Yeah yeah, another Raider thread, but this time dedicated to my biggest question: How will the energy mechanic be utilized to let this ship shine in its anti-fighter role?

Currently the most energy a ship can generate in one turn is four, going very slow straight ahead with an engineering team. Since huge ships start with full energy this lets you go crazy with the hard points for 2-3 turns before things taper off, and you're sustainably firing two a turn... which is obviously quite the drop off from the initial modified primary and three hardpoints the CR-90 is capable of.

Since the Raider is supposed to be a dedicated anti-fighter platform, how do you suppose they'll reflect this? A new team would help, sure, but that wouldn't make the Raider specifically any better at an anti-fighter role than the CR-90.

So! Speculate!

New team! =) More energy for Tantive! I want fearsome resistance!

My guess would be a Team or Cargo upgrade that can be used on the two rebel ships as well. This would allow them to fix anything they feel needs corection in epic play.

I think the raider is going to cost about 120 points, so it's really going to need something to optimize its energy consumption and allow for multiple attacks every turn.

I have a hunch that the raider only has one module slot, based on the amount of comm booster cards it comes with (1).

It also comes with 4 Ion cannon batteries (and 2 of the other kinds) so i believe that it has 4 hardpoints. Its going to be sucking down energy every turn!

Also, that module slot is going to be very contested between upgrades.

I have a hunch that the raider only has one module slot, based on the amount of comm booster cards it comes with (1).

It also comes with 4 Ion cannon batteries (and 2 of the other kinds) so i believe that it has 4 hardpoints. Its going to be sucking down energy every turn!

Also, that module slot is going to be very contested between upgrades.

From looking at the photo, the stock Raider holds up to six energy, so I'd presume slightly improved energy generation over a Tantive.

My gut feeling is that the solar panels will come into play allowing the Raider to gain more energy than normal.

It looked like the Raider had more speed so I would suspect it'll gain a little more energy then the CR90 and the solar panels could allow more energy storage. We'll see I guess.

My guess is there'll be a cargo card along the lines of "backup power generator" or something that increases energy production. This way your ship has to pick between support mods or raw combat power.

My guess is there'll be a cargo card along the lines of "backup power generator" or something that increases energy production. This way your ship has to pick between support mods or raw combat power.

I said it long ago, we need a battery upgrade card to store up energy.

My guess is there'll be a cargo card along the lines of "backup power generator" or something that increases energy production. This way your ship has to pick between support mods or raw combat power.

I said it long ago, we need a battery upgrade card to store up energy.

That, but we also need to be able to generate more energy in a turn. Four energy a turn just isn't enough to keep all weapons pumping out enough firepower to matter. We need at least double that.

Assuming 4 hard points, the minimum to use all weapons each turn is 9 (4 HPs x2 energy ea, 1 to boost primary). I can see them making it impossible to sustain every single weapon every turn, but I believe 7-8 energy production a turn would be about right.

The biggest limitation on the CR-90 is energy generation.

4 energy a turn there gets me the primary gun, one turbolaser, and 2 quad laser shots a turn. But with nothing left for boosts or other systems.

With 4 potential hard points, the Raider may be even thirstier for energy. But even then, 4 energy would get you the primary gun and 4 quad laser shots in a turn.

i was really surprised how little energy they gave the CR-90 to play with each turn. That is what keeps it from really dominating games. If the Raider generates a lot more energy, it will likely have to cost quite a bit more as well..

I would really like to see more upgrades that assist in generating additional energy, and their inclusion would really help epic play.

Super excited to bring some Imperial Epicness to my table!

I'm really surprised to see that the Raider aft card has seven upgrade slots!

In terms of sets of types it looks like 2/2/2/1

Following the CR90 pattern, 2 crew, 2 hardpoints, 2 teams, 1 cargo.

Well, as we're only speculating here anyway. .

The CR-90 was mainly a civilian ship pressed into military service so you'd expect the power plant to not be optimized for sustained fighting.

The Raider-class Corvette is a product of the Kuat Drive Yards, who also made the Nebulon-B frigate and were the foremost producers of military ships. That might lead us to expect better energy management.

The wings would point towards an ionization reactor, possibly of a type not yet seen before as the only existing records seem to be those found in starfighters or taking up half of a Star Destroyer.

But, it's a military ship at least, so you should expect more power.

Maybe a modification such as the combat retrofit.

Enhanced Power Core

When you execute a maneuver that gains you energy, gain twice that energy instead.

20 points.

The Raider has a reactor value of six, the Reinforce and Recover actions on the front section and the Coordinate and (mystery new action) on the back. What's interesting is its health regen abilities aren't on the same section as its power plant. However, the vast majority of its upgrades are on the back (it fills the whole bar). Seems with a Raider you can go for its base abilites (health regen and its primary weapon) or the tricks it's been kitted out with.

EDIT: The front card on the fan is the Crippled side. No idea how many upgrades the front gets. I doubt its as many as the back though.

Every turn I should be asking the question: "is this an offensive turn or a defensive turn?" If offensive: what are the high priority targets? If defensive: how do I turn this defensive turn into a change of momentum? Do I move fast (thus reducing energy gain)? Or do I move slowly, building energy and allocating it to repair and reinforce (but leaving myself in the midst of the enemy)?

Those are the interesting choices, and absolutely should be dictated by the available energy. A ship that doesn't have to make those decisions isn't all that interesting.

Having said that: the CR 90 seems about 1 energy per turn under budgeted.

And I'd prefer if a gunnery team was assigned per weapon, and would auto turn a focus to a hit (with no energy expended). In my mind, a gunnery team should be the difference between an autofire gun and a crewed gun. As it stands, the limited options for modifying die rolls is the single biggest drawback the Huge ships have. It exacerbates all the other problems.

And I'd prefer if a gunnery team was assigned per weapon, and would auto turn a focus to a hit (with no energy expended). In my mind, a gunnery team should be the difference between an autofire gun and a crewed gun. As it stands, the limited options for modifying die rolls is the single biggest drawback the Huge ships have. It exacerbates all the other problems.

An offensive version of the Reinforce action, functioning as a focus for front or aft, could fix this, while being in line with the "offensive or defensive turn" design as well.

So something that let's me turn all eyeballs into explosions? An that's at the expense of _any_ defense? I like it conceptually, but I'd have to see how it plays in practice. A Huge ship without Reinforce is at the mercy of a swarm of naked HWKs- embarrassing!

And I'd prefer if a gunnery team was assigned per weapon, and would auto turn a focus to a hit (with no energy expended). In my mind, a gunnery team should be the difference between an autofire gun and a crewed gun. As it stands, the limited options for modifying die rolls is the single biggest drawback the Huge ships have. It exacerbates all the other problems.

An offensive version of the Reinforce action, functioning as a focus for front or aft, could fix this, while being in line with the "offensive or defensive turn" design as well.

So the problem with this is that if they give a new action or ability that "fixes" Huge ship attack consistency or energy problems to the Raider, then it still leaves the CR90 in a bad state and Epic becomes lopsided.

But a new team like the above suggestion, or a cargo which read something like "Dedicated Armament Battery: (Energy Cap 2) Once per turn, whenever you attack with an [energy] Hardpoint, you may remove 1 Energy from this card. If you do, ignore the attack's Energy cost." could help both factions' gunships.

So something that let's me turn all eyeballs into explosions? An that's at the expense of _any_ defense? I like it conceptually, but I'd have to see how it plays in practice. A Huge ship without Reinforce is at the mercy of a swarm of naked HWKs- embarrassing!

As they are now, huge ships are at the mercy of any group of fighters.

So the problem with this is that if they give a new action or ability that "fixes" Huge ship attack consistency or energy problems to the Raider, then it still leaves the CR90 in a bad state and Epic becomes lopsided.

But a new team like the above suggestion, or a cargo which read something like "Dedicated Armament Battery: (Energy Cap 2) Once per turn, whenever you attack with an [energy] Hardpoint, you may remove 1 Energy from this card. If you do, ignore the attack's Energy cost." could help both factions' gunships.

Well, whatever ability we come up with can always come in the form of an upgrade card. The risk of upgrade cards, however, is that epic ship damage cards are designed to have crits that destroy those upgrades.

Which means one unlucky card draw could gimp your entire ship.

So the problem with this is that if they give a new action or ability that "fixes" Huge ship attack consistency or energy problems to the Raider, then it still leaves the CR90 in a bad state and Epic becomes lopsided.

But a new team like the above suggestion, or a cargo which read something like "Dedicated Armament Battery: (Energy Cap 2) Once per turn, whenever you attack with an [energy] Hardpoint, you may remove 1 Energy from this card. If you do, ignore the attack's Energy cost." could help both factions' gunships.

Well, whatever ability we come up with can always come in the form of an upgrade card. The risk of upgrade cards, however, is that epic ship damage cards are designed to have crits that destroy those upgrades.

Which means one unlucky card draw could gimp your entire ship.

No argument there, but isn't that in the flavour of capital ship battles?

Take damage to one or more systems, spend time routing resources to restore it? The only upgrades that get permanently discarded at the moment are Crew upgrades, anyways.

You know, the movement dial lists the energy gain. Couldn't the raider just have more icons on the dial?

But the problem with generating more energy is that you would be able to regenerate more shields far too quickly. Now if there was an upgrade that generated energy directly to the weapons, that's another matter.

You know, the movement dial lists the energy gain. Couldn't the raider just have more icons on the dial?

Yes, of course it could, and they might do that. But of course, then you'd hardly be able to wildly speculate and where's the fun in that?

We're also hoping that the energy shortage will be fixed for the other huges as well.