Being a new player, I was recently in a match against a firespray with angled Deflectors. The player had been angling Deflectors then reinforcing. My question is: after I had hit the ship enough to deplete all of the shield tokens and started to damage hull, could that ship have continued to angle and reinforce Deflectors?

No. If that were the case then Angled Deflectors would have to be 1 pt. Since you already pay a shield. Plus you could just say that these deflectors are completely different than shields. Since you pay one shield to get it. Why would the firespray have them, since it can already reinforce? Interesting.

6 minutes ago, eagletsi111 said:

Why would the firespray have them, since it can already reinforce? Interesting.

Probably to get a white reinforce.

17 hours ago, Valshazabar said:

Being a new player, I was recently in a match against a firespray with angled Deflectors. The player had been angling Deflectors then reinforcing. My question is: after I had hit the ship enough to deplete all of the shield tokens and started to damage hull, could that ship have continued to angle and reinforce Deflectors?

Angled Deflectors grant the reinforce action. Nothing in the reinforce action says you can only take the action if you still have active shields. The restriction is shields are required to equip the card. You do not pay a shield to use the action. Equipping the card reduces your shield value by one.

Presumably the spent (to equip) shield is the deflector you're angling to Reinforce.

Also he couldn’t reinforce AND angle deflectors becuz they’re both reinforce??? Not sure what OP is saying

39 minutes ago, JBFancourt said:

Also he couldn’t reinforce AND angle deflectors becuz they’re both reinforce??? Not sure what OP is saying

I think OP is misreading the "shield value of 1 or more" restriction to apply outside of squad-building.

There certainly seems to be an incorrect premise operating in the first two posts. Reinforce tokens stack but you still only get one reinforce action per turn.

58 minutes ago, JBFancourt said:

Also he couldn’t reinforce AND angle deflectors becuz they’re both reinforce??? Not sure what OP is saying

For that matter, how does one "angle deflectors?" It's just the name of the card... it doesn't mean anything in game terms, like the Reinforce action does. I'm guessing that OP and their opponent had a fundamental misunderstanding of how the card functions...

38 minutes ago, emeraldbeacon said:

For that matter, how does one "angle deflectors?" It's just the name of the card... it doesn't mean anything in game terms, like the Reinforce action does. I'm guessing that OP and their opponent had a fundamental misunderstanding of how the card functions...

That sounds likely. Especially of the opponent was using the white Reinforce from Angled Deflectors and the red Reinforce from his ship's action bar.

1 hour ago, Frimmel said:

I think OP is misreading the "shield value of 1 or more" restriction to apply outside of squad-building.

There certainly seems to be an incorrect premise operating in the first two posts. Reinforce tokens stack but you still only get one reinforce action per turn.

I may indeed have the wrong idea. While I do understand the requirements for applying the modification in the squad-building aspect. My contention lays in the ability to angle or reinforce a ships Shields after they have been reduced to zero. As in you cannot reinforce or manipulate something that does not exist. So if the y are separated then that doesn't make sense to me

2 minutes ago, Valshazabar said:

I may indeed have the wrong idea. While I do understand the requirements for applying the modification in the squad-building aspect. My contention lays in the ability to angle or reinforce a ships Shields after they have been reduced to zero. As in you cannot reinforce or manipulate something that does not exist. So if the y are separated then that doesn't make sense to me

Remember that equipping a ship with Angled Deflector lowers that ship's shields by 1. Meaning if you put it on a ship that only had 1 shield, the ship now has no shields. But it can still Reinforce. This is because the "spent" shield is what's being used to reinforce.

10 minutes ago, Valshazabar said:

I may indeed have the wrong idea. While I do understand the requirements for applying the modification in the squad-building aspect. My contention lays in the ability to angle or reinforce a ships Shields after they have been reduced to zero. As in you cannot reinforce or manipulate something that does not exist. So if the y are separated then that doesn't make sense to me

If you need an in-universe explanation, consider it this way... in order to equip Angled Deflectors, you have to have at least one shield to begin with. Then, by the act of equipping it, you give up one of your shields (a T-65 X-Wing with angled deflectors, for example, would have 4 hull and 1 shield), but you gain the ability to deflect some of those attacks. In a sense, that last shield, the one you lost, is still there, it's ALWAYS there... but now, it works as a Reinforce, letting you mitigate big hits against you by reducing the incoming damage. It just no longer works like a shield would TRADITIONALLY work.

As for a game-mechanics explanation, it's pretty simple... your maximum shield value drops by one, and you gain a white reinforce action to use as you see fit. Yeah, it might not seem thematic when a ship has no shields and only 2 hull remaining, but neither does a Jedi Starfighter dogfight against the First Order.

Just roll with it.

Another in universe way to think about is that deflectors and shields are not the same thing. They do similar things but not the "same" thing. The ship only has so much power and you make a choice between using deflectors or shields or shields and deflectors. Shields are brute force meeting the attack while deflectors serve to re-direct the attack requiring less brute force from the shields.

The sloped armor on tanks would be the root. The deflection from the slope "adding" thickness to the armor by increasing the distance needed to penetrate it as well as reducing the force of the projectile against it.

On cars bug shields versus deer grill guards.

3 hours ago, emeraldbeacon said:

In a sense, that last shield, the one you lost, is still there, it's ALWAYS there... but now, it works as a Reinforce

or, your shield value on the ship is covering the entire ship (front and back), but the reinforce is taking some power from the whole, and focusing it on either the front or the rear.

Put your deflectors on, double front! - Garven Dreis

Switch all power to front, deflector screens. Switch all power to Front, deflector screens - "Dutch" Vander

This is going to be a little long bear with me please. I guess I seem to not be able to communicate my thoughts clearly. In Universe, before a ship has active shields it doesn't have Deflectors working to disperse energy amongst various points along the surface of the shields that it may have equipped. In essence: a ship without shields should not be able to manipulate I.E. with Deflectors, shield boosters, or any other component able to affect the size, strength, or nature of shields.

When a ship has taken enough hits to deplete the resources nescessary to maintain shields, those shields drop and then can no longer absorb or reflect incoming fire. Further, at the point in time a shield has been weakened so as not have enough energy to cover the entire surface of the protected ship an equipped deflector on that ship(reflected in the cost of losing 1 shield value on the entirety in order to have the option to variate sections of power through the shield) may be able to pool enough power to only protect a portion of the whole.

I could list cannonical souces but I've probably been overthinking this and gotten nerdy enough.

The root of my desire for discourse on this topis is basically a point cost per benefit analysis to the utilization of the particular upgrade modification as well as The interpretation of the fact that it clearly states on the modification that it can Only be used if a ship has a shield value of one or more.

I understand the ability to modify a ship giving it a shield value of 1, then placing this modification which would remove 1 from the value. leaving the ship with the white reinforce action.

Thanks for your thoughts

It can only be equipped on a ship with a shield value of 1 or more. Once equipped, the upgrade adds a white Reinforce action to the ship's action bar. There are no restrictions on the use of this action. Fluff aside: for pure gameplay purposes, it's already not a very good card and it rarely sees play as it is. If reinforce could only ever be used by ships with a shield token, that would make it somehow more unplayable.

7 minutes ago, Maui. said:

It can only be equipped on a ship with a shield value of 1 or more. Once equipped, the upgrade adds a white Reinforce action to the ship's action bar. There are no restrictions on the use of this action. Fluff aside: for pure gameplay purposes, it's already not a very good card and it rarely sees play as it is. If reinforce could only ever be used by ships with a shield token, that would make it somehow more unplayable.

Agreed. Reinforce isn't a great action to take, in general, unless you have abilities that trigger off of your reinforce token (like Rear Admiral Chiraneau) or you're getting the reinforce token through some kind of bonus (like Lieutenant Tavson's extra actions).

You’re having a conflict between your world building mind and your “this-is-just-complicated-monopoly“ mind...

It happens to us all. FFG needed something to happen rules wise and it doesn’t always work out universe wise.

For example why doesn’t Dengar get rid of that terrible ship and fly something else????

Why does Obi’s R2 cost more credits than Luke’s???

lol.

9 hours ago, Maui. said:

It can only be equipped on a ship with a shield value of 1 or more. Once equipped, the upgrade adds a white Reinforce action to the ship's action bar. There are no restrictions on the use of this action. Fluff aside: for pure gameplay purposes, it's already not a very good card and it rarely sees play as it is. If reinforce could only ever be used by ships with a shield token, that would make it somehow more unplayable.

@Valshazabar On top of this, "Shield Value" in this case is referring to Shield Capacity, which is strictly the blue number on the ship card. This upgrade, reduced that capacity by 1 (and consequently, Shield upgrade increases that capacity by 1). What you are referring to, is the game state of being shielded or not shielded , which is different from shield capacity. In the same way that suffering damage, is not the same thing as being in a game state of damaged.

Something I would go back to on this is "rule of cool" and the "the universe doesn't need rules" discussions I frequently get into. A fantasy universe needs rules. Especially one that gets as big as Star Wars and crosses over into lots of stuff. I think our discussion here about shields and deflectors and all of that stuff is kind of at the root of the idea that there aren't any rules in Star Wars.

Shields and deflectors and screens and such don't exist. We don't actually have all the engineering for that sorted out and hard and fast and set in stone. We all have a general gist for it without a perfect understanding or even the same understanding. But we all get "shields down is bad" and "shields need power because no shields is bad" so we roll with some dramatic license and "rule of cool" in the matter of screens and deflectors and shields and such. We don't need to know exactly how the things work. We just need to perceive that our characters know how they work. In engineering we would be dealing with a dimension with a very "open" tolerance: 3" plus or minus 3/4". It doesn't need to be too rigid just kept in the park.

For some fans and some creators that can look like there aren't any rules, any parameters, at all. You went 3/4" over whats another 1/16" or 1/8" or another 1/2". And when we go to things in the fictional universe that need tighter tolerances like miniatures game rules it can be easy to get ourselves tied in a bunch of knots trying to fit it altogether. It can be a lot of fun to do that.