A Starviper with the title, advanced sensor, the cloak and S-Loop... it hurts my brain just thinking of where it could end up!

I'm excited for it as well! The high PS ships like Talonbane or Xizor will have fun using this to get into good position.

It is also hilariously thematic for a group of bandits to have a second rate, malfunctioning cloaking device!

You are not the only one unreasonably excited for the illicit Cloaking Device, OP.

I imagine one of the Zuckuss/4LOM pilot or crew cards will remove the need to roll for cloak failure (probably the lower PS pilot card).

But adding that bad boy upgrade on to some of Scum's finest - say N'dru Suhlak, Talonbane Cobra or Emon Azzameen - will provide hours of hilarity.

I don't think any of the crew/pilot cards will remove the roll for cloak failure. I think they built that failure chance into the card very intentionally, and adding new cards that bypass the limitation is a poor design choice.

Plus, I remember Alex saying in his most recent interview that the 4-LOM pilot card would be another Scum "troll" card, possibly in the vein of Palob Godalhi.

You are not the only one unreasonably excited for the illicit Cloaking Device, OP.

I imagine one of the Zuckuss/4LOM pilot or crew cards will remove the need to roll for cloak failure (probably the lower PS pilot card).

But adding that bad boy upgrade on to some of Scum's finest - say N'dru Suhlak, Talonbane Cobra or Emon Azzameen - will provide hours of hilarity.

I don't think any of the crew/pilot cards will remove the roll for cloak failure. I think they built that failure chance into the card very intentionally, and adding new cards that bypass the limitation is a poor design choice.

I disagree, that would be an interesting design choice. It would be an upgrade that can be used on multiple ships but has a built in limitation that keeps it from being a balance nightmare in the future. It's a decent upgrade for the price, but nothing that you can really build a list around. Adding a pilot or a crew with the ability to mitigate the failure in some way allows players to pay an opportunity cost to get something more useful.

Something like this would be an interesting crew:

Shug Ninx (Unique 3 pt. Crew)

Scum Only

When an Illicit Upgrade instructs you to discard it, turn it face down instead. Effects of face down cards are ignored.

Action: Turn a face down Illicit Upgrade face up, then receive a stress token.

I'm not sure if 3 points is the right price but it gives ships with crew slots the ability to get more mileage out of their disposable Illicit Upgrades. If anything, I think I might have gone too high since it fills a crew slot, requires an action to use, and stresses.

You are not the only one unreasonably excited for the illicit Cloaking Device, OP.

I imagine one of the Zuckuss/4LOM pilot or crew cards will remove the need to roll for cloak failure (probably the lower PS pilot card).

But adding that bad boy upgrade on to some of Scum's finest - say N'dru Suhlak, Talonbane Cobra or Emon Azzameen - will provide hours of hilarity.

I don't think any of the crew/pilot cards will remove the roll for cloak failure. I think they built that failure chance into the card very intentionally, and adding new cards that bypass the limitation is a poor design choice.

I disagree, that would be an interesting design choice. It would be an upgrade that can be used on multiple ships but has a built in limitation that keeps it from being a balance nightmare in the future. It's a decent upgrade for the price, but nothing that you can really build a list around. Adding a pilot or a crew with the ability to mitigate the failure in some way allows players to pay an opportunity cost to get something more useful.

Something like this would be an interesting crew:Shug Ninx (Unique 3 pt. Crew)Scum Only

When an Illicit Upgrade instructs you to discard it, turn it face down instead. Effects of face down cards are ignored.

Action: Turn a face down Illicit Upgrade face up, then receive a stress token.

I'm not sure if 3 points is the right price but it gives ships with crew slots the ability to get more mileage out of their disposable Illicit Upgrades. If anything, I think I might have gone too high since it fills a crew slot, requires an action to use, and stresses.

You are not the only one unreasonably excited for the illicit Cloaking Device, OP.

I imagine one of the Zuckuss/4LOM pilot or crew cards will remove the need to roll for cloak failure (probably the lower PS pilot card).

But adding that bad boy upgrade on to some of Scum's finest - say N'dru Suhlak, Talonbane Cobra or Emon Azzameen - will provide hours of hilarity.

I don't think any of the crew/pilot cards will remove the roll for cloak failure. I think they built that failure chance into the card very intentionally, and adding new cards that bypass the limitation is a poor design choice.

I disagree, that would be an interesting design choice. It would be an upgrade that can be used on multiple ships but has a built in limitation that keeps it from being a balance nightmare in the future. It's a decent upgrade for the price, but nothing that you can really build a list around. Adding a pilot or a crew with the ability to mitigate the failure in some way allows players to pay an opportunity cost to get something more useful.

Something like this would be an interesting crew:Shug Ninx (Unique 3 pt. Crew)Scum Only

When an Illicit Upgrade instructs you to discard it, turn it face down instead. Effects of face down cards are ignored.

Action: Turn a face down Illicit Upgrade face up, then receive a stress token.

I'm not sure if 3 points is the right price but it gives ships with crew slots the ability to get more mileage out of their disposable Illicit Upgrades. If anything, I think I might have gone too high since it fills a crew slot, requires an action to use, and stresses.

Getting that much use out of an illicit upgrade would be against what seems to be their design philosophy: unstable tech that has a great one-time effect. Can you imagine having that crew on a ship with glitterstem? Ouch...

I spent about 5 minutes coming up with that so there's bound to be some things that could be tuned better. I think Glitterstim is about the worst case scenario due to its timing and the fact that it is actionless dice modification. Even at that I don't think that it's too broken. You'd be paying 5 points and giving up a crew slot for the ability to use Glitterstim every other round (outside of the first time you trigger it), you are also giving up your action and stuck on green moves making a ship that is trying to abuse this combo very predictable.

Turn 1

Pop Glitterstim, get a stress

Turn 2

Make a green move to clear stress

Spend your action to ready Glitterstim, get a stress

Pop Gltterstim, get a stress

Turn 3

Make a green move to clear stress

No action due to stress

Turn 4

Make a green move to clear stress

Spend your action to ready Glitterstim, get a stress

Pop Gltterstim, get a stress

repeat turn 3 and 4.

Flying alongside a ship with Wingman, you could pop Glitterstim every round though, that might be a little sketchy. Professional game designers should be able to come up with something better than a random dumbass spit-balling ideas on a forum.

Look at it this way: You pay 2 points for a one use cloaking device to use on a key turn, say to protect someone from a round of fire and to gain a maneuvering advantage. In this regard it's a lot like Glitterstim and Inertial Dampeners. It's just that you also have a 75% chance of getting to use it later in the game, too.

I agree!

I see this as 2 points to save you one round. At 2 points it needs to prevent 1 point of damage unless you put it on a z in which case it needs to save you 2. I think putting it on the hwks or misthunter will see a round 2 cloak to better survive the range 3 onslaught then if it breaks you then better position yourself for the next round in the case of the hwks that 2 decloak should hopefully put you into range for your turret and out of arc. Having palob survive the first round of shooting without dedicating an entire ship to it(serrisu) is nice. on a kriaxz or a starviper you probably save it until you are looking to be in trouble. In either case its only 2 points and only needs to save you 1 point of damage to make its cost back if it keeps working so much the better.