2 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

If it was phrased the same, it would be less confusing. 

Yes, it's true and I'm supporting @Metal Carnage II 's statement there. I'm sorry if my previous message, starting off with a direct quote to them, sounded like if I accused them of making irrational claims.

However, while I agree it's not perfectly clear as written right now, I also tried to prove it's far less confusing than to cause people to argue back and forth about the disarm token. It should be called out as an editorial mistake rather than a serious rules ambiguity some claim it to be. The rules are rather clean on ESC, just put out through slightly confusing writing.

5 hours ago, meffo said:

@Metal Carnage II - that's interesting. you think ESC should say "Action: Regain 1 (charge), gain 1 disarm token" instead?

i think it's really clear as is, but as you mention, making the game easier to learn and understand is important.

Here's the thing: while I personally think the card is 100% clear and obvious as worded right now, that's empirically not the case. There have been enough folks actually confused that it would have been better some other way. Maybe a better-phrased Reload rule would have shut some of that down, but a "Recharge and Disarm" wording on ESC would have done that.

However, I'm also not really in favor of an errata. A clarification in the official thread, maybe also a slight standardization in the "When a ship [ symbols ], it verbs . A ship verbs by the following steps..." direction for all actions, not just most of them.

3 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

However, I'm also not really in favor of an errata. A clarification in the official thread, maybe also a slight standardization in the "When a ship [ symbols ], it verbs . A ship verbs by the following steps..." direction for all actions, not just most of them.

This is the change that needs to happen, and FFG DESPERATELY needs to learn abotu standardisation. There was no reason for Reload NOT to be written like this in the first place.

On 4/5/2019 at 7:38 AM, KrisSherriff said:

There is nothing anywhere in the rules to imply that you can Recover a Charge through a Reload outside of the 2nd Step of a 3 Step Process and so for that interpretation to hold any merit you would need to present a case for why you would skip other steps, given what is written on either the card or any other supporting rules documentation.

This... All this.

If you want the "ACTION: Reload this card" to skip the three step process of reloading, then that's cool, but you skip all three steps. Including the one that recharges the ordinance. So the action essentially does nothing. If you want the recharge to happen, you do all of the steps, unless there is a restriction specifically written. So "Reload this card" restricts Step 1 as previously discussed, but getting the charge and then the subsequent disarm token are not restricted at all.

The rules could be a lot clearer on this, that's true. But anyone trying to stretch this into a "I get to recover a charge without the disarm token" argument is not following any sort of logic except for logic that gives them an outcome they want. I really hope the matter is pretty much settled, but I know it probably won't be until they specify it explicitly in a rules reference down the road.

Also, Bomblet has the wording that would be needed to skip the reload process.

It is, so far, the only device you can recover the charges without going though the reload process and gaining a disarm token. Because it has the wording needed, which is "Recover charges". and NOT reload. If Energy-Shell Charges wanted us to ignore the entire reload process and only recover a charge, it would have worded it similar to bomblet.