I’ve had different opinions when it comes to this scenario and need it clarifying.

Ship A has collision detector and trades shots with ship B, both shots go through an obstacle nearest to nearest point.

Page 26 of the rules reference gives this says that ship B doesn’t gain an extra green die when defending as it is not ignoring the obstacle: “A ship that is “ignoring obstacles” does not apply the effects of overlapping or moving through them. When that ship performs an attack that is obstructed by an obstacle it ignores the effects of the obstruction, so the defender does not roll 1 additional defense die being obstructed by the obstacles the attacker is ignoring.“

Page 5 of the rules reference has a new section of text that says “The defending player determines a number of defense dice to roll.” From the defending players point of view, they are not ignoring the obstacle, so they do gain a green die.

These two seem to contradict each other.

The best way to think about it is that an obstruction isn't a benefit to a defender, but a penalty to an attacker. That's consistent with Obstructed on Page 14.

The attacker always determines the line of fire, and the line of fire determines the dice pool(s). The tricky, non-intuitive thing is, you have to disconnect the ideas of obstructed line of attack , and the obstruction bonus a defender could get. Consider the following:

• Whisper has Trick Shot and Collision Detector equipped. She decloaks over an asteroid (activating Collision Detector), then later turns hard-1 back onto the same rock, such that her attack (and any return fire) will have an obstructed line of attack.
• When Whisper defends , unless the attacker is ignoring the obstacle (Qi'ra, also flying over the obstacle with Collision Detector that round), she will gain +1 defense dice.
• When attacking , since she is ignoring the asteroid, the defender does not get the obstruction bonus. The line of fire is still obstructed, though, so Whisper will still get to roll +1 attack dice.

Similar effects happen with The YT-2400 Outrider title (the attack is obstructed, but Outrider imposes a -1 defense penalty as well) or the TIE Silencer "Blackout" (+1 obstruction bonus, -2 Blackout penalty).

Also important to note (especially with @emeraldbeacon 's point above) is that collision detector only ignores the effect of the rock itself.

The effect of the rock is that you lose your action, and also roll a dice to see if you take damage.

For example, if you had the crit card Stunned Pilot, and move through an asteroid, you would still get a damage even if you used collision detector for that round, because the effect of suffering the damage comes from the card Stunned Pilot, and you still move through or overlapped an asteroid this round. It's the same for Trick Shot. The attack is still obstructed, it's just that you ignore the effect of it. However, trick shot checks that the attack is obstructed and adds an extra red die.

Thanks very much for the clarification. 🙂

On 10/25/2019 at 11:46 AM, DarthSempai said:

Also important to note (especially with @emeraldbeacon 's point above) is that collision detector only ignores the effect of the rock itself.

Also..also..I probably don't need to point this out, but i will anyway. It only ignores the effect if the charge is spent. CD allowing boost/barrel roll though it, is separate and does not, in itself, allow you to avoid the effects if you do not spend the charge for CD's 2nd effect.

4 hours ago, Lyianx said:

Also..also..I probably don't need to point this out, but i will anyway. It only ignores the effect if the charge is spent. CD allowing boost/barrel roll though it, is separate and does not, in itself, allow you to avoid the effects if you do not spend the charge for CD's 2nd effect.

And to add to this important distinction... this means that your boosts or barrel rolls no longer fail due to an obstacle overlap. This can have effects ranging from great (allowing you to use gas clouds to much greater effect) to troublesome (sure, you can decloak over that debris field, but it'll cost you stress) to disastrous (if you want to tuck in right beside an asteroid, now you risk damage + no shot if you're too close!)...