Talk:Cloaking Device/@comment-31011166-20170718061724/@comment-454133-20171023162308

New players may be unfamiliar with how abilities trigger and how windows of opportunities work.

Unlike other games, a ship in X-Wing Miniatures doesn't have an action pool that it can spend from in a freeform manner. Instead, what the ship can do and when is dictated by the Phases / Order of Gameplay. You perform your maneuver when you activate, you take your action when the Perform Action step comes up, and so on. During combat, after you roll attack dice, all abilities that can modify attack dice trigger, and there are rules for which ones activate in what order; if a player has multiple effects queued up, he gets to choose the order in which to resolve them. You choose whether to use an ability when it triggers, and if you choose to not do it right then, the window of opportunity closes and the game moves forward (though it may trigger again later in the round).

Every upgrade card, pilot ability, and game rule fits into this Order of Gameplay somewhere.

In the case of PTL, it can be understood like this:

Limit: once per round

Trigger: After you perform an action (either your action at the end of yor maneuver during the activation phase, or granted by a card like BB-8)

Effect: Perform one free action shown in your action bar. Then receive a stress token.

If you perform an action and decide to not PTL immediately after, then you don't get to PTL that round unless you get to perform another action due to another effect.

This may feel alien and restrictive compared to other games you're used to, but there's actually a ton of awesome combos that can be pulled off with it. Note that PTL's free action can itself trigger effects, like Experimental Interface. You could take an action, PTL into another action, and before PTL's "Then" clause, Experimental Interface into another action, then receive the EI stress, then receive the PTL stress (as the stack of abilities unwinds).

Consider this scenario for an ARC: Reveal your green maneuver, BB-8 a Barrel Roll action, PTL a Target Lock, Experimental Interface a Lando Calrissian, receive EI stress then PTL stress, perform your green maneuver, clear a stress, clear a 2nd stress thanks to a nearby Inspiring Recruit, then reach the Perform Action step with no stress and perform your regular action.

Madness. Beautiful, glorious madness. ;)