This may have come up before but I wanted to clarify the timing.

The Tournament Rules say:

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Each tournament round ends in one of the following ways: One Player Defeated: At the end of a game round, all of one player’s ships that are not flotillas are destroyed.

So by my reading, the "is the game over" check happens at the end of a game round (after the Status Phase). The same applies to the "Mutual Destruction" criteria as well.

The Rules Reference says:

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Winning and Losing: If all ships in a fleet are destroyed, ignoring squadrons, the game immediately ends.

The latest FAQ states:

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The game immediately ends when a player has no ships remaining in the play area.

The question is how all these fit together, particularly with the change to flotillas.

By my reading, this means that as soon as the last of a player's ships is destroyed the game ends, and so the game round ends. If this happens during the Ship Phase, that means no Squadron or Status Phase. I.e. you don't play out the rest of the game round.

But if a ship is destroyed and that player only has flotillas left, the game doesn't end immediately - so the game round continues until either the end of the Status Phase (when the game ends due to the TR conditions) or before that if either player's last ship is destroyed (RRG conditions).

Meaning that if a player loses their last non-flotilla ship they still have a chance to farm some more points using flotillas, squadrons or objectives. But if they don't have any flotillas left they don't (which seems reasonable to me).

Is this logic correct?

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To give a particular example; playing Opening Salvo. The First Player has one (non-flotilla) ship left, with full hull. The Second Player has one (non-flotilla) ship left with 1 remaining hull. The First Player's ship rams the Second Player's, and bounces back onto the station. Does the First Player's ship get to repair the damage (thus saving Opening Salvo points)? Taking all this strictly, no - we know that the damage card from ramming is dealt before it is repaired from landing back on the station (from the FAQ). But the game ends immediately when the damage is dealt - so the ship doesn't have time to land back on the station; that happens after. ... Unless the Second Player has a flotilla left - in which case the game doesn't end immediately, so the ship does have time to land back on the station.

Is this reasoning correct?

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Not quite sure how this would affect Rieekan zombies; they're destroyed during the Status Phase. So if the First Player has a Rieekan zombie left alive, but manages to kill the last Second Player ship, who wins? If the game ends immediately, the First Player still has a ship alive when the game ends, so they win. But if the game ends after going through the Status Phase, the Second Player wins due to it being a tie? How is this sort of thing usually played?

The only answer comes when you first answer “are you using the tournament regulations or not”?

If you are using them, then regardless, the game doesn’t end until the status phase, which leaves squadrons to activate, wether there are ships or not, Rieekaned or not... This will generally have the follow on that you cannot have more than 2 Flotillas and they do not count as “ships” for this purpose, as those clarifications are in the tournament regulations.

If you are NOT using the tournament regulations, then the game ends either immediately when ships are destroyed without Rieekan, or at the end of the Status phase when you remove the Rieekan Zombie and it was the last “ship”. However, the trade off is, generally speaking, that Flotillas will count as ships, and you can have more than 2 of them in your fleet.

Of course, another thing to realize is that my “non tournament” answer above can be modified by any discussion you have with your opponent about what game and tournament rules you decide to use or ignore as you wish - it is your game after all.

But GENERALLY speaking, once the decision to run under tournament regulations is met: the game rules are set as that is the ENTIRE POINT of thevregulations framework ?

To answer the last bit... (mutual destruction where one is a zombie)

Under tournament regulations, the second player wins, I believe with a MOV of 0, but you may calculate it and just air it 0 if it was going to be negative (shock, horror! I do not have that part memorized!) but most importantly, the answer is IN the tournament regulations ?

Under not-tournament regulations, the Rieekan zombie player will win, as the game ends immediately , which is before his ship is removed.