Hi!

I know that this is a stupid question, but I need a confirmation....

I am having a discussion with one of my playmates about timing, he is convinced that the Redirect Defense Token produces its effect in the step where the Defense Tokens are spent,"securing" the shields of the other hull zones from nefarious effects deriving from cards like ATP or ACM. After reading the rules again, I'm sure that the effect is produced in the next step to the one in which the crit effect is solved, when the player must assign hits to his ship, allowing precisely to move them to other hull zones, without certainty that the shields are still there to exploit the Redirect. And indeed, through a logical process, it is also the only time it could take effect.

I hope my reasoning is correct ....can someone confirm this for my friend?

Thanks!

Look at pages 2 and 4 of the Rules Reference.

Defense Tokens are spent in step 4 of Attack. Damage is resolved in step 5.

”Redirect: The defender chooses one of its hull zones adjacent to the defending hull zone. When the defender suffers damage from this attack , it may suffer any amount of damage on the chosen zone’s shields (up to the shields remaining in that zone) before it must suffer the remaining damage on the defending hull zone.”

The italicized part of the quote must be resolved when the token is spent (step 4.) The underlined part of the quote indicates the timing for resolving the effect of the Redirect token (must be step 5 because the defender doesn’t suffer damage during step 4.)

Step 5 specifies the order of operations for damage and critical effects. Numbers and breaks added for clarity:

1 - “The attacker can resolve one of its critical effects.

2 - “Then the attacker determines the total damage amount.”

3 - “Then the defending squadron or hull zone suffers that damage one point at a time.”

35 minutes ago, Kieran Rexer said:

I am having a discussion with one of my playmates about timing, he is convinced that the Redirect Defense Token produces its effect in the step where the Defense Tokens are spent,"securing" the shields of the other hull zones from nefarious effects deriving from cards like ATP or ACM.

The redirect effect doesn’t do anything to prevent the attacker from resolving a critical effect. However, redirect might cause a critical effect to lose its effectiveness.

For example, the standard critical effect only happens if a damage card is dealt. If redirect is used to suffer damage to shields in a manner that no damage cards are dealt, then the standard critical effect is a moot point.

Regarding the critical effects mentioned in the OP:

ATP? I’m not familiar with that acronym. If you meant A ssault P roton T orpedoes, then shields and redirects are useless. “Deal 1 faceup damage card to the defender,” is resolved regardless of shields or redirects.

Assault Concussion Missiles: The adjacent hull zones suffer damage in part 1 of step 5. Then the effect of spending the redirect token resolves in part 2 of step 5. If the Assault Concussion Missile took the shields of the adjacent hull zones down to zero, then the redirect token was wasted.

Perfect!
Thanks, that's exactly what I mean, I've never had any doubts about how Redirect works, but the discussion was getting fierce, and having to translate everything from English made things difficult.
In essence, my friend, did not accept that a face up damage card received by APT (Projector Misaligned) could deprive him of the shields before he could resolve the Redirect.

5 minutes ago, Kieran Rexer said:

Perfect!
Thanks, that's exactly what I mean, I've never had any doubts about how Redirect works, but the discussion was getting fierce, and having to translate everything from English made things difficult.
In essence, my friend, did not accept that a face up damage card received by APT (Projector Misaligned) could deprive him of the shields before he could resolve the Redirect.

Then he was wrong ?

Yes sure!
However, I understand that losing an iSD of about170 points at the last turn, can lead to insanity...

I made this timing reference once, maybe it is useful for you:

Wow! It's great, and very useful!!! Thank you very much!!

4 hours ago, jmswood said:

Redirect: The defender chooses one of its hull zones adjacent to the defending hull zone. When the defender suffers damage from this attack , it may suffer any amount of damage on the chosen zone’s shields (up to the shields remaining in that zone) before it must suffer the remaining damage on the defending hull zone.

So if I'm reading this correctly, the defender has to choose the hull zone before any critical effect is resolved.

Let's say I declare Redirect to a side that has shields, but then a crit effect (e.g. Projector Misaligned) removes those shields, I then can't redirect at all even if I have plenty of shields on the other adjacent hull zone?

I don't imagine it will come up often - must have APTs or similar, then 1 in 26 of getting that crit, and even then it's not always going to apply to the same hull zone - but it's an interesting interaction.

4 minutes ago, Grumbleduke said:

So if I'm reading this correctly, the defender has to choose the hull zone before any critical effect is resolved.

Let's say I declare Redirect to a side that has shields, but then a crit effect (e.g. Projector Misaligned) removes those shields, I then can't redirect at all even if I have plenty of shields on the other adjacent hull zone?

I don't imagine it will come up often - must have APTs or similar, then 1 in 26 of getting that crit, and even then it's not always going to apply to the same hull zone - but it's an interesting interaction.

Correct.

5 hours ago, Grumbleduke said:

So if I'm reading this correctly, the defender has to choose the hull zone before any critical effect is resolved.

Let's say I declare Redirect to a side that has shields, but then a crit effect (e.g. Projector Misaligned) removes those shields, I then can't redirect at all even if I have plenty of shields on the other adjacent hull zone?

I don't imagine it will come up often - must have APTs or similar, then 1 in 26 of getting that crit, and even then it's not always going to apply to the same hull zone - but it's an interesting interaction.

That's not the only one that matters though. Capacitor Failure, Shield Failure, and Projector Misaligned all might interact with that redirect.

On the other hand, this means that things like Injured Crew and Faulty Countermeasures can't prevent you from spending those tokens at all. So, the attacker wins some, defender wins some, with the timing being what it is.

11 hours ago, Ardaedhel said:

That's not the only one that matters though. Capacitor Failure, Shield Failure, and Projector Misaligned all might interact with that redirect.

Capacitor Failure wouldn't interact with it; while that can stop you spending a redirect token, you would already have spent the token by the time the crit goes through.

5 hours ago, Grumbleduke said:

Capacitor Failure wouldn't interact with it; while that can stop you spending a redirect token, you would already have spent the token by the time the crit goes through.

Whoops, you're right--bonehead comment.