I've been playing the game a bit recently and watching some of the battle reports on Youtube. I've come away with a pretty darn positive opinion of the game. But I was thinking, shouldn't Angle of Attack matter in some way?

Right now as it stands it's the same shot to shoot at a target as it's racing by sideways requiring some deflection shooting, as it is to take shots at a target coming head on or with you on their tail.

I mean, considering that the movies were inspired by WW2 aerial battle films, shouldn't this aspect of aerial conflict be in the rules in some way? And if not then how the heck did any of the Rebels survive the opening scene in the Battle of Yavin with all those ties and ships shooting them head on?

Just doesn't strike me as fitting the theme and it would make maneuvar matter so much more. Perhaps not as much for the large slow ships, but definitely the squints racing past a line of X-Wings should be harder to hit than if the X-Wings were on their tails.

Maybe a -1 die for a frontal shot, -2 for side, -0 from behind. Then again probably couldn't get the current rules system to work in its entirety considering this'd then skew the points values.

Hm. Could maybe just convert Wings of Glory rules over.

The Rebel ships survived because they had shields and plot armor.

Mostly, it's an abstraction to avoid a more complex rule set. FFG wanted to keep the game pretty simple rules wise so such things I'm sure were considered but discarded in favor of a more streamlined rule set.

Considering angle of attack and speed of the enemy ship across your firing line would slow things down too much in my opinion. XWing is known for being fast to play. The more you have to think about math and angles and speeds, the less fun and accessible the game would be.

Because the game is simple and fast.

If you want a fighter game that takes into acount angle of attack, go right ahead and make one. But simplicity means for fast games, and fast makes games more fun.

There is a reason why X-wing is the second biggest Table Top Mini Game and the old Star Trek fleet battles game never really got very popular.

I don't think it would have been too much to incorporate. I mean you already have arcs of fire. You accept a modifier to your rolls at long range. It'd just be another modifier. The main stumbling block would be to alter the points values to recognize the benefit this change would give to maneuverable craft.

Mechanically it is hardly the same as playing Starfleet Battles.

Quisforme,

Two short answers to your question:

1. Because this is Star Wars ...

2. Because this is a simple game .

I know the above answers may seem smarmy but they just leave out the BS and get to the heart of the matter.

Is it really that insurmountable while measuring the range to see if it's shooting into the side or not?

I can see the angles of attack starting to matter with a ship with multiple, overlapping arcs.
It could have 2 shots of 2 (one out of each arc), or 1 shot of 4, but only where they overlap.

Same reason your altitude, pitch, etc... do not count. It is a quick play game.

It isn't a matter of the individual mechanic you propose being too complex or difficult. These things have a multiplicative effect. To illustrate with a bit of hyperbole, you can have a game composed of the simplest mechanics imaginable, but if it has 20,000,000 of them, the game as a whole becomes too complex. Every little thing you add to a set of rules increases the complexity of the game as a whole. Eventually there comes a point of diminishing returns. Good game designers have to learn to see the whole forest, not just the individual trees and be willing to draw the line somewhere.

It us a very common mistake among amateur game designers to load the game with all sorts of little, individually simple rules that taken together make for a huge, bloated, complicated mess. Of course, some "professional" designers do that too, games workshop for example.

Angle of attack does matter. You get 1x inside primary (or auxiliary) arc, and 0x out of arc, unless there are other rules involved.

Angle of attack does matter, Asteroids, Backstabber and Outmaneuver being the examples that come to mind the quickest, just because it doesn't apply to every ship 100% of the time doesn't mean you can right off the examples where it does.

Have Outmaneuver work in the opposite direction?

Realism overcomplicates the game

A deflection mechanic would not net any real benefit and adds another layer to a rule system that works by being simple and straight forward.

The OP isn't asking about ranged shots or firing through obstacles.

They're talking about flight mechanics and how hard it is to physically shoot an object flying by you from left to right versus how easy a shot is when they are coming right at you.

The short answer is that it doesn't matter because FFG wanted to create a game that appeals to the casual gamer.

I'm positive that if they wanted to they could have added flight mechanics in that way, but it would make an already 1 to 2-hour game last a lot longer, with probably far more issues regarding player disputes.

Then again, I could be wrong on making it that much more complicated, but my opinion is that they opted not to do it to keep the game simple enough for casual gamers yet still nuanced enough for competitive play.

The last thing you want is overly complex rules, 40k suffers from that these days and it's made the game a dull slog to play.

Angle of attack only affects atmospheric flight. In space there is no air to flow over the wing.

Angle of attack only affects atmospheric flight. In space there is no air to flow over the wing.

Much like with lasers there is next to no travel time so no need to lead your target.

That's not true. They're not hit scan weapons. They're more like machine gun fire than anything else. I wasn't meaning Angle of Attack as in the angle of an airfoil. I was meaning the angle of your attack on an object that is travelling relative to your position. How it's easiest to hit that object if it's going away from you or directly towards you.

I agree though if they're going for a barebones approach then it makes sense to cut out the rule. Makes sense that it was a game design decision.

Though it does weight things on the side of heavy weaponry as opposed to maneuverability. Just from a mechanic standpoint.

Mechanically this rule is simple to implement:

Side shot +1 evade dice.

I'd probably say you get either this OR the range 3 evade dice bonus; you couldn't get both at the same time.

The problem with it is two fold:

1) It would require new ship bases, wth a more cluttered look <-- This is a HUGE problem.

2) It's going to brain overload a lot of people.

The day they start adding that sort of thing to this game, I'll leave. I've all but given up on 40k because of how convaluted it's gotten over the last few versions.

I love this game because you can play either a casual or highly competative game in an hour. That's it. That's all it takes. And even at the highest levels, it wont be just 1/2 turns per player. It'll be a proper match.

Because these are advance star fighters with with fire control computers that pinpoint a spot in space where you should be shooting to make contact with the enemy. This makes deflection shooting no longer an issue. At least that's what I always imagined.

The rules, as written, don't support the concept of "side" or "rear" shots as a positional matter (there are concepts of "in arc" and "out of arc", such as for Backstabber, but that's different). That's because firing range is measured closest corner to closest corner.

Also, for the aforementioned reasons. The game is meant to be simple and quick. Such requirements demand a larger degree of abstraction.

Yah. I agree, sacrifices have to be made to keep the speed. But I was fiddling with some of the equations, you could maintain the speed if you incorporated a lot of the evade aspects into the attacker dice roll. If you had actual numbered dice you could do this, but since they have unique dice (for teh making moneyz!) then you have to slow down the game with two dice rolls.

It's a small difference, but noticable.

Like if you had a 6 sider you could add in the modifiers there and do away with an evade roll entirely. X-Wing Fires 3 dice at a target with 0 evade, needs 2+. But if he fires at a Tie Fighter with a 3 evade he needs 5+, from the front needs a 6, side needs a 7(6+4-6 on a second die). Then give benefits a +1 to firing from behind, +1 to firing at close range, +1 if you have a target lock, etc etc.

And implement the old Blue Max rule that if you're tailing someone they have to tell you if they're going left/right/forward.

Anyways, idle thoughts!