OP is right. The amount of arc dodging in the game right now is ridiculous.

It used to be a skill to plan ahead and try to guess/outwit your opponent. Now just take a phantom, use a 2 bank 90% of the time and call it a day.

Wave 4+ is far less tactical and way more about list buidling because of it.

(My opinion of course)

I think you nailed it. There were more and less effective builds in Wave 3, but list building was a bit less important back then.

The 1 turn actually finds more use on the Phantom i believe XD

Like the OP I'm a fan of the planning ahead, trying to predict your opponent, aspect of the game, in fact it's what makes this game special for me. I'm not sure it's broken though, as with most arc dodging ships being out of arc is so important to your survival that you still really need to get your position right even before your actions. that may not be so true with Phantoms, I don't know as I haven't played them (or against them) very much.

I take it most of the discussion here is about competitive play? I almost only play casual games with friends and in that context there really is no meta - people play what looks fun. I'd be interested to know how often people commenting here play competitively vs casually (by which I suppose I mean tournament vs at-home play - I'm not suggesting all tournament play is un-casual).

I don't play many tournaments actually, but we playtest for them and that can be seen as competitive play as we try out the best possible lists against each other.

Also as soon as someone in a playgroup comes with a more competitive list and stomps the others, they will look out for more potent lists too, so good balance is a very important thing even outside of competitive play

OP is right. The amount of arc dodging in the game right now is ridiculous.

It used to be a skill to plan ahead and try to guess/outwit your opponent. Now just take a phantom, use a 2 bank 90% of the time and call it a day.

Wave 4+ is far less tactical and way more about list buidling because of it.

(My opinion of course)

So you would prefer that your opponent is more predictable so that you have to guess/outwit less and can be more successful when you don't guess correctly?

The idea that your maneuver choice matters less if you have Boost/BR/Cloack is ridiculous. Each of those options makes your choice of maneuvers more important. Each maneuver on a dial for interceptor has:

Move + BR right forward

Move + BR left forward

Move + BR right backwards

Move + BR left backwards

Move + straight boost

Move + left boost

Move + right boost

...

and everything in between...you get the idea... and when you have access to double actions or you're flying a phantom (or even worse: Echo) you can double or triple that. Lucky for you only half will be real options and only half of that half would be seen as optimal/useful.

So yes, if you're flying vs. an arc dodger they have more options and more to think about...BUT SO DO YOU! If you just set your dial to what you want to do and let them react they will, sometimes quite literally, fly circles around you. But don't limit gameplay just so you don't have to consider your own moves and choices as much. Many of us like solving the "hydra" puzzle. It appears many think that puzzle only applies to one side of the fight.

I don't play many tournaments actually, but we playtest for them and that can be seen as competitive play as we try out the best possible lists against each other.

Also as soon as someone in a playgroup comes with a more competitive list and stomps the others, they will look out for more potent lists too, so good balance is a very important thing even outside of competitive play

I just wonder if it's practically possible to have a game that doesn't go that way when people are always trying to perfect the ultimate squad. How is it in other games such as Warhammer? I know there's plenty complaining in the Warhammer community about how certain units aren't worth taking, do people end up with very similar armies at high end tournaments? Anyone know?

do people end up with very similar armies at high end tournaments? Anyone know?

Largely in 40k, you can quite often tell who will win by just looking at their lists. The posts we're all seeing now may be a preemptive reaction to what some of us saw in 40k, and wanting to avoid that for X-Wing.

A "fluffy" ist in 40k like say one made up mostly of Tactical Marines (in 5th edition anyway) was considered to be subpar and rarely seen in tournaments, in fact a lot of the stuff in the Space Marine codex was never seen.

Largely in 40k, you can quite often tell who will win by just looking at their lists. The posts we're all seeing now may be a preemptive reaction to what some of us saw in 40k, and wanting to avoid that for X-Wing.

A "fluffy" ist in 40k like say one made up mostly of Tactical Marines (in 5th edition anyway) was considered to be subpar and rarely seen in tournaments, in fact a lot of the stuff in the Space Marine codex was never seen.

What about other miniatures games? I'm just thinking if it's proven by experience to be almost unavoidable then let's just stop worrying about it, resign ourselves to tournaments being full of very similar power-lists and take advantage of casual games to mess around with sub-optimal (power-wise) lists.

What about other miniatures games?

I never saw it as much in Flames of War. There were good lists and bad lists, but I seldom saw an overwhelming Unit X is bad and should never be taken or Unit Y stands zero chance against a list with unit Z.

There were bad match ups, Artillery was brutal against all infantry lists... But that's historically accurate, and you could counter it by putting a couple fast armored units in your list.

Warmahoards didn't seem to be as bad either, but I never was as much into that game as I am X-wing or was into FoW.

Interestingly, your ''fix'' already need a fix.

To be playable, because Interceptors live and die with their maneuvrability, you would need to always take the same modification on every ship you have. Pair that with Autothruster so they can have a chance against turrets and PtL so they can actually do two maneuvers each turn to benefit from their new shiny mod and we have a winner. And here I thought people were tired of auto-include upgrades.

A little bit off topic, but I'm really excited for autothrusters. If everyone's prediction is correct that it'll be an auto include for everyone, that means 2-4 points less that my opponent has that I really have to worry about. As someone who doesn't take turrets (outside of the ICT on a Y/HWK), the R3 bonus doesn't really mean much (when was the last time you actually got a hit in on fel at R3 anyways?)... so I don't have to worry about the upgrade, which means yay! I have an "advantage" because they have a useless upgrade that is a counter to very specific lists, and really only those lists.

Off topic from the off topic, when the W6 meta settles, I bet AT will be much less common than everyone thinks they'll be.

A little bit off topic, but I'm really excited for autothrusters. If everyone's prediction is correct that it'll be an auto include for everyone, that means 2-4 points less that my opponent has that I really have to worry about. As someone who doesn't take turrets (outside of the ICT on a Y/HWK), the R3 bonus doesn't really mean much (when was the last time you actually got a hit in on fel at R3 anyways?)... so I don't have to worry about the upgrade, which means yay! I have an "advantage" because they have a useless upgrade that is a counter to very specific lists, and really only those lists.

Off topic from the off topic, when the W6 meta settles, I bet AT will be much less common than everyone thinks they'll be.

I agree that I don't see Autoceptors becoming the new Phan (Fat Han mixed with Phantoms), but 2 points per ship to make them super hard to hit at range 3 is not much. You say "how often do you hit them at range 3 anyway" but when they're closer than that they dodge out of your arc and you don't get to shoot, let alone hit. It's nowhere near an auto-win, which is good, but I also think it's pretty good.