I was musing randomly about the almost never used missile slot on the YT series, and something occurred to me. Autothrusters are a big time counter to turrets, especially on super dodgers like Soontir Fel. The easy response is to keep them in arc. This is obviously easier said than done, and 3 dice even in arc aren't going to easily damage some ship like that. You need some heavier punch to set up a shot that matters.

Is this where Missiles could come in? Concussion or Homing would probably work the best in this role. There would be two strategies to employ them. One would be to go for front-loaded damage to try and get an early edge on some target. The difference in damage between Missile and a Primary can be significant. The second strategy would be to stack actions over a couple of turns so when you fire, you're pretty sure to be hitting the target with a Focus/TL Missile shot. YTs have the health to set up a shot if needed. Worst case scenario is that you're up against something where high numbers of dice aren't needed. In that case, you're still getting a boosted 4-dice shot at range 3, which is one extra red and one less green than normal, so it's not completely wasted.

HLC Outrider obviously doesn't want this, except to fill the range 1 gap with Prockets. Mangler Outrider might be ablessing to get some use, but probably not. Eaden Vrill might use a Missile for a initial engagements when Stress isn't happening. The 1300s all seem like itcould be beneficial.

Anyway, this is all just musings, others might have better ideas.

Ordnance is still not fixed even though turrets have become less powerful. A Concussion Missile only rolls 2.68 <booms> on average, Homing is 3 <booms>. Let's assume you're Han moving at PS9 after everyone else and getting a TL isn't a problem. But now you've spent 4/5 points for not much extra umph over the standard 2.25 <booms>. To take R3 into account, we'll look at a 3 agi ship.

3TL vs. 4F agi = .54 damage

Conc vs. 3F agi = .91 damage

Homing vs 3F agi = 1.23 damage

So, you're paying 4 points for a .43 damage increase, or .1dmg/pt for the concussions. For the homing, it's a bit better of a return at .14dmg/pt.

However, when compared to other ways to spend points, these severely fall short. Each time a Mangler makes a R3 shot, it does .29 extra damage, or .0725 extra damage. Two range 3 shots means that the Mangler's R3 bonus denial by itself is better than either missile, completely ignoring the <kaboom> effect (assuming a base 3attack as well). HLC does .125dmg/point for each R3 shot, and .084dmg/pt for each R2 shot it takes. In other words, it's significantly better than either ordnance. Heck, even predator adds .09dmg/pt at R3 for each shot.

Now I realize that the YT-1300 doesn't have a cannon slot, and the EPT might be spent somewhere else already, but the math (as well as actual experience) just doesn't support the use of non-Procket ordnance.

For reference, a FTL TIE/x1 Procket shot does .44dmg/pt, and an A wing FTL Procket shot does .267dmg/pt. So in order to get the same point return from an HLC, it would have to take 3 R2 shots to be the same value as the Procket on an A wing, which is a reasonable amount of shots to expect from an HLC (unless it's an Aggressor, in which case it's probably more than 3).

IDK, I think those AoE missiles would be a nice augment for an opening attack.

I understand it's not at all efficient, it just gives you tools to do things you might struggle with otherwise. Say you take a Homing Missile and use it first turn against a Stealth/Autothruster Soontir Fel. That 3 hits (probably 4 if you have a Focus, also Han's ability and probably Predator to consider) that ignores an Evade token is way more likely break Soontir's Stealth Device than a 3-attack in arc Primary. The current option with a conventional Fat Han is to try and block Soontir with a Z-95 or just try to win on time. I don't know what you'd drop to put some missiles in, but the ability to spike damage is going to be really useful against Soontir Fel.

If I were to do it, it would be with a homing missile. It actually have decent chance of breaking the stealth Device Soontir, since homing missile keep the target lock and prevent the use of the evade token. So, if you can set so that you also have a focus, your expected damage is 1.29; 4 att+focus+TL vs 4 def+focus, and that's not taking crits into account.

Question is, is it really worth 5 points?

If I were to do it, it would be with a homing missile. It actually have decent chance of breaking the stealth Device Soontir, since homing missile keep the target lock and prevent the use of the evade token. So, if you can set so that you also have a focus, your expected damage is 1.29; 4 att+focus+TL vs 4 def+focus, and that's not taking crits into account.

Question is, is it really worth 5 points?

Considering the threat Soontir is, yes.

Back when Swarms were the anti-Fat Han, I never understood why he didn't take an Assault Missile. Han gets to re-roll a bad die and all he has to do is get one hit in.

I've never played it, but Prockets on an HLC Outrider cuts off 25% of the donut hole. Plus since they are the easiest ordinance to fire off and will still be 4 dice from a 2400, seems like in theory it may be worth the 3 points.

I wish auto-thrusters were a counter to turrets rather than just something that curbs their stupidity enough to make Tie Interceptors viable in the same game

anyway, the answer right now is "nope." That's a universal truth across all missile slots apart from Refit and prockets once in a blue moon.

I believe a thread from a while ago had an interview with a Dev that said Wave 7 would be ordinance focused, so you may see use for those slots yet

No matter what you do, do not use proton rockets on a YT-1300.