Biggs forces your target. you have to shoot him in favour of a better or easier target.(typically better)

in MMO terms he is the tank that gets all the aggro.

He was nerfed a little for epic.

Yeah, but he's just in an X Wing. That's not a lot of tanking ability. I can see it being useful if you want to pull some heat off a damaged or valuable ship, but surely it's very difficult to keep Biggs alive long enough to be useful when every enemy ship HAS to shoot at him?

You have to pair Biggs with other glass cannons, and then keep Biggs in the back so that you have a better attack range profile than your opponent. Paul Heaver has a couple of great articles on it, that I believe are in the pinned index thread.

Biggs forces your target. you have to shoot him in favour of a better or easier target.(typically better)

in MMO terms he is the tank that gets all the aggro.

He was nerfed a little for epic.

Yeah, but he's just in an X Wing. That's not a lot of tanking ability. I can see it being useful if you want to pull some heat off a damaged or valuable ship, but surely it's very difficult to keep Biggs alive long enough to be useful when every enemy ship HAS to shoot at him?

You have to pair Biggs with other glass cannons, and then keep Biggs in the back so that you have a better attack range profile than your opponent. Paul Heaver has a couple of great articles on it, that I believe are in the pinned index thread.

I wouldn't call the B-wings in Biggs Walks the Daggs and Heaver's Designated Driver list glass cannons.

I wouldn't call the B-wings in Biggs Walks the Daggs and Heaver's Designated Driver list glass cannons.

If the B-wings are at range 1-2 and Biggs is at range 2-3, then actually the B-wings will in fact be the bigger glass cannons in those rounds despite their overall higher durability.

Hmm. Is it worth giving him upgrades to improve his survivability?

Hmm. Is it worth giving him upgrades to improve his survivability?

Not really, even Hull Upgrade isn't quite cost effective enough since he already has 5 hit points. He'll die anyway, so don't waste more points in him.

I wouldn't call the B-wings in Biggs Walks the Daggs and Heaver's Designated Driver list glass cannons.

If the B-wings are at range 1-2 and Biggs is at range 2-3, then actually the B-wings will in fact be the bigger glass cannons in those rounds despite their overall higher durability.

I wouldn't call the B-wings in Biggs Walks the Daggs and Heaver's Designated Driver list glass cannons.

They totally totally are (to an extent)

8 health is nice because it won't get green diced and it's great value for the price, but it is not uncommon for them to go down in 3 throws of shooting

HLCs will almost always rip them in half and they will get mulched by swarms of ties. B-wings are nice and chewy (certainly far better than the X-wing) but they aren't what I'd call "particularly difficult to kill." That title is more deserved for ships with guaranteed damage negation independent of their stat-line (Fat Han being the obvious, disgusting example, but also someone like evade + thruster Soontir or ability + thruster Xizor ).

Biggs w/R4-D6 can mitigate both issues. HLCs will take 3 rounds of fire to get through him and Ties will patter against him (sometimes) at range 3.

Now whether or not that's worth it is up to the player. As has been pointed out, he is in an X-wing and thus holds the B-wings back a bit.

What are you talking about? My only post above was in response to:

"There's, there's **** lies and then there's statistics."

The questions you ask (and more importantly, don't ask), the data you choose to use and the manner you analyze it can produce different results. I wasn't part of the infinity discussion.

That said, I'm not exactly sure where you were going with your point? It seemed like a general jab at MathWing, I was trying to point out that it's fundamentally got more in common with Newtonian physics than statistical analysis. Maybe you just meant that we can't tell anything from tournament results - not sure.

I haven't looked at MathWing, but if there are assumptions (how could there not be?), then they would affect the result. The specific example I'm curious about is how a single X-Wing and a single B-Wing compare in survivability. Your initial comparison of their survivability used the assumption against a 2-attack ship with no modifiers. Different assumptions (3-attack ship or focus for defense) produce different results.

I think in my spare time I might be able to compute this, using napkin math as was insulted earlier. I'm curious to see myself how the two ships compare given various assumptions.

Your initial comparison of their survivability used the assumption against a 2-attack ship with no modifiers.

I haven't been following this argument too closely, so I could be wrong here but....

I believe the post to which you are referring was his reply to your question of "why isn't it just a straight 3/8 chance" or something to that effect. He posted the example with 2 attack dice to show how the calculation was more complex than you were suggesting, with the implication that the full calculation involved doing the same thing (that he did with the 2 dice without focus attack) with every possible permutation possible in the game and then synthesizing all this results.

Your initial comparison of their survivability used the assumption against a 2-attack ship with no modifiers.

I haven't been following this argument too closely, so I could be wrong here but....

I believe the post to which you are referring was his reply to your question of "why isn't it just a straight 3/8 chance" or something to that effect. He posted the example with 2 attack dice to show how the calculation was more complex than you were suggesting, with the implication that the full calculation involved doing the same thing (that he did with the 2 dice without focus attack) with every possible permutation possible in the game and then synthesizing all this results.

That's what I was referring to. I enjoyed learning why a straight 3/8 chance doesn't apply, but it wasn't apparent to me that his example was anything more than a comparison against a 2-attack ship with no modifiers.

Edit: It did raise this issue that mathematical assumptions matter.

Edit 2: The reason that the straight 3/8 chance doesn't apply is because the X-Wing wastes green dice, but by my calculations the B-Wing wastes more against 2-attack ships. That was never addressed. I suspect that disparity in the X-Wing's favor grows when you consider 3-attack ships and/or focus for defense. I think I can prove it with math many people can understand and verify.

I haven't looked at MathWing, but if there are assumptions (how could there not be?), then they would affect the result.

Yup. It's all spelled out.

I suspect that disparity in the X-Wing's favor grows when you consider 3-attack ships and/or focus for defense. I think I can prove it with math many people can understand and verify.

Relative durability is meta-dependent (also addressed), so when there are lots of attack dice flying around, the low-agility high hull ships do better relative to high agility low hit point ships.

I suspect that disparity in the X-Wing's favor grows when you consider 3-attack ships and/or focus for defense. I think I can prove it with math many people can understand and verify.

Relative durability is meta-dependent (also addressed), so when there are lots of attack dice flying around, the low-agility high hull ships do better relative to high agility low hit point ships.

What do you mean by "meta dependent"?

It should also be noted that in an ordered list of each ship's durability, rarely will changing attacker composition change rank unless their durabilities are quite close to begin with.

...granted that may be because Horton Salm is simply a badass...

Just wanted to let you know I'm adding this to my sig

I suspect that disparity in the X-Wing's favor grows when you consider 3-attack ships and/or focus for defense. I think I can prove it with math many people can understand and verify.

Relative durability is meta-dependent (also addressed), so when there are lots of attack dice flying around, the low-agility high hull ships do better relative to high agility low hit point ships.

What do you mean by "meta dependent"?

Lots of little attacks (ie. swarm heavy meta) = high agility ships do better, high health ships do worse.

Small number of big attacks (ie. two-ship heavy meta) = high health ships do better, high agility ships do worse.

I suspect that disparity in the X-Wing's favor grows when you consider 3-attack ships and/or focus for defense. I think I can prove it with math many people can understand and verify.

Relative durability is meta-dependent (also addressed), so when there are lots of attack dice flying around, the low-agility high hull ships do better relative to high agility low hit point ships.

What do you mean by "meta dependent"?

Since no one has really broken down MJ's work, I'll take a stab at it.

Essentially, jousting value as defined by MJ is the effectiveness of a given statline (attack/agility/shields/hull) relative to other statlines. For the purpose of putting point values, he has chosen the standard TIE being valued at 12 points as being the standard, and there are good reasons for this. Everything is then compared to this and the effectiveness at jousting (i.e. trading shots back and forth with no dodging) comes out to a relative point value. The equivalent PS1 pilot of a given ship (1PS = 1 point) is estimated and relative jousting effectiveness can be estimated from there.

Because Xwing dice rolls are always opposed, MJ has to compare a given ship's offense and defense versus opposing defense and offense, and some assumptions have to be made. Estimations on proportions of opposing ships, ranges, and probability of having a focus go into his calcs. The assumptions are in the MathWing thread's 3rd post under "Calculating Expected Damage Output" and "Calculating Expected Durability". Overall, these assumptions are very reasonable and MJ has spend a lot of time calibrating his assumptions to tournament results. In my opinion, the two aforementioned parts of MajorJuggler's explanations are the most important to understanding where the numbers come from.

It is important to remember that the joust model is assuming jousting combat, which obviously is not representative of every engagement. MJ has stated as much and in his work has included "efficiency" and "required efficiency" numbers which indicate how much better a ship needs to be flown than its statline to "break even". Interceptors are a good example of where joust value is not great but we know that they can be flown to be more efficient than mere jousters. MJ has a second, more complicated, point prediction model designed address some of these issues. I won't get into the second model, suffice to say that necessitates quite a bit more assumption and MJ has done a lot of work to calibrate it against tournament showings.

I suspect that disparity in the X-Wing's favor grows when you consider 3-attack ships and/or focus for defense. I think I can prove it with math many people can understand and verify.

Relative durability is meta-dependent (also addressed), so when there are lots of attack dice flying around, the low-agility high hull ships do better relative to high agility low hit point ships.

What do you mean by "meta dependent"?

Lots of little attacks (ie. swarm heavy meta) = high agility ships do better, high health ships do worse.

Small number of big attacks (ie. two-ship heavy meta) = high health ships do better, high agility ships do worse.

In that case it's irrelevant to what I want to look at. I only care about the defense values of the X- and B-Wing and their health. The assumption in the calculations I wish to perform is that neither will ever fire a shot against their 2- or 3-attack foes.

How about an astromech that adds an evade token after a green was performed?

So the same mechanics like R2-D2 but less squad points.

i like that. could be really useful. focus on def for 2 die kinda welp.

By "situational" I mean the card is only useful when the situation is having a target lock on the guy you want to hit, are okay with not having rerolls or a focus, and he isn't able to scoot out of the Advanced's arc. The TIE/A ain't exactly the most nimble fighter and while I agree you're almost obliged to take the upgrade whenever you take a TIE/A my question remains: does the fix make you want to take the ship more often? Is it suddenly more viable now compared to other Imperial options? Is everyone satisfied with the way it works?

Since no one has really broken down MJ's work, I'll take a stab at it.

...

The equivalent PS1 pilot of a given ship (1PS = 1 point) is estimated and relative jousting effectiveness can be estimated from there.

...

That's basically it, except I use a more well-rounded and accurate PS progression than 1 point = 1 PS.

By "situational" I mean the card is only useful when the situation is having a target lock on the guy you want to hit, are okay with not having rerolls or a focus, and he isn't able to scoot out of the Advanced's arc. The TIE/A ain't exactly the most nimble fighter and while I agree you're almost obliged to take the upgrade whenever you take a TIE/A my question remains: does the fix make you want to take the ship more often? Is it suddenly more viable now compared to other Imperial options? Is everyone satisfied with the way it works?

"The Advanced fix" is only partially the Advanced Targeting Computer. The fix is the TIE/X1 title. As you say, the ATC is situational - there are lists and pilots who'll run it better than others (VaderVaderVaderVaderVaderVader). For stuff like the generic Tempest Squadrons you're likely better off slapping something else in the System slot - probably Accuracy Corrector most of the time, although I've seen people arguing the efficacy of Advanced Sensors or Sensor Jammer for certain roles.

I guess I'm not a fan of spending that many points on something with two red dice, personal preference maybe.

With Advanced Targeting Computer on Vader, those 2 red dice will be putting out almost TIE Phantom levels of damage.

I guess I'm not a fan of spending that many points on something with two red dice, personal preference maybe.

That is, of course, the beauty of the title for the Advanced. If you use Advanced Targeting Computer, you are, in fact, upping it to a 3 attack ship while you have a target lock. If you go the Accuracy Corrector route, your attack rolls are largely irrelevant; every attack generates 2 hits.

Both the Adv Targeting Computer and Accuracy Corrector effectively do the same thing, which is very powerful in X-Wing.

They remove random chance from things to one degree or another. That's what makes C-3PO so popular.

With one you're getting 1 crit every attack, the other lets you always get 2 hits.