So I think that the majority of players can agree that munitions are generally overcosted (even if we have seen them work amazingly on occasion). I had an idea while answering another thread and thought I would flesh out my thoughts here. I may suggest it to the local crowd as a home brew option.

So a few points:

Munitions Failsafe is 1 point, and fills your modification slot.

Deadeye is also 1 point and improves your actions (don't have to be in range or choose a target with a focus) even if it doesn't actually improve your action efficiency. Also takes your EPT slot.

I was thinking a title named "Assault Bomber" (or something similar). Cost 5 points.

Munitions cost 2 points less to equip. Once per turn, when instructed to discard a target lock, you may instead discard a focus.

When attacking with munitions (currently designated as torpedoes and missiles), you do not need to discard the card unless it hits.

You may not equip a modification.

My wording is less than perfect, but I think you get the idea. The high cost has a few reasons, but generally it means that it is only worthwhile on ships that can carry multiple munitions (i.e. TIE bombers, y-wings, b-wings). I think it could help them fill the niche they were designed for and possibly make the aforementioned ships play more thematically.

Thoughts?

There is 2 obstacles with munitions.

The first thing is point expenditure, you pay for the weapons, and they are only used once. If you wiffed that is now good for nothing. Take a look at the worst Tie Interceptor pilot and you see why. Fel Wrath cost 23 points. You pay 2 points to go up 1 skill from a Saber squadron and loose the EPT when a Saber squadron takes 1 more point over an Avenger squadron and gains an EPT. Along with the pilot skill gain you pay an additional point for Fels Wrath's ability which can only be used once per game and that is when you are about to remove him. You still paid that extra point if you were able to use it or not. Same with munitions you still paid 4 points or somewhere from 2 to 6 weather it hit or not. If it doesn't hit it is still gone unlike cannons or turrets which can continue to fire if they missed. I actually tried a list with 4 proton torpedoes. Still for that many proton torpedoes I could have taken a Bandit squadron pilot instead giving me 2 more attack dice and 4 more shields/hull for my opponent to shoot through before wiping my squadron out.

The other is action economy. Now they are getting better with this by making munitions that let you keep your action tokens instead of spending them. Still though you do spend actions for most of the munitions, and actions are a precious commodity with tactics like blocking and upgrades like advanced sensors or push the limit. If you spend a token that is likely the same token you received on that turn after performing said action. What did you spent your action one, well maybe 1 or 2 more attack dice that if are blanks it is likely that you can't do anything about them unlike if you had kept your target lock you could re-roll them. Now the first munitions took that in account and had a built in modifier so loosing the action wasn't as bad when you count the extra dice plus the munition modifier. Other munitions are merely a gimmick like shooting twice or having an AOE if it can hit.

What I would like to see in ordnance is more built in action economy. Rather than missiles and torps that don't require you to spend your TL, missiles/torps that you spend the TL and then may reroll any number of the dice. It's. It's not quite as good as not spending the lock to fire, but it does adhere to the theme they established for ordnance better and would still fix the issue with action economy.

I'd like to see a fix that didn't require an errata of wording on existing cards. A feasible solution if you will. Munitions Failsafe is a good example. It is insufficiently good on its own to make munitions viable in competitive play but it does nudge the meta in the right direction.

Nera Dantels is another example of what I'm talking about.

I think the OP's solution is pretty decent but I think titles are generally limited to a single class of ship. I would propose lowering the cost, making it a torpedo slot (to cater to Y-wings, B-wings and bombers with multiple munitions slots) and just keeping the cost-lowering ability.

Advanced Launching System (0 points)

Torpedo Slot

'Missile' and 'Torpedo' upgrades that you equip to this ship have their cost reduced by 1 (to a minimum of 0)

This would give B-wings and Y-wings a minor boost (they are already getting enough love with S&V coming out) but most importantly it would be a large boon to TIE bombers who definitely need a hand in fulfilling their role in the lore. It would also not step on the toes of existing upgrades like Deadeye and MF. In fact it would compliment them.

The down side is that it would do nothing to address using munitions on other ship types.

Title: Munitions Expert

Cost: 0 points

If you equip a [torpedo], [missle], or [bomb] upgrade, then additional upgrades with the same name may be equipped for a squad point cost of 0.

(May not be used with Chardaan Refit)

-----

Modification: Assault Fighter

Cost: 0

Small Ship Only

Your upgrade bar gains an additional [torpedo], [missle], or [bomb] upgrade icon.

(Your upgrade bar must already have this icon present)

-----

That's what it would take for me to consider munitions. B-Wings, Y-Wings, and TIE Bombers could get three shots, other ships could get two shots.

It comes at the cost of the initial munition as well as the Ship's title and modification slots.

Munitions suffer from so many drawbacks right now:

-They cost points for one use only. If I fire off three Concussion Missles, then you essentially just killed a TIE Fighter without doing anything.

-They are generally range specific, some working only at range 2-3, others at 1-2, and a few are range 1 only.

-They are limited to being fired from the front arc only.

-They generally require you to aquire a Target Lock, then spend that Lock without receiving the standard bonus from it.

I don't even know if this fix would be enough. If a ship is packing heavy ordinance, it will be a priorty target for the opponent. Given the range, arc, and Target Lock restrictions of munitions, it could be difficult to get off multiple shots before getting blown up.

Another solution that would be a big change without having to errata cards is to create a 're-arming' action that allows you to 'un-discard' a missile or torpedo on your ship.

This would allow for multiple shots even if a torpedo or missile hits.

Auto-loading mechanism (0 points)

Modification

Action: You may re-equip a 'Missile' or 'Torpedo' upgrade that was previously discarded from this ship.

This could even be used in conjunction with my idea above.

Title: Munitions Expert

Cost: 0 points

If you equip a [torpedo], [missle], or [bomb] upgrade, then additional upgrades with the same name may be equipped for a squad point cost of 0.

(May not be used with Chardaan Refit)

FYI, your wording actually makes stacking Chardaan Refit pointless, since it changes the cost from -2 to 0 for any extras. Plus, only A-wings can take it anyway, and they only have the one missile slot so can't take extras regardless.

I think some kind of update to the underlying rules might be the best fix, maybe something akin to Turbolasers, where it modifies the number of dice the defender gets to roll.

Torpedoes: When used against a Small ship, defenders has +4 Agility. When used against a Large ship, the defender has +2 Agility. When used against a Huge ship, all damage dealt is doubled after the attack has resolved.

Missiles: When used against a Small ship, the defender has -2 Agility. When used against a Large ship, the defender has -1 Agility.

Bombs: When you equip a bomb, place the bomb token on the card. When the bomb is deployed, the take the token from the card and place it on the play surface. After the bomb detonates, put the token back on the card. A bomb can only be deployed if there is a token on the card.

The first rule makes Torpedoes great at taking out Huge ships, and far less useful against Small or even Large ships. Really, they have no place in popping TIEs or YT-1300s; torpedoes are for taking on targets too big for conventional weapons to threaten reliably. This shifts them largely into Epic, but since the Empire is getting their own Epic ship soon that's less of a problem than it once might have been.

The second rule makes Missiles great for dogfights. Having problems pinning down that nimble TIE Interceptor? Shove a missile up his tail pipe. Can't catch the A-wing? Use a missile to hunt him down and pop him. It gives missiles their role back: they're a more reliable, but more resource-intensive, way of taking out small craft that are otherwise hard to kill. The larger the target, though, the less relative impact they have, due to the much smaller payload of a missile relative to a torpedo.

The third rule makes bombs much more interesting, as you can now benefit from a bomb payload for a much larger portion of the game. It also has built-in limits to prevent mine spam (only one deployed at a time per card).

Naturally these rules are just ballpark suggestions, intended more as hypotheticals than specific serious suggestions. I mean with this post more to illustrated the idea of pushing ordinance toward the roles they ought to be fulfilling than to say that these specific changes are the one and only way to do so.

My thought is that since ordnance is single shot, let it bypass shields. There is lore for it, the death star ray shielding, hence wh the rebels had to use the torpedoes.

You get one use, and it will be nasty.

I'd like to see a fix that didn't require an errata of wording on existing cards. A feasible solution if you will. Munitions Failsafe is a good example. It is insufficiently good on its own to make munitions viable in competitive play but it does nudge the meta in the right direction.

...

The down side is that it would do nothing to address using munitions on other ship types.

As of now the only way to fix munitions drastically without errata of the cards is to errata the core rule book. They have tried that with autoblasters with the whole effect on evade tokens thing stopping them and C-3PO from dodging autoblaster shots. However any changes to the core set greatly affects the meta and balance of the game.

My thought is that since ordnance is single shot, let it bypass shields. There is lore for it, the death star ray shielding, hence wh the rebels had to use the torpedoes.

You get one use, and it will be nasty.

With that you have to define munitions over secondary weapons. Right now there is no munitions, there is an upgrade card named munitions failsafe that just lets you retain a secondary weapon that requires you to discard if you do not hit with the attack. This works for all secondary weapons including the upcoming illicit upgrade card.

I have suggested a change to the rules that excludes torpedoes and missiles from range bonuses. However many people were against that idea as it would affect the current balance between the secondary weapons. Having say Torpedoes and missiles (or just torpedoes) would greatly affect the balance low hull ships like B-wings and Tie Interceptors (one of them waiting for expansion fixes to return them to the meta) would start to disappear from the competitive scene.

why not allow a munition shot AND a normal laser shot in the same turn??

In theory, they could print a card with a torpedo [or missile] icon on it, and say something like "a torpedo [or missile] equipped on this ship [rules that make munitions good go here]".

Let's not limit ourselves to the question of "how does the fix get into player's hands", that's not an interesting question. Instead, let's figure out what makes munitions suck, so we can fix it.

One idea i had was that munitions were fired at something like PS 13. Goes off before anyone else gets to shoot, and thus gives low ps pilots a little more umph. Maybe have them actually hit at PS 0, but then you run into all sorts of problems with worrying about who shot what at who when.

A thought occurred to me the other day, what if we changed how the defender rolls against munitions? I was thinking that you get to roll as many evade dice as the speed of the maneuver you performed this turn. So a Interceptor that performs a Hard 2 would only get 2 dice, to represent him slowing down for tight turns, but if he does a 5 Straight he gets 5 dice to represent him going all out. Maybe add that defender gets a reroll or a token if he performs a barrel roll, boost, or kturn.

How does this second one strike people?

That's actually a really interesting mechanic in regards to how missiles and torps worked in X-wing/TIE Fighter. I'd suggest that torps be [speed] and missiles be [speed-1] defense dice.

I could see it being a little wierd in that closing really really fast would still give you 5 dice despite moving in a straight line.

Lots of interesting ideas here. As an alternative to a modification, or changing the errata/core rules, or card reprints, a title card seems more like the solution:

Title Card: "Ordinance Oracle (limited)"

Cost: 0

Text: "This title may be granted to any ship with a missle or torpedo slot. At the start of the combat phase you may aquire a target lock on any ship in your primary firing arc. The target lock may only be used for ordinance and the target lock is lost at the end of that combat phase if not spent. Do not discard ordinance if the attack misses."

This allows one ship in your squad to be ordinance focused without sacrificing an action, modification, EPT, or additional point cost on already costly ordinance. It stacks with the dead eye EPT, which makes the punch better in that scenario. Without dead eye you can still focus as your action, which also helps with ordinance power for cost effectiveness.

It will make tie bombers and y-wings proportionately more powerful (hence the "limited"), but they need a boost. It would also help one ordinance slot ships playing a specialized roll deliver that one critical, well placed shot.

Keep in mind you'd have to fit that text onto a card.

Keep in mind you'd have to fit that text onto a card.

8 point font perhaps? :-) Well taken... so here's a less wordy version.

Title Card: "Ordinance Oracle (limited)"

Cost: 0

Text: "You may aquire a target lock at the start of combat phase that may only be used for ordinance, and is lost at the end of combat phase if not spent. Ordinance is not discarded if attack misses.

One idea i had was that munitions were fired at something like PS 13. Goes off before anyone else gets to shoot, and thus gives low ps pilots a little more umph. Maybe have them actually hit at PS 0, but then you run into all sorts of problems with worrying about who shot what at who when.

A thought occurred to me the other day, what if we changed how the defender rolls against munitions? I was thinking that you get to roll as many evade dice as the speed of the maneuver you performed this turn. So a Interceptor that performs a Hard 2 would only get 2 dice, to represent him slowing down for tight turns, but if he does a 5 Straight he gets 5 dice to represent him going all out. Maybe add that defender gets a reroll or a token if he performs a barrel roll, boost, or kturn.

How does this second one strike people?

Rather than speed, how about "maneuver!?" As the twisting and turning is more defensive than speed.

Something like...

Ex:

Stop - 0 dice

Straight - 1 die

Bank - 2 dice

Hard turn - 3 dice

K turn - 2 dice

That's actually a really interesting mechanic in regards to how missiles and torps worked in X-wing/TIE Fighter. I'd suggest that torps be [speed] and missiles be [speed-1] defense dice.

I could see it being a little wierd in that closing really really fast would still give you 5 dice despite moving in a straight line.

True, but to me, agility is represented by the nimbleness of the craft utilized to jink and juke, throwing of the attackers aim. Missiles and torpedoes have no such compunctions, with their proximity alert warheads and blast radius. My solution, while imperfect what with the straight 5's, seems a little more "real". And besides, i remember straight up outrunning torpedoes from ywings in a tie advanced by putting everything into engines. Good old Tie Fighter.

I like how D&D Attack wing handles target locks (which it calls something else, I forget).

IT works more like focus: you take a target lock token and you put it on your ship (or dragon, whatever). Then you can spend it at any time to do a reroll. You don't have to specifically target a particular unit.

I think a change like that would make ordnance a lot more useful, particularly on low PS ships, as you don't have to play a guessing game of what to target. Deadeye fixes that problem for elite pilots, but not the generics.

What I would like to see in ordnance is more built in action economy. Rather than missiles and torps that don't require you to spend your TL, missiles/torps that you spend the TL and then may reroll any number of the dice. It's. It's not quite as good as not spending the lock to fire, but it does adhere to the theme they established for ordnance better and would still fix the issue with action economy.

In theory, they could print a card with a torpedo [or missile] icon on it, and say something like "a torpedo [or missile] equipped on this ship [rules that make munitions good go here]".

Let's not limit ourselves to the question of "how does the fix get into player's hands", that's not an interesting question. Instead, let's figure out what makes munitions suck, so we can fix it.

As I said in the reply, point expenditure and action economy are the shortcomings. You spend points on a one time use only upgrade. Those are points that could be given else where and have better returns (i.e. Engine Upgrade which cost the same as a proton torpedo). The standard point limit is tight and rightfully so. Also actions are a very important part of the game and ensuring actions or giving more actions is a potent strategy as well as preventing them. Having to take actions and spend them in order to use a secondary attack can put you at a disadvantage if it doesn't hit. You would wish that you saved the target lock and just used it to reroll a primary weapon attack.

why not have munitions do auto damage.. no rolling required? attack value IS the damage it does... THAT would single highhandedly make munitions worth while. I wouldn't mind spending 5 0r 6 points on a torpedo/ missile if i know its going to do 5 or 6 points of damage!!!!

Was having the exact same thought while reading this Swedge!

why not have munitions do auto damage.. no rolling required? attack value IS the damage it does... THAT would single highhandedly make munitions worth while. I wouldn't mind spending 5 0r 6 points on a torpedo/ missile if i know its going to do 5 or 6 points of damage!!!!

When you say auto you mean results, right? Bomb-style instant damage would be totally broken, but having a known count of hits/crits vs a known defense die count would still be worth it since you could take shots only when you know there's an overmatch.

I'd assume also that rewording would be in order so that, say, proton torps get 3h/1c for example?

So a conversion table would look something like this:

Flechette: 2[*], 1 stress after attack

Proton: 3[*], 1[☼]

Ion: 4[*], 1 ion to defender and each other ship at r1 if attack hits

APT: 5[*]

Procket: 2+AGI[*]<6

IPM: 3[*], if hit cancel and 1[*], 2 ion (I can see this as odd, 3[*] is iffy but mostly anti-large and that's prolly overmatch)

Cluster: 3[*], attack twice (doesn't change too much but clusters weren't that bad off)

Concussion: 4[*] (might be OP, but I was thinking "for every uncancelled *, suffer *", it feels kind of fluffy)

Homing: 4[*], defender cannot spend evade

Assault: 4[*], 1 * to each other ship at r1 if attack hits

why not have munitions do auto damage.. no rolling required? attack value IS the damage it does... THAT would single highhandedly make munitions worth while. I wouldn't mind spending 5 0r 6 points on a torpedo/ missile if i know its going to do 5 or 6 points of damage!!!!

I'd modify this slightly: the defender gets no evade dice from a torpedo or missile attack (though the defender can spend an evade token if that action was used). That simulates the guidance systems on the torpedoes and missiles, and justifies expenditure of a target lock. It could be implemented as a 0 cost (Guided Munitions) modification.

The only change I can see making torpedoes and missiles used without breaking the game is just allow missiles and torpedoes to fire on top of the primary shot. The precedence of this is already coming with the ywing fix allowing secondary cannons and primary to fire together.