Can some explain why this is a printed ability on a objective? I'm not seeing how to use this effectively 

Looking at the below link I can see some use of this card

http://www.cardgamedb.com/index.php/starwars/star-wars-card-spoilers/_/core/corporate-exploitation-core-35-1

I can see it as a way around resource match requirement

It's a neutral objective, but the ability allows you to focus it to play a faction affiliated character without a resource match.

Frankly, it's an objective you play for the associated cards -- it comes with 5 0-cost troopers.

It's going in my deck to take my objectives to 10 for my local event as the decks must only be avaible from one core set. This is a simple way to make the 1st  tournament fair for everyone on evey budget

You guys are missing the power of this card. It actually puts it in to play, as an action for any time. You can do combat tricks with it, etc. It's actually pretty decent, and will probably only get better later on.

JMCB said:

Exactly. For instance…you declare attackers, your opponent does not declare defenders…so you focus Corporate Exploitation, add a nice one cost unit with an objective damage icon to the engagement, edge dependent or not, and get an extra damage on the objective.

Or, another scenario, your opponent blocks with more units than you thought they would, or with different units than you thought that they would, you can toss another cheap unit into the engagement during one of the action windows. 

divinityofnumber said:

The objective is underwhelming precisely because you CAN'T do these things.

You can focus it as an action to bring a 1 cost or less unit into play. There's nothing that says you commit it to the current engagement outside of the normal declaration timing.

It's marginally useful for dropping a defender between engagements (i.e. when your opponent commits forces to his first engagement under the belief that you'll have no units to defend on the 2nd or 3rd engagement that turn, you can drop a unit), but once you're done assigning attackers or assigning defenders, there's no way to actually get a unit you play with corporate exploitation into the fight.

You can still play surprise defenders, however. Surprise attackers/defenders after all have been declared is a different story though.

BD Flory said:

I should have read it more closely. You are correct. As mentioned above, you can declare surprise defenders, however. But, you are correct in that one cannot declare surprise attackers.

divinityofnumber said:

Depends on how you define surprise, really. I don't have my timing chart handy, but I believe there's a window between engagements, so you could in theory attack one objective, wait for the defender to tap out his guys fighting you (or tap them out with tactics), then drop a 1 cost guy for a second "surprise attack."

I'm not saying there aren't tricks. I'm just saying that I pack this objective more for the 5 0-cost espo troopers that come with it than I do the ability. :)

There is an action window: when the conflict phase begins, after the active player declares attackers (I thought that there was an action window after the attacker names an objective to engage, but, according to the rule book, there isn't -- something to keep in mind when holding things like Force Stasis, etc.), after defenders are declared, after the edge battle resolves, after each strike of the engagement, and at the end of the engagement. 

divinityofnumber said:

Don't get me started with Force Statsis… it really should read "turn" instead of "phase."  As it is, the window for it to be useful is really short, especially on defense, it just sets up for "gotcha" plays against newer players…

dbmeboy said:

There is definitely a difficult choice to make when considering playing Force Stasis on defense, due to the action windows present in the Conflict phase. When the Conflict Phase begins, there is an action window. But, once this passes, the attacking player gets to choose an objective to engage AND declare attackers before the next action window. So, if there is an enemy Character or Creature that you really do not want to be attacked by, you need to drop Force Stasis right at the beginning of the Conflict Phase. 

divinityofnumber said:

The problem with Force Statsis is that if the new player makes a mistake and plays it during the deployment phase it does nothing at all.  If it lasted for a turn instead of just a phase it would function identically as far as strategy goes (and the small action window in the beginning of the conflict phase would still be the best time to play it), but it could be played earlier in the turn too.