Which is better?

At the start of the Combat phase, if you have no shields and at least 1 Damage card assigned to your ship, you may perform a free evade action.

or

When defending, you may reroll 1 of your [Eye] results. If the attacker's pilot skill value is "2" or lower, you may reroll 1 of your blank results instead.

Both are defensive. Ysanne gives you a (just one) free evade which is nice, but that is an action and not available if you're stressed. But the other lets you reroll whenever you are attacked.

I mean I'll put it this way. I've never seen a flight instructor on a board before

And edit: which ships take isard? Decimator. Which has 0 natural greens. And kenkirk takes palp and isard so...

Ysanne 100%. It's pretty much C3PO for Decimators.

I mean, I see your point that Flight Instructor is probably under-utilized. It seems like it would be good value against swarms. But IMO EU is your best defense against swarms anyway.

So 1 free action is better than a reroll per attack?

5/8ths of the time. Yes

Indeed it is, especially when you consider the disguistingly HUGE cost of flight instructor...

and possibilities of Isaard troll-facingly triggering PTL

So 1 free action is better than a reroll per attack?

You have to quantify "reroll per attack" though.

You have a 25% chance of activating Flight Instructor. So on average, you need to be shot 4 times for FI to be used once.

Then when it does get activated, you have a 38% chance of getting an evade.

So on average, you'd need to be shot more than 10 times to reliably get an evade out of it. And that's if you have a focus token which you have to spend 40% of the time. Ysanne gets you that Evade for free.

Edit: Against PS2 or below...

63% chance of activating, so 1.6 shots required for activating.

On average, still need to be shot 4 times and focus token 40% of the time for an evade.

I have tried the flight instructor for days when it was published. on a fat han (which was NOT a thing yet back then, as c3p0 did not exist)..

it is .. meh. on the fattest of ships, with the best possible place to use (you can reroll -1- die, the falcon has 1 die - you reroll 100% of your greens), it is still very meh.

the card is simply not good the way it is worded. try it yourself, please. learning is better than just "being told so".

then join the club

I try the unworkable cards. all of them. but -most- have their "meh/bad"-status for a reason

Next up...

Mickey Mouse vs Mohammed Ali

On a more serious note the chances of flight instructor triggering is too low to justify not only 4 points but also a crew slot. The only real ships you can stick it on are one agility ships. One agility ahips aren't usually taking defensive focus actions and ps2 and below ships are reasonable rate en mass at the moment so you have a 3/8 chance of having a 3/8 chance of having a 3-8 chance of getting an evade. You need to get shot A LOT of times each round to get that up to the 1 in 1 chance of having an evade that Ysanne gives you. By the time your taking that many shots a round on your one agility ship your pretty much toast anyway regardless of potentially having a reroll on your one agility.

Is that even a question?

On a more serious note the chances of flight instructor triggering is too low to justify not only 4 points but also a crew slot. The only real ships you can stick it on are one agility ships.

Yea, those are definitely the biggest issues. Flight Instructor would be better on high-agi ships like Phantoms, but even then the cost puts it very low on the priority list when compared to other options.

Which is better?

Is that even a question?

Question: Noun; a sentence worded or expressed so as to elicit information.

I'm going with yes.

Thanks guys, I see that now.

I could see some utility in Flight Instructor on a cloaked Whisper. With 4 green dice, it should trigger on most attacks. The problem is that there are other cheaper options for that crew slot.

A Phantom with Sensor Jammer and FI is one of the tankiest ships in the game, especially when fighting TLT spam.

There comes a point at which Flight Instructor is superior.

A) While you have shields

B) While you are stressed

C) When you are defending against sufficient attacks with sufficient green dice that the re-rolls are expected to prevent more than 1 hp/round

There comes a point at which Flight Instructor is superior.

A) While you have shields

B) While you are stressed

C) When you are defending against sufficient attacks with sufficient green dice that the re-rolls are expected to prevent more than 1 hp/round

So hypothetically, if an Aggressor could take crew, would a flight instructor aggressor be worth while? How about with a Stealth Device?

There comes a point at which Flight Instructor is superior.

A) While you have shields

B) While you are stressed

C) When you are defending against sufficient attacks with sufficient green dice that the re-rolls are expected to prevent more than 1 hp/round

So hypothetically, if an Aggressor could take crew, would a flight instructor aggressor be worth while? How about with a Stealth Device?

If an Aggressor could take crew, it would likely be superior to Ysanne.

There are very few ships with agility >1 (Firespray-31, HWK-290, YT-2400, TIE-Phantom).

These are the FI's best chance, as they have the best odds of rolling at least 1 focus result to be re-rolled.

However, the FI's greatest problem is that it costs 4 points and a valuable upgrade slot.

So 1 free action is better than a reroll per attack?

You have to quantify "reroll per attack" though.

You have a 25% chance of activating Flight Instructor. So on average, you need to be shot 4 times for FI to be used once.

Then when it does get activated, you have a 38% chance of getting an evade.

So on average, you'd need to be shot more than 10 times to reliably get an evade out of it. And that's if you have a focus token which you have to spend 40% of the time. Ysanne gets you that Evade for free.

Edit: Against PS2 or below...

63% chance of activating, so 1.6 shots required for activating.

On average, still need to be shot 4 times and focus token 40% of the time for an evade.

Your math is right, but your wording is misleading. It's not based on how many times you are shot, but on how many green dice you roll.

A cloaked phantom, only needs to be shot at once to roll 4 dice. Based on a 25% chance of getting a focus, on average, a cloaked phantom will be able utilize FI almost every time it rolls defense dice.

Based on a 38% chance of getting an evade out of that focus, a cloaked Phantom gets a evade from FI roughly every third time it is shot at.

FI improves the more green dice that one rolls. That said, the only scenario where it would likely surpass Isard is on a Phantom that is jousting and getting shot at a lot.

So 1 free action is better than a reroll per attack?

You have to quantify "reroll per attack" though.

You have a 25% chance of activating Flight Instructor. So on average, you need to be shot 4 times for FI to be used once.

Then when it does get activated, you have a 38% chance of getting an evade.

So on average, you'd need to be shot more than 10 times to reliably get an evade out of it. And that's if you have a focus token which you have to spend 40% of the time. Ysanne gets you that Evade for free.

Edit: Against PS2 or below...

63% chance of activating, so 1.6 shots required for activating.

On average, still need to be shot 4 times and focus token 40% of the time for an evade.

Your math is right, but your wording is misleading. It's not based on how many times you are shot, but on how many green dice you roll.

A cloaked phantom, only needs to be shot at once to roll 4 dice. Based on a 25% chance of getting a focus, on average, a cloaked phantom will be able utilize FI almost every time it rolls defense dice.

Based on a 38% chance of getting an evade out of that focus, a cloaked Phantom gets a evade from FI roughly every third time it is shot at.

FI improves the more green dice that one rolls. That said, the only scenario where it would likely surpass Isard is on a Phantom that is jousting and getting shot at a lot.

yeah... welll..

no.

granted, the more green the higher the chance you get a focus you can reroll..

but-

as you already pointed out: on average, that is hit number 3.

a phantom can take 4.

also the nature of the FI and phantom contradict:

a phant wants to be shot ONCE, maybe twice, so that all greens and your focus/evade can nullify that one shot.

a FI wants to be shot as often as possible, to get triggered as often as possible.

the perfect ship for an FI would have plenty of green or at least 1, NO actions or actions for something different, and a ton of HP.

to me, that's a falcon.. maybe a yt2400.

you can get c3po on these.

the other perfect ship would be a decimator.. -if- it had agi1.

also, you can have isard there, who all but guarantees that 1evade after shields.

currently, I see really really no place for the FI. and that is without looking at points..

Here's a suggestion why Flight Instructor often isn't worth it. Most enemy ships aren't PS 2 or lower these days, so you'd reroll an (eye) result.

Wired, a 1 point EPT does the same thing but instead you get to reroll ALL your (eye) results and all you need to do is be stressed.

yeah... welll..

no.

granted, the more green the higher the chance you get a focus you can reroll..

but-

as you already pointed out: on average, that is hit number 3.

a phantom can take 4.

No to what?

FI has nothing to do with hits. One can use FI regardless of whether they're getting hit or not. If a Phantom is getting shot at multiple times in a turn, FI can potentially trigger, helping the ship to avoid damage from that attack and allowing any tokens to be saved for a future attack and the ship potentially taking no hits even after being shot at multiple times.

If anything, the Phantom's low health makes FI better on it than Isard because Isard only triggers once the ship is half dead.

I never recommended flying a Phantom in a way that it gets shot at a lot or said that it was a good strategy. My goal point was to answer the OPs questions by looking at scenarios where FI might be better than Isard. If one wants to charge in and joust with a Phantom FI is better for that strategy, regardless of whether the strategy itself is a good one.

??? - You state that the best place for FI is a ship with a lot of green and then you list a bunch of ships with little or no green dice.

gosh.. I was trying to be -realistic- .. sorry about that.

you are entitled to fly your phantoms into the storm, you are also entitled to put an FI on there.

neither FI nor isard are crew that belong on a phantom, IMHO, I was just stressing that.

the perfect ship for FI has 45 greens, 122 shield and 334 hitpoints. there you go..

again: I was trying to get the ship -we have- where it is most useful.. that's a: a yt1300/2400, and its not the best option on either.

feel free to see things different.

Yes, a Phantom doesn't want to get shot at, but sometimes it just doesn't have a choice, with all these turrets about.

When facing 4 TLT Y-Wings, not an uncommon occurence these days, you might end up having to defend against 8 different attacks.

A Phantom with Sensor Jammer and FI is well on her way to shrugging off all of those attacks.

Yes, a Phantom doesn't want to get shot at, but sometimes it just doesn't have a choice, with all these turrets about.

When facing 4 TLT Y-Wings, not an uncommon occurence these days, you might end up having to defend against 8 different attacks.

A Phantom with Sensor Jammer and FI is well on her way to shrugging off all of those attacks.

it is - but thanks to the jammer and not to FI. I'd rather have a rec.spec on there or agent callus, if defense was my biggest worry. the extra focus does more IMO than rerolling a focus in the desperate hope of 3/8 evade; I'm not planning to get shot by 4 of those beasts. avoid 2-3 (avoid all, if you must), and you're golden.

better still: blast 'em before they blast you

haven't flown my sledgehammer-whisper into 4 tlts, yet, but against other lists, it still does good