oh ya, goes without saying, but Stealth Device is more useful on ships that already have a naturally high agility. Although you may see funny combos like Ibtisam + Sensor Jammer + Elusiveness + Stealth Device from time to time.

I've run this setup on a few occasions and it certainly makes it very difficult for the (inexperienced) opponent to hit Ibtisam, often making her the last remaining ship in the battles. However, lately I've switched to a new and more aggressive/costly combo:

Ibtisam w/Sensor Jammers, Opportunist and Heavy Laser Canon (supported by Biggs w/R2D2 and Garven Dreis w/R2)

I think a lot of people may be overlooking one of the biggest counters to the interceptor. Ion cannons, and ion turrets. Against either of these I'd much rather have a SD than a hull upgrade. Moreover, consider the situations when that extra agility die does actually roll you an extra evade and you completely negate an attack, whereas without it you may have had to spend focus to negate an attack completely. There are other benefits to the SD than pure damage mitigation.

Yup, I see Ion weapons possibly making a big come back if the meta changes over to Interceptor territory. In such case I would certainly favor SD (w. PTL) but I'm no math wing :-)

The part that is really bugging me is everyone who seems to think that stealth is a 5/8 vs hull being an 8/8. This is just untrue on so many levels. Stealth device is better if you plan on evading all damage from the next two incoming attacks. The extra die does not add up to one health one hundred percent vs one attack but if you maintain the stealth past one attack it is already better than hull or shield. Part of the reason stealth is so good on high agility ships is because they can sometimes normally evade attacks quite effectively without it. Remember that stealth device only has to work once to be better than a shield upgrade as it costs one less point and a hull upgrade on a high agility ship.

Indeed.

The way I explain their relative value:

• As noted, you need to generate one evade for a stealth device to be worth its points.
• Specifically, you need to roll an evade you needed on that extra die. which happens just shy of half the time (give or take focus tokens and rerolls)
• Therefore, you need to get that bonus die twice or more for it to be worth it.
• Therefore, you need to be confident that you should completely avoid one or more attacks before finally getting hit.

If you are, then stealth is worth looking at. On fighters who you expect to dodge multiple attacks because they are inherently hard to hit (such as a continously evading Dark Curse), it's probably much better than one extra hit point.

I used to do this interesting experiment, where I took an evade dice and painted it a different colour, and have it represent the Stealth Device Dice. After rolling the dice a few times, I can quickly see how lousy Stealth Device really is

Anyone that wants to ignore the math and trust their feelings instead should really give this a try. Color one evade die differently. Roll your normal evade dice first. Apply any evade/focus tokens. After you have done "normal" defense resolution only roll your special SD die when you need to use it. You may be surprised at how your feelings of the usefulness of SD is offset by the reality that your normal defense resolution soaked most of the hits already. Leaving you with a mere 3/8 (5/8 if you have focus) chance to evade that final {hit/crit} when you are desperate. And remember, you need to succeed at the final roll in two separate attacks before it is better than HU by cost, or SU when avoiding a {crit}.

Yes but for a fair comparison you also need to count how often the hull or shield upgrade actually allows you to survive an extra attack. People are under the illusion that these upgrades are 100% effective but in truth they aren't. If the enemy drops you from two hull to zero hull in one attack then that upgrade did nothing, except in the cases where you blocked a crit on the extra shield, but that is a very specific part of the damage track. I'll freely admit that the Stealth device will only give you an extra 37.5% chance of an unmodified evade, and it might not be needed, but the hull and shield camp needs to get of their consistency high horse. Hilariously low agility ships are more likely to be overkilled than high agility ships so those upgrades are just as "meh" on y-wings and B-wing.

Von... The same thing can happen with SD, thus why I ignore that chance. If after you lose the stealth, you're sitting at 2 hull, and then get hit with a 3 damage attack, if your SD prevented 1 dmg, it was "wasted" since you would have been killed anyways. As for the SD / HU / SU preventing 1 dmg (yes, I know the SD can prevent more than 1, but its such a small probability of doing so that for mathematical purposes I'm doing it a favor by saying it prevents 1) they all are affected by the same chance that the damage mitigated was useless.

best part about 4 blanks? On defense dice, you have a 1.977% chance of rolling four blanks.

.375*.375*.375*.375=.01977539

Less than 2%. So why do I feel like I roll this more often than 1/50 rolls? *sigh*

best part about 4 blanks? On defense dice, you have a 1.977% chance of rolling four blanks.

.375*.375*.375*.375=.01977539

Less than 2%. So why do I feel like I roll this more often than 1/50 rolls? *sigh*

I used to do this interesting experiment, where I took an evade dice and painted it a different colour, and have it represent the Stealth Device Dice. After rolling the dice a few times, I can quickly see how lousy Stealth Device really is

Anyone that wants to ignore the math and trust their feelings instead should really give this a try. Color one evade die differently. Roll your normal evade dice first. Apply any evade/focus tokens. After you have done "normal" defense resolution only roll your special SD die when you need to use it. You may be surprised at how your feelings of the usefulness of SD is offset by the reality that your normal defense resolution soaked most of the hits already. Leaving you with a mere 3/8 (5/8 if you have focus) chance to evade that final {hit/crit} when you are desperate. And remember, you need to succeed at the final roll in two separate attacks before it is better than HU by cost, or SU when avoiding a {crit}.

Yes but for a fair comparison you also need to count how often the hull or shield upgrade actually allows you to survive an extra attack. People are under the illusion that these upgrades are 100% effective but in truth they aren't. If the enemy drops you from two hull to zero hull in one attack then that upgrade did nothing, except in the cases where you blocked a crit on the extra shield, but that is a very specific part of the damage track. I'll freely admit that the Stealth device will only give you an extra 37.5% chance of an unmodified evade, and it might not be needed, but the hull and shield camp needs to get of their consistency high horse. Hilariously low agility ships are more likely to be overkilled than high agility ships so those upgrades are just as "meh" on y-wings and B-wing.

Von... The same thing can happen with SD, thus why I ignore that chance. If after you lose the stealth, you're sitting at 2 hull, and then get hit with a 3 damage attack, if your SD prevented 1 dmg, it was "wasted" since you would have been killed anyways. As for the SD / HU / SU preventing 1 dmg (yes, I know the SD can prevent more than 1, but its such a small probability of doing so that for mathematical purposes I'm doing it a favor by saying it prevents 1) they all are affected by the same chance that the damage mitigated was useless.

I love the risk/reward game... but I often feel FFG has over priced these fun cards. Opportunist - is it mathematically sound? no. Is it a fun idea? Yes. It is fun to roll more dice. (and this is a game) But at 4 points, it just doesn't make sense. Especially when PtL is only 3! SD should be a 2 point mod and so should Opportunist. If a Target Computer is worth 2 points, I don't see how SD or Opportunist could be priced higher. Before Hull, SD was a risk one might take because they could not afford a Shield. Hull changes all of that.

I wonder if PTL would be the way to go, in terms of defense, if an Interceptor had three points to spend on either that or HU/SD.

I know it'd be impossible to calculate it, with the number of times you'd be able to BR and boost out of arcs, or just BR out of a few, and still be able to focus.

What's the math on one single ship shooting at me with 3 attack dice, range 2, no obstacles:

- I have HU, 3 defense dice, a focus or evade token (whichever is better in terms of defense)

- I have SD, 4 defense dice, a focus token.

- I have PTL, 3 defense dice, a focus and evade token.

I'm going to give the attacker a Focus. And lets look at Interceptor since it has both the BR and Boost.

Evade token is better. The attacker will do .49 dmg / turn excluding crits. Including crits, this is increased to .53 dmg/turn.

Int w/ HU = 7.54 rounds before it is killed

Int w/ SD = 6.62 rounds (2.85 rounds before SD is stripped, and 3.77 once it is)

Int w/ PTL = 15.79 rounds before it is killed

I used to do this interesting experiment, where I took an evade dice and painted it a different colour, and have it represent the Stealth Device Dice. After rolling the dice a few times, I can quickly see how lousy Stealth Device really is

Anyone that wants to ignore the math and trust their feelings instead should really give this a try. Color one evade die differently. Roll your normal evade dice first. Apply any evade/focus tokens. After you have done "normal" defense resolution only roll your special SD die when you need to use it. You may be surprised at how your feelings of the usefulness of SD is offset by the reality that your normal defense resolution soaked most of the hits already. Leaving you with a mere 3/8 (5/8 if you have focus) chance to evade that final {hit/crit} when you are desperate. And remember, you need to succeed at the final roll in two separate attacks before it is better than HU by cost, or SU when avoiding a {crit}.

Yes but for a fair comparison you also need to count how often the hull or shield upgrade actually allows you to survive an extra attack. People are under the illusion that these upgrades are 100% effective but in truth they aren't. If the enemy drops you from two hull to zero hull in one attack then that upgrade did nothing, except in the cases where you blocked a crit on the extra shield, but that is a very specific part of the damage track. I'll freely admit that the Stealth device will only give you an extra 37.5% chance of an unmodified evade, and it might not be needed, but the hull and shield camp needs to get of their consistency high horse. Hilariously low agility ships are more likely to be overkilled than high agility ships so those upgrades are just as "meh" on y-wings and B-wing.

Von... The same thing can happen with SD, thus why I ignore that chance. If after you lose the stealth, you're sitting at 2 hull, and then get hit with a 3 damage attack, if your SD prevented 1 dmg, it was "wasted" since you would have been killed anyways. As for the SD / HU / SU preventing 1 dmg (yes, I know the SD can prevent more than 1, but its such a small probability of doing so that for mathematical purposes I'm doing it a favor by saying it prevents 1) they all are affected by the same chance that the damage mitigated was useless.

But it is exactly scenarios like this that make me not trust "the math" blindly. It isn't that math is not able to evaluate such things, but for these types of analysis, assumptions and simplifications are ultimately made. It is entirely possible that the assumptions can be bad, the simplifications not accurate enough, or a number of scenarios are not considered. The understanding of the scope of all possible scenarios is not always understood or addressed by the evaluator. So, for me, the math is of interest, and compelling, but I'm not going to call it the gospel.

That is, until I see a simulation that replicates dice outcomes over many thousands of iterations. That is all that will answer the question definitively.

@ Giraffe

You're in luck then! Someone (not me) has been doing exactly what you've said... 1000s of iterations of dice. And it yields... go figure... exactly what the math says it should after thousands of tries. You can find it here

http://www.xwingdice.com/

I wonder if PTL would be the way to go, in terms of defense, if an Interceptor had three points to spend on either that or HU/SD.

I know it'd be impossible to calculate it, with the number of times you'd be able to BR and boost out of arcs, or just BR out of a few, and still be able to focus.

What's the math on one single ship shooting at me with 3 attack dice, range 2, no obstacles:

- I have HU, 3 defense dice, a focus or evade token (whichever is better in terms of defense)

- I have SD, 4 defense dice, a focus token.

- I have PTL, 3 defense dice, a focus and evade token.

I'm going to give the attacker a Focus. And lets look at Interceptor since it has both the BR and Boost.

Evade token is better. The attacker will do .49 dmg / turn excluding crits. Including crits, this is increased to .53 dmg/turn.

Int w/ HU = 7.54 rounds before it is killed

Int w/ SD = 6.62 rounds (2.85 rounds before SD is stripped, and 3.77 once it is)

Int w/ PTL = 15.79 rounds before it is killed

Yeah, it was totally the Interceptor I had in mind; don't know why it slipped my mind to be more specific. Thanks, I had a strong feeling, that PTL would be the safer bet, if pressed for points.

And xwingdice.com is an awesome discovery, thanks!

I think it depends a lot on how you play these ships regarding actions. If you play very aggressively the hull is your better option. If you mostly use your actions for evasion, than a stealth device can really help out. So it depends on the list really. I tend to fly stealth on my awings since I use them to joust from awkward angles before zooming around again. A focus action on 4-5 evade dice basically makes you invulnerable. But if I were to play interceptors I would put hull and plan on being more aggressive.

@ Giraffe

You're in luck then! Someone (not me) has been doing exactly what you've said... 1000s of iterations of dice. And it yields... go figure... exactly what the math says it should after thousands of tries. You can find it here

http://www.xwingdice.com/