So, I have turned to MajorJuggler several times in my X-Wing Career, as he is a paragon of MathWing.

That being said, his analyses have often left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, as the "Jousting Value" he produces does not take mobility into account.

And so, I need data.

For the purposes of this poll and/or thought experiment, let us pretend the following:

All ships have 2/2/2/2 stats

All pilots are Level 2 (for now)

Upgrades do not exist (for now)

That being said, all we need to do is to answer the following question several times:
"I can outfly _____ with ............... --% of the time".

As a quick and easy example, "I can outfly an Omicron Group Pilot with Echo 95% of the time."

Will you help me?

Jousting value implies two ships flying directly towards each other over and over, as opposed to outmaneuvering them; with that in mind, I don't quite understand the point here. If you're trying to figure out a jousting value, then mobility isn't really that important. The Defender does stand out of course, with it's white K-turn, but aside from that and ships lacking K-turns, there's not a lot to consider

I'm pretty well in agreement with Unfair Banana. My eyes always glaze over when people start arguing about ships being better than another because of their JV, precisely because of the lack of mobility consideration. Maybe it's useful for the first pass, but no pilot in their right mind is going to fly down the barrels of his enemy's weapons more than they can help.

The other shoe: I also don't believe that you can quantify the maneuverability value of a ship in terms of active gameplay. That is not to say that FFG (or anyone, for that matter) doesn't base the points cost at all on the maneuvers on the dial. But, once you get to actually playing, the base dial is nothing more than a tool, not a deciding factor. The deciding factor, I firmly believe, is the skill of the pilot/player in predicting where their opponent will be, and to select their maneuver to give themself the best possible position to influence the battle from, whether that be to attack, evade possible return fire, or use some other means to influence the engagement.

Jousting value implies two ships flying directly towards each other over and over, as opposed to outmaneuvering them; with that in mind, I don't quite understand the point here. If you're trying to figure out a jousting value, then mobility isn't really that important. The Defender does stand out of course, with it's white K-turn, but aside from that and ships lacking K-turns, there's not a lot to consider

I included the phrase "Jousting Value", as that is the term I see that does NOT incorporate mobility.

I've never been a fan of looking into "mathwing."

Once you start thinking about statistics and numbers and stuff it sort of breaks the 4th wall so to speak.

Once I'm thinking about probability and stats on such a mathmatical level, I'm no longer flying a star fighter at blistering speeds through space, and instead I'm pushing pieces of plastic around on a table trying to figure out how to be smarter than the game.

Not for me.

But that's just my opinion.

I'm pretty well in agreement with Unfair Banana. My eyes always glaze over when people start arguing about ships being better than another because of their JV, precisely because of the lack of mobility consideration. Maybe it's useful for the first pass, but no pilot in their right mind is going to fly down the barrels of his enemy's weapons more than they can help.

The other shoe: I also don't believe that you can quantify the maneuverability value of a ship in terms of active gameplay. That is not to say that FFG (or anyone, for that matter) doesn't base the points cost at all on the maneuvers on the dial. But, once you get to actually playing, the base dial is nothing more than a tool, not a deciding factor. The deciding factor, I firmly believe, is the skill of the pilot/player in predicting where their opponent will be, and to select their maneuver to give themself the best possible position to influence the battle from, whether that be to attack, evade possible return fire, or use some other means to influence the engagement.

The thing with the Jousting Value is that it takes player skill out of the equation, and that helps make a statistical analysis of the game possible. Also, they are backed up by the mountains of tournament data that MJ also compiles. On any given game table, the most important factor is player skill, of course. All things being equal, the best players win most of the time, with some room for the capriciousness of luck. But all things are not equal. There are ships that are just better value than others. Jousting Values are the best objective quantification of ship value that I know of; everyone else is essentially just eyeballing things.

The same goes for dials, which are difficult to quantify in terms of points value, but absolutely are a factor in how useful a ship is. If you don't believe me, try playing a TIE swarm only using Lambda dials. Better players can use even bad dials to make good maneuvers, but they can exploit better dials to a greater degree than they can bad dials, and fly even better.

The deciding factor in the games we play is player skill, but it's a long way from the only factor. And unlike player skill, ship value is a factor that we can analyze and that the developers can manipulate to improve the quality of the game.

So, I have turned to MajorJuggler several times in my X-Wing Career, as he is a paragon of MathWing.

That being said, his analyses have often left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, as the "Jousting Value" he produces does not take mobility into account.

And so, I need data.

For the purposes of this poll and/or thought experiment, let us pretend the following:

All ships have 2/2/2/2 stats

All pilots are Level 2 (for now)

Upgrades do not exist (for now)

That being said, all we need to do is to answer the following question several times:

"I can outfly _____ with ............... --% of the time".

As a quick and easy example, "I can outfly an Omicron Group Pilot with Echo 95% of the time."

Will you help me?

This is an interesting idea but maybe we should start with just one matchup? Something basic just to get you started. Maybe TIE Fighter vs X-wing?

I think I can outfly an X-wing with a TIE-fighter 75% of the time.

If all ships are 2/2/2/2 .... Tycho has become a god
I would say I could pilot Tycho around all of you about 60 percent of the time

All hail Tycho, the new overlord.

Why not assign point values to dial choices, and movement actions?

True, good players can work with bad dials and still get "decent" results, but the same good players (=successful tournament participants) will simply use the best ships they can (=best combination of stats + dial, according to their play style).

Now, I believe you can actually put a points value on dials! Simply by the number of different non-red maneuvers it has. The more option you have, the better you can position your ship regardless of players skill, and it becomes a lot harder to predict the move for that ship, plus the player has more option to react to surprising maneuvers from the opponent thus more likely allowing the craft to stay in the fight (no matter how well a shuttle is flown, once it's positioned on the table every player with some experience can foretell it's moves for at least 3 turns - there are only so many things it can do to participate in the fight).

Add a little extra for each green maneuver, and substract for red. Weight the close quarter maneuvers (1s) a bit more, and some extra points for weird maneuvers (like the white kio when kios are always red).

It might be necessary to go down to weight banks and curves differently, as curves alters your course more drastically, allowing you to turn around in 2 turns without going red.

If FFG has something like that in use (points system for the dial options) it would be a good explanation for the low point costs of the shuttle, which is a great ship given the stats and the upgrade slots, but which kinda sucks move-wise (it doesn't explain the crappy TIE Advanced though :-).

What does "outfly" mean to you? Does it mean destroy? Dodge arcs? Survive x number of turns?

Let's try and math some of this out. Note that math is not my strength so I'm just playing around with numbers at this point.

I'm starting with an X and an A.

Add some arbitrary numbers to values.

White moves are worth 1, greens are 2, reds are -1.

Then give each move type a value. Straight is worth 1, banks 2, turns are 3, kturns are 4.

Then reverse the point value order of the movement lengths so 1 is worth 5 points, 2 is worth 4 points, etc.

Currently ignoring boosts and barrel rolls.

So for our Awing, at speed 1 I've got 2 white turns. Turns are 3 points each, plus white moves at 1 point times 2 of those moves, times 5 for the speed gives me 40points. Divide by 2 moves possible for a score of 20.

The Xwing has one green straight and two green banks at speed 1 which gives it 50 points divided by 3 moves for a score of 18.33

The primary difference here is the ability to shed stress.

At speed 2 the Awing would score 16.8 while the X would score 13.6. While it has all the same moves, it has a much harder time shedding stress at speed 2.

So fomula wise ((color + move type) x number of moves) x speed value.

I have my own method of valuing the dial, but there is still room for improvement, and don't want to contaminate the discussion, so carry on!

I have my own method of valuing the dial, but there is still room for improvement, and don't want to contaminate the discussion, so carry on!

As a legitimate non math person I'm curious how you approached it.

I have my own method of valuing the dial, but there is still room for improvement, and don't want to contaminate the discussion, so carry on!

As a legitimate non math person I'm curious how you approached it.

You can chase it down from the index thread linked in my signature.

I'll take skill and a sacrifice to the dice gods over your maths any day!

The maths is a good thing to take into account but as any board game player knows there's the statistics of what you should roll and what you actually roll and they don't always match up.

And there's not solid way to take into account the player, we all get in the zone sometimes and we all have those days where nothing goes right and maths has a hard time accounting for that.

MJs numbers are great for picking the ship and upgrades but that's where they end and the more intangible elements come in, even the most min maxed list will lose badly if the player uses them wrong.

All hail Tycho, the new overlord.

I for one welcome our new A-wing Overlords

If all ships are 2/2/2/2 .... Tycho has become a god

I would say I could pilot Tycho around all of you about 60 percent of the time

In Vegas parlance, I am firmly on the Don't.

I have my own method of valuing the dial, but there is still room for improvement, and don't want to contaminate the discussion, so carry on!

Don't you list the B wing's dial as worse than the X's? I actually disagree with that.

I have my own method of valuing the dial, but there is still room for improvement, and don't want to contaminate the discussion, so carry on!

Don't you list the B wing's dial as worse than the X's? I actually disagree with that.

I actually have them weighted as almost identical. The X-wing wins out by a half a percentage point, almost not measurable. There is still room for improvement.

I have my own method of valuing the dial, but there is still room for improvement, and don't want to contaminate the discussion, so carry on!

Don't you list the B wing's dial as worse than the X's? I actually disagree with that.

I actually have them weighted as almost identical. The X-wing wins out by a half a percentage point, almost not measurable. There is still room for improvement.

That must have changed since the original analysis. I ought to go look at that again. I will say that I'd take the B over the X dial. Hard turn 1 even red is really good.

That must have changed since the original analysis. I ought to go look at that again. I will say that I'd take the B over the X dial. Hard turn 1 even red is really good.

Quite possibly, a while back I changed the dial weighting method to account for different aspects of the dial. I'm also in the middle of overhauling the entire thing, so I'll probably go and tweak the dial again, especially to account for 3 banks as contributing to max speed.

That must have changed since the original analysis. I ought to go look at that again. I will say that I'd take the B over the X dial. Hard turn 1 even red is really good.

Quite possibly, a while back I changed the dial weighting method to account for different aspects of the dial. I'm also in the middle of overhauling the entire thing, so I'll probably go and tweak the dial again, especially to account for 3 banks as contributing to max speed.

3 Banks, and any of the 1 speeds, especially hard 1's, are some of the best moves.

I'm pretty well in agreement with Unfair Banana. My eyes always glaze over when people start arguing about ships being better than another because of their JV, precisely because of the lack of mobility consideration. Maybe it's useful for the first pass, but no pilot in their right mind is going to fly down the barrels of his enemy's weapons more than they can help.

If I have 2 ships with roughly equal JV, the more maneuverable one is likely better.

It's useful for evaluating ships. It is also only one small piece of information in making a determination on what ship is better than what. That said, higher JV ships have consistently shown, on average, to be solid performers in tournaments and the JV also often predicts how much ships will appear in use.