Just an idea sparked from another thread .

If you aren't familiar with the TIE Experimental Project , It's a bunch of, well, experimental TIE fighter designs from Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance.

The thing is, a lot of these TIEs are just extra parts slapped onto preexisting TIEs. Making them perfect for Title cards.

Here's a few possibilities:

TIE Experimental M2 :

TIE Experimental M3 :

TIE Experimental M5 :

There is also an M1 and an M4 as well. But the M1 isn't really just a simple modification to another ship's design. And the M4 would require a completely new type of action to represent it's ability.

Edit: Made up some cards.

No offense, but those cards all suck. Fluffy maybe, but all of them actually make the ship worse. SLAM isn't useful on a TIE, sure you can move lots, but can't shoot (maybe useful on a Defender), ordnance sucks and you want to trade 3 red attack dice for the ability to pay for missiles to be able to attack (and only twice per game, also the Interceptor can' even fire the missiles as you have worded the card since they lack Target Lock), and gaining an attack dice, but setting yourself up to be one shot before you ever get to shoot (there is a reason there are no 2 agility ships with 3 hull).

Did you forget the bit where these all give you a points discount? Because nobody is taking any of those cards without a steep discount.

Bear in mind I'm not against the idea in general, just that these aren't actual improvements to the ships in question. You need to get rid of the negatives and just charge appropriate points for them. TIE fighter only title: +1 attack dice, 4 pts. Now you have a budget Interceptor, seems ok at minimum 16 points, Backstabber and Mauler would love it. Make it unique so you can't spam them.

Edit: Another approach would be to make them more powerful and incorporate them into a mission rather than trying to add them to the game using titles. I think there is a prototype in one of the games missions, maybe the Imperial Aces one.

No offense, but those cards all suck. Fluffy maybe, but all of them actually make the ship worse.

No offense taken. I made them to be accurate to the lore, not to be competitive.

And none of those ships were particularly threatening in Alliance.

I didn't bother pointing them out at all. But now that you mention it, Title cards that cost negative points because they make the ship worse are a fun idea.

You know what. Fair enough. I'll go ahead and change them. I'm not going to try and figure out points cost though.

Just an idea sparked from another thread .

If you aren't familiar with the TIE Experimental Project , It's a bunch of, well, experimental TIE fighter designs from Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance.

The thing is, a lot of these TIEs are just extra parts slapped onto preexisting TIEs. Making them perfect for Title cards.

Go over a couple of possibilities here.

____________________________________________________________________

The TIE Experimental M2 .

Title Card: TIE Fighter only . Increase this ship's weapon value by 1.

____________________________________________________________________

The TIE Experimental M3 .

Title Card: TIE Interceptor only. This ship gains the Missile upgrade.

(Targeting Computer mod would be required to use most missiles).

____________________________________________________________________

The TIE Experimental M5 .

Title Card: TIE Fighter only. This ship gains the SLAM action.

____________________________________________________________________

There is also an M1 and an M4 as well. But the M1 isn't really just a simple modification to another ship's design. And the M4 would require a completely new type of action to represent it's ability.

Its kinda cool. The M3 I would change though. Regular TIE Interceptors could have multipurpose launchers attached too them. They could carry 12 concussion missiles or Torps, 6 Rockets, or 4-2 Bombs. Carrying these launchers didn't hamper the capabilities of the Interceptor.

To make the M3 more unique than just an Interceptor with missiles, I would give the M3 2-4 missile slots and ammunition false safe, or whatever its called, the upgrade that allows you to keep your missile if you failed to hit a target.

Regular TIE Interceptors could have multipurpose launchers attached too them. They could carry 12 concussion missiles or Torps, 6 Rockets, or 4-2 Bombs.

Granted, but that's true of pretty much every ship in TIE Fighter. But in this game, ships simply don't use multipurpose launchers.

Interceptors with Prockets would be nasty, and no target locks required.

Updated the original post with cards.

They feel a bit like upgrades rather than wildly experimental TIEs. Which is great if it's what you're going for, but for me it's evoking a Royal Guard TIE flat upgrade rather than the mad-scientist feel of the TIE Experimental Project.

If I were to try to design a set of TIE experimentals for a scenario or casual game I'd want to evoke the feel of the things as much as possible. These ships were strange, unusual and a little off the wall, and they always had the shuttle full of remote piloting stations hanging around the peripherals.

So my starting point would either be the Lambda or the Decimator, and a Large Ship Only double Crew Slot upgrade that mimics the ATR's remote control suite. This upgrade allows use of the TIE experimentals (either by equipping titles to generic TIEs or using their own upgrade cards), but they also all die if the shuttle/Decimator goes down: their pilots are dead. This setback significantly subsidies the TIEs, allowing us to go a bit wild with their abilities if we want to. We could even have the TIE experimentals as pilot cards rather than titles with no point cost: they're provided by the upgraded Shutte/Decimator and deploy with it at the start of the game.

This remote piloting also has a second effect: I'd have them react differently to stress and ion.

When ionized, they get disconnected from the transport's signals (this is how you capture them in the campaign after all, with Ion Pulse Missiles). Having ion be an OHK for them's a bit over the top, especially considering killing the transport kills them too. I'd represent it by having them lose their action when ionised too: they're completely disabled.

Stress is their main strength, and here's the craziest (but hopefully most thematic) of my suggestions: TIE experimentals discard all stress tokens they receive like a Huge ship: they can't be stressed. It's called Pilot Stress after all, and the pilots are all sitting in a nearby transport in their RC "cockpits". However, if the transport is stressed, so are all the TIE experimentals! In brief, they ignore stress tokens assigned to them but treat all stress tokens on their controlling transport as if they were their own.

I'd build some mockup cards to demonstrate, but I killed my wrist today and I've got a bit of a headache so I'm not quite up to translating all this into rules speak.

I get what you're saying. These upgrades are not nearly as accurate to the lore as they could be. But making them correctly seems really complicated(it took you, like, 4 paragraphs to explain how it works).

Instead, I just went for a simple "What did this design add to the original ship?" and implemented it as simply as possible.

I get what you're saying. These upgrades are not nearly as accurate to the lore as they could be. But making them correctly seems really complicated(it took you, like, 4 paragraphs to explain how it works).

True, but I tend to take longer than I have to to explain something when I'm making it up as I go along. Making it elegant would be the challenge.

Here's a ten minute crack at it.

UPGRADE CARD

"Sardis Control System"

Unique, Imperial Only

Crew Crew

Choose and equip up to four title cards named "TIE experimental" to friendly ships. They are slaved to this ship.

REFERENCE CARD

Slaved Ships

Some cards instruct you to slave a ship to another ship. Slaved Ships follow a number of special rules.

• A slaved ship cannot perform actions while it has at least one Ion token assigned to it.
• A slaved ship cannot receive stress tokens and immediately discards any that would be assigned to it.
• When a ship has at least stress token (ie: it is stressed) all ships slaved to it are also considered stressed and therefore cannot perform actions or execute red maneuvers.
• When a ship is removed from play, all ships slaved to it are instantly destroyed.

TITLE CARDS

These are designed the same way as yours ¹ , except they have no point cost, like Nashtah Pup and the Phantom title card.

1: By this I mean title cards bound to the closest approximation only. That means TIE fighter only for the M1, M2 and M4, Interceptor for the M3 and Advanced for the M4. M4'd have to be pretty good to make up for TIE/x1. Explosively good.

1: By this I mean title cards bound to the closest approximation only. That means TIE fighter only for the M1, M2 and M4, Interceptor for the M3 and Advanced for the M4. M4'd have to be pretty good to make up for TIE/x1. Explosively good.

Wookieepedia says the wings of the M4 come from a TIE Bomber, not an Advanced. They basically removed the pilot pod, and replaced the ordnance pod with one giant bomb.

True, but which model's a closer aesthetic match?

True, but which model's a closer aesthetic match?

Well, the Advanced, but like you said, nobody would exchange an Advanced for that.

It's definitely closer to the Bomber than the Fighter.

Depends how good the TIE bomb's buff was.

"When an enemy ship executes a maneuver that overlaps your ship, you may choose to be immediately destroyed. Assign faceup damage cards equal to your hull value minus your hull damage to the enemy ship."

Depends how good the TIE bomb's buff was.

"When an enemy ship executes a maneuver that overlaps your ship, you may choose to be immediately destroyed. Assign faceup damage cards equal to your hull value minus your hull damage to the enemy ship."

Eh, it's a bomb, not just ramming damage, so I don't think it taking damage would lower the amount of damage it does. You either shoot down a bomb before it hits you, or you don't.

But yeah, some kind of SUPER crazy Proton Bomb effect seems pretty good.

Also needs some kind of text about how it can't make attacks. Since it has no guns, missiles, bombs, etc. But it does have a huge booster. So it either gains the Boost or SLAM actions.

SLAM with a forward 5? I'd probably restrict it to Boost. More likely I'd trade out the Barrel Roll for Boost. They don't maneuver too well. (That being said, TIE defender with SLAM would be amazing).

"You cannot perform attacks. Your action bar gains the BOOST action."

When an enemy ship executes a maneuver that overlaps your ship, you may immediately destroy your ship and assign faceup damage cards equal to your hull value to the enemy ship."

Well, I'm still using the Bomber as the base rather than the Advanced. The Bomber doesn't have a forward 5.

Well yeah, cause you could just make a white K-turn twice, which would be like making a 0 move.

It'd also cost you your attack. I was thinking more 4 straight 4 K for the ultimate disengage. Koiogran 9.

Make sure to give it Hull Upgrade for +1 damage?

That's the plan.

Not part of the Experimental line, but I felt like whipping up Title cards for a few of the other obscure TIE Fighter variants. Figured this was as good a place as any to post them.

Ground Targeting TIE

Fire Control TIE

I think the crew slot "pilots" is a nice idea. My one concern is that it then gets too close to "two aces and palpatine", which is not exactly an uncommon squad - unless you can afford two shuttles with a couple of experimental drones each, but I suspect making it unique makes more sense.

Of course, the fact that the ship going down loses you the game makes this far more of an issue - a sensor jammer or reinforced deflectors is almost mandatory, as is an engine upgrade, as running the !!!!! away with the shuttle is the order of the day.

Should the titles specify "you may not equip this upgrade to unique pilots"?

The Big Gun, Warhead and Booster are nice ships - I'd stick with SLAM on the booster, because "just" boost doesn't really do much more for you than an interceptor. The Warhead could take a targeting computer, but could still probably use something to help with target locks. Letting an experimental use tokens assigned to the control ship would help a lot; ST-321 and a weapons engineer, for example, costs 6 points but essentially gives a pair of TIE Warheads long range scanners without the downsides and leaves their mod slots free for guidance chips. Equally, a recon specialist gives focus tokens for other TIEs.

I'd actually be inclined to do it that way, to highlight the difference with slaved ships:

• Slaved ships may not perform the focus, evade, or target lock actions. However, they may use focus, evade and blue target lock tokens assigned to their control ship.
• Slaved ships may immediately discard any stress tokens which they receive.

The TIE Experimental BigGun's additional weapons were a pair of turbolasers, if I remember right? I think it might be more appropriate to remove its primary weapon and give it a (discounted) cannon slot.

The TIE Warhead also had shields, if I remember right. Giving it two missile slots gives it a decent punch, but allows it to use its interceptor dial, boost and barrel roll, whilst someone else goes to the trouble of setting up target locks for it.

The TIE Booster also, also had shields. But yeah, it's main party piece is the option of a speed 5 SLAM, or "what the actual !!!!!!" as it's also known. Or, if you really want to scare someone, straight 4, SLAM koiogran 4, and use advanced SLAM to barrel roll in behind someone!

I'd actually be inclined to do it that way, to highlight the difference with slaved ships:

• Slaved ships may not perform the focus, evade, or target lock actions. However, they may use focus, evade and blue target lock tokens assigned to their control ship.
• Slaved ships may immediately discard any stress tokens which they receive.

Relying on control ship actions encourages the player to use fewer rather than more aces, encouraging the Pseudo Palpatine problem you illustrated. I'd lean towards encouraging a near swarm of these things around their control ship than just one or two.

I'd redefine Slaved as thus:

REFERENCE CARD

Slaved Ships

Some Upgrade Cards, such as Sardis Control System instruct you to slave ships to other ships. Slaved Ships follow a number of special rules.

• Only ships equipped with a Remote upgrade card can be slaved.
• If a ship equipped with a Remote Upgrade card is ever not slaved to a ship on the battlefield it is immediately destroyed.
• A slaved ship cannot perform actions while it has at least one Ion token assigned to it.
• A slaved ship cannot receive stress tokens and immediately discards any that would be assigned to it.
• When a ship has at least stress token (ie: it is stressed) all ships slaved to it are also considered stressed and therefore cannot perform actions or execute red maneuvers.
• Slaved ships cannot equip EPT upgrade cards.

The EPT restriction prevents insane stress-free TIE experimental aces and encourages generics and lesser seen low cost named pilots. Lorrir could make for a very interesting Warhead pilot, as could Cowall.

One way to encourage more Experimentals (with the associated risk of losing all of them if you lose the control ship) is a setup like Extra Munitions, where having more ordnance is more efficient per additional ordnance upgrade.

For example, a redesigned Sardis Control System with a hefty flat cost. Currently at 5 because that's the minimum that prevents equipping to a TIE shuttle, but it could potentially go as high as 10 depending on the power of the TIE experimentals. Essentially you'd tune the incentive for more ships by raising the cost of one and lowering the cost of the other.

Then we have our TIE experimentals. I went for the crazy side on the abilities: I wanted them to be odd.

The TIE fighter titles can be very cheap in cost without breaking the game because the minimum cost of the control ship is 26 points: you'll be fielding a maximum of six Experimentals if your control ship is an otherwise naked Lambda and you go with the cheapest named pilots.

My original design emulated the Epic format's turbolaser with four dice and agility doubling. However, six of those running around in Standard Dogfight could push anything 1 agility or less out of the format. Instead I went with a slightly more than bonus attack die to represent its turbolaser: it's got about 3.5 attack dice. The unwieldlyness of the weapon is represented by its reverse-Inquistor ability, which has the secondary effect of making it prefer to fight at Range 3: it benefits in no way from getting closer.

Powerwise, I think this is one of the weaker titles, and one I might consider costing negatively/improving the turbolaser depending on how it performs.

Everything the Heavy Scyk was not. I'd consider putting this one at a positive point cost to prevent Mangler/HLC spam with it. The cannon was also a little dull, so I gave the damage cannons recoil.

I'd consider giving it an agility debuff if I don't raise the cost on it.

Gives a TIE interceptor an ordnance slot and two extra shots. Scary procket platform but capable with anything you slap on it. I debuffed the primary as a balancing measure/to make Prockets a little less autoinclude, but I phrased it such that Guidance Chips still adds crits.

Cost based on three proton bombs. Because a 15 pt flying proton bomb is what this essentially is. Might ramp the contact damage up to three and the radial damage to two given this costs the same as three proton bombs without EM, or discount it all the way down to 12 points. Depends on how easy it is to use.

Ain't stopping for nobody. Unless it hits a rock and skips its Perform Action step. It's better than SLAM. It's SUUUUPER SLAAAAM. Setback is you have to do it, although maneuver-barrel-maneuver could be hilarious.

And to stop your control ship dying to focus fire too easily:

The M3 should probably be costed, I'd slap that on Soontir so quickly. Free targeting computers and Prockets would be absurd on him as well.

Soontir with no EPT though.

I see the part about the primary weapon decrease which I did not read the first time, not sure how that affects prockets though. I also don't see the bit about no EPT.

Reference card for ship slaving.