Has anyone designed a "vertical" mod/houserule to the game, something to model the coolness of flying in a 3d space instead of having everything on an x/y axis (which kinda kills the coolness of what aerial/space combat is all about, a little.)

I'm thinking something like where you can select one of 3 heights...1 peg, 2 pegs or 3 pegs high for each model. Anytime you shoot at a ship on a different plane, you effectively increase range increment by 1.

Maybe it wouldn't even be worth it, of course, but to unnecessarily complicate the game.

Has anyone thought experimented on this?

It gets mentioned occasionally. 3D systems are almost always too complicated for the majority of players. For x-wing you need to integrate how to change "altitude" into the maneuver dial system.

For reference, you might want to look at "wings of glory" for some ideas. It is very similar to x-wing in a lot if ways and has an optional altitude system (with I think 12 levels?).

Just from a technical standpoint, this doesn't work well because B-wings need two pegs unless you convert them to bank (which generally requires cutting the cockpit off and re-attaching it at angle so the cockpit is still horizontal), and not every player has 3 pegs for large ships (Also, I can't help but feel a Falcon or Decimator on 3 pegs is just begging to be knocked over by even a slight breeze)

Just from a technical standpoint, this doesn't work well because B-wings need two pegs unless you convert them to bank (which generally requires cutting the cockpit off and re-attaching it at angle so the cockpit is still horizontal), and not every player has 3 pegs for large ships (Also, I can't help but feel a Falcon or Decimator on 3 pegs is just begging to be knocked over by even a slight breeze)

See, this I don't quite understand. There is no horizontal in space. There's absolutely no reason why the B-wing can't be sideways without a reattached cockpit. Yes, I know the cockpit rotates, canonically, but there's not much of a reason for it. Orientation is completely relative. If we're looking at this game in a 3D sense, it doesn't matter which way the cockpit is.

Just from a technical standpoint, this doesn't work well because B-wings need two pegs unless you convert them to bank (which generally requires cutting the cockpit off and re-attaching it at angle so the cockpit is still horizontal), and not every player has 3 pegs for large ships (Also, I can't help but feel a Falcon or Decimator on 3 pegs is just begging to be knocked over by even a slight breeze)

See, this I don't quite understand. There is no horizontal in space. There's absolutely no reason why the B-wing can't be sideways without a reattached cockpit. Yes, I know the cockpit rotates, canonically, but there's not much of a reason for it. Orientation is completely relative. If we're looking at this game in a 3D sense, it doesn't matter which way the cockpit is.

It's a silly thing about the B-wing concept. In case it wasn't clear, though, I think Squark was referring to the fact that the actual B-wing miniature can't rest on one peg.

Yep the B wing cockpit rotation makes zero sense , if anything if would be a real handicap in a dogfight where you need to keep your enemy in sight all the time.

Can you inagine it if you pull a manouvre and all of a sudden have no idea where the guy you're trying to get on the tail of is because you cockpit just inverted you while pulling a loop?

Now I'm not a huge fan of most of the alterations WizKids makes to flight path, but D&D Attack Wing, with its "ground, flying, swooping" is a good way of doing it. Then again, altitude only matters for melee attacks, something x-wing clearly lacks, so I think the only functional difference would be overlapping. I can't think of anything a third dimension would add to such an abstract game.

While I understand that a gyroscopic cockpit in space doesn't make much sense, it's important to keep in mind that these ships were also used in atmospheric battles.

Also, the nature of a gyroscopic cockpit is that it shifts with the movement of the ship, so it's always stabilized. It's not like the rest of the ship completes the maneuver and then the cockpit flips 184 degrees and the pilot's orientation is all muddled.

Altitude wouldn't really make much of a difference in a space-themed flight game other than perhaps changing some of the bump mechanics.

With a vertical mod you would need either a new dial or some sort of altitude dial to be used in conjunction with the flight dial. Also how would altitude effect the range such as a height distance of 2 adds 1 to range.

Still the balance and set up (such as requiring 2 pins would be all out of order. Also firing arc will have to be redefined and as for overlaps they will have to be ignored unless they are on the same level then there would have to be a collision effect (crash).

Yep the B wing cockpit rotation makes zero sense , if anything if would be a real handicap in a dogfight where you need to keep your enemy in sight all the time.

Can you inagine it if you pull a manouvre and all of a sudden have no idea where the guy you're trying to get on the tail of is because you cockpit just inverted you while pulling a loop?

While 'there is no down' in space, there a few ways the cockpit might be useful. A lack of gravity is not the same as a lack of inertia, so aligning the cockpit along the direction of a high speed turn could prevent a blackout. Also, it allows you to look in new directions without rotating the whole ship. If you're coasting in unpowered, you can 'pick up your visual scanning' without burning thrusters and giving away your position, or see how bad the damage is without having to climb outside. Granted, these are all ret-con reasons. The real reason is 'because it's cool'.

Yes. There are relatively simple, easy to use altitude rules in the SWXW:Ground Assault rules at the linked page -- free PDF fan-made product.

I know a guy who has done this. He has upped the scale x10, and then used vertical poles with markers on it. So along with being able to choose, as an example, a 5 straight, you can also choose an upward angle of 45 degrees, a straight, or a downward angle of 45 degrees. I believe every forward movement also takes you up and down one marker. So a forward 3 with a downward 45 degree angle would take you forward 3 spaces, and down 3 markers.

The shooting is a little bit more straight forward. In addition to the normal forward range rulers, you also have to be pointing towards the ship on it's marker. For instance, if you're pointing upward at a 45 degree angle, you cannot shoot the ship in front of you, even if it's in arc, if it's below your ship marker because you're not looking towards it.

Interesting. I have yet to play it with him, but he's shown me pics and it looks like a lot of fun. I've been meaning to get Stephane to give me a play through sometime.

Jacob

Yep the B wing cockpit rotation makes zero sense , if anything if would be a real handicap in a dogfight where you need to keep your enemy in sight all the time.

Can you inagine it if you pull a manouvre and all of a sudden have no idea where the guy you're trying to get on the tail of is because you cockpit just inverted you while pulling a loop?

The cockpit does not spin the main body spends around a stationary point. So in reality you are better able to maintains lock because your body never banks or rolls.

I am a long time wings of war and wings of glory player and they have altitude in the games as an optional ruleset. I never use it because it doesn't really model what it's like to have an altitude advantage. I also wouldn't use it in X-wing, because in space altitude doesn't matter. You move in three-dimensions, but the implications in space are radically different from Earth's atmosphere. In real fighter piloting, if I am above somebody, I have more potential energy than he does (all other things being equal). That extra energy enables me to pull maneuvers he cannot pull. And, depending on your energy state, you can position yourself so that he physically cannot get up to your altitude, enabling you to attack him with impunity.

By contrast, in space, this doesn't work. If my opponent is below me, she can just point her nose at me and start shooting (which would cause a stall in an airplane by interrupting air flow over the wings). Or, she can fly "up" towards me, without any penalty from gravity. So, there simply is no altitude advantage to model. Given that, up and down is the same thing as left and right in space, and therefore X-wing's two-dimensional representation, while not perfect, actually works better than introducing "altitude." The reason being is that if left and right are the same, you'd just be doing the same maneuvers in a third dimension. Since that's hard to model, it makes more sense to leave it as is.

Yep the B wing cockpit rotation makes zero sense , if anything if would be a real handicap in a dogfight where you need to keep your enemy in sight all the time.

Can you inagine it if you pull a manouvre and all of a sudden have no idea where the guy you're trying to get on the tail of is because you cockpit just inverted you while pulling a loop?

The cockpit does not spin the main body spends around a stationary point. So in reality you are better able to maintains lock because your body never banks or rolls.

Except the whole point of banking or rolling is because you DO want your main body to move. There is no reason you would ever want a stationary cockpit and a rolling main body that I can think of. It just doesn't make any kind of sense. Offensively, it doesn't matter if your opponent is upside down or right-side up. All that matters is you have him in your radar cone. If he moves outside of it, you have to move to maintain it. To give a concrete example, a lot of US fighters have something called "vertical scan radar." The idea is that it projects a line in space out the nose of the ship, one that extends a little bit below the ship, and a long way above the ship. By rolling, you are moving this vertical beam around. So, if your opponent goes left or right, you need to roll to keep the beam on him. In a B-wing, that roll would accomplish absolutely nothing.

From a defensive standpoint, you want to get geographic displacement from your opponent. You want to physically move your ship. Rolling the ship around the cockpit doesn't actually move the ship. His lasers are still going to hit you, it's just a question of which parts of your ship get whacked. To avoid the fire, the only reason to roll is to make yourself harder to hit by loading on G and getting some displacement. Really though, defensively, the number one option is always a hard break turn, which the ship rolling around the cockpit helps with not at all.

I always found it to be a silly design.

I play ww2 game, angles 20 and it uses a altitude. You can only shoot at the level you are on unless you tilt the plane up our down and then next movement you have to climb or dive depending on your orientation. You can climb 1 notch pre turn and dive up to two. Of course you get a bonus dice when you are diving in on someone.

We have played 4 Height levels - any difference of 2 height levels add an extra 1 to distance to target for defence dice rolling.

Maneuvers is quite simple - players still choose their options on the dial but can choose to drop or gain height at movement time. Basically a drop or gain of each height with minus that amount on the dial turn. Forward momentum must always occur thus it must always have at least a one forward. Example - a hard 3 right turn will be be converted to a hard one turn if the player chooses to drop or gain two height levels. Or a 2 movement can only drop or gain one height because forward momentum must always occur.

Shooting can occur at any ship still in arc - and at any level/angle for simplicity sakes.

This process gives a player with higher pilot skill greater chances of staying behind enemies with possible sacrifices.

We came up with these rules because of the Death Star scenario I am current building with 3D tiles.

We have only done this with small ships at the moment for only 2 games and I am sure that issues will arise but we will modify the game "rules" as they go.

Makes you think harder and allows many more tactics

We are also going to implement the ability for small ships with shields to be able to regenerate their shield (by one) as an action because we believe that small ships should have the ability to regenerate their shield during battle - but at a sacrifice. Yes - R2D2 could potentially add 2 per round on a green...

Cheers!

Eboli

Yep the B wing cockpit rotation makes zero sense , if anything if would be a real handicap in a dogfight where you need to keep your enemy in sight all the time.

Can you inagine it if you pull a manouvre and all of a sudden have no idea where the guy you're trying to get on the tail of is because you cockpit just inverted you while pulling a loop?

The cockpit does not spin the main body spends around a stationary point. So in reality you are better able to maintains lock because your body never banks or rolls.

I always found it to be a silly design.

In the film, the only time we see the B-Wing cockpit rotate is going from landing mode, to flight mode. Fanwankery aside, it could simply be for that purpose. Though a B-Wing pilot could rotate his cockpit pod to suit the situation or his personal preference, we never see one actually rotate around the cockpit pod during a manuver.

Yep the B wing cockpit rotation makes zero sense , if anything if would be a real handicap in a dogfight where you need to keep your enemy in sight all the time.

Can you inagine it if you pull a manouvre and all of a sudden have no idea where the guy you're trying to get on the tail of is because you cockpit just inverted you while pulling a loop?

The cockpit does not spin the main body spends around a stationary point. So in reality you are better able to maintains lock because your body never banks or rolls.

I always found it to be a silly design.

In the film, the only time we see the B-Wing cockpit rotate is going from landing mode, to flight mode. Fanwankery aside, it could simply be for that purpose. Though a B-Wing pilot could rotate his cockpit pod to suit the situation or his personal preference, we never see one actually rotate around the cockpit pod during a manuver.

That's fair enough. I mean the idea of rotating it in flight, which, if I recall correctly, was something you could do in the X-wing games, is what's silly. I've always thought the B-wing as a ship looked pretty cool. If I were flying it though, I'm not sure how I would want to rotate it. Probably straight down beneath me, I suppose. But I wouldn't fly a B-wing, too big and beastly.

The silliness of the rotating B-Wing cockpit is nothing compared to the utter ridiculousness of the old Outrider Kenner toy. Seriously, that's how I always thought the Outrider looked, until I saw its model in this game. I was quite relieved to discover that the actual ship design does not have a useless rotate-the-cargo-hull feature.

The silliness of the rotating B-Wing cockpit is nothing compared to the utter ridiculousness of the old Outrider Kenner toy. Seriously, that's how I always thought the Outrider looked, until I saw its model in this game. I was quite relieved to discover that the actual ship design does not have a useless rotate-the-cargo-hull feature.

Good for inflight Martinis, mind.

I think that this would make the game a bit too complicated. But I will admit that it is fun to stack pegs for laughs.