Game designers sometimes talk about "design space" in an established game, referring to the things they haven't boxed themselves off from (for example, a Rebel Y-wing with both a crew slot and an astromech slot is generally considered to be off-limits in this community). I was thinking, what are some areas of design space that haven't been done yet in X-Wing? Gametext doesn't have to be confined to specific ships or pilots or upgrade cards or costs, and discussing this might unintentionally match upcoming FFG official releases. Anyone game to explore this with me?

The anti-Wedge: When defending, reduce the attacker's attack value by 1 (to a minimum of 1).

The crewed Y-wing: Y-wing only: Treat [astromech] in this ship's upgrade bar as [crew].

IG-88, parasite: After you perform an attack, you may place an ion token on a friendly ship at Range 1 to take an action listed in your action bar.

The anti-Wedge: When defending, reduce the attacker's attack value by 1 (to a minimum of 1).

this is interesting, but far too powerful. thing is, Wedge only attacks once, but this can be used an unlimited number of times per turn. also, red dice are 'more powerful' than greens, so this has more of an affect on the outcome of the attack.

for it to work it would need to be limited to once per round, in my opinion.

Easy enough:

"Once per round, when defending, reduce the attacker's attack value by 1 (to a minimum of 1)."

What other design space is there?

The anti-Wedge: When defending, reduce the attacker's attack value by 1 (to a minimum of 1).

The crewed Y-wing: Y-wing only: Treat [astromech] in this ship's upgrade bar as [crew].

IG-88, parasite: After you perform an attack, you may place an ion token on a friendly ship at Range 1 to take an action listed in your action bar.

Yeah, definitely drop the first one to 1/round. I like the crewed Y-Wing option, though!

I know pivot guns for the A-Wing come up a lot. A while ago, someone posted an idea to have them switch between firing forward or backwards as an action.

The Anti-Wedge would only be too powerful if it were on an agility 3+ ship. On a agility 1, it would be a great Wedge level ability.

There is some interesting areas they can still go.

New upgrade types and actions give them a wide, wide open space to play in. Which is going to be important as more ships get made with similar stat lines.

There is some room in maneuvers as well. Due to how things work in terms of difficulty, I don't foresee a new color happening. But, they could make the S-loop for turns. Backwards movement, or backwards k-turns.

they have not yet had a pilot who can take actions even if he collides with another ship.

I think that the game is still wide open with regard to ship modifications (y-wing crew, etc) and pilot abilities but what interests me is the "design space" available to new ships. I have really enjoyed what I have read so far about the S&C faction for this reason.

With that in mind I would like to see more for ships with different firing arcs. I would love if they made a ship that had no primary firing arc, but instead had alt firing arcs on its sides. Kind of like gunners in WW2 era bombers. To spice things up, and because it would be hard to line up shots, I would like a ship like this to be able to attack out of each firing arc once per turn.

Production Model, Modification. -1 cost. You may equip no other upgrade cards to this ship.

Damaged Ship, Modification. Sheilds Required. -2 cost. You start the game with one less shield token.

3rd tour. EPT. -1 pt. You begin the game with 2 stress tokens.

Opens up some weird builds when you can get up to 105pts or so. I'd put a negative cost limit on it there.

Elite dice (not like that other game. We had good ideas in a few threads awhile back) as upgrades.

Multi version pilots (Vader Sith Lord; Anakin Skywalker, sith apprentice; Vader, Black Squad Leader; ect).

Force powers. It was a bigger thing in the prequels, clone wars, and I'd bet on the new movies being force heavy(er).

0-1 attack ships.

"hacking"/electronic warfare (like splicer tools).

Droids

New obstacles

"ambush" upgrades that affect opening placement.

There is a lot of space left.

I think the imperials are missing a good general purpose ship in the 20-27 point range, like the rebel x and b wings. The Advanced was meant to fill this role, but 2 attack dice are near useless on anything over 16 points, in my experience. Hopefully the AutoThrusters can help the lower PS interceptors fill that role, or the promised "Tie Advanced love"

There are always new mechanics and space to be created, in existing places...

There's new colors that could be added to the dial, imagine a blue maneuver that gives an ion token, a blue attack value that works as a primary ion attack, or a red action on the bar that gives stress. We've already seen completely new actions show up in cloaking and boost, no reason you couldn't create a shield recharge action...We've yet to see hard points or energy explored on large ships. There's no reason a new modification like, non title non modification slot couldn't be created.

Target lock effects haven't really been explored in the way we've seen focus effects explored. White maneuver effects haven't really been explored very much (x happens if you reveal a white maneuver...)

And much more, creativity and truly game breaking effects (infinite damage loops, infinite health regen, infinite maneuvering etc...) are the limit!

There are certainly constraints already in place....

The hwk and the phantom may show us that 1 attack or 4 attack may push the limit of the attack space, I'd imagine we're going to see exclusively 2 or 3 attack ships with very few outliers in the future. Given stealth and the phantom, we're also likely locked into 0-3 agility in the same way. It's possible we'll see a native 4 agility ship someday, but I doubt it would have more than 3 HP, and it would probably require a low attack. Decimator and its 0 agility may represent an outer boundary on HP totals too. It's hard to say, because we have points to balance the ships and seperate formats to play in... So a super 80 point unique epic fighter with 3 attack and 4 agility could theoretically exist, but would probably not sell well, though I'm not sure what ship in the EU would have those stats. Just notice how two attack ships already struggle with 4 agility, and the number of two attack ships in the game. 5 agility standard would bust that, just as 4-5 attack starts to bust ships up, especially given ways to pump attack (opportunist/expose/jan ors)

Biggs also represents a constraint on defensive abilities for rebel ships, which because of r2-d6 means EPT's rebels can use are affected as well. If you can make Biggs too good, then an invincible rebel list could show up.

Accuracy corrector is probably another constraint, in that imagine what a 12 point, 1 or 2 attack ship with a system upgrade would mean.... 6 ships that always "roll 2 hit results". Yikes! It doesn't look like a constraint with the current system ships, cause they're all 3 attack, as focus is already better* there. We'll probably never see a system upgrade modification unless it's expensive enough that tie fighters can't take it and accuracy corrector. I'd imagine a math winger would have to work out the breaking point, 6 might be ok, or even just 4 might be a problem... Major juggler can field that one...

Point is, I'm not sure what the exact constraint limits are... But there are constraints to the space.

* pure probability wise, 2.25 expected damage over 2, of course there are other concerns about actions and the guarantee of 2 attack...

they have not yet had a pilot who can take actions even if he collides with another ship.

the decimator title covers that, but i might just be nit picking as you said pilot

I was thinking of options that care about ship size.

Xwing only: When attacking a Large ship roll an additional attack die.

Tie advanced only: When attacking a Small ship roll an additional attack die.

Again, with new dial colors, where do you place them in terms of the current difficulty progression of red<white<green.

I dont understand the lack of a crewed Y Wing with an astromech. Weird

I think we could do a bit more interesting stuff with firing arcs. Could have a ship with a 180 degree arc, or an asymetric arc (can shoot out of one side but not other other).

The crew on a Y-wing is a gunner. A turret gunner.

Ah, yes- the drawback options! Chardaan Refit is the only one we have so far, but we're seeing more cost 0 upgrades, too.

Alternate fire arcs would be cool, but mechanically difficult to implement. Outrider title and Hotshot Blaster are the closest we have now, right?

Great comments on some current limits of design space, Ravncat.

Roles.

There exists no tanky modifiable mid cost Imperial fighter. (cough, tie advanced).

Ordnance platforms (cough Tie bombers)

Heavy destruction roles (against Falcons)

More servicable synergistic roles to counteract the stupid idea that formation flying is stupid. (See SV)

Variation cards to make old ships relevant. (cough fixes)

I got really excited for a minute when I saw "Roles."

Does the Empire have a heavy bomber, a medium bomber, a light-tactical bomber, a fighter-bomber? Maybe the TIE Bomber does this or maybe it doesn't, but whether or not it's tournament-viable as a squad element isn't really a question of design space. What could be created? What could be added to existing ships to fill the gaps we perceive in the X-Wing system?

Again, with new dial colors, where do you place them in terms of the current difficulty progression of red<white<green.

The rules insert card would explain how they function, "at the beginning of the check pilot stress step, assign the ship an ion token if it performed a blue maneuver, the ship suffers one damage if it performed a black maneuver... Etc."

Thematically, it's a maneuver which is more difficult than white, and has some kind of side effect, like stalling out the engines and having to restart them, but isn't necessarily stressful. They don't change the pull a green to clear a stress, pul a red and gain a stress..

I forgot base sizes: Long ships and Wide ships. Wish we already had 1-2 of these.

I don't care ford the idea of non-square(ish) bases, but I have always been a little surprised that there isn't a 60mm 'medium' sized base.

forgotten they have left themselves open to something like this, mainly because of the movment arcs have to real way to "grid" a game table. I think this was on purpose.

I think there are a ton of possibilities with epic, if they continue to support that format going foward. that space is wide open.

Also missing a command ship role for dogifghts. Cough tie advanced. Or shuttle.

More support roles would be stellar. The trick is not making them cost too much so that you can keep your firepower while adding synergy.

Also the range 1 restriction is really dumb. Range 2 muh better.