icon in the attack pool.

Notice that no-where inherent in the Dice or Critical rules, must you discard that Critical dice to do it... However, there are SOME Critical Hits that WILL advise you to discard dice... But that is not inherent to the Effect. If you have one, You may Resolve one.

(Edited for Rules Quotes)

Wow, so Overload Pulse is even better than I first thought! I was playing that wrong last game, still I doubt it would have won me the game.

Just remember with critical effects that they happen after your opponent has spent defense tokens, so overload pulse doesn't exhaust his tokens for the attack you are currently making, but sets them up for a follow up attack from a second ship (or firing arc)

This is very important ^

It also means that one Evade token can potentially get rid of your crit icon, if you only have one.

It also means that if you reroll a die due to an Evade and the new result is an accuracy, you don't get to spend it to block a defense token.

I have been playing this wrong, thanks for clearing things up, also didn't realise that only one Critical effect can be applied, I thought it meant that only one damage card can be flipped, which I now understand to be the default setting of a critical effect. Greatly appreciated.