I don't necessarily think Turrets are terribly overpowered, but if they are, let's do something about it! These are more just general musings on the subject, I'm coming up with these basically as I type. Remember, fix the turret, not the ship! There is no reason why a turret-counter should also make taking turreted ships like the falcon a bad idea. Just a normal idea.

So we have those Ion Pulse torpedos that are basically only to fire at big ships, so why can't we have another weapon type just to shoot at big ships?

1. Perhaps a Plasma-Ion Torpedo or similarly-unused-star-wars-missile-type that, when it hits, deals 1 damage and applies a token similar to Ions, but instead locks the defenders ability to fire to the front-arc only the next time it fires, then the token vanishes! Poof.

2. Or call it a Targeting Scrambler, stick it in a modification slot and it reads "discard this card at the start of combat. Until the end of the round,, you cannot be targeted by attacks that are not within the attackers front firing arc."

3. Alternatively, a card that says [Hit] results on attacks outside the primary firing arc may be rerolled by the defender! Take that, Fett!

Let's see, what else do I have off the top of my head...

4. Let the current 360 ships take the a y-wing BTL-like card that also adds a turret upgrade slot, so that they are encouraged to use their new-found pea-shooters out the front.

5. Oooh, here's a good one. Add a card that says "While defending, if outside the defenders primary firing arc, if the attacker applies focus or rerolls any dice results, you may modify your defense dice in the same way" (apply focus, rerolls)

6. Perhaps a Targeting Misdirection weapon. This one's probably totally broken but check this Missile Slot weapon out:

"If this attack hits, if the defender has not attacked this round, the defender must immediately declare an on you, if able. The defender cannot attack again this round."

It's like a surprise Biggs in the form of a missile and works way better on Turret ships. Slap it on a Tie Advanced to protect your accidentally-hit-a-rock decloaked phantom.

7. This one's straightforward. Perhaps a pilot ability or modification that reads "When you are declared as the target of an attack, you may immediately perform a free barrel roll action before range is determined, then receive 1 Ion token."

8. I've focused a lot on the falcons, but decimators have turrets too! Decimator title or something, call it something cool like Energy Redirection: "When you perform an attack outside of your primary arc, you may cancel all dice results to recover 1 Shield. If you do, you may not attack again this round."

No gunner.. but you can still Vader and Tactician things!

9. Here's another one for the decimator, kind of like the outrider title, it permanently effects the primary weapon: "Reduce your primary weapon to range 1 - 2. When performing an attack, you may reroll any [Focus] results. The first [Hit] cannot be cancelled by defense results."

10. Okay, I'm really reaching for some ideas now. Let's see... Maybe I can get one more for the decimator in there without breaking anything. Decimator title: "You cannot perform attacks outside of your primary firing arc. Once per round, when an enemy ship performs a movement that would cause it to overlap, you may immediately roll 3 attack dice. You and the defender suffer any [Hit] and [Crit] results."

Okay, plenty of focus on the decimators. I think those hawks and Y-wings are just fine, if anything they need a tiny boost, but mostly not. We haven't done any YT-specific title upgrades, so lets think!

11. YT1300-only modification. "When attacking at range 3, you may receive 1 stress token. If you do,if the attack hits, apply 1 Ion token to the defender and 1 Ion token to yourself."

Hm.. I will update this very shortly I want to get to 20 ideas. I have a feeling that the good ones are coming to my head.

Also, guys! Come complain about how broken my list is, I'm pretty excited to have my ideas torn apart limb from limb, crushed into space debris. Or add your own ideas! Either way, it's cool.

Edit:

Brain dumps are naturally bad, hopefully with a gem or two in there (hopefully). Thank you guys for being so awesome about it. I'd normally never put out half-baked ideas, but this community really enables the conversation and welcomes new input, even if it's not ultimately great. Thank you guys, you're great!

Maybe you could try a few heavy hitters and just drop the falcon old school.

12. Fly more than 2 ships. Just kill the big turreted ship.

This has been stated many times before by others and I happen to agree....IMHO, it's not turrets that are broken. I have no issues with small ships and turret add-ons. I don't have an issues with large ships with turrets either (they do take away some of the fun of the dogfighting aspect of the game, though). It is the upgrade cards that made the turrets much harder to kill (namely C3PO, and to a lesser extent Ysard and maybe R2D2 crew.) People complained some when Han Shoots First was a top meta squadron. To chew through that version of the Falcon, you needed to do 15 points of damage (with Chewy as crew) when the falcon was getting a single evade a turn from MF Title and rolling 1 green die per attack. But we all adapted and it became possible to destroy HSF. With Fat Falcons using C3P0 and possibly R2D2 as well you basically have 2 guaranteed evades a turn, roll 1 green die per attack, and can possibly regenerate a shield some turns when damage has gotten through. With that you are basically avoiding 3 hits a turn and the longer a Fat Falcon lives the harder it becomes to kill (through attrition of your own ships not able to put out as much firepower). The same thing happens with a Decimator and Ysard to some extent. A Fat Decimator is throwing less evade dice than a Falcon (1 agilit to 0) and only has 1 guaranteed evade a turn but the longer it lives the more damage it takes to kill still.

We have auto-thrusters now, which seem to be helping even out the fight against Fat turrets. Is that enough overall - I don't know. Some of your ideas are interesting and might work. (I like the BTL-A4 title card option for a Falcon or Decimator.) I think the Phantom was overpowered and the change to the declock timing rules has brought it into balance. I really don't think there is a problem with Fat Decimators - there stats seem to be right in line for the cost and what it takes to kill them so they are already in balance. But I think it is going to take some kind of adjustment on C3PO (maybe requiring you cannot guess 0 or requiring you must be throwing 2 or more green dice to use C3POs ability, I don't know) to bring Fat Falcons into balance as well.

And don't say I am biased against 1 faction or another. I do play all 3 factions - but overall i do tend to play Imperial more (at least before Scum was released.)

Some of the ideas sound kind of fun, but you'll need to work on them a bit.

The biggest problem with a lot of them is that they are abilities that are 100% dependent on there being a turreted ship on the other side of the board - if there isn't then you've just wasted the points.

Auto thrusters is a great example of something which dulls the power of a turret but still has enough utility when there aren't any turrets around to make it a worthwhile inclusion

Autothrusters+ phantom being vulnerable to ps1-8 non-turret ships should balance them out pretty well.

12. Fly more than 2 ships. Just kill the big turreted ship.

13. Fly 2 Aggressors. They're built to kill large turret ships.

Intensify Forward Firepower: Elite Talent. Decimator Only. You may only attack out of your front firing arc. Increase your attack by two. 3 points.

As mentioned it's the insane number of ways the falcon can get evades which is the problem. Y-wings can't get any, decimators can only do it with isaard, hwks have a few options, but with 5 hit points doesn't matter much anyways.

The falcon has ALL of these options:

MF Title

C-3PO

R2-D2

Jan Ors

Lando Calrissian

Intensify Forward Firepower: Elite Talent. Decimator Only. You may only attack out of your front firing arc. Increase your attack by two. 3 points.

My first thought on reading that was "By two? Blimey, that's a bit strong isn't it?". My second thought was "with a Decimator's dial? It could have an attack of twelve, without a turret it might as well be zero".

@OP

I don't think anybody thinks Firesprays are overpowered, no need to make this affect them. I'd remove your "primary" restriction when referring to firing arcs.

This is so overdone. You pay a premium for turrets. Lots of points for only 1 attack. Auto thrusters counter. Can we leave it alone for even a day?

Intensify Forward Firepower: Elite Talent. Decimator Only. You may only attack out of your front firing arc. Increase your attack by two. 3 points.

My first thought on reading that was "By two? Blimey, that's a bit strong isn't it?". My second thought was "with a Decimator's dial? It could have an attack of twelve, without a turret it might as well be zero".

Pretty much my thoughts exactly, which is why I bumped it up from +1 to +2 and didn't make it 4 points.

I feel that autothrusters are an admission that turrets should never have been able to attack at range 3 it's just too much area. Pre- falcon all the turrets were max range 2 and upgrades.

They should have stayed that way.

I'm not sure range 2 on the falcon would make that much difference - autothrusters trigger even at range 1 from turret fire.

Ultimately, I'm hoping that the change to phantoms should roll over into falcons. Phantoms are still good, but can be handled by a squad of 4-6 heavy fighters flown well, rather than turrets or your own PS9+ arc dodgers being compulsory. That same squad, which is now more practical to use, should be able to shoot the falcon up good and proper.

I feel that autothrusters are an admission that turrets should never have been able to attack at range 3 it's just too much area. Pre- falcon all the turrets were max range 2 and upgrades.

They should have stayed that way.

Don't forget the mighty mighty Hwk.

Also, guys! Come complain about how broken my list is, I'm pretty excited to have my ideas torn apart limb from limb, crushed into space debris.

sure thing bro

"1. Perhaps a Plasma-Ion Torpedo or similarly-unused-star-wars-missile-type that, when it hits, deals 1 damage and applies a token similar to Ions, but instead locks the defenders ability to fire to the front-arc only the next time it fires, then the token vanishes! Poof."

And if the opponent doesn't bring a turret ship? FFG's design philosophy doesn't use silver bullets: cards that brutally kill one thing but are deadweight if it doesn't show up.

"2. Or call it a Targeting Scrambler, stick it in a modification slot and it reads "discard this card at the start of combat. Until the end of the round,, you cannot be targeted by attacks that are not within the attackers front firing arc.""

Again, silver bullet.

"3. Alternatively, a card that says [Hit] results on attacks outside the primary firing arc may be rerolled by the defender! Take that, Fett!"

Silver bullet.

"4. Let the current 360 ships take the a y-wing BTL-like card that also adds a turret upgrade slot, so that they are encouraged to use their new-found pea-shooters out the front. "

Giving them another option doesn't weaken the original option. The only way to kill an option that way is to make the new option far better.

"5. Oooh, here's a good one. Add a card that says "While defending, if outside the defenders primary firing arc, if the attacker applies focus or rerolls any dice results, you may modify your defense dice in the same way" (apply focus, rerolls)"

Silver bullet.

"6. Perhaps a Targeting Misdirection weapon. This one's probably totally broken but check this Missile Slot weapon out: "If this attack hits, if the defender has not attacked this round, the defender must immediately declare an on you, if able. The defender cannot attack again this round."

I don't see the relation to turrets but a "tanking upgrade" like that could be interesting.

"7. This one's straightforward. Perhaps a pilot ability or modification that reads "When you are declared as the target of an attack, you may immediately perform a free barrel roll action before range is determined, then receive 1 Ion token."

Now we're talking. Remember that you couldn't use this if you'd already barrel rolled or are stressed though.

"8. I've focused a lot on the falcons, but decimators have turrets too! Decimator title or something, call it something cool like Energy Redirection: "When you perform an attack outside of your primary arc, you may cancel all dice results to recover 1 Shield. If you do, you may not attack again this round."

No gunner.. but you can still Vader and Tactician things!"

So it regenerates every time it misses? Not sure how that's meant to power it down.

"9. Here's another one for the decimator, kind of like the outrider title, it permanently effects the primary weapon: "Reduce your primary weapon to range 1 - 2. When performing an attack, you may reroll any [Focus] results. The first [Hit] cannot be cancelled by defense results."

Again, this makes it stronger, not weaker.

"10. Okay, I'm really reaching for some ideas now. Let's see... Maybe I can get one more for the decimator in there without breaking anything. Decimator title: "You cannot perform attacks outside of your primary firing arc. Once per round, when an enemy ship performs a movement that would cause it to overlap, you may immediately roll 3 attack dice. You and the defender suffer any [Hit] and [Crit] results." "

That'd just let the enemy suicide bomb you.

"11. YT1300-only modification. "When attacking at range 3, you may receive 1 stress token. If you do,if the attack hits, apply 1 Ion token to the defender and 1 Ion token to yourself.""

Again, that's a power up, not a power down. Not sure the Falcon needs help.

Some interesting ideas, some bad ideas, but mostly too specific.

Upgrades that target 1 specific type of ship or mechanic are generally difficult to balance as they're either great or useless.

Incidentally, that's why I think the "At Range 3" clause was added to Autothrusters. It was so the card had use in games that don't involve turret ships, and because it's something the players had a certain level of control about.

Well if nerfing Phantoms makes Fat Han less powerful somehow then maybe...

I feel that autothrusters are an admission that turrets should never have been able to attack at range 3 it's just too much area. Pre- falcon all the turrets were max range 2 and upgrades.

They should have stayed that way.

Autothrusters screw with EVERY attack at range 3 - not just out of arc turrets.

I nailed the "probably horrible" thing. Like I said up front, I don't think turrets are particularly OP, so I just wanted to generate ideas as a conversation starter since a lot of people seem to complain about turrets, I figured I'd throw my 2 cents in. For every good idea, there are 10 bad ones, so I might as well get them out and let others pick out any gold in there and not take offense when some of my ideas are just dumb. Everyone's got dumb ideas! I don't take any of my upgrade ideas too seriously, looking back, the Biggs-like upgrade is pretty much the only good one. The others could be modified in different ways but are either too specific or straight up dumb.

But what I would like to say, to all of you who posted so far. Thank you!

Had I posted something like this, just off the cuff brain dump of good-and-bad ideas, on any other forum about any other game, the thread would become a 10:1 ratio of personal attacks to actual constructive thinking.

I want to say thank you, to all of you, for being part of what makes this community great. No one went on the attack, against me or my ideas, they just offered their opinions and feedback, mostly heartily disagreeing, but everyone was polite and smart about it and that's awesome!

Thank you guys, not for responding to my ideas but for being generally decent people about it.

Thank you, also, for suffering through my excited brain dump. Special thanks to TIE Pilot, you had me nervous for a second but man, overall that made my day. This community man... you guys are the reason I keep blowing my paycheck on FFG stuff.