I'm curious, where do you get this information that missiles were made for the small targets and torpedoes for the big ones?

That idea might come from the PC games. Missiles are faster and harder to dodge; torpedoes are slower and do more damage. Therefore, missiles are better on small targets and torpedoes are better on large targets. Personally, I think the abilities on missiles and torpedoes already lend themselves to this idea, but perhaps not as much as they should.

I see. Never played those games...

Torpedoes should be a major threat to epic ships that's after all their whole point giving fighters a way to take on cap ships.

Conversely they are poor against fighters because they turn slower and are not that fast.

Missiles should receive a bonus against fighters at close range same as cannons do, torpedoes should lose an attack dice against fighters but get a bonus against epic ships.

Needing a TL to fire is fine but you should not lose it, the whole reason ordnance sucks is because it's an unmodified roll unless your putting two turns into setting up the attack which is easier said than done.

I agree that torpedoes should be a major threat. But aren't they now with Munitions Failsafe?

A flight of four ordnance carrying bombers plus any buffs like Jonus is be a force to be reckoned with. Epic games start on the long edges so the forces aren't any further away than normal. Unless you focus down the bombers you'll loose your greatest asset. But if you concentrate on the bombers there's 300+ points of other ships not ignoring you. Add Rexler Brath's or Maarek Stele's missiles and woo who it's on baby. and that's even without upgrades or fixes.

I'm curious, where do you get this information that missiles were made for the small targets and torpedoes for the big ones?

That idea might come from the PC games. Missiles are faster and harder to dodge; torpedoes are slower and do more damage. Therefore, missiles are better on small targets and torpedoes are better on large targets. Personally, I think the abilities on missiles and torpedoes already lend themselves to this idea, but perhaps not as much as they should.

I see. Never played those games...

You should! This game is heavily influenced by them, and they're all available on gog.com now:

http://www.gog.com/game/star_wars_xwing_special_edition

The first one is rough around the edges but the sequels are all quite good, and you can find links to them in the "Buy series" section to the right.

1.) Ban ACD. Half the reason why you don't see ordnance...

This is such complete and utter nonsense you should be embarrassed for posting it. Ord has never ever been popular, so to try and continue your Phantom crusade by including it in this is just beyond the pale.

Again, no one has ever found Ord to be effective, not in wave 1, not in wave 2, or 3 or 4, or 5, and 6 will do nothing to change that.

3.) Make assault missiles 3 points.

Does nothing to actually fix the problem. That being that missiles and torpedoes are a poor choice because they seldom do more damage than a primary attack does.

1.) Ban ACD. Half the reason why you don't see ordnance is because you can roll 4-5 dice already on a phantom with a TL and/or focus without having to jump through hoops with ordnance.

I'm piling on a bit, but this is a serious question: did you play the game at all prior to Wave 4?

EDIT: By which I mean if your introduction to the game included Phantoms, this is a much more reasonable thing to say.

IMO what needs to be done to fix Ord, is a way to increase the avg damage done while not increasing the action cost of using it.

Needing a TL + Focus to do on avg 1.5 damage vs a target with 3 evade and a focus, just is a poor way to use those points, when you consider that a 3 dice primary attack w/TL + F is going to do about 1 damage on avg, but costs nothing. A 4 primary dice attack w/ TL + F will do nearly 2.

Since you can do nearly the same amount of damage on avg with the same action requirements, but at no cost, and greater flexibility, because there's no range requirements. It's fairly easy to see why Ord just isn't very popular.

If however we could get Ord to start doing 3-4 damage on avg, then it starts to become worth the points.

100% agree with VanorDM. Using ordnance costs too many actions for the benefit. I like the idea of re-useable ordnance that Red Castle mentioned, but then you risk swarms of A-wings/Z-95s/Scimitars with re-useable proton rockets/flechettes/(insert missile/torp here) wrecking stuff.

Maybe a mod/ept that gives you a free focus when using torps/missiles? Helps with actions but takes up a valuable slot either way. FFG needs to do something very clever to improve ordnance without making it too strong.

I like the idea of something that fills a missile or torpedo slot and improves other missiles or torpedoes. It would give ships with multiple slots like the Y-Wing, B-Wing, or TIE Bomber an ordnance buff while keeping the buff away from ships that carry only one missile or torpedo like the Z-95, X-Wing, or A-Wing.

honestly, though, before we can even get to improved ordinance we have to address the topic of Deadeye

This EPT is something I feel should just be errated into the standard rule-set if we're to have any hope of ordinance being played unless we release nothing but proton rocket type conditions

Apart from the point cost and the one shot nature etc, ordinance is a massive pain in the ass because most of it demands target-locks. This makes them unnecessarily difficult to coordinate with low PS ships, the ones cheap enough to allow squads to bring plenty of ordinance along. Having an alternative focus requirement would alleviate that considerably because it gives you freedom to target whoever is in arc, but Deadeye is limited to EPT slots which a.) most generics don't have access to or have to pay premium for and b.) takes up an EPT slot on ships that could have used it to modify their ordinance damage rolls, instead.

Could you imagine innate deadeye on Predator Nera with Proton Torps? She'd be expensive, but she'd also be appropriately beastly for her cost.

Alright here's the REAL simple fix:

Missiles: after rolling your attack dice, change 1 [eye] to a [hit]

Torpedoes: after rolling your attack dice, change 1 [blank] to a [crit]

There, fixed!

Now FFG, where's my paycheck?

Missiles: after rolling your attack dice, change 1 [eye] to a [hit]

Concussion Missiles already let you turn a <blank> into a <hit> which is as good if not better than that. It's clearly better if you have a focus on top the TL.

Torpedoes: after rolling your attack dice, change 1 [blank] to a [crit]

Proton Torps already let you change a <eye> into a <crit>, which may or may not be as good as that, but the difference would be minor.

Granted not all ord does either, but any fix they come up with, isn't going to make something obsolete.

Missiles: after rolling your attack dice, change 1 [eye] to a [hit]

Concussion Missiles already let you turn a <blank> into a <hit> which is as good if not better than that. It's clearly better if you have a focus on top the TL.

Torpedoes: after rolling your attack dice, change 1 [blank] to a [crit]

Proton Torps already let you change a <eye> into a <crit>, which may or may not be as good as that, but the difference would be minor.

Granted not all ord does either, but any fix they come up with, isn't going to make something obsolete.

I think he meant grant that as a benefit on top of missile specifics

so proton torps would grant one eye --> crit and one blank --> crit

I think he meant grant that as a benefit on top of missile specifics

If that's true, then that's an intriguing idea.

Ordnance: Target locks spent to fire ordinance are removed at the end of the attack, if not used.

simple and effective.

Ordnance: Target locks spent to fire ordinance are removed at the end of the attack, if not used.

simple and effective.

No, because that does not 'fix' homing missiles at all and is too strong on assault missiles. Perhaps too strong on Adv. Protorps too. Its also possibly of little value for cluster missiles and makes Jonus' cool ability completely irrelevant (bad thing, imo).

I think he meant grant that as a benefit on top of missile specifics

If that's true, then that's an intriguing idea.

That's it exactly!

Looking at it closer, I think torpedoes should just change 1 [blank] to [hit] perhaps---otherwise its too good on Flechette and Ion torps. Advanced Pro torps become not so terrible with this change if you don't have that previously mandatory focus token.

Missiles can still be 1 [eye] to [hit] I believe. It fixes all of the missiles except proton rockets which don't need any fixing, since they're fine as is. The only concern would be Ion Pulse Missiles become perhaps too strong: they get to keep the target lock and change 1 [eye] to [hit]. But it would be easy to make it an exception, I think.

Torpedoes should work like turbolaser. Massive dice but target agility x2. Would be great for big fish.

Missiles should just make target agility -1 with not so impressive damage.

We would have 2 distinct mechanics for different targets and situations.

1.) Ban ACD. Half the reason why you don't see ordnance is because you can roll 4-5 dice already on a phantom with a TL and/or focus without having to jump through hoops with ordnance.

I'm piling on a bit, but this is a serious question: did you play the game at all prior to Wave 4?EDIT: By which I mean if your introduction to the game included Phantoms, this is a much more reasonable thing to say.

I'm still in awe that we have a bunch of people claiming that the ability to have gunner and fcs on a base 4 attack ship with essentially 4 agility and the ability to move wherever the hell it wants isn't broken, yet we have to be worried about advanced proton torpedoes or assault missiles actually being good and used often.

If they were priced reasonably you'd see a lot more of them. I see ion pulse missiles and flechette torpedoes being used. But 5 points for an assault missile is just crap for all the hoops you have to jump through. Make them 3 points and drop this dumb phobia of card errata.

...5 points for an assault missile is just crap for all the hoops you have to jump through.

It's actually a thorny design problem.

It's easy to assign a price to an effect that's very consistent. Think about an HLC: it performs exactly the same way every time you use it, on every ship and in every context. Every time you fire it, it makes a secondary attack with 4 dice and a drastically decreased chance to crit.

Now compare that to an Assault Missile, which has a floor of a single secondary attack with 4 dice, and a ceiling of that attack plus 7 more damage. The extra damage is conditional not only on your chance to hit or miss (although that's already a pretty broad range of possibilities when you look at attacking a naked Patrol Leader vs attacking Soontir Fel + Push the Limit + Stealth + Autothrusters), but also on your opponent's list and your opponent's in-game decisions.

You probably can't price it at the floor, because then it's overpowered in some contexts. You definitely don't want to price it at the ceiling, because then it's overpriced in most contexts. (Arguably this is what happened, but never mind that.) You have to put it at some arbitrary point in the middle, but where you perceive the middle to be is also context-dependent.

And then you add in the fact that it can't be too far from the price of Concussion Missiles and Proton Torpedoes, because those are already hanging out in a similar design space and you don't want to make them look either overpowered or overpriced. And on top of that, you add in the fact that Assault Missiles were very likely just as Wave 1 was released or even a bit earlier, so they didn't know what the metagame really looked like.

Frankly, it's amazing they came out usable at all.

I'm probably one of the few people on this board that doesn't have a problem with ordnance. With the right build and the right ordnance, it's actually pretty great.

I think the big problem is that the various missiles/torpedoes are very specialized and since most everybody only cares about tournament play, they aren't really worth it.

An assault missile is totally worth it if you catch a few ships in the blast, but how many swarm lists are you going to come across in a tournament?

Ordnance is pretty great in epic play, but struggles in 100pt tournament play because your opponents keep changing and you may not have the best ordnance for the list you're facing against.

This is also coming from a guy who uses Ordnance in his tournament list. Cluster Missiles on Vessery is pretty brutal.

Blade_merc:

Well proton rockets are not even affected by this, so I don't understand what you mean about that. As for Assault missiles you pay 5 freaking points for a chance to hit an do one damage to other possible ships within range 1. It's almost the cost of heavy laser, no issue here accept that now they are worth their points. Homing missiles don't need a fix, keeping your target lock after firing is how they are, and still a good card. Versus ships with free evade tokens like the deci and han or other ships likely to use them. I have used homing missiles on my Z-swarm on just one ship, so I can get by 3po and han's evade to do some serious damage early on.

I don't understand any of your points about them being over powered and not fixed. They are not overpowered and really the ones you mentioned have no issues with this change that I can see.

You have to explain better why it's so overpowered. Because I don't see it.

Ordnance is pretty great in epic play, but struggles in 100pt tournament play because your opponents keep changing and you may not have the best ordnance for the list you're facing against.

As someone who likes to play single-player scenarios occasionally where "everything is made up and the points don't matter," I can tell you that missiles and torpedoes are a lot of fun as they are when there are no squad point restrictions. I imagine the same holds true in epic. Like you said, they just don't really fit well in standard play.

The best fix for missiles and torps is not to fix them. They are (mostly) crap. Just let them be. People who want to use them will get their kicks from them. Others will continue to ignore them.

Magic the Gathering designers admit that some Magic cards are (mostly) crap. They still make them because they want newer players to evolve to the point where they can understand why some cards are (mostly) crap and don't cut it in higher level play.

There comes a point to where you can not effectively fix every single card in the game to be perfectly balanced against every other single card in the game. Experienced X-Wing players know that (most) missiles and torps (often) need too much work to be worth their points.

One positive way to explain where missiles and torps can be useful, is to provide specific examples: Horton Salm with Proton Torpedoes.

I would be disappointed to see very artificial fixes, trying to make missiles and torps work better.

Ordnance is pretty great in epic play, but struggles in 100pt tournament play because your opponents keep changing and you may not have the best ordnance for the list you're facing against.

As someone who likes to play single-player scenarios occasionally where "everything is made up and the points don't matter," I can tell you that missiles and torpedoes are a lot of fun as they are when there are no squad point restrictions. I imagine the same holds true in epic. Like you said, they just don't really fit well in standard play.

I'll would agree with you but, missiles and torps are supposed to be part of the strategy in standard play. Which means they have to be updated, so more strategy can be added back to standard play.

Ordnance is pretty great in epic play, but struggles in 100pt tournament play because your opponents keep changing and you may not have the best ordnance for the list you're facing against.

As someone who likes to play single-player scenarios occasionally where "everything is made up and the points don't matter," I can tell you that missiles and torpedoes are a lot of fun as they are when there are no squad point restrictions. I imagine the same holds true in epic. Like you said, they just don't really fit well in standard play.

I'll would agree with you but, missiles and torps are supposed to be part of the strategy in standard play. Which means they have to be updated, so more strategy can be added back to standard play.

Oh, definitely. I'm not saying I don't want them to be worth taking in standard. It is a little strange, though, that FFG keeps making new missile and torpedo types without really giving people much reason to use them in standard beyond a small number of pilots. I have to wonder if at this point they've just given up and want people to use them in epic instead.

Sure the easiest fix would be to errata how Ordnance works in general, but FFG seems quite insistent on not changing any rules, ever. They resisted it with ACD for this long and I doubt they'd do it for One-off weapons. So the only potential fixes come in the form of Upgrades. The Missile/Torpedo slot upgrades would make them only usable by Bomber-class vessels (TIE/sa, B/Y-Wing) and presents the most intriguing options (to my mind), although Modifications are also a possibility. EPT doesn't seem likely as that would ignore generics (and they are who really need the most help).

As for the point about balancing standard effecting epic, well all I can say is Standard > Epic. It is the original format and far and away the most common. Huge Ships are already barely worth taking (giant swarms overwhelm Huge ships very quickly).