Damage

Ships and squadrons can suffer damage from attacks, obstacles, and other game effects.

When a squadron suffers damage, reduce its hull points by the damage amount. To indicate this, rotate its squadron disk so that the plastic pointer on the support peg points to the squadron’s remaining hull points.
When a ship suffers damage, it suffers that damage one point at a time. For each point, reduce the shields in the defending hull zone by one. If the defending hull zone has no shields to lose, deal a facedown Damage Card to the ship instead.
When a ship has damage cards equal to its hull value, it is immediately destroyed.
When a ship suffers damage and a hull zone isn’t specified, the ship’s owner chooses which hull zone suffers all of that damage.
Faceup damage cards have either an effect that must be resolved immediately when the card is dealt or a persistent effect that applies while the card is faceup.
Faceup damage cards remain faceup unless an effect flips them facedown. While a damage card is faceup, its effect applies to the ship.
Facedown damage cards remain facedown unless an effect flips them faceup. While a damage card is facedown, players cannot look at its effect.
Damage cards are dealt one at a time.
If there are no cards remaining in the damage card deck when a damage card must be drawn or looked at, shuffle the discard pile to form a new damage deck.
Each damage card has either the “Ship” or “Crew” trait. These traits have no inherent effect, but card effects may refer to them ^[1].

FAQ

Q: Can players look at facedown damage cards assigned to ships?

A: No.