Uhhhh hmmm.
Yeah blinded pilot. I'm honestly not sure how to read that one. It seems like common sense would say no, but it does call it an attack, so I could see an argument being made there.
Explain Gunner to Me
This is certainly true but provided one remembers the little distinctions they are usually true.
But why bother to remember the distinctions? Understanding what qualifies as a hit is, honestly, easier than "If your ship takes damage it's hit, unless something kept that damage from landing in which case your ship is still hit even if it's not damaged, and that only applied to Gunner not Stealth Device, because damage outside an attack never counts as a hit, and Assault Missiles is separate too because even though it's during an attack ships that get caught by the splash damage don't count as hit even though they took damage."
And that's all before we consider what future abilities might do... Ugh
There are just too many crossover cases for "damaged = hit" to be a good shorthand, IMHO.
There are just too many crossover cases for "damaged = hit" to be a good shorthand, IMHO.
Re: Blinded Pilot: The attack still occurs, you just roll no dice. That will generally mean the attack misses, but the attack DID happen - that means that you can trigger other abilities such as Gunner or Vader, and may even still be able to hit - a Blinded Kir Kanos, for instance.
I'd say it's still an attack, so gunner could trigger because you can not hit with blinded pilot in effect. There's also the fact that blinded pilot doesn't go away until you make an attack. It's not "The next turn if you attack..." but rather "the next time you attack" so that effect could be in play for a number of turns.
I also found a discussion where this came up with regards to cluster missiles (our old favorite!) and the general consensus was that you could, in theory, attack with CM, shake the crit with the first attack, and still get a roll with the SECOND attack, as a way of sort of bypassing the critical effect partially.