Each has their uses in different area's of the game. To me Hull upgrade always wins because it's a definite and doesn't go away after one hit. But perhaps on an Agility 3 ship, stealth device is better?

What does everyone think?

Stealth Device or Hull Upgrade?

Technically Hull upgrade does go away after one hit since it gives you one extra hit point. But you then have your original hull points after one hit and you last longer.

Stealth Device is only good on high agility ships because more dice increases its chances. And people have a tendency to ignore a ship with 4 green dice when there is a target with less dice.

Stealth is useless on Biggs since everyone has to shoot at him if all his allies are near him so chances are he loses it on the first round.

Hull upgrade is consistent while stealth is a bit of a gamble with high rewards.

And Lt Blount automatically strips the device as well.

Put it this way, hull upgrade will only every stop one extra hit. Stealth device has no limit to the number of hits it can prevent.

In wave 5 hull.

Currently for ints in wave 6 combined with auto thrusters the ints will NEVER DIE to turrets at all. Literally. Also about the same decent use against normal ships.

Since this builds against the ints greatest weakness in turrets auto plus stealth is the ONLY choice. Or auto only.

For sycks hull.

As for As.... What do you guys think? They suffer less from turrets in a way. Should you take auto? I think it helps less. I would consider it easily of I have 2 points only. But if I have more I might go for prockets instead. And hull.

Put it this way, hull upgrade will only every stop one extra hit. Stealth device has no limit to the number of hits it can prevent.

Nailed it. Hull is better for 2 AGI or less, but when adding a 4th green(or 5th at range 3) with stealth turns TIEs and Awings into mini Phantoms with all those green. Just be sure to save the focus.

(Only exception to this would be Biggs w / stealth device and the Action: Increase your AGI droid. Experimental Interface optional, but recommended. Preferably having another ship pass him additional focus. This is by no means competitive or points efficient, but it is hilarious when Biggs is stil at full health with a stealth device on turn 4 or 5.)

Hull is always good as it gives an extra point. Still vulnerable to critical hits but if you don't already have shields you can save the extra point.

Stealth device is better with high agility ships and just a waste of points for low agility ships. You get the most value out of 3 agility ships. 2 is so-so. You could try and put it on a bomber or a YT-2400 for 3 agility but after the first hit you would wish you had something else.

As of now interceptors with the roual guard tie are the only one that can take both. Problem is that is 6 points on upgrades still a good investment as you get maximum agility that can't be one shotted by a lucky 3 hit attack. Critical hits are still a problem and if at range 3 you still get 4 dice against HLCs. However once autothrusters I think you will see a lot more autothrusters then stealth device. Maybe autothrusters stealth device royal guard combos.

What is the expected life length of 4 hull with 3 dice?

What is the expected life length of 1 hull with 4 dice plus 2 hull with 3 dice?

*i try to use all my actions on offense unless i screwed the pooch and the calculations will change once autothrusters comes out.

Fel with PtL, Stealth, and Autothrusters is practically immortal at Range 3-2 vs Falcon and Decimator. R1 starts to get some hits in. Anything other than an HLC or 4 dice cannon/turret upgrade does nothing. Ever.
Oddly enough, having extra dice to make sure you roll a blank becomes very important. So im pretty confident Fel and Jax w/ Ptl, Stealth, and AT will become the norm.

Put it this way, hull upgrade will only every stop one extra hit. Stealth device has no limit to the number of hits it can prevent.

Yes but it could also see you roll all blanks and stop zero damage where hull will always stop one.

When doing the math, a hull upgrade is always better as it guarantees that you will be able to take an extra hit. Stealth device will, at best odds, provide an extra evade 5 times out of 8. Of course this requires hull points to be thought of as the same as an evade result, might seem a bit odd but it works.

To give a better example we will take a TIE Fighter (no focus) that has suffered four hits at range one and is now going to roll its' evade dice.

Statistically the TIE will roll 3/8 evades per dice which totals 9/8 evade (three evade dice) i.e at least one damage prevented but with three hits left, the TIE is still dead. Give it a hull upgrade and it will still be alive.

With Stealth device the total number of evades rolled is 12/8 i.e one and a half damage prevented. Since half hits doesn't exist it basically means that the TIE will suffer three damage half of the time. A hull upgrade is still superior. A focus token will obviously make this better but usually it's the focus token that does the work of preventing the damage, not the stealth device.

Put it this way, hull upgrade will only every stop one extra hit. Stealth device has no limit to the number of hits it can prevent.

But will it really stop one damage?

Do a test: Roll your agility as if you didn't have stealth device, then roll the Stealth device dice.

-Was the attack already evaded before you rolled the aded dice?

-Did you actually rolled an evade with the Stealth dice?

Sure it could potentially prevent a lot of damage, but more often than not you will realise that:

-It was not needed in the first place to do it

-Its not actually this dice that prevented the damage

Hull Upgrade will always be useful, unless you end the game with more than one hit.

Put it this way, hull upgrade will only every stop one extra hit. Stealth device has no limit to the number of hits it can prevent.

Yes but it could also see you roll all blanks and stop zero damage where hull will always stop one.

That's like saying "sure, you can be taller wearing stilts, but you could also be struck my lightning". While true, it's unlikely.

Currently for ints in wave 6 combined with auto thrusters the ints will NEVER DIE to turrets at all. Literally. Also about the same decent use against normal ships.

Since this builds against the ints greatest weakness in turrets auto plus stealth is the ONLY choice. Or auto only.

Are you kidding me? You are aware that dice are still thrown and Autothrusters only lets you change 1 blank to an evade at range 2+. That does nothing to stop Super Dash hitting Fel with 4 hits from an HLC and Fell rolling blanks (he still takes 3 hits and is one-shot). Interceptors are only slightly more durable now, but not by any means invincible.

Currently for ints in wave 6 combined with auto thrusters the ints will NEVER DIE to turrets at all. Literally. Also about the same decent use against normal ships.

Since this builds against the ints greatest weakness in turrets auto plus stealth is the ONLY choice. Or auto only.

Are you kidding me? You are aware that dice are still thrown and Autothrusters only lets you change 1 blank to an evade at range 2+. That does nothing to stop Super Dash hitting Fel with 4 hits from an HLC and Fell rolling blanks (he still takes 3 hits and is one-shot). Interceptors are only slightly more durable now, but not by any means invincible.

While Blail Berg is exaggerating, autothrusters will prevent a great deal of damage when up against turrets, which in comparison to before autothrusters will make squints feel like they are invincible. Besides, in the example you provided above, Fel would have survived since he would have had an evade token as well and that assumes that Dash woul even had a shot. Most likely, Fel would have already been inside the donut.

Put it this way, hull upgrade will only every stop one extra hit. Stealth device has no limit to the number of hits it can prevent.

But that logic is counting a failed roll against simply rolling. Using that line of thought, there's no limit to the number of hits that agility dice can prevent period, stealth or not.

I don't have the numbers myself, but what is worth looking at is the number of hits on average your opponent needs to roll to kill a three agility ship with four hull vs. four agility ship with three hull.. And you'd have to run the numbers for stealth once you've taken the first hit since the ship then becomes a 2 hull 3 agility ship.

So, a PTL interceptor with hull will *usually* give you more than one extra hit worth of life since it means you may live longer to take extra evades and roll more green dice with focus. Sometimes the extra hull doesn't matter, but the same is true of the stealth SD. It's a matter of how much more survivable they make the ships overall and long term and not just with a single attack.

Put it this way, hull upgrade will only every stop one extra hit. Stealth device has no limit to the number of hits it can prevent.

Yes but it could also see you roll all blanks and stop zero damage where hull will always stop one.

That's like saying "sure, you can be taller wearing stilts, but you could also be struck my lightning". While true, it's unlikely.

And yet it does happen i've seen it in multiple games now, the dice gods are fickle and strike when you least suspect intervention.

Also metal or wood stilts because the hight you are has little effect it's your ability to conduct the lightning into the ground that matters, and so materials your touching have a direct relevance.

Let's do some math.

Soontir Fel is the most commonly used interceptor. Let's give him has autothrusters and stealth device. Again, lets assume he has one evade token and one focus token, a decent bet as long as he wasn't blocked. This still leaves an offensive focus or repositioning maneuver.

If shot by a turret, and using both tokens, he has a 52% chance of getting 5 evades, 33% chance of getting 4 evades, 13% chance of getting 3 evades and 2% chance of getting 2 evades (the minimum). This means that Dash only has a 15% chance of hitting him and Han a 2% chance. Of course, with Dash, this assumes he has a shot at all.

Yes, we all know that green dice are fickle and we have all rolled 6 blanks on a range three shot through an asteroid with stealth device. It happens. However, you can calculate the odds and put yourself in the best position to be successful.

Put it this way, hull upgrade will only every stop one extra hit. Stealth device has no limit to the number of hits it can prevent.

And that 'limit' on Stealth Device can often be zero.

For Stealth Device to be better it has to negate a [boom] or [kaboom] that would have normally gotten through two times or more. If it does it once I guess it may be a touch better as there would be no card dealt but that is only occasionally true. Then you have all the times that Stealth Device doesn't provide you with any additional protection.

Hull upgrade is a guarantee but if you get two uses out of a stealth device it more than paid for itself.

Hull upgrade is a guarantee but if you get two uses out of a stealth device it more than paid for itself.

I agree, though the problem is knowing WHEN the stealth device has paid off. Let's say you roll three dice and get one evade. Next time you have a stealth device so you roll four dice but only get one evade again. Was it due to the stealth device that you got one evade or did it fail to provide a result? The only way to know for certain would be to mark the extra dice in some way, perhaps different colour, and always use it whenever you have a ship with a stealth device.

Hull upgrade is a guarantee but if you get two uses out of a stealth device it more than paid for itself.

I agree, though the problem is knowing WHEN the stealth device has paid off. Let's say you roll three dice and get one evade. Next time you have a stealth device so you roll four dice but only get one evade again. Was it due to the stealth device that you got one evade or did it fail to provide a result? The only way to know for certain would be to mark the extra dice in some way, perhaps different colour, and always use it whenever you have a ship with a stealth device.

If you're going to be superstitious about probability i guess sure. I really don't understand why people complain about fickle dice and yet run high agility ships. Go run Y's and B's, or shuttles and Decimators if you don't trust probabilities. I get it: I've seen a phantom behind rocks at R3 roll 6 blanks before. But I've seen a YT-2400 with HLC roll 1 hit each time with TL and Focus 3 shots in a row. So yeah, dice will betray you occasionally. But this is a dice game. When it comes down to it you have to have some faith in the math.

Look, a ship with a focus token gets .625 evades every time they roll 1 dice. So 2 dice ships get 1.25, 3 gets 1.875, 4 gets 2.5, 5 gets 3.125. That means a 3 native agility ship with an evade token will get hit by a 3 dice attack something like %5 of the time. 4 red dice shoots up to %28. SD bumping them back up to 4 greens drops that hit chance back down to 12%. Those are pretty good odds to me.

Mini Table - Defender will take damage, Defender has Focus/Token

Defender Dice/w

Focus+Token 3 Hits 4 hits

2-2.25 25% 43%

3-2.875 4.1% 28%

4-3.5 0 12.5%

5-4.125 0 0%

P.S. I've had 1 hr of sleep in the last 30 hours so my math could be totally off. Feel free to correct me if it is.

Hull upgrade is a guarantee but if you get two uses out of a stealth device it more than paid for itself.

I agree, though the problem is knowing WHEN the stealth device has paid off. Let's say you roll three dice and get one evade. Next time you have a stealth device so you roll four dice but only get one evade again. Was it due to the stealth device that you got one evade or did it fail to provide a result? The only way to know for certain would be to mark the extra dice in some way, perhaps different colour, and always use it whenever you have a ship with a stealth device.

If you're going to be superstitious about probability i guess sure. I really don't understand why people complain about fickle dice and yet run high agility ships. Go run Y's and B's, or shuttles and Decimators if you don't trust probabilities. I get it: I've seen a phantom behind rocks at R3 roll 6 blanks before. But I've seen a YT-2400 with HLC roll 1 hit each time with TL and Focus 3 shots in a row. So yeah, dice will betray you occasionally. But this is a dice game. When it comes down to it you have to have some faith in the math.

Look, a ship with a focus token gets .625 evades every time they roll 1 dice. So 2 dice ships get 1.25, 3 gets 1.875, 4 gets 2.5, 5 gets 3.125. That means a 3 native agility ship with an evade token will get hit by a 3 dice attack something like %5 of the time. 4 red dice shoots up to %28. SD bumping them back up to 4 greens drops that hit chance back down to 12%. Those are pretty good odds to me.

Mini Table - Defender will take damage, Defender has Focus/Token

Defender Dice/w

Focus+Token 3 Hits 4 hits

2-2.25 25% 43%

3-2.875 4.1% 28%

4-3.5 0 12.5%

5-4.125 0 0%

P.S. I've had 1 hr of sleep in the last 30 hours so my math could be totally off. Feel free to correct me if it is.

Fears the dice gods! Only they decide who lives and dies.

Put it this way, hull upgrade will only every stop one extra hit. Stealth device has no limit to the number of hits it can prevent.

Yes but it could also see you roll all blanks and stop zero damage where hull will always stop one.

An interceptor with Stealth has the chance to entirely avoid a full HLC shot. An interceptor with hull hasn't.

exactly what ive been trying to say...

I'd just like to echo what others have already said.

At a very basic level you can say that the extra agility dice adds 3/8 of an evade. As long as you roll the extra dice 3 times it is roughly equivalent to a hull upgrade.

So the question becomes, what are the chances I will be able to roll the extra dice 3 or more times.

If you already have 3 agility, there is a stronger chance you will not have that point of damage slip through.

If your ship is an arc dodger, you will probably only be attacked 1 or 2 times per round so will have defense tokens up every time you get shot.

For my money, I like hull upgrade for the same reasons others do, it's guaranteed. But I think I'd run stealth device and Autothruster on Soontir, as an example where it would be better than hull.