I was playing with a friend last night who was running a ship with lightning reflexes. He said that due to the wording he can use it, and then gets his action before the stress of it is applied. I argued that while the stress is applied after the 'check for stress' it is still applied before the action takes place so he loses the action. So in my view, the wording is just there to ensure you take the stress even if you executed a green maneuver: move, 180, check stress, (removing 1 if you had it and it is green) then apply stress from LR then cleanup and skip action due to stress. The wording is just to prevent: move, 180, get stress, lose that stress if it was green.

His argument is that the maneuver window is still open during the execute maneuver phase which has the action step in it, so he doesn't apply the stress until that has completed.. Move, check stress, cleanup, action, lightning reflexes (which occurs after performing a maneuver). In his argument the wording is there to clarify that he does not have stress an can perform his action.

No, it says you get it after check pilot stress, that's step 2.b you get it in between 2.b and 2.c clean up which is before step 3 perform action.

You are correct... the correct order would be...

Reveal Dial - Move Ship - Clean Up - Check Pilot Stress (remove stress if it was green) - Lightning Reflexes (add a stress) - Perform Action (which you would skip unless you have a card or ability that says otherwise).

This makes sure that you would always get the stress token outside of an upgrade or pilot ability.

I'm afraid you've all missed the problem with this card: It's old. Like, old enough to be literally incompatible with the current rules.

If you look in the old starter pack rules, you'll see that Execute Maneuver and Check Pilot Stress are completely separate steps. In that frame, the card makes total sense. Now, however, check pilot stress is a substep of Execute Maneuver, and as such, you should consider the card to read like this:

Quote

After you execute a white or green maneuver on your dial, you may discard this card to rotate your ship 180°, then receive 1 stress token.

That brings everything into line with how the card originally worked, worded as similar cards are now.