I just want one prequel or clone wars ship. I don't know if I can handle another wave that includes obscure EU ships. And I don't want sequel ships just yet. Since the hounds tooth has clone wars pilots I'm hoping it's a good sign.

Well... we have the Z-95 and the Y-wing, those ships are from the clone war era, but... Yes, I would like the ARC-170 for example, or Jedi Fighters

I'm hoping wave 8 throws a prequel movie ship at us, namely the V-wing. Not hoping Too much of course. And the only reason I am hoping at all is to see if all the people who said they'd leave the game if prequel stuff was in it really meant it. As a social experiment in intrigued by the data it could produce.

For game play purposes though I'm hoping for a sick new rebel fighter. Or a old dogs style Y-wing and Z95 aces pack

It's the only Prequel ship I want in the game. The V-wing is a cool ship, but it's definitely not at the top of my priorities.

What is the general consensus from the group regarding a possible Aces release (or two...)?

I'm hoping wave 8 throws a prequel movie ship at us, namely the V-wing. Not hoping Too much of course. And the only reason I am hoping at all is to see if all the people who said they'd leave the game if prequel stuff was in it really meant it. As a social experiment in intrigued by the data it could produce.

For game play purposes though I'm hoping for a sick new rebel fighter. Or a old dogs style Y-wing and Z95 aces pack

It's the only Prequel ship I want in the game. The V-wing is a cool ship, but it's definitely not at the top of my priorities.

What is the general consensus from the group regarding a possible Aces release (or two...)?

Based on this thread and a few others over the last couple of weeks, the consensus seems to be "maybe!"

I agree that they'd need to ensure it isn't just another TIE Advanced, however.

I like the notion of letting the maneuver dial create and upgrade bar create some of this separation.

Personally, I think it would be cool if the Avenger followed the Defender's example of a dial that does something really interesting(like S-Loops, or maybe even...white S-Loops), but lacks green banks.

In that way, it becomes another ship with a crazy maneuver, that makes good use of the Mk. II Ion Engine.

I recently replayed that mission in TIE Fighter were you fight waves of Harkov's TIE Avengers in your TIE Avenger. Geez, I hate the movility of those a$$holes. You put yourself at their 6:00, and one second later, they have turned on a dime and you have them fleeing away at your own 8:00.

In this game, they should get a white 1-turn, but that they perform by putting the near end of the template on the left or right side of their base, like if they were about to do a barrel roll, but then ending the maneuver as usual. It would be the first ship with negative movement.

The thing with the TIE Avenger is that there's really not a lot of space between the TIE Advanced x1 and the TIE Defender, in terms of this game's stats. It'd have 3 attack, 3 manuever, 3 hull, and 2 shields? It'd have a missile upgrade, and that's it. That's only one gun upgrade and one shield lower than the TIE Defender, or one attack higher than the TIE Advanced x1. It'd have the manueverability of a TIE Interceptor, I guess? Which the TIE Defender should have had in the first place... which would be more useful than one shield, making the TIE Avenger possibly as expensive as the TIE Defender...? Which makes no sense. Besides, the TIE Defender should have had a better manuever dial than the TIE Interceptor, but it wasn't given that due to balance. I dunno, it just seems like there's no place for the TIE Avenger in this game.

Just like that's no place for the YT-2000; it's too close to the YT-1300 in terms of gameplay.

I want the XG-1, of course. It's a way more common ship in the Empire than the TIE Advanced x1, or TIE Avenger, or TIE Defender. It looks cool, and it'd play uniquely for the Empire.

I've heard some people mention the TIE Hunter. Now this... this is what I've been wanting for a while. Yes, the game it came from wasn't all that great, but stats-wise it'd be unique for this game. 2 attack, 3 manuever, 2 hull, 1 shield. Maybe even 1 hull and 1 shield. Those things just exploded if you looked at them the wrong way in Rebel Strike, but they had weak shields when you played as one, so yeah. The shield would protect it from a bad crit in this game. The kicker? It'd have a gun upgrade (for the canon Ion Cannons) and one or two torpedo upgrades (12 torpedoes from one launcher in the game), and the manuever dial of a TIE Interceptor. Is it.. a bomber? A fighter? Whatever it is, it wouldn't play much like any other TIEs. Plus, it looks really cool.

I'd like to see the Stinger for Scum. Guri's personal transport, with an Ion Cannon turret and some forward-facing lasers. Could be really cool. But we just got IG-2000 and Hound's Tooth recently, so probably not... They should go with another high-quality fighter for the Scum faction, since it has a few cheap ships already. I guess they need a high-end bomber, don't they? So... they could share the Skipray Blastboat with Imperials. It's from the classic Thrawn trilogy AFAIK, and featured in not only X-Wing: Alliance, but also Forces of Corruption. Scum shares a bunch of ships with the Rebels, so why not share a ship with the Imperials?

For Rebels... Rogue Shadow? Because why not? It'd be funny having young Juno Eclipse vs slightly-older Juno Eclipse battles. It's got three pilots ready to go: Proxy, Starkiller, and Juno Eclipse. And it has a cloaking device, but in a different size class from the TIE Phantom. The only real downside is AFAIK it's a completely unique ship. Even if there were more, the Rebels wouldn't have access to them unless they reverse-engineered the ship.

So the fourth ship...? I gotta go with the Scurrg, because they can reuse the model.

1) TIE Hunter or XG-1 Assault Gunboat AKA Starwing - Empire

2) Skipray Blastboat - Scum and Empire

3) Rogue Shadow - Rebel

4) Scurrg - Scum (and Rebel?)

I think I'm going to stick with a aces pack(or other combo pack deal thing) with at least the y wing in it as my prediction. And the Gozanti cruiser as my second prediction. And the V-wing as my hope. I only say the V because I think it would be the least disruptive to the games current aesthetic. Other prequel ship's might have to wait for other sequel ship's to pave the way in aesthetics.

I dunno, it just seems like there's no place for the TIE Avenger in this game.

Fortunately, the entire idea that there are "places" in the game that are filled in and can't overlap is a purely fan-created concept that doesn't actually exist!

I'd like to see the Stinger for Scum. Guri's personal transport, with an Ion Cannon turret and some forward-facing lasers. Could be really cool. But we just got IG-2000 and Hound's Tooth recently, so probably not... They should go with another high-quality fighter for the Scum faction, since it has a few cheap ships already. I guess they need a high-end bomber, don't they? So... they could share the Skipray Blastboat with Imperials. It's from the classic Thrawn trilogy AFAIK, and featured in not only X-Wing: Alliance, but also Forces of Corruption. Scum shares a bunch of ships with the Rebels, so why not share a ship with the Imperials?

As much as I'd love to see the Surronian Stinger, it's almost guaranteed not in, since FFG has been adamant in both design and interviews about not duplicating pilots within the same faction. Skipray I could see, it's definitely got the pilots to work as Imp/Scum and it's one of the few places we could get Mara as a pilot.

I dunno, it just seems like there's no place for the TIE Avenger in this game.

Fortunately, the entire idea that there are "places" in the game that have to be filled but can't overlap is a purely fan-created concept that doesn't really exist!

If that's what it takes for you to sleep at night.

The cool part is, they will surely announce Ep. 7 intentions at GenCon. I think!

As Tipperary pointed out, Wave 8 was already mostly done by February 2014, so though it's possible, I doubt Ep7 stuff will be in Wave 8.

Could be an aces type thing maybe, though I'd be perfectly content if Ep7 ships never happened.

They're making a wierd assumption that FFG started the wave as usual and then slotted EpVII stuff into place when they got access. I'm not convinced that would work, contrary to popular belief most abilities /are/ highly thematic and not the easiest to swap between pilots, and I don't know how long their modeling process takes, but I sort of doubt it only takes up a little bit of the end of the dev cycle.

I'm not.

The script was written and filming finished last year. There are at least two named Rebel pilots already revealed/widely known. Lucas film would be able to provide ample info on said pilots to inform FFG's pilot ability decisions. As to the Empire if there aren't any "named" Empire pilots in the movie, I'm sure FFG could come up with some "whisper" and "echo" style names...

3D modelling of a ship takes 2-3 weeks (c.f. Team Covenant interview with the model designer). The necessary info for the models (for the "main" ships) would have been available long ago if only as a byproduct of CG modelling and Actual modelling required for the movie. Christian Petersen mentioned that certain licensees had been nervous about pre-production prototypes being visible in the FFG offices (c.f. Last year's In Flight report). So, the models could/should have been done long ago...

They have had ample time to produce at the very least the "iconic" Episode VII ships and pilots... an 18 month cycle to release (say, Christmas), puts them starting half way through last year - half way through the shooting of the film (script and life sized TIE and X-Wing models in place).

I don't think it is unreasonable to assume that we will be seeing at least the "iconic" ships announced ... models only - stats (and spoiler) free...

This December there's an awfully huge bandwagon to be on, and I'm sure FFG is not going to miss it (boats permitting)

I hope to see a new ship with the cloacking action and another with the slam action.

And, something like a space station or a fixed game element.

I dunno, it just seems like there's no place for the TIE Avenger in this game.

Fortunately, the entire idea that there are "places" in the game that are filled in and can't overlap is a purely fan-created concept that doesn't actually exist!

It's not that they can't, but that they probably wont. FFG wants to sell ships. If a ship is released whose role is totally done before by another previously released ship, they won't sell many of the new ship, except for those people that want the whole collection or like the new model better. Or if they do better than the other ship, then they will stop selling the old ship. Neither is a good situation, as FFG is trying to keep all ships relevant.

I sincerely cannot clearly say what the Avenger should be better at than the Defender, when looking at the source game. At no point in the game I thought "I am piloting this T/D. Man I wish I would be piloting the Avenger instead".

The only way they had to make the Avenger relevant in the later games (XvT and XWA) was to basically remove the Defender from the game.

I dunno, it just seems like there's no place for the TIE Avenger in this game.

Fortunately, the entire idea that there are "places" in the game that are filled in and can't overlap is a purely fan-created concept that doesn't actually exist!

Even more fortunately, the game designers are aware that stacking multiple ships into the same role on the tabletop is a terrible idea.

-Imperial Aces 2: Elite Craft-

Tie Avenger

Title (Tie Intercepter only) (Cannot be combined with Royal Guard tie)

Add a system slot

Defender X7

Title (Tie Defender only)

+1 Shield, +1 hull

At the start of your turn, if you have a face up Ship crit, flip it face down.

Scum Aces (Scyk and Starviper)

Aces packs have never been a wave in their own right. Categorically they fall in between waves.

An Aces pack plus a wave of 2-4 ships would be best and fits their standard progression.

True, but they've also really started to hit the bottom of the barrel. If it were a choice of putting out an aces pack to 'fix' some of the lesser used ships (X Wing, Defender) or some more obscure EU ships that no one has ever heard of, I know which I'd be doing.

True, but they've also really started to hit the bottom of the barrel. If it were a choice of putting out an aces pack to 'fix' some of the lesser used ships (X Wing, Defender) or some more obscure EU ships that no one has ever heard of, I know which I'd be doing.

Alex Davy said at one point that he wanted to do an E-Wing/Defender ace pack, it /might/ be possible to sneak an X-Wing fix into that even if it's not an astromech.

Personally I sort of expect the X-wing fix to be in a Rogue Squadron pack with 2 different X-wing paintjobs and a LOT of pilots, though.

I dunno, it just seems like there's no place for the TIE Avenger in this game.

Fortunately, the entire idea that there are "places" in the game that are filled in and can't overlap is a purely fan-created concept that doesn't actually exist!

I believe he's referring to FFG's design philosophy.

Look at the TIE defender. It has red turns, originally just had straight banks and has very few action economy options. It can't fly like a TIE interceptor at all.

But canonically, was the TIE defender not a heavily, better TIE interceptor? A more expensive improvement on the TIE interceptor model? TIE Fighter had it going Interceptor -> Avenger -> Defender in flat out improvement.

Also contrast Bomber and Punisher. The Punisher is a bigger bomber, but they've gone to great lengths in dial and actions to make them different ships rather than more powerful versions of one another. The Outrider and the Falcon are both YT freighters and the YT could easily have been a baby Falcon. Instead it was designed to be clearly different, right down to having a turreted cannon and only one crew slot (equivalent to the TIE phantom) instead of a PWT. The VT-49 was meant to be an Imperial Falcon, but they made it fly like a brick.

FFG wants each ship to be unique and fill its own design space: they don't want to make a ship that you could make from another with one or two basic upgrade cards.

This is where the concern about the TIE avenger lies. None of us have any idea how you'd design it without making it an upstatted or downstated TIE advanced, TIE interceptor, TIE phantom or TIE defender. Whether or not FFG make an Avenger depends on how close they're willing to get to the Interceptor in their design.

The path of least resistance there is to make another ship that's distinct.

Personally I sort of expect the X-wing fix to be in a Rogue Squadron pack with 2 different X-wing paintjobs and a LOT of pilots, though.

That's what I'm hoping we get tomorrow

I really don't care if the TIE Avenger overlaps the design space of the Advanced or Interceptor. I still want it. I remember it... I flew it... I loved it. I can't say the same about the TIE Punisher, or any other TIE variant they might release. The TIE Avenger and Assault Gunboat are now the only Imperial ships I have any interest in from a nostalgia point of view, and nostalgia helps sales.

Similarly, I remember blasting apart Rebel R-41 Starchasers and T-Wings back in the day, which is why I would rather see those released for the Rebels than any other ship. Even if there is some crossover between them and the Z-95 and A-Wing.

So, my wishlisting for Wave 8 is:

Assault Gunboat

T-Wing

Punishing One

and for Wave 9:

TIE Avenger

R-41 Starchaser

Mist Hunter

Presumably at least one of those waves will also have an additional un-pronounceable Scum ship that I've never heard of.

FFG does care, though, and has to care, for the good of the game.

A support ship aces pack containing a Shuttle and an HWK, which would provide something for all factions.

SCUM: G1-A Starfighter & Jumpmaster 5000.

Imperials: XG-1 Assault Gunboat

Rebels: YT-2000

Gozanti Cruises for Imperial Epic

Action VI Transport for Scum & Villany Epic

Scum & Villany Aces - Dunelizard & Vaksai (New variants for Heavy Scyk & Kirahxz)

I mean, I know that's what people want. But I'd still feel a little bad for the other factions.

You think so? I think it's a rubbish name. I had this same argument over on the Star Citizen forums about the names of some Aegis ships like the Retaliator and their own Avenger. Both names imlpy that you've had a defeat, that you're on the backfoot.

I don't think the Empire can spin the destruction of the Death Star as anything other than a defeat. No matter how good your propaganda machine is.

And since that's specifically the defeat that the Avenger gets it's nickname from, it's a pretty apt moniker.

Certainly it's a defeat, I wouldn't propose spinning it as something else, I'd propose not drawing attention to it.

Anybody else having trouble deleting parts of quotes on the forum these days? I wanted to just quote the bit relevant to my comment, but when I delete the rest of the sub-quotes their titles remain. In fact, I'll do it so you can see what I mean.

UPDATE: When posted, it's actually changed - very confusing.

SCUM: G1-A Starfighter & Jumpmaster 5000.

Imperials: XG-1 Assault Gunboat

Rebels: YT-2000

Gozanti Cruises for Imperial Epic

Action VI Transport for Scum & Villany Epic

Scum & Villany Aces - Dunelizard & Vaksai (New variants for Heavy Scyk & Kirahxz)

I think YT-2000 would be more suitable for scum, and also the three factions would have a 360º main weapon fire ship

SCUM: G1-A Starfighter & Jumpmaster 5000.

Imperials: XG-1 Assault Gunboat

Rebels: YT-2000