Current day aircrafts depend on sheer speed, anti-radar technology (i.e. extremely basic stealth technology), jamming, and surprise to survive. The A-10 only has a reinforced hull because of the way it attacks (think of a sideways figure8 where the target is at the center) prevents it from abusing high speed and once it attacks once the surprise is no longer there lol. That thing is surprisingly durable though, i used to be Avionics for the airforce and while i didnt work on the a-10 it was in my job description so i had to learn about it in tech school. The amount of stories/claims of that thing basically losing its wings and still do its **** job is scary.

That being said though, there are numerous examples even today where a plane took a payload and didnt explode or crash afterwords. Sure as hell set off every alarm the plane has and the pilot was probably crapping bricks and rightfully so, but hes still there. Unless the explosion cut off a chunk of the main fuselage, took out the pilot, or killed the engines odds are its still capable of war. Taking out plane engines is the easiest way to get rid of them both in the old days of rotary engines and modern jets. Thats why AA weapons are typically FLAKK weaponry. Throw gunk down that intake, that plane is done and unless that particular plane can glide REALLY **** well (not many can) he is not getting home.

Thats why majority of the crits in xwing are so brutal. If a chunk of your maneuvering thrustors just went offline, yeah you can still do your job but you are going to be severely stressed out trying to do it with a reduced functionality ship. Im actually surprised there are any mild crits, ironically the stress one being the most tame to me.

Not an expert here, but aren't helicopter gunships pretty heavily armored? I know it's not fixed wing, which is what you were talking about, but it's another example of armor on an aircraft.

Depends on the helicopter. Out of my field but i worked along side them a few times. Majority of them only have basic armor to deal with small arms such as M16s but any real caliber will still deal some severe damage. I dont know any off hand i know for a fact have pretty good armor outside that, though i imagine the Chinook has it since it kinda has to weather a lot of crap to do its job. Or its similar crafts.

Bombs are fine.

Seismic at a mere two points can do damage across a swarm just fine. Heck, if you get two you're alright for the points. Protons, at 5 points are the same but better. Always nice to push a card on a couple o' boats. At thermals for 3 if stress is your flavor.

Ions are nice for the large ship effectiveness, this should be a great add for imp bombers facing jumps. Add a point and Conners add a damage and staying power.

Prox, with its after maneuver action is fine to punish anyone in pursuit, but it does deny taking a target lock if you need to shoot out the front.

So. Yeah. Everything's pretty good. All that's really needed is an alternate to extra munitions:

(Small ship only) if you carry a second missile, torp or bomb, you may reduce its cost by 2.

That would give a little utility to carriers, and make Big Pun viable.

i inadvertently showed my local group the importance of bringing seismics if you have the slot last friday. I decided i didnt wanna run a nasty list so i ran a tieswarm...no crack no howlrunner...8 tie fighters lol.

i didnt see a single bomb. Not a **** one. As a result the only loss i had was because i forgot the ghost i was attacking had Hera on board so i completely ignored a 5K and he got around my swarm and i lost 2-3 turns of shooting. Before alphastriking something down. NOBODY else even posed a threat other than dice luck lol.

Got a lot of comments saying theyre going to bring some seismics now lol. At best, you hit 4-5 TIEs with it which is well worth the points. At worst, you forced me to break my formation early on and that usually cuts how many ships can attack at once by a hefty sum.

I get what you are saying but to use a real world example a fighter jet shoots a missle at an enemy plane. That missle either hits, full force explosion, or it misses, flying off into thin air.

As far as I've read, anti-air missiles are designed to detonate once they're within range - and "near-miss" detonations are common - not every missile hit involves actual impact.

Do you have any idea what the average range is? I figured they had some kind of proximity detection but I didn't think it was very far as friendly fire accidents would increase drastically with increased detonation distances. I have obviously no military experience so defer to experts but do you think the warhead yields would be substantial enough on torpedoes and missiles in xwing to have the same effects as near misses do in reality. I am seeing these things more like small nukes because space is retarded big. It's not like a blast radius of a couple 100 feet is worth a tick for distances measured in thousands of meters to target.

Proton Bombs deal critical damage, proximity mines can deal critical damage.

To say all bombs and mines should do critical damage is like saying all missiles and torpedoes should do critical damage.

They kinda should, how are you grazing with an explosive device?

By being hit by the shrapnel and concussive force of the explosion, rather than being directly penetrated by the ordnance.

I get what you are saying but to use a real world example a fighter jet shoots a missle at an enemy plane. That missle either hits, full force explosion, or it misses, flying off into thin air. This is space combat therefore it's far more similiar to air combat not ground combat. Bombs would follow your reasoning but torpedos and missles would not.

Edit: others corrected him better than I could.

edited for retraction

Two issues with that idea:

1) that is a huge power creep suddenly. Even if we just limit it to mines (proxy, clusters, conner) that could utterly devastate a ship especially if someone managed to force you to fly over all 3 clusters. Regular bombs technically dont need help, theyre pretty potent as they are and i use them often.

2) The hell is the point of the Proton Bomb then? 5pts for a crit that is dealt rather than suffered vs 2pts for a normal crit...f that lol.

The only bomb i dont use at all is the thermal detonators. I've nailed myself with seismics before because i thought i was clearing a ship and i didnt, so the potential self-stress and extra point doesnt shine to me. Seismics, Protons, and Ions however i bring fairly often and they usually do pretty good work. Mines are the problem child of the bomb family, and i feel its purely the 50-50 odds of doing NOTHING that kills them more than anything else. The roll outta be changed to "Roll X dice, suffer any Crits rolled. For every die result that is not a Crit or Focus, suffer a hit." so its vastly less likely to take 0 damage from hitting a mine.

I could have easily lost a game recently because i was facing a kwing with sabine on board and proxies. He managed to clip Wedge with the proxy, Wedge had 2hp and IA. Automatically i knew he was taking 1 hit because Sabine, so it literally came down to did i take 2+ hits from the bomb. I rolled 2 blanks and a focus. I then killed his Kwing and won the game since it was almost dead.

I should have been HOSED from that, even without sabine. Blanks for mines should cause hits

This. Bombs are fine. I played a game where I got hit with bombs (cluster mines) for no effect and then was fit for devastating effect. That's the way it should be--changing them would be huge power creep.

Proton Bombs deal critical damage, proximity mines can deal critical damage.

To say all bombs and mines should do critical damage is like saying all missiles and torpedoes should do critical damage.

They kinda should, how are you grazing with an explosive device?

By being hit by the shrapnel and concussive force of the explosion, rather than being directly penetrated by the ordnance.

I get what you are saying but to use a real world example a fighter jet shoots a missle at an enemy plane. That missle either hits, full force explosion, or it misses, flying off into thin air. This is space combat therefore it's far more similiar to air combat not ground combat. Bombs would follow your reasoning but torpedos and missles would not.

Actually in a real world example very rarely do missles actually hit their target, 98% of them time they detonate nearby*Proximity" and the shrapnel from the explosion hits the plane,

What I'm saying is that when Jengo Fett drops his bombs(Seismics), the lowest costed bombs in the game. They do massive damage in the movie, in this game they don't. By making any mine or bomb which does damage count as a critical hit, you now make them much more like in the movies and matching the Fluff.

Maybe allowing any bomb that does damage to roll the attack die and on a crit they count as major explosing, which yields a crit. That's a 1 - 8 chance, but still a chance. Just trying to make the fluff match the bomb

Or something like a tractor beam effect, when hit by a bomb after damage, you move 1 in the direction of the bomb blast maintaining your facing.

Should all bombs and mines that do damage, count as Critical Hits. (I'm not saying all should ignore shields)

Lets face it Seismic charges in the movies destroyed asteriods, but in the game they cannot even affect them)

Just that any hits rolled should count as critical hits.

That would make mines and bombs much more effective and feel much more real.

Modification:

High Explosive Bombs

0 pts

All hits rolled by Mines or bombs count as critical hits

Just wondering what others think?

eagletsi111

The problem with Proximity Mines is that they're unmodified red dice. The problem with Cluster Mines is that they're unmodified green dice pretty much.

If there was a way to for example, "Pick a mine within range 2, you may give it a blue target lock token" so you could modify those dice, the mines would no longer suck.

I understand that this wouldn't currently work since the person who runs through the mine rolls the dice, but if that was swapped so that your opponent rolls the dice then okay. Plus, you'd be able to Palpatine them offensively. As much as I hate Palpatine, using him to prox mine autocrit things seems cool.

No. Next question.

The point of the question is to spark a conversation about mines. If you don't wish to be part of that conversation, don't read the conversation.