This came up in a game recently, and I couldn't find anything relevant to it in the Rules Reference (which is admittedly still rather light on information related to highly specific subjects). If I use my action to deploy a Cargo Token, and the act of deploying overlaps an enemy ship, what effects immediately take place? In first edition, we eventually learned that the ship immediately receives a stress token, and rolls for damage. In second edition, though, there's no precedent listed for an obstacle overlapping a ship (only for the other way around). So, I figure any of a number of things is a reasonable ruling for now...

1. Maybe, nothing happens. Obstacles only have effects when ships move through them, or attacks are made through them.
2. Maybe, we follow first edition rules. Ships gain 1 stress and roll for damage as if they overlapped a debris cloud.
   1. Does this mean ships could use effects like Collision Detector to prevent the debris effects?
3. Maybe, Cargo Tokens may not be dropped in a manner that would cause an overlap with another ship; the cargo is instead not deployed, and the action thus fails.

Your thoughts?

I'd go with one. When the ship the cargo/debris has been dropped on activates or engages or is engaged it will face the normal consequences for a ship on a debris obstacle.

I see no reason to play this differently than in first edition.

Nothing happens. You have to move to trigger the effects.

I think it's #1: nothing happens. My reasoning is that even under mines, it says they detonate when a ship moves through or overlaps them. While you would think that a ship on top of a mine/debris token has overlapped, the rule for overlapping says, "While a ship executes a maneuver or otherwise moves, it OVERLAPS an object if the ship's final position would physically be on top of an object."

So it seems to me that in second edition your ship needs to move in order to overlap, thus triggering effects of mines and obstacles.

I'm inclined to believe it's #1, as well... at least, until FFG says otherwise. Nothing in the current rules addresses what happens when an obstacle overlaps a ship (as opposed to a ship overlapping an obstacle), so "do nothing" is appropriate, and it's only when a ship moves THROUGH it that effects happen.

There is a somewhat adjacent case in Devices. When a device that detonates when overlapped is placed and it overlaps more than one ship, the player placing the device chooses which ship suffers the detonation. To me, this strongly implies that Devices detonate when placed under a single ship (not explicit in the rules) and at least mildly implies the Cargo token causes the overlap effect.

However, it isn't clear in the rules.

5 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

However, it isn't clear in the rules.

What else is new?

7 hours ago, emeraldbeacon said:

What else is new?

I think, on the whole, the new rules are a lot cleaner and clearer than they used to be, but that just means the few exceptions irk that much more.