Short answer: I brute-force every single possible attack vs. defense scenario in the game. Then each one of them gets weighted by how likely it is to occur. Range, base dice, action economy to modify dice. I.e. 75% chance to have focus on offense and 50% on defense, range 1-3 bins at something like 25% / 50% / 25%, and base # of attack and defense dice about the same as the Regionals / Store Championship results. So no, it's not a time-variant formula.

How did you come up with that weighting? Do you have objective data for things like how often a focus is available, or is that just your personal opinion of what the weighting should be? This is a rather important question given how often your numbers are treated as absolute fact instead of just your own analysis.

I use MATLAB because I have it handy for my engineering endeavors (at the moment primarily dissertation simulations), and it is far more convenient to program loops than copy / pasting a bazillion cells in Excel. Not to mention I can make custom functions to my hearts delight, to calculate anything. And the plotting functions are far better.

Hehehe, yeah, I fell back into Star Wars during my dissertation-writing. It was a great escape, but I hope you're not letting it get the better of you. YMMV, but the dissertation was a big motivational struggle for me, and it took me too many years to complete.

I'm all but dissertation, and if I can get through just-moving mode, then I can be done in a few months.

Short answer: I brute-force every single possible attack vs. defense scenario in the game. Then each one of them gets weighted by how likely it is to occur. Range, base dice, action economy to modify dice. I.e. 75% chance to have focus on offense and 50% on defense, range 1-3 bins at something like 25% / 50% / 25%, and base # of attack and defense dice about the same as the Regionals / Store Championship results. So no, it's not a time-variant formula.

How did you come up with that weighting? Do you have objective data for things like how often a focus is available, or is that just your personal opinion of what the weighting should be? This is a rather important question given how often your numbers are treated as absolute fact instead of just your own analysis.

Short answer: this is the weakest link! I need more data. Looking at vassal logs could be one area. Do you know any volunteers?

• Range data was taken from Worlds 2013 final table (not the above numbers). I need more data.
• Action economy at 75% attacker focus, 50% defender focus, needs real data.

The next iteration will at least include different meta (base attack / defense dice), and action economy, to widen the possible range of values. If we have more confidence in the action economy then we can narrow down the results.

To add my 2 cents: I ran the damage numbers taking critical hits explicitly into account. weighting double damage crits as 2x, and all other crits as 1.33x. It turned out that shields are worth about only 15% more than hull for a predominantly focus-based economy.

Good to know. Thanks!

Could you explain the focus-based economy a bit more? It sounds intriguing.

Just a little something else to take into consideration regarding shield vs hull. While the damage the shield can take over the hull by avoiding a Direct Hit or Minor Explosion is not that great, there is other critical result that, while not lowering your health, can reduce the ship efficiency: Structural Damage, Weapon Malfunction, Damage Sensor Array, Blinded Pilot, Stunned Pilot, etc, etc...

So while it might not save you from destruction, it might help your ship stay in the game. Getting a blinded pilot critical hit on your scimitar right before unleashing your missiles with the help of Jonus feels... bad. Having all your hard turns become red on an PtL Interceptor can screw you up.

Yes, that's why I weighted "normal" critical hits as 1.33 a regular hit.

Yes, that's why I weighted "normal" critical hits as 1.33 a regular hit.

Sorry, somehow missed that part.

Yes, that's why I weighted "normal" critical hits as 1.33 a regular hit.

Sorry, somehow missed that part.

No worries, lots of text to read through.

Proton Rockets might be the first step towards fixing the TIE Advanced.

Hm, it's possible. Is it worth the 3 points?

In practice, we shall have to see.

That said, it's **** good. when fired off a TIE advanced, it stacks up **** well firepower-wise against the dear-holy-got-what-did-you-just-fire advanced proton torpedo, for half the cost, on a platform that I trust to survive into range to fire them.

Because you only need a focus token on your ship, you don't need to spend it, you can spend it to modify the results - kicking the advanced's damage potention from about one-and-a-half hits wiith a focused primary weapon to just shy of four. Vader (or Maarek Stele with Push The Limit) is even scarier due to his focus-and-target-lock shennanigans, dropping a faintly ridiculous, getting closer to four and a half damage - which is 'blow-rebel-fighter-out-of-the-sky' territory.

Secondly, focus-enabled rockets are incredibly tactically friendly for low-skill pilots; take a focus action, and use it for defense if you need to or thump whichever poor goon appears in front of you if you don't - unlike a target lock, you aren't pre-designating who you want to shoot at, so (taking a classic rebel squad as an example) you can put one proton rocket into biggs, then, if he's dead, shoot luke, if he's not shoot biggs again.

The pairing is a traditional one, anyway - as Maarek Stele in TIE fighter, you spend quite a lot of time in a TIE avenger (essentially the Advanced Mk2) firing proton rockets at people.

WRT making use of the Advanced's tankyness - taking an entire squad of overcosted fighters seems a bit backwards, but since you have no equivalent of biggs to force people to shoot at you, it does at least avoid presenting a weak spot....

1) Yes.

2) Because.

3) Answer unclear. Ask again later.

**** ... this reminds me of playing with my Magic 8 Ball. Provided the same valuable answers to my life altering questions.

Let's not forget, of course, that while the TIE Advanced may not be a competitive ship to fly in tournaments, it doesn't mean it's not fun to play with casually! Plus it may come with cards that you want. Also I agree that the Proton Rocket will be a good one to stick on a Tie Advanced, particularly Vader (maybe with an Engine Upgrade to make R1 easy to get into)