Obstacles

Obstacles are objects placed on the playing field to make the area more hazardous. They are divided into two main categories: Those that start the game placed, and those that are placed during play. Each obstacle will have effects when a ship moves through or overlaps them (including when they are placed under a ship), and potentially a lasting effect while the ship stays at range 0 of it.

Shared Rules

Defense Bonus

While a ship performs an attack, if the attack is obstructed by an obstacle, the defender rolls one additional defense die.

This is in effect for all obstacle types. If multiple obstacles obstruct, the defender still only gets one bonus die.

Land On an Obstacle, Skip Perform Action

If a ship ends a maneuver overlapping an obstacle, it skips its Perform Action step.

This means a ship that flies fully through an obstacle (without landing on it with its final position) could perform an action, assuming something else isn't stopping it (e.g. stress).

Obstacles only force skipping the Perform Action step if the ship lands on them at the end of a maneuver. If the ship is able to move onto the obstacle by other means (e.g. a barrel roll or boost from being tractored), the Perform Action step is not skipped.

Even if the Perform Action step is skipped, other actions can still be granted to the ship (e.g. Coordinate).

Specific Rules: Starting Obstacles

These can be placed at the start of the match. Each player brings 3 obstacles of any of the 3 types and shapes they want (for example, all asteroids, 2 debris and a gas cloud, one of each type), but a player cannot bring duplicates of the exact same obstacle shape. If both players bring the same obstacle shape, that's the only way to end up with duplicates on the table.

Starting Obstacles each have a consistent effect that always happens, and a roll for an additional effect.

All three Starting Obstacles block a ship from attacking while it's at range 0 of them.

Starting Obstacles

Obstacle	Effect on Move Through or Overlap	Effect While At Range 0	Image
Asteriod	Suffer a Hit damage. Roll an attack die. On Hit/Crit, suffer an additional Hit damage.	Cannot attack
Debris Cloud	Gain a stress token. Roll an attack die and suffer any matching Hit/Crit result.	Cannot attack
Gas Cloud	Break all this ship's locks and all locks on this ship, then assign 1 strain token. Roll an attack die. On a hit, gain 1 ion token; on a crit, gain 3 ion tokens.	Cannot attack. Cannot acquire locks and cannot be locked.

Specific Rules: Placeable Obstacles

These can be placed by various effects, typically upgrades. The upgrade provides rules for how and when the obstacle is placed.

Each placeable obstacle has its own varied rules for how they affect ships.

Placeable Obstacles

Obstacle (Source)	Effect on Move Through or Overlap	Effect while Overlapping	Image
Blaze (Blazer Bomb)	Roll 1 attack die. On a Hit or Crit result, the ship suffers 1 Hit damage; on a focus result, it gains 1 stress token. Then the ship skips its Perform Action step this round.	None
Electro-Chaff Cloud (Electro-Chaff Missiles)	The ship breaks its locks and all locks on it, and then is assigned 1 jam token. Roll 1 attack die; on a Hit or Crit result, it's assigned 1 stress token.	Cannot acquire locks and cannot be locked.
Loose Cargo (Rigged Cargo Chute)	The ship is assigned 1 strain token. Roll 1 attack die; on a Hit or Crit result, the ship is assigned 1 stress token.	None
Spare Parts (Spare Parts Canisters)	The ship is assigned 1 strain token. Roll 1 attack die; on a Hit or Crit result, the ship is assigned 1 stress token.	None

Note: Spare Parts and Loose Cargo are indeed identical. Their shapes and deployment methods differ, but their effects on ships are the same.

Additionally, Blazes and Electro-Chaff Clouds are temporary and are removed during the next round's end phase.

Other Rules

• If an obstacle is placed such that one or more ships overlap it, those ship resolve any effects of overlapping it.
• A ship that is overlapping an obstacle can still perform actions granted from other game effects (but stress, ion, etc can still restrict actions).
• For the purpose of overlapping obstacles, if a ship partially executes a maneuver, only the portion of the template that is between the starting and final positions of the ship is counted. Ignore the portion of the template that the ship moved backward along to resolve the overlap.
• If a ship moves through or overlaps more than one obstacle, it suffers the effects of each obstacle, starting with the obstacle that was closest to the ship in its starting position and proceeding along the template.
• Before a ship moves, if it is at range 0 of an obstacle, it does not suffer the effects of that obstacle unless it overlaps that obstacle again.
• Before a ship moves, if it is overlapping an obstacle, it does not suffer the effects of moving through that obstacle.
• Huge ships have separate rules related to obstacles (see Huge Ships).