Note: this topic has nothing to do with third factions or anything like that.

I was thinking and I think I came up with something interesting. Undoubtedly both the rebels and the empire occasionally used ships made by third party manufacturers and this could have resulted in both sides using some of the same models of ship from time to time for various purposes. Alternatively bounty hunters could easily have opted to work for either faction and changed sides according to where the money was possibly even fighting for both factions. It probably wouldn't have been common and these ships likely would have filled a niche roll, but what if some ships were added to the game which could be used by either side?

Such ships could be implemented in two ways. The first being that a ship could be released which has both rebel and imperial pilots available to use with it and each faction could use the ship, but only with the pilots aligned to their faction. Alternatively ships could be added with bounty hunter pilots which can be used by either side. However, as these bounty hunters may be unique pilots new rules would be needed to settle cases where both sides wish to take the same unique bounty hunter whereby one player is judged to be the one the bounty hunter sides with based upon certain criteria and the other must use a different ship to fill his position. Alternatively both of these methods could be used to introduce such ships.

What do you guys think?

I prefer Chaotic Good ships.

I would like to see generic ships such as cargo haulers that could be crewed with upgrades from either faction. They would be good for "Protect the Convoy/Capture the Convoy" missions.

They could be given some Huge ship Cargo upgrades like Tibanna Gas.

I like the concept! It would definitely shake things up! I'd love to use a Firespray with a couple of Rebel builds I have!

This is one of the options that always comes up in 3rd faction arguments. I was frankly shocked that the firespray and falcon DIDN'T come with generic pilots for both factions. Then again with the corvette (you know, the official transport of IMPERIAL senators).

Seems reasonable to me. Some legacy designs (circa the Clone Wars, for instance) would work for both factions, a good many of the non-Seiner, non-Incom ships would be available for both, and lots of shuttle, transport, freighter, etc., ships would be available for both factions.

Plus mercs should work for anyone willing to pay.

We have solid proof that some Rebels flew a Lambda shuttle at some stage. It would make a good addition to have a couple of generics in the game that could play on either side.

We have solid proof that some Rebels flew a Lambda shuttle at some stage. It would make a good addition to have a couple of generics in the game that could play on either side.

Rebel Spy: PS1 Rebel shuttle. Tyderion Title: Gains 2 PS for 1 point.

Leave us not forget the Y-8 asteroid miners. That would be cool for completely neutral scenario ships.

So I mentioned this on a CR90 repaint thread. It feels that FFG is intentionally keeping ships exclusive to one faction. Each faction is visually recognizable at a glance. The game feels cleaner that way.

I'm genuinely shocked that the Lambda shuttle hasn't been dual faction as both groups made extensive use of them. In most star wars games where you pilot a ship there's lambdas you have to protect & kill. It wouldn't need a repaint, new dial or new base stats. Maybe just some creative pilots like Crix Madine & even a non YT Chewie.

The HWK should have been neutral as well. At the very least, Kyle Katarns crew card should NOT be Rebel only.

I think "neutral" is probably not the right term. I've been using "faction-flexible" to describe ships with pilots for both factions. I don't expect to see a third faction in this game (ever), but it would not surprise me if we see ships that include pilot cards for both Imperials and Rebels, or even a "mercenary" pilots with a split Imperial/Rebel symbol that lets them be placed in squads of either faction.

I wouldn't mind seeing a few FFG models for the ships used in the Objective games, to replace the cardboard tokens.

Things like the senator's shuttle, cargo transports, cargo containers, satellites, sensor arrays.. the game feels more cinematic with models than tokens.