Ordnance Fixes

By konradkurze, in X-Wing

P.S. I'm also leery of auto include cards. Refit for the A-Wing and soon the TIE Advanced X1. You can't grab your ship and play. You NEED to be more familiar with the game. Soon everything will have multiple levels in interruptions; multiple actions on everything; the X-Wing will be the fastest most maneuverable ship in the game; every ship you play will have at least 3 or 4 upgrades/modification/title cards. This game won't be for young players but rather deck builders. And people will laugh when they hear that X-Wing is won not by playing well but by knowing the rules better. Kind of like another space Sci-Fi game.

P.P.S. Don't get me wrong, I realize that some ships needed a fix or upgrade but I hope this isn't the new norm for all ships.

if something needs fixing you can't fix in a way other than an auto include. if you don't need to include something to use what needs fixing than it doesn't need fixing

this is 100% untrue

they fixed the original, absolutely obscene large ship barrel-rolling without releasing a host of mandatory upgrades

While I'm okay with releasing upgrade cards that are auto-include to fix certain ships, releasing auto-include upgrade cards to enable the effective use of other upgrade cards is getting to silly levels of clunky game design

just write out a new ordinance rule on a card like the "how bombs work" card that comes with the bomb upgrades and tokens in ship expansions

and I'm holding to my opinion that they should be 2-shots per card. You don't want to up the damage output of single shot upgrades because they'll get some stupid crazy spikes in damage and turn the game into more of a dice fest than turrets do. Much more efficient imo to improve consistency by allowing another turn of use.

How this'll spike already useful ordinance (such as cluster missiles vessery or the upcoming Tie/x1 AC + cluster missiles) may be a matter for concern

ah I see what you are saying I think... although technically a rule change is an auto include just not an upgrade >.> <.<

How about something like this:

Enhanced Munitions Targeting computer

Modification:

pts 2

You cannot spend tokens when being attacked with Torps and Missiles, (Focus, Evade, etc)

Here's a wee thoughtlet for something to buff up those ships that were originally conceived as secondary weapons platforms.

Upgrade: Torpedo - 1 point.

Target linking system.

This upgrade adds 1 torpedo slot to your upgrade bar.

After performing a primary weapon attack you may immediately perform a secondary weapon attack with the missile or torpedo header at the same target.

First off it sits in the torp slot but adds a torp slot - allowing you to put them on an x-wing and keeps your mod slot free.

Second it gives a unique double boost to the bomber as it works on both missiles and torps - buffing its all-round performance.

B-Wings - particularly with FCS - become a very interesting alternative to cannon weapons as cannons and TLS don't combo.

Admittedly it does nothing for ships that can only equip missiles, but there's no reason to expect missiles and torps to have a single one-size-fits-all solution.

Just out of curiosity: I read in different threads, that ordnance gets better, the more points you play (epic for instance). So what hapens with these fixes in epic, where ordnance is good already?

At this point, I think anything that hits just does full damage, but only if it hits, any uncancelled crits cause crits instead, all of the missiles / torps remain as they are otherwise, concussion and homing still give bonus' to hit, but deal normal max damage. They can be dodged, but boom if they aren't.

I think this is worth a play test, but it could work.

It allows everything to keep the same wording as it has now, but errata the core rules to something along the lines of "Unless a missile or torpedo is fully dodged, it suffers the full result of the attack roll." That can make them a devastating one shot weapon, but it barely changes epic. It also lets the defender use everything available to them to try to dodge it, which is what they should be doing anyway.

Edited by rabid1903

Just out of curiosity: I read in different threads, that ordnance gets better, the more points you play (epic for instance). So what hapens with these fixes in epic, where ordnance is good already?

Just out of curiosity: I read in different threads, that ordnance gets better, the more points you play (epic for instance). So what hapens with these fixes in epic, where ordnance is good already?

Maybe torpedo runs would be too cheap, and huge ships knocked out too early in the game.

They could always buff the Epic ships next. They haven't fixed those yet.

Just out of curiosity: I read in different threads, that ordnance gets better, the more points you play (epic for instance). So what hapens with these fixes in epic, where ordnance is good already?

A coupe of things.

High-yield crit generating ordnance like proton torps are absolutely lethal against the huge ships - but against small ships, ordnance still suffers from the same limitations in the 300 point format as it does in the 100 point format.

However in a 300 point game you have a better idea of what you are going to be up against - there's almost certainly going to be some massed ranks of fighters heading your way - so spending 20 points on a couple of assault missiles and Ion torpedoes suddenly makes a lot more sense than trying to squeeze an extra A-wing or interceptor into your list.

Ordnance is beyond repair. The last chance to repair it was the introduciton of huge ships. Huge ships with shields that are only or better penetrated by ordnance would have given ordnance a role (by the way the role it has in the movies, no X-Wing ever shot a torpeda at a Tie) and huge ships a chance of survival. At present we have neither.

Anti-fighter missiles have a payload that will blow up a fighter. If you introduce that, the WWII dogfighting is gone. Missiles that are worth the points would make for a boring game. 6 Z-95 make their alpha strike and either win or loose in the first round. Makes for speedy tournaments.

Ordnance is beyond repair. The last chance to repair it was the introduciton of huge ships. Huge ships with shields that are only or better penetrated by ordnance would have given ordnance a role (by the way the role it has in the movies, no X-Wing ever shot a torpeda at a Tie)...

In the movies, no ship ever fired a torpedo at anything except the Death Star. In the in-game fiction, including the Lucasarts flight-sim style games from the 90s, X-wings fire their torpedoes at just about everything.

...and huge ships a chance of survival. At present we have neither.

In case you weren't aware, ordnance is very dangerous to Huge ships right out of the box.

In case you weren't aware, ordnance is very dangerous to Huge ships right out of the box.

Everything is very dangerous to huge ships, ordnance is just the most expensive way to be very dangerous. What's more, bombers are about the only type of ship a corvette has a chance to hit.

In case you weren't aware, ordnance is very dangerous to Huge ships right out of the box.

Everything is very dangerous to huge ships, ordnance is just the most expensive way to be very dangerous. What's more, bombers are about the only type of ship a corvette has a chance to hit.

They get double dice against Single Turbos, that and Agi 2 isn't that bad.

In case you weren't aware, ordnance is very dangerous to Huge ships right out of the box.

Everything is very dangerous to huge ships, ordnance is just the most expensive way to be very dangerous. What's more, bombers are about the only type of ship a corvette has a chance to hit.

In a game that includes Lambdas and Decimators? Now you're just making stuff up to be contrary.

Alot of people bring up ordnance being good in Epic as a reason not to fix it for standard play. Well IMHO epic IS a secondary play method (like 40K Apocalypse and Fantasy SoM). Everything should be balanced for the primary play with secondary play being...secondary. If huge ships need a little bump after, then so be it.

Alot of people bring up ordnance being good in Epic as a reason not to fix it for standard play. Well IMHO epic IS a secondary play method (like 40K Apocalypse and Fantasy SoM). Everything should be balanced for the primary play with secondary play being...secondary. If huge ships need a little bump after, then so be it.

I can't disagree more with that thought. I simply don't see why "everything should be balanced for primary play". A ship or fighter's (and pilot's) abilities will have synergies when combined with other ships that make them competitive. In that very manner all ships could never be balanced. Nor should they. When ever in history was it expected that a bomber was supposed to be as good as a main line attack fighter. Even the description of the TIE bomber in the Star Wars wiki describes them as sitting ducks for X-Wings; and that's fine with me (I love to play bomber BTW). The right tool for the right job. Freighters are not fighters either and I think a squad of HWK look very unthematic.

Also, for me... watching Star Wars there was almost always capital ships in all of the battles. Even the first one had the Death Star. We can't fit Star Destroyers but we can fix CR-90s which was the very first ship seen in the movies.

If Epic is secondary for some people no problem, if Epic is the main play for some people also no problem. But hopefully FFG support both equally for the real flavor of Star Wars.