I'm not sure what formum section this should be under.

So I'm relatively new to the game and am having a hard time understanding the turret upgrades in the game. Looking at the Blaster Turret and the fact that it released with the HWK, I can see why the focus to fire requirement exists, however...

On the Y-Wing, Scum gets the R4 making it decent/usable, but the Rebels get nothing. I feel that, when equipped with Rebels the turret either shouldn't require a focus OR should be range 1-3. After all, it also makes no sense that the Rebels would equip all of their Y-Wings with ion turrets and, additionally, it makes no sense that a turret with a dedicated and trained gunner would use up a focus from the pilot that he would otherwise to evade. What is he doing? having a conversation about space pie with the pilot in the middle of a battle?(lel) The focus requirement on Scum I can go along with better since it fits the Scum feel, almost like the pilot is paying his gunner to man the turret.

Do you guys think we will see more turret upgrades or other upgrades that affect turret upgrades in the future? Some stuff like R4 for Scum but for rebels?

I guess the one benefit to the blaster turret is that it does cut down on the amount of turret shenanigans with rebels, but I hope the rebels get something that makes it at least work well when equipped along side the BTL-A4 title.

The blaster turret has always been considered a sub optimal turret. Even on a rebel HWK, you're looking at 7 points and two slots, since Recon Spec is basically a requirement to make it decent. On a scum HWK, it's the same thing - 7 points, but you do get your choice of Recon Spec or K4. The scum Y wings attempted to make it better with the R4, but it's still 6 points, action dependent, and you could just grab the title and use the focus on the first attack, and the TL on the ion attack.

Thankfully, the Twin Laser Turret will provide a usable non-ICT turret for all ships out there. It'll be even better on Horton, Kavil and HWKs with Predator. Heck, you might occasionally see Horton on the table now!

Khyros already explains the Blaster Turret.

It has never been considered a "good" turret and while the HWK could get additional upgrades to give it some use it still wasn't something you generally want to depend on. With the Recon Specialist and Crow title you may be able to bank enough Focus tokens before engaging to make the turret reliable but at that point you've already dumped a LOT of points into the ship for upgrades.

In an overall view the Blaster Turret often doesn't do any more damage than the Ion Cannon Turret. Yes, the Blaster has more potential but you spend a Focus to fire and not to modify which makes getting all of those favorable attack dice less likely and then you have the likelihood of your opponent negating some of those good results. When fired with that Focus the ICT is more likely to hit and even when it can only deal one damage the BT doing more is questionable.

I'll respectfully disagree with both of you. I entirely enjoy using the BT on either Rebel or Scum HWK or Y builds, and have good success with any of them.

I'll respectfully disagree with both of you. I entirely enjoy using the BT on either Rebel or Scum HWK or Y builds, and have good success with any of them.

Then congratulation to you.

I'd just note that many things can be enjoyable to use depending on your mindset and who/what you are playing. Having "good success" also depends on who/what you are facing while not removing the chance that your "good success" could be "great success" if something else were used.

I'll respectfully disagree with both of you. I entirely enjoy using the BT on either Rebel or Scum HWK or Y builds, and have good success with any of them.

If you have only one focus, the ion turret does more damage than the blaster (becuase you can spend it to increase hits).

I'll respectfully disagree with both of you. I entirely enjoy using the BT on either Rebel or Scum HWK or Y builds, and have good success with any of them.

If you have only one focus, the ion turret does more damage than the blaster (becuase you can spend it to increase hits).

This all depends on the set of data you look at. Using a small selection of random attack results and shooting at an easy to hit ship I can easily see the BT causing more damage than the ICT. Of course that is ignoring the bigger picture and those "random attack results" may have been on the high side to start with.

I'll respectfully disagree with both of you. I entirely enjoy using the BT on either Rebel or Scum HWK or Y builds, and have good success with any of them.

If you have only one focus, the ion turret does more damage than the blaster (becuase you can spend it to increase hits).

This all depends on the set of data you look at. Using a small selection of random attack results and shooting at an easy to hit ship I can easily see the BT causing more damage than the ICT. Of course that is ignoring the bigger picture and those "random attack results" may have been on the high side to start with.

The cutoff is agility 1. Against an agility 1 target, I would expect similar damage from a blaster vs a focussed ion.

For agility 0, you'd get slightly more raw damage out of a blaster but you don't ionize and it's less consistent, so any turn you don't roll 2+ damage, you'd have been better off with the ion as it's about 95% to hit an Agility 1 target and won't likely miss Ag 0. This also applies to agility 1 targets. You don't have to just hit with the blaster, you have to roll 2+ damage.

At agility 2+, the ion's just better. You also have the option to not use focus with the ion.

...snipped...

This all depends on the set of data you look at. ...

The cutoff is agility 1. Against an agility 1 target, I would expect similar damage from a blaster vs a focussed ion.

For agility 0, you'd get slightly more raw damage out of a blaster but you don't ionize and it's less consistent, so any turn you don't roll 2+ damage, you'd have been better off with the ion as it's about 95% to hit an Agility 1 target and won't likely miss Ag 0. This also applies to agility 1 targets. You don't have to just hit with the blaster, you have to roll 2+ damage.

At agility 2+, the ion's just better. You also have the option to not use focus with the ion.

That's looking at it through statistics which is the right way to do it.

If the dice never seem to roll eyeballs then the Blaster Turret goes up. If your opponent doesn't manage to cancel those dice then agility doesn't matter either. Here it is all about selective sampling where one is picking the data that most helps a given case while discarding everything else that would disprove it.

If I tell you I flipped a coin and got heads 10 times what does that mean? It means I either have a two headed coin, I didn't count the tails results because that's not what I'm looking for despite rolling 10+X times to get heads 10 time, maybe I figured out how to flip the coin so that it landed on heads much more often than it lands on tails, and finally it is possible I ran into that incredible string of random events that should happen 1 in 2^10 times.

I don't understand your point. If you think the calculation is wrong, please fix it.

I don't understand your point. If you think the calculation is wrong, please fix it.

My point is that some people may view the Blaster Turret through rose colored glasses. They may have their "science" that says it works good but that doesn't always mean their science is right.

For what it's worth I'll agree that even when capped at 1 point of maximum damage the ICT will often do as much damage as the BT will do in many cases.

I don't understand your point. If you think the calculation is wrong, please fix it.

My point is that some people may view the Blaster Turret through rose colored glasses. They may have their "science" that says it works good but that doesn't always mean their science is right.

For what it's worth I'll agree that even when capped at 1 point of maximum damage the ICT will often do as much damage as the BT will do in many cases.

BT performs well with supporting upgrades, but requires those supporting upgrades to perform well.

I have success with it, as Dracon suggests, from flying my supporting ships well, and have done it consistently since the HWK came out. I agree that the raw statistics of a single BT compared against a single ICT is not the best choice. However, we don't typically just bring one single BT to a fight without anything else to support it. The new ships that have come out with S&V have only amplified the effectiveness of the BT. Like any "good" build in this game, much of the success comes from being familiar with the relative strengths and weaknesses of your build, and being able to maximize and minimize those peaks and valleys. If someone just wants to math-wing a squadron build all day long, it doesn't mean they're automatically going to win every match. Familiarity counts.

It would help me to understand the issue if I saw some actual builds and tournament results for it. Everything works "good" in casual play.

To the OP: There is a lot of confusion right now in regards to the Y wing in this post-Disney age. Pre disney there were old Y's that came out towards the end of the Clone Wars. They had the top mounted cannon, but it wasnt a turret.
Then the rebels got a hold of them and added the second chair and the turrned the cannon into a turret. It was towards the end of the GCW, roughly after Hoth that they got their hands on the tech to make them Ion Turrets.

NOW: The Y wing has been flying since before VAder got his new clothes and the turret depend son who is flying the thing. No idea when in the new cannon they get the second seat or if it's controlled by the droid.

In anycase a crew slot on the Ywing would make it go from slightly imposing to a full on murder machine. In respect to the rebel X jocks that was not allowed to happen.

Ive only flown the Scum Y and the "Shock Bone" is really the only way I fly them. The ability to shock anything around you makes it way worth it.

That said, when it comes to turrets my rule of thumb is this: If it doesnt have more red than the primary, it needs to do something else to be worth it.

In anycase a crew slot on the Ywing would make it go from slightly imposing to a full on murder machine. In respect to the rebel X jocks that was not allowed to happen.

Ive only flown the Scum Y and the "Shock Bone" is really the only way I fly them. The ability to shock anything around you makes it way worth it.

Shock Bone?

Do you mean the Stress Bot (r3-a2) or one of the Bombs? There's no bomb named 'shock'.