Just what the title asks. Do we think that if autothrusters cost 3, the game would be more balanced? Or is cost 2 appropriate for the upgrade card? Discuss!

No.

The game would be more balanced if there was an arc penalty for turrets. There is not. Thus, autothrusters, other anti-turret tech, and the new big turrets being incentivized to have to use thier arc.

I agree with they are fine at 2pts.

I've never been sure the trigger at range 3 is needed though. Having them out of arc only would have kept the boost against stupid PWT they were meant to counter without hurting jousters that manage to get a bead on a slippery (as AT ships tend to be) ships.

Hmm. AT dont need changing but a cheap or free mod for in arc only shots that switch off AT could be an interesting...

you'd need to get rid of PWTs first

and no, thrusters working only against out of arc shots would be a horrible idea for a stupidly situational upgrade. Without a generic trigger, it's a complete rock/paper/scissors element that throws skill out in favor of match-up luck

I agree with they are fine at 2pts.

I've never been sure the trigger at range 3 is needed though. Having them out of arc only would have kept the boost against stupid PWT they were meant to counter without hurting jousters that manage to get a bead on a slippery (as AT ships tend to be) ships.

Hmm. AT dont need changing but a cheap or free mod for in arc only shots that switch off AT could be an interesting...

They added the Range 3 part just so you do not have a card completly useless if you do not face turrets.

autothrustors are there to punish turrets, since there is literally no penalty for firing out of arc with a turret. The ability to fire 360 is powerful as it is, even if they lost a die in the process or something like that it would still be very strong.

Besides, autothrustors arent available for a large chunk of ships anyway.

autothrusters are also there to reward you for being range 3 with a bit more insurance on spectacularly sh*tty green dice

Just what the title asks. Do we think that if autothrusters cost 3, the game would be more balanced? Or is cost 2 appropriate for the upgrade card? Discuss!

The problem with making upgrades that are paired with Acewings more expensive is that it only increases the cost for them by a point, while making it much more expensive for non-Acewings.

Autothrusters wouldn't have been needed if FFG didn't saturate this game with turrets during wave 5.

Making autothrusters 1 point more expensive would do nothing to Palp Aces. An OGP with Palp, Inquistor, and Soontir only costs 95 points. If it was 97 it would still be broken.

In order to nerf Acewings, you could just make bank boost red. If a ship with innate boost equips engine upgrade, it is discounted by 2 points and turns bank boost white.

No

Part of the reason to increase the cost to 3 would be to curb aces a little, seeing as how they almost exclusively use Autothrusters (with a few exceptions of course). Saying that increasing the cost of Autothrusters from 2 to 3 doesn't nerf aces seems silly to me, as aces are the primary users of the upgrade.

Is there any Mathwing justification to how much Autothrusters SHOULD cost?

No. Autothrusters are not a problem. I see more of problem with ordnance and the alpha strike. They needed to fix ordnance, but may have overdone it. Perhaps guidance chips should cost a point, also long range scanners. The max dice, max modified dice race is getting out of control.

Part of the reason to increase the cost to 3 would be to curb aces a little, seeing as how they almost exclusively use Autothrusters (with a few exceptions of course). Saying that increasing the cost of Autothrusters from 2 to 3 doesn't nerf aces seems silly to me, as aces are the primary users of the upgrade.

No. Autothrusters are not a problem. I see more of problem with ordnance and the alpha strike. They needed to fix ordnance, but may have overdone it. Perhaps guidance chips should cost a point, also long range scanners. The max dice, max modified dice race is getting out of control.

No. Autothrusters are not a problem. I see more of problem with ordnance and the alpha strike. They needed to fix ordnance, but may have overdone it. Perhaps guidance chips should cost a point, also long range scanners. The max dice, max modified dice race is getting out of control.

Typical Palp Aces player. Plays ships that can convert blank blank focus into 4 evade results but whines when something can turn 2 hits into 4 to deal with his BS.

We had to deal with these players last wave too. "Stresshog is too good for its points, it's an /autoinclude/." Soontir players complaining about autoincludes! It's almost as bad as a Poe Han player complaining about how quad TLT takes no skill.

Part of the reason to increase the cost to 3 would be to curb aces a little, seeing as how they almost exclusively use Autothrusters (with a few exceptions of course). Saying that increasing the cost of Autothrusters from 2 to 3 doesn't nerf aces seems silly to me, as aces are the primary users of the upgrade.

It would hurt lists like Chihuahuas a lot more than it would hurt Soontir, Carnor, and the Inquisitor. Palp Aces builds usually have a few points to spare, so they'd be fine, but one of the few viable rebel builds would be dead.

That's true.

AT arnt the problem PWT are.

No, they are fine at 2 points. Now FFG just needs to keep releasing more goodies that care about arcs until turrets are in a better place. It's too late to change the rules how turrets work, but it's not too late to release awesome upgrades that only work in arc.

No. Autothrusters are not a problem. I see more of problem with ordnance and the alpha strike. They needed to fix ordnance, but may have overdone it. Perhaps guidance chips should cost a point, also long range scanners. The max dice, max modified dice race is getting out of control.

No. Autothrusters are not a problem. I see more of problem with ordnance and the alpha strike. They needed to fix ordnance, but may have overdone it. Perhaps guidance chips should cost a point, also long range scanners. The max dice, max modified dice race is getting out of control.

Typical Palp Aces player. Plays ships that can convert blank blank focus into 4 evade results but whines when something can turn 2 hits into 4 to deal with his BS.

We had to deal with these players last wave too. "Stresshog is too good for its points, it's an /autoinclude/." Soontir players complaining about autoincludes! It's almost as bad as a Poe Han player complaining about how quad TLT takes no skill.

How do they get 4 evades???

Yes, I've tired of autothrustered U-Boats. It's like c'mon FFG.

No. Autothrusters are not a problem. I see more of problem with ordnance and the alpha strike. They needed to fix ordnance, but may have overdone it. Perhaps guidance chips should cost a point, also long range scanners. The max dice, max modified dice race is getting out of control.

No. Autothrusters are not a problem. I see more of problem with ordnance and the alpha strike. They needed to fix ordnance, but may have overdone it. Perhaps guidance chips should cost a point, also long range scanners. The max dice, max modified dice race is getting out of control.

Typical Palp Aces player. Plays ships that can convert blank blank focus into 4 evade results but whines when something can turn 2 hits into 4 to deal with his BS.

We had to deal with these players last wave too. "Stresshog is too good for its points, it's an /autoinclude/." Soontir players complaining about autoincludes! It's almost as bad as a Poe Han player complaining about how quad TLT takes no skill.

How do they get 4 evades???

No, 2 points for AT is right.

No. Autothrusters are not a problem. I see more of problem with ordnance and the alpha strike. They needed to fix ordnance, but may have overdone it. Perhaps guidance chips should cost a point, also long range scanners. The max dice, max modified dice race is getting out of control.

Ordnance just got into the area where one might consider to use it. The "problem" you are talking about is the contracted scout, as that ship shouldn't have the elite talent slot at such a low points cost. That's about the only ship where you see ordnance (besides some prockets on a few aces) used to it's full capacity, simply because you get it fully loaded for 33 - 34 points.

yeah ordnance on pretty much any list except the uboat spam isnt a problem. its painful if done right, but it isnt op.

I dont even consider autothrusters overpowered. Literally the only people ive heard complain about them are turret users, how ironic.

I agree with they are fine at 2pts.

I've never been sure the trigger at range 3 is needed though. Having them out of arc only would have kept the boost against stupid PWT they were meant to counter without hurting jousters that manage to get a bead on a slippery (as AT ships tend to be) ships.

Hmm. AT dont need changing but a cheap or free mod for in arc only shots that switch off AT could be an interesting...

The range 3 trigger was a hit against HLC which would kill TIE interceptors by rolling more red dice than green dice. Since cannon doesn't allow for bonus dice at range 3 the agility bonus most arc dodgers depended on would be negated.

We talk about this on the cast a lot but I think the designers kinda flubbed it a bit. Maybe not necessarily with autothrusters, but just the general direction of the game that led to the over saturation of autothrusters, it was no coincidence that the top 4 lists at worlds all had at least 1 ship with them.

We actually just had the Howard brothers on and they were talking about the reason they dropped Vader from their list for the Inquisitor was basically because Vader would just always die way quicker because he couldn't equip them. That's the sad, unfortunate truth for many ships is that they just can't hold up against the plethora of turrets in the game.

And while I understand the argument for letting them activate at range three so as to not have them be useless against non-turret lists, I think that did make them a bit too good. The only way you can really kill a Soontir without having some sort of auto hit or control is to make him bump, and catch him a couple of arcs at range 1-2, that's very difficult to do against a good ace player and that's why I think Palp aces is owning the meta right now.

IMHO, the 'correct' thing to have dealt with the problem with PWTs was not adding the AT upgrade, but rather errata'ing turrets to always work that way regardless of what the thing they are shooting at has equipped .

IE., when firing out-of-arc at anything , the defender gets to convert one blank an evade.

Then you don't need the range 3 conversion on top of it, 'to add value against non-PWT enemies', as everyone has that ability already and isn't paying for it in the first place. (I mean, heck, maybe leave AT in the game at 2 points but the only thing it does is add that range-3 conversion, since everyone now gets the PWT conversion for free).