9 minutes ago, Celestial Lizards said:

http://www.gunboat.com/

I mean... sure... I'm getting 5 GUNBOATS!!!

Now I have a goal in my live. To buy a real Gunboat.

On 10/25/2017 at 8:33 AM, Hannes Solo said:

Am I the only one who thinks that the OS-1 Title is overcosted? You need to buy the ordnance and on top the action economy gimics that make TL dependent attacks viable. Imho it should have been 0 with and Ordnance discount but I am probably biased.

On 10/25/2017 at 9:04 AM, thespaceinvader said:

No it's not just you.

Have you folks put these on the table yet? Specifically, try this build:

Rho Squadron Veteran (21)
Expertise (4)
Harpoon Missiles (4)
Advanced SLAM (2)
Os-1 Arsenal Loadout (2)

Total: 33

Three of those are pretty **** brutal to anything that you can get in arc.

Here is the problem with Gunboats: they can absolutely freaking murder anything they can get in arc. With SLAM that means anything that moves before them that needs to use its arc. Gunboats are not going to be great against Aces but will simply erase low PS swarms. How do you approach that match-up with a PS2 Rebel swarm?

Please, please try this out and tell me what your experience is. The ability to SLAM and still fire a fully modified 4 dice attack is crazy. The ability to SLAM and still fire a focused 4-dice attack every. single. round. is... Ugh.

Miranda don't care. She just SLAMS out of arc until she can TLT to death. Nym? Corran? Dash? Dash wets himself laughing at those Gunboats. But any last vestige of hope for Ye Olde efficiency swarm is dead to death. You could at least attempt to block U-boats. You cannot block a ship that can do a 3 forward or a 7 forward and shoot you in the face either way. It's scary as all %#$@.

5 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

Please, please try this out and tell me what your experience is. The ability to SLAM and still fire a fully modified 4 dice attack is crazy. The ability to SLAM and still fire a focused 4-dice attack every. single. round. is... Ugh.

....were it so easy.

7 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

Miranda don't care.

VI. MAJOR. VYNDER.

9 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

Three of those are pretty **** brutal to anything that you can get in arc.

Do They, cause I see the big problem that you will not have a target lock on what is in your arc leving you with 2 red dice or nothing if you have slammed.

I'd rather have something like this

Roh Squadron 21
With XG-1 (1) HLC (7) TB(1) Advanced SLAM (2) Rage (1)
33 Points

17 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

....were it so easy.

It is if you are flying something with a lower PS. Advanced SLAM gives you the TL on first round. If you know it won't die, save the TL for next round. Reload and shoot again. You can't change targets every round but if your opponent flies in a ball, the Harpoons are going to tear them up.

10 minutes ago, Hannes Solo said:

Do They, cause I see the big problem that you will not have a target lock on what is in your arc leving you with 2 red dice or nothing if you have slammed.

I'd rather have something like this

Roh Squadron 21
With XG-1 (1) HLC (7) TB(1) Advanced SLAM (2) Rage (1)
33 Points

Try it out but I think the inability to fire after SLAM is huge.

19 minutes ago, RufusDaMan said:

VI. MAJOR. VYNDER.

You lose the double mod on your shot and you can't save the TL as easily. And one Harpoon isn't all that scary to Miranda or Dash.

The Rho swarm is exactly what the game didn't need. Another boot on the neck of low PS generics.

2 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

The Rho swarm is exactly what the game didn't need. Another boot on the neck of low PS generics.

So swarms of generic pilots are killed by swarms of generic pilots. It seems to me that swarms of generic pilots are okay after all.

Just now, RufusDaMan said:

So swarms of generic pilots are killed by swarms of generic pilots. It seems to me that swarms of generic pilots are okay after all.

Swarms used to be 7-8 ships. Then 6. Then 4 or 5. Now 3 ships is a swarm? Is that what we really want?

Just now, gamblertuba said:

Swarms used to be 7-8 ships. Then 6. Then 4 or 5. Now 3 ships is a swarm? Is that what we really want?

You called it a swarm. Don't blame me for literally quoting what you said.

9 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

It is if you are flying something with a lower PS. Advanced SLAM gives you the TL on first round. If you know it won't die, save the TL for next round. Reload and shoot again. You can't change targets every round but if your opponent flies in a ball, the Harpoons are going to tear them up.

Sound good in theory, but you seem to be missing a rather substantial part of the equation.

Just now, FTS Gecko said:

Sound good in theory, but you seem to be missing a rather substantial part of the equation.

???

the ability to SLAM is insignificant, next to the power of the force...

anyway, OS-1 is checked by a lot of restrictions. TL on lower ps pilots is always hampering, moreso when the TL is necessary to fire anything and heavily telegraphs your move to the opponent. And reload, while a fun new mechanic, also burdens the ship by further lowering action efficiency. If you want to continuously SLAM after a target, you have to maintain your lock because you're going to have to reload and you're not going to have actions left after either PTL or using Expertise. Even just using reload you'll need to maintain a TL to fire your missiles on the same round. You're not getting full mods if you're firing ordnance every round

Contrast with linked HLCs, which can use LRS to augment a rather stupid alpha strike but do not require it to actually shoot four re-roll + focus dice at an enemy. If your opponent jukes with the locekd ship, you can light up another one. They also don't need to reload, don't need tokens to fire, and get crackshot to boot.

Not saying OS-1 is at all worthless. It is perfectly viable, but its capabilities have sometimes been greatly exaggerated while the TL restriction has sometimes been greatly underplayed. The XG-1 loses SLAM flexibility, but is simply far easier to bring to bear

Also, gunboats won't moves swarms out of play. They've been gone for a while already, ever since the two-ship cancer of wave 5. Also also 3 ships is never a swarm, they're 3 ships

Soooo... the Jumpmaster 5000 took a huge nerf.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/10/25/new-squadron-formations/

Looks like our beloved gunboat is going to eat it alive.

2 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

the ability to SLAM is insignificant, next to the power of the force...

anyway, OS-1 is checked by a lot of restrictions. TL on lower ps pilots is always hampering, moreso when the TL is necessary to fire anything and heavily telegraphs your move to the opponent. And reload, while a fun new mechanic, also burdens the ship by further lowering action efficiency. If you want to continuously SLAM after a target, you have to maintain your lock because you're going to have to reload and you're not going to have actions left after either PTL or using Expertise. Even just using reload you'll need to maintain a TL to fire your missiles on the same round. You're not getting full mods if you're firing ordnance every round

Contrast with linked HLCs, which can use LRS to augment a rather stupid alpha strike but do not require it to actually shoot four re-roll + focus dice at an enemy. If your opponent jukes with the locekd ship, you can light up another one. They also don't need to reload, don't need tokens to fire, and get crackshot to boot.

Not saying OS-1 is at all worthless. It is perfectly viable, but its capabilities have sometimes been greatly exaggerated while the TL restriction has sometimes been greatly underplayed. The XG-1 loses SLAM flexibility, but is simply far easier to bring to bear

Also, gunboats won't moves swarms out of play. They've been gone for a while already, ever since the two-ship cancer of wave 5. Also also 3 ships is never a swarm, they're 3 ships

I would really like to experience the effectiveness you describe.
XG-1, Expertise, HLC, Linked, LRS Rho costs 35 points (past equipped Soontir territory) and cannot fire after SLAM at all. So you are limited to basically 2 and 3 speed turns and banks to stay in the fight. That is not especially great.
Even if you SLAM away after attacking to reengage at a later point, that is not only limiting your damage output over the game, but it's really not that hard for the opponent to chase you and stay just behind attacking every single round.
If you do a double 3-turn with SLAM, your pursuer only needs to do a 2 turn/bank to keep you at range 2 of his weapons. It's a race you cannot win, and unlike the K-wing, you are not firing back with a turret or releasing bombs to discourage pursuit.

I mean, a Blue B-wing, with FCS, HLC, B-Wing/E2 and Hera is 33 points, 35 if a Dagger instead of a Blue, and it will let you stay in the fight every single round, with rerolls. And this configuration is not being seen anywhere because even when it can potentially deal a lot of damage, it will be blown up to pieces in the first few rounds. I don't really see the above XG-1 doing anything better for 2 more points and half (or one third, depending how long it takes for you to reengage) the damage output before it blows up because of the constant disengaging you need to do to just aim your weapons back at the cloud of violence.

In fact, I think this B-wing or some other similar configuration could beat that XG-1 one-on-one anytime.

The question might be to combine the gunboat with its team, and it being purely an assist element of the squad, never the main piece. But at that price point, the Empire has much better options, and now that bombs are toned down, I see little reason why they would want to bring what is scarily close to a Lambda with engine upgrade instead of an ace or a pocket ace.

The XG-1 with control cannons is entirely a different thing. Not only much cheaper, but it can attack after SLAM and, while it won't win matches by itself, it can really help its squad in a similar way that the Stresshog helped rebels (although with definitely a lower overall damage output, because of the lack of double tapping, or actual damage-dealing-attacks).

The OS-1 allows for missile attacks after SLAM. Sure, you cannot modify them so much, but even unmodified 4 dice attacks deal, in average, more damage than no attacks, right? Being able to double turn and immediately throw some dice at someone is going to pay off better on the long term than fleeing all the time after every attack while hoping that nobody chases you.

I am not at all trying to belittle your proposals and ideas, okay? I just really want to see how is it that they work for you and not for me.

43 minutes ago, Azrapse said:

I would really like to experience the effectiveness you describe.
XG-1, Expertise, HLC, Linked, LRS Rho costs 35 points (past equipped Soontir territory) and cannot fire after SLAM at all.

that's not the build I'm advocating

you don't need Expertise, you will be using crackshot. Focus gives you the offensive bonus you need, whereas OG-1 needs its action to target-lock or reload. My XG-1 Rhos are 32 points each. The only 35 point XG-1 I'd use is Karsabi, explicitly because he can fire after SLAM.

you are correct about not being able to fire after SLAM, but I do believe the ability to do so isn't really a deal breaker for this ship. Yes, it is one of the central gimmicks, but it can also do other things.

The XG-1 gunboat is uniquely capable of having both a stupid alpha strike and a four dice sustained offense. It does so via combination of very specific upgrades

HLC provides the basis for both capabilities, Crackshot + LRS bring the alpha, and Linked Batteries provides sustained damage through constant red dice modification

43 minutes ago, Azrapse said:

If you do a double 3-turn with SLAM, your pursuer only needs to do a 2 turn/bank to keep you at range 2 of his weapons. It's a race you cannot win, and unlike the K-wing, you are not firing back with a turret or releasing bombs to discourage pursuit.

don't double 3-turn SLAM then (unless you're Karsabi). SLAM away and come back. It's not a typical ship that can't just joust, since they sadly didn't give it a 4k, so you're going to have to fly it with a different mentality.

one of the fun things to remember, though, is that you can naturally bump an HLC xg-1 with very little consequence as you don't need your action to Reload or Target-Lock or anything. Just fire away!

43 minutes ago, Azrapse said:

I mean, a Blue B-wing, with FCS, HLC, B-Wing/E2 and Hera is 33 points, 35 if a Dagger instead of a Blue, and it will let you stay in the fight every single round, with rerolls. And this configuration is not being seen anywhere because even when it can potentially deal a lot of damage, it will be blown up to pieces in the first few rounds. I don't really see the above XG-1 doing anything better for 2 more points and half (or one third, depending how long it takes for you to reengage) the damage output before it blows up because of the constant disengaging you need to do to just aim your weapons back at the cloud of violence.

the B-wing does not get immediate mods with FCS and it does not have crackshot, so it is already distinctly inferior as an alpha strike platform

having played a LOT of b-wings before wave 7, I can say confidently that the dial is absolute trash. the 2k is one of the worst because you can't even clear large bases, plus you don't have a 3-turn and your 3-banks are red. Slapping Hera on isn't really a band-aid over a boo-boo as much as a band-aid thrown into a gaping chest wound, especially given that stress stacking shuts off full mods (no focus) and mobility (barrel-roll)

The lack of speed is especially terrible in any environment where bombs exist as it leaves you with little to no option of getting away from them. SLAM not only allows for a smooth disengagement, but it also minimizes the amount of time you have to weather TLT fire.

Basically, no one uses the B-wing because it a.) can't alpha b.) can't really move well c.) definitely can't move fast at all

Gunboat does not have these issues, apart from the lack of k-turn

43 minutes ago, Azrapse said:

The XG-1 with control cannons is entirely a different thing. Not only much cheaper, but it can attack after SLAM and, while it won't win matches by itself, it can really help its squad in a similar way that the Stresshog helped rebels (although with definitely a lower overall damage output, because of the lack of double tapping, or actual damage-dealing-attacks).

Stresshog was far more than capable of dealing one damage per round, and it also stacked stress by itself. The XG-1 SLAM cannons can neither stack stress by themselves or at all. The difference in damage and utility is distressing.

Now, you can still enable XG-1 SLAM benefit if you want. It's just a question of Predator and T-beams instead of Crackshot and Linked. These are 33 points each. Big problen here is crackshot is a massive addition to its damage output, so you're going to have to think long and hard about whether or not the situational utility of t-beams are worth it.

Hey FGD, what about VI instead of Crackshot?

Four points left over:

My initial thought on the XG-1 was to use Mangler and Jamming Beam. Beam when you slam to support your team. Mangler to actually attack when you can. That kind of flexibility is what I want from a ship. That's why all my OS1 builds have Ion Pulse for board control, Cluster for raw damage, and Flechette if you need to stress people out.

11 minutes ago, Boba Rick said:

Hey FGD, what about VI instead of Crackshot?

crackshot too strong, ps 6 not so much. We're not even reaching Dash at that point.

what the **** is up with that formatting

edit: I think we're all forgetting how strong crackshot is

obviously biased, yeah. I mean, it's me! Ficklegreendice! Crackshot resolves all the issues in my life! hahahahaha...

But think about it this way. I'm not a math guy, but I want to say four dice + focus + LRS is roughly equivalent to four dice + focus + chips. They're both, in short, very reliable means of getting four hits.

So what does crackshot do here? It makes four dice + focus + LRS superior to the chipped shot. Your alpha strike is technically stronger than a torpscout's (unless the opponent literally blanks out)! The extra damage you wouldn't have otherwise gotten could literally be the difference between killing a ship or not (to say nothing about how multiple crackshots affect your chances at killing something). And it's 1 point!

Rather than leave 4 pts on the table why not add tracer missiles to offset your LRS limitations later on?

Okay, so I expect to be stoned for saying this, but if you're taking OS-1 and a missile that doesn't spend the lock, you're hoping that your dice are good enough to get damage through. What if they're not? Could this be why they included Saturation Salvo? You just shoot poorly modded missiles all game, and hope some damage sticks while you fly your little Gunboat like a bat out of ****.

Well, there's my crazy idea. "Let him who is without creativity cast the first stone."

1 minute ago, Parakitor said:

Okay, so I expect to be stoned for saying this, but if you're taking OS-1 and a missile that doesn't spend the lock, you're hoping that your dice are good enough to get damage through. What if they're not? Could this be why they included Saturation Salvo? You just shoot poorly modded missiles all game, and hope some damage sticks while you fly your little Gunboat like a bat out of ****.

Well, there's my crazy idea. "Let him who is without creativity cast the first stone."

I hope that against these 1 green defenses my 4 die attacks will be enough. If not, then **** it, I would lose anyway with that **** dice.

3 hours ago, Jetfire said:

Rather than leave 4 pts on the table why not add tracer missiles to offset your LRS limitations later on?

Tracer Missiles are still affected by the LRS limitation.

12 minutes ago, HolySorcerer said:

Tracer Missiles are still affected by the LRS limitation.

Tracers are focus not TL

Yes but a ship with LRS cant use the tracer effect to TL an enemy in Range 1 or 2

27 minutes ago, RogueLeader42 said:

Tracers are focus not TL

14 minutes ago, Hannes Solo said:

Yes but a ship with LRS cant use the tracer effect to TL an enemy in Range 1 or 2

This is correct.