I was lamenting the fact that jake farrel wasn't naturally ps9 when I noticed how few PS9 Pilots there actually are. Rebels and the Empire have only 2 each and Scum has 1, which makes him way cooler now in my opinion. This makes the continued rush to high pilot skill more the fault of veteran instincts than I realized. Not all VI's fault but it has some of the blame. I wonder what things would look like without that upgrade. But I doubt I want to love in a world where no one moves after Soontir Fel.

Yea VI has all the blame. Inherent ps9 is actually incredibly rare.. In-game its another story though right.

VI is probably the only card in this entire game worth any sort of discussion on banning. Unfortunately its also a necessary evil in some respects although this is overstated.

I do think they could of at least costed it appropriately and/or made it limited or something more creative than I can come up with. We all use it we all love it but lets face it the things a crutch bordering on unhealthy for the game. If it wasn't so good for so cheap..

Yea VI has all the blame. Inherent ps9 is actually incredibly rare.. In-game its another story though right.

VI is probably the only card in this entire game worth any sort of discussion on banning. Unfortunately its also a necessary evil in some respects although this is overstated.

I do think they could of at least costed it appropriately and/or made it limited or something more creative than I can come up with. We all use it we all love it but lets face it the things a crutch bordering on unhealthy for the game. If it wasn't so good for so cheap..

It's 1 point less than you'd normally pay for 2 PS just from ship cost, and has the additional opportunity cost of taking up the very valuable EPT slot. I don't think the original cost was out of line a the time, though in retrospect maybe it could have been 2 points and still been ok. Really though the problem isn't VI itself, VI is a symptom of the problems with the PS system in general. The middle range pilot skills, particularly the higher PS generics, are in an awkward spot in that their PS is largely pointless because any PS over 2 that isn't getting you in the 8-9+ range isn't doing anything for you the way the game is being played now. This is especially true of any ship that relies on re-positioning for defense, such as A-wings and Interceptors.

The single point cost on VI is a little misleading, the true cost is using up the EPT slot which is probably the best upgrade slot in the game.

Yea VI has all the blame. Inherent ps9 is actually incredibly rare.. In-game its another story though right.

VI is probably the only card in this entire game worth any sort of discussion on banning. Unfortunately its also a necessary evil in some respects although this is overstated.

I do think they could of at least costed it appropriately and/or made it limited or something more creative than I can come up with. We all use it we all love it but lets face it the things a crutch bordering on unhealthy for the game. If it wasn't so good for so cheap..

lol

VI was and is still one of the few ways of dealing with bastardous PTLing boost-dodgers

VI is a two edged sword though. In the race to move last or shoot first, you can squander the EPT slot if your opponent doesn't buy into the "I gotta have the highest PS pilot" bidding war. While pilots like Fel and Tycho rely on post maneuver shenanigans, their actions are no different if they're facing a PS8 or a PS1. Both low PS pilots have moved before them and will shoot after them. While it's nice to out pilot your opponent, it's not often necessary to do so.

The problem is the pilot skill system is broken.

In theory, you bid squad points on pilot skill + special ability packages. For example I pay 3 squad points to boost an Academy Pilot to Backstabber so I can get his ability. I get pilot skill 5 as a bonus. Then it becomes worth it for my opponent to run a pilot skill 6 ship, since they pay only 1 more squad point than I did to get all the benefits of superior pilot skill. Everybody carefully weighs the risk of wasting points overbidding (going to pilot skill 8 when your opponent only went to 2) versus wasting points not bidding enough (going to pilot skill 6 when your opponent went to 7). You get a variety of pilots and everything's hunky-dorky.

In practice, a few mechanics are extremely sensitive to pilot skill:

If you have lower pilot skill, you can barrel roll and boost to modify the maneuver you blindly selected, like spending an action to access additional maneuvers on your dial.

If you have higher pilot skill, you can use barrel roll and boost to effectively select your maneuver after you see where the other ships are on the board, almost always slipping out of important arcs and getting important ships in your arc.

Edit: This is what the tie phantom used to do with decloaking and it broke the game.

If you are trying to fire missiles and torpedos at high pilot skill, it's easy. Just select a ship (that has finished moving) in your arc at range 1-3 to target lock and then attack it. If you have lower pilot skill, the missiles and torpedos become extremely difficult to fire, as you have to correctly predict which ship will move into your arc (if any), and if you guess wrong or they boost or barrel roll out, you've lost an action.

Dropping a true bomb (not a mine) at low pilot skill is a gamble that a ship will move in range and not boost or barrel roll out. If you have high pilot skill, you can see if your bomb will hit and only drop it if it will.

So some ships care about pilot skill a lot and maximize their bid because it's always better to spend more squad points than it is to not have the highest pilot skill. Hence, you only see the highest available pilot skill pilot, who is often carrying Veteran Instincts, with an initiative bid on top.

Other ships don't care about pilot skill very much, so they can't afford to try to outbid the ones that do. So they stay at the lowest possible skill.

Worse, if you have a point-heavy ship, you're spending X squad points to put X pilot skill on a large chunk of the power in your list. If your ships are cheap, you have to spend X squad points on each ship that you want to increase by X. So a 50 point large ship or fully-upgraded small ship can spend 8 squad points to give half your list pilot skill 9, but if you have 4 tie fighters at 12 points each, to boost those 48 of your 100 points to pilot skill 9, you'd have to spend 32 squad points!

The result is a few ships trying desperately to outbid each other at the highest pilot skill they can go (8 - 11 plus initiative bid) and the rest stuck at the bottom of 1 or 2.

I was lamenting the fact that jake farrel wasn't naturally ps9 when I noticed how few PS9 Pilots there actually are. Rebels and the Empire have only 2 each and Scum has 1, which makes him way cooler now in my opinion. This makes the continued rush to high pilot skill more the fault of veteran instincts than I realized. Not all VI's fault but it has some of the blame. I wonder what things would look like without that upgrade. But I doubt I want to love in a world where no one moves after Soontir Fel.

Scum has two, the other is Dengar.

Not released yet so I missed that thanks. Would not having VI actually change the race our would that just mean more Vader and Fel?

It's too complicated to say that VI is the sole reason, or even that it expounds the PS "problem." It's too fundamental of a core mechanic to try to dissect it without an overall restructuring of the game. The problem I have with it is that you pay for it and it isn't always useful. Blocking is too good a strategy and creates a situation where bottom level pilots, in effect, outfly aces. That doesn't feel right (or really consistent with the heroic nature of Star Wars). Likewise, the "cheap" nature of VI undercuts what PS is to represent, as the opportunity cost is insignificant compared to the value of leapfrogging other elite pilots. I would have preferred it were only +1 PS so that the effect would have been less sweeping. Likewise, I think that if blocking were less effective, namely NOT forcing the pilot to skip their action, it would still affect positioning and arcs, but not create "autokill" scenarios for supposedly elite pilots.

Frankly, if the planning phase was eliminated and you selected your maneuver as you activate units, it would, IMO, make a better game and do a better job of recognizing PS, even for less mobile ships.

It's too complicated to say that VI is the sole reason, or even that it expounds the PS "problem." It's too fundamental of a core mechanic to try to dissect it without an overall restructuring of the game. The problem I have with it is that you pay for it and it isn't always useful. Blocking is too good a strategy and creates a situation where bottom level pilots, in effect, outfly aces. That doesn't feel right (or really consistent with the heroic nature of Star Wars). Likewise, the "cheap" nature of VI undercuts what PS is to represent, as the opportunity cost is insignificant compared to the value of leapfrogging other elite pilots. I would have preferred it were only +1 PS so that the effect would have been less sweeping. Likewise, I think that if blocking were less effective, namely NOT forcing the pilot to skip their action, it would still affect positioning and arcs, but not create "autokill" scenarios for supposedly elite pilots.

Frankly, if the planning phase was eliminated and you selected your maneuver as you activate units, it would, IMO, make a better game and do a better job of recognizing PS, even for less mobile ships.

Have you ever tried this type of game?

I played a mini torny today and everyone except me ran at least one VI and it didn't really pay off that much for them. Yer you shoot at me first but its at the cost of rerolls or other dirty tricks. As a prime example of PS not being the be all and end all I took Tarn. PS 3 and everyone there today will never underestimate a low PS demon again.

It's too complicated to say that VI is the sole reason, or even that it expounds the PS "problem." It's too fundamental of a core mechanic to try to dissect it without an overall restructuring of the game. The problem I have with it is that you pay for it and it isn't always useful. Blocking is too good a strategy and creates a situation where bottom level pilots, in effect, outfly aces. That doesn't feel right (or really consistent with the heroic nature of Star Wars). Likewise, the "cheap" nature of VI undercuts what PS is to represent, as the opportunity cost is insignificant compared to the value of leapfrogging other elite pilots. I would have preferred it were only +1 PS so that the effect would have been less sweeping. Likewise, I think that if blocking were less effective, namely NOT forcing the pilot to skip their action, it would still affect positioning and arcs, but not create "autokill" scenarios for supposedly elite pilots.

Frankly, if the planning phase was eliminated and you selected your maneuver as you activate units, it would, IMO, make a better game and do a better job of recognizing PS, even for less mobile ships.

I don't like it, would make PS *way* too powerful.

I played a mini torny today and everyone except me ran at least one VI and it didn't really pay off that much for them. Yer you shoot at me first but its at the cost of rerolls or other dirty tricks. As a prime example of PS not being the be all and end all I took Tarn. PS 3 and everyone there today will never underestimate a low PS demon again.

What was the rest of your list?

Poe and pasty (Ello asty) both of whom tried their hardest to die as fast as they could. Tarn did so much of the work because people just write her off as a nobody. She works well as a blocker and she packs a hell of a punch.

Edit: everyone went for poe first (as you should) but after one or two rounds people coined the fact that Tarn is a pain and needed to die.

Poe and pasty (Ello asty) both of whom tried their hardest to die as fast as they could. Tarn did so much of the work because people just write her off as a nobody. She works well as a blocker and she packs a hell of a punch.

Tarn Mison? You realize he's a dude right? Complete with beard.

Poe and pasty (Ello asty) both of whom tried their hardest to die as fast as they could. Tarn did so much of the work because people just write her off as a nobody. She works well as a blocker and she packs a hell of a punch.

Tarn Mison? You realize he's a dude right? Complete with beard.

Edit: I have met a few bearded woman

Yes, echoed. The PS system is kinda broken. Very cool as a theoretical game mechanic, but we only bid into 9 to 11, and every thing else is literally 1 or 2. (or 3 for TLT meta).

too much is dependent on PS.

Its a weird world we live in.

It's too complicated to say that VI is the sole reason, or even that it expounds the PS "problem." It's too fundamental of a core mechanic to try to dissect it without an overall restructuring of the game. The problem I have with it is that you pay for it and it isn't always useful. Blocking is too good a strategy and creates a situation where bottom level pilots, in effect, outfly aces. That doesn't feel right (or really consistent with the heroic nature of Star Wars). Likewise, the "cheap" nature of VI undercuts what PS is to represent, as the opportunity cost is insignificant compared to the value of leapfrogging other elite pilots. I would have preferred it were only +1 PS so that the effect would have been less sweeping. Likewise, I think that if blocking were less effective, namely NOT forcing the pilot to skip their action, it would still affect positioning and arcs, but not create "autokill" scenarios for supposedly elite pilots.

Frankly, if the planning phase was eliminated and you selected your maneuver as you activate units, it would, IMO, make a better game and do a better job of recognizing PS, even for less mobile ships.

This would be a very bad idea. High PS pilots selecting their moves after lower skilled ones? Talk about a PS bidding war. Forget about blocking. Fel would seldom, if ever, lose an action. Low agility, low PS pilots would become next to useless. No, the planning phase is an essential mechanic that makes this game playable.

I used to play a lot of space dogfight rules where simultaneous movement was used. PS was fine... until the ability to boost and alter direction (after seeing where someone else had moved) was introduced. Completely altered the game from one where you needed to out-think your opponent to a lazy one where making sure you have the highest PS replaces having to out guess your enemy.

Well, if a PS 4, 5, or 6 pilot has an EPT slot they are worth it. But without? Not that much.

PS 7, well, they get VI....

Ya, it would be much better if the ps4+ pilots all had ept's. There really needs to be a mod that allows your pilots to get an EPT if they dont already have one.

There is also a small list of pilots that are Pilot Skill 1, Sure more than the 6 that are Pilot Skill 9 but here is something you can do. Include every pilot (including one of each of the generics) and set them up in order of pilot skill. You will find that there are a lot more pilots that are 5 and 6 skill then there are 1 and 9 skill.

I think VI of all the early cards was the one where FFG maybe didn't fully appreciate its impact on he game in the long term. At least it's still useful though.

VI is also a huge gamble. You could end up wasting that EPT slot and the point(s) spent on VI and end up against a bunch of ships that were already a lower PS than you.

It can be a great EPT... or a completely useless one that leaves you going "well crap, I could've taken Determination or Crack Shot instead, or freed up the points to throw PTL somewhere, or..."

I someone who runs a lot of tycho and Jake, this desicion keeps me up at night before tournaments. Jake lives VI, but juke is amazing on him. Tycho loves daredevil, but doesn't make full use of it at ps8.