okay, I'll start by pinning my colours to the mast. I hate expose. Mathematically it is flawed, and from a games design point of view really just makes me wonder what is going on. The core dice mechanic of the game just works so beautifully, and expose just seems to have been designed by someone who has no comprehension of that.

For the uninitiated, please allow me to explain...

There are three action mechanics that alter the dice results: focus, evade and target lock. As there are 2 eye faces on the dice, a focus action increases the average roll by 0.25 per dice, in a typical best case (4 evade dice at range 3 or 4 attack dice at range 1) this amounts to +1 to the average number of evade or hit results rolled. Similarly the evade action simply gives you that +1. It's a little more "powerful" if you're rolling less than 4 dice, but is limited to evades only. Target lock has a similar effect. As 4 out of the 8 sides are hits or crits the average results you'd want to reroll is 50%, and 50% of these will hit as a result of the reroll. as such you're increasing the average per dice result by the same 0.25 per dice, or by +1 on the best case 4 dice roll. Again it has a little more power in that it can last more than one turn, but that is countered by its limitation to attack use only.

That's the beauty of the system. Each action used correctly increases the average output by 1, or by 0.25 per dice rolled, depending on how you want to look at it.

Expose is likewise an action. like target lock it is limited to attack only. However rather than adding .25 per dice rolled, it adds an extra dice. Without the additional benefit of target lock or focus this is only adding 0.5 to the average dice roll result. Hence if you are rolling 2 dice it is equally good, except you've lost the ability to save it for another round (when comparing with target lock) or the option to use it in defence (when compared with focus). Only if you roll 1 dice attack is expose clearly better than a target lock or a focus. And that's all before you start considering that you've lowered your agility by 1 and spent 4 extra points on it.

There have been a number of new cards in recent releases and spoils that have made people wonder about whether they may make expose worth it:

1. A wing test pilot. The fact that you can get 2 EPTs could mean with PtL you could target lock or focus and expose. On damage scores alone this is not terrible, giving you an average result of 2.25/3 compared to PtL only, where you have Target lock and focus, giving you only 1.875/2.8125, however, the question then becomes whether it is worth the 4 points and the loss of agility on such a small hp ship.

2. Corran horn. Having 2 attacks might make expose more viable, right, as it effects both attacks? However the numbers don't hold out. The results come out a little better than not taking an alternative EPT, but when comparing expose to cheaper EPTs like PtL or Marksman, they come out the same overall at range 2-3, but worse at range 1 where the actions have more dice to work with. So its definitely not worth it for Corran.

3. decimator. Agility 0, that means that there's no downside to expose, right? Wrong. As I have shown above, expose is just worse than other actions even before you factor in the penalty.

Expose, therefore, should only be considered better than a standard action on a 2 attack ship that can also get 2 actions or 2 attacks. Anything else and you're better off with a target lock or focus.

This has been an interesting process, and I wasn't expecting to find any use of it, but now I've done it there is one named pilot that I think just might make it viable...

Vader

Cheerio,

Ben

This has been an interesting process, and I wasn't expecting to find any use of it, but now I've done it there is one named pilot that I think just might make it viable...

Use Expose on Vader and you give him a 3/2/3/2 stat line. Sound familiar? Practically the same dial too.

You also make him cost 33 points. That's straying into this territory:

Expose just isn't worth it. Opportunist has its place, Expose needed to not eat the action. It's never worth those 4 points, you might as well just upgrade to a better ship model.

The only use I've ever found for Expose is the Phantom A-wing (uses Expose and Opportunist to whack up to 5 attack at R1) and that's more of a thought experiment than a viability.

At 4pts and requiring an action to use I have considered the EPT similar to a concussion missile or proton torpedo who's ability is "usable more than once"

Mathematically speaking, Focus and Target Lock have diminishing returns.

So there's a 50% chance of damage from one die with no actions, 75% with either action, and 87.5 93.75% with both.

Expose, however, is an action that grants one more of those dice.

So: Lets look at the odds in that context.

3 dice of 50% odds = average of 1.5 hits.

3 dice of 75% odds = average of 2.25 hits.

4 dice of 50% odds = average of 2 hits.

Multi-action time!

3 dice of 75% odds = average of 2.25 hits

3 dice of 87.5% odds = average of 2.625 2.815 hits

4 dice of 75% odds = average of 3 hits

So: If you already have the ability to come by a Focus or Target Lock and still have an action left over, Expose/Boosting into Range 1 adds more expected damage than the other offensive option, by 3/ 8 3/16 of 1 damage.

Contrast with Outmaneuver.

It's less often triggerable, but you'd rather use Expose when your victim can't shoot back anyway, at which point Outmaneuver would trigger.

Outmaneuver is cheaper by 1 point.

Against any ship with agility dice, Outmaneuver will improve your damage by 3/8 of one damage, or 5/8 of one damage if the defender took Focus or similar as an action.

So, the next iteration of this is: When having good action economy, when is Expose better than Outmaneuver?

ERR: TL + F average 2.8125 hits, not 2.625.

This is a loss to Expose of 3/16, not 3/8.

The other thing to remember about Expose is that it grants greater outliers.

Under no circumstances can you roll 4 damage with 3 attack dice.

With Expose, this happens 1/16 of the time (16/256)

With Expose + TL/Focus, this happens 81/256 of the time.

Let me clarify. I'm not saying expose is actually worth using, just that as an action it starts to make sense when you have the criteria mentioned above (2 attack dice and 2 actions or attacks). At that point it stops becoming worse thsn something you can't do without any investment, then you start to evaluate whether the cost and penalty are worth the extra, but that's a lot more subjective an argument. I mainly wanted to show it up as complete gash, but in the process found a use of it that wasn't necessarily so.

The comparison with the X-Wing is good for a second argument against it - cost effectiveness. give it to vader and he's basically wedge with evade rather than the awesome wedge ability for 4 more points. So in that regard it is certainly not worth it. I wish I'd thought of that when I did my original post.

So yes, expose is complete gash. just burn all your expose cards.

Expose is crap, vader is the only exception and even on him there are much better options.

Mathematically speaking, Focus and Target Lock have diminishing returns.

That is to say, each time you use one of them, you halve your chances of whiffing on your individual dice.

So there's a 50% chance of damage from one die with no actions, 75 with either action, and 87.5 with both.

Expose, however, is an action that grants one more of those dice.

So: Lets look at the odds in that context.

3 dice of 50% odds = average of 1.5 hits.

3 dice of 75% odds = average of 2.25 hits.

4 dice of 50% odds = average of 2 hits.

Multi-action time!

3 dice of 75% odds = average of 2.25 hits

3 dice of 87.5% odds = average of 2.625 hits

4 dice of 75% odds = average of 3 hits

So: If you already have the ability to come by a Focus or Target Lock and still have an action left over, Expose/Boosting into Range 1 adds more expected damage than the other offensive option, by 3/8 of 1 damage.

3/8 of 1 damage is the same odds of a green die coming up [squiggly], so I'd rather take the cheaper Outmaneuver and go with the native double-action.

It's less often triggerable, but you'd rather use Expose when your victim can't shoot back anyway, at which point Outmaneuver would trigger.

Outmaneuver is improved if they have a defensive action as well, improving your damage by 5/8.

So, the next iteration of this is: When having good action economy, when is Expose better than Outmaneuver?

I appreciate the diminishing returns principle, hence why having 2 actions starts to make expose more effective as an action than focus or target lock.

That said I believe you've miscalculated the success rate for target lock and focus combined. If you know you have both you should always reroll before focusing which means there are only 4 of the 64 possible results that give you no result, which is 93.75% not 87.5.

The other thing to remember about Expose is that it grants greater outliers.

Under no circumstances can you roll 4 damage with 3 attack dice.

With Expose, this happens 1/16 of the time (16/256)

With Expose + TL/Focus, this happens 81/256 of the time.

This is the point that gets overlooked with Expose and other ways to gain attack dice. Maximum damage potential is a legitimate advantage, particularly against high AGI targets. Grinding out 2 hits reliably is valuable, but it's the 4 dice hits that one shot ships and/or overpower defensive dice outliers with higher AGI ships. It's here where Expose should have a role. The problem lay in costing 4 AND an action. One or the other? Fine. Both cripples the card. It should have been either 4 plus no action OR 2 and action. It's just poorly implemented.

The other thing to remember about Expose is that it grants greater outliers.

Under no circumstances can you roll 4 damage with 3 attack dice.

With Expose, this happens 1/16 of the time (16/256)

With Expose + TL/Focus, this

The other thing to remember about Expose is that it grants greater outliers.

Under no circumstances can you roll 4 damage with 3 attack dice.

With Expose, this happens 1/16 of the time (16/256)

With Expose + TL/Focus, this happens 81/256 of the time.

This is true, but it is also the gambling addict's argument. Strategic planning will always err towards the option with better average returns, which is not expose.

Mathematically speaking, Focus and Target Lock have diminishing returns.

That is to say, each time you use one of them, you halve your chances of whiffing on your individual dice.

So there's a 50% chance of damage from one die with no actions, 75 with either action, and 87.5 with both.

Expose, however, is an action that grants one more of those dice.

So: Lets look at the odds in that context.

3 dice of 50% odds = average of 1.5 hits.

3 dice of 75% odds = average of 2.25 hits.

4 dice of 50% odds = average of 2 hits.

Multi-action time!

3 dice of 75% odds = average of 2.25 hits

3 dice of 87.5% odds = average of 2.625 hits

4 dice of 75% odds = average of 3 hits

So: If you already have the ability to come by a Focus or Target Lock and still have an action left over, Expose/Boosting into Range 1 adds more expected damage than the other offensive option, by 3/8 of 1 damage.

3/8 of 1 damage is the same odds of a green die coming up [squiggly], so I'd rather take the cheaper Outmaneuver and go with the native double-action.

It's less often triggerable, but you'd rather use Expose when your victim can't shoot back anyway, at which point Outmaneuver would trigger.

Outmaneuver is improved if they have a defensive action as well, improving your damage by 5/8.

So, the next iteration of this is: When having good action economy, when is Expose better than Outmaneuver?

I appreciate the diminishing returns principle, hence why having 2 actions starts to make expose more effective as an action than focus or target lock.

That said I believe you've miscalculated the success rate for target lock and focus combined. If you know you have both you should always reroll before focusing which means there are only 4 of the 64 possible results that give you no result, which is 93.75% not 87.5.

Yes, yes I did.

Target Lock and Focus halve the chance of a miss individually. However, in working together, it's actually 3/4 + (1/4)(3/4) of rolling damage, which is different than 7/8 I used for my math.

Whoops.

15/16>14/16.

TL+F together on a 3 die attack have an average of 2.8125 hits, more than what I posted by .1875 of a hit.

The other thing to remember about Expose is that it grants greater outliers.

Under no circumstances can you roll 4 damage with 3 attack dice.

With Expose, this happens 1/16 of the time (16/256)

With Expose + TL/Focus, this happens 81/256 of the time.

This is the point that gets overlooked with Expose and other ways to gain attack dice. Maximum damage potential is a legitimate advantage, particularly against high AGI targets. Grinding out 2 hits reliably is valuable, but it's the 4 dice hits that one shot ships and/or overpower defensive dice outliers with higher AGI ships. It's here where Expose should have a role. The problem lay in costing 4 AND an action. One or the other? Fine. Both cripples the card. It should have been either 4 plus no action OR 2 and action. It's just poorly implemented.

what's poorly implemented about it is the fact that it costs an action. that's the whole point of my argument in the original post.

As for one-shot takedowns, there's only a wings and headhunters that 4 dice can one shot that 3 dice can't. I accept that there's an argument going from 4 dice to 5, but at that point you're really looking for the big odds.

Generally I think you're better playing the averages and taking ships down by focusing fire rather than paying 4 points to pay for a slim chance of a one shot.

Yes, yes I did.

Target Lock and Focus halve the chance of a miss individually. However, in working together, it's actually 3/4 + (1/4)(3/4) of rolling damage, which is different than 7/8 I used for my math.

Whoops.

15/16>14/16.

TL+F together on a 3 die attack have an average of 2.8125 hits, more than what I posted by .1875 of a hit.

it's also the odds that I quoted in my original argument. I thought you were arguing against my maths.

There is am easily calculable break even point depending on whether you've got 1 action or 2.

With 1 action it's where 0.75d=0.5(d+1)

with 2 actions it's where 0.9375d=0.75 (d+1)

With 1 action it's at 2 dice (0.75×2=1.5=0.75×3)

with 2 actions it's 4 dice (0.9375×4=3.75=0.75×4)

The other thing to remember about Expose is that it grants greater outliers.

Under no circumstances can you roll 4 damage with 3 attack dice.

With Expose, this happens 1/16 of the time (16/256)

With Expose + TL/Focus, this happens 81/256 of the time.

This is the point that gets overlooked with Expose and other ways to gain attack dice. Maximum damage potential is a legitimate advantage, particularly against high AGI targets. Grinding out 2 hits reliably is valuable, but it's the 4 dice hits that one shot ships and/or overpower defensive dice outliers with higher AGI ships. It's here where Expose should have a role. The problem lay in costing 4 AND an action. One or the other? Fine. Both cripples the card. It should have been either 4 plus no action OR 2 and action. It's just poorly implemented.

what's poorly implemented about it is the fact that it costs an action. that's the whole point of my argument in the original post.

As for one-shot takedowns, there's only a wings and headhunters that 4 dice can one shot that 3 dice can't. I accept that there's an argument going from 4 dice to 5, but at that point you're really looking for the big odds.

Generally I think you're better playing the averages and taking ships down by focusing fire rather than paying 4 points to pay for a slim chance of a one shot.

And phantoms.

But yes, high price+action+ lose of agility means the expose is not very good at all. It only has even a small window of use in lists that use a ton of action passing and even then it is fairly "meh". Even I think it is useless and I don't think the advance is strictly in need of fixing.

I am not opposed to using Expose on Mauler Mithel. 5 attack dice in range 1. Hopefully with Howlrunner nearby. I have scrapped fresh x wings with that combo. But I prefer to use it when set up for a shot with no return fire incoming. MM performed the above theatrics in 2 consecutive turns, my opponent did not declare Expose to be worthless.

I am wondering if Expose would work decent on the new Decimator? It already has 0 agility, so there is no draw back other than spending your action. The Rear Admiral already can change 1 eye to a crit, so if he just gets a target lock (perhaps through some other means or on a prior turn) he could unleash some fury, especially at range 1. Thoughts? Still not worth it from soaking up an action?

With crits factored in, 4 hits can absolutely one-shot a 5 HP ship. It is not likely, but there are 9/33 crits that deal immediate bonus damage. I would reckon most of us have experienced it, and it is distinctly more likely with 4 dice than 3.

Chewbacca (42)
Expose (4)
Weapons Engineer (3)

Total: 49

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Not the best way to use Chewe but if you know your not going to get fired at that round and you still have a target lock left over from last it could work. Sometimes you need that extra dice to finish someone off

Chewbacca (42)
Expose (4)
Weapons Engineer (3)

Red Squadron Pilot (23)
R2-D6 (1)
Draw Their Fire (1)

Blue Squadron Pilot (22)
Sensor Jammer (4)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Just for fun.

Expose, if you can get it to work, is to me mostly a Rebel upgrade. There are more options to get bonuses from other ships to assist your rolls.

That said, it's not a card you'd take to the tournament table but for some quick casual game it is fun to open up guns blazing.

Quick and dirty list:

Wes Janson

Etahn A'baht

FCS

Expose

Ibtisam

Opportunist

I keep seeing the mean predicted damage being thrown round as a meaningful statistic, but without a measure of variance it is meaningless.

I keep seeing the mean predicted damage being thrown round as a meaningful statistic, but without a measure of variance it is meaningless.

No it really isn't. If Expose is doing less damage on average than a focused attack from the same ship the variance doesn't matter because it means expose is bad. Variance increases are a bad thing in tactical game unless they also increase the average past other options in doing so.

I spent several months trying to make expose work before opportunist came into the game. So while there's new shiny stuff that could alter it, my opinion from both a mathematical and a practical point of view is that expose isn't worth it under any circumstance.

Now that W4 + Rebel Aces (4.5?) are partially spoiled (or fully in the case of W4) there's some more interactions to consider. As was already pointed out, Corran could make use of it with his double attack. But the math on it comes out that Marksmanship is better from a damage point of view, and doesn't hinder his defense. The other interesting idea is the green w/ PTL and Expose. This is basically the same as Vader-lite w/ Expose. 2 Actions, 2/3/2/2 (Vader has 1 more hull)... When Rebel Aces was first spoiled, I was truly excited for this combo. At 24 points, it basically costs 2 points more than an X wing, (24pts for ps3 vs. 21pts for ps2), can be just as deadly using Ex+F, and can be much more defensive with 3agi + F+E. Not to mention more slippery with the boost action, and the full dial is better than the X wing.

I really was truly excited to try this out. It would be even sweeter on Jake. with his free boost/br... But then more info from W4 was spoiled, and predator/outmaneuver were spoiled. Mathematically, outmaneuver + F is only slightly inferior to F+Ex... but it doesn't cost your action, meaning you're either unstressed, you can boost to R1 for the extra die (or into R2 to deny another agi die) or TL... F+TL+Out > F+Ex... So, there's that... Same can be said for predator... the 1 reroll is verrrry close to being the same as a TL (especially when you have a F) on 2 attack, and not far off from a 3 dice attack... which means you naturally have basically a F+TL attack with predator... Which means that Expose might finally be worth it, right? Well, 2FR (2 dice, focus, 1 reroll) = 1.83 hits, 3R = 1.94!!! Success! Predator + Expose is finally a viable combination of EPTs that makes Expose better!!! At R1, 3FR = 2.68, 4R = 2.47... So you don't want to do it at R1. Buttt... Predator can also stack with Outmaneuver or PTL, and while PTL can't directly increase the damage potential, you can boost into R1, which has the same effect as Expose, and we already talked about outmanevuer... Not to mention, for .1 hit increase, you're losing 4 points, an EPT slot, and an agi die... Probably not worth it in the long run.

I believe the point of Expose is to get through high agility targets... No matter how many actions you have, a 2 dice attack will rarely connect against a cloaked phantom with an evade token... I tried to make Expose into a stealth stripper when I worked with it, knowing that it was unreliable, but possible to just overwhelm the opponent... But it's not like the damage output is pretty much the same with higher variance, it's noticeably lower. And the problem with using it on an A wing for that purpose is that you could have just started with an X wing and had the same fire power, so to be effective as a stealth stripper, it should be on a 3attack ship to begin with... And all of them have better uses of EPTs, not to mention are all rather expensive, so to put a 4pt EPT that's not really useful isn't a good idea.

And we haven't even talked about Opportunist yet

They need to just errata the card to not cost an action, and even then it would still be a costly option at 4 points with the defense penalty.

They need to just errata the card to not cost an action, and even then it would still be a costly option at 4 points with the defense penalty.

But superb on anything that can arc-dance.