So, we have the Ion Cannon.

The following effects occur to a ship with Ion token(s),

at the beginning of the turn after it receives the Ion damage.

Planning Phase

- The ship is not assigned a movement dial.

Activation Phase

- The ship is moved 'Forward 1' (white).

All Ion tokens are then removed. The ship may perform Actions, as per normal rules. The ship now functions as normal.

Now, what if they decided to come out with the equivalent of the ion cannon... for weapons? For arguments sake, and because I don't want to type "Weapon-Disabling-Weapon" a thousand times, we'll just call it a Plasma cannon.

Obviously they would have to tweak it a bit, so one team didn't have a list purely of Plasma cannons, thus disabling the entire other team, and being super overpowered.

maybe something along the lines of:

- When attacking with Plasma cannon, if any uncanceled dice count as a Plasma token. All dice results are discarded. No physical damage affects the targeted ship. (basically, the Plasma cannon does no real damage. Only affects the weapons)

- Ships with Plasma tokens cannot use primary or secondary weapons during the Attack Phase. (bombs/mines are not affected)

- During the Action Phase, ships with a Plasma token may use their action to remove the token.

Maybe even having this "weapon" be in the form of a unique crew member. So that both sides could have a maximum of one. Or maybe in "Bomb form" where you have to drop the token and it explodes, dealing "Plasma damage" or something...

Thoughts? Ideas? I may incorporate this into an RPG format that I've been working on.

*Note*

If you have a reason you think it is a bad idea feel free to explain why.

If you have an idea to make it better, also feel free to explain that as well..

If you are simply going to comment on this saying something ignorant such as "This is a stupid idea because it is." please feel free to pass.

As written, they would be less effective against higher PS ships because they could use their action to turn the weapons back on before firing. Also, I think this idea is really powerful, probably too powerful to be made into a card.

Disabling weapons is what ion cannons do as well, fluffwise. I think the main reason they don't do so in the game is that being able to reliably shut down your opponents weapon each turn is rather powerful.

I think there was something similar to this in the TIE Fighter game: the mag-pulse warhead. The Shadow Droids also had EMP cannons, which could function similarly.

Not sure what I feel about a weapon negating attack completely for ships that shoot after it.

If it was Secondary then it wouldn't be so crazy a weapon. Although if such a weapon does ever get introduced I expect it to be packaged with a Modification that allows "Once-only" weapons to be used without discarding..

or possibly reducing a ships attack by Half rounding up. That way it blunts the firepower of an opponent but still allows them to shoot.

Anything that essentially is equal to flinging an Asteroid at someone that is not a "Once Only" weapon would be an auto-include in everyone's list since it has the potential for taking out a ship from the game even if it isn't considered "destroyed"

The only way this could work is if it reduced weapon value, or was a one-time use ordnance.

How about it works the same way ion cannons fire ie un-cancelled hit resolve the card with no damage and the text reads something like blinded pilot, next time you attack roll no dice. Could be a similar missile to ion pulse

Disabling weapons is what ion cannons do as well, fluffwise. I think the main reason they don't do so in the game is that being able to reliably shut down your opponents weapon each turn is rather powerful.

Powerful yes, but mostly just unfun. Bad game mechanic.

This is why each element of a ship's turn is discrete - stress, ion, and firing arcs can deny a ship part of it's turn, but you usually still have decisions to make for that ship.

I love how a user called 'Admiral Thrawn' liked your post, that gave me a little chuckle