Does a ship still engage (typically to no effect) while in reserves? The rules reference seems clear that every ship engages without qualifiers, and the section on reserves doesn't mention anything to overrule that, but I wanted to make sure I haven't missed something.

This came up after Moralo Eval fled the board into reserves after taking a Console Fire the turn before. We were trying to determine whether the Console Fire should still trigger while in reserve.

It still engages. The rules simply state that you can't do actions and attack while in Reserve. If you didn't engage, there would be no reason to state that you couldn't attack.