Yeah, I can see what you mean now, because 3/8 of the time 3P0 fails, and hence he doesn't 'work'... so from a pure numbers effect I see what you mean. That being said, when I think of spend 3 points for 3P0, I think to myself, this will guarantee me one evade a round. So pass or fail, the effect is still the same.

I still think 3P0 is hands down better.

I'd rather have R2-D2 (crew) over Chewie for the same points.

Of course, there is also the fact that there is a fairly reliable counter to C-3PO in Outmaneuver.

Wow, multiply ninja'ed. I'll let it stand as a testament to how slow I am off the mark...

Chewbacca is a guarantee of 2. C3PO is a guarantee of 1 every turn that his ship is on the table...

Not quite, because sometimes Threepio will "fail" (because you guessed 0 and rolled 1). Threepio has a 5/8 chance to generate an extra evade, while Chewie does definitely give you 2.

So it's down to probability and lifespan, really. If someone focuses fire on the Falcon for three rounds, Threepio is likely to generate at least 2 extra evade results--a 68% chance--but he has a 32% chance of generating 0 or 1 extra results, which would mean he turned out to be worse than Chewie. The average number of extra evades is 1.9, which means Chewie is both more reliable and more effective on average.

If someone focuses fire on the Falcon for four rounds, though, the chances of Threepio being worse than Chewie drop to about 15%, and the chances of him being at least as good go up to about 85% (and the average increases to 2.5 extra evade results). So I'd set my breakpoint there: if you think your Falcon is likely to be shot at for at least four rounds in a row, Threepio is the better choice. If you're worried about dropping in just 1-3 rounds, though, Chewie is probably the Wookiee for you.

...getting your evade on the die IS NOT a failure of C3PO. Effectively, yes, he gives you 5/8s of an evade and you already had a 3/8s chance. Point being, each time you declare C3PO, you WILL evade one damage.

Edit: Double Post.

as many rounds as the falcon lives. Not trying to be smart but it's one every time it gets shot at in a round, which usually means 3-6ish. Depending on arc dodging, and if there's only 1 ship that can shoot at it its almost invulnerable to the fire. Plus if you're at one hull and he has 3 hits, you can still call one to maybe dodge everything

5/8 of a shot every round: it's possible to roll evades with the natural die.

So are we looking to ban Chewie now as well, then?

I'm not a fan of the C-3PO card, as it further punishes the already struggling elite small-base ship builds that the Falcon was already extremely strong against. Banning it makes little difference though, as you still have the options for base 3-attack, 360 degree firing arc, gunner/Luke, marksmanship/predator, Chewbacca crew, and all the wave 5 stuff.

I feel like a provocative C3-PO tape dispenser will add great insight to this thread, so here it is!

Chewie is not saving 2 damage, he is saving up to 3 damage because you have knowledge of the crit you choose to discard. The addional shield also helps mitigate another potential crit. It takes longer for 3PO to do better than Chewie than most are assuming, I believe it is 5 turns in the case an additional damage crit. Yes, in the long run 3PO nets better gains, but the difference is smaller in context than it looks.

The more an opponent is able to concentrate firepower into fewer turns the better Chewie becomes (relative to 3PO) and vice versa.

Chewie also never suffers from over defence turns where I took an evade and had 3PO and only had to dodge one damage as well as the turns that 3PO "fails" to contribute.

I don't think the difference is that vast, though I do agree in most circumstances 3PO will likely outperform Chewie.

^^^^^ What he said, but with one caveat.

C-3PO only cost 3 as opposed to 4 points, so comparing them to a break even point is fine but in a pure point efficient analysis C-3PO only has to perform ¾ as well as Chewy to ‘Break even’

So for C-3PO to be more efficient than Chewy he need to prevent 1.5 damage, every time you use C-3PO you “statistically” prevent 5/8 or 0.625 damage.

So for C-3PO to be more effective than Chewy he need to be used 3 times (1.875 damage).

This of course does not take into account also that by taking Chewy - Crew you pay the opportunity cost of not being able to run Chewy - Pilot as well.