So are support ships going to become more prominent in the future of X wing? I'm not just referring to palpatine but other support ships in general. With the latest batch of regionals results showing plenty of Kyle katarns flying around and with imp vets bringing in the tie shuttle I feel like there could be a shift towards lists like this. As palp aces is probably the best example of how support lists work I'll probably be referring to it a lot.
To begin with I want to break down support into two main roles: buddy support and meanie support.
buddy support would be your Kyle katarn or palpatine, where the ship is generally effecting the game by buffing its allies, making them punch harder or tank more. You get a more traditional support role from these guys. Rebels pilots are the kings of this, where a sizable number of ships have pilots with abilities to pass around focus tokens and things of that nature. Imperials see less pilots with buddy abilities but rather have some solid crew options like palpatine that fit this role. Scum has the least amount of buddy options, although they have some powerful tools like manaroo and mindlink as options.
Generally you don't want to make your buddy ship play too important of a role in your list such that it all falls apart when it dies. Take in palp aces for example, while the palpmobile provides a huge boon to your list, it's not like soontir is going to die if the palpmobile goes down. In addition you don't want your buddy ship to be fragile enough to go down in one volley of shots either. The space cow is such a solid choice for a support ship because it provides adequate flubber to soak up shots while still being a ridiculously cheap ship. The palpmobile becomes a great buddy vessel then because no matter what for your opponent it ends up being a lose lose situation, either you took a bunch of heat from the aces while focusing down the palp shuttle or your opponent has to push through that extra layer of defense. Essentially a great buddy ship provides a strong presence on the field for his buddies while still being bulky enough to be able to shrug off a few hits.
I originally wanted to call this type ahole support, but then I realized that probably wouldn't be safe for children. So Meanie support is more like the controller on your team. Rather than making your squad's life better they work to make your opponent's life worse. Scum probably has the largest reserves in this category, with all of the scum hwks, plus upgrades like feedback array for area control. Imperials also possess a decent amount of meanies, with carnor jax possibly being my favorite pilot in the game and upgrades like ruthlessness that punish enemy formation flying. Rebels probably possess the least amount of meanies, but what they lack in quantity they pay back in quality with the likes of the stresshog, Biggs, and Wes Jenson, among other pilots. I may be going on a limb here but I feel mines/bombs can also be placed in this category as effective means of area control as well.
Your opponent should hate meanie support, if they don't then your meanie isn't doing its job right. Take the stresshog for example, this guy and completely shut down a sizable chunk of your opponent's list if given the opportunity to. Even being on the field is going to force your opponent to fly differently. In order to use these kinds of support ships you can't just fly them straight at your opponent and get them killed though. Even Biggs, who's sole purpose is to die first, can be used to disrupt your opponent's focus fire if he is flown right. Sure Palob and torkil can ruin an ace's credibility by taking everything he has, but if they get themselves killed in the process without enabling any real damage thru then how is that any helpful? Your squad needs to be lethal enough to back up your support ship, and punish your opponent when they try to take out your Palob or carnor. Ideally your meanie support doesn't get one shot, but quite frankly your opponent probably doesn't want him around for too long so don't be surprised.
So we talked about the support, so the next thing to talk about would be who are we supporting? This can be broken down into two categories, swarm and ace support.
Swarms are fairly obvious, ships like howlrunner thrive on buffing a bunch of ships with all the rerolls, and generally the more ships the better. Swarm lists generally depend on the support ship much more than aces do, but it's not like they will shut down if the support goes away
Aces are alittle different, while the support ship is much appreciated by no means do they actually require the support. Soontir already turn four blanks into two evades, he doesn't require palpatine to survive. But you can bet your arse he is 10 times more unkillable when palpatine is around. For an aces support rest of the support ship is a complement, not a requirement to the rest of the list.
So where am I going with all of this? To be honest after writing that wall of text I kinda forgot lol. Support ships have made a much larger presence in the meta since previous waves came out, and I feel this game has evolved enough that a support ship can now carry its own wait if placed in the right squad. We have already seen what a support can do with the growth of palp aces, and there are ample support ships out there that can find a similar home in a list. The number of red dice your list throws isn't the end all for its effectiveness anymore, but rather how you pump up those dice to get the most out of them.