Based on so many different discussions on here I feel I need a nice list of game terms that initially looks like the same thing, but aren't.

This could be useful to me, but even more so for new players.

Not going to go into the detail of how they differ here (for now). The point of this list is just to show definitions that people are unsure of, to show where danger areas are when interpreting rules. Some of these I didn't even realise were different for a long time. And some of them I can't explain even if you asked. If this list seems sensible to have it might be useful to expand it to include definitions (or even beter RR or rulebook page/paragraph references) and explanations.

Some examples in no order whatsoever: (Depending on your experience some of these may be so obvious they don't make sense on the list. But for some people it takes some explanation)

• Being given an action VS. being granted the effect of an action.
• Having an action added to your action bar VS. being allowed to do an action from another effect.
• Shooting in your front arc VS. having a primary front arc.
• Shooting in your bullseye arc VS. shooting in your front arc.
• Being disarmed (from cloak) VS. being disarmed (from having a disarm token).
• Executing a Maneuver VS. Fully executing a Maneuver.
• Performing a move LIKE a boost/barrel roll VS. performing a boost/barrel roll.
• Taking damage VS. being damaged VS. being dealt a damage card VS. losing shields as a cost.
• Bombs VS. Mines.
• Having your maneuver dial turned face up VS. revealing your maneuver.
• Being in Range XYZ VS. Shooting in Range XYZ.
• At the start of phase VS. During phase VS. While phase VS. At the end of phase.
• Requirements of an effect VS. cost of an effect.
• Timing conditions VS. game state conditions. (ok, this one is a bit fuzzy. I mean the "While window, if" stuff.)

What other things do you feel people constantly mix up?

a couple/few that always gets people locally...

Initiative vs Player Order

Modifying Dice vs Adding/Removing Dice

and you kinda touched on this one...

Doing a Move vs Performing a Maneuver

9 hours ago, Bort said:

• Bombs VS. Mines.

• ...vs Remotes!

Also, since FFG wanted to differentiate between in-play Devices (Bombs, Mines, and Remotes), and on-ship upgrade Devices (the actual card upgrades, which used to be called Bombs in First Edition), we now have...

• Bomb Upgrades --> Device Upgrades --> Payload Upgrades

Oooh, speaking of V1.0 vs V2.0.

I still say "Pilot Skill" instead of the correct term "Initiative"

And "Target Lock" instead of just "Lock"

On 9/27/2019 at 11:49 AM, Bort said:

• Being given an action VS. being granted the effect of an action.

this is pretty clear. and pretty strangely expressed by you. when are you ever given an action? you can get opportunities to perform actions outside of the perform action step or perform them normally during the perform action step. a boost effect is different from performing a boost action, just like barrel rolls. also acquiring a lock is different from performing a lock action. most actions described in the rules reference clearly state this. for example barrel rolls:

"• If an ability instructs a ship to barrel roll, this is different than performing a action. A ship that barrel rolls without performing the action can still perform the action this round."

this is to keep the effect of the action separate from performing the action, since you can only perform every action once every round. otherwise, design space would be limited. you would have been able to use a quadjumper, activate at initiative 1, fly up to an initiative 6 ship, tractor beam it, make it barrel roll or boost and thus prevent it from performing that action during its activation. the barrel roll effect is also used to resolve other effects, such as decloaking.

On 9/27/2019 at 11:49 AM, Bort said:

• Having an action added to your action bar VS. being allowed to do an action from another effect.

this is also very clear and easier to understand in your words. some upgrade cards give you more actions on you action bar. it looks like this:



some upgrade cards or other pilots will refer to action bars, so in some cases, it's relevant to keep track of what actions are on an action bar. for example, lieutenant sai.

other upgrade cards or abilities can still grant you actions that are not on your action bar, though. an excellent example is supernatural reflexes.


i think that's all very clear and even quite clever design.

On 9/27/2019 at 11:49 AM, Bort said:

• Shooting in your front arc VS. having a primary front arc.
• Shooting in your bullseye arc VS. shooting in your front arc.

shooting is not the same thing as having a weapon at all. most ships have primary front arc weapons. if they instead have a primary turret and fire that out of their front arc, it's a attack and not a . what kind of attack a weapon is is stated on the card that grants you the attack (as you can see above on Sais card, she has a front arc primary and a back arc primary). tie/sfs attacking with missiles cannot trigger outmaneuver, since their ship ability makes missiles turret attacks instead of front arc attacks. you can shoot something in your front arc with a front arc weapon or turret and it can also be in your bullseye, enabling you to use for example predator or crack shot. when you fire at something in your bullseye, the target will also be in your front arc, even though you may not trigger other abilities granted to front arc attacks, if you're performing a bullseye (nantex bullseye primary, heavy laser cannon, proton rockets) attack and not a front arc attack.

On 9/27/2019 at 11:49 AM, Bort said:

• Being disarmed (from cloak) VS. being disarmed (from having a disarm token).

could be cleaner and clearer, yes, but it's still not very confusing. this is what the RR says about it:

"A ship is cloaked while it has a cloak token. Cloak tokens are blue tokens. A cloaked ship has the following effects:
• Its agility value is increased by 2.
• It is disarmed.
• It cannot perform the cloak action or gain a second cloak token."

On 9/27/2019 at 11:49 AM, Bort said:

• Executing a Maneuver VS. Fully executing a Maneuver.

overlapping and bumping and blocking are all pretty integral parts of x-wing. if you bump, you have not fully executed a maneuver. please note that you do not overlap other ships when you execute a speed 0 maneuver, so speed 0 maneuvers are always fully executed. if you do not bump, you have fully executed a maneuver, even if you land on a mine or an obstacle. even if you bump, you have still executed a maneuver, just not fully. no matter what, as long as a ship is in play, it will always execute a maneuver during it's activation, even if it doesn't move an inch. the SLAM-action even lets ships execute a second maneuver during the perform action step. also, ailerons on tie strikers and tie reapers are maneuvers, so they can also execute two maneuvers during their activation.

On 9/27/2019 at 11:49 AM, Bort said:

• Performing a move LIKE a boost/barrel roll VS. performing a boost/barrel roll.

not sure where you got this from. tractoring? decloaking? yes, the effects of boosting and barrel rolling are used in different scenarios, which is quite helpful since the're quite well described in the RR. care to inform me what's confusing?

On 9/27/2019 at 11:49 AM, Bort said:

• Taking damage VS. being damaged VS. being dealt a damage card VS. losing shields as a cost.

yes, this one i have seen before! taking damage can be resolved in a couple of ways. if you have active shields left, one is lost for every damage (it's not a cost!). if you have no shields, you are dealt damage cards. if you have at least one damage card, you are damaged. damage is always dealt one at a time. it's actually very simple.

On 9/27/2019 at 11:49 AM, Bort said:

• Bombs VS. Mines.

what? you know the cards tell you which device you're dealing with, right? it's right at the top of the text box. some abilities and rules will reference different types of devices. you check what's what when you're wondering.

On 9/27/2019 at 11:49 AM, Bort said:

• Having your maneuver dial turned face up VS. revealing your maneuver.

yes, this is certainly not crystal clear. it's very unintuitive that a ship that has it's dial turned face up still reveals it's maneuver, but that's how it's done. this is how it's described in the RR:

"1. Reveal Dial: The ship’s assigned dial is revealed by flipping it faceup and then placing it next to its ship card."

it's a specific timing that occurs and it's not stopped by having your dial face up before that. after all, it's technically possible to flip a dial face up even if it's already turned face up. sloppy writing at it's best.

On 9/27/2019 at 11:49 AM, Bort said:

• Being in Range XYZ VS. Shooting in Range XYZ.

nope. this is super clear. people want to play this game without reading the rules, which is understandable and acceptable, but it's pretty strange that they prefer asking questions online to actually reading the rule book or the rules reference first. makes me think the resources should be easier to access - and most of all better written. the rules reference could be condensed. the core rule book is pretty simple, but could also be shorter and clearer.

On 9/27/2019 at 11:49 AM, Bort said:

• At the start of phase VS. During phase VS. While phase VS. At the end of phase.
• Requirements of an effect VS. cost of an effect.
• Timing conditions VS. game state conditions. (ok, this one is a bit fuzzy. I mean the "While window, if" stuff.)

yes, 100% agree. timing is super important for a lot of effects and abilities - and they are not clearly described, just kind of described. very sloppy work. prime example is thannison and phasma. the ability queue was fine before FFG decided to add the part about ability requirements. it's very strange now.

hope this helps someone. cheers!

12 hours ago, Bort said:

The point of this list is just to show definitions that people are unsure of, to show where danger areas are when interpreting rules.

....

If this list seems sensible to have it might be useful to expand it to include definitions (or even beter RR or rulebook page/paragraph references) and explanations.

Thanks for all the detail @meffo . Wasn't asking for explanations. Was just listing some things people tend to mix up.

*Edit Basically things I had to explain to people, or have people explain to me at some point.

15 minutes ago, meffo said:

this is pretty clear. and pretty strangely expressed by you. when are you ever given an action?

Sure, my wording was odd. What I meant was "Taking an action" vs "Given the effect of" an action.

You can for example be given a Focus token, without having taken the focus action. One is more restrictive than the other. And they can cause different things to trigger.

So, what would be the best way to make this list useful now?

@meffo already gave some nice referenced answers to a lot of them.

But how can we make this a useful, living topic/thread, where people can easily refer to?

On 9/27/2019 at 3:41 PM, shaunmerritt said:

Initiative vs Player Order

As proven by "Mux" and "Heightened Perception" coming up once again in another thread.

Keep regularly posting to it, and any time a rules debate comes up, link to it.

How about things that sound different but are treated by the rules as being the same?

Such as: "after [target ship] is destroyed" actually resolves as "before [target ship] is removed" per RR(1.0.5) p9.

20 hours ago, nitrobenz said:

How about things that sound different but are treated by the rules as being the same?

Such as: "after [target ship] is destroyed" actually resolves as "before [target ship] is removed" per RR(1.0.5) p9.

This is a good one to mention. Someone posted on the subreddit a picture of PS1 ships vs a TA-175 swarm of PS1 droids. The other ships had iniative and the droids all took target lock because "they will get the calculate when #15 is destroyed". When I pointed out that they will get the calculates when he is removed multiple people pointed to the wording of TA-175 without referencing the RR at all.

Granted we have all made mistakes because of strange rulings vs wording, but that one really resonated with me.

On 10/5/2019 at 1:42 PM, nitrobenz said:

How about things that sound different but are treated by the rules as being the same?

Such as: "after [target ship] is destroyed" actually resolves as "before [target ship] is removed" per RR(1.0.5) p9.

you know what makes that dumb? Deathfire.

He specifically states "After you are destroyed, before you are removed", which according to that rule, is redundant.

The rules and cards include a lot of redundancies.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

The rules and cards include a lot of redundancies.

!Design Space! If 'Deathfire' specifies being-destroyed-but-before-removal, it means there could be cards which tamper with the destruction-then-removal timing!

FEL'S WRATH CONFIRMED.

2 minutes ago, AceDogbert said:

!Design Space! If 'Deathfire' specifies being-destroyed-but-before-removal, it means there could be cards which tamper with the destruction-then-removal timing!

There already are, see Raymus Antilles... and that one gave me a headache trying to figure out how it works.

35 minutes ago, AceDogbert said:

!Design Space! If 'Deathfire' specifies being-destroyed-but-before-removal, it means there could be cards which tamper with the destruction-then-removal timing!

FEL'S WRATH CONFIRMED.

Except when they make exceptions like that to core rules, they (should) always state that exception. If they do not, we can (and do) assume they are bound by the normal restrictions. So there was really no reason to include that stipulation in Deathfire, when not having it would just mean we reference the rules, that has that stipulation already.

The only reasonable explanation is they printed Deathfire before they finalized the rules reference, and decided to add that in after, too late to fix the wording on the card.