Having just received delivery of a B-Wing and Interceptor, I was just musing on how some expansions give us 6 pilots whereas others give us only 4, and I noticed that the ones that had less pilots were ships that had target locks. Target lock tokens take up about the same amount of space on the card as the base cards, so it seemed a logical trade off. But I only have a fairly small collection, so I was wondering if this pattern held true over all expansions, not just the small ships...? If so it might give some basis for speculation on future releases.

the only small ship expansions with 6 pilots are the TIE Fighter and TIE Interceptor. All others give you 4. Core set gives you 6 for the TIE (3 that repeat from the expansion) and 4 for the X-wing (2 that repeat), Imperial Aces gives you 6 total, but only 4 new, pilots for the interceptor. The transport gives you 4 new ship bases and 4 new unique pilots for the X-wing, but repeats 2x rookie base and 2x red squadron base, with only a single model to fly them with and one of each card.

Extrapolating from this, yes, the fighter and interceptor are the only ships in the game without the target lock action, so your discovery holds true. That said, I look forward to more ships without target lock, so we can get even more pilot options

Extrapolating from this, yes, the fighter and interceptor are the only ships in the game without the target lock action,

TIE Phantom.

Extrapolating from this, yes, the fighter and interceptor are the only ships in the game without the target lock action,

TIE Phantom.

Extrapolating from this, yes, the fighter and interceptor are the only ships in the game without the target lock action,

TIE Phantom.

Which comes with Fire Control System which gives free target locks...

Extrapolating from this, yes, the fighter and interceptor are the only ships in the game without the target lock action,

TIE Phantom.

Man, that targeting computer mofification... So useful...

Yeah, or the FCS, but the theory was that all ships without a native Target Lock action were released with 6 pilots.

Extrapolating from this, yes, the fighter and interceptor are the only ships in the game without the target lock action,

TIE Phantom.

Man, that targeting computer mofification... So useful...

Yeah, or the FCS, but the theory was that all ships without a native Target Lock action were released with 6 pilots.

now the theory is all ships that don't include a set of target lock tokens comes with 6 pilots

The Falcon, which I finally got the other day, has 4 pilots AND no target locks. And it can take target locks...weird.

The falcon doesn't come with TL tokens?

Holy freaking crap.

This whole time I thought I had accidentally thrown them away via oversight in not punching them out of the cards before I tossed everything. I opened both Falcons at the same time, and seem to be missing the TL tokens for both.

I looked high and low for like a week thinking I had just misplaced them or threw them away.

Granted I have like.... 50 of each color TL token at this point, but OCD is hell. I know what TL's came with each ship because they are all stored with their respective ship in the tacklebox trays.

I never thought to check and see if they even came with them, lol.

The ships with 6 pilot cards in a set are those without any slots on their upgrade bars. Since they're not as customizable overall (only a couple of pilots for any given ship get Elite talents) they probably get more pilots to compensate.

The lack of target locks is kind of a side effect. The ships are bare-bones designs (no upgrade slots), so complex (and expensive) electronics are one of the first things to go.

The Falcon, which I finally got the other day, has 4 pilots AND no target locks. And it can take target locks...weird.

WHAT A FAIL FFG JESU CHRISTO!

The starter kit includes half a dozen target locks, right? FFG's got you covered.

Alas, the OP is correct! Although the phantom doesn't have a Target lock Action, it does come with a set of target locks, interesting, can his theory be true?

*edit* If it is true, just think at all the pilots we could have had if they didn't need that cardboard for Target Locks...