Imperial HUGE Ships...I'm Calling It.

By Joe Boss Red Seven, in X-Wing

Like I said months ago in another long tread about our love and disappointment for the HUGE Ships. They need double the energy they have. In EPIC these HUGE Ships are the stars of the game and they need to be kicking some ass.

Yeah, playing an Epic game and NOT bringing at least 1 huge ship is not something that should be seriously considered unless your deliberately trying an oddball list of some sort.

I just want to know whether the Raider will be able to fulfil its intended purpose. The Corvette is many things, but an anti-fighter platform it is not. If the Raider is going to suffer from the same problem of not being able to fire its guns... well, I don't expect to field it a lot.

Like I said months ago in another long tread about our love and disappointment for the HUGE Ships. They need double the energy they have. In EPIC these HUGE Ships are the stars of the game and they need to be kicking some ass.

I personally think they need much higher attack values, then maybe also grant their smaller targets extra defense.

I'd expect that in a "real" engagement most turbolaser shots would miss, but the ones that connect would obliterate anything small.

Higher attack values would be useful for huge versus huge as well. I'll probably draft up some house rules based on this because, although I'll buy the huge ships, fielding them has always seemed pointless. I'd rather have a game where a turbolaser was like 8 red, but if the defender rolls 2 or more evades, then all damage is ignored.

Like I said months ago in another long tread about our love and disappointment for the HUGE Ships. They need double the energy they have. In EPIC these HUGE Ships are the stars of the game and they need to be kicking some ass.

Yeah, playing an Epic game and NOT bringing at least 1 huge ship is not something that should be seriously considered unless your deliberately trying an oddball list of some sort.

My fix has been (as I stated before) to just count one energy as two.

:lol:

I use colored glass beads/pips for the extra power. So a base with five energy would have two of the stock tokens and one glass bead pip. There is no need to change rules or print up special custom cards and so forth.

Nah just double the **** energy.

;)

I just want to know whether the Raider will be able to fulfil its intended purpose. The Corvette is many things, but an anti-fighter platform it is not. If the Raider is going to suffer from the same problem of not being able to fire its guns... well, I don't expect to field it a lot.

Like I said months ago in another long tread about our love and disappointment for the HUGE Ships. They need double the energy they have. In EPIC these HUGE Ships are the stars of the game and they need to be kicking some ass.

Rather than double the energy they can have, they should give them a rule that lets them fire the first shot of certain weapon cards without costing energy. So three quad's on your epic ship means three shots, possibly six if you pump in the energy. That would give them their firepower while still keeping energy management an important aspect of flying the craft.

And perhaps something like the Reinforce action? Something that, once activated, makes all focus results on one section of the ship hits, at the cost of not being able to reinforce (sacrificing defense for offense and all that).

I personally think they need much higher attack values, then maybe also grant their smaller targets extra defense.

My thinking was actually keeping the attack values, or even lowering them, but give capital ship weapons a special rule that each [boom] or [kaboom] result that gets through inflicts 2 or even 3 points of damage. That would make capital ship weaponry likely to miss but massively damaging when it hits.

Unfortunately, a mechanic like that would need to be implemented from the get go, it isn't something that could be added no I don't think.

I just want to know whether the Raider will be able to fulfil its intended purpose. The Corvette is many things, but an anti-fighter platform it is not. If the Raider is going to suffer from the same problem of not being able to fire its guns... well, I don't expect to field it a lot.

Like I said months ago in another long tread about our love and disappointment for the HUGE Ships. They need double the energy they have. In EPIC these HUGE Ships are the stars of the game and they need to be kicking some ass.

I personally think they need much higher attack values, then maybe also grant their smaller targets extra defense.

I'd expect that in a "real" engagement most turbolaser shots would miss, but the ones that connect would obliterate anything small.

Higher attack values would be useful for huge versus huge as well. I'll probably draft up some house rules based on this because, although I'll buy the huge ships, fielding them has always seemed pointless. I'd rather have a game where a turbolaser was like 8 red, but if the defender rolls 2 or more evades, then all damage is ignored.

The extra energy makes it so that you can reroll stuff and do more shots and fix the sheilds and pull off some cool tricks. The laime energy is the one seriouse issue IME with the entire Epic Game.

I like your ideas, but the easy thing that actually works with the least effort is the double energy.

The very first time I played Epic and saw that I could not move-shoot-deffend I decided the FFG fellows had been to scared they would upset the 100-pointers, and so the neutered the Huge Ships.

:o :huh: :angry:

Hel-Nah! We all know that EVERY SHIP IN THE GAME SHOULD BE ABLE TO MOVE-SHOOT-DEFFEND , every turn ... period .

;)

I personally think they need much higher attack values, then maybe also grant their smaller targets extra defense.

My thinking was actually keeping the attack values, or even lowering them, but give capital ship weapons a special rule that each [boom] or [kaboom] result that gets through inflicts 2 or even 3 points of damage. That would make capital ship weaponry likely to miss but massively damaging when it hits.

Unfortunately, a mechanic like that would need to be implemented from the get go, it isn't something that could be added no I don't think.

Sure it can. That's what the Epic Ship rulebook is for.

I just want to know whether the Raider will be able to fulfil its intended purpose. The Corvette is many things, but an anti-fighter platform it is not. If the Raider is going to suffer from the same problem of not being able to fire its guns... well, I don't expect to field it a lot.

Like I said months ago in another long tread about our love and disappointment for the HUGE Ships. They need double the energy they have. In EPIC these HUGE Ships are the stars of the game and they need to be kicking some ass.

I personally think they need much higher attack values, then maybe also grant their smaller targets extra defense.

I'd expect that in a "real" engagement most turbolaser shots would miss, but the ones that connect would obliterate anything small.

Higher attack values would be useful for huge versus huge as well. I'll probably draft up some house rules based on this because, although I'll buy the huge ships, fielding them has always seemed pointless. I'd rather have a game where a turbolaser was like 8 red, but if the defender rolls 2 or more evades, then all damage is ignored.

The extra energy makes it so that you can reroll stuff and do more shots and fix the sheilds and pull off some cool tricks. The laime energy is the one seriouse issue IME with the entire Epic Game.

I like your ideas, but the easy thing that actually works with the least effort is the double energy.

The very first time I played Epic and saw that I could not move-shoot-deffend I decided the FFG fellows had been to scared they would upset the 100-pointers, and so the neutered the Huge Ships.

:o :huh: :angry:

Hel-Nah! We all know that EVERY SHIP IN THE GAME SHOULD BE ABLE TO MOVE-SHOOT-DEFFEND , every turn ... period .

;)

Energy is definitely an issue, but part of the fun from an energy mechanic with capital ships is deciding what to power and when. If the ships can move, shoot, and defend with mostly full capacity every round then what is the point of an energy system at all?

More cards that can store energy for later in the round would be helpful, and some upgrades or teams which allowed for passive bonuses which would only happen is certain energy requirements were met would go very far to fix the issue and keep the capital ship feeling.

Energy is definitely an issue, but part of the fun from an energy mechanic with capital ships is deciding what to power and when. If the ships can move, shoot, and defend with mostly full capacity every round then what is the point of an energy system at all?

More cards that can store energy for later in the round would be helpful, and some upgrades or teams which allowed for passive bonuses which would only happen is certain energy requirements were met would go very far to fix the issue and keep the capital ship feeling.

My point exactly. It is fun to manage some aspects of the upgrades and the energy it cost to use them. but it should not make the ships so desperate in every round after the game starts.

Then it is not fun, it is under powered and the game is supposed to feature these Huge-babies, not cause you to get mad at them for dieing in the third round... cause they ran out of gas.

You Huge SOB you... you just can't be outtah gas already!!!???

:o :angry: :rolleyes:

The Tantive was hauling ass and firing for all it was worth in that opening scene... after all.

;)

Energy is definitely an issue, but part of the fun from an energy mechanic with capital ships is deciding what to power and when. If the ships can move, shoot, and defend with mostly full capacity every round then what is the point of an energy system at all?

More cards that can store energy for later in the round would be helpful, and some upgrades or teams which allowed for passive bonuses which would only happen is certain energy requirements were met would go very far to fix the issue and keep the capital ship feeling.

Being able to hold more energy is nice, but if you burn more energy than you can use (which the Corvette does) it's rather moot. Being able to hold 12 energy is useless if the ship will never be able to generate 12 energy.

So... now that we all know the Gozanti is not coming officialy... you will need another source to get that ship that you all love so much, hmm? yess... temptation...

Gozanti tempts me not. Your Sentinel though... It wants the precious.

Then this picture might kill you :P

pic2344814_lg.jpg

I kinda prefer the one from Rebels....

I almost picked it up on cyber Monday...

page 94 huh? Does anything one know the record for posts/pages?

page 94 huh? Does anything one know the record for posts/pages?

Somewhere there is a link that can sort threads by number of replies, and this one is number 1.

Unless you mean across all Internet forums ever, in which case this isn't even going to be close.

Edited by Forgottenlore

The double energy production talk hurts my gamer and art of war students soul. -_- The energy mechanic is there for a reason and by doubling it you have disregarded the purpose of it's design. The point of it is you are now captain of a ship with as many as a hundred souls on board or more and your careful planning may well be the only thing keeping them alive. Skipping a few sub-optimal hardpoint shots and not overcharging the main gun one turn, and then diverting all energy off of weapons the next turn to recharge and reinforce shields, could mean your life. But only a good commander knows to do that. Looking at Armada's Command system FFG seems to understand that principal as well. Double energy is like breaking out a cheat code. :( If your losing your 'vettes too early, screen them better, throw stuff in the way, stay back and pull away a bit from the fight, when they line up an attack run on you or suspect they might, brace for impact by generating max energy and for the love of of the Force don't fire every gun, every round, if it's not going to get you anywhere! That energy is precious, spend it wisely. As a guideline I realized early on that the most efficient use of energy was a shot that hits for one or more damage per energy spent, because the exchange is then equal to the one-to-one rate on the Recharge action. Keep that in mind as a bench mark and you should do much better. ^_^

It's also fallacious to say the ship needs higher firepower. The firepower of the main gun being kept artificially low creates more cinematic play (one of X-wings strengths) by making theatrical glancing hits more common and keeping the number of one shot wonders down. In which it succeeds very well, I get a one shot kills on fighters maybe every three games but graze plenty more with main guns. This thematic flavor control is reinforced by the even less likely one-shot Single Turbos. Every X-winger knows after a few games the dice are a matter of extremes. And everybody knows the more dice you roll the more wildly the extremes vary from the min to the max, that's just logic. If I only roll five dice, the difference between their roll and mine can never be more than five. so without a Critical, and a lucky one at that, Defenders can always deflect enough damage to not go down in one shot. If I roll even one more, 6 dice has one shot potential on a 30+ point ship. And that's not mutually enjoyable, so as a game designer it was a good idea for them to prevent the possibility entirely. Remember that the focus of X-wing from the designers own words is definitely on the small ship. :D

And while yes the Huge ships are the stars of the format, that should absolutely not restrict you to their use! It would be bad design to stick your player with forced choices or strictly, if not necessarily obviously, better choices. And I know you all know that. As a mostly Rebel player I'm eager to apply all the lessons I've learned from sending Imperial Strike Groups at my buddies 'vettes to my Rebel fleet playbook. You can bet the first time I play against a Raider it will be with a Snubnose Task Force. That should be an encouraged tactic if anything. That gives an Imperial and an Rebel player something to think about when squad building. Should I take the Single turbos or not? If I get A-wing swarmed with Pocket Rockets they will be pointless soooo? Thus creating a strategy rewarding experience through gameplay more than list building.

For a tournament capable game list you also have to ask will I even see a opposing faction list? What if it's a mirror match? For thematic reasons, what guarantee should I have for them bringing anything specific to kill me? If it's not a planned scenario where you say what the setup of forces will roughly be than build in those guidelines, which are just great and I love those too, but if that's not what we're doing I shouldn't have any thing else to figure out but what I want to do with my time in our game.

Energy is definitely an issue, but part of the fun from an energy mechanic with capital ships is deciding what to power and when. If the ships can move, shoot, and defend with mostly full capacity every round then what is the point of an energy system at all?

More cards that can store energy for later in the round would be helpful, and some upgrades or teams which allowed for passive bonuses which would only happen is certain energy requirements were met would go very far to fix the issue and keep the capital ship feeling.

This and a crew or team card that gave an additional action to the equipped ship are the best ideas I've heard to make it more user friendly while being thematic. But to be clear that is because in all cases these would be powerful abilities so I believe they should be paid for in slots and points. :)

"The double energy production talk hurts my gamer and art of war students soul."

The problem isn't people wanting to do everything at max capability every turn, it's wanting to do SOMETHING every turn. Even at double the energy production you would have to constantly make hard choices about what to power, but you would at least be able to power something and you might be able to carry the weight of a 100 points worth of ships. At its current energy production the cr-90 can move as slowly as possible, generate as much energy as possible and MAYBE do a half assed job at a single task. As it currently stands, I would never bring a cr-90 to a game that I wanted to actually win because it CAN'T DO ANYTHING, and if facing one I would completely ignore it except to make sure I don't get run over because it is so totally ineffective there is nothing for me to worry about. Even with a totally bare bones loadout it is a 100 point ship and it comes nowhere close to being as effective as a 100 points of even mediocre ships. I would rather have 4 TIE advanceds without the upcoming fix than a cr-90.

Edited by Forgottenlore

FL, that's the point. Make. Hard. Decisions. I have builds and strategies with that ship that consistently make a difference in a games out come, and owe it entirely to the CR-90's presence. But to do that I have to understand that this giant hulk can not do anything alone. The worst it should do is have a Sensor team, Weapons Engineer, Targeting Coordinator, and a Fore and Aft Quad, that's a really nice balanced 113pt support cruiser. Hang back and charge up and then start locking targets and opening fire support. If your not doing something with a five red dice target lock even against six greens at range five, it's probably just dice. But since your bringing it at least you know to prepare something for those If all else fails deploy it and fly it such that you deny space to the opponent and cordon off a side of the board so your forces can divide the enemy, like how many shuttle fliers I see will use a fourth of their list in standard to just deny area while giving some moderate firepower on top of it.

With much respect I tell you that it sounds to me more like your having a captaining/strategy problem more than the ship is having a quality problem. And that's not surprising, that ship can be an absolute pit fall thanks to it's high vulnerability and lack of in game flexibility if you don't have a good grip on what your going to do with it. Just like any ship in X-wing. A lot of players I've seen haven't really done great with it. Probably due to the fact they don't play it that often since they've been under the weird impression that both sides need a huge to make it balanced or whatever.

The VIGIL was the best shot. .. I have to agree, this Raider is kinda cool... but not VIGIL COOL.

:lol:

That single Mickey Mouse ear just really did it for you, didn't it?

That's exactly what the image is missing... I seriously think that FFG has a bigger ship for the Empire. It makes perfect sense to have a bigger ship. Since the Lancer was scratched, I'm still betting on the Vigil.

If a new Huge Ship is in the 150'ish meter range, in other words if it can be fit into the Tantive-Raider BIG box... it might get made .

FFG are not going to go bigger, unless everything they have stated and written out is a lie to all of us.

What they said is that they're looking at <250m range. With margin for error ( :) ) this still allowed the Vigil. The point still stands now.

Oh, Vigil people.... Math is not always your strong suit, is it?

"The double energy production talk hurts my gamer and art of war students soul."

The problem isn't people wanting to do everything at max capability every turn, it's wanting to do SOMETHING every turn. Even at double the energy production you would have to constantly make hard choices about what to power, but you would at least be able to power something and you might be able to carry the weight of a 100 points worth of ships. At its current energy production the cr-90 can move as slowly as possible, generate as much energy as possible and MAYBE do a half assed job at a single task. As it currently stands, I would never bring a cr-90 to a game that I wanted to actually win because it CAN'T DO ANYTHING, and if facing one I would completely ignore it except to make sure I don't get run over because it is so totally ineffective there is nothing for me to worry about. Even with a totally bare bones loadout it is a 100 point ship and it comes nowhere close to being as effective as a 100 points of even mediocre ships. I would rather have 4 TIE advanceds without the upcoming fix than a cr-90.

Yeah our FFG Star Brothers wanted to be cool, but they held back to much with Epic.

:mellow: :huh: ^_^

Me (we) just fix it up nice at home.

:lol:

The VIGIL was the best shot. .. I have to agree, this Raider is kinda cool... but not VIGIL COOL.

:lol:

That single Mickey Mouse ear just really did it for you, didn't it?

That's exactly what the image is missing... I seriously think that FFG has a bigger ship for the Empire. It makes perfect sense to have a bigger ship. Since the Lancer was scratched, I'm still betting on the Vigil.

If a new Huge Ship is in the 150'ish meter range, in other words if it can be fit into the Tantive-Raider BIG box... it might get made .

FFG are not going to go bigger, unless everything they have stated and written out is a lie to all of us.

What they said is that they're looking at <250m range. With margin for error ( :) ) this still allowed the Vigil. The point still stands now.

Oh, Vigil people.... Math is not always your strong suit, is it?

What do you mean?

FL, that's the point. Make. Hard. Decisions. I have builds and strategies with that ship that consistently make a difference in a games out come, and owe it entirely to the CR-90's presence. But to do that I have to understand that this giant hulk can not do anything alone. The worst it should do is have a Sensor team, Weapons Engineer, Targeting Coordinator, and a Fore and Aft Quad, that's a really nice balanced 113pt support cruiser. Hang back and charge up and then start locking targets and opening fire support. If your not doing something with a five red dice target lock even against six greens at range five, it's probably just dice. But since your bringing it at least you know to prepare something for those If all else fails deploy it and fly it such that you deny space to the opponent and cordon off a side of the board so your forces can divide the enemy, like how many shuttle fliers I see will use a fourth of their list in standard to just deny area while giving some moderate firepower on top of it.

With much respect I tell you that it sounds to me more like your having a captaining/strategy problem more than the ship is having a quality problem. And that's not surprising, that ship can be an absolute pit fall thanks to it's high vulnerability and lack of in game flexibility if you don't have a good grip on what your going to do with it. Just like any ship in X-wing. A lot of players I've seen haven't really done great with it. Probably due to the fact they don't play it that often since they've been under the weird impression that both sides need a huge to make it balanced or whatever.

.... I am having severe trouble seeing how you are winning matches with that setup. Sure, scattering two target locks a turn to your fighters sounds nice on paper, but in practice you're still 113 points behind your opponent in firepower. All they would need to do is ignore the Corvette while they take out the escorts (and since they have somewhere between 3 to 9 ships more than you, this shouldn't be much of a problem) before finishing of the Corvette.

The job you ascribe to the Corvette can be done by the Transport for 37 points. Which is a much better price for a support ship. To the point where I'm actually sighing in relief my Rebel friends can't field it in regular 100 point games.

That's exactly what the image is missing... I seriously think that FFG has a bigger ship for the Empire. It makes perfect sense to have a bigger ship. Since the Lancer was scratched, I'm still betting on the Vigil.

If a new Huge Ship is in the 150'ish meter range, in other words if it can be fit into the Tantive-Raider BIG box... it might get made .

FFG are not going to go bigger, unless everything they have stated and written out is a lie to all of us.

What they said is that they're looking at <250m range. With margin for error ( :) ) this still allowed the Vigil. The point still stands now.

Oh, Vigil people.... Math is not always your strong suit, is it?

What do you mean?

The Vigil is 255 meter, the Corvette is 150. If they maintain the Corvette's scale, the Vigil would be almost twice as big.

Edited by keroko

Oh, Vigil people.... Math is not always your strong suit, is it?

What do you mean?

He is being a little smarty.

Edited by Joe Boss Red Seven

FL, that's the point. Make. Hard. Decisions. I have builds and strategies with that ship that consistently make a difference in a games out come, and owe it entirely to the CR-90's presence. But to do that I have to understand that this giant hulk can not do anything alone. The worst it should do is have a Sensor team, Weapons Engineer, Targeting Coordinator, and a Fore and Aft Quad, that's a really nice balanced 113pt support cruiser. Hang back and charge up and then start locking targets and opening fire support. If your not doing something with a five red dice target lock even against six greens at range five, it's probably just dice. But since your bringing it at least you know to prepare something for those If all else fails deploy it and fly it such that you deny space to the opponent and cordon off a side of the board so your forces can divide the enemy, like how many shuttle fliers I see will use a fourth of their list in standard to just deny area while giving some moderate firepower on top of it.

With much respect I tell you that it sounds to me more like your having a captaining/strategy problem more than the ship is having a quality problem. And that's not surprising, that ship can be an absolute pit fall thanks to it's high vulnerability and lack of in game flexibility if you don't have a good grip on what your going to do with it. Just like any ship in X-wing. A lot of players I've seen haven't really done great with it. Probably due to the fact they don't play it that often since they've been under the weird impression that both sides need a huge to make it balanced or whatever.

.... I am having severe trouble seeing how you are winning matches with that setup. Sure, scattering two target locks a turn to your fighters sounds nice on paper, but in practice you're still 113 points behind your opponent in firepower. All they would need to do is ignore the Corvette while they take out the escorts (and since they have somewhere between 3 to 9 ships more than you, this shouldn't be much of a problem) before finishing of the Corvette.

The job you ascribe to the Corvette can be done by the Transport for 37 points. Which is a much better price for a support ship. To the point where I'm actually sighing in relief my Rebel friends can't field it in regular 100 point games.

That's exactly what the image is missing... I seriously think that FFG has a bigger ship for the Empire. It makes perfect sense to have a bigger ship. Since the Lancer was scratched, I'm still betting on the Vigil.

If a new Huge Ship is in the 150'ish meter range, in other words if it can be fit into the Tantive-Raider BIG box... it might get made .

FFG are not going to go bigger, unless everything they have stated and written out is a lie to all of us.

What they said is that they're looking at <250m range. With margin for error ( :) ) this still allowed the Vigil. The point still stands now.

Oh, Vigil people.... Math is not always your strong suit, is it?

What do you mean?

The Vigil is 255 meter, the Corvette is 150. If they maintain the Corvette's scale, the Vigil would be almost twice as big.

They already said they are using a sliding scale. There were pictures on this forum with the Vigil at 1:600. Slightly longer, quite wide, but it looked amazing!. It would also fit in that CR90 box, if you tucked all the extra components in some corner. (ok, barely, but you get my point, it's at the limit of what's doable).

I never supported the idea of having a ship twice as long as a CR90.

The VIGIL was the best shot. .. I have to agree, this Raider is kinda cool... but not VIGIL COOL.

:lol:

That single Mickey Mouse ear just really did it for you, didn't it?

It's not an ear, it's like the flower in the hair of a hula dancer. We're all big fans of Hawaiian culture.

Edited by BenderIsGreat

The VIGIL was the best shot. .. I have to agree, this Raider is kinda cool... but not VIGIL COOL.

:lol:

That single Mickey Mouse ear just really did it for you, didn't it?

It's not an ear, it's like the flower in the hair of a hula dancer. We're all big fans of Hawaiian culture.

Yeah we do...

:D

keona.jpg