and I can definitely say Targetting astromech is a greatest buddy of Adv sensor, actually reversing the PTL-AdvSensor combo upside-down

sensor jammer is extra effective for stripping focus tokens from higher-PS enemies (force that Vader spend his focus!)

and super-effective against TLTs (but hell too expensive on generics, you definitely are right)

FCS is nice, but keeping a foe in sight for a couple of turns in a row is PROBLEMATIC for low-PS ship with limited dial.

AC? never loved it anyway

Scopes? Deathrain-only shenanigan, I'm afraid

the new kill-yourself sensor? I'd say it sycks scyks.

Knave? Who wants to be PS1 in a world where PS2 is so abundant?

So if you could fill your system slot with something that reduced the cost of an astromech - and that astromech was directly geared towards the sort of things you want to do with a PS1 ship, that would be better than a whole bunch of system upgrades that cost you lots of points and aren't much good on that ship anyway right?

So lets have a think about what PS1s do well - or can be susceptible to - and see how we might capitalise on that

Uber-Blocker E-Wing

R7 something-something - 5 points. If you are overlapped by an enemy ship, that ship may not use any pilot or card abilities that turn.

Flanked E-Wing buff.

R7 Somethingelse - somethingelse. 3 points

If an enemy ship outside your firing arc declares you the target of an attack from within its firing arc, it must roll 1 less attack die.

Shooting last E-Wing Buff.

R7 watchamacallit thingy - 3 points.

When you declare an attack against a ship with a higher pilot skill, you may reroll 1 attack die, if the defender's pilot skill is 4 or greater you may reroll up to 2 attack dice.

What are low PS arcdodgers generally good for? Blocking.

S how do we make it worth while for a third of your list to be "wasted" blocking?

AoE blocking? a Mara Jade based Sensor that removes actions? Coordinate/Jam Epic actions?

A facelift.

I like the idea of if you use an R7 Mech that it reduces the cost by 2, since they were designed to be used together. With the new category of weapons guidance, maybe using those together might be interesting. "If you equip an R7 Astro Mech(any type) reduce your squadron value by 2 points and add the Weapons Guidance to your bar". It might help Corran, but at the cost of losing say R2-D2. With the minus 2 points it would make may of the R7 droids essentially free as long as their value was 2 or less and would give the E-Wing access to possible new technologies as more Weapon guidance skills are added.

Networked Astromech - Modification 0pts

and I can definitely say Targetting astromech is a greatest buddy of Adv sensor, actually reversing the PTL-AdvSensor combo upside-down

sensor jammer is extra effective for stripping focus tokens from higher-PS enemies (force that Vader spend his focus!)

and super-effective against TLTs (but hell too expensive on generics, you definitely are right)

FCS is nice, but keeping a foe in sight for a couple of turns in a row is PROBLEMATIC for low-PS ship with limited dial.

AC? never loved it anyway

Scopes? Deathrain-only shenanigan, I'm afraid

the new kill-yourself sensor? I'd say it sycks scyks.

Knave? Who wants to be PS1 in a world where PS2 is so abundant?

So if you could fill your system slot with something that reduced the cost of an astromech - and that astromech was directly geared towards the sort of things you want to do with a PS1 ship, that would be better than a whole bunch of system upgrades that cost you lots of points and aren't much good on that ship anyway right?

So lets have a think about what PS1s do well - or can be susceptible to - and see how we might capitalise on that

Uber-Blocker E-Wing

R7 something-something - 5 points. If you are overlapped by an enemy ship, that ship may not use any pilot or card abilities that turn.

Flanked E-Wing buff.

R7 Somethingelse - somethingelse. 3 points

If an enemy ship outside your firing arc declares you the target of an attack from within its firing arc, it must roll 1 less attack die.

Shooting last E-Wing Buff.

R7 watchamacallit thingy - 3 points.

When you declare an attack against a ship with a higher pilot skill, you may reroll 1 attack die, if the defender's pilot skill is 4 or greater you may reroll up to 2 attack dice.

I actually tried to fly this one list here

https://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Rebel%20Alliance&d=v3!s!73:43,-1,163:-1:-1:;74:150,43,-1,163:-1:-1:;6:135,-1,-1,69:21:-1:&sn=Unnamed%20Squadron

It all sounds cool on paper, but out there you suddenly realize that you have a really overcosted squad, and despite you having all that's supposedly needed

you scyk against the swarm, you scyk against TLT swarm (even though you're supposedly shooting first and having focus+TL like every other turn

and you can do nothing against aces, unless the opponent exposes himself too foolishly.

They just cost too much to my mind.

Spending a third of the list on a BLOCKER is not a way to go. Unless it's a Jumpmaster PS3 with Ion projector and Intimidation

Flaked astro is hilarious, but we should try to avoid getting flanked, not make fun of it

And the last one sounds like a good generic EPT for 1 point, not E-specific

and I can definitely say Targetting astromech is a greatest buddy of Adv sensor, actually reversing the PTL-AdvSensor combo upside-down

sensor jammer is extra effective for stripping focus tokens from higher-PS enemies (force that Vader spend his focus!)

and super-effective against TLTs (but hell too expensive on generics, you definitely are right)

FCS is nice, but keeping a foe in sight for a couple of turns in a row is PROBLEMATIC for low-PS ship with limited dial.

AC? never loved it anyway

Scopes? Deathrain-only shenanigan, I'm afraid

the new kill-yourself sensor? I'd say it sycks scyks.

Knave? Who wants to be PS1 in a world where PS2 is so abundant?

So if you could fill your system slot with something that reduced the cost of an astromech - and that astromech was directly geared towards the sort of things you want to do with a PS1 ship, that would be better than a whole bunch of system upgrades that cost you lots of points and aren't much good on that ship anyway right?

So lets have a think about what PS1s do well - or can be susceptible to - and see how we might capitalise on that

Uber-Blocker E-Wing

R7 something-something - 5 points. If you are overlapped by an enemy ship, that ship may not use any pilot or card abilities that turn.

Flanked E-Wing buff.

R7 Somethingelse - somethingelse. 3 points

If an enemy ship outside your firing arc declares you the target of an attack from within its firing arc, it must roll 1 less attack die.

Shooting last E-Wing Buff.

R7 watchamacallit thingy - 3 points.

When you declare an attack against a ship with a higher pilot skill, you may reroll 1 attack die, if the defender's pilot skill is 4 or greater you may reroll up to 2 attack dice.

I actually tried to fly this one list here

https://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Rebel%20Alliance&d=v3!s!73:43,-1,163:-1:-1:;74:150,43,-1,163:-1:-1:;6:135,-1,-1,69:21:-1:&sn=Unnamed%20Squadron

It all sounds cool on paper, but out there you suddenly realize that you have a really overcosted squad, and despite you having all that's supposedly needed

you scyk against the swarm, you scyk against TLT swarm (even though you're supposedly shooting first and having focus+TL like every other turn

and you can do nothing against aces, unless the opponent exposes himself too foolishly.

They just cost too much to my mind.

Spending a third of the list on a BLOCKER is not a way to go. Unless it's a Jumpmaster PS3 with Ion projector and Intimidation

Flaked astro is hilarious, but we should try to avoid getting flanked, not make fun of it

And the last one sounds like a good generic EPT for 1 point, not E-specific

I dunno - a blocker that will nerf all of your opponents abilities and upgrades if he bumps you seems pretty tasty for 30 points.

Want to ram me with ion proj Oicunn? no buddy!

Got Palp? no buddy!

Stresshog? - not even a hog now buddy

Any fix FFG puts out must make the Ewing competitive as a ship, without making the worlds-list Corran OP.

The two conditions are therefore:

• Thematically improve the E-wing's capabilities.
• Make it antisynergic with PTL, R2-D2/R5-P9, Engine Upgrade and/or Corran Horn's double tap.

The easiest solution there is either put a "You cannot attack again this round" trigger on it, make it deal stress or put it in the astromech slot/modification slot.

Any fix FFG puts out must make the Ewing competitive as a ship, without making the worlds-list Corran OP.

The two conditions are therefore:

• Thematically improve the E-wing's capabilities.
• Make it antisynergic with PTL, R2-D2/R5-P9, Engine Upgrade and/or Corran Horn's double tap.

The easiest solution there is either put a "You cannot attack again this round" trigger on it, make it deal stress or put it in the astromech slot/modification slot.

Integrated R7 - EWing Only. Reduce the cost of the model by -3 points. Done. Oh wait, this makes a PS 1 Ewing even worse, even though its cheaper.

I think you would use R7 Protocols as a title that requires an R7 be equipped and provide something like an EPT at reduced cost.

Why are we so focused on forcing the R7 on? That's an inelegant way of doing things. You want to encourage that R7, leave other options open and limit interactivity with specific cards you don't want.

Something like this:

The obvious combo is with R7: reroll their dice when you're shot, then relock your target. If you're higher PS lock your target, shoot them, spend the lock to lock your attacker, reroll their dice and then lock your next target.

It's also an action economy buff: as long as you stay in the battle you'll only ever perform the target lock action once. The Corran combo is broken by the stress clause: doesn't work with PTL. Corran can still pull some insane shenanigans with R7 (reroll his attack, reroll everyone who attacks him if he predicts the order right, then lock a final target and double tap them) but then he needs R7, which means no regeneration. Super Corran without PTL or a regen astromech isn't Super Corran.

It also lets you pull a Redline with ordnance, although the E-wing only ever gets one shot.

Or maybe something simpler?

Combo it with Fire Control System and a squad of E-wings will be drowning in dice modification. Give them all R7 and they'll be a nightmare to hit.

You could also use this for the X-wing if you change the ship limit on it, although that would lock out Integrated Astromech, trading durability for firepower.

The final design is a title that's designed to work with stress, highlighting the E-wing's nature as an X-wing/A-wing hybrid.

Use red maneuvers, stressing cards (PTL, Experimental Interface, Elusiveness, Opportunist) freely with access to your whole dial, plus protection from double stress. R2-D2 combo locked out by the first line, R5-P9 by the last. Also locks out BB-8.

You could make it an astromech which would allow you to remove most of the card text, but that would also limit its combinations significantly by locking out R3-A2, R4-D6 and R2-D6, limiting its ability to help low PS pilots.

There are some great thematic ideas in this thread!

I wish we actually saw more MJ values in the forums. I haven't come across one of his math posts in a year. . Are they on his private website or nova or covenant or something?

I'm polishing off MathWing v3.0, which is a pretty dramatic upgrade over MathWing 2.0 in many ways.

Or he did get a letter of love and friendship from the Devs that vaguely told him that this isn't the knowledge to be wide-known...

Not exactly. I have been in contact with them about potentially doing freelance consulting work for them, but it looks unlikely to happen given their legal department's Intellectual Property demands.

Publically posting instructional House Rules to fix all the ships, and MathWing 3.0 numbers (just the results, even without getting into the process) essentially amounts to giving them the same thing for free if they know how to use it.

Not exactly. I have been in contact with them about potentially doing freelance consulting work for them, but it looks unlikely to happen given their legal department's Intellectual Property demands.

Understandable. Copyright law's both a maze and a quagmire at once: if they let you in without you signing your soul over you're in a position to completely screw them over in so many ways.

Everything from this to EULAs are written the way they are so that they hold the cards: they don't intend to play them but if they hold them they can't be played against them.

Seems to me it would just be easier to plug up the Systems slot: Cost Cutting, -X points, "Does nothing".

You can bring cheaper generics to the field, Corran could take it... but probably won't as it hurts his double-tap.

Seems to me it would just be easier to plug up the Systems slot: Cost Cutting, -X points, "Does nothing".

You can bring cheaper generics to the field, Corran could take it... but probably won't as it hurts his double-tap.

Problem is, 3 agility/R2D2/PTL is a powerful combo even without modifications or doubletap.

Why are we so focused on forcing the R7 on? That's an inelegant way of doing things. You want to encourage that R7, leave other options open and limit interactivity with specific cards you don't want.

It's inelegnt, but it's also a nod to the lore- the early version being locked to the R7 astromech.

Not exactly. I have been in contact with them about potentially doing freelance consulting work for them, but it looks unlikely to happen given their legal department's Intellectual Property demands.

Understandable. Copyright law's both a maze and a quagmire at once: if they let you in without you signing your soul over you're in a position to completely screw them over in so many ways.

Everything from this to EULAs are written the way they are so that they hold the cards: they don't intend to play them but if they hold them they can't be played against them.

It's not copyright per se, but rather broad claims of Intellectual Property ownership. Last we talked, they still wanted permanent and exclusive ownership over any and every thought that I communicate to them, and they did not rule out prior public statements as being included. This would open me up to legal action by FFG if I ever developed or used similar mathematical methods or models for myself or anyone else in the future regardless if the use was commercial or not. I could even be held liable for posting anything here, even just discussing fully released products. Obviously there is zero incentive for me to ever enter into such an agreement.

I offered them free and unlimited but non-exclusive use of anything that I communicate to them -- so FFG would be free to use, recreate, or modify whatever I deliver to them -- but they couldn't assert exclusive ownership over it. This was apparently unacceptable to them. I don't know how well thought-out legal's position was or if they were just being hyper-conservative, but those were their terms.

It's inelegnt, but it's also a nod to the lore- the early version being locked to the R7 astromech.

In that case, the way to do it would be to release four more unique R7 astromechs/generics containing R7 and then discount the ship if it equips an astromech containing the term R7.

The system slot is one of the things the E-wing's got going for it. Chaardan that and you have a worse T-70.

I offered them free and unlimited but non-exclusive use of anything that I communicate to them -- so FFG would be free to use, recreate, or modify whatever I deliver to them -- but they couldn't assert exclusive ownership over it. This was apparently unacceptable to them. I don't know how well thought-out legal's position was or if they were just being hyper-conservative, but those were their terms.

Say they used a mechanic you designed. What stops you taking that mechanic elsewhere? Say you get pretty involved in the design. What's Jugglergenic and what's not becomes blurry. What is FFG material that you can't take elsewhere and what's your non-exclusive material that you can give to whoever you choose?

The difference between that and them using your stuff from the forums is you can't see into their design engine: if you were a paid consultant, presumably you'd be able to see into the pipeline, hence they want your soul as collateral.

Seems to me it would just be easier to plug up the Systems slot: Cost Cutting, -X points, "Does nothing".

You can bring cheaper generics to the field, Corran could take it... but probably won't as it hurts his double-tap.

Problem is, 3 agility/R2D2/PTL is a powerful combo even without modifications or doubletap.

Agreed, still powerful, but not more powerful. I'd call that a win.

Seems to me it would just be easier to plug up the Systems slot: Cost Cutting, -X points, "Does nothing".

You can bring cheaper generics to the field, Corran could take it... but probably won't as it hurts his double-tap.

The system slot is one of the things the E-wing's got going for it. Chaardan that and you have a worse T-70.

A worse T-70? No. A different T-70, sure.

You trade a hull for an agility die and boost for a barrel roll. It would essentially end up being a cheaper StarViper (which everyone claims they would fly).

Good to see you MJ. Unfortunately, the major thematic "lock" involvs a non-linear buff to the Ewing's survivability- I'm not sure if you've made that easier to calculate on the fly.

I'd love to see the Ewing's efficency if it had a super-R7 effect- Reroll on each attack without individual TL requirements. And if it got a Carnor-in-a-Box System, how would that affect it?

Good to see you MJ. Unfortunately, the major thematic "lock" involvs a non-linear buff to the Ewing's survivability- I'm not sure if you've made that easier to calculate on the fly.

I'd love to see the Ewing's efficency if it had a super-R7 effect- Reroll on each attack without individual TL requirements. And if it got a Carnor-in-a-Box System, how would that affect it?

Non-linear damage reduction and regeneration is much more difficult to model, but I do have a reliable method to calculate it now. You have to be very careful with your assumptions (mainly how many shots will the ship be receiving, and of what type), especially with regeneration, otherwise you get garbage-in-garbage-out.

In general -- the generic E-wing is overcosted by about 4 points. The simplest thing to do is take the non-linear effect, make a linear approximation of it (example: R2-D2 = a constant 3 shields), and toss the ship back into the existing linear formulas. You'll at least know if you have your head screwed on straight or not with a particular change. You have to be extremely careful with non-linear effects, especially if they are on generics, otherwise you very easily risk breaking game balance in the other direction.

It's inelegnt, but it's also a nod to the lore- the early version being locked to the R7 astromech.

If we're going lore, there's always this:

Who knows FFG has already used 3 of my ideas for fixes maybe they will use this one .

OP is on point. We talked about this a little bit in another thread just the other day. I wouldn't mind other ways to use Corran or any of the pilots. Limiting the 'tweak' to R7 astromechs is smart and thematic. It would also be nice to get a variety of new pilots that had special interactions with new or existing astromechs. A lot of older astromechs use the 'action' key word header, so it would be interesting if there was a 'youngster' type of droid for the rebels to allow that ability to be used by every nearby ship, or even something as simple as "when you use an action from an equipped astromech, assign one focus token to your ship".

So many possibilities... It think if FFG tackles this one they will do it right.

I'd like an experimental interface type upgrade that worked in conjunction with the Ewing but sans stress and not unique.