First, let me apologize if this has been covered elsewhere, or if the rules have been printed off somewhere. There are over 300 pages in these forums, and the Search option didn't seem to yield any results (or, perhaps I wasn't searching for the proper thing). I'm new to the game, and to these forums, so please, go easy on me.

Secondly, if the answers are in the forums somewhere, please be kind and either let me know where they are, or tell me what the rules are. I just want to learn how to play and I'm a smidgen confused.

So, onto my questions:

Let's take the crew card "Tactical Officer". The stipulation to play this is "Red <Coordinate>". Does this mean that I need to be stressed in order to utilize this card? Same thing with the modification card, "Engine Upgrade": It requires a "Red Boost". So that means I have to be stressed while boosting in order to use this card?

For the second question, let's take a look at the Starviper-Class Attack Platform, and its actions. It's either a "Barrel Roll -> Stress Focus" / "Boost -> Stress Focus" or a the same, but "Stress Coordinate". So, the inevitable question is this:

If I do a barrel roll / boost, does that give me a Stress token and a Focus / Coordinate?

Again, I'm just confused and can't seem to find these answers anywhere, and I'd rather not go on assumptions. There aren't many (if any) groups around my area right now (that I know of), so figuring this out by asking people in my vicinity is somewhat limited, and I apologize if you are made to repeat yourself.

Thank you!

Welcome to the game!! 🙂

did you already found your answers?

- in requires the ship to already have a 'red coordinate/boost' action on its action bar - in order to equip a card which grants a white coordinate/boost. So not every ship can be equipped with tac-officer or engine-upgrade!

second part is called 'linked actions' and can be found in the rule book.

It allows you to do an action – and then 'link' into another action. So you do two actions. It’s pretty good! Usually the 2nd aka linked action is 'red' and gives you a stress token.

On 5/18/2019 at 10:43 AM, Steamdragon said:

Let's take the crew card "Tactical Officer". The stipulation to play this is "Red <Coordinate>". Does this mean that I need to be stressed in order to utilize this card? Same thing with the modification card, "Engine Upgrade": It requires a "Red Boost". So that means I have to be stressed while boosting in order to use this card?

The requirements in the bottom left corner of an upgrade card are the requirements to equip that upgrade. In the case of Tactical Officer, you can only equip Tactical Officer if you have a red coordinate action on your action bar, and it then adds a white coordinate action to the ship's action bar. Same with Engine Upgrade, a ship needs a red boost action in its action bar in order to equip the card.

On 5/18/2019 at 10:43 AM, Steamdragon said:

For the second question, let's take a look at the Starviper-Class Attack Platform, and its actions. It's either a "Barrel Roll -> Stress Focus" / "Boost -> Stress Focus" or a the same, but "Stress Coordinate". So, the inevitable question is this:

If I do a barrel roll / boost, does that give me a Stress token and a Focus / Coordinate?

I don't fully understand the question due to some broken english, but I think I get the gist. A linked action will only link to that specific action. If you do a barrel roll or boost action on a Star Viper, you may, if you so choose, also do a red focus action for the cost of 1 stress. You do not get to perform any and all red actions on your action bar, only the action that is linked to by the one you just performed.

On 5/18/2019 at 7:43 PM, Steamdragon said:

First, let me apologize if this has been covered elsewhere, or if the rules have been printed off somewhere. There are over 300 pages in these forums, and the Search option didn't seem to yield any results (or, perhaps I wasn't searching for the proper thing). I'm new to the game, and to these forums, so please, go easy on me.

Secondly, if the answers are in the forums somewhere, please be kind and either let me know where they are, or tell me what the rules are. I just want to learn how to play and I'm a smidgen confused.

So, onto my questions:

Let's take the crew card "Tactical Officer". The stipulation to play this is "Red <Coordinate>". Does this mean that I need to be stressed in order to utilize this card? Same thing with the modification card, "Engine Upgrade": It requires a "Red Boost". So that means I have to be stressed while boosting in orde  r to use this card?

For the second question, let's take a look at the Starviper-C  lass Attack Platform, and its actions. It's either a "Barrel Roll -> Stress Focus" / "Boost -> Stress Focus" or a the same, but "Stress Coordinate". So, the inevitable question is this:

If I do a barrel roll / boost, does that give me a Stress token and a Focus / Coordinate?

Again, I'm just confused and can't seem to find these answers anywhere, and I'd rather not go on assumptions. There aren't many (if any) groups around my area right now (that I know of), so figuring this out by asking people in my vicinity is somewhat limited, and I apologize if you are made to repeat yourself.

Thank you!

hello and welcome! please don't apologize for asking questions. the search function on these forums leaves a lot to be desired.

engine upgrade and tactical officer requires you to have a red boost action and a red coordinate action on you action bar, respectively. please note that there might be other ways to add these actions to you action bar. currently, there is no way to add a boost action (and i hope it stays that way, for balance). there is, how ever, a way to add a red coordinate - the squad leader upgrade. so unless you have a red coordinate or have squad leader equipped, you cannot equip the tactical officer upgrade. and unless you have a red boost action on your action bar, you cannot equip engine upgrade.

the requirements for equipping an upgrade are listed on the bottom left of the card. actions added to the action bar are listed on the far right of the card. in other words, equipping engine upgrade requires a red boost on the action bar and adds a white boost to the action bar. it's the same for tactical officer, but with coordinate. squad leader has no requirements, other than that you need an upgrade slot for a talent, since squad leader is a talent upgrade. now, guess what the expert handling upgrade does.

red actions gives you stress when you perform them (or fail to perform them). stress is undesirable for almost all ships. some ships have beneficial abilities related to stress, though (l'ulo l'ampar, ten numb, braylen stram). having stress means you cannot perform actions, which is very limiting indeed. to clear stress, you need to perform a blue maneuver or use some other effect to get rid of it (cassian andor).

the starviper has linked actions. they have an arrow in between them. linked actions are very good, because they let you perform more than one action during the same timing window (normally during the perform action step of a ships activation). not all linked actions are red (i'm looking at you Tie/SF or attack shuttle with debris gambit equipped).

not all starvipers have a focus action. guri, for example, has calculate instead (she cannot focus, because she's a droid, she can still get a focus focus token from her pilot ability though, since she's an exceptional and super sexy droid). like all other starvipers, she has linked actions on her action bar. she can barrel roll (following the rules for microthrusters, which is the ship ability printed on the starviper pilot cards) and then perform a red calculate (focus for the others), or boost and then perform a red calculate (again, the others can focus instead, because they're puny life forms instead of superior machines. ehrm. focus is better than calculate, but still, calculate is cooler).

the starviper has no coordinate action what so ever. it can get a red coordinate action if it has squad leader equipped, but that's a red coordinate action. since the ship doesn't have a crew slot, it cannot equip tactical officer in order to make the red coordinate gained from squad leader white.


i highly recommend finding a group to play with. there should be one or more, but of course, that depends on where you live.

you can find the current rules reference here:
https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/be/e0/bee0c351-8d22-4f77-b6f4-101e6fa8ca8e/swzrulesreference_v103-compressed.pdf

that should provide you with a bit of reading and hopefully all of the answers you need. do not hesitate to ask if there is anything else that's not clear to you, though!

i highly recommend an app for iOS and android called LaunchBayNext to build squads. if you're on PC, just go for yet another squad builder 2.0. https://raithos.github.io

much love - and fly casual. pew pew pew!

12 hours ago, meffo said:

the starviper har no coordinate action what so ever. it can get a red coordinate action if it has squad leader equipped, but that's a red coordinate action. since the ship doesn't have a crew slot, it cannot equip tactical officer in order to make the red coordinate gained from squad leader white.

I think there's a bit of crossed wires between calculate and co-ordinate .

On ‎5‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 6:43 PM, Steamdragon said:

Let's take the crew card "Tactical Officer". The stipulation to play this is "Red <Coordinate>". Does this mean that I need to be stressed in order to utilize this card? Same thing with the modification card, "Engine Upgrade": It requires a "Red Boost". So that means I have to be stressed while boosting in order to use this card?

The stuff in the bottom left, as @meffo says, is the prerequisite. You need to be able to red boost, or red co-ordinate, to equip them. If you equip them, you get to add a white version of the action to your action bar.

You don't have to be stressed to use engine upgrade - quite the reverse; it gives you a white boost action, and if you're stressed you can't normally perform actions.

The short version of Tactical Officer, Engine Upgrade and Expert Handling is "it makes a red action white" - that's not quite true - you still have the red version of the action if you want to use it, but the circumstances where you'll want to are comparatively rare.

On ‎5‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 6:43 PM, Steamdragon said:

For the second question, let's take a look at the Starviper-Class Attack Platform, and its actions. It's either a "Barrel Roll -> Stress Focus" / "Boost -> Stress Focus" or a the same, but "Stress Coordinate". So, the inevitable question is this:

If I do a barrel roll / boost, does that give me a Stress token and a Focus / Coordinate?

No. The little ► symbol is a 'linked action' - whenever you perform the first action, you have the option to do the action it's liked to afterwards.

You don't have to take it (the linked action is usually red, which means stress, so bad if you don't need it).

You can take it whenever you do that action - so if you get a free (let's say afterburners) you can still link it to .

oh my gods gang, I am so sorry. I had a response typed up and I went ahead and submitted only to find out that I didn't even log in. So my words are lost into the internet!

I want to say thank you all for taking the time out to answer my simple questions. You're right, as the instructions were in the booklet. It was just sorta ... hiding there. A few paragraphs, and I seemed to have skipped them.

So from all that I have read: A linked action is in two parts, but if I opt to take the second action in that link, I HAVE to gain a stress token. And, unless otherwise written, if I'm already stressed, I cannot perform that particular action.

And in the case of the modifier card: I can have it associated to a ship, but I can only use its abilities if I meet that criteria (aka stressed boost for the Engine Upgrade).

Again, I am terribly sorry for this latent reply. It also doesn't help that I work 12-hour shifts and I am dog-tired when I get home.

Also, @Magnus Grendel , you are right: I did mean "Calculate" and not "Coordinate". Still getting my terminology right.

And thank you @meffo for that in-depth explanation.

Dang ... I really do think I'm going to enjoy this game. My armada (not to be confused with Star Wars Armada) is already growing ...

51 minutes ago, Steamdragon said:

S o from all that I have read: A linked action is in two parts, but if I opt to take the second action in that link, I HAVE to gain a stress token. And, unless otherwise written, if I'm already stressed, I cannot perform that particular action.

And in the case of the modifier card: I can have it associated to a ship, but I can only use its abilities if I meet that criteria (aka stressed boost for the Engine Upgrade).

almost. linked actions have two parts, yes. you can perform just the first part if you like. then you can do the second part if you want to.

red actions always gives you a stress. not all linked actions are red, though. in those cases, you would not gain a stress from performing a linked action.

no, you cannot equip engine upgrade to a ship that doesn't have a red boost action on its action bar, much less use it. if you do equip engine upgrade to a ship with a red boost action on its action bar, that ship gains a white boost action on its action bar, meaning it can now perform a boost action without gaining stress.