One thing that's always fascinated me, though, is Gen. Dodonna's line in the movie, "The shaft is ray-shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes." It would be interesting if a huge ship carried a "ray-shielded" mod that made certain parts of it only vulnerable to ordnance, or perhaps requiring an ordnance hit to "crack the shell".

Wow! Neat idea!

For example:

Ray Shields. Modification. Large ship only.

After you are hit by an attack that is not a [torpedo] or [missile] attack, turn all [crit] results to [hit] results. Then cancel all but 1 [hit] result. If you are hit by a [torpedo] or [missile] attack, discard this card.

"Realistic" depiction of missiles and torps are almost impossible - a torp is an anti capital ship weapon - if a small or large ship takes one its very likely to be completely destroyed. Anti-starship missiles are not much better especially when used on a small ship. The bomb mechanic is strange in this game as well - more like anti pursuit weapons capital killers; or are mines.

But X-Wing is an abstract game - as long as its mechanicallly useful within the game it fine for me.

Torpedoes should have measely 3 dice attacks, but utilize the black dice armada-style, with hit-crit results.

Easily avoided for the most part, DEVASTATING when they hit.

Missiles should use blue ones, armada-style. Exceptionally precise, indeed, but not a backbreaker like the torpedoes.

and no need for three wave long fixing it with tons of cards

That would have been a terrific fix - but maybe torps should also do double damage as well on huge ships - its what they were built to kill after all.

Too bad it's just too late in the game to implement that. Perhaps for a second edition though.

Not that problematic.

Just make an expansion set that comes with 3 black\orange\anything Torpedo dice

with 2 hits 2 crit-penetrates 2 crit-crits and 2 focuses

penetrates being "through the shield"

and a cyan\blue\white\whatever Missile dice with

4 hits 2 focuses 1 crit 1 undodgeable hit

and a card

"Special issue munitions"

You may use the corresponding dice instead of red dice. If you do so, you roll 1 less die than normal

A-Wings with prockets or Advances with Prockets/Cluster Missiles that never go away would be annoying.

I'll take a 5 red dice Vader at range one every time

Saw that and was like, yeah click that.

A-Wings with prockets or Advances with Prockets/Cluster Missiles that never go away would be annoying.

I'll take a 5 red dice Vader at range one every time

Saw that and was like, yeah click that.

Mathematically that's not really more reliable than 3+Predator+Focus+Crit

extra 1 damage without predator as far as I remember.

even less with one.

A-Wings with prockets or Advances with Prockets/Cluster Missiles that never go away would be annoying.

"Annoying" is an odd way to spell "absolutely terrifying."

Or you take Expert Handling and laugh it off.

Your opponent will be the one laughing as he uses the focus action and prepares to fire.

If he takes focus action, where is he getting the TL and the "reload" action to fire again on the turn after he fired last?

Push the Limit, you can reload and focus each turn, then use A-wings green heavy dial to clear the stress from PtL. Keep in mind that Proton Rockets require Focus to fire, but you keep the Focus to modify the attack as well. Target Lock is a bonus to the attack which PtL A-wings can pull off to maximise the shot. With a reload action Target Lock is less important to make the shot worthwhile. So yeah, I'd go nuts on reload PRockets.

If you really wanted the fully modded shot you'd Target Lock at range 3, fire the next turn at range 1 with Focus and Target Lock, bail out the following turn to clear stress and reload, swing around and repeat the process.

Has anyone ever tried just giving ships the secondary weapons they should have in the first place for free? Does it horribly unbalance the game?

It's always annoyed me.

It's like playing a WWII game, and suddenly discovering that you can't shoot the enemy, because you couldn't afford to buy a cannon for the turret of your Sherman tank. Or that you get overrun by infantry because you couldn't afford to have a gunner with a machine gun in your Tiger Tank.

Do any ships take off without torpedoes or cannons attached? Shouldn't these ships have all the bits and bobs on them for free to start with? (and have higher costs to reflect this if needed). It has always seemed odd that the default state of a B-wing is a stripped down shell without canon or torpedoes. They don't fly about like that in the movies, so why create a game where they fly about like that?

To fix ordinance, I think they need to make a few adjustments:

Missiles do more damage. A missile/torpedo hitting a tie fighter should destroy it, that is 3 damage. You either evade or dont. Tie fighters go BOOM pretty easy in the films. You want crappy 1 or 2pt pilots that can't evade so you can field 7 tie fighters, that is your choice. Or spend the points for a better pilot to move first, evade,etc. Wasting 3 squad points for a possible 1point of damage sucks. But if it can take out a small fighter in a single hit? Sign me up. Missiles/torpedos should do 2-4dmg. Something along those lines. The counter to instant death for small fighters is the hull upgrade cards and shield upgrade cards. If you can have your TIE survive a 3dmg missile, that 3 squad points for 1 hull sounds like a pretty fantastic mod now!

Or perhaps missiles/torpedos should just cost 1 or 2pts at most to equip since they require TL and are discarded, and most likely wont kill a small ship in one shot. If I build my squad and have 3 pts leftover, hey why not load up a few missiles! This can be fixed with an easy 0pt mod:

LIGHT PAYLOAD "All missiles and torpedos -2pts each to equip, minimum 1pt."