16 minutes ago, ImperialOfficer said:

I see what you're saying. In reading the thread it seems like some players are trying to over complicate it, but maybe not.

How are local TO's ruling it for you? It hasn't come up yet in my local area.

Exactly as I've described, though it's not even one they publish in their mini-FAQs pre-events, as it works with the text on the card.

One event had even more things than I realized were an issue (apparently how you place Lt. Dormintz has some debate?), and TS wasn't on there.

It requires intentional misreading to function any other way. Apologies if that seems rude to anyone, but it happens a lot on the forum.

This came up locally last night.... the rub is, outside of Lt. Colzet , we could not find a game effect that involves spending a target lock outside of the combat phase so this situation is dire need of an FAQ. The fact that Targeting Synchronizer (TS) uses two sentences, has caused a lot of debate and nether side is necessarily incorrect. I am TO'ing an event in a week and talked to the store owner... we agreed it should be allowed because there is no step limitation (i.e. Combat Phase only) listed on the card.

16 minutes ago, shaunmerritt said:

This came up locally last night.... the rub is, outside of Lt. Colzet , we could not find a game effect that involves spending a target lock outside of the combat phase so this situation is dire need of an FAQ. The fact that Targeting Synchronizer (TS) uses two sentences, has caused a lot of debate and nether side is necessarily incorrect. I am TO'ing an event in a week and talked to the store owner... we agreed it should be allowed because there is no step limitation (i.e. Combat Phase only) listed on the card.

The mistake is treating the two sentences as truly independent.

The second line reads:

"If a game effect instructs that ship to spend a target lock, it may spend your target lock instead."

Perfect! Except this sentence has no way to identify a legal target, because it doesn't identify who "that ship" is.

"That ship" is the ship referenced in the first sentence. There can't be any argument there, as the second sentence is meaningless otherwise. Therefore, if the ship doesn't qualify for the first sentence (and all of it, not parts of it, that should also go without saying), the upgrade card never comes into play.

The ship that treats the Attack (Target Lock) header as Attack can also spend the target lock for other game effects. Any ship that can't treat the Attack (Target Lock) header as Attack is not picked up by the first sentence, as that is its only purpose.

EDIT: To be very clear, the ship does not need to have anything with an Attack (Target Lock) heading to trigger, I am not suggesting that. It simply would treat it as Attack if it did.

33 minutes ago, shaunmerritt said:

This came up locally last night.... the rub is, outside of Lt. Colzet , we could not find a game effect that involves spending a target lock outside of the combat phase so this situation is dire need of an FAQ. The fact that Targeting Synchronizer (TS) uses two sentences, has caused a lot of debate and nether side is necessarily incorrect. I am TO'ing an event in a week and talked to the store owner... we agreed it should be allowed because there is no step limitation (i.e. Combat Phase only) listed on the card.

Norra Wexley's pilot ability when used for defence, for example. Or R7 Astromech.

Would not work with TS, as Norra isn't attacking at the time, so TS doesn't activate.