So, generally speaking, in the fiction, torpedoes and missiles in Star Wars serve different purposes.

Missiles tend to be fast and agile and are meant to be used against other starfighters. While Torpedoes are generally slower, but much more powerful. Meant to be used to take out capitol ships.

In the miniatures game, that distinction doesn't seem to exist. There are torpedoes with short range, high damage. Ones with long range, lower damage. There are missiles with short range high damage, and ones with longer range lower damage. And everything in between.

There doesn't seem to be any distinction between what Missiles do, and what Torpedoes do.

So my question is, why bother with the hardpoint distinction in the game rules? If both weapon types serve the same roles, why isn't there just a single Ordnance slot instead?

basically it's a way for FFG to stop certain ships from having access to certain missiles or torps.

My group uses special rules for them as follows:

Its mostly because the core set came out with only small ships and they included proton torpedoes because they are iconic.

Engine Upgrade Vessery with Advanced Proton Torpedoes would be a nasty, nasty man.

I don't even know why there is ordnance in this game, so don't ask me the difference between two types of useless equipment.

I think eagletsi had the right idea. It provides design flexibility to create different ordnance that can only slot into certain ships.

This is kind of a tangent, but I kind of wish they'd done how these weapons worked differently.

Basically, I wish each warhead type contained two different weapon values. One for hitting, and one for dealing damage. Normal weapon values are for your lasercannons, and they represent you blasting a bunch of shots at your enemy, hitting with some, missing with others. But with warheads, you're just shooting a single warhead, which either hits, or it doesn't. So it either does all of it's damage, or none.

The idea is that, when firing a warhead, the first weapon value is to hit. You roll it, your enemy rolls their agility value, and as long as you score a single hit after subtracting their evasions, then the warhead has hit, and you move on to the next step.

In the second step, you roll the warheads 2nd weapon value, and that deals damage to the ship, that the defender doesn't get to roll his agility against.

So, for example, a Concussion Missile, which is fast and agile, but doesn't deal a ton of damage, would have a To Hit Attack Value of 4, and a Damage Attack Value of 3. Making it difficult to avoid but only moderately damaging,

While a Proton Torpedo, which is slow, but powerful, might have a To Hit Attack Value of 2, and a Damage Attack Value of 5.

I think this would have been a much more accurate portrayal of these weapons.

I still think a solid potential fix for ordnance is to issue two new rule cards for Torpedo Secondary Weapons and for Missile Secondary Weapons.

TSW: When you declare an attack with a Torpedo Secondary Weapon, if the target is a Large ship it gains +1 defensive die, and if it is a Small ship it gains +2 defensive dice. After the attack has resolved, deal two face down damage cards for every uncancelled [hit] result and two face up damage cards for every uncancelled [critical hit] result.

MSW: When you declare an attack with a Missile Secondary Weapon, reduce the target's defense by 2 to a minimum of 0.

Or something to that effect. It'd pretty radically change the power of most ordnance, while further defining the roles that each type is intended to fulfill. Missiles hit more easily, but torpedoes pack a bigger punch, especially against big, slow targets.

I am _always_ game for a "how to fix ordnance" discussion.

A large part of the problem with ordnance is that when list building, we don't know what we'll be facing. Assault missiles are phenomenal when facing an 8 Tie Swarm, and awful when facing a Decimator/Phantom combo. Ion missiles are good against Huge ships, but kinda mediocre against Large ships, and a waste against Small ships.

None of that even takes price into consideration.

The other issue is that we have to build a list around using ordnance. Ideally, I'd put a missile onto a ship that I wanted to run anyway- maybe to add some punch to a Defender or A-Wing or Tie Advanced... You see the problem?

Torpedoes have other issues, many of which boil down to action economy- that Target Lock is precious, and spending it without modifying any dice is going to make the ROI on torpedoes even lower. Letting me reroll any 1 die whenever I spend a TL would go a long way to making them more viable.

The problem with ordnance is it is harder to hit with then conventional weapons, and it's barely more damage than a normal attack anyways, not to mention a point sink.

I think an FAQ is needed that goes a little something like this:

When attacking with missiles, the defender reduces his agility by 1. If the attacker scores any hits, then cancel all dice results and deal two damage to the defender.

When attacking with torpedoes, the defender adds 1 agility. If the attacker scores any hits, then cancel all dice results and deal four damage to the defender.

The idea being that the red dice vs green dice roll off represents whether or not the target ship manages to evade the incoming ordnance, with missiles being harder to evade than torpedoes. And if the ordnance hits, then it hits and does the same effect regardless of how many red dice score hits. If a Proton Torpedo hits a TIE fighter, that thing is gonna explode. No if-s, not but-s. The rules don't currently reflect that.

basically it's a way for FFG to stop certain ships from having access to certain missiles or torps.

...

Basically this. It was known that X-wing can have proton torpedoes but A-wings can only have concussion missiles. So to separate them was to make certain ships like the X-wing can't carry weapons that were made for the A-wing. It also made for greater faction distinctiveness (if they were a viable upgrade). The Imperial has more ships that can carry missiles and even a ship that can carry double missiles. The Rebels had more ships with torpedo upgrades.

As far as game-play well to each it own. On average the missiles have the better effects over torpedoes, but not by much and obviously not enough to be taken in any builds. The 2 default proton torpedoes were better at getting more crits where as concussion missiles if prepared with focus+TL were likely to get more hits. Torpedoes have a greater cost range with lowest being 2 while the highest being 6, missiles have less range with lowest being 3 and highest being 5. There is also more different missile upgrades than torpedo upgrades, also more different types of ships can carry missiles than torpedoes.

So there in a nutshell is all the differences between missile upgrades and torpedo upgrades.

So I guess it is best to not talk to you about anything other than Han, Whisper, RA Ch, and Aggressor because according to you everything else is useless and might as well not be in this game. There will always be this min-maxing and finding out what works well and what doesn't but just because something doesn't work doesn't mean that there isn't anything to be learned from it. In a matter of fact finding out why missiles and torpedoes (and bombs) are not very effective helps you figure out what will be useful in the coming up waves and even helps designers make additions to the game that can fix mechanics to where they are working as intended.

basically it's a way for FFG to stop certain ships from having access to certain missiles or torps.

Right. But what's the point of there's no significant gameplay difference between the two.

It was known that X-wing can have proton torpedoes but A-wings can only have concussion missiles.

A lot of the games that this game draws inspiration from have had that not to be the case though.

Games like TIE Fighter and Star Wars Galaxies where you can choose what type of warhead is loaded into your ordnance slots.

I don't even know why there is ordnance in this game, so don't ask me the difference between two types of useless equipment.

Because the Death Star's exhaust port was ray-shielded...duh.

I use ordnance (which is different than ord i nance, little known fact I recently learned) in lots of homebrew games. Ray-shielded targets make for especially fun missions, and it really gives A-Wings a chance to shine.

Regarding the missiles vs torpedos, I think it was just for variety as well as an extra layer of balance. In the current lineup, I don't think there are any serious issues if Torpedo/Missile only ships got the opposite set of upgrades, but I do like knowing that the extra balance is there.

So, generally speaking, in the fiction, torpedoes and missiles in Star Wars serve different purposes.

Missiles tend to be fast and agile and are meant to be used against other starfighters. While Torpedoes are generally slower, but much more powerful. Meant to be used to take out capitol ships.

In the miniatures game, that distinction doesn't seem to exist. There are torpedoes with short range, high damage. Ones with long range, lower damage. There are missiles with short range high damage, and ones with longer range lower damage. And everything in between.

There doesn't seem to be any distinction between what Missiles do, and what Torpedoes do.

So my question is, why bother with the hardpoint distinction in the game rules? If both weapon types serve the same roles, why isn't there just a single Ordinance slot instead?

S.md