I'm thinking of toying around with a house rule for casual matches, introducing hidden loadouts.

During set-up, your pilot card face up. All upgrades, secondary weapons, bombs, crewmembers etc are placed behind a shield (one per ship, doesn't need to be big).

The only exceptions are the unique titles: Virago, Falcon, Slave 1, Andrasta, ST-321, Moldy Crow, Outrider.

When you use an ability such as an action or attack granted by an upgrade, you first reveal the appropriate card and keep it revealed thereafter.

I'm thinking about this because, well, how am I supposed to know there's a Rebel hostage on that shuttle? Just by glancing at the incoming ships I can't tell if 3PO is on board the Falcon or if it's Chewie. And I think it would bring another level of thinking and planning to the game as now you have to take into account that the bombers driving at you fast might be carrying Seismics or Proton Rocket. Or they might be bluffing. That target lock, is it because he's aiming to shoot another missile or was it just to keep me guessing? That Y-Wing, what sort of turret is he aiming at me, and is it still a turret or is he flying a BTL-A4?

Until you use it, there's no way of telling.

Now I realize that there might be too much risk of people abusing it by going over the squad point limit so that's why I'm thinking about it for casual games only, but am I missing stuff that should be known to the world immediately?

Sounds very intriguing and amazing

For casual purposes, I think it's a great idea.

For casual its a great idea.

Adds another dynamic to the game.

I'm thinking about this because, well, how am I supposed to know there's a Rebel hostage on that shuttle?

Well, in that case you will never know, because you wouldn't notice a friendly captive screaming for help while shooting the ship...

I like the basic idea behind it, but you have to adjust more cards than you would expect. Rebel Captive is more of an intel you have from the beginning. You know that he's in that exact fleet you are attacking, that's why you are attacking

That'd be the case in a scenario. In a regular fight they just shove him in front of a comm after you first shoot at the shuttle.

I always assumed the reason the guy gets stressed is because he is shooting a ship who he knows has a rebel on it and it bothers him

My gaming group has already discussed something similar to this, though we were mostly thinking about torpedoes, missiles and and bombs. Having everything hidden might make things a bit complicated.

I'm okay with things being hidden until activated. It streamlines things and the game already does that in many other ways. You could houserule an 'inspect' ability like how in the old XvT games, if you flew close enough, you could scan a ship. Say, if you fly within range 1 of a ship you may spend an action to reveal all its accompanying cards. You could even build it into the target lock action for simplicity's sake.

I'd be willing to even let the pilots themselves remain anonymous until they used their ability if that were possible. The problem with that is that PS is an integral part of the game and it tied to individual pilots. If a PS 7 X-wing is coming at you, it's probably Porkins. That being said, Veteran Instincts blurs that line somewhat so it still might be feasible. But sit down PS9 Phantom, we all know who you are.

I, too, would love to play with way casually occasionally.

Geat idea!! I will playtest this over the holidays,

We came up with this in our local group, after I brought a list heavy on Assault Missiles. My opponent, who saw this before we finished setting up, spread out his list just beyond R1 for every ship. So much for the ordinance spend.