So far I've played 10 games.

But quite early on, I was told by other gamers, that ships should always have some sort of upgrades, or else they would be at a serious disadvantage, or you won't be able to make your fleet work effectively. = you will more likely loose the game than win it.

In other words: upgrades is a must.

But is this true?

Can a list with naked ships be made, that is just as efficient, as one list with ships that has at least one upgrade each?

Is a naked list just as viable as an upgraded list?

What are your thoughts on this?

Since three naked ships and 8 squadrons of A Wings just won worlds I'd say it's very viable.

Thats another thing I like much better in Armada than in Attack wing. You can upgrade and customize your fleet, buts its not about that. You can acutally have ships battle each other and not just special upgrades that fight each other.

I prefer naked/light upgrade.

Well some ships works fine naked, for instance I would take a Assault frigate A or a CR90 A naked anyday but I would probably never take a MC80 or a Neb-B without any upgrades or titles.

I concur that I lean towards lightly upgraded ships. If you're just piling on upgrades "just cuz" the ship rapidly becomes expensive for dubious gains. 2 highly upgraded ships often could be swapped out for 3 lightly/non-upgraded ships of the same type and you have to ask if you'd prefer the fancy toys or the more base dice, hull, shields, and board control from more steel on the table. Plus your Commander likely wants more ships to receive his bonus, right?

Which is not to say no upgrades. Just take only what is absolutely needed for that ship's role. For example, if you're configuring a VSD to be a carrier, here's a good way to do it:

VSD-I (keep the basic chassis as cheap as possible)

+Expanded Hangar Bays (cheap way to get +1 Squadrons stat)

+Flight Controllers (cheap way to benefit all those TIE Fighters you'll be activating early to clear out space for the bombers)

Done. That's all you need.

Here's a bad way to do it:
VSD-II (already investing points in a gunboat that would rather be focusing on shooting rather than Squadron commands)

+Expanded Hangar Bays

+Flight Controllers

+Captain Chiranneau

+Corrupter

+XI7 Turbolasers

+Overload Pulse

This is one overengineered and expensive ship. Yes, Chiranneau is useful in the right circumstances and so is Corrupter (for the Rhymer ball nonsense) but it's very circumstantial and expensive. Then just adding on upgrades for the remaining slots "just because" and hey I mean the VSD-II is going to shoot now and then too, right? With the expenses incurred from this over-upgraded ship, you could've gone a long way towards simply investing in two naked VSD-Is which would've commanded more squadrons, thrown more dice, and had a lot more hull and shields, doing everything better.

I think each list is a world by itself but in my experience there is something like an effectiveness curve. A few upgrades increase greatly the performance of a ship but after certain number of them the improvement decrease significantly.

Learning Imperials for a wave 1 tournament in a few weeks... I'm all aboard an upgraded fleet. Just because the Vics fly like bricks and the Glads arn't fun naked.

Rebels, I can totally run AF's naked, but I'm typically running at least gunnery teams or AP.

I run naked all the time.

I also take very few or no upgrades on my Armada ships.

Personally, I try to run slim on upgrades for one reason and one reason alone: Never put all your eggs in one basket.

When I see a ship sporting an upgrade in every slot it just looks like a points pinata to me, waiting to spill its delicious victory points.

Put some clothes on, you degenerates

But yeah, you don't really need upgrades outside of specific cases.

A good, general rule of thumb: the less attacks but more dice a ship farts out, the more you'll want a tokens mitigating upgrade

Most every ship can run 1-3 (3 being large ships, which are MADE to be upgraded) upgrades and be just dandy

The place I see people going most overboard is in squadron support. Squadrons don't need support to be effective, they just need commands

This does not, of course, mean you should never take upgrades (especially the offers you can't refuse, ala yavaris) just don't go crazy (like putting 7 point hangars, aka Raymus, on Yavaris instead of Salvation)

I keep coming back to 1 ISD, 2 VSD, and 2 raiders there is not much room for upgrades. I think it is a strong list, vs dropping 1 ship for upgrades. It's a valid point to run ships only. X-wing as the other FFG ship game has a ton of naked lists which do very well so roll with it.

It really comes down to thinking about the purpose of each ship in your list and if an upgrade will allow that ship to perform it's intended role better. If its just to give an extra activation and provide a flanking distraction, then sure, a naked CR90 will be great. If you want to use it as your hyperspace assaulter and cause some damage to the back of ships, then maybe some offensive upgrades will help it fit that role better. It all comes down to the big picture of what you want your fleet to be able to do and how you see it doing that. Generally I factor in about 5-10% for upgrades (including titles) to enhance key units.

Gunnery Teams ... Assault Missiles ... Titles ...

No, not naked.

I suppose it depends on the ship and also the synergy the upgrades provide with other potential ships. For example, my favorite ISD-II setup involves max upgrades, about 35 points or so. However, these upgrades imho improve the ISD-II massively in most situations: I would confidently take it vs a naked ISD-II + naked Gladiator (which costs more points). On the other hand probably not so confident vs a naked MC-80 with 50 points worth of bombers.

What? Naked gunnery teams? It must be on the corrupter or the dominator ;P

The crew of the demolisher doesn't abase themselves this way.

I think it is testament to the quality of the game that questions like this will never receive a single simple answer. Snipafist made a very valid point in his post where he cited an example of what might be a bad loadout for a ship, but I stress "might be". I would be wary of generalising from this case to the point that ships should always be upgrade light and should specialise. Getting extra activations and exploiting your commander abilities by going upgrade light can be a solid strategy. But this game has really taught me the value of ships with versatile roles, as well as those with specialised ones. It has also taught me that one tooled up mega ship can be more valuable than multiple cheap ones, if the cheap ones are all over the board, and all of your expensive gear is on one ship in one place doing what you spent it's points on.

There will even be times when a carrier ship that can also pack a real ranged punch can be the star of your fleet. If you can keep a certain ship alive, why not throw everything you can on it? As long as you are still able to use it effectively.

This is a wonderful game that takes nuance, planning and thought to construct effective fleets, and then to get the most out of them. And even then, the best laid plans of mice and men...

Another thing I have learnt to recognise is that upgrades are not always wasted when they seem to be. Have you ever thrown expanded hangers onto a ship only to find that you needed to change your orders to focus fire, and that in fact your squadrons have done fine without being activated very often? You might not use your EH even once, and so you might conclude that it was a waste of points. Perhaps it was! But consider first - did the fact that you had EH make your opponent change his mind about where to place his ships? Did the fact that you could have used a big squadron activation make your deadly focus-fire salvo all the more surprising and devastating? Sometimes the value of such abilities is not just in using them, but in being able to use them.

I like the fact that naked builds can succeed even at a high level. It goes to show that upgrade cards were meant to complement your playstyle, not force it into an "optimum" strategy.

Really, the answer to ANY Armada question to the tune of "Would X list work?" is almost always "Well... how good are you at flying it?"

This is probably my favorite aspect of the game.

I don't run naked ships, but I do prefer lightly upgraded ships over heavily upgraded ones.

@Tvayumat - exactly!

The skill required to fly fleets effectively in this game does wonders to prevent optimific list building. The game I played most before this (as I suspect is the case with many players) was Warhammer 40k. In that game, you move all units like you move squadrons in this game. If you make a list with a bunch of units who can outshoot the enemy at range X, then your plan is generally keeping them at range X - thus the two biggest remaining variables are luck (a horrible reliance on the outcome of dice in this case) and list building.

In armada it doesn't matter what is on your ships if you are getting hit in the worst arcs, not firing your best arcs, or not being able to focus on and bring down any one ship. Luck is still a factor (we have all lined up a perfect shot with our most devastating arc, only to see a bunch of blanks and an accuracy), but when I lose, 9 times out of 10 either I messed up my flying, or my opponent just outflew me.

The differences between ships, which are simply made more stark through the use of upgrade cards, dictates what it is you need to do to fly them well (for example, with a rebel fleet using assault frigates and ackbar you need to fly past them at long range as much as you are able to), but it does not dictate whether or not you will fly them well. Only you can do that!

Your answers confirms what I suspected all along.

Namely going naked with one or more ships in a list, is not an almost default loss VS a list with light, medium or heavy opgrades.

Its all about using the right play style with any given list.

I think I will try the challange by going naked* in some of my next games, just to prove to the others in my local gaming community, that its not all doom and glom, if one has a naked list VS an upgraded list.

I'll report in the results as soon as possible

* I will be fully clothed, so don't get your hopes up

I think this article I wrote can help answer this question.

I would advise only taking the upgrades for what you're trying to accomplish. If you don't think you need it, you're probably overgearing your ships.

I always play naked. Doesn't everyone?

I always play naked. Doesn't everyone?

Not always. Sometimes I wear a thong. Other times my sexy bounty hunter armour.