The way the Rules Reference is written, a ship that voluntarily deploys gets to take an action even if it runs into another ship or onto/over an asteroid. (Stress from red moves and/or debris still prevents acting.) I suspect this is an oversight.

Overlapping another ship? No:

Quote

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. (rules reference page 10)

So the ship would not leave reserve, therefore it would not be able to execute an action.

Overlapping an obstacle? You can deploy onto an obstacle, but this does not negate the regular rules about that obstacle. Why? Because it doesn’t say that it does. In fact, the Docking section says nothing about obstacles. That doesn’t mean you ignore obstacles, it means regular rules apply. If the obstacle prevents actions, then you don’t get the action.

Deployment doesn't use the normal rules for the activation phase.

And it doesn’t use social rules for obstacles

Yeah the docking rules just say "3. The ship may perform one action.". Not do your perform action step or anything like that so obstacles unless they give stress will not stop it.

@Quarrel I suspect that you are correct that it's an oversight that Rules As Written in the Rules Reference (1.0.2) the deploying ship follows the steps outlined under Dock on p.10. Paraphrase by me:

1. Choose a maneuver

2. Executes the maneuver

3. May perform an action

Unfortunately, both the rules for partially executing a maneuver (p14 under Overlap ), as well as obstacle rules for maneuvering through/overlapping an asteroid (p13 under Obstacles ) say, and I quote: "The ship skips its Perform Action step."

A deploying ship does not have a "Perform Action step" per se since that is a step of the Activation phase, which this is not.

A hair-splitting rules-lawyer could make the argument that step 3 of deploying is "a step that directs the ship to perform an action" and therefore summarize step 3 as "its Perform Action step". That would be conjecture assuming Rules As Intended, which is an appeal to justice rather than one of reason.

TL:DR Given the straightforward parallels of Deploy rules compared to Activation rules I would expect any TO/Marshall/judge to go with RAI and say step 3 of the deployment is skipped.

See the Tallon Roll fiasco of the Toronto semi-final for a real world example of why this kind of sloppiness on FFG's part of relying on judgement calls instead of regular rules updates is something that has hurt my interest in competitive play since 2.0 came out.

Hey FFG Rules Reference, here's my suggestion for modifying the Deployment rules so that it interacts more smoothly with other effects that reference Activation:

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DOCK
Some abilities allow a ship to be attached to or ride inside another ship. If a card ability instructs a ship to Dock with a carrier ship, the docked ship is placed in reserve . A docked ship may Deploy from its carrier ship during the System Phase. To Deploy, a docked ship Activates using the following modified steps:

1. Set Dial : Choose a non-stationary, non-reverse maneuver on the docked ship’s dial.
2. Execute Maneuver : The ship executes the maneuver selected on the dial using the front guides or the rear guides of the carrier ship as if those guides were the docked ship’s starting position.
3. Perform Action : The ship may perform one action .

...

If a carrier ship is destroyed, before the carrier is removed from the play area, any docked ships can Emergency Deploy from their carrier. A docked ship performs an emergency deploy similar to deploying, as described above, except the ship suffers 1 [critical] damage before the Set Dial step and skips its Perform Action step.

...

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For comparison, here's the current Rules Reference (1.0.2) entry on p10 for Deploy:

Not an oversight unless FFG changes the rule, that's just how it works. Possibly to offset the fact that the undocking ship is being forced to move and perform its action effectively at I0 in the system phase instead of at its normal initiative.