DAT!

Cheers for the emojis JBR7! Great job on them,too!

No Probs Brah.

What about just giving it a fixed turret slot, that way no HLC, with a title being allowance of a cannon + 1 point tractor beam?

I know i've suggested turret rather than cannon before, I just feel it makes the most sense with the tools at disposal. Hell, why not allow FFG to re-imagine the XG-1 a little bit, and actually make it turreted, or give it a secondary arc like the hounds tooth, allowing 180 degree (or slightly higher) turret action.

I have an idea! Why not just make it a regular goddamn ship without a bunch of weird special rules, since there was nothing weird or special about the ship. And just giving the stupid thing a cannon slot and a goddamn Ion Cannon card, just like every other ship with freakin' ion cannons in this game.

Oh wait, I'm pretty sure I suggested this already.

No, the defender is "special", the Gunboat is normal special compared to the glut of TIEs.

Hating the ship doesn't change what it is, you might as well be hitting yourself.

The problem with giving the gunboat a cannon slot and leaving it alone is that it's firepower 2.

HLC becomes an autoinclude just about.

Autoincludes are generally bad game design and only really used to patch mistakes (I.E. TIE Advanced X1 card is an autoinclude, it fixes the TIE Advanced). Chardaan Refit is not an auto include, it forces you to choose - though the A-wing is less an elite ship as it perhaps should be, and more either a cheap swarmer or cheap missile.

an Autoinclude HLC in this case detracts from the spirit of the XG-1. Ergo, a way around autoincluding the HLC would be good. What we'd end up seeing on the table are HLC sniper gunboats taking over from space cows.

Now you've read this and caught up, can you see why your idea of just letting it be a cheap cannon carrier is a bad idea?

the Gunboat is normal special compared to the glut of TIEs.

I'm not talking about aesthetically. I'm talking about functionality. The Gunboat doesn't have any weird abilities that countless other ships in the game don't already have. There's no reason for it to have some weird cannon slot that works differently than all other cannon slots. Or to require a title card to allow it to do things other ships do without cards.

While it's debatable whether it actually is a bad idea, it doesn't change the fact that it's a bad idea that's already all over the game.

My question is, why would you want to artificially limit the effectiveness of this ship, when there are already several other ships in the game that SHOULD be limited in this way, but aren't?

Yes, ships that are supposed to have Ion Cannons being able to take Heavy Laser Cannons or any other type of gun instead is stupid. But it's stupid on ALL ships that have that capability. Trying to make a fix for that situation, and then applying that fix to ONLY the Gunboat is even stupider. Either fix the entire game, or let the Gunboat play by the same rules as every other ship.

the Gunboat is normal special compared to the glut of TIEs.

I'm not talking about aesthetically. I'm talking about functionality. The Gunboat doesn't have any weird abilities that countless other ships in the game don't already have. There's no reason for it to have some weird cannon slot that works differently than all other cannon slots. Or to require a title card to allow it to do things other ships do without cards.

See Darius' post above.

We're actually trying to nerf it, not buff it.

the Gunboat is normal special compared to the glut of TIEs.

I'm not talking about aesthetically. I'm talking about functionality. The Gunboat doesn't have any weird abilities that countless other ships in the game don't already have. There's no reason for it to have some weird cannon slot that works differently than all other cannon slots. Or to require a title card to allow it to do things other ships do without cards.

We're actually trying to nerf it, not buff it.

I wish I could have put my post so simply. That sums it up better than I could have.

sometimes it's hard to use your simple words, but they're sort of required when talking to TIE-dyed fanatics~

We're actually trying to nerf it, not buff it.

It doesn't need to be nerfed.

I knew the Syck would be brought up. See that's a special case, you'll notice that not all sycks have that HLC. Why? Because heavy syck as a title has a cost attached to it. In order to get that massive firepower update, you pay way more for it. With Sycks you actually have to pick the role for the ship. Cheap flanker or swarmer, or sniper, or control. putting more points into a 3 hitpoint ship though... Not like the proposed 6-8 hitpoint gunboat.

It could be made a point that the same solution FFG used for the Syck (a reference to SWG's heavy syck itself) could work for the Gunboat, and the gunboat could have no native cannon. But that feels inelegant.

So far FFG has wisely deigned (**** i need to improve my prose) to never use the same fix twice. It keeps things interesting, flavourful and unique.

Just giving the gunboat a cannon slot and leaving it at that is not a good idea. All it'll do is make it into a gun carrier, not the XG-1 we all know and love.

I knew the Syck would be brought up. See that's a special case, you'll notice that not all sycks have that HLC. Why? Because heavy syck as a title has a cost attached to it. In order to get that massive firepower update, you pay way more for it.

That's only a valid argument if people only ran Scyks with either "No Cannon" or "HLC" and never used any other cannon on it.

I knew the Syck would be brought up. See that's a special case, you'll notice that not all sycks have that HLC. Why? Because heavy syck as a title has a cost attached to it. In order to get that massive firepower update, you pay way more for it.

That's only a valid argument if people only ran Scyks with either "No Cannon" or "HLC" and never used any other cannon on it.

So perfectly valid then?

I've literally never encountered any syck that is not in those configurations.

Edit: Sorry, Mangler too - which does the same thing, increase it's firepower without disadvantage.

Also i was updating that post for clarity. The point upgrade on being able to carry a cannon factors into this more than you seem to realize.

Ion cannons, flak cannons and tractor beams are all secondary weapon cannons that produce a disadvantage. Typically a loss in damage output.

HLCs are basically long range extra damage, all ships with the exception of a TITLED syck have damage 3, so they do the same damage or more with primary weapon up close. Mango potentially loses damage output here.

The Title of the Syck offsets this advantage, it makes you pay more for the cannon.

When the Y-wing got the BTL upgrade card, the BTL card didn't say "replace turret with cannon slot" instead, it was clever and was all like "yeah, you have to fire in arc now, but you can fire turret and primary". This was really, really clever. It avoided doing what you are proposing we do with the gunboat. People are all buzzing about TLT Y-wings right now, but wouldn't 4 25 point HLC carriers be that much nastier?

I'm not sure how to explain any further as to why just slapping a cannon slot on a 2 attack ship and calling it a day is a bad idea. If you still don't get it after this then I give up.

Some of us actually enjoy taking thematic concerns into account when it comes to ship design, DEX.

The cannon upgrade on the Scyk makes sense, as it was a HGHLY customisable ship, and its configuration varied from pilot to pilot.

The Gunboat, on the other hand, had a very fixed configuration, and (missiles aside), it's loadout was very standardised across the Imperial fleet.

So you're essentially trying to compare two very different craft with each other. Which is clearly not a very good idea.

Some of us actually enjoy taking thematic concerns into account when it comes to ship design, DEX.

The cannon upgrade on the Scyk makes sense, as it was a HGHLY customisable ship, and its configuration varied from pilot to pilot.

The Gunboat, on the other hand, had a very fixed configuration, and (missiles aside), it's loadout was very standardised across the Imperial fleet.

So you're essentially trying to compare two very different craft with each other. Which is clearly not a very good idea.

Also, as I keep mentioning. With the Syck you are paying an extra 2 points for the privilege - because the jump from firepower 2 is so significant. Game balance, don't you love it?

I really, REALLY want to know what the new Tractor Beam upgrade in the Mist Hunter pack does...

It's part of FFG's new co-branding effort with John Deere. It has a chisel-plow option, a broadcast seeder, a one-pass tiller, a combine harvester... basically it will meet all of your space-related mechanized agriculture needs.

But does it moisture vaporate?

According to the Rat, these ships don't exist!

Well according to the man in black, rodents of unusual size don't exist either, so NYAH!

Unrelated: From now until forever, my nickname for the TIE/FO is "TIE **** off".

According to the Rat, these ships don't exist!

Actually, a lot of the EU is in limbo at the moment. Technically it still exists, but it also doesn't exist at the same time. So it exists in two states, until it is made officially official, or it is officially replaced.

I like to call this curious state of affairs Schrodinger's Mouse.

I have an idea! Why not just make it a regular goddamn ship without a bunch of weird special rules, since there was nothing weird or special about the ship. And just giving the stupid thing a cannon slot and a goddamn Ion Cannon card, just like every other ship with freakin' ion cannons in this game.

Oh wait, I'm pretty sure I suggested this already.

Yea, why make ships interesting at all?

You know, a 7 hp Agi 2 ship with medium-ok dial and a cannon and system slot would probably be set at 23 points by FFG at PS2, one point more than Blue Bs. Add an HLC and it's 30 points before anything else to take full advantage of the extra fire power. Only three total in a list, sure they throw 12 dice and maybe they can have FCS as well for some action economy, but they won't last too much longer than x-wings and probably not as long as b-wings or shuttles. I guess it all depends on how well Gunboats could stay at range 3.

Those 7 points for HLC isn't always the best spent.

Some of us actually enjoy taking thematic concerns into account when it comes to ship design, DEX.

And, again, I would be all for it, if it was uniform across the game. But making a new ship with thematic limitations when there are already other ships in the exact same situation that don't have to abide by those limitations is just silly.

It's also unnecessary rules bloat.

We've addressed your concerns on the idea and numerous times DEX. We've talked you through it. We've given reasoning, examples and precedents from the actual game itself. You simply handwave it every time and return to the same old tired, facetious and factually incorrect line of argument.

But thank you for posting in the thread anyway. Every time you do, you return it to the top of the first page of the forum. It's really very helpful.

To be fair I agree with DEX that Rules bloat is a bad thing, and any solution to put the XG-1 on the board should be simple and elegant. Linked lasers giving it a BTL-A4 style attack is good. I still like my fixed turret idea more.

I also agree that the state of the game is heavy leaning on ship customization, so if we go with cannon as a mount we do have to allow mango, HLC, flachette etc. Further this is why i'd rather fixed turret.

This said:

To quote "That's not even REMOTELY what they are doing. All their suggestions are just to artificially limit what options it can take. It's the exact opposite of making it interesting."

Bollocks. whatever hardpoints it gets it should be able to use to the max, but there should be some benefit to it NOT doubling firepower, This is not limiting it. This is avoiding making a multirole craft into a one trick pony.

At the worst the design turns out to be an Imperial Y-wing.

Well.... ok? The gunboat wasn't far off that anyway. If anything this strengthens my own point that, well, the most elegant fix is the gunboat having in arc only for turret secondaries and allowing it to fire like the BTL-A4.

Let's face it, the biggest problem any of us have with this is that it's been done before.