So wait, those of you who dislike FCS, what do you think of Targeting Computer? That's usable by ANYBODY, not just a ship with the System upgrade, costs the same, and gives the full Target Lock action. But nobody's starting a thread about that upgrade.

But here catch this computer and install it into your ship in the middle of space while in the middle of a battle.

First off lore/fluff has nothing to do with balance. But even then, the upgrade clearly is meant to be the ship had a System upgrade that allows it to target lock ships it fires at. Be rather pointless to put that kind of upgrade in a ship and not include some sort of target lock system in the package.

There is a modification that grants target lock for 2 points.

There is a modification that adds an unrestricted TL for 2 points, and one that adds a restricted one for the same price. Seems pretty balanced to me.

They admitted in the interview with covenant that the phantom should only have a 3 attack and that is was undercosted.

They did no such thing. They said that if it proved that the Phantom with 4 attack was too much they wouldn't simply errata it. But they never said it should only have 3 attack or it was undercosted.

But here catch this computer and install it into your ship in the middle of space while in the middle of a battle.

What!!?? Nbody is passing anything with FCS? It is completely independent of your allies. As said, you can't use fluff to govern game mechanics, however, based on the name, it is clearly some sort of targeting aid that locks on to a target after you take a shot and then continues to track it, giving you a TL effect, while an actual targeting computer is some more advanced system that can analyse enemy movements and locate a target amid battle debris without needing a weapon shot to tell it "this is an enemy ship, pay attention to it".

If the phantom had target lock it would cost 2 more points more per ship, which makes sense. There is a modification that grants target lock for 2 points. So just add two more points to each phantom and as well as target lock and all is well.

The hole in your logic here is assuming that modifications are priced at the cost of stat points and actions. Ships in X-wing aren't costed by statline anyway. A point of hull is not worth three points, the Hull Upgrade modification is. Ships don't pay two points for the Target Lock action.

They admitted in the interview with covenant that the phantom should only have a 3 attack and that is was undercosted.

This statement is simply completely and utterly false. Theorist mentioned 3 attack phantoms, not Alex Davy or Frank Brooks.

But here catch this computer and install it into your ship in the middle of space while in the middle of a battle.

Lorewise the Fire Control System is installed onto the ship before the battle, just like all other upgrades. It's a targeting computer that automatically locks onto ships you shoot at (rather than you telling it who to lock onto.)

The only ships you could accuse of this are Colonel Jendon and the huges with Targeting Coordinator, and they're both big enough to have sizeable targeting computers capable of feeding targeting data to other ships. Target Lock passing makes much more sense than focus passing.

So this card slight errata change fixes a major issue with the phantom, without getting new sets and cards, just make a slight note, should state "Only works on ships with Target lock"

Preventing the phantom from using FCS isn't going to power it down. They'll just equip the more powerful Sensor Jammer instead.

Do you have complaints about R7-T1? It lets you both TL and Boost even if you have neither action.

As far as i can tell the only ship that has been released that has a system upgrade slot, and does not have the target lock action is the Tie Phantom. Seeing as the Phantom expansion pack comes with a FCS card I'm guessing that FFG intends FCS to work on ships without the target lock action.

Exactly, and since every other ship that can take FCS has a TL action we are talking about the Phantom exclusively here, let's keep that in mind.

But oh well suddenly we don't have a systems upgrade that is underpriced but a ship that is underpriced. The Phantom is too cheap, all of its pilots except shadow squadron are too cheap. But then shadow doesnt see play for other reasons actually. That's exactly why the ship rewrites the meta at the moment. The Defender pays waaaay too much for its white K-turn while a generic Phantom that can do much MUCH more is at 5 points lower?

Trust me, FCS is a very good option on ships that have TL, but on a ship that's already too cheap and basically gains the ability to TL on top, it's disgusting, but not because the option itself is too cheap!

Defender has a hull and shield over the Phantom.. there is your 5 points. And TL too..

Phantom's Dial > Defender's dial

Cloak > TL

4 attack dice > 3 attack dice

I could go on and on. The Phantom is a lot better than a Defender could ever hope to be. The Defender didn't get into the top 32 at worlds. The Phantom was at the final table.

it dies faster.. not sure I call that better.. lol. yes it has all that going for it, but it is easy to kill. I did it today rather handily..

As far as i can tell the only ship that has been released that has a system upgrade slot, and does not have the target lock action is the Tie Phantom. Seeing as the Phantom expansion pack comes with a FCS card I'm guessing that FFG intends FCS to work on ships without the target lock action.

Exactly, and since every other ship that can take FCS has a TL action we are talking about the Phantom exclusively here, let's keep that in mind.

But oh well suddenly we don't have a systems upgrade that is underpriced but a ship that is underpriced. The Phantom is too cheap, all of its pilots except shadow squadron are too cheap. But then shadow doesnt see play for other reasons actually. That's exactly why the ship rewrites the meta at the moment. The Defender pays waaaay too much for its white K-turn while a generic Phantom that can do much MUCH more is at 5 points lower?

Trust me, FCS is a very good option on ships that have TL, but on a ship that's already too cheap and basically gains the ability to TL on top, it's disgusting, but not because the option itself is too cheap!

Defender has a hull and shield over the Phantom.. there is your 5 points. And TL too..

Phantom's Dial > Defender's dial

Cloak > TL

4 attack dice > 3 attack dice

I could go on and on. The Phantom is a lot better than a Defender could ever hope to be. The Defender didn't get into the top 32 at worlds. The Phantom was at the final table.

it dies faster.. not sure I call that better.. lol. yes it has all that going for it, but it is easy to kill. I did it today rather handily..

Yes, Sigmas are not played that much in comparison to Whisper and Echo. But i said ALL the phantoms are underpriced (or maybe all the other ships are overpriced?) for what they can do. Also while comparing stats... You all forget that the Phantom has 4 AD instead of a Defenders 3. The Defender spends 7 more points for that on a HLC!

So i should compare them to ships in their price range? Okay!

I will take a sigma with stygium over a naked Knave squadron any day. Don't you?

And A decently decked out Whisper at 39. Well we could also take Rexler with Lone Wolf or Vessery with EU. Or even naked Boba. They are all nice ships but just not in comparison to Whisper. Or we would not have seen them on tournaments and worlds, not Whisper!

Again, the FCS is a good upgrade, but since the phantom does not have TL iand mostly gets the shots it wants always with 4-5 dice on top of that! It gets the most mileage out of it, besides CorranHorn perhaps. The upgrade is however correctly priced if you ask me.

"It can take double evade most turns "

The SPA allows the ship to perform a free evade ACTION. You can only perform a given action once each round so you can only evade once each round.

Well then one round it has Focus evade with 2 Defense dice, and when it cloaks it has 4 defense with evade. Which is in both cases a pretty solid ship at that cost! Remember Biggs has less than that and only one more hitpoint to survive. And he can survive a turn or two of focused fire, and is about the same cost too.

"It can take double evade most turns "

The SPA allows the ship to perform a free evade ACTION. You can only perform a given action once each round so you can only evade once each round.

And, if you activate SPA most turns, it means that you'll be attacking only once every two turns.

The only Phantoms that bug me is those with ACD because they can decloak every turn AND get 4 defense dice while also attacking this turn: Can be hard to get an arc on it and hard to hit once you do have an arc.

Also, I can understand that some people hate the Defender and think it is overcost, but the Phantom doesn't have a better dial than the Defender: it's a generic Tie Fighter dial. The Phantom is more maneuvrable thanks to the decloaking mechanic, not because of the dial. But it's just a matter of opinion and maybe playgroup, I personally consider the Defender dial's one of the best. But I almost never go against ship that can stress me and never feel the need to do a hard 1, except maybe during the end game when I just need to land the killing blow or know that I'll do a straight next turn.

Well then one round it has Focus evade with 2 Defense dice, and when it cloaks it has 4 defense with evade. Which is in both cases a pretty solid ship at that cost! Remember Biggs has less than that and only one more hitpoint to survive. And he can survive a turn or two of focused fire, and is about the same cost too.

And Biggs will throw 6 attack dice over those two turns, while the Phantom throws only 4...

As other's have said, FCS is not the Target Lock action, and should not be compared.

FCS pairs well with abilities that allow you to make more than one attack in a single turn (Gunner, Corran)

FCS is a bonus to a particular play style, to hunt down and destroy a single target over consecutive turns.

FCS is a ghetto target lock. Too simplistic to target anything other than the thing you're currently shooting at, but efficient enough so that extra input is not required by the user (no action)

FCS is reactive in nature

Target Lock is an action on ships primarily to launch ordnance. You will find it on all ordnance capable ships.

Target Lock allows you to gain the token pair on any ship in range. It is so you can set up an attack on a ship over 2 turns, but it doesn't have to be a ship you currently face.

Target Lock is pre-emptive in nature.

While the result is the same (you have a target lock token) the method and reason for obtaining the token are significantly different.

In summary, yes, ships with system slots should be able to use FCS even if they don't have access to the Target Lock action natively. And it is priced very competitively,

"It can take double evade most turns "

The SPA allows the ship to perform a free evade ACTION. You can only perform a given action once each round so you can only evade once each round.

And, if you activate SPA most turns, it means that you'll be attacking only once every two turns.

The only Phantoms that bug me is those with ACD because they can decloak every turn AND get 4 defense dice while also attacking this turn: Can be hard to get an arc on it and hard to hit once you do have an arc.

Also, I can understand that some people hate the Defender and think it is overcost, but the Phantom doesn't have a better dial than the Defender: it's a generic Tie Fighter dial. The Phantom is more maneuvrable thanks to the decloaking mechanic, not because of the dial. But it's just a matter of opinion and maybe playgroup, I personally consider the Defender dial's one of the best. But I almost never go against ship that can stress me and never feel the need to do a hard 1, except maybe during the end game when I just need to land the killing blow or know that I'll do a straight next turn.

WHISPERING DEATH

99 points

PILOTS

"Whisper” (41)

TIE Phantom (32), Tactician (2), Fire-Control System (2), Veteran Instincts (1), Advanced Cloaking Device (4)

Sigma Squadron Pilot (29) x 2

TIE Phantom (25), Tactician (2), Stygium Particle Accelerator (2)

The Sigmas can deal a ton of damage and have good, albeit not great survivability. They also have room for additional kit on a three-ship with a named and two non-named pilots. You could switch the two tacticians for FCS easily.

This is a very solid squad. It's not top of the meta but the Sigmas are a real danger. And with a standard small ship squad that is not exceptionally maneuvrable and tailored to beat Phantoms, you will lose to this pretty **** hard. It can even handle one stress ship like R3A2 Klivian extremely well because of redundancy and having a ton of kill pressure. In other words your anti-phantom ship will go down extremely fast and then you are bummed. FCS would make for a little less control on this list but additional firepower.

Then about the Defender again. It's not a bad ship by any means. I like playing it. But to me it's not fun when i can't take 3 of them with anything but an absolute minimum kit, nor any named pilot that fits in lists with its astronomical cost. And then, when you play the defender in nearly any situation you think: A phantom could do this a lot better for much cheaper. What a pity!

"It can take double evade most turns "

The SPA allows the ship to perform a free evade ACTION. You can only perform a given action once each round so you can only evade once each round.

And, if you activate SPA most turns, it means that you'll be attacking only once every two turns.

The only Phantoms that bug me is those with ACD because they can decloak every turn AND get 4 defense dice while also attacking this turn: Can be hard to get an arc on it and hard to hit once you do have an arc.

Also, I can understand that some people hate the Defender and think it is overcost, but the Phantom doesn't have a better dial than the Defender: it's a generic Tie Fighter dial. The Phantom is more maneuvrable thanks to the decloaking mechanic, not because of the dial. But it's just a matter of opinion and maybe playgroup, I personally consider the Defender dial's one of the best. But I almost never go against ship that can stress me and never feel the need to do a hard 1, except maybe during the end game when I just need to land the killing blow or know that I'll do a straight next turn.

I'd argue that the white 1-hard turn is almost as good as the white K-turn the Defender does. Its a hard maneuver to block and its about the easiest maneuver to judge (beside 1-forward). Its just great to get into a better position in a tight furball. While quite a few ships have that maneuver, fewer still have it white. Couple that maneuver with the Phantom's decloak and it can arc-dodge like no other. I think they should have given the Phantom a dial more like the Tie Advanced, but that's a different conversation.

Going against a stress-inducing or ion heavy list in a Defender is a super tricky proposition.

FCS is the only way to get a good consistent offense with phantoms, unless you have as a good a throw on blank/focused 4/5 dice as me opponents

In their case, it's a delayed target lock (requires an attack) that can only be slapped on the target they shot at first (weapon's engineer pending)

For ships that already have TL, such as B-wings, it makes them far more efficient jousters by giving them an action benefit independent of being able to preform an action (like, say, when you get stressed after a k-turn). Plus, it lets cheap ships get up to the level of certain characters by giving them a potential focus + TL combo on a shot

Play Sigmas with Stygium.

Assuming constant cloak that gives it an evade action every other round.

Only attacks every other turn so in the crudest terms that makes it a 2 dice ship (there's a bit more to it than that.) Certainly not a 4 dice ship. Spends every other round with Z-95 durability, can't shoot on the other round. Decloak arc dodging compromised by very low pilot skill. The equivalent point cost of PTL TIE interceptor is both tougher and more durable (28 pt is a Hull Upgrade PTL Royal Guard Pilot).

Couple that maneuver with the Phantom's decloak and it can arc-dodge like no other.

Not at pilot skill 3 and decloaking every other turn it can't.

ACD is what sends the phantom power level through the roof. Without it, it's got a lot less on the Defender than you seem to think.

Going against a stress-inducing or ion heavy list in a Defender is a super tricky proposition.

Stress, yes. Ion? It's a 3 agility ship. There's only one ship in the game with more green dice than that. If the TIE defender is ion cannon food then so's everything that isn't a cloaked phantom.

Then about the Defender again. It's not a bad ship by any means. I like playing it. But to me it's not fun when i can't take 3 of them with anything but an absolute minimum kit, nor any named pilot that fits in lists with its astronomical cost. And then, when you play the defender in nearly any situation you think: A phantom could do this a lot better for much cheaper. What a pity!

A matter of opinion and different experience. Except for the named Phantoms with VI and ACD, I don't see the Tie Phantom as a big threat, just a temporary nuisance at best. 4 Hit point and 2 defense dice is really not hard to gun down. The Dial is good, but nothing exceptionnal going for it like a lot of greens, slow maneuvers or a white k-turn. Add the decloak and it become the most maneuvrable craft, but without it, it's a good dial, nothing more.

So, a Phantom without ACD won't be able to cloak every turn and when he is, yes it now has 4 defense dice, but it won't attack this turn: That's the third of your squad doing nothing this round. A defender, thanks to the white k-turn and 1 bank, can stay in the heat of battle for a very long time and still take a beating thanks to his 6 hit point and 3 agility dice.

"It can take double evade most turns "

The SPA allows the ship to perform a free evade ACTION. You can only perform a given action once each round so you can only evade once each round.

And, if you activate SPA most turns, it means that you'll be attacking only once every two turns.

The only Phantoms that bug me is those with ACD because they can decloak every turn AND get 4 defense dice while also attacking this turn: Can be hard to get an arc on it and hard to hit once you do have an arc.

Also, I can understand that some people hate the Defender and think it is overcost, but the Phantom doesn't have a better dial than the Defender: it's a generic Tie Fighter dial. The Phantom is more maneuvrable thanks to the decloaking mechanic, not because of the dial. But it's just a matter of opinion and maybe playgroup, I personally consider the Defender dial's one of the best. But I almost never go against ship that can stress me and never feel the need to do a hard 1, except maybe during the end game when I just need to land the killing blow or know that I'll do a straight next turn.

I'd argue that the white 1-hard turn is almost as good as the white K-turn the Defender does. Its a hard maneuver to block and its about the easiest maneuver to judge (beside 1-forward). Its just great to get into a better position in a tight furball. While quite a few ships have that maneuver, fewer still have it white. Couple that maneuver with the Phantom's decloak and it can arc-dodge like no other. I think they should have given the Phantom a dial more like the Tie Advanced, but that's a different conversation.

Going against a stress-inducing or ion heavy list in a Defender is a super tricky proposition.

Don't get me wrong, the white hard 1 is a very good maneuver that I like to use, but I prefer the 1 bank and white k-turn of the Defender over it and still having access to it as a red. So yes, the Phantom as a good dial, but not better than the Defender.

Stress is the bane of Defender, but I don't see how the Defender is more vulnerable to ion than a Phantom: at least the Defender will still be able to attack. Ionize a cloaked Phantom and you know he won't be able to attack next turn. It's also nothing like as vulnerable to ion as a B-Wing, 1 agility is easy to ionize, 3 agility, not so much, the edge is still to the attacker, but not as much.

An Ion attack with a focus has about a 70% chance of hitting against 3 un-focused agility die. Against 4 the odds drop down to 60%.

Against focused agility die, with 3 its about 50/50 whether you get Ioned. With 4 the odds drop significantly to only a 30% chance of being Ioned. That's what makes whisper so **** good. So really its not that hard to Ion a 3 agility ship. I've actually had a Defender walked off the board before by a Y-wing. Didn't help that I got stressed/Ioned and couldn't focus.

An Ion attack with a focus has about a 70% chance of hitting against 3 un-focused agility die. Against 4 the odds drop down to 60%.

Against focused agility die, with 3 its about 50/50 whether you get Ioned. With 4 the odds drop significantly to only a 30% chance of being Ioned. That's what makes whisper so **** good. So really its not that hard to Ion a 3 agility ship. I've actually had a Defender walked off the board before by a Y-wing. Didn't help that I got stressed/Ioned and couldn't focus.

But same can be said about pretty much any ship. It's not a Defender weakness, it's just what makes ion weapons good.

An Ion attack with a focus has about a 70% chance of hitting against 3 un-focused agility die. Against 4 the odds drop down to 60%.

Against focused agility die, with 3 its about 50/50 whether you get Ioned. With 4 the odds drop significantly to only a 30% chance of being Ioned. That's what makes whisper so **** good. So really its not that hard to Ion a 3 agility ship. I've actually had a Defender walked off the board before by a Y-wing. Didn't help that I got stressed/Ioned and couldn't focus.

But same can be said about pretty much any ship. It's not a Defender weakness, it's just what makes ion weapons good.

Your write that stress effects every ship. However, other ships can do a green bank to remove it. The defender only has straight. There in lies the problem. If you want to remove stress you have to go straight. So one of the best ships with the best trained pilots in all the empire (Stress is a Pilot thing) cannot shed stress and must keep doing whites and gaining no actions. I guess these super trained pilots, who must survive 20 battles with normal ties, and who take numerous test and trials, then get tested by Vader himself. Just to get to fly the defender are so burned out by the time they get to fly it they cannot calm down without drugs or something. (You get my point)

I'm not saying everything should stick to the fluff 100%, but this is not even near the fluff of the ship or pilots.

There are only 2 reasons why this thing is called a defender, because it looks like one and Rexler. Other than that, it should be called something else.

Losing your action is brutal in this game.

Yes, you must go straight to clear stress. But, you can still K-turn while stressed. And considering that most ships still won't get an action when you K-turn, not seeing the huge issue. Sometimes, you don't clear stress. Sometimes it is better to get into position for a better shot.

Just because it doesn't fly HOW YOU WANT it to, does not make it any less of a Defender or viable ship.

Of course, remember, sticking to fluff, the Defender would be either overpowered or 50+ pts naked.

My headcanon is that stress is also stress induced on the ship itself. Structural stress. The Defender goes fast, to throw it in a tight turn causes more structural stress on it than on a bomber.

That's (to me anyway) also the reasoning behind the red K-Turns in ships with inertial dampeners that ensure pilots aren't smeared across their cockpits.

Understood. I'm not asking it to fly how I want, but since it's supposed to be way better than the other ships and have better pilots, the fact that it doesn't have a 1 or 2 green bank is just poor thinking on FFG's part.

Why? It is supposed to go fast. So fast that going slow is really difficult. That it actually can put the brakes on makes it more attractive to me than the Interceptor. Learn the fish tail.

My headcanon is that stress is also stress induced on the ship itself. Structural stress. The Defender goes fast, to throw it in a tight turn causes more structural stress on it than on a bomber.

That's (to me anyway) also the reasoning behind the red K-Turns in ships with inertial dampeners that ensure pilots aren't smeared across their cockpits.

Ok lets say that it is caused by stuctural stress, You say the defender goes fast, I don't see it going any faster in game terms than an Awing or Tie Fighter or even a Tie Bomber. So your basing everything on something it doesn't do. Your argument would only hold water if it could go 6 or more or maybe a 4 or 5 white banks. Right now your basing your whole logic on Fluff, because it's not any faster than any other ship in the game.

The 4 white K turn is the easiest move to block, and all experienced pilots know how to do it.