The issue with the cost of Autothruster is that it's simply too easy a decision to take them.

Consider the modification slot on Jake Farrell. You can choose between AT for 2 points or Shield Upgrade for 4 points. In every game, with or without turrets, Jake can get AT to proc and a save a damage. If he makes that work 1 time, AT is a bargain over a shield. In games against turrets, AT is orders of magnitude better than SU. The decision on the mod slot for nearly every ship that can equip AT is non existent, you take AT.

That's the issue. Decisions regarding upgrades should be comparably difficult. With AT the decision is far too easy. IMO, that indicates a flaw in the price of the card and or its ability for the cost.

The cost of AT should have been high enough that, at the very least, a Shield or Hull Upgrade is considered over AT.

The issue with the cost of Autothruster is that it's simply too easy a decision to take them.

Consider the modification slot on Jake Farrell. You can choose between AT for 2 points or Shield Upgrade for 4 points. In every game, with or without turrets, Jake can get AT to proc and a save a damage. If he makes that work 1 time, AT is a bargain over a shield. In games against turrets, AT is orders of magnitude better than SU. The decision on the mod slot for nearly every ship that can equip AT is non existent, you take AT.

That's the issue. Decisions regarding upgrades should be comparably difficult. With AT the decision is far too easy. IMO, that indicates a flaw in the price of the card and or its ability for the cost.

The cost of AT should have been high enough that, at the very least, a Shield or Hull Upgrade is considered over AT.

Some upgrades are just auto-include in some situations, depending on the pilot or ship. Autothrusters is a great card and you see it used a lot but you don't see it spammed to the degree of Palp and contracted scouts, or TLT and PWT's before that, and even on a ship like the A-wing i'd argue not necessarily auto-include... for instance you might opt for a 5 prototype/w prockets and Chips instead of a 5 green w/ chardaan and AT.

Using an example like the shield upgrade is a little unfair because the mod slot is so universal that it's inevitable some mods will be over/under costed depending on the ships, especially since you have large base ships in the mix. For example EU is broken in some cases and laughably overcosted in others.

Again, when comparing Autothrusters to Shield/Hull Upgrade, remember those are badly priced upgrades that saw very little play even before Autothrusters was released.

before recosting cards like AT there's a bunch of other cards that are wrong. like plasma torp, designed to be attractive when ordnance was not a thing, and now are stupid undercosted.

This topic is so funny.

- People observing Aces lists in the upper tier and blaming Autothrusters.

- People Thinking that a hull point is equal to 3/4 points because of Hull and Shield upgrade.

- People suggesting R2-D2 and C-3P0s effects are fine but the Emperor is broken.

The cost of AT should have been high enough that, at the very least, a Shield or Hull Upgrade is considered over AT.

The whole point of thrusters was to enable arc-dodgers to flourish in a game dominated by turrets. In order to do what it was designed to do it necessarily had to be an auto-include; giving soontir an extra hull does nothing to make him more survivable vs falcons and decimators. You could argue that turrets should have been addressed via errata or rules changes, but if they were going to do it through upgrades then thrusters pretty much had to be as good as they are

There's no way to outplay palp, he's there to cut back your good luck and good plays, and stab the knife deeper when his own side makes a good play.

Actually, from my experience, Palpatine is most often used to cut back on the Imperial player's bad luck, so that when your 35-40 point ship blanks out on 3-4 greens it doesn't cost you the game.

This game has been moving for quite a while in the direction that offense is more and more reliable. Currently we have popular builds in the game that boast 85-90% chance to roll max number of hits on their attacks. If green dice have no means to be similarly reliable, then low Hp high Agi aces will not be competitively viable

AT's are invaluable to the ships that are the most fragile (Tie Int, Tie Adv.Prot, A-Wing etc). They need it to mitigate incoming damage as a) they lack shields b) have minimal hull and c) it fits thematically with their design.

These are high skill ships: using them, even with ATs does not ever guarantee wins. Generally speaking, these ships punish poor flying or mistakes. ATs at 2pts is about right in my book. I fly both Imp and Rebel A-Wings and can see their value for either faction. Prior to ATs Tie Interceptors were lacking as turrets frequently wrecked em. As others have said, without ATs many of these ships would not be viable - both ordinance and turrets would keep them out of the game.

Yes, Palp is extra insurance and we can debate him. But I'd say the same about the Kanan crew card and it's effect: put him on a SuperDash and you can PTL, boost, barrel roll land on rocks without a care in the world.

There's no way to outplay palp, he's there to cut back your good luck and good plays, and stab the knife deeper when his own side makes a good play.

Actually, from my experience, Palpatine is most often used to cut back on the Imperial player's bad luck, so that when your 35-40 point ship blanks out on 3-4 greens it doesn't cost you the game.

This game has been moving for quite a while in the direction that offense is more and more reliable. Currently we have popular builds in the game that boast 85-90% chance to roll max number of hits on their attacks. If green dice have no means to be similarly reliable, then low Hp high Agi aces will not be competitively viable

Agreed. Palpatine is probably a bit under costed, but compare him to R2-D2, who should easily cost twice as much. Or C3PO, who also saves a ton of damage on an expensive ship. Palpatine keeps our fragile aces from exploding from one bad roll. If Fell blanks out he explodes, if Poe blanks out he spends a few rounds regenerating his shields for free.

Yes, technically they would probably be more balanced at three points. Would that solve the flaw, okay many flaws, of their design? No. Wait for second edition. No, Force Awakens was not second edition.

For discussion, they are way too cheap, have an insane conversion chance(they make one die in your pool of likely the dice have nothing but symbols on it) an inane and somewhat arbitrary equip restriction, and too narrow of a counter-play hit box.

Other ways to balance it more: Make it only convert focus eyes, make it work only out of arc entirely, make it a reroll of up to two blank dice. Make it equipment only fit ships that have a certain Maneuver on their dial. Require it to work only if you perform an action to turn them on. Fix the native turret rules in some way. Honestly I think they are and always have been fine. They are a good representation of what the ships with them should be able to do if I'm being realistic. There is really no advantage of the pilot of a B-17 being able to see what the dorsal turret gunner is shooting at. Nor is there any real benefit of the dorsal turret gunner being able to see the target better moving towards it than away or along side it, as the turret firing solution is always relative to the targets vector anyway. Likewise there really isn't much of a penalty that can be represented for the turret as again there wasn't much disadvantage to any of its other angles it could shoot at. Not that I'm aware of anyway.

Sincerely, an A-wing enthusiast

If I remember correctly Autothrusters were first designed to bring balance to the game...

...and Anakin Skywalker was supposed to bring balance to the Force...

So lots of people have jumped on my not working in arc at R3 saying it was needed to stop then being situational.

Ok, but I fail to see the problem with that. Arc dodgers needed precisely zero help against jousters who already struggled to get PTL arc dodgers in arc. in or against each other IMO. A good ace player simply isn't getting shot at by "jouster" ships. Only chance is at longer range where the arc covers more table space. AT say nope to that.

I fly lots of evasive ships. I use AT a lot. I simply see no reason for them to work R3 in arc.

I MN'm not a PWT player. I'm not an ace wing player. I'm and Xwing player and care not one bit about looking after my 'precious archetype" as I fly it all.

Too late to change AT but something to help the guys that simply cannot deal with AT equipped ships boost rolling out of arc because their few shots are modified to hell would be a good direction IMO.

The only down side I've seen mentioned to this is meaning you may have spent 2pts on an upgrade you can't use at all. I simply don't see why this is an issue. It makes them a consideration rather than stupidly easy decision to take.. I bet 95% (to pluck a random figure out my ass) of ships that currently take them, still would. I still would at 2pts. They would still be a bargain.

Agreed. Palpatine is probably a bit under costed, but compare him to R2-D2, who should easily cost twice as much. Or C3PO, who also saves a ton of damage on an expensive ship. Palpatine keeps our fragile aces from exploding from one bad roll. If Fell blanks out he explodes, if Poe blanks out he spends a few rounds regenerating his shields for free.

Lets be honest R2D2 at 8 points would be dead on arrival.

I don't use them much at all.. I would rather scrape up another point and put push the limit on things. Auto-thrusters just aren't all that to me... I play Imperial mostly and would rather have cards that are on tap. Not ones that are situational...

You know... you can put Push the Limit AND Autothrusters on the same ship... (ie every single Fel and Inquisitor in the meta right now).

If I remember correctly Autothrusters were first designed to bring balance to the game...

...and Anakin Skywalker was supposed to bring balance to the Force...

And hell yeah, he DID!

The world had 2 sith and ton of jedi?

Nope!

2 jedi and 2 sith

And when he found out that Emperor was about to make Jedi extinct, he threw him out of the airlock into the well. Except that he failed and died, losing balance again (0 sith, 1 jedi)

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.

There is a lot of ways to deal with Aces - blocking, focused fire, regeneration or stressing.

What is bad for game currently are Toilet Seats and overdone ordnance - those things killed a lot of viable builds, Aces never dictated meta as much as those "aberrations" do.

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.

There is a lot of ways to deal with Aces - blocking, focused fire, regeneration or stressing.

What is bad for game currently are Toilet Seats and overdone ordnance - those things killed a lot of viable builds, Aces never dictated meta as much as those "aberrations" do.

And if aces never dictated the meta so much, why was it largely useless to field anything between PS2 and PS9 before jumpmasters? It just seems less obvious because, as aces were part of the game for a long time, many of the builds aces 'killed off' were never viable.

Any mechanic or upgrade has a value in the meta that is dynamic based on its interaction.

Autothrusters on Soontir is good value at 2 points because it increases his survivability and thus allows him to do more damage.

Autothrusters on Cutlass Squadron is bad value at 2 points because it does almost nothing to extend its life and you have to lose Guidance chips to do so.

Soontir is always good and with abilities that accentuate a players skill at the game.

Add Autothrusters on top of Stealth Device and with Palpatine and Soontir appears godlike.

Its a case of things being stronger together than the sum of its parts. If you swap in Redline on Soontir, does Autothrusters and Palpatine have the same apparent value?

Its Soontir that needs the point increase.

Autothrusters is priced just fine at this time.

Soontir is always good and with abilities that accentuate a players skill at the game.

2-hard-green

PTL

2-hard-green

PTL

???

SKILL!

[/sarasm]

Oh, really, Soontir is one of the "screw gravity!" ships.

If I remember correctly Autothrusters were first designed to bring balance to the game...

...and Anakin Skywalker was supposed to bring balance to the Force...

Exactly! I have to tip my hat to those FFG designers, they're brilliant!! Think about it, if there wasn't these irritating devices that seem to bring apparent imbalance and unfairness to the game -when viewing it through our biased lenses- then the game would nearly be as fun and we would not be having fun with such interactive banter. True to the movies we all love, they, in actual tiny ways, cause ripples in the game as they create these awesome little ships and cards....nicely played FFG, nicely played!

And, not wanting to take a pass on b*&%hing about something; I have a beef too haha. Although I am just learning the game and I don't have enough solid knowledge to place real marks on any aspect, turrets are seemingly the most unequal weapon on the board. I have posted before about how they should have some reduction in their attack in the opposite angle from their focus areas as this would be more realistic in an actual flight/combat situation. But, I'm gonna keep at it and crack one (without so much friendly ship sacrifice and destruction) soon; I'm not an expert at keeping ships at range 3 yet. I'll get there...especially if I keep learning from you experts on this forum!

Soontir is always good and with abilities that accentuate a players skill at the game.

2-hard-green

PTL

2-hard-green

PTL

???

SKILL!

[/sarasm]

Oh, really, Soontir is one of the "screw gravity!" ships.

In Soontir's defense, they do fly in space. Very little gravity up there

This is kind of becoming a problem with the game

Not autothrusters, but the auto-include upgrades.

More and more ships are becoming auto include when it comes to certain upgrades, that I feel it takes away from a certain aspect of the game, which is what I really enjoyed back when I started playing.

As ships require updates to make viable again, then any time you field said ship you must equip X on it

Auto thrusters, ptl, titles, etc.

The only way I think ffg could go back and fix a lot of their fudge ups is release the 2.0 core set.

In there have a list of cards that are no longer legal to use with 2.0 but have new rules for turrets. You lose 1 attack dice out of arc

Ordnance they could include new upgrade / new rulescards for ordnance and new dice to be used for ordnance, and lose things like guidance chips

Edit

For me the game is losing its appeal.

What we really liked the most when we got into it was there wasn't any of this super modifing dice.

The game relied heavily on guessing where your opponent is going to go in order to get them in arc.

Now there is so many turret ships it started to take away that part of the game, and ffg answer to that is upgrades that make other ships harder to hit. Which also effects the ships that don't use turrets, but are there anyway.

The game relied heavily on guessing where your opponent is going to go in order to get them in arc.

And then bastards started using two post-maneuver actions with repositioning and over-the-top PS

FIlthy dodgers killing our game,a nd Turrets unable to counter them due to autothrusters >:C

Soontir is always good and with abilities that accentuate a players skill at the game.

2-hard-green

PTL

2-hard-green

PTL

???

SKILL!

I would like to see how far you would go playing this way against player using enough brain to block your moves.

If someone says that flying Soontir doesn't require skill I can only laugh at their ignorance. But if truly that is the case, what stops you from taking him and win next Regional without eye blink?

I don't think Autothrusters are the problem, I think Primary Weapon Turrets are the problem.

In a game about clever manoeuvring of ships into position for attack, Turrets can simply shoot everything in range, without penalty (the only penalty being if the enemy being shot has Autothrusters)

I appreciate different people have different opinions about what makes the game fun, but what got me into it was the movement - setting your dial, anticipating the opponents dial, using your boost and/or barrel roll actions to try and eke out the very best position... Turrets are the antithesis of all that.

Don't get me wrong, not claiming anything is overpowered, but I will say I have a lot less fun playing against the Dashes, Hans, RACs of the world than I do against the Soontirs and Whispers of the world - even though the latter is far more likely to utterly crush me when in the hands of a skilled player.

2-hard-green

PTL

2-hard-green

PTL
???
SKILL!

[/sarasm]

Oh, really, Soontir is one of the "screw gravity!" ships.

2 Hard Green Soontir?

Meet Mr. Academy Pilot, he'll be in your way more than an old lady at the Supermarket.