Copied from the mass update thread:

I'm really not very enthused by the amount of damage that can be done without dice here. Yes it feels dirty, but it also feels against the game's wonderful reliance on unreliable dice.

This does open up some paths for easily taking out low HP targets like the Phantom however. It could fix the problem, but I think its a little inelegant.

This design team has been pushing for more and more non-dice damage, even in Wave 5, you get Ruthlessness.

Which, does anyone know, is that Imperial only?

The positives is that it is exciting, and it does open up new ways to tackle existing problems though.

The negatives is that it just seems a little direct and not very elegant.

All of the direct damage stuff so far has some strong drawbacks.
Bombs are notoriously hard to use effectively
Vader usually hurts the ship he's on more than the enemy ship, it terms of hit points.
Ruthlessness can cause you to hurt your own ships and can be countered by not flying formation
Deadman switch requires the opponent to kill the users to trigger it, and it can hurt your own ships
Feedback Array does the same amount of damage to the user, and give an ion token

EDIT: clarified deadman switch

Actually I guess you could suicide bomb into an asteroid to trigger deadman switch. But I doubt that will happen enough to matter. Although it is one of the few ways to deal damage in the activation phase (I think, not sure if they are removed at the start of the combat phase)

Deadman switch requires you to kill the enemy to trigger it, and it can hurt your own ships

Actually it requires you to die, not enemies.

Ruthlessness is Imperial only.

We've had direct damage ever since Bombs, and iirc Assault Missiles, came out in wave 2. So the new additions are just an expansion and cross-factional balancing of an old theme.

Deadman switch requires you to kill the enemy to trigger it, and it can hurt your own ships

Actually it requires you to die, not enemies.

My point was (mixed up with "you" rather than the "user" or "opponent") that unless you kill the ship with deadman, there are very few ways to trigger it because there are few ways to hurt your own ship.

This design team has been pushing for more and more non-dice damage, even in Wave 5, you get Ruthlessness.

Which, does anyone know, is that Imperial only?

I'd suspect that it has as much to do with fluff as it does with keeping the TIE swarm viable. Imperials need to weigh the benefit of Ruthlessness against it's drawback a lot more than Rebels do.

It'll get worse with scum. You could run Oicunn with Daredevil, OGP with Autoblaster and Accuracy Corrector, and Doom Shuttle. There is 5 damage a turn that nobody can do anything about.

It'll get worse with scum. You could run Oicunn with Daredevil, OGP with Autoblaster and Accuracy Corrector, and Doom Shuttle. There is 5 damage a turn that nobody can do anything about.

You can evade to dodge one of the two hits from Autoblaster+Accuracy Corrector.

Or not be in range 1 to avoid both.

It'll get worse with scum. You could run Oicunn with Daredevil, OGP with Autoblaster and Accuracy Corrector, and Doom Shuttle. There is 5 damage a turn that nobody can do anything about.

I don't want to be in front of a shuttle anyway, regardless of what cannons it has or doesn't have equipped. That also costs 30 points to field and Doom Shuttles aren't terrible efficient anyway. I'd rather be flying three B-Wings with Autoblaster and Accuracy corrector for the sake of this argument. Six damage per turn at the least that can't be avoided!

It'll get worse with scum. You could run Oicunn with Daredevil, OGP with Autoblaster and Accuracy Corrector, and Doom Shuttle. There is 5 damage a turn that nobody can do anything about.

Spending 6 points on a ship that isn't very maneuverable just to get two hits at range one when that ship would normally be throwing 4 dice at that range doesn't seem like a very efficient use of points. Any high agility ship that lets a shuttle keep them in range one deserves to take a point or two of damage.

Accuracy corrector does not cause damage that you can do nothing about. It cancels all of your dice results and gives you two hit results that can then be negated with evade dice/tokens/etc.

It allows you to turn all blanks into two hits, for example.

Accuracy corrector does not cause damage that you can do nothing about.

**** ninjas

Ah.

Shows how often Autoblaster gets used.

It'll get worse with scum. You could run Oicunn with Daredevil, OGP with Autoblaster and Accuracy Corrector, and Doom Shuttle. There is 5 damage a turn that nobody can do anything about.

So you're kind of, in a way, suggesting that people may - just maybe - need to actually pilot their ships effectively and not just fly around like there's nothing going on and rely on their turrets to make things go boom?

B-Wings, maybe, but I don't see that being a very viable combo on a shuttle, unless it has an Engine Upgrade. Just not nimble enough.

Then again, maybe it'll be the new "meta." *shrug*