Weapons Engineer

You may maintain 2 target locks (only 1 per enemy ship).

When you acquire a target lock, you may lock onto 2 different ships.

So, does this mean I can have target locks on 4 different ships? Here's my reasoning:

I can maintain 2 target locks. The first one I acquire (A) can lock on to Academy Pilot 1 and Academy Pilot 2. The second one I acquire (B) can lock on to Academy Pilot 3 and Academy Pilot 4.

If I spend target lock (A) to attack with a proton torpedo on Academy Pilot 1, then it's gone and I lose the lock on Academy Pilot 2, regardless of outcome. Then I choose to reroll using target lock (B) on Academy Pilot 4, and again it is spent and I lose lock on Academy Pilot 3.

So I had target lock on 4 different ships, but only got to use it on 2 of them. Does that make sense?

Or is it that the 2 target locks you can maintain are on the 2 different ships it originally gives you?

Thoughts?

It says you gan have 2 target locks, so its 2 not 4. The second line just tells you how to get your 2 locks.

The 1st sentence specifically says you can have 2 target locks, but only one per ship . so, 2 ships, 2 locks.

The second sentence tells you when you can get those target locks. You can get both of them at once. So you don't have to wait to the second round to get the second target lock. Essentially, it's like getting a free (second) target lock action, and allows you to break the rule of having two of the same actions in one turn. But you can only spend one of them in that turn, because you can only have one attack per round. Even if you were using it with cluster missiles, you could not use both, because you can't put both target locks on the same ship: only one per ship.

ziggy2000 said:

The guy in the video who said that it was possible to have 4 target locks is an idiot. I couldn't even stand to hear him talk so I muted it and only skipped around to places where they were showing the cards.

You have to keep in mind that most people's reading comprehension is awful and the people that understand the least talk just as much as anyone else (sometimes even more). Proof of this is right here in this rules forum. There are page after page of people being wrong about the rules and arguing like what they are saying is the word of god.

To be fair, the guy was skimming the card for the first time really quickly so that they could show it off to the world. He's not necessarily an idiot. It's a little confusing if you read it quickly, but not so much if you just reflect for a moment on what it says and why it must be written that way.

To be honest, I knew how it was supposed to work. But I looked more closely at the wording, and my imagination kicked in.

"When you acquire a target lock" (implying one target lock), "you may lock onto 2 different ships" . So, one target lock, two different ships. Two target locks, four different ships - which does not violate the first part (only 1 per enemy ship). Hey, I know it's a stretch, and the lock tokens don't support it, cause technically there is only one red token for each blue. But I thought it sounded interesting, and the fact that you ultimately have to choose which one of the two ships to spend it on (choose one, lose one) almost seemed to balance it out. I know it's fanciful thinking, but sometimes that's how my mind works.

A completely unambiguous way to word it would be "When you acquire a target lock, you may immediately acquire a second target lock on a different ship." That makes it very straightforward.

I think the ability could have been worded much better. I have to admit that when I first read it I was a bit confused about the nature of the second target lock. For example, if I expended the first target lock, did the second target lock also disappear? I can see how expanding that idea though could lead you to completely misinterpret the ability to allow you to make two target locks that each lock onto two different targets, and that in each target lock pair, expending one lock also gets rid of the other lock.

However, upon carefully rereading it and considering the game mechanics around target locks, it should become clear that you simply get the ability to maintain two distinct target locks, and that you can use one target lock action to make two locks (though your maximum is still two).