After defence tokens and shields I have inflicted 2 hull damage to an enemy ship. I have a crit and XX-9s.
The first card and the third card in the deck are structural damage.
Do I draw one card face up and apply the crit effect dealing card 2 face down and then draw card 3 face up and so apply crit again adding card 4 face down.
or, do I draw cards 1&2 face up and then apply the crits of say one structural damage and another letting me set the targets top command dial?
You probably draw a faceup, facedown, then faceup, but there are arguments either way.
From the rules:
So you do the damage, 2 hull goes through, and you've chosen XX-9s as your crit.
The first point of damage is suffered, it has no shields, so it goes through to hull. The ship suffers a facedown damage card. Because of XX-9s, that damage is dealt face-up. Structural damage then says to deal a facedown damage to that ship, and this has to be done immediately. This second damage card was not dealt "by this attack" but by the structural damage card, so is not covered by XX-9s. So it stays facedown.
Then the second point of damage is suffered, it goes through to hull again, so deal a facedown damage card. But this is the second facedown damage card dealt "by this attack", so is dealt faceup due to XX-9s.
The counter argument is that the second card (the structural damage effect) is still dealt "by this attack", just indirectly. By analogy to APTs and the Fire Control Team FAQ. But I'm not convinced by that, as the APT card is still part of the attack (via resolving a critical effect), not coming from the damage card itself.
You've pretty much got it.
The structural damage face up is the one dealing dealing the extra damage card "facedown". Not the attack itself.
So in the event of drawing two structural damage cards face up. Those extra damage cards are dealt face down.