Saboteur hasn't really found its niche in competetive play. But turning over hits into crits is "a good thing"™

Saboteur, for the people who don't have the card nearby and have forgotten what it does is:

It doesn't cost the world. There's a good chance it'll trigger once a ship is damaged. It doesn't offer the target any way to get out of it.

Put it on a low PS ship, cosy up to a large butted bastard and go to town. With any luck you'll trigger something to hamper your victim even during activation.

Saboteur, because the best thing in life is making your enemy suffer.

I've thought about throwing it a Doom Shuttle as it really doesn't care too much about its actions.

Another build is the Rear Admiral with Predator. He gets pretty good action economy at close range anyway. This could be a tricky little way to cause some more pain.

theres nothing wrong with this card its just one of those times where it seems like I always find something better to do with that slot or my action.

I'm thinking about throwing it on a Sigma or two. The decloak being particularly devastating for surprise effect.

It's because you'd rather use the action to focus and deal more damage.

If it was either not an action, or if it was a sure thing it would be a pretty good card.

I use on on my 3 phantom list. It's there in case I need it. It has won games for me at certain times.

I have also used it on my shuttle with experimental interface, it can be very nasty. The shuttle always gets bumps and blocked, so I put Advance Sensors on it, so your almost always within 1 of people. I only use the EI, if I have to because I have focused or something else.

I can tell you for phantoms and other glass cannons a crit can ruin their day.

Good things about Saboteur:

It flips a card faceup

It dissuades enemies from being at Range 1 of you in the Activation Phase

Bad things about Saboteur

It costs a crew slot

It costs an action to activate

It costs 2 points in your fleet

It only works 1/2 the time

It only works if they have a face-down damage card

It only works at Range 1

Oicunn with Dauntless + Saboteur turns Ramming into possible Critical Ramming.

Oicunn with Isard + Saboteur + Experimental Interface is another possibility.

On the less competitive side there is:

Rebel Operative — HWK-290 16

Autoblaster Turret 2
Saboteur 2

It's just a limited upgrade to work with. In order for it to be effective:

- It costs an action. That means you don't have an action free to modify your damage with, which can allow you to deal more damage and thus deal more cards.

- It costs a crew slot. That means you don't have room for things like Tactician, Rebel Captive or Recon Specialist.

- The target ship needs to have one face-down damage card, but not be dead. That's difficult to bring into play against most small ships, who can very quickly go from shields-up to dead in the span of an attack.

- The ship needs to be in range 1 of the potential target.

- For all that, it also only has a 50/50 chance of actually working.

EDIT: DRACON!!!!!

Oh, there's also the part where the card actually does work, and the crit you flip up has zero effect. Like causing a ship to take damage on red maneuvers when the pilot had no intention or ability to use them anyway, forcing a munition-less ship to discard their secondary weapon, forcing a generic to lose their EPT and pilot ability, or pushing an Academy Pilot down to PS0.

- The target ship needs to have one face-down damage card, but not be dead. That's difficult to bring into play against most small ships, who can very quickly go from shields-up to dead in the span of an attack.

But in the current meta, where there are Dashes, Leebos, Chewies and Hans and assorted Decimators. With incoming Agressors and new Firesprays and all the new goodies.

In a small ship meta, sure, not worth the risk, but now, now might be its time to shine!

You're spending you're action for the turn, 2 points, and a crew slot for a 50% chance at 20% chance of getting an extra damage, 18% chance of making the target skip their next action, and a 30% chance of doing mostly nothing (Damaged Engine, Stunned Pilot, Injured Pilot, Minor Hull Breach, Munitions Failure). Which comes out to an 65% failure rate.

And then you also have a prerequisite of being at range 1 of a ship that has damage cards on it. There will be plenty of situations where you've only knocked the shields off the ship, or the only ship you've dealt damage to so far has already been destroyed.

You're better off just using your action on a focus to benefit the extra attack dice you're rolling at range 1 to get more damage. If it didn't require the dice roll and worked at range 1-2, it would be playable, although still mediocre. Crits aren't as important as a lot of people think they are.

Edit: to compare, a focus action on 3 attack dice will increase your odds of getting an extra damage through with your attack by 75%, and does not require the target to already have damage cards on them. I will take an extra damage over a random crit effect every day.

My answers to the question posed in the thread title, in no particular order:

(*) Because the action economy is a big deal, and while there's a potentially large upside to spending it this way, there's a very large risk of accomplishing nothing by either (a) rolling a blank or focus on the attack die, or (b) flipping up (e.g.) Munitions Failure on a Falcon. The average damage value of a focus token on a ship with 3 Attack is 0.75, but the average value of Saboteur is in the neighborhood of 0.3.

(*) Because crew slots are powerful and flexible, and that means the opportunity cost of filling one is high. Saboteur is competing against a lot of very good cards for the right to occupy a crew slot.

(*) Because it only works on ships that have taken at least one face-down damage card. It's a plausible part of a death-spiral, but it doesn't help front-load damage.

(*) Because the timing is awkward. Saboteur is typically available during a ship's Perform Action step, and since the outcome is random, you can't plan, anticipate, or (usually) react to a change in the game state caused by your Saboteur.

(*) Because the range requirement is fairly punitive. The fact that the target of Saboteur doesn't h ave to be in your firing arc helps, but many of the ships that might otherwise find it useful--HWKs and Lambdas, for instance--are really going to struggle to reliably pick up Range 1 of the things they'd like to sabotage.

*****

There are ways around many of those, but it's hard to get around all of them simultaneously. As a result, it's very hard to use Saboteur effectively.

EDIT: DRACON!!!!!

Stick him in with Moff Jerjerrod and throw him out the airlock is what I'd say...

Saboteur is always on my oicunn dauntless decimator. After doing the Oicunn double-tap™, it is nice to finish with a saboteur.

Saboteur is always on my oicunn dauntless decimator. After doing the Oicunn double-tap™, it is nice to finish with a saboteur.

That... is an excellent point.

My friend Literally just ran it last night with Vader on a Decimator. It doles damage well enough but dies fast. He got Saboteur to proc twice against my decimator not really doing a whole lot but still annoying as hell.

Blinded Pilot, always nice to have.

Console Fire, not that frightful, but might be nice, costs an action to get rid of, can be flipped back up.

Damaged Cockpit. In a high PS environment this might be devastating.

Damaged Engine really hurts.

Damaged Sensor Array, talk about action economy.

Direct Hit, against the big ships might not even be the most important to get.

Injured Pilot. Goodbye Han, Oicunn, Chiraneau, Leebo etc.

Minor Explosion, you don't really want that one. Doesn't do much for you.

Same for Hull Breach

Munitions Failure is one you hope for facing an Outrider

Structural Damage hurts Han

Stunned Pilot is Oicunn's enemy

Thrust Control Fire doesn't help much

Weapon Malfunction isn't much use against an Outrider.

I know it costs an action and a crew slot, I know that normally you wouldn't take it. I know that a lot of crits aren't as influential as you might hope. But when everybody and their dog is complaining about the large ships and their tons of actions and large potential of soaking up damage Saboteur might be just what you need to trip them up.

30% chance of doing mostly nothing (Stunned Pilot)

I do greatly disagree with Stunned Pilot's placement on the "Mostly Nothing" list. Stunned Pilot either forces the afflicted ship to go through extreme hoops to avoid hitting you, which you can sometimes exploit, or it deals extra damage, which is always good.

Stunned Pilot on Oicunn is also one of the most hilarious critical effects you could deal to Oicunn. I once managed to block a Stunned Oicunn with a Console Fire for two turns with a shuttle. He dealt two damage to the shuttle, but took four in return between the console fire and the stunned pilot.

Blinded Pilot, always nice to have.

Console Fire, not that frightful, but might be nice, costs an action to get rid of, can be flipped back up.

Damaged Cockpit. In a high PS environment this might be devastating.

Damaged Engine really hurts.

Damaged Sensor Array, talk about action economy.

Direct Hit, against the big ships might not even be the most important to get.

Injured Pilot. Goodbye Han, Oicunn, Chiraneau, Leebo etc.

Minor Explosion, you don't really want that one. Doesn't do much for you.

Same for Hull Breach

Munitions Failure is one you hope for facing an Outrider

Structural Damage hurts Han

Stunned Pilot is Oicunn's enemy

Thrust Control Fire doesn't help much

Weapon Malfunction isn't much use against an Outrider.

I know it costs an action and a crew slot, I know that normally you wouldn't take it. I know that a lot of crits aren't as influential as you might hope. But when everybody and their dog is complaining about the large ships and their tons of actions and large potential of soaking up damage Saboteur might be just what you need to trip them up.

A few disagreements here, as well:

- Console Fire is terrific if you can block or stress them. It takes an action to clear, so you can deal a lot of free damage if you can keep them from getting that action.

- Minor explosion is basically 3/8ths of a Direct Hit. It's a card you actually do want if you're flying Rexlar, as he can flip up the extra damage card.

- Thrust Control Fire is underrated. It prevents them from taking a red maneuver next turn, limiting their movement options. If they're already stressed, then they can't possibly clear it all next turn. If this is the card you flip up with your Saboteur, then there's a slim chance that you could royally shaft a higher-PS ship. If they haven't revealed their dial yet and were going to execute a red maneuver, then that stress token means they not only lose that maneuver, but you get to pick their new maneuver.

Saboteur

Why not?

Die roll.

(would be very nice if it didn't cost an action and was just once per activation)

30% chance of doing mostly nothing (Stunned Pilot)

I do greatly disagree with Stunned Pilot's placement on the "Mostly Nothing" list. Stunned Pilot either forces the afflicted ship to go through extreme hoops to avoid hitting you, which you can sometimes exploit, or it deals extra damage, which is always good.

Stunned Pilot on Oicunn is also one of the most hilarious critical effects you could deal to Oicunn. I once managed to block a Stunned Oicunn with a Console Fire for two turns with a shuttle. He dealt two damage to the shuttle, but took four in return between the console fire and the stunned pilot.

By the time crits are being dealt, even with Saboteur, squads have been thinned out significantly and it's much easier to avoid being blocked. I have seen Stunned Pilot drawn in many games, and I have never seen it deal an extra damage. Granted it might do damage to a player that doesn't know how to fly without bumping things, but in that case that player is already losing to themself, not Saboteur.

Don't get stuck on which crits are good and which are useless, they all have a chance to be useless some of the time. Weapon Malfunction is useless against an Outrider, Structural Damage is useless against a Decimator, Minor Explosion is useless 5/8 times, Blinded Pilot is useless on a Doomshuttle that's about to shoot at your 1-hull ship, etc. The point is that in any given scenario against any given ship, a hefty chunk of the damage deck doesn't actually matter that much, and that's what you're spending your points, crew slot, and action on. If you agree that some portion of the damage deck is going to be meaningless against any given ship in any given scenario, then you can agree that it will do nothing >50% of the time you use it, since it's 50% to succeed, and N% after that to do anything meaningful, where N is < 100.

Regarding Saboteur, it is a win-more card, in that it's only useful if you're already in a good position and you can't just gauge it's performance by what it did, you have to compare it to what could have happened if you were using another action or another upgrade instead, how likely it is to work the same way in multiple scenarios. I've pointed out that a focus increases your chances of landing an extra damage with your attack by a minimum of 75% at range 1.

30% chance of doing mostly nothing (Stunned Pilot)

I do greatly disagree with Stunned Pilot's placement on the "Mostly Nothing" list. Stunned Pilot either forces the afflicted ship to go through extreme hoops to avoid hitting you, which you can sometimes exploit, or it deals extra damage, which is always good.

Stunned Pilot on Oicunn is also one of the most hilarious critical effects you could deal to Oicunn. I once managed to block a Stunned Oicunn with a Console Fire for two turns with a shuttle. He dealt two damage to the shuttle, but took four in return between the console fire and the stunned pilot.

By the time crits are being dealt, even with Sabateur, squads have been thinned out significantly and it's much easier to avoid being blocked. I have seen Stunned Pilot drawn in many games, and I have never seen it deal an extra damage.

Don't get stuck in a Best-Case-Scenario mentality, where you see something awesome happen and assume that's how awesome it's going to be every time you do it again. Regardless of which cards in the damage deck are relevant or not, it's a fact that not all the damage cards in the deck are going to be relevant to every ship in every game, so we can factually state that Saboteur is going to do nothing >50% of the time, versus taking a focus action, which increases your damage output by 75% minimum at range 1.

Saboteur is a win-more card, in that it's only useful if you're already in a good position and you can't just gauge it's performance by what it did, you have to compare it to what could have happened if you were using another action or another upgrade instead, how likely it is to work the same way in multiple scenarios.

Even BP has limits. It's less valuable when paired with a Gunner or Vader crew.