Sorry about this question. I think I’m having a dumb moment.

Are crew on a docked ship able to use their “ability” on the parent ship?

Example: Zeb is crew on the Attack Shuttle, if the Attack Shuttle is docked to the Ghost, can I Attack, and be attacked, by ships at range 0?

I feel like the answer is no, but I just can’t find the solution in the rules reference. Under Reserve in the RRG, it states that a Ship in reserve cannot use ship abilities, does not say anything about crew abilities.

No. Unless it states otherwise.

It generally tells you what you can and cannot do with docked ships.

Eg. Use their shields, get extra attacks.

Short answer: nope. Here's the relevant rules:

Docking rules are on p10 of the Rules Reference. The first paragraph says "the docked ship is placed in reserve ."

Next, looking at the Reserve rules on p16 it reads "The abilities of a ship in reserve are inactive unless the ability explicitly allows it to be used while it is in reserve."

13 hours ago, nitrobenz said:

Short answer: nope. Here's the relevant rules:

Docking rules are on p10 of the Rules Reference. The first paragraph says "the docked ship is placed in reserve ."

Next, looking at the Reserve rules on p16 it reads "The abilities of a ship in reserve are inactive unless the ability explicitly allows it to be used while it is in reserve."

Yes. I already quoted that point. Reading further into it, is a crew ability a ship ability?

On 12/16/2018 at 5:14 AM, Chudley said:

Yes. I already quoted that point. Reading further into it, is a crew ability a ship ability?

Yep, ( in short hand, see next post) upgrade cards that say "you" are part of the attached ship. From p2 of the Rules Reference under Card Interpretation :

Use of “you”
Many pilot and ship abilities use the word “you” to refer to the ship card’s corresponding ship. Upgrade, damage, and condition cards that use the word “you” refer to the ship to which the card has been dealt or equipped.
Card effects that use “you” always refer to the ship, not the player.

P.S. Abilities on upgrade/condition/damage cards attached to a ship do belong to that ship, but because "ship ability" refers to a specific mechanic it is technically not the right term. These additional abilities from attached upgrade/condition/damage cards should be called: "card abilities", “abilities belonging to that ship", or ”ship's abilities" (for proper short hand).

I know it's splitting hairs on semantics, but it could matter for some card interaction that specifically targets "Ship Abilities" in the future. (Can't think of any currently)

On 12/16/2018 at 7:20 PM, nitrobenz said:

Yep, upgrade cards that say "you" are part of the attached ship. From p2 of the Rules Reference under Card Interpretation :

Use of “you”
Many pilot and ship abilities use the word “you” to refer to the ship card’s corresponding ship. Upgrade, damage, and condition cards that use the word “you” refer to the ship to which the card has been dealt or equipped.
 Card effects that use “you” always refer to the ship, not the player.

no, it's not a ship ability, while of course you are correct about everything else, "ship ability" is a game term used to describe abilities like spacetug tractor array, advanced targeting computer, concordia faceoff and experimental scanners.

2 hours ago, meffo said:

no,    it's not a ship ability, while of course you are correct about everything else, "ship ability" is a game term used to describe abilities like spacetug tractor array, advanced targeting computer  , concordia faceoff and experimental scanners.  

Good point! I treated "ship ability" as a short hand even though I should know that it is a specific game term (thanks for the snapshot from p2 of the Rules Reference [1.0.2]). As far as I can recall, the difference between " ship ability" and " abilities belonging to a ship" is only semantics since I don't remember anything that targets a ship ability specifically, and verbally it is very close to "ship's abilities".

To be on the safe side though, these should be called "card abilities" or "ship's abilities"