Thank god none of you are designers.

I'm sorry, reducing ordnance by 2 is insane. For 4 pts, the Bomber becomes THE ultimate control piece. Hell, thanks to the Ion Pulse Missile and the Flechette Torpedoes (and likely the Proton Rockets) reducing the cost of missiles/torpedoes is a really bad idea. It doesn't change the situation at all, because the cheap stuff only gets cheaper, and the more expensive stuff is still more expensive. And as usual, the TIE Advanced fixes just makes me shake my head.

Not all of us have had bad ideas, and not all of us that posted went through 6 months of testing and development in anticipation of our thoughts being torn apart on this thread...chill.

New missiles are likely to correct the cost of ordnance problem. Munitions failsafe was a step in the right direction but for a lot of things it just made ordnance more expensive and slightly less reliable (how often do you miss on a range 2-3 shot and get another attempt at that range before they take out the ship with ordnance still in the tubes?).

(Name TBD)

Turret Slot (Y-wing only)

Cost: -1 (maybe -2)

This ship gains the Bomb slot and 1 Crew slot.

This somehow costs negative points in your mind???

Well it does cost your Turret the reason 90% of people play Y-wings

Think about the interactions, though.

You have the following potential upgrade slots on the Y-Wing with your proposed upgrade.

Crew -=- Bomb -=- Astromech -=- Modification -=- Torpedo -=- Torpedo

And the generic pilots cost 16 and 18.

This is functionally identical to taking the two Missile slots away from a Bomber and giving it a Crew and an Astromech slot for the favor (while removing 1 agility die and 1 hull for 3 shields as well).

First, the suggested point cost was -1. -2 was given in parenthesis as a "maybe" and I would rather err on the side of caution, so we'll baseline at -1. The effective durability of both ships (6H @2 vs (5H +3S) @1A) are almost identical. My numbers come out to the Y-wing being somewhere between 100.8% to 106.2% as durable as the TIE Bomber.

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/100360-using-lanchesters-square-law-to-predict-ships-jousting-values-and-fair-point-values-work-in-progress/?p=1111620

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Y-wing TIE Bomber

So the net changes to go from a TIE Bomber to a Y-wing would be:

Pros:

• gains the droid slot
• gains 1 crew slot
• Very small increase in durability (<5% typical)

Cons:

• +1 cost (17 vs 16 at PS2)
• loses 2 missile slots
• dial downgrade

This is very reasonable. The TIE Bomber sees fairly little competitive use, so if all we have done is make a turret-less Y-wing comparable to the TIE Bomber, then we still haven't made a compelling reason to use the Y-wing sans turret. In any event, lets look at the droid + crew interactions you listed.

5x Gamma Squadron Pilot (PS4) + Seismic Charges has occasionally seen use in Store Championships and Regionals. It's a corner case list that isn't exactly rocking the meta, but it can be viable. The Y-wing Equivalent would be:

5x Gold Squadron Pilot + Seismic Charges + {1 point upgrade}

The Y-wing costs 1 more, so you have to downgrade to PS2, or mix PS2 and PS4 ships. Intelligence Agent isn't necessarily the most useful upgrade here, since the only decision is "to drop the bomb or not to drop the bomb". Your opponent already knows not to fly directly behind your ships anyway. You might be better off spending the extra point on an R2 to improve maneuverability. I really don't see an issue with Bomb + Crew here.

R2-D2 crew is of questionable utility, but lets evaluate this combo. First, you can only use R2-D2 crew after you have lost your 3 shields. Then, you will only flip over a damage card 3/8 of the time, and this assumes that you have already taken 1 damage. Then, R5 is only going to kick in if the card is also a "ship" type card. 25 of the 33 damage cards are of the ship type.

So, the R2-D2 crew + R5 is useful in the following scenario:

• You are out of shields
• You have at least 1 damage.
• 28.4% of the time you will then flip a card that R5 can later flip back over.

The other 71.6% of the time, R5 does absolutely nothing. Your appraisal of R5 here being "incredibly broken" and "annihilates the drawback" are dubious at best. And this combo costs 5 points, bringing the lowly PS2 Gold Squadron Pilot to a cost of 22. Would you honestly rather have Gold + R5 + R2-D2 Crew over a Blue Squadron Pilot for the same points?

Nien Nunb + R3-A2: the irony of this combo is that the Y-wing will likely have a harder time getting rid of its stress next round than its target. The Y-wing can't clear stress with ANY bank or turn. Nien Nunb makes the 3 forward and 4 forward both green. How often do you find yourself using 3 or 4 straights once you are in combat? R3-A2 makes a Y-wing very predictable: you know it's going straight. This isn't as big of a deal if you have a turret, but if you need to actually maneuver to line up a shot, then good luck getting rid of that stress and firing effectively. So Nien Nunb hardly "annihilates" the drawback of R2-A2 as you suggested.

R7-T1 + Tactician + Dutch: this is a complete non-issue. R7-T1 on Dutch is already possible, so we already have a baseline of Dutch being able to boost, gain a target lock, and then allow a friendly ship to gain a target lock. So 3 actions for the price of a 3 point droid. It hasn't shown up once in Regionals. Tactician is actually ANTI-synergistic with R7-T1. R7-T1 only works at range 1-2 BEFORE you boost, and Tactician only works at range 2 AFTER you boost. So if you want to attack the same target that you just got a target lock on, there is about a 1 cm thick band where your target can be in range 2 both before and after boosting towards it. I fail to see the issue.

What's your point? Thermal detonators don't even exist, and even if they will in the future we have no idea what they will do. You might as well just say {random future upgrade that does some unknown thing} might break {pick any combo in the game}.

And who drops bombs knowing they will take damage from them? If your strategy for dropping bombs requires mitigating "risk" on ONE of your Y-wings with a 4-point unique droid that is only useful after your shields are gone and you fly into your own bomb, then frankly I don't think your opponent has too much to worry about.

All of your examples are underwhelming at best. Reading through your list, I would actually conclude that FFG will eventually introduce a ship that has a droid + crew slot, since there isn't anything here that is even close to game breaking. The one combo that you missed, that actually would be useful, would be Dutch + Weapons Engineer, since this would allow him to hand out 2 free target lock actions per round rather than one.

Thank god none of you are designers.

I understand to an extent, but I wouldn't universally lump everybody in the same category. Judging by the (current and ex) FFG employee reviews of the company that are readily available online, the irony is that a statistician that can perform the same level of numerical analysis that I have done would likely be overqualified for the job. Most of the reviews say that the pay is low, the hours are long, and turnover is high. FFG does their testing through playtesting, which would catch most of the hair-brained or unbalanced ideas that frequently get tossed around on the forums. My suggestions are based largely on changing as little as possible and then numerically quantifying the effects where possible, so generally the standard deviation on balance issues resulting from my suggestions are much, much lower than the norm around here. And this is in my spare time. If I was a full time employee and this is all I was looking at, then I'm sure that working as part of the design team I would have been able to preemptively balance some of the ships a little better. The TIE-Advanced and A-wing are the most obvious examples where there is a clear correlation between their mathematical predicted value, and their lack of competitive use. I could have told you that they were both overpriced without even putting them on the table. That gives you better input vectors for balance and play testing to more effectively price the ship. I obviously am not planning on changing occupations and moving to MN, so you're stuck with peanut gallery comments on the forums from me instead.

I agree with all of this except for the idea of the -1/0 cost TIE Advanced only modification for a free FCS.

I think they should give us a new TIE Advanced mini and a TIE Avenger mini.

Throw some stuff in it to fix up the Advanced but also throw in stuff to trick out the Avenger.

I think they should give us a new TIE Advanced mini and a TIE Avenger mini.

Throw some stuff in it to fix up the Advanced but also throw in stuff to trick out the Avenger.

There just isn't enough difference mechanically or visually between an avenger and an advanced (and between the advanced/interceptor and Defender stats).

I'd rather see a significantly different looking tie: Predator, droid, clawcraft/Hunter,...

Even if they end up being slightly better/slower/more expensive interceptors. [insert need for elite dice conversation here]...

I think they should give us a new TIE Advanced mini and a TIE Avenger mini.

Throw some stuff in it to fix up the Advanced but also throw in stuff to trick out the Avenger.

There just isn't enough difference mechanically or visually between an avenger and an advanced (and between the advanced/interceptor and Defender stats).

I'd rather see a significantly different looking tie: Predator, droid, clawcraft/Hunter,...

Even if they end up being slightly better/slower/more expensive interceptors. [insert need for elite dice conversation here]...

The way I see it they could give the Advanced some neg point mods that do not take away perexisting abilities, maybe dull them while also boosting one or more attribute.

The Avenger though I do think it should be a expensive predator with better defensive capabilities than other IMPs. Like it should naturally have a 4 dodge and maybe a new manuver "loop" after doing forward manuver and attacking the Avenger moves backwards one. Yoi know what give it torps instead of missiles, I dont think any imps use torps except Bombers. Maybe give it 2 shields or 1. Three damage three haul.

How about an Imperial Aces II that gives the Advanced the ridiculous '2 EPT' upgrade the A-Wing is getting in Rebel Aces?

I honestly ask myself why they did not give that refit card a different more neutral name and wrote on it: "A-wing or Tie Advanced only. I mean it would have been a reasonable thing to do. A-Wings are somewhat overpriced and taking their Missile slot to correct it is a very good idea. Same thing would make a lot of sense for the Advanced.

How about an Imperial Aces II that gives the Advanced the ridiculous '2 EPT' upgrade the A-Wing is getting in Rebel Aces?

I honestly ask myself why they did not give that refit card a different more neutral name and wrote on it: "A-wing or Tie Advanced only. I mean it would have been a reasonable thing to do. A-Wings are somewhat overpriced and taking their Missile slot to correct it is a very good idea. Same thing would make a lot of sense for the Advanced.

Except that at 21 - 2 = 19 points for a Tempest Squadron Pilot, you're still probably better off taking an Interceptor (better Attack) or TIE Fighter (better price for the same Attack). It's a tricky needle to thread.

Or, to take it from another perspective: the fact that the Chardaan Refit doesn't say "A-wing or TIE Advanced only", although it easily could have, probably means the developers didn't want Refit TIE Advanced.

They also apparently never want to see them in competitive builds. Either they purposefully over costed it to push normal ties or they screwed up play testing. Steel is way over costed and the unnamed ships never see play. Vader's ability messed up everything. His free ptl is so good that it blew the bell curve. If he was on any other ship except maybe tie fighter, but maybe even then, he would be auto include. For example, would a two action bomber with ps 9 and an EPT see play? How about a Vader interceptor? Firespray? Even the Lambda shuttle would be good with him. Everybody else in an advanced just needs a cost reduction. Put the tempest at 18, storm At 20, and Steel to 23 and they get a lot more playable.

They also apparently never want to see them in competitive builds. Either they purposefully over costed it to push normal ties or they screwed up play testing. Steel is way over costed and the unnamed ships never see play. Vader's ability messed up everything. His free ptl is so good that it blew the bell curve. If he was on any other ship except maybe tie fighter, but maybe even then, he would be auto include. For example, would a two action bomber with ps 9 and an EPT see play? How about a Vader interceptor? Firespray? Even the Lambda shuttle would be good with him. Everybody else in an advanced just needs a cost reduction. Put the tempest at 18, storm At 20, and Steel to 23 and they get a lot more playable.

They also apparently never want to see them in competitive builds. Either they purposefully over costed it to push normal ties or they screwed up play testing…

Or the game was very different when they did pre-release playtesting.

Everybody else in an advanced just needs a cost reduction. Put the tempest at 18, storm At 20, and Steel to 23 and they get a lot more playable.

A simple cost reduction won't do it. It doesn't really fix their offense problem (for the same reason Prototype Pilots weren't burning up the hyperspace routes at 17), it doesn't make up for their weird dial (there's no other ship without either turn-1 or straight-1), and it pushes their defensive efficiency from "excellent" to "omg".

How about a Vaderesque option.

Experimental Reactor. Modification. Tie Advanced only, before you make a Primary weapon attack you may sacrifice 1 shield token to boost your primary attack value by 1, if the attack hits you regen your shield at the end of the Combat Phase

This would cost 1-2 pts (to balance out the higher base cost of the Advanced) and while not as suicidal as Vader (Crew) it is a bit risky and could reflect the "prototype" nature of the craft While it would make Vader(pilot) better would you really want to risk sacrificing a shield on your 30+point ship every turn? It doesn't necessarily help Maarek a whole lot but Marksmanship is more viable on him now with 3 Dice

Force Choke. Vader Only. At range one if an attack successfully hits Vader may roll one attack die. If a critical result is rolled, the target ship is removed from the game.

They have more firepower if there are more of them. The reduction in cost lets them put missiles on them more easily. 4 storm squads with missiles each gives you a tougher launch platform with a decent ps to try to lock with. You could also run 4 storm squads and howl runner miniswarm. The truth is it may never end up being fixed and it is a shame, but they never made as many of them either. A Biggs like effect on one would make one playable. There are things that can be done but who knows I just hope they do something.

Missiles are not cost effective. In the 2014 Regionals, only 7.8% of all points (weighted average) are being spent on upgrades. Of those, only 2.36% are spent on Missiles (almost always Assault Missiles). So, that's 7.8% * 2.36% = 0.1841% of points are spent on Missiles.

Meaning, out of 27 people who make the Final Cut at Regionals, on average, there will be one person who buys one Assault Missile.

You can't use Missiles to justify the cost/usefulness of any ship, even (or especially) a 2 point cheaper TIE Advanced.

Edit:

Vorpal points out that reducing the cost of the TIE Advanced still won't solve the problem. This is because the TIE Advanced doesn't really have a useful "role" that it can fill. Even if it was a cost efficient tank, who cares? It'll just get shot at last, and a Howlrunner TIE Swarm will still joust better.

For the TIE Advanced to have the same jousting value as a TIE Fighter, it would need to cost 17 points at PS2. Yes, it is literally overcosted by about 4 points relative to a TIE Fighter, ignoring its missile slot, Target Lock, and dial. But even if you did that, a TIE Fighter + Howlrunner Swarm will still be more effective than a TIE Advanced + Howlrunner Swarm, because her buff will be affecting more ships. If you decrease the cost more than that, it becomes overpowered, and the cost doesn't even make any sense from a "canon" perspective. Arguably, a cost under 19 doesn't even make sense with Canon, because that would make it cheaper (PS adjusted) than the TIE Interceptor.

So the solution needs be 2 pronged:

• Give additional unique capabilities
• Reduce cost further as needed.

A free FCS increases the TIE Advanced's damage output and makes Cluster Missiles useful. From what I gather Advanced came standard with Cluster Missiles in the Rogue Squadron game, so this is very justifiable from the background lore. The non-Vader pilots will still be overcosted, so reduce their cost by 1. In all liklihood this STILL wouldn't be enough for the ship to see much competitive use, but it would at least remove it from the darkest recess of the dungeons that it has been relegated to now.

Missiles are not cost effective. In the 2014 Regionals, only 7.8% of all points (weighted average) are being spent on upgrades. Of those, only 2.36% are spent on Missiles (almost always Assault Missiles). So, that's 7.8% * 2.36% = 0.1841% of points are spent on Missiles.

Meaning, out of 27 people who make the Final Cut at Regionals, on average, there will be one person who buys one Assault Missile.

You can't use Missiles to justify the cost/usefulness of any ship, even (or especially) a 2 point cheaper TIE Advanced.

All that being said, a 19 point Advanced without the ability to take Missiles is still overcosted, in my opinion.

Unlike the A-Wing, there is not a generic Advanced with an EPT potentiality.

They have more firepower if there are more of them...

Vorpal points out that reducing the cost of the TIE Advanced still won't solve the problem. This is because the TIE Advanced doesn't really have a useful "role" that it can fill. Even if it was a cost efficient tank, who cares? It'll just get shot at last, and a Howlrunner TIE Swarm will still joust better.

Yeah, this is pretty much it. If I want a tanky ship or a missile platform I'll run Bombers; if I want a really cheap swarmable 2 Attack I'll run TIE Fighters. The Advanced is outclassed in both roles, and it's badly outclassed by Interceptors as an offensive ship. What it needs is a way to make use of its tankiness.

The A-wing got its fix first, I think, because it was easier: it was just overpriced for what it does, and now it's not. As I said further back, the TIE Advanced has deeper and more subtle problems, and any fix is going to be a tricky needle to thread.

They have more firepower if there are more of them...

Vorpal points out that reducing the cost of the TIE Advanced still won't solve the problem. This is because the TIE Advanced doesn't really have a useful "role" that it can fill. Even if it was a cost efficient tank, who cares? It'll just get shot at last, and a Howlrunner TIE Swarm will still joust better.

Yeah, this is pretty much it. If I want a tanky ship or a missile platform I'll run Bombers; if I want a really cheap swarmable 2 Attack I'll run TIE Fighters. The Advanced is outclassed in both roles, and it's badly outclassed by Interceptors as an offensive ship. What it needs is a way to make use of its tankiness.The A-wing got its fix first, I think, because it was easier: it was just overpriced for what it does, and now it's not. As I said further back, the TIE Advanced has deeper and more subtle problems, and any fix is going to be a tricky needle to thread.

Thus my suggestion for the shield recharge (like R2's). It's not like adding a droid slot because it doesn't have that much utility. Just make it an Advanced modification only. And even if Vader gets it, you can only ever take one Vader anyways and there are still a lot more powerful named pilots out there.

And truly, if one named pilot is going to be the most powerful in the game, shouldn't it BE Darth Frickin Vader, rather than some guy somebody read about in that one book that time?

I don't think giving him a chance at a shield recharge (like Luke, or Biggs with R2) is any manner of game breaking. It's still a TIE Advanced, it just has one extra action. And you add a shield recharge modification onto it, what you DONT have is room for another mod like an engine upgrade.

All that being said, a 19 point Advanced without the ability to take Missiles is still overcosted, in my opinion.

Unlike the A-Wing, there is not a generic Advanced with an EPT potentiality.

Yeah, I agree. It's overcosted by 4 points if you only use jousting as the only metric. That's pretty accurate for the Advanced since it has no tricks to do anything else. So realistically the ship probably needs a free FCS and a -2 point reduction (-1 for Vader), and that would make it balanced. That's essentially about 4 point buff, which is exactly what it needs to be on jousting par with the TIE Fighter. I have been tossing around FCS and -1 since I err on the side of caution and don't like making huge changes even for House Rules, but the more I think about it, the more it's needed.

Of course, there are other game dynamics that could be added to buff it instead of giving it a free FCS, but as I'm not a game designer, it seems to be the most elegant solution available given the tools at hand.

For the TIE Advanced to have the same jousting value as a TIE Fighter, it would need to cost 17 points at PS2. Yes, it is literally overcosted by about 4 points relative to a TIE Fighter, ignoring its missile slot, Target Lock, and dial.

Also, off topic, but I'm totally fine with a 2-point reduction on the A-wing via Refit. That puts it exactly where it needs to be to be competitive. 1 point would not quite have been enough.

Missiles are not cost effective. In the 2014 Regionals, only 7.8% of all points (weighted average) are being spent on upgrades. Of those, only 2.36% are spent on Missiles (almost always Assault Missiles). So, that's 7.8% * 2.36% = 0.1841% of points are spent on Missiles.

Meaning, out of 27 people who make the Final Cut at Regionals, on average, there will be one person who buys one Assault Missile.

You can't use Missiles to justify the cost/usefulness of any ship, even (or especially) a 2 point cheaper TIE Advanced.

All that being said, a 19 point Advanced without the ability to take Missiles is still overcosted, in my opinion.

Unlike the A-Wing, there is not a generic Advanced with an EPT potentiality.

Not to mention the a-wing has a waaaaaaaay better dial