I think part of the problem for mid-PS pilots is that you're paying for both PS and an ability. Unless it's one he'll of a powerful ability (which tend to be on high PS pilots), you're wasting the points on PS when it's above 2 and not high enough to PS race with the aces.

One idea might be to cost PS on a non-linear scale; keep the aces at the same points total, but lower the costs of mid-skill pilots across the board from now on by 1 or 2 points. Also, I feel that except in special exceptions, all named pilots should have an EPT slot.

Take VI all you like, for all I care. That means you're not running Push the Limit or Predator. It works for me!

The complete histograms of the so far released pilots, without Huge ships.

PS 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9

Rebels 3 / 8 / 6 / 9 / 10 / 8 / 8 / 10 / 2
Empire 4 / 5 / 9 / 11 / 8 / 14 / 10 / 9 / 2
S&V 3 / 4 / 4 / 1 / 9 / 9 / 7 / 2 / 2

Total 10 17 19 21 27 31 25 21 6

Rebels have many 2/4/6/8, are relatively even. Empire more like a bell curve, with a down bump in 5, and up-bumo in 6.

Scum dislikes 4 (Yakuzan "4 means death", thus they avoid it?? ), many 5/6/7.

Yeah. VI is weird. I fly Poe a lot, and when i go up against ships like Soontir, Vader, or Wedge, i'll wish i brought VI. But then i fly against TLTs, Hobbietown(yes, a guy at my FLGS still flies Hobbietown and he's **** good with it), or 4Bs, i'm always glad i put Predator on Poe. Honestly it seems to me than in most circumstances, there is an upper and a lower edge of viability. The upper edge of PS number for aces is 7 and up, and the lower edge of PS viability is 4 and below. 5 and 6 occupy a vast gap where you rarely have an EPT to even bid for a 7 or 8, and even if you did, the pilot abilities aren't nearly as good anyways. 5 and 6 occupy the realm of support abilities and novelty abilities that are fun to fly but rarely see competitive play, exceptions being pilots like Biggs.

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 is when a real PS war would start...

Much good commentary in this thread. Very approve. Wow.

Another thing about the VI dilemma is who can actually take it. There's a ton of pilots who could use it to great effect, but for bizarre reasons don't have Elite slots available to them. Scroll through the TIE fighter pilots, many that could combo really well with an EPT don't get one, while a few that don't need it to combo anything, do get one. Further, imagine if any ship at all had access to VI. Wouldn't that be weird?

My opinion is that VI is under costed and should have been two points, and a separate elite card should have been 'increase PS by 1' for one point.

I love Blace with r2d6 for the ept but often found it not worth the points. Middle pilot skill is hard on point to performance cost. I love the gimicky abilities of mid named pilots, but not the bite they take out my squad point total.

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 dont actually understnad what you are saying, you practically stated the obvious.

What was your actual point?

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.

Dude I love this post!

+1

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 is when a real PS war would start...

To an extent, this was the problem with how the Phantom's cloaking worked originally.

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..."

Predator is an EPT that im loving right now, in my current meta, most take of my friends take a tanky ship, like boba fett, bossk, or swarms. So with my YT-1300 flown by Han solo and Keyan farlander in his B-wing, I feel VI is a waste.

My store's meta is all about Aces right now so we all VI up a storm. PS 11 Vader is common because PS 10 Poe is common because PS 9 Jakes and Soontirs are common...

Vi has to be low cost because it's one of the few upgrades that can be actively useless in a list.

There are matchups where some upgrades are suboptimal, but they do a function at least

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.

Either you go full retard or you don't do it at all.

Pity that right now only TLT users don't have to go full retard...

It would be a mistake to remove VI now. The only reason Soontir and Vader don't completely dominate is there are a few different, viable options to build counters into a list, and a bunch use VI.

Take that away and you will have a PS 9 + initiative bid war.

The real problem seems to be that there are too many PS options. We don't need 1-9, we need three: Recruit, Vet, and Ace.

Maybe not exactly that, but this would help avoid a lot of problems faced by the mid PS ships at least. The difference between 3-6 is often functionally irrelevant anyway.

The real problem seems to be that there are too many PS options. We don't need 1-9, we need three: Recruit, Vet, and Ace.

Maybe not exactly that, but this would help avoid a lot of problems faced by the mid PS ships at least. The difference between 3-6 is often functionally irrelevant anyway.

the 3-6 themselves beg to differ

SUDDENLY BLACK CRACK SWARM!

and your "irrelevant" PS3 dies with a weird face

the problem, if there is one, is that the cost of PS doesn't rise exponently.

PS8 to 9 should be EXTRA COSTLY

while 3 to 4 shouldn't be that expensive at all

Fine. 4-6? Obviously there are exceptions and, just as obviously, nine options gives more options and opportunity for distinction. Yet if I'm playing against a crack swarm, 1-3 or 5-9 become functionally identical. Couldn't the same thing be determined by recruit, Vet, ace?

Maybe half the numbers? 1 through 5 and call them; recruit, soldier, veteran, elite, ace? Then have something like "beyond" for the ps12 pilot ability boosts like from Roark. And say ace can't take "combat instincts" to go up a point.

Veteran Instinct is a mustin this game! Is it under costed? Perhaps...

Without VI the PS 9 guys will be certain to always have the upperhand against the PS 8. Now you know bidding to PS 9 is not guranteed to move last. Corran Horn, Tycho, RAC and so on now have the option to go to PS 10 if you pay 1 point and give up other EPTs (Predator, PtL and so on).

This system creates a system with borders between the skill of the Pilots that aren't rigid. It makes for more interesting list building, uncertainty in match-ups and a more diverse meta as each Pilot (with access to an EPT) exists in the game at two different PS levels.

The only PS 9 guy who doean't care is Soontir Fel since PtL is his only option.

Vi has to be low cost because it's one of the few upgrades that can be actively useless in a list.

There are matchups where some upgrades are suboptimal, but they do a function at least

you practically nailed it!

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.

Either you go full retard or you don't do it at all.

Pity that right now only TLT users don't have to go full retard...

TLT is even super easy to use. I have set complete noobs up with it and they do fine because it is so easy to use.

Fel and han are the reasons I bid up pilot skill.

I wonder why ffg has been not giving the middle skill pilots with abilities an ept slot.

Maybe a new version of VI called Ace Status that bumps PS up by 4 but only to a limit of 9. Doesn't help the non-EPT guys though.

Maybe a unique title for any nonunique pilot called Mimic that gains the PS of an enemy pilot within R3.

SWCCG had Ability, a score that indicated one's Force-related skill. Droids had Zero while 'normal' people had 1 or 2. 3-4 was force sensative while 5 was force attuned and 6 was Jedi Knight. 7 was for Jedi Masters. Not quite the same thing we are talking about and it functioned totally different in that game but it was designed to use somewhat lower numbers. Also nothing could really raise that value. SWCCG also handled pilot ability or skill as adding to the Power (firepower, strength, ect.) and Agility of a ship directly. Of course pilots and ships were seperate cards...

Maybe a new version of VI called Ace Status that bumps PS up by 4 but only to a limit of 9. Doesn't help the non-EPT guys though.

Maybe a unique title for any nonunique pilot called Mimic that gains the PS of an enemy pilot within R3.

SWCCG had Ability, a score that indicated one's Force-related skill. Droids had Zero while 'normal' people had 1 or 2. 3-4 was force sensative while 5 was force attuned and 6 was Jedi Knight. 7 was for Jedi Masters. Not quite the same thing we are talking about and it functioned totally different in that game but it was designed to use somewhat lower numbers. Also nothing could really raise that value. SWCCG also handled pilot ability or skill as adding to the Power (firepower, strength, ect.) and Agility of a ship directly. Of course pilots and ships were seperate cards...

But IIRC the Ability score was used in place of a die roll, and you generally wanted to roll low, so it was not a good idea to fill your deck with nothing but expensive, high-Ability cards.