It seems like all the piss and vinegar thrown about this title is all about the theorycrafting. "Title should be x so I can do y if I wanna."

I think the real point is missed. Take a deep breath. Picture yourself at a tourney. You're seated across your opponent, fidgeting with your tokens and setting up to start your round. you shake hands, shoot the breeze. Preparing to play, What is the first thing you do? YOU LOOK AT YOUR OPPONENT'S LIST! Now, would you rather have a card that states "this is how the ship works," or would you rather hope you remember how every ship has its eccentricities and when you DO forget midround how that specific mechanic works, and it's used against you, you're like "wait, what? TO!" It's a simple solution to the understanding of the game as its happening, rather than adding to a rulebook. Card text overrules rules in most cases, and this is really no big deal.

The cherry on top is futureproofing. With titles, there can (and should) be more titles applied to ships that shake up what role they can fill. See: tie defender.

PS: we still know essentially nothing, so the next round of chill pills is on me.

Which means the base ARC-170 is intentionally overcosted, because it's assumed that you would take this card.

Which is in-line with the fluff. The ARC is a recon craft (aggressive reconnaissance, but recon nevertheless). It's not a space superiority fighter, it's not a bomber. By the time ANH rolls up it's 20 years old and whatever models are left lying around are probably in a state of disrepair, with little to no maintenance having been made seeing how the ship was discontinued from mass production. Not to mention it needing three clone-trooper pilots to fly it - meaning that it was an incredibly tricky piece of tech to utilise properly, needing coordination of three people that have been, essentially, bred together. It's a legacy craft that gets a jury-rigged uplift to make it borderline effective in a modern era of warfare, but more likely - it's just there to make up the numbers, considering how strapped for ships the Alliance is. Seems to me it's perfectly fine for the base model to be not worth a second look

Which means the base ARC-170 is intentionally overcosted, because it's assumed that you would take this card.

Which is in-line with the fluff.

Sorry, but no. Squadron costs have nothing to do with fluff whatsoever. It's a measurement of the ships value in pure game mechanics, is has no basis in lore.

The idea that the ship should be overcosted because it's tech is out of date is just plain ridiculous.

By that logic, all of TFA ships should be drastically undercosted because their tech is 30 years more advanced than the Empire and Rebel ships.

Give it a 2 dice primary and the cannon upgrade icon.

Was that so hard?

With HLCs in the game?

Yes.

A 7 point upgrade breaks the game? There are so many scary Scyk lists topping the tournaments, right?

Give it a 2 dice primary and the cannon upgrade icon.

Was that so hard?

With HLCs in the game?

Yes.

A 7 point upgrade breaks the game? There are so many scary Scyk lists topping the tournaments, right?

You want them to break the game because you are too lazy to add a card?

A 1 point upgrade is busy breaking the game right now. Deadeye.

The designers wanted a 3 Primary weapon out the front, and 2 out the back with an auto-Focus Lite. Not a potential 5-hit secondary attack at range 3 (6 with opportunist, 7 with Jan nearby).

Which means the base ARC-170 is intentionally overcosted, because it's assumed that you would take this card.

Which is in-line with the fluff.

Sorry, but no. Squadron costs have nothing to do with fluff whatsoever. It's a measurement of the ships value in pure game mechanics, is has no basis in lore.

The idea that the ship should be overcosted because it's tech is out of date is just plain ridiculous.

By that logic, all of TFA ships should be drastically undercosted because their tech is 30 years more advanced than the Empire and Rebel ships.

I think it was meant that it was in line with fluff that all of the Rebellion's ARC-170s have been retrofitted, thus would have the upgrade. I mean, it's rare enough that it doesn't even have a generic pilot, so...

Why a title? Because the refit title for the ARC and SF are meant to be rules for the ship, but they only have so much room on the ship card, and that is taken up by pilot specific rules. AS a title, it is easy to create ship specific rules with a mechanic that already exists, in a form that is easy to read and refer to.

It also quite importantly let's them add other titles later that can offer alternative rules. So you have to pick which ability you want from the title slot. For the Tie S/F maybe a title with a crew slot,or an increase in munitions slots on the Arc, but both would come at a clear cost. In the same way as the two titles on the Tie Defender.

Rikk

Which means the base ARC-170 is intentionally overcosted, because it's assumed that you would take this card.

Which is in-line with the fluff.

Sorry, but no. Squadron costs have nothing to do with fluff whatsoever. It's a measurement of the ships value in pure game mechanics, is has no basis in lore.

The idea that the ship should be overcosted because it's tech is out of date is just plain ridiculous.

By that logic, all of TFA ships should be drastically undercosted because their tech is 30 years more advanced than the Empire and Rebel ships.

Оh, sorry, I was going for the fluff explanation because I felt the in-game explanation was self-evident and didn't need elaboration, If a naked ARC costed 20 points and had an 8 point title upgrade, you'd have people running 4 naked ARCs, therefore FFG'd need to balance every ship for two point-costs and it makes the whole thing a lot messier. Also, the 3 frontal, 2 back with a free focus to crit is obviously something they wanted in the ship from a design perspective and they wanted people to fly it in that way. Second point - you need the rules for the ARC printed in an obvious manner, but there's no space on the pilot card and printing a special rules card with just the ARC elaboration is messy. A title makes perfect sense. And i sorta agree - I was weirded-out yesterday when I saw that the title is pretty much an auto-include. But I think it's pretty easy to spot why

The new ships just have titles that use them funkily.

Yeah that's the whole point, they don't want to make up new rules so they made titles so they could have a given effect only for these ships.

...How is this NOT making new rules?

Seriously, so much whining and griping. There's no way they could've fit the information about how these ships' special functions work on the cards, so a 0pt title makes perfect sense. You people are acting like you need to buy another ship to GET the **** titles when they come with the ships already. And it's not like they take up an otherwise usable slot, so...what's the point of people's pissing and moaning? Seriously.

1. 0 point title so you don't need a whole rule subset/extra info on the ship card.

2. Can't have a cheaper cost + a 2-5pt title because FFG don't want you to run 4 in a list, or 3 ARCs with torps.

I don't understand what the problem is. The title card for the ARC and the Tie/sf are obviously meant to be included simply to add the rules to them. I guess they could have made a reference card or something, but the end result would be the same. Why are we even talking about taking them without the titles, claiming they're overcosted without them? FFG obviously did it this way so all the rules are on cards on the table so they can referenced easily.

Sure it's auto-include, but then it was designed to be, and there is no opportunity cost for including it. Why is anyone upset by this?

I don't understand what the problem is. The title card for the ARC and the Tie/sf are obviously meant to be included simply to add the rules to them. I guess they could have made a reference card or something, but the end result would be the same. Why are we even talking about taking them without the titles, claiming they're overcosted without them? FFG obviously did it this way so all the rules are on cards on the table so they can referenced easily.

Sure it's auto-include, but then it was designed to be, and there is no opportunity cost for including it. Why is anyone upset by this?

Apparently it's lazy and messy and not the right way to do things etc. etc.

The devastation is the same. Whether the title is 0 pts and the ship is 29, or the title is 3 and ship is 26, you are still paying the 29 points in the squad building phase to that complete ship package

But the latter gives you another option: Not taking the complete package, and only paying 26 points.

That's not really an option with the former(or just a pointless one), because at 29 points, the ship is 3 points overcosted without it's title. You're paying for the upgrade, whether you take it or not.

That's taking choice out of the hands of the player.

They also don't let you run the X-wing with a 2 die attack for fewer points.

The title card is additional rules text for the ARC. The front guns are more powerful than the rear guns.

The difference with the Advanced title is...it's a fix for a ship that was unintentionally overcosted.

This is a ship that is INTENTIONALLY being overcosted out of the gate.

So what? It comes with the title to add the additional effects. It's not as if Alliance Overhaul is hidden away in an Epic ship.

The TIE/sf and ARC-170 titles are to add additional rules text to their firing arcs. The ARC's forward guns are more powerful than its tail gun and the TIE/sf has an independent turret on the bottom that shoots in addition to its main guns.

Without the title the TIE/sf is missing its main guns and the ARC has tiny frontal guns.

The difference with the Advanced title is...it's a fix for a ship that was unintentionally overcosted.

This is a ship that is INTENTIONALLY being overcosted out of the gate.

So what? It comes with the title to add the additional effects. It's not as if Alliance Overhaul is hidden away in an Epic ship.

Ghost and Phantom do this too?

Ghost and Phantom do this too?

Not the best example: those titles are unique, require you to run both and are not strictly advantageous. Same with IG-2000.

The closest match is TIE/v1, but you do have to pay for that one, even if it is much less than you'd pay for it on any other ship.

If a naked ARC costed 20 points and had an 8 point title upgrade, you'd have people running 4 naked ARCs, therefore FFG'd need to balance every ship for two point-costs and it makes the whole thing a lot messier.

Apparently it's lazy and messy and not the right way to do things etc. etc.

How would you add additional rules text to the ARC-170 and TIE/sf then?

If a naked ARC costed 20 points and had an 8 point title upgrade, you'd have people running 4 naked ARCs, therefore FFG'd need to balance every ship for two point-costs and it makes the whole thing a lot messier.

Right. Isn't that pretty much their entire job though?

Yes and they probably did their job and decided they didn't want those in their game.

Doing something the way YOU want them to is not their job.

Ghost and Phantom do this too?

Not the best example: those titles are unique, require you to run both and are not strictly advantageous. Same with IG-2000.

The closest match is TIE/v1, but you do have to pay for that one, even if it is much less than you'd pay for it on any other ship.

Yeah but I guess my point is these titles are not being employed in a different way to any other title. The cost is going to come down to balance. FFG obviously have to decide if they want players to have the option of that ability or not, which will come down to game balance. Assume the best balance they had was to make it 0. If they felt that they couldn't allow the ships in to the game if you could have more than 3 in a list then maybe they thought it was silly to have the title cost 2/3 points for what it did, and thought that people would unlikely chose to not take it and that it would raise questions about why it cost so little, and people would complain that part of it's cost was already baked in to the core cost of the ship. Make it cost 0 and it becomes an auto include . Maybe they even had a choice of 2 effects originally, like 3 attack from rear and crit from front? But it got dropped, who knows how they reached this decision?

it doesn't matter though, the main thing is that this is the way they add rules to ships it's been that way for some time and this is no different.

My fan design, and I think some other peoples, all had the split firepower represented on the base card and tile by a slash or colon that read like 4/2 or 3:2 to tell you what firepower came out of what arc.

(my comments on this topic in another thread aside...)

I absolutely agree - this would have been a better way to communicate the dual strength attack rating.

Coupled with a new Att rating symbol and corresponding Reference card (a la PWTs) they could have had a distinctive new firing-arc option for future use.

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I absolutely agree - this would have been a better way to communicate the dual strength attack rating.

Coupled with a new Att rating symbol and corresponding Reference card (a la PWTs) they could have had a distinctive new firing-arc option for future use.

Then how would they do the TIE/sf?

How would you add additional rules text to the ARC-170 and TIE/sf then?

How would you add additional rules text to the ARC-170 and TIE/sf then?

The exact same way they did it. Only I would have costed the base ships what they were actually worth, rather than what they were worth with their titles. Then costed the titles what THEY were actually worth.

Then it's not additional rules text, it's an upgrade option. The ARC has a tailgun that's less powerful than the frontal guns and the TIE/sf has an underslung turret that can fire link with the forward guns. That's not an upgrade, it's the basic state of the ship.

How would you achieve that?

Only I would have costed the base ships what they were actually worth, rather than what they were worth with their titles. Then costed the titles what THEY were actually worth.

Then you'd potentially have unbalanced ships. This is better how?

(my comments on this topic in another thread aside...)

I absolutely agree - this would have been a better way to communicate the dual strength attack rating.

Coupled with a new Att rating symbol and corresponding Reference card (a la PWTs) they could have had a distinctive new firing-arc option for future use.

That only solves the different strength issue, it doesn't give them the crit rule, and it doesn't allow the Tie S/F to fire from both arcs in one turn at strength 2 or just one at 3.

This is lots of different bitty rules that would have need all different solutions unless they do a title. which solves everything at once in a uniform way.