ok, we have several ship modification cards:

Engine upgrade

Stealth Device

and so on........

why not pilot modifications?

not all the pilots in the rebel fleet were human.

bounty hunters and mercs were not all human.

how about we get some cards to effect pilots?

Gamorean pilot = discard all pilot criticals but reduce pilot skill by 1 to a minimum of 1

Rodian pilot = can change 1 focus result to a hit when making an attack

Force sensitive pilot = after completing move, if your ship overlaps another ship or an obstacle you may change your dial.

ex-pod racer = after completing move, if your movement passes through an asteroid or your ship ends its move on an asteroid roll 1 defense die. on an evade result, ignore the effects of the assteroid.

just throwing stuff out there, what do you guys think?

would this need to be for ships that currently do not have a pilot ability slot only?

Gut reaction, if it was restricted to only non-unique pilots, I think it could be pretty cool. Although, the rodian one should be

Rodian: during the combat phase your pilot skill is treated as -1

Personally, in miniature games I am always more about making my own characters rather than using the games pregen ones, so this game's emphasis on named pilots has always kinda irked me and this would be a neat counter balance to that, making generic pilots still generic, but not all the same.

Not a bad idea.

I've definitely heard a lot worse.

I think if it was well thought out, could add something new to the game

Rodian pilot - regardless of your pilot skill, during the combat phase you shoot last. When facing Han Solo, you do not get an attack.

Drunk (-3 point downgrade)

Ignore the first use of common sense used by your opponent. If you use a focus token your opponent may remove it. May not perform red maneuvers.

I like the idea! Cool!

Would add some character to generics too. I think FFG would like that. And us people who like pretending our generics are our own made up squads.

Assuming that it was limited to non unique pilots then I think this would be a reasonable option. I would say that it would work the same as modifications though in that each ship could take a maximum of one.

hey into this category would also fall cloning.

allows the reuse of an unique pilot - with a slight penalty e.g. on the pilot skill

ok, that would open the doors to some evil combinations - but aren't we all a little bit sith

man, i feel validated, thanks for the response guys. (and gals, if any of you are of the female gender)

i do like the idea of non-unique only pilots, gives them a chance to shine a bit, but i strongly believe each bonus you might get from one of these upgrades would have to be offset somewhat by points and maybe a penalty somewhere else, like we have added in our examples.

i thought of a few more:

Verpine pilot = due to verpine being mostly techies, you gain +2 sheilds, but -1 evade dice

Twilek = gain the sabotage ability, -1 pilot skill

Duro = +2 Pilot skill

Gran = gain 2 focus tokens when making a focus action

Ithorian = -1 pilot skill, if a ship at range 1 gains a stress token, you may receive that token if you have no stress token

Sullustan = when landing on or moving through an asteroid, roll 1 defense die, on an evade, ignore the asteriod rule

Wookiee = after taking your first hull point of damage, reduce defense to 0 but ignore any stress tokens you gain.

I'd go a bit more cautious.

Why not give a 'race' some sort of one-time only-ability?

Think adrenalin rush sort of ability. Handy. Fun. use once only.

Would most certainly not break balance. At the correct point cost ofc.

hmmmm...

interesting point,

does make sense, you get that feel of variety yet not the full benefit of a pilot skill slot.

sounds good to me

We have them, they are called Elite Pilot Talents, and they even have an icon.

man, i feel validated, thanks for the response guys. (and gals, if any of you are of the female gender)

i do like the idea of non-unique only pilots, gives them a chance to shine a bit, but i strongly believe each bonus you might get from one of these upgrades would have to be offset somewhat by points and maybe a penalty somewhere else, like we have added in our examples.

i thought of a few more:

Verpine pilot = due to verpine being mostly techies, you gain +2 sheilds, but -1 evade dice

Twilek = gain the sabotage ability, -1 pilot skill

Duro = +2 Pilot skill

Gran = gain 2 focus tokens when making a focus action

Ithorian = -1 pilot skill, if a ship at range 1 gains a stress token, you may receive that token if you have no stress token

Sullustan = when landing on or moving through an asteroid, roll 1 defense die, on an evade, ignore the asteriod rule

Wookiee = after taking your first hull point of damage, reduce defense to 0 but ignore any stress tokens you gain.

I do like these. But they need point costs. Can you put them in a file or something? Keeping lots of stuff for campaign ideas.

We have them, they are called Elite Pilot Talents, and they even have an icon.

What Hexis said.

So that's what Piggy (Voort SaBring) looks like

We have them, they are called Elite Pilot Talents, and they even have an icon.

That said, there are some fun possibilities here.

We have them, they are called Elite Pilot Talents, and they even have an icon.

That's a little different. I personally think the idea is cool, but hesitate to do this. It would almost have to be rebel only... Unless they did something like 181st pilot, Aging Clone Pilot, etc, for the Imperials, given their human centric nature.

That said, there are some fun possibilities here.

exactly where i was going with this.

as far as the imperials, the only thing i could think of was the fire spray only. until they come out with more bounty hunter or merc ships, its all we have to add something like this.

the one thing that FFG has not done yet that im disapointed about, is making the following ships available to both factions, as the universe makes them viable options:

Firespray

yt-1300

z-95

all three of these would have perfectly valid reasons to be used by the oposite faction.

but that is getting off topic.

what could we do for generic imperial pilots that doesnt feel like an EPT card?

For the imperials, on a quick whim , maybe rank..

Great idea. Only issue, and you point this out, is that this will be an upgrade almost exclusive for the Rebels. The Empire wasn't known for its open mind towards alien races.

For imperials: Rank and/or military/training background

Ie.

Captain: +1 PS

Colonel: gain EPS

Combat Veteran: +1 Agility when defending against lower PS pilot

Special Forces: Immune to Stress

Note: No idea on correct points costing for any of the above

Great idea

Regarding Imperial and their non-openness to some of the more exotic galactic inhabitants:

You could have cards that deals with the background of the 'human' characters such as Backwater Idealist or Military Traditionalist. Heck, you could even have some negative point ones for the Imperials

Secret Rebel Sympathizer (Once per game before any focus or target lock effects are resolved, your opponent can ask you to re-roll your attack dice results) cost -1

For imperials: Rank and/or military/training background

Ie.

Captain: +1 PS

Colonel: gain EPS

Combat Veteran: +1 Agility when defending against lower PS pilot

Special Forces: Immune to Stress

Note: No idea on correct points costing for any of the above

sure it's just nomenclature but I would stay away from the rank titles of Colonel, Lt. Colonel, and Major. as those tend to be unique or "one per squadron" the higher being the CO and the lower being the XO.

So maybe just Lieutenant and Captain or if you want to squeeze in a 3rd ability separate Lieutenant in to 1st and 2nd.

It might just be me that's having a difficult time thinking that there's multiple Colonel's to a single squadron...

The problem, and read on for potential solution, I see with the idea of releasing Pilot modifications is that FFG's modus for releasing new cards is through releasing models with card support (not individual card packs). There isn't necessarily a natural ship for generic pilot mods to be included in unless....

COMING FALL 2015

Rebel Origins Pack, including:

a Y-Wing ... Alternate model that still has all it's panels on, and

a Z95 ... Alternate paint job

Cards included some much needed Y-Wing love maybe a ship mod for panels adding a hull point and unique pilot Alderaanian War Hero (Bail Organa), some new toys for a now boring Z95, and

Selection of pilot modification cards including disaffected races (rebel only), correlian and military trained (no restriction)

COMING FALL 2016: (because let's face it Rebels always get their toys first)

Imperial Academy Pack, including:

a Tie Advanced ... Alternate Avenger model

a Tie Fighter ... Alternate paint job (Imperial symbol on wings)

Cards include some long overdue love for the Advanced including negative squad point cost modification 'Avenger Refit', some new toys for the Tie Fighter which has been a good workhorse for many years but wants a few new pilots to revitalise the swarm after a year on the out, and

Selection of pilot modification cards including 'Devout Imperialist', 'Fresh Recruit' (-1 squad point, but reduce stresses on any turn) and other Imperials only cards and a couple of generic military types (no restriction; remember a lot of imperials defected!)