https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/225526-meet-the-trashtromechs-a-look-into-the-seldom-seen-astromechs-in-x-wing/

This is a pretty good analysis of the game's meh astromechs. Some have places with a particular synergy (Targeting Astromech with Stay on Target or Hobbie, R7 with Tarn) but others aren't reliable wherever you put them.

And that got me thinking: were it not for the daft RNG these would be worthy picks. I don't want to derail Aequitas's thread with house rule discussion so I made a new one.

R5-K6

2 points

After spending your target lock, immediately acquire a target lock on the same ship. You cannot spend this target lock during this attack.

It's still worse than Fire Control System in this state (as it requires you to have the lock to regain it) but given the X-wings and the Y-wing can't take system upgrades it looks like a worthy pick. Could be particularly nice on a Dutch Vander BTL-A4 for handing out target locks like crazy.

R5-D8

3 points

Action: Discard one your facedown damage cards.

This turns it into a slightly different R5-P9. It's action based regeneration like P9 but less flexible (P9's focus can be spent on dice modification), targets hull instead of shields (usually worse) and occurs in an earlier window.

The other advantage is that it's easy to edit spares of these two to make this phrasing: you just need to cross out the text referring to the RNG; you don't need to add any words to the card.

If these astromechs were houseruled to trigger 100% of the time, would you use them?

K6 definitely, well worth the cost. D8 I'd be more dubious - in much the same way as I'm still dubious about GONK's worthwhileness. I'd generaly prefer to take a focus action.

What about R3? My preferred fix would just be 'Action: take a free evade action'. Then it breaks when you IA it, but it's still well worth the purchase, and enables Juke and Comm Relay more effectively.

I'm hesitant to edit the way anything interacts, hence I left out the R2-F2 fix in Aequitas's thread. Removing the RNG from thes two astromechs makes them operate in a way they could already, just consistently.

The concern is if making them reliable makes them too good, but comparing K6 to FCS and D6 to P9 makes me more confident it's worth deleting that text from my spares.

E-wing can't take system upgrades

Uh, yes they can. Not that it is an actual consideration for your astromech rewrite, but still.

That k6 is almost precisely the text I was really, really hoping would be on Targeting Astromech.

R5-d8 looks solid, too - you trade the flexibility (and shield, which is usually safer) of P9 in return for healing *before* you get shot at (which, in addition to action-free, is R2D2's biggest selling point), and it just begs to land on a high-hull regenerator ship. I don't think a rebel one exists, but it's certainly hopeful.

Just goes to show just how far behind they are, really.

R2F2? Ditch the range limit. Might want a point discount, but hard to be sure; the trans is the killer either way. Makes him an anti-jouster; this might seem a little unfair in the current meta, but you never know, eh?

E-wing can't take system upgrades

Uh, yes they can. Not that it is an actual consideration for your astromech rewrite, but still.

That's what happens when I rattle off the list of all astromech ships currently released without proofreading. Fixed.

and it just begs to land on a high-hull regenerator ship.

The Y-wing's the nearest. High hull ships don't tend to be regenerators though because their hit points are that much less valuable. I think its greatest synergy remains with Porkins. It also has the advantage of not being R5-P9 in that they can be used together.

Your versions of R5-K6 and R5-D8 would be great in comparison to their current RNG based action.

My concern with R5-K6 is the Dutch Vander BTL-A4 combo turns him into Super Howlrunner handing out three target locks every round within Range 1-2.

Only if he gets arc at range 2-3 which even without being stressed isn't THAT easy for a y-wing. And it owuld usually be 4 target locks - one from his action, and one from each shot.

How about this for the Targeting Astromech:

"At the start of the Combat Phase, you may acquire a Target Lock. Then receive 1 stress token."
Edit: Maybe instead say "At the start of the Combat Phase, you may receive 1 stress token to acquire a Target Lock." That way Hobbie still has extra-nice synergy with this mech.

Built-in Deadeye(ish) ability, so it's good for ordnance on lower-PS ships. Poor-man's PtL in that it allows a second action for a stress, with the limitation that the action must be a TL. Can even be used when stressed, but gives you even more stress in that case. Makes Dutch Vander a much better ship, as he can hand out that target lock to a buddy in the Combat Phase.

Edit 2: Just realized this topic is for RNG-based droids only. My apologies. I'll post this somewhere else. Please ignore.

That's what happens when I rattle off the list of all astromech ships currently released without proofreading. Fixed.

and it just begs to land on a high-hull regenerator ship.

The Y-wing's the nearest. High hull ships don't tend to be regenerators though because their hit points are that much less valuable. I think its greatest synergy remains with Porkins. It also has the advantage of not being R5-P9 in that they can be used together.

Even with E-Wings able to take that astromech along with a system upgrade, I think your rewrite still works. It doesn't do much for Corran, who wants R2-D2, but for others it allows them to get a pseudo FCS and use their system upgrade slot for something else if they want. Is it enough to make the other E-Wings viable? Probably not, but it doesn't hurt them either.

Only if he gets arc at range 2-3 which even without being stressed isn't THAT easy for a y-wing. And it owuld usually be 4 target locks - one from his action, and one from each shot.

That's assuming TLT rather than ICT: TLT's used for the stresshog because of the larger coverage, but for a combat BTL-A4 both are considerations.

Furthermore, the timing rules mean it'd still be three.

Only if he gets arc at range 2-3 which even without being stressed isn't THAT easy for a y-wing. And it owuld usually be 4 target locks - one from his action, and one from each shot.

That's assuming TLT rather than ICT: TLT's used for the stresshog because of the larger coverage, but for a combat BTL-A4 both are considerations.

Furthermore, the timing rules mean it'd still be three.

I don;t think they would - you can still spend a TL in each modification step, I don't see why it wouldn't trigger in each modification step?

You fire the TLT, spending the lock to modify your dice. You immediately regain the lock, triggering Dutch. You then can't spend the lock again during that attack, per the rules on the card. The new timing rules state that "Perform this attack twice" counts as one attack for the purposes of triggering effects such as Fire Control System or Tactician. You just go around the dice rolling part twice. As it counts as the same attack, R5-K6's wording prevents you from spending the lock on the second TLT shot.

My concern with R5-K6 is the Dutch Vander BTL-A4 combo turns him into Super Howlrunner handing out three target locks every round within Range 1-2.

Which might actually get him some table time.

I already speculated trying R5D8 on Thane when he comes out since if he gets a free action it wouldnt bother him and he has 6 hull to potentially stack up on facedowns with. Would further solidify him as a Biggs character since if hes hurt, and you dont shoot him, he might repair himself.

If R5D8 just flatout removed a facedown that'd be even more glorious.

My concern with R5-K6 is the Dutch Vander BTL-A4 combo turns him into Super Howlrunner handing out three target locks every round within Range 1-2.

Which might actually get him some table time.

This is an issue? Dutch is so overpriced that might make him balanced lol

My concern with R5-K6 is the Dutch Vander BTL-A4 combo turns him into Super Howlrunner handing out three target locks every round within Range 1-2.

Which might actually get him some table time.

This is an issue? Dutch is so overpriced that might make him balanced lol

Hahaha exactly.

You fire the TLT, spending the lock to modify your dice. You immediately regain the lock, triggering Dutch. You then can't spend the lock again during that attack, per the rules on the card. The new timing rules state that "Perform this attack twice" counts as one attack for the purposes of triggering effects such as Fire Control System or Tactician. You just go around the dice rolling part twice. As it counts as the same attack, R5-K6's wording prevents you from spending the lock on the second TLT shot.

Ah yeah, I'm with you.

Dutch with three target locks a turn and a BTL tile is... what, 28pts for a dorsal turret, 31pts for the TLT version?

That's a powerful synergy piece, but it's also far from cheap, and wants to be in a four ship build, minium.

I think I can handle that.

You fire the TLT, spending the lock to modify your dice. You immediately regain the lock, triggering Dutch. You then can't spend the lock again during that attack, per the rules on the card. The new timing rules state that "Perform this attack twice" counts as one attack for the purposes of triggering effects such as Fire Control System or Tactician. You just go around the dice rolling part twice. As it counts as the same attack, R5-K6's wording prevents you from spending the lock on the second TLT shot.

Is that really how this is working? I don't read anything in the FAQ that says both attacks from TLT or Cluster Missiles are considered the same attack. You're still welcome to modify each attack during the modify dice step as long as you have a way to modify them. If it were really treated as one attack, you'd only be able to spend a focus on ONE of the attacks, correct? But that isn't how it works. They didn't change whether it was treated as one attack or two attacks, what they changed was when abilities that trigger "after an attack" resolve.

Since R5-K6 triggers "after spending your target lock" and not "after the attack," I see no reason why R5-K6 should not give full mods to TLT. You attack with the first attack, spend your target lock, and R5-K6 gets you a new target lock. You can't spend that on this attack (but why would you, since you can't reroll dice that have been rerolled?). Now you go back through the loop to make the second attack. Nowhere do I see that this is considered the same attack, so you should be able to spend the TL again, and trigger R5-K6 again.

If you house ruled to say, "After performing an attack in which you spent your target lock ..." then I would agree that you can't use the TL on the second shot, but that's because you won't have the TL yet. It has nothing to do with not being able to modify the second attack.

If it were really treated as one attack, you'd only be able to spend a focus on ONE of the attacks, correct?

You can only spend foci and evades once per opportunity, so you can still spend multiple foci in a twin attack.

Latts Razzi's precedent suggests that R5-K6's wording doesn't prevent spending the lock on the second TLT shot, so TLT Vander could hypothetically hand out four locks. Not too much of an issue in 100pt though: to get Vander four wingmen you'd have to fly a lot of 2 die ships, which dilutes the advantage of handing out TLs over Howlrunner.

You fire the TLT, spending the lock to modify your dice. You immediately regain the lock, triggering Dutch. You then can't spend the lock again during that attack, per the rules on the card. The new timing rules state that "Perform this attack twice" counts as one attack for the purposes of triggering effects such as Fire Control System or Tactician. You just go around the dice rolling part twice. As it counts as the same attack, R5-K6's wording prevents you from spending the lock on the second TLT shot.

Is that really how this is working? I don't read anything in the FAQ that says both attacks from TLT or Cluster Missiles are considered the same attack. You're still welcome to modify each attack during the modify dice step as long as you have a way to modify them. If it were really treated as one attack, you'd only be able to spend a focus on ONE of the attacks, correct? But that isn't how it works. They didn't change whether it was treated as one attack or two attacks, what they changed was when abilities that trigger "after an attack" resolve.

Since R5-K6 triggers "after spending your target lock" and not "after the attack," I see no reason why R5-K6 should not give full mods to TLT. You attack with the first attack, spend your target lock, and R5-K6 gets you a new target lock. You can't spend that on this attack (but why would you, since you can't reroll dice that have been rerolled?). Now you go back through the loop to make the second attack. Nowhere do I see that this is considered the same attack, so you should be able to spend the TL again, and trigger R5-K6 again.

Although, what you pointed out with R5-K6 (that you only have to spend a target lock) means that R5-K6 should be able to do his ability as soon as he spends his target lock, which means he should be able to have both TLTs get TL'd shots (if his RNG doesn't lose the lock first).

You fire the TLT, spending the lock to modify your dice. You immediately regain the lock, triggering Dutch. You then can't spend the lock again during that attack, per the rules on the card. The new timing rules state that "Perform this attack twice" counts as one attack for the purposes of triggering effects such as Fire Control System or Tactician. You just go around the dice rolling part twice. As it counts as the same attack, R5-K6's wording prevents you from spending the lock on the second TLT shot.

Is that really how this is working? I don't read anything in the FAQ that says both attacks from TLT or Cluster Missiles are considered the same attack. You're still welcome to modify each attack during the modify dice step as long as you have a way to modify them. If it were really treated as one attack, you'd only be able to spend a focus on ONE of the attacks, correct? But that isn't how it works. They didn't change whether it was treated as one attack or two attacks, what they changed was when abilities that trigger "after an attack" resolve.

Since R5-K6 triggers "after spending your target lock" and not "after the attack," I see no reason why R5-K6 should not give full mods to TLT. You attack with the first attack, spend your target lock, and R5-K6 gets you a new target lock. You can't spend that on this attack (but why would you, since you can't reroll dice that have been rerolled?). Now you go back through the loop to make the second attack. Nowhere do I see that this is considered the same attack, so you should be able to spend the TL again, and trigger R5-K6 again.

Both attacks from TLT (and cluster missiles) were counted as a single attack in the most recent attack timing guide.

Although, what you pointed out with R5-K6 (that you only have to spend a target lock) means that he should be able to do his ability as soon as he spends his target lock which means he should be able to have both TLTs have TL'd shots (if his RNG doesn't lose the lock first).

This is technicality, but nowhere does it say to treat "perform this attack twice" attacks as a single attack. Instead, it just created separate resolution points for single attacks and "perform this attack twice" attacks. They are still fully considered two attacks, it's just that they follow a different branch in the timing chart.

Ugh, wrong button.

I thought when they had released the new timing window with the new FAQ and that it stated (TLT and Cluster Missiles specifically) that attacks with multiple attacks within them were considered a single attack in order to nerf TLT and FCS on the ghost while also allowing the ghost to get a full TLT attack in the end phase. Did I misread it? I dunno, but I don't own one so I kinda just pulled out the important bits I would need to remember for tournaments.