hey guys,

I wanted to discuss the possibilities of the only unspoiled card in the ARC-170 pack, Se...Tor (or Seismic Torpedoes, probably)

It's a torpedo-slot upgrade that isn't an actual torpedo secondary weapon, as far as we can tell. Rather, it appears to be a discard-able ACTION: that resolves an effect based upon red dice results (ala proximity mine, cluster mine; anti-pursuit laser.

some eagle-eyed forumites have parsed out a potential wording in

"ACTION: discard this card

to choose one (enemy?) ship at

Range 1-(2 or 3) inside your

primary firing arc. Each ship at

Range 1 of the target rolls

1 attack die and suffers 1

damage (HIT ICON)...

(CRIT ICON) rolled

..."

underlined words are what can be seen on the teaser image

while the juxaposition of "damage" and the HIT ICON are weird, especially compared to a similar effect

this seems to be a pretty good guess as to what the torpedoes will do

and they're kind of not very good

RNG upgrades are always going to suffer by the fact that they might not do a **** thing (yet FFG keeps making them, eh?) but unlike garbage such as R3 astro, Seismic Torpedoes (probably) have a couple of nice draws to them

1.) they're not actually an attack (which actually sucks a bit because you can't chip them), hence the specification of "primary firing arc" to emulate how secondary weapon rules usually work with ships that have multiple arcs, ala the ARC-170. Because of this, no green dice, baby!

2.) they are "fired" (not an attack) during your activation, which means before higher PS pilots have even gotten the chance to move

the combination of these two facts nets you another means to circumvent aces (50% of the time; not counting palp if its indeed the ship that rolls and not the user of the torpedo) and actually a half-decent (again 50% of the time) check for crackswarms nestled around mother-howlrunner (Range 1 area of effect)

but, as must be repeated because it's a massive goddamn drawback, it only seems to do damage on hits or crits i.e 50% of the time

AND it costs an action

ladies and gents, I think we have our first candidate for a 0 point torpedo (not counting Bomb Loadout)

Disclaimer: I do not personally believe Seismic Torps will be 0, even if they wouldn't break the game. Reason being is that ships such as the B-wing or Tie Bomber would be real pain in the asses to kit out with them. Want to run BBBBZ with some Chancey anti-palp ace tech? Well, you gotta buy 8 ARCS(and 4 Tie/sfs for Collision Detectors ). That's TWELVE r3s you have to blight your eyes with, and that's just inhumane!

For this reason, you gotta hope to see them at ONE point. No way in hell they're worth more than a crackshot, not when they can literally do nothing (or worse)

Still, there are some arguments to be made for them being 0

let's check them out!

1.) the upgrade can do literally nothing if the roll craps out

2.) the upgrade is probably a discard, unlike other RNG-dependent effects (such as anti-pursuit lasers or Lando) which at least have the excuse of sticking around to try and fail again

3.) the upgrade can actually hurt you or your own ships, since no area of effect upgrade has shown to discriminate thus far. Combined with **** RNG, you can end up in situations where the upgrade does nothing but hurt your own ships

4.) Against a single enemy ship, the upgrade requires an action for a 50/50 chance at a damage. That CANNOT be efficient, relative to taking a modifier. Even in the case where you know you wouldn't get a shot that turn, you could instead use the action to set-up a target-lock for a future turn

5.) as a torpedo, the upgrade eats up a crucial slot for Extra Munitions (though it does benefit from extra munitions, as extra munitions does not discriminate so long as you're a torp/missile/bomb...yes you even put an Extra Munition's token on Extra Munitions! YOU PUT ONE ON BOMB LOADOUT!!!!). The only ship this negatively affects is the torpedo jumpmaster...which is kind of the most relevant torpedo ship in the meta, so you can be sure it's not a zero point buff unless they weren't running extras anyway. But, if you're running overclocked...well seismic torps means no focus for you

In addition, another good argument for 0-point seismic torps is that ships with Torpedo slots not named Jumpmaster5000 are either

1.) categorically under-whelming performers in the current meta.

2.) dependent on actions that Seismic Torpedoes would eat

3.) 1 and 2

we have:

the X-wing (oh yeah, real powerhouse there)

the T-70 X-wing (Poe is the most relevant; wedded to his **** focus)

the Firespray-31 (with Slave 1; the only option it has for extra munitions)

B-wing (the glory days are gone )

Tie Bomber (action dependent to either fire other ordnance, with deadeye or TL, or to modify their ordnance with focus if using a Long Range Scanners)

E-wing (real **** scary, eh? Corran lives and dies on action stacking or his defense and double-tap)

VT-49 Decimator (mah boost! mah turret!)

StarViper (E-wing syndrome without the popularity of a corran)

M3-A Interceptor (with Heavy Scyk...hahahahahahahahahahahaha~)

K-wing (very awesome but inefficient not-so-little ship; synergy with Advanced SLAM but will

compete for attention with Conners. If TLT, you want modifiers)

Tie Punisher (yep...)

VCX-100 (can't even fire them out of the special arc because the card specifies primary firing arc and it is NOT a secondary weapon, probably)

almost forgot the Protector "Fang" Fighter, because, like a rolling stone, it's a complete unknown i.t.o meta impact

and the ARC-170 itself, bearing two named pilots that are absolutely manic for actions (Shara wants her locks, Norra wants her lock AND focus), one that might recover actions with his ability (Thane) and Braylen, who I guess doesn't mind one way or the other

and, finally, the exception in the JM5k. Super competitive, but with only two torp slots (one for plasmas), seismics would only serve to improve builds that only used a single plasma with their overclocked R4. Also remember,, if you're using its ACTION to fire seismic torps, you'dll have no focus for your overclocked R4.

Bumpmasters, however, would LOVE this card

anyway, what would 0 point seismics do for all of these maligned (apart from the JM5k) options? Well, as mentioned, it'd give them some much needed game against Crackswarms and palp aces (50% of the time) without actually affecting their jousting value

note, seismic torpedoes as currently interpreted don't do much to 9 health jumpmasters, but baby steps right?

so there's my case for what seems to be Seismic Torpedoes.

Again, I don't actually think they'll be 0 specifically because of BBBBZ going HAM with twelve 0-point upgrades (1 system and 2 torps per b-wing), I'm just saying they could be

Realistically, you're looking at a 1 point upgrade. Unfortunately, the points system of X-wing miniatures does not allow you to charge less without charging nothing (point-wise), so 1 point is the best you can do for such a dicey discardable

I do fear that FFG will grossly overprice the torpedoes at 2 (just look at R3; a card far more worthy of being 0 points) but I do have a smidgen of hope given the correct pricing of Collision Detectors in the Tie/SF expansion

if seismic torpedoes actually do what I think they'll do and if they're fairly priced, we could be looking at a very cool addition to the game of X-wing

Not only do they offer something (50% of the time) to counter two very powerful archetypes (Crackswarm; palp aces) but they also give you something to fill the X-wing's torp slot without feeling cheated out of guidance chips

AND, they make Advanced SLAM k-wings even cooler than they already are

(very) cautiously optimistic

i doubt theyre 0pts but if theyre 1pt i'd probably take them on every non-ordnance boat that can. 2-3 of these could really deter formations/swarms even if it is a "chance"

2pts....becomes iffy but i'd probably still use it now and then. More than that hell no.

Kinda hopeful but whatever: it could also be additional effect you roll for, and it always does 1 damage anyway. Might explain the wording being kinda offset to me.

1pt seems ideal. 2pts wouldnt be horrific though (think feedback arrary) as four rookie xwings could essentially wipe out Omega Leader or Inquisitor before combat phase even begins. That is kind of scary.

1pt seems ideal. 2pts wouldnt be horrific though (think feedback arrary) as four rookie xwings could essentially wipe out Omega Leader or Inquisitor before combat phase even begins. That is kind of scary.

If they get all four in arc, they will accomplish that once every sixteen times. Not very scary.

Remember the original announcement carried these words: "Ordnance and upgrades that can literally change the shape of the battlefield." By process of elimination, that leaves the Seismic Torpedoes as prime candidate for turning asteroids into debris or vaporizing them.

I actually think these could be pretty awesome and breathe life into jousters.

They activate prior to a higher PS ship moving. That means that they can negate the arc-dodging of an ace.

Also, while the damage is dice dependent, it does remove the defenders dice and modification ability from the equation. All of Soontir's shenanigans won't do anything.

I think 1-2 points is perfect.

unless the affected ship is the one rolling the die (Ala prox mine's effect), in which case you can palp the torp

but if it's one point to burn a palp mod, that's still not horrible (and you can save them for post-palp)

as for "Changing the shape of the battle-field", pretty skippy that's just the debris-dumper from the Shadowcaster. I don't think popping obstacles off the table is going to do anyone a whole lot of good apart from JM5ks

Lead with a bumpmaster or a one plasma deadeye, open up a firing lane and dump torps for a win. Sounds far less interesting imo

i doubt theyre 0pts but if theyre 1pt i'd probably take them on every non-ordnance boat that can. 2-3 of these could really deter formations/swarms even if it is a "chance"

2pts....becomes iffy but i'd probably still use it now and then. More than that hell no.

Kinda hopeful but whatever: it could also be additional effect you roll for, and it always does 1 damage anyway. Might explain the wording being kinda offset to me.

the wording is a bit weird

but if we're looking at guaranteed damage, we're going to be seeing something expensive

apart from the ACTION: trigger, this thing is FAR easier to land than its Charge cousin (just need Range 1-2/ and in primary arc, doesn't allow enemy to re-position to avoid the explosion like the charge does)

unless FFG has accepted that bombs aren't super OP

1pt seems ideal. 2pts wouldnt be horrific though (think feedback arrary) as four rookie xwings could essentially wipe out Omega Leader or Inquisitor before combat phase even begins. That is kind of scary.

feedback array, anti-pursuit, seismic charges...

as for omega L eh....that's some incredible luck

that's a...1/16th chance I think?

gonna need to go through a lot of Omega Leaders before you start dropping a few reliably

Remember the original announcement carried these words: "Ordnance and upgrades that can literally change the shape of the battlefield." By process of elimination, that leaves the Seismic Torpedoes as prime candidate for turning asteroids into debris or vaporizing them.

I forgot about that. This is wild speculation, but what if you choose an asteroid instead of an enemy ship? "Seismic" would make much more sense with a asteroid than in a vacuum (though physics obviously hasn't stopped FFG or Star Wars before). That would change the shape of the battlefield by making any asteroid a danger zone for low hp ships.

"Auxiliary firing arcs. Mobile firing arcs. Ships that want to fly into their enemies' firing arcs. Ordnance and upgrades that can literally change the shape of the battlefield. New aces pulled from the expanded Star Wars canon. Wave IX is coming, and there is only one good way to meet it—head on."

-Stay In Attack Formation article

found the quote!

problem is...it's a preview article

I don't think there's been one yet that hasn't ****** up horribly ito presenting game mechanics

at least we know that "Rigged Cargo-hold" (probably) from the Shadowcaster drops debris clouds by squinting at the preview images

not to mention "literally change the shape of the battlefield" is a bit loaded. Don't see how upgrades are going to take us off of a 3 by 3 playing space after all

i'd be surprised if they introduce an obstacle killer. In fact i'd be rather displeased if they did.

Add more. Make it even harder to fly around them!

Let me move them! So i can make it difficult for my opponent to reach me in various situations!

Dont let someone destroy them....often its only the 6th rock that gets place that skews my plans. The other 5 dont phase me.

I don't know how you folks stay so optimistic.

For sure this upgrade is 3 points.

I think it'll be priced too high at 3 points, but given FFG's history ...yeah, it'll cost 3 points.

i'd be surprised if they introduce an obstacle killer. In fact i'd be rather displeased if they did.

Add more. Make it even harder to fly around them!

Let me move them! So i can make it difficult for my opponent to reach me in various situations!

Dont let someone destroy them....often its only the 6th rock that gets place that skews my plans. The other 5 dont phase me.

Agreed, but they could add mechanics that utilize the obstacles more, for example, targeting an asteroid with this action could damage ships in that area without removing the asteroid. Thematically this would be like blowing chunks off an as asteroid to damage nearby ships. Unlikely, but fun to speculate about.

note that theories regarding obstacles being destroyed by seismic torps are mostly due to this

of course, it's a Seismic Charge and Seismic Charges don't do that in game

and also those charges don't destroy asteroids as much as turn big ones into a bigger number of smaller ones

I could see obstacles being target-able by Seismic Torps in an attempt to shower enemies in damaging flecks of obstacles, but then it'd REALLY have to be 0-1 points if you can't even target ships with them (unless the damage is guaranteed and the dice roll does something else entirely)

on the plus side, imagine flying a Shadowcaster popping out Debris Clouds for your Ys/Vipers/P-fighters/Jumpies to fling seismics at. That'd be pretty **** cool

I don't know how you folks stay so optimistic.

For sure this upgrade is 3 points.

I think it'll be priced too high at 3 points, but given FFG's history ...yeah, it'll cost 3 points.

well, it's because FFG doesn't just overprice (R3)

they also underprice (inquisitor) like crazy

see also ye ole c3po (Before counters such as crackshot and juke appeared)

more recently, Collision Detectors aren't under-costed but they ARE costed appropriately

so really, it's a complete crapshoot, but I like to think we've suffered enough with R3 astro. If there's any justice in this world, Seismic Torps will be fairly priced to compensate

while cool i think breaking a rock into smaller rocks would be a headache to do with how this game's mechanics work regarding distances.

Moving rocks wouldnt be as hard.

Simply adding rocks wouldnt be as hard either.

Anything that can be crumpled into smaller bits would need a bit of a rework on the rock rules and add in size scales. Bit much for a single upgrade card that might not even be used lol.

while cool i think breaking a rock into smaller rocks would be a headache to do with how this game's mechanics work regarding distances.

Moving rocks wouldnt be as hard.

Simply adding rocks wouldnt be as hard either.

Anything that can be crumpled into smaller bits would need a bit of a rework on the rock rules and add in size scales. Bit much for a single upgrade card that might not even be used lol.

this is good reasoning,, though I think adding rocks won't happen without pegs to connect the obstacle base to the ship (ala the Debris Cloud in the Shadowcaster expansion)

which is why I think that, if anything, the theory of seismic targeting obstacles to explode off of makes the most sense ("if anything" meaning "if seismic torps end up doing anything with obstacles at all; no way to tell"), as the obstacle "exploding" would be representing by ships within range 1 of it taking dice from the "shrapnel"

problem is removing obstacles is also easy to do (just pluck it off the table) and I really don't like that prospect. I love obstacles; flying in empty space just isn't very fun as there are far fewer difficult decisions to make

Exactly.

Obstacles are what forces you to actually FLY. The few games i get where the rocks all end up in 1 corner and we get a large empty area it feels way too easy to get a shot because theres 0 deterrence to go a direction. Its really easy to predict a move too: either they go this way and get a shot, or they go that way and disengage. Rocks add a snag into the thought process. Often ive snaked free hits on people because they honestly thought i wouldnt clear that rock if i took that turn so they ignored the possibility.

Even if you remove 1 rock, the board becomes a lot more open.

1pt seems ideal. 2pts wouldnt be horrific though (think feedback arrary) as four rookie xwings could essentially wipe out Omega Leader or Inquisitor before combat phase even begins. That is kind of scary.

If they get all four in arc, they will accomplish that once every sixteen times. Not very scary.

The only way they would not be able to get them in arc is if one gets stressed or blown up before it has a chance to take an action. Rookies are PS2, and would always move before either Omega Leader or the Inquisitor unless the target has taken a Damaged Cockpit crit.

So we think it's a card that, when spent, has a 50/50 chance of hurting its primary target, and a 50/50 chance of hurting any ship within range 1 of that target. Is that right?

Assuming that's right:

The opportunity cost of the action (a token) is a wash, given the fact that the opponent doesn't have a chance to defend. A 4 Die fully modified primary has a much lower than 50/50 to put a single point of damage on a fully tokened, undamaged Soontir!

It also forces your opponent to fly differently. If it's a range 1-3 weapon, it's going to let you attack both Biggs and the ship he's protecting. Howl swarms will have to scatter, etc.

The downsides: it's not modifiable. It may not do anything. It might cause friendly damage. The damage is capped at 1 per target. Every point spent on this tool is a point not spent on something else.

So what is that worth to me? Depends on my list. More than zero. Less than 3. 1 point sounds plausible. I might even pay 2.

But! If this were a missile I'd put a few on Z-95s without thinking twice!

1pt seems ideal. 2pts wouldnt be horrific though (think feedback arrary) as four rookie xwings could essentially wipe out Omega Leader or Inquisitor before combat phase even begins. That is kind of scary.

If they get all four in arc, they will accomplish that once every sixteen times. Not very scary.

The only way they would not be able to get them in arc is if one gets stressed or blown up before it has a chance to take an action. Rookies are PS2, and would always move before either Omega Leader or the Inquisitor unless the target has taken a Damaged Cockpit crit.

indeed

but there's a rub in that, in maneuvering to fart out torpedoes (which we don't know the max range of, could be 2 or 3) you could be screwing yourself when it comes to taking actual shots since you're drawing arcs to where the enemy is not where they will be. You're definitely forgoing modifiers to use them.

and since the odds of nuking down a full health Omega L on four torps is 1/16 no matter what you do...yeah

it's actually zero if Omega L is the one rolling the dice and there's a palpatine nearby (which isn't all the time, granted, but he might be)

not to say that I don't think seismic torps won't be a massive boon to our maligned rebel jousters, because it gives them the option to do something they've simply never been able to do before, but it's far less amazing than it is being penned here baring some incredible luck

So we think it's a card that, when spent, has a 50/50 chance of hurting its primary target, and a 50/50 chance of hurting any ship within range 1 of that target. Is that right?

Assuming that's right:

The opportunity cost of the action (a token) is a wash, given the fact that the opponent doesn't have a chance to defend. A 4 Die fully modified primary has a much lower than 50/50 to put a single point of damage on a fully tokened, undamaged Soontir!

It also forces your opponent to fly differently. If it's a range 1-3 weapon, it's going to let you attack both Biggs and the ship he's protecting. Howl swarms will have to scatter, etc.

The downsides: it's not modifiable. It may not do anything. It might cause friendly damage. The damage is capped at 1 per target. Every point spent on this tool is a point not spent on something else.

So what is that worth to me? Depends on my list. More than zero. Less than 3. 1 point sounds plausible. I might even pay 2.

But! If this were a missile I'd put a few on Z-95s without thinking twice!

small problem with citing soontir as an example, he's the most extreme absolutely ideal target (for any type of dice-bypassing damage, really). The second most ideal target is the 3-health Tie swarm.

you run into, say, a torpedo scout? Not terribly concerned about that 50% of one damage.

hell, same goes for anything high health. Even Defenders aren't going to be terribly impressed

when dealing with a card that situational AND also limited by RNG AND removes other options to use (IE actions) AND is (probably) discarded after use...yeah, 1 point sounds plausible.

zero doesn't sound too absurd, though, apart from arguments of how it becomes auto-include which may or may not be relevant. Certainly, having the torpedo wouldn't cost you anything; the question would be how useful having the thing would actually be. Gambling on and failing the dice roll(s) could actually cause you more harm than just taking a normal action.

but, given the opportunity cost of using the torp slot is say...less than that of the system slot, yeah it's probably one point

Nice thread.....I'm betting they're an Ace counter, and it'll be a one use pretty-much auto-damage kinda thing. And it'll cost enough that you'll really, really want to field it, and sparingly. My X-wings may finally carry a torp for once

Nice thread.....I'm betting they're an Ace counter, and it'll be a one use pretty-much auto-damage kinda thing. And it'll cost enough that you'll really, really want to field it, and sparingly. Though Tomax may be a candidate if I can pry Crackshot from his cold, dead hands.

nah Tomax only works on EPTs

I know, I got excited and checked for infinite ordnance at PS 10. No dice

"Bla bla Pulpaces this, bla bla JM5K that"

Crackswarms are still a thing people, and they a serious thread to josty rebel lists. And for those these things would be a great counter (assuming FGD is right), regardless if they end up doing damage or not, because you opponent will likely have to fly differently which is already a huge bust. 2 Points would be more than fair.

1 points is fair, a pleasant surprise, and a surprise bump to all those unused torpedo slots out there. 2 points is borderline, but what I am cautiously optimistic for. 3 points is rather expected, but I think makes it DOA.

At 1 point, I think they're happiest on those 2 torp slot Rebel heavy fighters. You could spam them on 2 Bs or Ys in an effort to break up formations and do early damage to an ace (a Fel with 1-2 damage on him has to be much more conservative than a clean one). A full 4-ship list with 8 1 point Seismic Torps is probably not going to cut it against most lists. 1 point Seismic Torps also lets you do interesting stuff like 4 Red Squadron Pilots, R2 Astromechs, and Integrated Astromech. That list isn't terrible against U-boats because of the PS advantage and the fact that the the primaries of the Uboats now have to work a little harder to get through the X-wing's defenses.

At 2 points, it's more of a specialist weapon, and so to really make it work you need to either get something out of it or have your attack modified in other ways. Just for grins, look at Horton Salm with TLT and a couple of Seismic Torps, BTL-A4 if you're feeling saucy. He can use an action to fire off a torp, then rely on his pilot ability to power the TLT shots. K-wings, Punishers, and TIE/Bombers can pack Long Range Scanners, take a lock on someone, fire off the Seismic Torp at a target, then fire a missile or torp at the same or different target.

Regardless, if the ship owner gets to roll, it's hard to see the card being very meta-shifting, because Palp is still a thing.

As mentioned earlier though if he seriously burns Palp on an unavoidable hit that doesnt strip stealth device, i still win. Unless the torp is a 3pt card or worse, then it sucks as a whole.

Though i feel the 50-50 damage is a good tradeoff for offensively throwing it at someone instead of needing them to fly into it for guaranteed damage. Charges can usually be avoided by most ships with 1 ship usually being unfortunate regardless of flying skills, but theres no roll for it. Torps would be the inverse: more people get hit by it, but it might not do anything.

That wouldnt feel right to have it cost more too. Even if it caused crits.

That, and it takes an action while Charges do not. Even though FFG seem to feel like they dont treat Actions as a resource for points balancing. Quite a few Action cards that are hilariously overpriced for what they do (saboteur...) and some that are pretty **** good (fleet officer).

After all, why are Clustermines 4pts? Truth they CAN do 6 damage...if someone flies over all 6 (very unlikely) and the dice roll in your favor (also unlikely). If they didnt take an action, i would call them justifiably priced. Action? Hell no.

At 1 point, I think they're happiest on those 2 torp slot Rebel heavy fighters.

Advanced

Slam

K-wings

oh yeah