so I was playing with an idea for an escalation list and I was mostly looking for advice on when to add ships. also any other help on whether this is viable or not would be much appreciated.

60pts

whisper-38

advanced cloaking

swarm tactics

tempest squadron pilot-22

tie/x1

advanced targeting computer

90pts/120pts

For the 30 points I gain I was thinking either

omicron group pilot-30

tactical jammers

emporer palpatine

or

sigma squadron pilot-29

advanced cloaking device

If I take one for 90pts I would probably take the other when I move up to 120pts the idea is to have whisper and sigma to stay very close and dish out a stupid amount of dice at PS-7 however phantoms can be a glass canon if my rolling is bad so it might benefit more to bring on the shuttle first and have a little more staying power and use it for re rolls and for extra evade dice.

150pts

whisper-38

advanced cloaking

swarm tactics

tempest squadron pilot-22

tie/x1

advanced targeting computer

omicron group pilot-37

tactical jammers

emperor palpatine

heavy laser canon

sigma squadron pilot-29

advanced cloaking device

lieutenant Colzet-24

tie/x1

adv targeting computer

the idea for this is having the tie advances and lambda to fly together and having a lethal flanking force with the two phantoms adding a heavy laser canon to maximize damage coming from the lambda.

Okay, from my experience with playing in an Escalation Tournament, you always have to remember that the game essentially breaks once you get past 100 points per squad. What that means is that no ace can withstand getting shot at up to 8-10 times. This is where I see you Whisper being very vulnerable (more than she usually is) and your Palp shuttle not doing much good (he will be gone in one round of concentrated fire).

So, in Escalation, generics is the way to go. That way you can pump out many, many ships. If you don't someone else will and you'll probably not do that good against them. his is where Pilot Skill become interesting though - do you opt for more ships or the choice to shoot them down before they get to shoot?

The match where I realized this was when I met a player at 150 points who had something like 2 K-wings with TLT, a Stresshog and 5 z-95s. I though I was cool with a decked-out YV-666, a Brobot, Palob Godalhi and something else. But there were just too many dice thrown my way and too much hull to chew through. He eventually went on to win the tournament.

TL;DR: Aces are balanced for 100 points, and don't survive very well after you go over 100 points.