Whisper tie phantom example
Whisper's pilot ability is

After you perform an attack that hits, you may assign 1 focus token to
your ship.

As per usual combat follows the following ten steps from the FAQ (as of Dec 2016):

Declare target.
Roll your attack dice. (First using any abilities that modify the number of dice)
Modify the attack dice. (Defender always modifies the attack dice first)
Roll the Defence dice.
Modify the Defence dice. (Attacker always modifies the defence dice first)
Compare results.

The rules for step 6 include the following text

During this step, players compare their dice results
to determine whether the defender was hit.
To determine whether the defender was hit, compare
the number of hits and critical hits and evades in the common
area. For each evade result, cancel (remove) one hit or critical hit
result from the attack roll. All hit results must be
canceled before any critical hit results may be canceled.
If there is at least one uncanceled hit or critical hit result
remaining, the defender is considered hit (see page
13). If all hit and critical hit result are canceled, the attack
misses and the defender does not suffer any damage.

At this point, if there are uncanceled hits or critical hits, then Whisper gains a focus token.
If the attack is a miss, and is also the first attack from a secondary weapon with the ability &quot;Perform this attack twice&quot;, then the second attack would occur now.

Deal damage.

If the attack isn't a miss and is also the first attack from a secondary weapon with the ability &quot;Perform this attack twice&quot;, then the second attack would occur now.

Use any abilities that occur &quot;after attacking&quot;, or &quot;after defending&quot;. The player with initiative uses theirs first.
Use any abilities that occur &quot;after attacking&quot;, or &quot;after defending&quot; that trigger an extra attack. The player with initiative uses theirs first.
Remove any destroyed ships, accounting for the simultaneous attack rule (ships destroyed by another ship with the same pilot skill, still get their turn to attack).

After all ships have had an opportunity to attack, you move on to the end phase, when all focus and evade tokens are removed.
Example:
Whisper with Veteran Instincts, Gunner and Advanced Cloak attacks at PS 9, before Tycho Celchu at PS 8.
Whisper has an evade token, from having taken evade as it's action during the activation phase. Tycho Celchu also took the evade action.

Whisper declares it's target as Tycho Celchu; Tycho is within Whisper's arc and at range 2.

Whisper rolls 4 dice, and gets Miss, Eye, Hit &amp; Critical Hit.

No modifications to the attack dice are taken.

Tycho rolls 3 Defence dice, and gets Blank, Eye &amp; Evade.

Tycho uses his evade token to add one evade to his defence dice.

We compare the total of two evades from the on the defence dice and evade token with the hit and critical hit symbols on the attack dice. Regular hits must be canceled before critical hits, but as all hits are canceled this doesn't matter.
All of Whisper's attack dice are canceled. The attack was a miss.

All dice were canceled and no damage is dealt.

Advanced Cloaking device triggers, giving Whisper the option to take a free cloak action, which Whisper doesn't take as it would prevent the second attack.
Whisper's pilot ability doesn't trigger, as the criteria wasn't met (this attack was a miss).

Gunner triggers, giving Whisper a second attack. That attack occurs now.


Whisper's second attack

We declare Tycho as the target again - still at Range 2.

Whisper rolls 4 attack dice and gets Miss, Hit, Hit &amp; Critical Hit.

No modifications to the attack dice are taken.

Tycho rolls 3 defence dice and gets Blank, Evade &amp; Evade.

No modifications to the defence dice are taken (Tycho no longer has his evade token).

Comparing the evades with the hits, we cancel the two regular hits on Whisper's dice, resulting in one Critical Hit symbol remaining.
The attack was a hit as there is at least one uncanceled hit or critical hit.

Tycho takes one critical hit, which either removes one shield or if he has no remaining shield tokens deals him a face up damage card.

Advanced Cloaking device triggers again, giving Whisper the option to take a free cloak action; the option is taken this time.
Similarly Whisper's Pilot ability triggers as this is a hit, and Whisper gains a focus token.

Gunner cannot trigger, both because this is a hit, and because it has already triggered.

We now check to see if any ships have been destroyed and remove them (unless they also had the same pilot skill and lower initiative than Whisper).


Whisper's turn to attack is now over, leaving Whisper with an evade token, a focus token and it's cloak active.
We proceed to any other ship's turn to attack in order of descending PS, with ties partially broken by Initiative as per usual.
If it had been Jake with Veteran Instincts instead of Tycho in the example (who would then have had the same PS as Whisper) but Whisper had initiative then even if Whisper had killed Jake, Jake would still get an attack, but Whisper would have his focus token and Cloaking device up. If Jake had initiative, then Jake would have attacked first before Whisper could activate his focus token and cloaking device, though Whisper would still have it's evade token.
N.B. This exact set up with Whisper is partly chosen here to highlight some interactions with the rules (such as 'hit' interacting with gunner), and also because this particular set up on Whisper has been a popular and successful set up in tournaments - at least prior to the nerf to cloaking - and could thus be considered a fairly likely situation (although I have no idea as to the presence or absence of Tycho or Jake in tournament lists).