If a stressed ship is given an opportunity for an action, does it

a) attempt the action and fail;
b) not even attempt the action?

So far it looks clearly like b).
But then we have cards like Afterburners where a stressed ship can attempt and perform an action while stressed.

A case where the question is relevant (seen on Reddit): A Lambda with ST-321 coordinates a stressed ship. Does the stressed ship attempt an action and fails, and the Lambda can try to lock? Or can the stressed ship not even attempt to do an action and thus gets no lock?

If the coordinated ship attempts a barrel roll and fails, the Lambda gets the lock. If the coordinated ship has composure, fails and performs a focus action, the Lambda gets the lock. But if the coordinated ship is stressed then we do not know what happens.

The most likely answer to me is that the stressed ship can not attempt to do an action unless it has a card/ability that allows it to do so .

Thoughts?

Relevant Text:

Rules Reference p3 on Actions: "A ship cannot perform actions while stressed."
RR p11 on Fail: "Some effects can fail, which means the effect did not resolve as intended and instead is resolved in a default way."
Afterburners: "After you fully execute a speed 3-5 maneuver, you may spend 1 [charge] to perform a [boost] action, even while stressed."

RR p8 on how to Coordinate:

1. Measure range from the coordinating ship to any friendly ships.
2. Choose another friendly ship at range 1–2.
3. The chosen ship performs one action.

and: "While a ship coordinates, the coordinate fails if no friendly ship can be chosen"
and: "If the chosen ship attempts to perform an action but that action fails, the coordinate does not fail."

ST-321: "After you perform a [coordinate] action, you may choose an enemy ship at range 0-3 of the ship you coordinated. If you do, acquire a lock on that enemy ship, ignoring range restrictions."

It's b.

But I'd argue you can coordinate a stressed ship just to get the lock anyway. Coord succeeds when you choose the ship regardless of whether it performs the action.

38 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

It's b.

But I'd argue you can coordinate a stressed ship just to get the lock anyway. Coord succeeds when you choose the ship regardless of whether it performs the action. 

I'm not sure they fit together because if the stressed ship can not even attempt the action then coordinate fails because it was not completed.

But what you say is definitely the way I'd like it to happen.

No, it doesn't.

Look at the ruels for when coordinate fails - it only fails when there's no ship in range to choose. Once you choose the ship, the Coordinate has succeeded.

4 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Look at the ruels for when coordinate fails - it only fails when there's no ship in range to choose. Once you choose the ship, the Coordinate has succeeded.

The argument is that coordinate doesn't do the 3rd step of its action, which means it did not resolve as intended and that means it fails. You are saying that no available ship is the only way for coordinate to fail, and I'm not sure if that's true.

2 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

The argument is that coordinate doesn't do the 3rd step of its action, which means it did not resolve as intended and that means it fails. You are saying that no available ship is the only way for coordinate to fail, and I'm not sure if that's true.

Then look at the rules.

There's no other way for it to fail listed, so there's no other way for it to fail. If it didn't fail, it succeeded.

It's incomplete, perhaps, but it's not unclear.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

Then look at the rules. 

I know, they are in my first post

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

There's no other way for it to fail listed, so there's no other way for it to fail. If it didn't fail, it succeeded.

It's incomplete, perhaps, but it's not unclear. 

We do not need every possibility of failing listed because we have general rules for failing: if the stressed ship cannot attempt an action, then the coordinate is not completed. That is an unintended resolving of the action, and is defined as fail as per the rules reference.

To quote two guys on reddit:

1) "When a ship is stressed, it cannot perform actions. Can't even attempt. (Unless an upgrade overrides that rule) Because there can't even be an attempt, step 3 of the coordinate fails, thus preventing use of the title for a lock. Imo.

It's also my interpretation that a failed action is one that can be performed, but cannot be completed. An action that cannot be performed is not a failed action. In the case of stress, we're looking at actions that cannot be performed. Thus, not failed actions; thus, not attempted; etc."

and 2)

"Thus I would reason that to be able to fail an action (and have the Lambda gain a lock), you would have to attempt an action. I don't see how you can fail something you cannot perform in the first place, and stress prevent you from attempting an action. "

Where does it say that in the rules?

17 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Where does it say that in the rules?

What? That an action fails if it's resolved in an unintended manner?

5 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

RR p11 on Fail: "Some effects can fail, which means the effect did not resolve as intended and instead is resolved in a default way."

Also: "A ship can fail when it barrel rolls, boosts, coordinates , decloaks, deploys, jams, locks, or SLAMs."

One way is mentioned explicitly, and that is if no friendly ship can be chosen. Are you saying that the only ways for actions to fail are all covered in the rule references and that there are no other ways how an action can fail if that way is not explicitly mentioned?

Actually, let me check that.

Barrel Roll: "While attempting to place a ship to complete a barrel roll, the action can fail if any of the following occurs :" [three cases given]

Boost: "While attempting to place a ship to complete a boost, the action can fail if any of the following occurs: " [three cases given]

Coordinate: "While a ship coordinates, the coordinate fails if no friendly ship can be chosen. "

Decloak has nothing but is covered by barrel roll/boost. As such it can't overlap obstacles when decloaking ( @theBitterFig , you said otherwise?)

Deploy: refers to Dock: "While a ship is deploying, if the ship would partially execute the maneuver and cannot be placed without overlapping another ship, the ship fails to deploy and stays in reserve. " and "If the docked ship attempts to emergency deploy and must partially execute the maneuver but cannot be placed without overlapping another ship, the ship fails to deploy and is destroyed. " [two cases given]

Jam: "While a ship attempts to jam, it fails if no ship is chosen. "

Lock: "While acquiring a lock, it fails only if there is no valid object to choose. "

SLAM: "A [SLAM] action fails if the final position of the ship would cause it to flee. "

Each action outlines when the action can fail.

Yes, and coordinate only lists one way: when no friendly ship can be chosen.

It doesn't say anythign about whether the chosen ship can execute the action, so RAW is clear: you succeed on a coordinate when you choose a ship at range 0-2 and offer it the opportunity to do an action.

It only fails if it fails to find a legal target, and conversely, it succeeds when it does.

Yes, I'm saying that the onyl way something can fail is if the rules say that;'s a way it can fail, because 'ain't no rule' is not a valid argument; the rules say what happens, if they don't say a thing, it doesn't happen.

The default for actions is that they succeed. Failure is an alternate condition with specific instructions. Those instructions, for coordinate, are that no ship could be chosen.

2 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Decloak has nothing but is covered by barrel roll/boost. As such it can't overlap obstacles when decloaking ( @theBitterFig , you said otherwise?)

A decloak is a non-action Boost or Barrel Roll. It's the equivalent of "acquire a lock" or "gain a focus token" as opposed to "perform the [Lock symbol] action" or "perform a [focus symbol] action." Boosts or barrel rolls fail when the template moves through an obstacle, or the final position overlaps a ship or obstacle, or would be off the board. It's interesting to note that the Fail rules don't specify it has to be an action to fail, but rather that "Some effects can Fail ." If an action generates an effect, and the effect fails, the action fails.

//

As to the broader question, I think you can attempt to coordinate a stressed ship without the action failing. Before looking into the rules, I was kind of like the reddit folks, thinking "since a stressed ship can't perform actions, a Coordinate attempt will fail on a stressed ship." However, I don't see that interpretation actually supported in the rules, and agree with @thespaceinvader that coordinating a stressed ship would trigger ST-321 (note, coordinating a stressed ship with Lieutenant Sai won't trigger Sai's ability--there, the coordinated ship must actually perform the relevant action).

A good place to look is AP-5. "While you coordinate, if you chose a ship with exactly 1 stress token, it can perform actions." To me, the phrasing "if you chose a [stressed] ship" implies that choosing a stress ship is a valid choice. AP-5 isn't, for example, worded "you may chose a stressed ship, and [etc]," which is how I think it would need to be worded if you were otherwise unable to choose one. There's nothing in the coordinate rules about only being able to choose an unstressed ship. This is almost surely intentional, since some ships and upgrades grant the potential to perform actions while stressed. FFG don't want the baseline coordinate rules getting in the way of various upgrades.

Coordinates fail if there isn't a ship to choose, but do not fail of the target ship fails their own action. By extension, if the coordinated ship otherwise cannot perform an action, this seems to fall outside the specific scope of how Coordinate fails. By all indications, it's agnostic about whatever the target ship does.