Card text takes precedence over rules reference So I would, and will if asked to, rule that the ship is destroyed in its own little bubble universe outside of the engagement phase and never gets to fire.

Well I won't ruling it this way cos it's been FAQd and is wrong..

23 hours ago, Zircon said:

My final take on that, until a proper FAQ is that the roll for the Console Fire crit happens BEFORE the ship engage (exactly as written on the card).

Therefore all the rules related to the Engagement phase are irrelevant since the ship is not even engaging.. the ship got its last damage before it can engage.

(emphasis mine)

I just want to point out that you're still in the Engagement Phase, even if the ship with Console Fire isn't yet engaging. There's one Engagement Phase, and it contains all the individual ships' engagements. (I'm pretty sure @Zircon understands this, and was talking about the fact that the rules about what happens with ships destroyed during the Engagement Phase assume there's a "currently engaged" ship, but the way it's phrased might lead some poor newbie to think there's a separate Engagement Phase for each ship, so I jumped in with a clarification nobody asked for. Hero, me? No, it's just... what I do.)

As to the actual substance of the question: there may not be a ship that's actually engaging yet, but we're in a timing window that belongs to one of the ships, so I suspect what's going to come down is something to the effect that during the "before you engage" timing window you use the ship that's about to engage when checking anything related to the "currently engaged" ship. Makes more sense to me than treating it as a separate "NULL initiative" bracket or turning the ship into a burning zombie forever screaming through space.

7 minutes ago, digitalbusker said:

Makes more sense to me than... turning the ship into a burning zombie forever screaming through space.

but that would be awesome .

they just answered this in the pinned rules thread at the top of this forum. The ship gets to attack.

whelp there's the answer. It does get to attack:

Edit: ah, Vineheart beat me to it

It still doesn't make much sense to me. As I read it now, you'll always get to attack a last time when console fire kills your ship. The game has reached that initiative step, so it doesn't really matter if there are no other ships with the same initiative?

Edit: I think it's just that I got this wrong all along, that I find it hard to 'understand'. So it's good that there is official ruling now, just have to get used to this outcome

1 hour ago, HedgehogNL said:

you'll always get to attack a last time when console fire kills your ship

no. if you are the only ship on the board of a certain initiative level, there is no simultaneous fire to play out. so if in this case, something like console fire kills you before you shoot, you don't get to shoot. it's the simultaneous fire rule that let's you shoot after taking enough damage to be destroyed. There has to be more than one ship of the same initiative value on the board for the rule to apply.

On 9/22/2018 at 9:45 PM, GermanBlackbot said:

"After all ships of a given initiative have engaged, all  destroyed ships are removed." does indeed say that ships get removed after they engaged. (Engagement  Phase)

This is independent from Simultaneous Fire. Once the ship engages, it gets to fire.

It would make no sense if a ship could fire after being destroyed by a console fire only if there happens to be another ship with the same initiative.

EDIT: The official answer even explicitly states it gets to engaged. Yes, the rule is called Simultaneous Fire, but you don't need to have another ship for it.

EDIT2: Jokubas posted the same thing while I was editing

Well, it's not necessarily independent. The Simultaneous Fire rule never actually says there needs to be more than one ship of the same initiative. It just says that ships aren't removed until you're done resolving everyone of an initiative. If everyone is one, I guess you should still wait to remove the ship.

5 minutes ago, Jokubas said:

The Simultaneous  Fire rule never actually says there needs to be more than one ship

yes it does. that's the whole point of the rule.

"To represent that ships with the same initiative are essentially attacking at the same time, if a ship is destroyed during the Engagement Phase, it is removed after all ships that have the same initiative as the currently engaged ship have engaged."

Ships=more than one

Read the official answer.

Q: When a ship is destroyed by a game effect triggered with "before engaging,” does it still engage?

A: Yes , because the game has already reached that initiative step, it is not removed until after all ships of that initiative have engaged, per simultaneous fire.

The yes is important, the rest is reasoning. You don't get to ignore the official answer because you don't like the reasoning.

And just because the rule is there to represent one thing that doesn't mean it cannot also influence other things.

14 minutes ago, GermanBlackbot said:

It would make no sense if a ship could fire after being destroyed by a console fire only if there happens to be another ship with the same initiative.

it makes perfect sense. but you have to remember that under simultaneous fire rule, its not firing AFTER being destroyed, its firing WHILE simultaneously being destroyed when there are other ships with the same initiative. If there are no ships with the same initiative, there is nothing happening simultaneously. The rule comes into affect to represent things happening at the same time for ships at the same initiative level. if there are no ships of the same initiative, there is no need to represent things happening simultaneously.

3 minutes ago, GermanBlackbot said:

Q: When a ship is destroyed by a game effect triggered with "before engaging,” does it still engage?

Engaging does not equal attacking under the rules. A ship on an asteroid will engage at it's initiative level, trigger applicable abilities, but cannot attack.

3 minutes ago, PanchoX1 said:

Engaging does not equal attacking under the rules. A ship on an asteroid will engage at it's initiative level, trigger applicable abilities, but cannot attack.

I have no idea what you are arguing now.. I have no idea how it applies to what you quoted or what you are trying to say. Pretty sure everyone agrees that engaging is not attacking.

The original question has been fully answered by the rules clarification post.

9 minutes ago, PanchoX1 said:

Engaging does not equal attacking under the rules. A ship on an asteroid will engage at it's initiative level, trigger applicable abilities, but cannot attack.

The problem with that comparison is that being on an asteroid specifically prevents you from attacking. When you engage, you are necessarily granted an opportunity to attack (unless an effect, such as an asteroid, prevents that opportunity). In the case of the Console Fire question, I don’t see anything that prevents that opportunity.

12 minutes ago, Icelom said:

Pretty sure everyone agrees that engaging is not attacking

Maybe you should read the thread and see what I was responding too. I’m not sure everyone is aware that engaging is not attacking, though I could be wrong. Sure wouldn’t be the first time.

30 minutes ago, PanchoX1 said:

yes it does. that's the whole point of the rule.

"To represent that ships with the same initiative are essentially attacking at the same time, if a ship is destroyed during the Engagement Phase, it is removed after all ships that have the same initiative as the currently engaged ship have engaged."

Ships=more than one

It's implied with that wording, but I'm not sure. The main point of the rule is to resolve a situation with multiple ships, but I'd argue that "all ships that have the same initiative" is often just one ship. If there's only one ship in the match with Initiative 5, then it is all ships with Initiative 5 (as grammatically unusual as that is). The catch is that a detail like that is usually irrelevant and doesn't need to be specifically referenced.

This Console Fire question has raised a situation in which damage is showing up at an unusual time. Normally you're not going to take damage at your own initiative unless there is another ship at that initiative, so it doesn't matter.

Its 100% clear at this point. This argument is pointless noise.

The first clause of the Simultaneous Fire entry "To represent that ships with the same initiative are essentially attacking at the same time" is flavor text, and should not be taken to invalidate the rest of the rule if there's only one ship in the current initiative bucket.

Simultaneous Fire used to be a rule that only applied some of the time--only when there were ships at the current Pilot Skill who hadn't had their Combat Phase activation yet. That is no longer the case . Simultaneous Fire is now the name for the general rule that if a ship is destroyed during the Engagement Phase you don't remove it until all the pilots of the current Initiative have engaged. If that's one pilot, it's one pilot, but you still don't remove that one pilot until after they've engaged.

See "Destroying Ships" on page 9. The first two bullet points lay out when destroyed ships are removed.

ETA: Well, phooey. Apparently there was a problem with my close quote tag, and I can't edit the quote (which I suppose makes sense). Hopefully it's clear that everything from "There are two ways" on is me again, commenting on the rules reference text I quoted.

Rules Reference 1.0.2 p9, Destroying Ships said:

DESTROYING SHIPS
A ship is destroyed after it has a number of damage cards that equals or exceeds its hull value. A destroyed ship is placed on its ship card.
• After a ship is destroyed in a phase other than the Engagement Phase, it is removed from the game.
• If a ship is destroyed during the Engagement Phase, it is removed after all ships that have the same initiative as the currently engaged ship have engaged, which is called simultaneous fire.

There are two ways to decide when to remove a destroyed ship. Are you in the Engagement Phase? Then wait until all the ships in the current Initiative bucket have engaged. Are you in some other phase? Remove immediately.

There's no support here for the notion that the timing of removal depends on the existence of multiple ships with the same Initiative.