So far I have come up with a bunch of lists whose original concepts were sound, but I tend to get caught up in the upgrade cards. Especially with the b-wings as they have so many slots. Then I try to figure out what upgrades to take out without hurting the integrety of the list, but the ships I ended up having to cut for the upgrades also caused issues. I usually end up with a butcherd version of my original concept that gets blown apart.

I still have fun and learn alot from each match which is why I play in the first place, but is there a general rule of thumb when it comes to what percent of your list total should be allocated to upgrades, and which ships are the exceptions?

I have experienced this effect as well. My only advice is pick your ships, determine what you want them to execute and how and build your list accordingly.

Most ships are fairly solid on the own value but your list will really shine when you have a cumulative goal for the upgrades you add to them.

Kinda like how Wes and Wedge are ok on their own but put VI on Wes and you know have a mean combo hit that will boost your ability to get through pesky focus evade and R7 target locks.

The rule of thumb seems to actually be changing a lot right now. You used to want to spend almost nothing on upgrades and just run ships, but new pilots, ships, and upgrades are changing things up.

As a general guide, you don't want to put upgrades on cheap ships. TIE Fighters, Zs, and even generic X or Blue are usually fine without. that said, I find Ys to need a turret and Interceptors need PTL.

The pricier ships can get more mileage out of upgrades, as long as they reinforce the ship's role. A Fat Falcon is a great expense of upgrades; the firepower and the durability are greatly enhanced by certain key upgrades. Defenders also often use upgrades; Rexler almost needs Predator IMO and some run him with a HLC.

I tend to think upgrades should enhance a strength rather than cover a weakness, but YMMV. Try these lists out and see what works.

Thanks for the advice given so far. The last b-wing build I did was over 50pts. Wanted to make a missle platform with a bunch of Headhunters zipping around it for protection. I upgraded the headhunters abit too and could only field 3 which kinda crippled the list. Maybe I will go through it again with some of the advice you have provided and see what I come up with.

I did a thought experiment where I decided I wanted 6 rebel ship rebel list with an A, B, Y, X, Z, E. I took mostly second tier generics and chose to take a single upgrade on each. It meant I had to choose the most effective (or ship defining upgrade I could). It was interesting to put it in that context.

I ended up with:

Green Squadron with outmaneuver (honestly could be better with PtL, or both now with Test pilot, but that breaks the rules).

Blackmoon Squadron with Sensor Jammer (arguable, but adds an interesting layer to the ship not viable on other ships).

Dagger Squadron with Advanced Sensors

Gray Squadron with Ion Cannon Turret

Tala Squadron with Assault missiles (I actually think concussion missiles would be better, but less meta oriented)

Tarn Mison with R7 (cheap combo too nice to pass up), a Red with R2-D2 would be an option here.

Anyway I never played it, but the thought experiment of considering what is the one best upgrade you could give a certain ship was interesting. I think each of these upgrade adds a good amount of strategy to the ships without costing the earth. So more is not necessarily best particularly when it compromises the number of ships you can bring to the table.

On a different note, I have been known to fill every available slot on a HWK but I do it because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts (also see Fat Han). This is an important lesson for list building as well, think of the synergy, what role do each of your ships fill in the list and what is the minimum amount of upgrades that they need to fulfil that role? Based on your list, what roles do you not need to cover? Good lists don't tend to all do the same things well because that typically means they do other things badly. Who is the threat, who is the distraction, who is the tank, who is the damage dealer, who is the decoy? It helps to know what your ships are supposed to do first, in order to work out how they are going to do it (and what upgrades are necessary for them to pull it off).

Apologies for the ramble.

There is no fixed amount because each ship needs different upgrades to function. A TIE fighter is fine naked, but a Falcon almost always wants upgrades to maximize its potential. You really need to be asking yourself two questions:

1) WHY did you add an upgrade: is it an essential part of the ship, or is it a nice extra that you could survive without? If it's essential then you're probably fine, just accept that you have an expensive ship and all the strenghts and weaknesses that go along with that. If it's a nice extra then you need to think about how you could spend those points elsewhere. A shield upgrade might sound nice in theory, but wouldn't you rather upgrade that rookie pilot to Biggs?

2) How does your version of a ship compare to standard competitive versions of the same ship? Swarm ships should not cost more than 15 points, mid-range generic "jousting efficiency" ships like x-wings and b-wings should be in the 20-25 point range, and elite aces should be in the 30-35 point range (with a few super-elite ships reaching 40 points). Does your ship with your chosen upgrades compare well with other ships in its price category? If so, have fun with it. If not, try a different plan.

For example, your 50-point b-wing almost certainly fails this test. Even the most expensive ace b-wings (HLC Farlander with crew, for example) are only 40ish points. So it's pretty likely that the extra 10+ points on your b-wing come from upgrades that aren't really necessary. For example, are you taking a cannon and 2x torps? If so, how do you plan to use all three secondary weapons before your 8 HP ship is destroyed?

For a contrasting example, I use Tycho with all of his (non-modification) slots filled, which costs 33 points. PTL is necessary to make use of the a-wing's action bar, VI gives him PS 10 for phantom hunting, and proton rockets make him a serious threat instead of a 2-dice annoyance. Take away any of those upgrades and he no longer functions the way I intend to use him.

Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

That's my motto.

Use as many as you want just make sure you r ember you have them

I generally have one big gun I upgrade fully then I'll use multiple generics with few upgrades to support.

The issue is the more you spend on a ship the more it hurts you when it dies.

I think iPeregrine is pretty spot on though I would like to add one thing and that's the human factor. The more upgrades you have on one ship, the bigger the risk is that you forget about them. I've spent more than one game forgetting about an important ability because I had too much other crap to remember as well. One ability used to its full extent is often better than a whole crateload that you might only remember to use one or two times.

Some ships have need of upgrades to make them effective within the squad, the HWK for example.

I've been running 4 ship builds lately with fewer upgrades. More guns and more targets for your opponents to decide on. The upgrades I try to use to combo or be effective against ship types, Outmaneuver vs. Fat Falcon for example.

Unless an upgrade is essential to a build then don't bother taking it, unless you have points remaining. Things like Hull Upgrades etc. are always helpful, but they aren't essential in any list. The rules really haven't changed that much.

I will have to echo that Interceptors go together with Push the Limit like peas and carrots. Some cards get exponentially better with upgrade cards, other only marginally better. X Wing can be a bit like chemistry. Find what cards and upgrades give you a reaction.

It's a big mistake by beginners to use too many upgrades on their ships. Keep it simple.

Most ship may die in 1 round by hostile focus fire. Then all your points for upgrades are gone and your opponent gloats over the points.

It's hard to say what's the right strategy. But in opinion, if a pilot is already expensive and can't survive or easy dodge focus fire, don't blow him up with more points for upgrades.

Examble:

- Keyan Farlander: He dies very quickly by focus fire, because at the end of the day he is only a B-Wing. In my opinion, more upgrades on him is a risk.

- Fat Hans: Because of his 360° firing arc, he can dodge hostile ship formations to avoid incoming focus fire. And he has lot's of life points to survive. So you can pimp him up.

It varies a lot based on the overall list. A generic B-wing should really just have 1. A named b-wing could do with 2-3. A named B wing in a Biggs list, however, can really get beefed up and perform very well. Most other rebel ships have equally-diverse upgrade diets. It just depends on your list.

What I like to do, which has probably already been mentioned, is come up with an idea for what I want a list to be good at before throwing ships in willy nilly. If you focus on synergistic effects or building around an idea you'll have a much easier time not overloading ships.

The old 40k maxim used to be to pick 100 points that was capable of taking out 110points of the enemy

Essentially if it cant kill its own value its useless, it needs to be able to do more ideally.

Years ago in 2nd ed 40k days my mate used to hve an over tooled up tzeench chaos marine assault squad, it was fearsome but about 600 points and was never able to kill 600 points of my guard in a game, it did usually find itself tied up for several turns by 100 points of beastmen! Needless to say he lost nearly every game as a third of his army was fighting a 15th of mine.

Xwing isnt the same game but 'economy of force' still applies.

I tend to work out on being able to 'knock out red dice' as quickly as possible. I'd rather have the enemy flying one 100 per cent helth ship at me than two damaged ones.

So to that end on the flip side I like to make sure that my own ships are not so loaded up that three solid hits takes out 30 per cent of my force when that one ship goes down

So this 50 point B wing.. is it going to take out 5 academy ties? That would be my thought during the build process. If it was built to take out a fat han then it might be worth it but if its built to take out comparable small ships its a lot of eggs in one basket.

Personally i dont like any one 'small ship' costing me more than about 30 points. I'd much rather have a *lot* of ships throwingout a a lot of red dice each turn than one or two durable ones throwing out two or three each.

Often I go by pilot ability when deciding what to upgrade. Colonel Vessery and Keyan Farlander don't strictly require upgrades to make their abilities shine, though helping them might mean an EPT that induced stress for the latter.

Other pilots benefit from having upgrades that make the most of their pilot abilities, Kyle like Recon Specialist and Moldy Crow, for example.

I still go with ships > upgrades.

People already mentioned that some upgrades exponentially increase the value of some ships, but it's a small percentage of both that combine to make that happen.

You also need to spread the love. Three small 33pt ships are likely going to have an easier time than 2 small 50pt ships.

Think about your upgrade to health ratio. If I have 20pts of upgrades on a ship with 4 'health' I'm far more lopsided than if I have 20pts of upgrades on a ship with 8 'health.'

So far I have come up with a bunch of lists whose original concepts were sound, but I tend to get caught up in the upgrade cards. Especially with the b-wings as they have so many slots. Then I try to figure out what upgrades to take out without hurting the integrety of the list, but the ships I ended up having to cut for the upgrades also caused issues. I usually end up with a butcherd version of my original concept that gets blown apart.

I still have fun and learn alot from each match which is why I play in the first place, but is there a general rule of thumb when it comes to what percent of your list total should be allocated to upgrades, and which ships are the exceptions?

Whatever list you bring, have fun with it. If you're not having fun with it, try another list. Rinse, repeat.

I think as long as you field a list that works for you it shouldn't matter what percentage of points is upgrades versus ships. While the pilot cards and upgrades that are coming out are nice, if you field a competitive or comfortable list that works for you, without a lot of fancy things, go with that

I think as long as you field a list that works for you it shouldn't matter what percentage of points is upgrades versus ships. While the pilot cards and upgrades that are coming out are nice, if you field a competitive or comfortable list that works for you, without a lot of fancy things, go with that

The whole point of the thread seems to be that the OP's lists aren't working because of an imbalance of point expenditure, and to be honest that's exactly what I would expect to happen. Similarly you say if you field a competitive list that's all that matters, but a list won't be competitive if it misspends too many points on unnecessary upgrades.

be cautious about giving your list one obvious target to kill first. If you have a bwing clocking in at 50 points, that is too many eggs in one basket, IMO. B-wing is not that hard to kill with concentrated fire. Now, a 50 point YT can be justified, but I think 50 points in any small base ship is too much.