Before I head to my first tournament tonight, I wanted to double check the rules on measuring and premeasuring.

The rule book explictly forbids premeasuring your movement during the Planning phase. The book explicitly allows premeasuring before the following: performing a barrel roll, aquiring a target lock, and before declaring a target during the Combat phase.

So does this mean that measuring is only allowed during the specified times?

Many abilities are restricted by a specific range. It seems safe to assume that you can measure those distances when the ability comes up.

Examples:

1) After an Empire player rolls dice to attack, they should be able to measure the distance to confirm a reroll from Howlrunner's ability.

2a) At the beginning of the combat phase, a player with Swarm Tactics should be able to measure the distance to his own ships to determine who is within range before declaring which ship has the higher pilot skill. 2b) But can that player measure firing distances from thier ships to thier opponent's ships?

3) Does a Rebel player with Garvin get to measure the distance between Garvin and thier other pilots before deciding to take a Focus action?

There are many other situations like these and in my play group we have been restricing measurement to those times that specifically allow a player to measure, or to times when an ability would actually trigger. Anything before the actual trigger has to be estimated. (From the examples, 1 is allowed, 2a is allowed, 2b is not, nor is 3. Its only when Garvin actually spends his Focus token that he can measure to confirm that another ship is in range.)

I think you can basically measure Ranges at any time, but you just can't premeasure movement, except for the barrel roll action, which you can measure before committing to it.

Note that it says specifically that players cannot use movement templates during the planning phase. There is nothing that says you can't measure, although it would probably considered be bad form to do so, since it could be construed as "testing" for those who are familiar enough to know where certain moves end up, range-wise. In any case, after all the dials are set and you move away from the planning phase to the activation phase, I see no reason to restrict measuring at any time.