I am always wondering why FFG doesn´t touch this game variable. Maybe there is some reason for that. I know, it should not exceed the norm and should be a minor group, but some ships (maybe one or two) with (slightly) different (smaller) firing arcs (don´t mean 360° turrets) could be fun and interesting to play, or do you thing it would damage the gameplay?

Or maybe an upgrade card for a new type of ship where you can turn over (or revolve clockwise) a ship base to get a different firing arc could be fun in my opinion. This could be happen before the game with help of an upgrade card or during game as an action (I know during game it is not easy to perform, but during my games I always have steps where I have to label the position and remove a fighter off the board for a second).

Looking forward for some opinions

Greetings

The shuttle should of had a narrow 45-60 degree firing arc out its aft with two attack dice. APL is a poor representation of the aft mounted gun.

The Raider seems to have thrown out the standard firing arcs. Maybe we'll see more of this in future ships.

I agree. Firing arcs are probably the least explored of the current design space. I'm hoping we see a large-based ship with port and starboard firing arcs instead of foward, similar to the firing arcs on the CR90. It'd be interesting to have a craft that wouldn't be capable of the standard forward joust, but instead tries to set up strafes and broadside attacks.

In Star Trek Attack Wing they do explore the firing arcs a little more. I think most federation ships get 180 arcs and get a special arc to fire torpedoes backwards.

I am glad that there are no 180° arcs here, sounds alsmost as boring as 360° arcs

Instead of 360° turret tt would be also fun to have a ship with an firing arc (e.g. additional circular base "token") which you can adjust (rotating) every round after your maneuver ) That would be a real 360° turret But thats another story and offtopic here

You could start to see some differing firing arcs on some future ships. I think they don't do it now mostly because of the space on the cardboard base. On a small based ship, a rear firing arc would seriously crowd the area with the ship stats. They'd need to figure out a way to print it so everything can be easily seen, and not get lost in a bunch of noise on the cardboard base.

I highly doubt that we will ever see a mechanic that rotates the base to the rear to get a rearward firing arc. As the rules stand now, there is no actual mechanic to mark a ship and remove it from the board. Sure, we all do it because it's more accurate when we need to move through another ship, but the rules actually state you are to hover the template above the board and estimate the ships location. If a mechanic is created that has one remove or alter the cardboard base on a ship to adjust the firing arc, a world of contention will follow. Imagine the situation where a ship looks just out of arc, a player picks up a ship, adjusts the arc to the rear to see what it can shoot at there, determines nothing, and then resets the arc and replaces the ship. Two adjustments have now happens, the ships position, and the cardboards position on the base. Marginal shots could now fall in a different direction, a ship that was not in arc before could now slightly be in arc, or vice versa. Most of the people who play this game are cool and would just roll a dice to see if the ship is in arc, but I don't think we need to create a problem just to have rear arcs on existing ships. Let's just wait to see if they explore this in the future.

I always figured that the arcs represented the pilot centring their crosshairs on a target in their view. The activation phase has the pilot perform a major manoeuvre, and the firing arc is the pilots aiming ability. So long as something is roughly in front of you, it shouldn't take too much adjustment to get it in your crosshairs.

That's my in-universe explanation. In terms of gameplay mechanics, it would provide variety, sure, but is it a good kind of variety? You could have a ship with a 25 degree frontal firing arc and 5 or 6 dice attack but it would ultimately prove too gimmicky and people would not field it. Just look at how popular 360 turrets are if you need any proof that players will flock to mechanics that make aiming more forgiving.

I know you weren't talking about 360 arcs, but a rotating firing arc is exactly what turrets should have been instead of the bull we have to swallow nowadays

As for asymmetrical arcs, I think it'd just get needlessly complicated. X-wing really thrives on the relative simplicity of its rule-set, making it easy to pick-up and learn (thus making it highly attractive for new players) but very difficult to master (hence the competitive scene)

As for asymmetrical arcs,

To be fair, no one in the thread until you has mentioned asymmetrical arcs, only arcs that are not 360 degrees or 90 (83?) degrees.

I am always wondering why FFG doesn´t touch this game variable. Maybe there is some reason for that. I know, it should not exceed the norm and should be a minor group, but some ships (maybe one or two) with (slightly) different (smaller) firing arcs (don´t mean 360° turrets) could be fun and interesting to play, or do you thing it would damage the gameplay?

The shuttle should of had a narrow 45-60 degree firing arc out its aft with two attack dice. APL is a poor representation of the aft mounted gun.

Not that I don't agree that APL is weak-sauce, though