I will say that Wave 7 is more of the wave of the turret secondary weapons more than it was the wave of bombs torpedoes or missiles.

I'm sure you've double-checked that, but I'd ask you to look again. Taking TLT and 3 dice against 2 Agility, with one focus token for the attacker and no focus token for the defender: I have the TLT doing 1.43 damage on average, and 3 Attack doing 1.53.

I have 1.537 damage from TLT and 1.531 damage from 3 primary.

In general, remember that TLT will not spend focus on offense if it already has hits+crits > defender AGI. In this case it doesn't matter though, since the defender has 2 AGI, so any eyeball on offense will automatically trigger a focus spend. It's worth doing this case manually to see what the numbers should be. No focus on defense makes it fairly easy to compute.

Attack #1:

[0.1606 0.8394]

Attack #1 has a 57.81% chance of spending focus. Auto-spend if an eyeball shows to ensure 1 damage, so chance of not spending it is simply (6/8)^3 = 42.19%.

Attack #2 with focus (same as above):

[0.1606 0.8394]

net weighted PDF:

[0.1606 0.8394] * (6/8)^3 = [0.0678 0.3541]

Attack #2 without focus:

[0.4063 0.5938]

net weighted PDF:

[0.4063 0.5938] * (1 - (6/8)^3) = [0.2349 0.3433]

Net PDF for 2nd attack considering both cases:

[0.3026 0.6974]

Here is the wrong way to calculate the net PDF for damage across two attacks:

conv ([0.1606 0.8394], [0.3026 0.6974]) = [0.0486 0.3660 0.5854]

NOTE: this PDF is wrong because it assumes the 2nd attack is independent of the first. Because of the focus spend option this is untrue. However for calculating the average damage the answer should be correct.

Total average damage = [0.0486 0.3660 0.5854]*transpose(0:2) = 1.5368.

The actual correct PDF is given by my scripts as:

[0.0409 0.3814 0.5776]

Calculating the average damage from the correct PDF, you get:

[0.0409 0.3814 0.5776]*transpose(0:2) = 1.5368

... which checks with the above manually calculated average damage. So, my scripts appear to be correct for this case. My scripts also handle more complex cases, such as the attacker and defender having an arbitrary number of focus tokens, the attacker intentionally saving the focus on attack if it already has more hits+crits than the defender AGI, and conversely the defender holding onto focus if it won't bring the damage to 0.

Second, it offers incredibly reliable damage (although not always a lot of it). It typically does less damage than a normal attack with 3 dice, but it's much less likely to miss entirely.

I'm still working on the analysis before I make a comprehensive post, but I felt it important to interject a very important point here that directly contradicts something you have said here (bolded). I am not aware of anyone else who has yet done all of the pre-requisite math correctly to reach this conclusion:

At range 2, if the defender does not have AutoThrusters, the TLT does more average damage than 3 base attack dice for most permutations of defense dice, defender action economy, and attacker action economy.

It is not only an issue of the TLT having a low variance in damage: the expected damage of TLT is greater than having 3 attack dice. The only time when 3 attack dice does more damage than TLT is when the attacker has focus, and the defender does not have focus, and the defender AGI is 3+. Even then, the difference is relatively small (6% vs AGI3, 12% vs AGI4) . In most permutations at range 2 the average damage from TLT is closer to ATT4 than it is to ATT3. If the defender has focus and the attacker does not, then TLT is within spitting distance of ATT4 regardless of the defender's AGI (1.75 compared to 2.0 vs AGI0, down to 0.316 compared to 0.326 vs AGI4).

Primary weapons gain their advantage at range 1, but if you use the "typical" range bin and action economy distribution that I have been using in my MathWing thread, and allow the TLT to always have a shot (no range 1 hole), then the TLT still does about 5% to 9% more damage than ATT3 even with the primary weapon's bonus at range 1.

To put it in perspective, a PS2 Y-wing with TLT has a jousting efficiency of about 89%. That's absurdly good for having a turret, even one that has a range 1 hole.

TL;DR: TLT is even more scary than Vorpal thinks it is! Fly against it haphazardly at your own peril!

My girlfriend who hardly plays at all beat me up with 3 hwks with tlt. Use with caution.

I'm sure you've double-checked that, but I'd ask you to look again. Taking TLT and 3 dice against 2 Agility, with one focus token for the attacker and no focus token for the defender: I have the TLT doing 1.43 damage on average, and 3 Attack doing 1.53.

I have 1.537 damage from TLT and 1.531 damage from 3 primary.

In general, remember that TLT will not spend focus on offense if it already has hits+crits > defender AGI. In this case it doesn't matter though, since the defender has 2 AGI, so any eyeball on offense will automatically trigger a focus spend. It's worth doing this case manually to see what the numbers should be. No focus on defense makes it fairly easy to compute.

Attack #1:

[0.1606 0.8394]

Attack #1 has a 57.81% chance of spending focus. Auto-spend if an eyeball shows to ensure 1 damage, so chance of not spending it is simply (6/8)^3 = 42.19%.

Attack #2 with focus (same as above):

[0.1606 0.8394]

net weighted PDF:

[0.1606 0.8394] * (6/8)^3 = [0.0678 0.3541]

Attack #2 without focus:

[0.4063 0.5938]

net weighted PDF:

[0.4063 0.5938] * (1 - (6/8)^3) = [0.2349 0.3433]

Net PDF for 2nd attack considering both cases:

[0.3026 0.6974]

Here is the wrong way to calculate the net PDF for damage across two attacks:

conv ([0.1606 0.8394], [0.3026 0.6974]) = [0.0486 0.3660 0.5854]

NOTE: this PDF is wrong because it assumes the 2nd attack is independent of the first. Because of the focus spend option this is untrue. However for calculating the average damage the answer should be correct.

Total average damage = [0.0486 0.3660 0.5854]*transpose(0:2) = 1.5368.

The actual correct PDF is given by my scripts as:

[0.0409 0.3814 0.5776]

Calculating the average damage from the correct PDF, you get:

[0.0409 0.3814 0.5776]*transpose(0:2) = 1.5368

... which checks with the above manually calculated average damage. So, my scripts appear to be correct for this case. My scripts also handle more complex cases, such as the attacker and defender having an arbitrary number of focus tokens, the attacker intentionally saving the focus on attack if it already has more hits+crits than the defender AGI, and conversely the defender holding onto focus if it won't bring the damage to 0.

I also initially thought it wasn't that great. But now I know its much better than we think it is. I feel with MJ's numbers. I feel it averages about 1.5 hits every shot.

1.5 damage through.

Though, this is a low amount of sample size for me.

Just gimmie the **** TIE Aggressor so I can have them too!

Just gimmie the **** TIE Aggressor so I can have them too!

Surely you mean the Skipray, no?

(I'll admit, the Aggressor has grown on me a bit)

While I'm a bit scared of using the triple A list to joust with Y-Wings running TLT, Hawks are another matter. Five forward, target lock. Is Tycho at range one*? If not, boost. If so, focus and procket. Collect skulls of enemies.

*Er, my understanding is that when you declare a lock you get to check range even if, by eyeballing it, it's totally obvious you've got it. Is that correct? If not, that changes things.

Surely you mean the Skipray, no?

Not unless they started calling it the TIE Skipray and I missed it.

A TIE Advanced with no shields and a turret slot(possibly no Missile slot either depending on whether they follow the SWG version, or the FFG RPG version)? Probably be the cheapest turret you can get!

My old original YT-2400 build with Lone Wolf and Flight Instructor is going to be dusted off and have a list built around him.

(and maybe Counter Measures? Or was it stealth device?)

Oh! Maybe Luke with lonewolf instead, and then the agility droid and stealth device or a regenerator droid

Then their is Istbalm with jammers and rerolling dice, huh, e-wings would love this too.

Do jammers just come in the shuttle packs? Also, how does ruthless interact with twin laser turret? does it trigger once or twice?

Does anyone think that a single TLT in list (say, Jan Ors) requires any special consideration, or do you just treat them like a regular turret?

Totally!

I think support HWK's will now be a thing given that most of their abilities are range 2 or 3, so they can stay far enough away from the furball, while still helping out their allies. Throwing a TLT or two into a list will also have a place, I don't think it's something you need to spam to be effective.

Alright. So if this is such a great upgrade, do we think FFG has screwed up and created another phantom-level meta breaker that is going to need to be nerfed (which will be a lot harder with this than it was with the phantom itself)?

Alright. So if this is such a great upgrade, do we think FFG has screwed up and created another phantom-level meta breaker that is going to need to be nerfed (which will be a lot harder with this than it was with the phantom itself)?

No

Interceptors will beat TLT. Once people learn how to fly them and come up with Tactics.

I honestly remain a little puzzled why they're not straight-up 7 or possibly even 8pts. The extra point wouldn't ruin a Gold, but it might just affect what you can pack in the list with them.

They're usually pretty conservative; I wonder why they weren't this time? As has been noted, if they're too good, they're going to be a heck of a lot harder to dislodge from the meta than the Phantoms were. Their rules are simple and their edge is in raw efficiency.

Now, I'm not an expert in any way shape or form, so please feel free to shoot me down in flames.

TLT's are going to be dangerous; however, as has been pointed out previously in this thread they're predominately going to be on ships with mediocre dials. The way I'm going to try and fly against them is to kill the dials even more by flying a tank at them, Connor Nets for total control and Cluster or Proximity Mines for boxing them in.

Scum Kath

Adrenaline Rush, Slave 1, Extra Munitions, Connor Net, Recon Specialist.

Fly her straight at the TLT, K-turn, lose Adrenaline Rush, Drop first Connor Net, If you're in Range 1 that's a 5 dice ass shot on top of control.

Against four flying in formation, she'll die pretty quickly, but against one or two, she'll hold her own, and her big base will let her close very quickly, and stay close.

Might work

Cheers

Baaa

Sensor Jammer will be useful, but probably not on AGI 1 stuff. The 3 dice will still probably get through, in that case.

Second, it offers incredibly reliable damage (although not always a lot of it). It typically does less damage than a normal attack with 3 dice, but it's much less likely to miss entirely.

Primary weapons gain their advantage at range 1, but if you use the "typical" range bin and action economy distribution that I have been using in my MathWing thread, and allow the TLT to always have a shot (no range 1 hole), then the TLT still does about 5% to 9% more damage than ATT3 even with the primary weapon's bonus at range 1.

To put it in perspective, a PS2 Y-wing with TLT has a jousting efficiency of about 89%. That's absurdly good for having a turret, even one that has a range 1 hole.

TL;DR: TLT is even more scary than Vorpal thinks it is! Fly against it haphazardly at your own peril!

Not to be Captain Obvious here, but clearly this means that to win a player can't grant TLTs the typical range band.

I'm very grateful right now that the budget TLT carriers have pretty crummy dials.

Ultimately, i think the deciding factor will not be whether you can counter mass TLT (because i'm sure some builds will do that very well), but how much it limits the overall squad choices available in the Meta.

Please remember that this was the actual core issue with the Phantom - you could always counter the Phantom (something like a PS11 Han was as much a hard counter as it gets), but when building any squad you always had to account for countering the Phantom and with certain squad choices it was almost impossible to do so (say, Biggs walks the dogs or any list without high ps ships that can reposition).

So with all that being said - i dont think FFG wants a meta that is centered around mass TLT and counter-lists to mass TLT (how boring would that be?`), they have always proclaimed that their goal is for the players to have as many viable options as possible. So if the TLT pushes all but a couple builds out of the meta (like the Phantom did), i'm carefully optimistic that they will take the appropriate steps to fix the situation.

What steps are there to take, though? It's a terribly simple card.

The real fix would've been costing it more to start with.

Right now, I have a few squads that I think are decent vs TLT that I don't feel too bad about against established meta stuff, but I haven't had the opportunity to test them. I agree that meta imbalance is a major concern, and I think an extra point or on the card wouldn't have made it bad.

Also, how does ruthless interact with twin laser turret? does it trigger once or twice?

Ruthless would trigger twice. In light of this, I doubt Imperials will ever see a turret upgrade; at least not on a ship that has an Elite Pilot Upgrade. The combo would be brutal.

Alright. So if this is such a great upgrade, do we think FFG has screwed up and created another phantom-level meta breaker that is going to need to be nerfed (which will be a lot harder with this than it was with the phantom itself)?

Personally, I think FFG made a mistake with the range band on TLTs. It should have been 1-2 like the other turrets.

I like the Xizor swarm as a counter to the TLT spam. Tlt's don't much like z95s. The prince with his autothrusters, ps 7-9 and re positioning abilities is guaranteed to survive to the endgame. That should be very winnable.

I like the Xizor swarm as a counter to the TLT spam. Tlt's don't much like z95s. The prince with his autothrusters, ps 7-9 and re positioning abilities is guaranteed to survive to the endgame. That should be very winnable.

Xizor passes on results not damage. Weapons like Ion Canons, Ion Turrets, and TLT cancel dice and then do damage. Xizor will melt to TLTs as his ability will not save him. The Z95 swarm should do well though.

I like the Xizor swarm as a counter to the TLT spam. Tlt's don't much like z95s. The prince with his autothrusters, ps 7-9 and re positioning abilities is guaranteed to survive to the endgame. That should be very winnable.

Xizor passes on results not damage. Weapons like Ion Canons, Ion Turrets, and TLT cancel dice and then do damage. Xizor will melt to TLTs as his ability will not save him. The Z95 swarm should do well though.

Oh, ****. Back to the drawing board.

I like the Xizor swarm as a counter to the TLT spam. Tlt's don't much like z95s. The prince with his autothrusters, ps 7-9 and re positioning abilities is guaranteed to survive to the endgame. That should be very winnable.

Xizor passes on results not damage. Weapons like Ion Canons, Ion Turrets, and TLT cancel dice and then do damage. Xizor will melt to TLTs as his ability will not save him. The Z95 swarm should do well though.

Yes, but the prince can use system jammer, autothrusters, had 3 agility dice, and enough post dial movement options to exploit the donut hole.

He will be fine.