You literally said "all failing actions should be treated the same", and they are. Nothing about charges.
Yes, you are correct, charges work slightly differently depending on what they are used for. Well, not the charge itself, but what happens:
Charge paid, Action performed (therefore resolved): Charge gone Charge paid, Action failed (therefore resolved): Charge gone Charge paid, dropped Bomb (therefore resolved): Charge gone Charge paid, Bomb couldn't be dropped: game gets rolled back to before you spend the charge. But the basics are the same - if the effect gets resolved, the charge is gone.

Reinforce states that it triggers in the Neutralize Results step if the attack hits and more than one hit/crit remains. "Remains" only makes sense if you first neutralize hits/crits with evades and then apply reinforce.
So in both of your examples one damage goes through.
EDIT: I misread the second example. @meffo is right, if you roll an evade it obviously cancels out the one hit.

not in the second example. if the lambda rolls an evade, no damage goes through and the reinforce effect never happens.

Reinforce states that it triggers in the Neutralize Results step if the attack hits and more than one hit/crit remains. "Remains" only makes sense if you first neutralize hits/crits with evades and then apply reinforce.
So in both of your examples one damage goes through.
EDIT: I misread the second example. @meffo is right, if you roll an evade it obviously cancels out the one hit.

Reinforce states that it triggers in the Neutralize Results step if the attack hits and more than one hit/crit remains. "Remains" only makes sense if you first neutralize hits/crits with evades and then apply reinforce.
So in both of your examples one damage goes through.
EDIT: I misread the second example. @meffo is right, if you roll an evade it obviously cancels out the one hit.

Just adding: Don't worry if it's not super precise. You won't be able to tell if a ship is out of bounds of it's just a few mm, but that's okay. 
It's more about limiting the ability to run away, not to make a perfect square.

Must have started up another game after posting

Nothing in step 2 indicates that step 4 gets skipped if the ion maneuver is not completed. So the tokens get removed.

Nothing in step 2 indicates that step 4 gets skipped if the ion maneuver is not completed. So the tokens get removed.

Nothing in step 2 indicates that step 4 gets skipped if the ion maneuver is not completed. So the tokens get removed.

Nothing in step 2 indicates that step 4 gets skipped if the ion maneuver is not completed. So the tokens get removed.

He's not trolling, that's what the argument is about. When does 'Performing an Attack start and when does Qi'Ra's ability trigger. 
I assume you have some interesting insights in the exact timing on the Engagement Phase to share with us. 

I'd say that doesn't work. That doesn't seem to be what is intended.
However, Jam also states "If the ship does not have any green tokens or is not maintaining any locks, it remains jammed."
Or, not and.  So you could maybe argue that yes, if you choose the other thing this works.
However, it seems to me that "You cannot freely choose to do something that is impossible" is a rule running through the whole game. I think this is the intended thing here.

Agreed. I concur that @Stoneface is correct with all those examples - and whether Qi'Ra could shoot if ignoring a rock isn't in question; if she ignores it, the rock isn't there, therefore she can shoot.
The issue is that her card defines two periods of time when she ignores rocks; when moving and when performing attacks.
She does not have permission to ignore rocks at other times, e.g. when performing actions, so could not, for example, barrel roll onto an asteroid if she had it locked (without something else coming into play, like collision detector).
Therefore, the debate is around the fact that, as noted, being on a rock appears to stop you entering the perform an attack step. At the moment, there is no explicitly defined "check if you're allowed to attack" step we can easily reference to see whether it falls during a period of time Qi'Ra is ignoring the rock or not.
It must come up each time you attack rather than being part of an engagement - otherwise a disarm token or being on a rock would not 'block' bonus attacks which may occur out-of-sequence - but the question is which comes first in order; qi'ra's trigger or the 'on an asteroid' trigger.
 
 
The 'can't shoot' side's argument is that the 'on an asteroid' trigger must come before you count as performing an attack, since that's what it stops you doing, whilst Qi'Ra's trigger is 'whilst attacking' which must come after you start performing an attack. If they resolve in that order (which people are entitled to disagree with, because that's where the lack of clarity lies) then it's pretty ironclad that you never get as far as checking for Qi'Ra's trigger and hence she can't help.
 
If you can choose to resolve her trigger first, then you're fine, because as soon as her trigger resolves, the rock ceases to exist for all intents and purposes for the duration of that attack. 

Or if something new is placed on the board appearently (as seen with the proximity mines).

Or if something new is placed on the board appearently (as seen with the proximity mines).

Its 100% clear at this point. This argument is pointless noise.

We have an official answer. You cannot attack at range 0.
It was indeed an omission in the rules and will be fixed.

Read the official answer.
 
Q: When a ship is destroyed by a game effect triggered with "before engaging,” does it still engage?
A: Yes, because the game has already reached that initiative step, it is not removed until after all ships of that initiative have engaged, per simultaneous fire.
 
The yes is important, the rest is reasoning. You don't get to ignore the official answer because you don't like the reasoning.
And just because the rule is there to represent one thing that doesn't mean it cannot also influence other things.

This is independent from Simultaneous Fire. Once the ship engages, it gets to fire.
It would make no sense if a ship could fire after being destroyed by a console fire only if there happens to be another ship with the same initiative.
EDIT: The official answer even explicitly states it gets to engaged. Yes, the rule is called Simultaneous Fire, but you don't need to have another ship for it.
EDIT2: Jokubas posted the same thing while I was editing 

no. if you are the only ship on the board of a certain initiative level, there is no simultaneous fire to play out. so if in this case, something like console fire kills you before you shoot, you don't get to shoot. it's the simultaneous fire rule that let's you shoot after taking enough damage to be destroyed. There has to be more than one ship of the same initiative value on the board for the rule to apply.

Well, it's not necessarily independent. The Simultaneous Fire rule never actually says there needs to be more than one ship of the same initiative. It just says that ships aren't removed until you're done resolving everyone of an initiative. If everyone is one, I guess you should still wait to remove the ship.

No worries. I got a bit frustrated because I got the feeling everytime I explained one point another one popped up. Sorry, I think my tone was a bit off in the end.
And yes, you are right, charges work slightly inconsistent in that regard. But I think it's easier to remain sane if you don't think about it as "Charges are inconsistent" but more "Charges adjust themselves to behave like the thing they are used for."
So if you use them for an action they work like an action (Action doesn't work out for you -> Too bad, charge one) and if you use them for a bomb they work like a bomb (Bomb doesn't work out -> Hooray, you never dropped the bomb to begin with!).

I was about to say:
I agree with your interpretation. The effect happens before you engage.
The ship dies before it gets to shoot. Being in a Simultaneous Fire situation does not prevent that.

Just looking at the rules, however, there does indeed seem to be a slight problem:
"After all ships of a given initiative have engaged, all destroyed ships are removed." does indeed say that ships get removed after they engaged. (Engagement Phase) "If a ship is destroyed during the Engagement Phase, it is removed after all ships that have the same initiative as the currently engaged ship have engaged." (Destroying Ships) "To represent that ships with the same initiative are essentially attacking at the same time, if a ship is destroyed during the Engagement Phase, it is removed after all ships that have the same initiative as the currently engaged ship have engaged." (Simultaneous Fire) Note that nowhere in there is a statement that a ship that gets damaged by an effect before it engages gets destroyed immediatly. So as baffling as it is - looking at the rules, your opponent seems to be right. This doesn't even have to do anything with simultanous fire - if the ship is destroyed immediatly before it engages not all ships with the same initiative have engaged yet (because the ship itself hasn't engaged yet), so it gets to fire.

Another rule I chalk up to "There is no way this is intentional"...off to the rules question submission form!

The new rules reference is out.
Nothing about costs, but we know now that we can't try an action again if it already failed this turn AND that it still generates stress. This is another example of "If the action fails you get all the drawbacks and none of the benefits", so I'd say the charge is gone.