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"

Personally this is where id love to see the tie scout come in.

I love that odd looking thing

I had an idea (which I posted in some other thread) awhile ago for an upgrade that changed the nature of a ship... I liked how Chardaan Refit, changes the A-Wing and so I was thinking of things do for the Y-Wing. Basically the idea to swap out the top turret mount for a fixed forward firing laser. Similar to the A4 title but changing the ships Attack value instead of granting an additional attack. I don't remember what I called it because frankly I was never satisfied with any of the names I came up with. It was along the lines of this though:

Retrofitted Laser Hardpoint (Turret Upgrade) 3-4pts

When making a primary weapon attack roll one additional dice.

Basically turning the Y-Wing into a 3 Attack ship without a turret. Kind of like a poor man's B-Wing, or an overweight X-Wing. It'd also be an alternative to a Turret on the HWK but I don't think it'd be a good choice.

Anyways that got me thinking about what else we could do with various Upgrade types. About the only not horrible idea I came up with is a Bomb Upgrade that was a chaff pack... discard this card to remove one red target lock token from your ship. Not a great idea but I think there's room to look at sticking interesting abilities or stat changers into slots other than Title, Elite Talents or Modifications.

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

Totally agree. If they make the Gozanti for the imperials, I think it would be interesting to implement something like an 8 point cargo upgrade that you can discard that allows you to deploy a new academy pilot when a friendly TIE dies. It would be stupid powerful in 100 point lists on a smaller board, but could work in 300 point lists on a larger play space.

Great ideas for support ships and epic format- I think those areas are fairly untouched.

Just reading through this thread about B-Wing/crew combos http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/125873-b-winge2-explored/ and the various mechanics that have design options open.

Manuever dial: new maneuvers (like the S-turn), maneuver colors (like others have mentioned in this thread), ways to change or peek at the dial, ignore red

Attack dice: add, subtract, reroll, alter specific faces, prevent reroll, make uncancelable, etc.
Defense dice: add, subtract, reroll, prevent reroll, alter specific faces, make uncancelable, etc.
Damage cards: cancel, flip, unflip, ignore text
Tokens: add, assign double, remove, steal

What else?

Excellent topic! I love seeing all the different ideas from everyone. Some of my own brainstorming:

1) Converting or exchanging tokens

• The Jan Ors crew lets you trade a Focus for an Evade; a similar card that trades an Evade for a Target Lock would be a nice upgrade for Imperials, maybe as crew on a support ship. As a team for epic/huge ships, it would work well thematically for a carrier or AWACS type ship. It could also be an Elite card ("Unflinching"?), representing a pilot sacrificing evasive maneuvers for a more reliable attack. I guess that would make it similar to Expose, but in a narrative sense, I see it more like a bomber holding steady in the face of flak, rather than a risky dogfighting maneuver.

• I could see a droid or system (Ion Dampeners?) that allows a ship to remove its ion token in exchange for stress.

• What about an "Asteroids do not concern me" card that allows a ship to attack even when touching an obstacle, but you automatically take the damage.

You can play around a lot with these kind of "currency exchanges" by varying the associated costs. How many points is it worth to trade an ion for a stress? What about an ion for a damage? What about only a chance at damage (i.e. like asteroids or R2-D2)? What if it only works once (discard) instead of the whole game?

2) You could take many of the current card effects and make a different card that applies them to multiple ships within range, or take ranged abilities and make a version that only works on its own ship.

• So "Asteroids do not concern me" can be an upgrade for Imperial Huge ships that affects all TIEs within 1-3, but you can also make an Elite "Never tell me the odds" card that only affects the ship that takes it.

• Make a "Bombing Run" card that is like "Unflinching" above, but affects everything in range.

3) Upgrades that only trigger based on other upgrades, on the same ship or others.

• "Improved Transmitter" is a system/hardpoint/whatever that grants some bonus to anything that has an "Improved Receiver". Maybe the Receiver is a Modification, or maybe its a non-unique Title for, say, only TIE/ln, to show that it doesn't help Boba Fett, even if he happens to be on your side for this fight.

4) Ship-type-specific upgrades

We now have two "different model" upgrade cards (for the A-Wing and Y-Wing), so maybe it's time to just make a new slot/type for these. This could be a good way to add more ship variety to the game, without explicitly adding more ships.

5) Non-ship upgrades
I'm talking about a card you don't put on a ship, but instead put down on the table that affects how your squad plays, like Strategies or Doctrines or Orders. "Asteroids do not concern me" could work like this.

There is some overlap here with things that would work as Scenario/Mission special rules, but these would be choices you could bring to any game, and could potentially make some themed lists more viable.

6) Same pilot, different ship

• Farlander in Y-Wing. How differently would you fly a Y-Wing with his pilot ability? What can you do with a turret, an astromech, and an Elite slot? I don't know if any crazy combos jump out, but at least it would create some other interesting options for the ship.

• I'm sure there are others that make sense for the background and the gameplay.

Ok, I think that's enough for now. Sorry for the wall of text, but I'm a sucker for armchair game design and you drew me out.

- H8

Those sound like some great ideas. There's a lot of near-field design space around existing crew/pilot/upgrade abilities ("it's like Jan Ors but the other way around," etc.).