The "Hold it Together" action for Engineers in Starship Combat says that it is used to treat a critically damaged system as if its damage was two steps less severe for the rest of the round.
So say we have Engines that are Malfunctioning. If the Engineer succeeds at their check for Hold it Together, we treat the Engines as if they had not suffered Critical Damage.
This would mean Pilot Checks are not imposed with a -4 penalty that round.
That all seems clear to me, but my question is what happens if these engines are subjected to a Critical Damage Effect during that Gunnery Phase? Would they become Wrecked? I believe that is the Rule as Intended, but by RAW the Engines were being treated as if they were Undamaged when the critical damage occurred. And it certainly wouldn't make sense to move their condition to Glitching here.
So what does the community say? The Engines become Wrecked, or do they stay Malfunctioning since the damage was delivered when they were considered Undamaged and Malfunctioning is more severe than Glitching?
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My opinion: they become wrecked at the start of the engineering phase.
They were treated as if undamaged, so the condition goes to glitching during the gunnery fase. At the start of the engineers phase of the next round the hold it together effect wears off, and the condition goes up 2 steps. Thus glitching becoming wrecked.
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The gunnery checks would not be impacted because no one suffers a crit until all shots have been fired. Think of it as both ships squeezing the triggers before the other shots finish traveling to the opposing starship.
From the CRB, page 320:
Attacks are made in the gunnery phase of combat, in the order determined during the helm phase, but the damage and critical effects (see page 321) are applied after all of the attacks have been made (meaning every starship gets to attack, even if it would be destroyed or crippled by an attack that happened during the same gunnery phase.)
Remember, a colossal ship (over 15,000 feet or 3 miles long) fits in one hex. There is a significant distance between ships, even in adjacent hexes.