Palpatine seems to be the Lambda Shuttle crew of choice right now, is anyone seeing the Doom Shuttle played anymore? Why has it vanished?

Is it because vader has moved to his tie advanced as one of the preferred imperial ace pilots?

Two reasons from my perspective.

1. Your reasoning is accurate. He pilots now.

2. Doom shuttle is more potent against 2 ship builds like fat Han, Dash, etc. The meta has moved to more numbers of ships.

Just my 2 cents though.

Vader in the TIE Advanced is probably one of the bigger reasons.

Also, with the rise of the TIE Advanced, TIE/fo, and various Scum pilots, I think we're seeing more ships that have 1 or more shields, which Vader crew is less effectively against. TIE Fighters and Interceptors fear him the most, but those are less common than they used to be.

It lost traction at wave 4, when it couldn't hit the phantom.

Now, it seems extra silly to essentially chose a build that gives your opponent a free 12 points, as the doom shuttles sole purpose is to kill itself.

Opportunity cost. If you're taking a shuttle with Vader, you're not taking a shuttle with Palpatine; and you're unlikely more than one shuttle in most lists. Plus, with Omega Leader, the Empire has other low-cost ways of dealing with aces.

Vader strikes back:

https://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Galactic%20Empire&d=v4!s!99:27,-1,45,21,-1,-1:-1:3:;79:27,36,142:-1:9:&sn=Unnamed%20Squadron

I've had PLENTY of use of vader crew on my RAC/whisper decimator.

Doomshuttle just got upgraded to a vicious hard hitting decimator as far as I'm concerned.

I think it started to decline with the half points for big ships change.

TIE advanced update certainly ushered DVader back into the meta as a pilot, but that didn't appear until after the half points and by then the doom shuttle was an uncommon sight I think.

1- Vader as pilot

2- palp crew

3- half points (a title that denied this would be great!)

4- it kills itself in an environment that can do 10 damage to a 1AG ship pretty reliably before PS 2 and definitely before PS 2's second shot.

5- dial. Still scares people off. Look at how much better the YV-666 is.

I love shuttles. Love em. Wish you could fit 5 in a list. That would see play.

I never really saw it that much. I remember when it came out and I saw it a lot. But it seemed to go away pretty quickly after that. I think the fact that the shuttle still needed to get arc to do its ace-killing meant that it really wasn't as good of an answer against ships like Soontir after all. And it really isn't that great of a ship against things that aren't low hp high cost ships.

Of course if you put Palpatine on your shuttle you really don't want it to kill itself. And of course Vader is really awesome right now, like you said might be a big reason. But I saw the Doom Shuttle disappear before those things came out.

Seems like the Decimator has taken on the doom, since it's a much beefier ship.

I still fly it regularly, except I am now putting baffles on it to help keep aces in arc longer.

Works great.

I flew the doom shuttle all season last year. I flew it in a few events at the start of the year but quickly realised that the reduction in large based ships on the board combined with the increase in high ps arc Dodgers meant it was much more difficult to get the good three round of firing which would generally guarentee me the win. I was generally getting one round of firing then the shuttle was left stranded and mopped up at the end.

Well 3 things have happen since the arrival of the doom shuttle and its cousin the buzzsaw. But we will focus on the doom.

1. The VT-49 Decimator came out with more hitpoints and a turret giving more uses of vader. A shuttle could have been dodged and then taken out but approaching a decimator with vader on board will hurt.
2. The raider came out with the TIE Advanced fix giving the Vader pilot card more power and since vader pilot and vader crew share the same name players have to choose one or the other.
3. The MOV nerf to large based ships means if you play doom shuttle you are already giving your opponent 12 MOV points if it goes to time.

Welcome to the evolution of collective games that evolve through updates. They often have something called power creep and that is as the game evolves better items and combinations surface and BEAT OUT all the older stuff. Your beloved Doom Shuttle is one such victim.

I've won a National, and 2 Store-Championship (2015 and 2016) with the good old Doom-Shuttle

It will be always here ... and will always be a valuable choice for the last 1/4 quarter of an imperial Squad, that doesn't have Vader in the Advanced!

Reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated! The DS remains a scary proposition, doing the job of hard counter for peanuts.

76pts is such a flexible amount, allowing you to get some of the empire's bigger guns in with ease for a three-ship list (Deathrain, Whisper, Vessery, etc.)

It also presents a tempting target to mess with your opponent's priorities, and gets close to Biggs-levels of "draw their fire".

And yes, it will blow up in most games, but that's what you wanted right? It will also net you a lot of 100-24 victories, which is nothing to sniff at.

Sure its dial is poor, but with the triple stall you can let the board develop before committing, so the dial can't be leveraged against you too badly.

Still one of my favourite ships!

1- Vader as pilot

2- palp crew

3- half points (a title that denied this would be great!)

4- it kills itself in an environment that can do 10 damage to a 1AG ship pretty reliably before PS 2 and definitely before PS 2's second shot.

5- dial. Still scares people off. Look at how much better the YV-666 is.

I love shuttles. Love em. Wish you could fit 5 in a list. That would see play.

I would hate to see your Epic battle list lol.

I ran a list at a Store Championship yesterday with 3x Tie Academies, Doomshuttle plus Tactical Jammer, and Redline with Ex Munitions, Assault Missles, Plasma Torps, FCS, and Guidance Chips. I went 4-1 with the loss coming to RAC and Whisper. Had Whisper with only 2 hull outmaneuvering me at the end of that match.

I think the big reason is that the Decimator outclasses the shuttle as a Vader carrier in every way. It has more heLth to burn, more powerful pilot abilities and most importantly it can't be arc dodged so it is legitimately scary to ships like Fel.

One more possibility is the tie fo and advance fix. Prior to that the imperials really didn't have anything in that 23 point range that could fit into most lists. With ac tempests and the named FOs imperials have other, arguably more steady options to fit that point niche.

It's how they are scoring large ships probably.

My list I'm running next week is...

Captain Oicunnn - Predator

Grand inquisitor - PTL, Title, AT

Doom shuttle

Palpatine seems to be the Lambda Shuttle crew of choice right now, is anyone seeing the Doom Shuttle played anymore? Why has it vanished?

Is it because vader has moved to his tie advanced as one of the preferred imperial ace pilots?

Because DOOM DECI is better now that all the targets for DOOM SHUTTLE are wicked sick evasive or shielded-regenners