In this game Y-wings are like, really, really good.

Defender has mary sue stats - 3 everything and a white K. With MK/2 a whole lotta green too.

points cost overbalances it. But then, that reminds me of Luke/R2D2/shield upgrade/proton torpedo/lone wolf

Looks mighty fine on that drawing board don't it.

Oh come on, Mary Sue Gunboat?

It's a slow moving, barely agile tank with a cannon strapped on to it and missiles.

We've already got that in the lambda shuttle. If this flies better than that for the same price then the lambda is obsolete except as palp mobile. If it costs less than defender as a cannon platform that can turn and keep in the fight (like a y-wing can) then there's no reason to take a defender until a fix comes. Potentially shelves two ships in one blow. If it has a lambda dial without the stop, and costs comparable to the defender, noone will take it.

I'd love a cheap imperial cannon platform (and turret too), but the defender and shuttle need something else at that point to avoid mothball.

Lambda has crew.

It's largest, greatest use is a crewmobile.

It's most thematic use is crew.

It's most common use currently is crew.

Gunboat has no crew.

There is currently next to no reason to take a defender till something is fixed about it.

Gunboat.. could have a dial that looks like a cross between a Y-wing or X-wing with/without R2. max 4 speed. Hell, maybe let's not even give it a sys slot (defender needs that more). Give the XG-1 a cannon slot - it does need that Give it missile slots. It does need those. Make it a slow, tanky cannon. Without SYS and Crew, Shuttle can outspec it.

With SYS Defender can out-elite it. That leaves the gunboat in the same kind of point and utility range as the TIE Advanced, Turret y-wings, B-wings and X-wings. That's where it needs to be.

Should it have 2 Agi 4 hull 2 shields?

Maybe 1 Agi 4 hull 4 shield and the evade action?

At any rate we need the BOAT, it will fill what I think of as an obvious gap in the imperial faction.

In this game Y-wings are like, really, really good.

Defender has mary sue stats - 3 everything and a white K. With MK/2 a whole lotta green too.

points cost overbalances it. But then, that reminds me of Luke/R2D2/shield upgrade/proton torpedo/lone wolf

Looks mighty fine on that drawing board don't it.

As a member of the British isles, I would like to ask what the hell "Mary Sue stats" mean...

Good, bad, indifferent, wears dresses and has pigtails????

Also in other news,

Gunboat fans, give up the dream, it would have happened by now, it's all episode 8 and Rebels ships from here on in.

Fellow member, moved, can translate.

Mary Sue/Gary Stu - bloody perfect, absolute ideal of perfect, no flaws, as boring as all hell.

Imagine a 20 point TIE Defender. Would anyone field anything else?

Or Warpmans 12 point syck with a cannon slot for that manner :-)

Comes from an old star trek fan fic apparently, but is used to describe overly perfect characters.

Mary Sue is generally a literary term pertaining to an author insertion character in fan fiction. Basically it's a character that can't fail and has all the advantages available. The TIE Defender and Missile Boat were both OP in the original TIE Fighter game and were properly Mary Sue ships. The X-wing Defender not as much.

You do realise it's basically an Imperial Y-Wing right? Where do "Mary Sue stats" come into it?

you know, in some cases noname Player1 took something, from Scyk or Tie fighter to bizarre ships with sky-high stats and took on fleets on their own, annihilatineg everything

in a storm of ion Mary Sue violence.

That's the feature of %username%

he's always an ace\jedi\chosenone\paladin\shepard

and Dem Boat was one of the vehicles used by %username% in one of the few relatively good SW games.

???

People feel nostalgic and want it to be super effective to represent Teh Good Old Times.

Da Perfect Non-Tie Boat of Awesome that is better than anything within the class and comes with a shitton of useful upgrades for multiple devastating simultaneous deep strikes build possibilities

See that's just it.

We don't want a super effective gunboat. It could even be sub-par.

We just want it in the game, as a tough old workhorse ship, armoured, shielded, slow.

Then you're missing the point. The idea is to create something balanced, sure, but fitting a niche defined by reliable health and relatively solid damage output, if you can point it the right way.

It won't like Interceptors. It won't mind TLTs. It won't get surprise one-shotted by a single attacker. It should have incorporated ions somehow but devising how to implement that is up for debate. It should do well in a joust. It should be a pain to angle around rocks.

You're fixating too much on Stele for some reason. I love TIE Fighter, natch, but the Gunboat was far from the best ship available in that game.

Then you're missing the point. The idea is to create something balanced, sure, but fitting a niche defined by reliable health and relatively solid damage output, if you can point it the right way.

It won't like Interceptors. It won't mind TLTs. It won't get surprise one-shotted by a single attacker. It should have incorporated ions somehow but devising how to implement that is up for debate. It should do well in a joust. It should be a pain to angle around rocks.

You're fixating too much on Stele for some reason. I love TIE Fighter, natch, but the Gunboat was far from the best ship available in that game.

I love TIE Fighter, but to me what defines the gunboat is first facing shielded imperials and going WTF?!? Then receiving missile locks...

X-wing man.

That and countless XG-1 / DX-9 capture ops.

Gunboat overall is a sub-par ship, it was the ion boat. Avenger, Defender - they are better to dogfight in. Gunboat could tank damage though , it could fling out missiles.

What it had real issue with was fighting A-wings...

Then you're missing the point. The idea is to create something balanced, sure, but fitting a niche defined by reliable health and relatively solid damage output, if you can point it the right way.

It won't like Interceptors. It won't mind TLTs. It won't get surprise one-shotted by a single attacker. It should have incorporated ions somehow but devising how to implement that is up for debate. It should do well in a joust. It should be a pain to angle around rocks.

You're fixating too much on Stele for some reason. I love TIE Fighter, natch, but the Gunboat was far from the best ship available in that game.

I love TIE Fighter, but to me what defines the gunboat is first facing shielded imperials and going WTF?!? Then receiving missile locks...

X-wing man.

That and countless XG-1 / DX-9 capture ops.

Gunboat overall is a sub-par ship, it was the ion boat. Avenger, Defender - they are better to dogfight in. Gunboat could tank damage though , it could fling out missiles.

What it had real issue with was fighting A-wings...

Also you got missiles, link fired missiles make a-wings go away.

Avengers and Defenders ate A-wings for breakfast.

One of my buddies at the LGS made an entry for the Gunboat in the reddit design competition. I helped him balance it.

see XG-1 Star Wing here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8IZA8OH_Od7M2w0NmJWemJVQ1k&usp=drive_web

What we came up with:

2/2/4/3

Target Lock, Focus, Barrel Roll (I would be OK with leaving that one out, designer's choice)

System Slot

Cannon slot

2x Missile slot

Dial: designer locked in basically a B-wing dial but with a Talon roll. (see above link)

PS2: 20 points

PS4: 22 points with EPT

Slaved Missile System

Assault Gunboat only.

2 points.

Missile slot + System slot (both)

Range: 1-3

Dice: 3

Attack [Target Lock]: After performing a primary attack that hits, perform this attack on the same target.

It's priced at 20 points so that it is equally viable with either HLC + FCS (29 points), or Slaved Missile System (22 points). Slaved Missile System is very effective against low agility targets, but drops off dramatically against higher agility. It fits with the theme of the ship.

Edit: best (theory crafting) competitive list that I came up with using the Gunboats is:

100 points

2x PS4 + Slaved Missile System + Crackshot

Oicunn + Gunner + Vader

Then you're missing the point. The idea is to create something balanced, sure, but fitting a niche defined by reliable health and relatively solid damage output, if you can point it the right way.

It won't like Interceptors. It won't mind TLTs. It won't get surprise one-shotted by a single attacker. It should have incorporated ions somehow but devising how to implement that is up for debate. It should do well in a joust. It should be a pain to angle around rocks.

You're fixating too much on Stele for some reason. I love TIE Fighter, natch, but the Gunboat was far from the best ship available in that game.

I love TIE Fighter, but to me what defines the gunboat is first facing shielded imperials and going WTF?!? Then receiving missile locks...

X-wing man.

That and countless XG-1 / DX-9 capture ops.

Gunboat overall is a sub-par ship, it was the ion boat. Avenger, Defender - they are better to dogfight in. Gunboat could tank damage though , it could fling out missiles.

What it had real issue with was fighting A-wings...

Fighting A-wings wasn't so bad, just drop shield recharge to zero (and lasers to low if you need to), keep dumping shields into the lasers and use all the extra engine power to chase those things down. Once you hit em once they slow down quite a bit. Don't forget to have your lasers (and ions) fire linked and switch back and forth, or just disable them and come back later to finish them off.

Also you got missiles, link fired missiles make a-wings go away.

Avengers and Defenders ate A-wings for breakfast.

Avengers and Defenders ate everything for breakfast.

In a gun though found it tricky... Had to put power to engine to keep up.

It was perfect for approaching or performing attack strafes on capital ships.

Important note: I am talking about barrel rolling towards a target, not aileron rolling.

I believe you're referring to the Wotan Weave.

Basically yes.

@MJuggs: I like the mag pulse warheads, they should have been released ages ago.

Sounds like all that works. I'm sure ALOT of work was put into that, and it shows.

Fitting 5 of them in a squad also jibes with the old technical book that stated ISDs carried 5 of them as part of their normal complement.

Mag pulse is perfect to implement after wave7, what with the weapons disabled icon.

One of my buddies at the LGS made an entry for the Gunboat in the reddit design competition. I helped him balance it.

see XG-1 Star Wing here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8IZA8OH_Od7M2w0NmJWemJVQ1k&usp=drive_web

What we came up with:

2/2/4/3

Target Lock, Focus, Barrel Roll (I would be OK with leaving that one out, designer's choice)

System Slot

Cannon slot

2x Missile slot

Dial: designer locked in basically a B-wing dial but with a Talon roll. (see above link)

PS2: 20 points

PS4: 22 points with EPT

Slaved Missile System

Assault Gunboat only.

2 points.

Missile slot + System slot (both)

Range: 1-3

Dice: 3

Attack [Target Lock]: After performing a primary attack that hits, perform this attack on the same target.

It's priced at 20 points so that it is equally viable with either HLC + FCS (29 points), or Slaved Missile System (22 points). Slaved Missile System is very effective against low agility targets, but drops off dramatically against higher agility. It fits with the theme of the ship.

Edit: best (theory crafting) competitive list that I came up with using the Gunboats is:

100 points

2x PS4 + Slaved Missile System + Crackshot

Oicunn + Gunner + Vader

Love it MajorJuggler, I'll add it to page one. It's amazing to see how close we all appear to be on the projected statline/points values. Funnily enough, I suggested something similar to the Slaved Missile System earlier in the thread, but for all secondary weapon attacks (Linked Firing Array) so it could be used with Ion Cannons as well, mainly as in Imperial control option.

The "Imperial Y-Wing" is a pretty fitting description for the Gunboat to be fair. Sturdy, multi-role starfighter, much more capable at taking down slow-moving targets than other starfighters.

@MJuggs: I like the mag pulse warheads, they should have been released ages ago.

Sounds like all that works. I'm sure ALOT of work was put into that, and it shows.

Fitting 5 of them in a squad also jibes with the old technical book that stated ISDs carried 5 of them as part of their normal complement.

All the ideas were Tom's, especially including the Mag Pulse Warhead and dumbfire rockets, I didn't really analyze those because I came in late and was up against the submission deadline. But they looked about right.

Balancing Slaved Missile System was quite a bit of work, we went through several different permutations of attack dice, range, attack header, and analyzed them all mathematically before settling on the final result.

5 of them without any upgrades would be a pretty terrible idea competitively, it just happened that 20 points was the magic number that made the ship balanced when fleshed out with completely different upgrade paths. It's just a funny coincidence with the lore.

Love it MajorJuggler, I'll add it to page one. It's amazing to see how close we all appear to be on the projected statline/points values. Funnily enough, I suggested something similar to the Slaved Missile System earlier in the thread, but for all secondary weapon attacks (Linked Firing Array) so it could be used with Ion Cannons as well, mainly as in Imperial control option.

The "Imperial Y-Wing" is a pretty fitting description for the Gunboat to be fair. Sturdy, multi-role starfighter, much more capable at taking down slow-moving targets than other starfighters.

Thanks!

I intentionally wanted Slaved Missile System to work on primaries only, otherwise the cannon slot would be auto-include. This would be bad, because

1) The cannon (HLC) is already auto-include on a 2 attack ship, so this provides an alternative, and

2) I wanted at least 1 viable loadout for the ship in the low/mid 20 point range

But, I could look into making SMS trigger off of either a successful primary attack or an Ion Cannon attack. It's at least thematic. Interestingly, it would be 25 points on the nose, so you could take 4 of them in a standard list.

I intentionally wanted Slaved Missile System to work on primaries only, otherwise the cannon slot would be auto-include. This would be bad, because

1) The cannon (HLC) is already auto-include on a 2 attack ship, so this provides an alternative, and

2) I wanted at least 1 viable loadout for the ship in the low/mid 20 point range

But, I could look into making SMS trigger off of either a successful primary attack or an Ion Cannon attack. It's at least thematic. Interestingly, it would be 25 points on the nose, so you could take 4 of them in a standard list.

Sorry - I was was right with you there with the SMS working on primaries only, I just meant that you could perform any kind of secondary weapon attack after a successful primary attack. i.e. primary hits, then you can perform an ion cannon attack, or fire a missile etc.

I do like the SMS idea a lot though, as it neatly skips around discarding missile cards! I agree entirely on the HLC as well - which is why I took pains to try and work around it in my version:

It's a bit of a convoluted solution though, as others (DEX ) have pointed out.