Chaff is anything ejected from a ship to disrupt targeting. Flares, for instance, or simply a cloud of aluminium flakes left to drift on the wind.

I remember that these show up in the early X-Wing dogfighting video-games, and wonder how it could actually be implemented as an upgrade here.

• It should be a discardable
• It should take the Torpedo, Missile, Bomb, or Illicit slot
• It should have a purely defensive ability

I can see this in many forms:

• Action: Discard this to remove all enemy target-locks from your ship
• When defending, you may discard this card to cancel all dice results. The attacking ship may not attack you again this round.
• Action: Discard this card to place a Chaff cloud on the field (like a bomb token). At the end of combat, it dissipates. Ships cannot perform any attack that would pass through a Chaff cloud.

Any other ideas on how to implement it?

Would you run ordnance that deals no damage?

Oooo your second suggestion is awesome. If we went for a weaker option it would work like a bomb and disappear at the end of the turn but it would be like dropping an obstacle. Plus 1 to evade if shot at through it and take potential damage if you fly through it.

IIRC, Luke does this in one of the Timothy Zahn novels to a pursuing Star Destroyer, keeping it from getting a tractor beam fix on him.

Real nice brainstorming you got going on there OP!

I do disagree with the equipment slot allocation though, chaff counter measures are small, cheap and come in numbers compared to the systems they are designed to defeat. Modern aircraft, ships and tanks usually have several of these installed.

Meaning they would/should be small enough to be carried by all ship types available, not just payload carriers, so maybe make it a Modification?

Oooo your second suggestion is awesome. If we went for a weaker option it would work like a bomb and disappear at the end of the turn but it would be like dropping an obstacle. Plus 1 to evade if shot at through it and take potential damage if you fly through it.

It'd be interesting, but I think that Counter-Measures was basically designed to represent this already.

Brilliant idea. The thing is, with ordinance being as unpopular as it is now, I'm afraid that something like chaff would further discourage ordinance. I love the idea, and would love to see it if ordinance gets buffed in the future.

I think counter-measures already kinda fills this niche imho.

And ordnance is weak enough already so imho, no further "fixes" needs to be made to it.

Cancelling all dice is way too overpowered, especially with blocking another shot.

It'd be more reasonable if it worked like a reverse target lock, allowing you to choose dice your opponent has to reroll.

If counter measures had multiple uses it would be good at that price point...

If counter measures had multiple uses it would be good at that price point...

Countermeasures is a fantastic card.

It is so much better than Hull Upgrade that it is not even funny.

It is easily worth 3 points.

If ordinance was useable sure but right now we generally don't bother, so it's making something bad even worse.

If ordnance ignored shields, countermeasurs and the idea of chaff would be awesome.

if Ordnance had multiple uses.. or was one to two points cheaper..

Would you run ordnance that deals no damage?

Not to disparage the original question (chaff could be interesting, I think, but right now seems really niche to me), but isn't this question the one people ask about most ordnance now anyway?

And ordnance is weak enough already so imho, no further "fixes" needs to be made to it.

Lock is also perhaps feasible, although i think in modern aircraft for comparison chaff and flares will not get you out of a radar or infrared lock by an enemy plane or does it? I am not really sure but i thought it would rather disrupt F&F missiles own lock.

But getting out of a target lock is probably not all that powerful so let's just say it does get you out.

Where the real problem lies is with ordnance that unless it gets fixed some time soon, is really bad and unreliable. If you make someone fire an expensive missile and deny all hits, chaff would just lead to even less people taking ordnance. So you would nerf an already weak mechanic. The other way round peple have no reason to take chaff if nobody is using any missiles...

What it could do is the following:

Automatic Chaff Dispenser:

When someone is Attacking you with a secondary weapon, he may not use any rerolls or modify his dice. This is pretty powerful but works against all missiles, torps and cannons. I was thinking about a 3 point system upgrade, or 4 points modification.

But i don't know if something only working against secondary weapons is really a good idea. I mean you totally hose outriders and anything daring to use a torp or missile, and Phantoms with 4 natural dice keep laughing at you...

I feel Countermeasures completely sums up how Chaff would work in game and as such we don't need anything else that increases defensive options any more. We already have a meta in which people complain about fat-Hans and Phantoms etc, so adding yet more options for defense would just lead to even longer matches and whining from the community at large.

X-Wing is meant to be a quick and deadly game of dogfights, blockade runs and daring tactics in certain scenarios after all...

It could be cool if they made a small ship version of Countermeasures that worked slightly differently at a different price point. Extra agility, even for one round, is fantastic for a ship with 10+ HP, so 3 points makes sense. Even if Countermeasures could be used on a small ship, no one ever would take it at 3 points, since there's Stealth Device which can last multiple rounds.

For those lovin' up on Counter-Measures, it's large ship only. Chaff would be a nice addition to small-base ships when you have an extra point or two with which you don't know what to do. I'd still be fine with chaff being a one-off similar to Counter-Measures, but have it accessible to all ship sizes.

LtRico, on 06 Jan 2015 - 12:41 AM, said:

Real nice brainstorming you got going on there OP!

I do disagree with the equipment slot allocation though, chaff counter measures are small, cheap and come in numbers compared to the systems they are designed to defeat. Modern aircraft, ships and tanks usually have several of these installed.

Meaning they would/should be small enough to be carried by all ship types available, not just payload carriers, so maybe make it a Modification?

The Torpedo and Missile slots are almost never used, so for ships with them this is practically a modification.

However, ships without them (Phantoms, Interceptors, Fighters, et c) would not be the ones to rely on Chaff in-universe. No need to block what you can dodge, after all.

Also, for sheer conceptual reasons, thinking of Launching chaff is easier than simply having it break off of your tail-end.

Keffisch, on 06 Jan 2015 - 04:04 AM, said:

And ordnance is weak enough already so imho, no further "fixes" needs to be made to it.

Ordnance is incredibly under-used, so I was hoping to make a form that would see play.

randomvirus, on 06 Jan 2015 - 06:41 AM, said:

Cancelling all dice is way too overpowered, especially with blocking another shot.

It'd be more reasonable if it worked like a reverse target lock, allowing you to choose dice your opponent has to reroll.

So, an R7 Astromech.

I completely disagree with your assessment that canceling all dice is OP, even if it also prevents Gunner/Cluster/Corran retro-fire. It only annoys most fleets, and saves your bacon if you're about to die (for one turn), but is really only a problem against lists that rely on a single ship to do most of their damage. Against a list of, say, 4 X-Wings, it's on par with the Chewbacca crew.

Against those heavy-hitter fleets, suddenly you've taken a full turn of attacks out of them, which brings your list up to their level of tankiness, and helps to counter Fat Han in an unexpected way.

superdave, on 06 Jan 2015 - 07:58 AM, said:

DraconPyrothayan, on 06 Jan 2015 - 12:18 AM, said:

Would you run ordnance that deals no damage?

Not to disparage the original question (chaff could be interesting, I think, but right now seems really niche to me), but isn't this question the one people ask about most ordnance now anyway?

Kinda thought the most popular question about ordnance is "What do we need to add to make running ordnance that deals damage viable?"

Also, turns out that the formatting does weird stuff if you shunt quotes off to the side.

Yeah, that is the actual question- but I think it boils down to the same thing:

"[Why] would you run ordnance that deals no damage?" == "What would it take to get you to run ordnance that does damage ineffectively?"

Ordnance is too many points for too little reliable damage, so you're effectively throwing away points for a chance at doing some small amount of damage; generally it's pooh-poohed for this reason. I know you know this, though- perhaps a better question would be, "If ordnance is currently not delivering an amount of damage worthy of its points, then why would a person put points into an ordnance slot that not only doesn't routinely deliver damage but cannot damage at all?"

Sorry for any miscommunication!

If counter measures had multiple uses it would be good at that price point...

Countermeasures is a fantastic card.

It is so much better than Hull Upgrade that it is not even funny.

It is easily worth 3 points.

The biggest problems that keep me from using Countermeasures:

1) You need to know when your ship is going to be the one targeted. Usually this is obvious, but if you fire it off and they just wipe another ship off the board, it's wasted points.

2) It works better against multiple attacks or with Lone Wolf, where the extra defense die is more effective. Scum Fett and IG88 will probably also get a lot of mileage from it. Against one attack or two attacks, it's basically 3 points to maybe save one point of damage on average.

3) The big one: it competes with Engine Upgrade for one more point, which can potentially save you a lot of damage over time on a large ship.

I anticipate Countermeasures will become much more popular once the X1 title hits. For 3 points, it's a guarenteed critical avoided from Darth Vader, plus a defensive buff. That's way better than Hull Upgrade, though its utility over Engine Upgrade will remain questionable.

so counter measures vs Stealth device???