Stress works well and anyone able to take advantage of it are normally pretty weak.

I'm happy with the game and don't see anything wrong with it. They have been on top of keeping the games balanced

Perhaps a potential solution is to limit or block a stressed ship/pilot from receiving token and/or actions from a secondary source/ship? This may have a huge impact upon squad composition as players attempt to "work around", or give up entirely, upon their strategy of loading up a ship with stress and then piling on the advantageous tokens.

However; consider that Newbs will not have this figured out, Intermediate players will have fun with it (or suffer) as they work through it, casual players will play the impact of Stress as "pure-strain" (if you will) and most likely keep it cinematic, and the experienced (or serious-pants) tourney players will continue to adapt to this Stress piling and carry on.

Stress exists to prevent a pilot from concentrating on a specific activity. If their teammate provides support, in whatever form that might be, then that is the essence of squad/team persona. Clear your Stress and then your singular ship may stand on its own two legs. Regardless, in pure game mechanics, Stress can be managed and sometimes, overcome. This is hardly abuse nor broken RAW (rules as written). This is what is actually binary.

I am now going to search for the Mouldy Crow + RecSpec rants upon too much focus and how broken that is. Time for a vs. tally.

How do you imagine Dengar handles 2x Modified HLC shots with Crack Shot ? At the very minimum Dengar takes 4 damage in an average opening round vs. Brobots (if 1 damage gets through, Bots can Crackshot a second, if not Gunner and FCS trigger which means 2nd shot has an even better chance of sneaking at least 1 damage through), and that's assuming they don't simply make a beeline toward Manaroo (even with Zuckuss, a single 3 dice attack takes a while to eat through 8 HP behind 3 greens, 1 evade and Autothrusters). Not to mention bots usually have an evade token, which cannot be Zuckussed, and Glitterstim which renders Zuckuss vastly less effective for 1 round.

I don't have to imagine anything, as I've actually played the match-up.

I have played Brobots almost exclusively for a year and I'm currently playing Dengaroo. I see way more things that the Brobots can do to make sure the game goes in their favor.

Another question, perhaps more pertinent since that details of the BMST card have become public knowledge:

Is it confirmed that the Falcon in HotR will have an illicit slot?

Because if so I see this opening up some fantastic opportunities for Rebels.

Originally I thought, if it was correct, Glitterstim would be ideal.

Now I see what I call "Black Market Rey" using this tasty BMST upgrade. Compliment her with a a Dash/Kanan and I'm thinking you have a good heavy hitting Rebel squad.

Imagine a PTL/EU Rey - even a Outer Rim Smuggler (!) - zipping round and slicing the likes of Soontir.

What is it that just broke Stress? I must be missing something from the spoilers.

If you're going to change how Stress works then you should also go and change EVERYTHING that has previously dealt with Stress. If you're going to punish a ship with a stack of Stress tokens now then why was Tycho ever made to begin with? I'm guessing this could also be said of other things that deal with Stress.

What is it that just broke Stress? I must be missing something from the spoilers.

If you're going to change how Stress works then you should also go and change EVERYTHING that has previously dealt with Stress. If you're going to punish a ship with a stack of Stress tokens now then why was Tycho ever made to begin with? I'm guessing this could also be said of other things that deal with Stress.

RIght now your opponents can remove your Stress, therefore making you light and easy singing Hakuna Matata while your health slowly drops.

What is it that just broke Stress? I must be missing something from the spoilers.

...

RIght now your opponents can remove your Stress, therefore making you light and easy singing Hakuna Matata while your health slowly drops.

Just saw the Slicer Tools upgrade; it sure could be nasty to any ship that aquires Stress tokens and with that I'm REALLY left to wonder what the whole point to this thread is. Why work on more ways to punish ships that get Stress when there is going to be a dirt cheap upgrade that can really punish any ship that just happens to have a Stress Token on it.

Another question, perhaps more pertinent since that details of the BMST card have become public knowledge:

Is it confirmed that the Falcon in HotR will have an illicit slot?

Given the fondness of Imperial Aces for PTL, I can see BMST being used to sting them a bit. JumpMasters usually end up with Stress tokens but often only after they have fired. And of course you can pair it with a Stressbot for all the LOLs.

The real question is what is going to carry it for the Rebels as it costs an action to trigger? Using that action to burn through the defenses of Palp Aces will be golden. Against slower targets it is going to be debatable whether the action will give you more damage than you could cause by just Focussing/TL-ing.

Dash is really glued to his EU so I am not convinced it will be worthwhile on him. Chewie, Leebo or Vrill look like more promising pilots. Vrill looks like the most promising pilot as it pairs well with his pilot skill. PS is probably fairly moot. Against lower PS ships, you can penalise them if they PTL'ed this turn. Against higher PS ships, you can only penalise them if they carried over stress from last turn so some planning with Stressbot will be necessary.

In Epic, at least, a ship with tons of stress can be seriously in trouble with Slicer Tools

Ah, someone else said it first.

First, it wouldn't be a thread if PGS didn't find some way to complain about Palp Aces.

Second, the ability to take infinite stress does have negatives. Even the ships that ignore some aspect of stress only ignore one of those aspects, either their ability allows them to take red moves when stressed OR it allows them to take actions while stressed. Sure, you can make a loadout where another ship feeds the stressed ship actions, but they do so at the cost of their own actions. So even then, someone is losing an action because of stress.

As someone who flies Imperial, I always love it when someone fields a Tyco build based on the infinite stress model. That way, once they get past 2 stress, I know that ship is NEVER K-turning which makes it a lot easier to kill. Because if Tyco can't K-turn, once you get an Interceptor in behind him he's got a very, very low chance of shaking it.

Hera allows red moves while stressed, but you can't take actions. And actions happen to be super important in this game.

And Soontir after he PTLs? If he wants to turn it can only be at speed 2. Which makes him predictable and easier to block. And a blocked Soontir with no actions is in a REALLY bad spot. But PGS is going to talk around this point because he thinks positioning isn't important, despite constantly complaining that a bank boost should be a red maneuver.

First, it wouldn't be a thread if PGS didn't find some way to complain about Palp Aces.

Second, the ability to take infinite stress does have negatives. Even the ships that ignore some aspect of stress only ignore one of those aspects, either their ability allows them to take red moves when stressed OR it allows them to take actions while stressed. Sure, you can make a loadout where another ship feeds the stressed ship actions, but they do so at the cost of their own actions. So even then, someone is losing an action because of stress.

As someone who flies Imperial, I always love it when someone fields a Tyco build based on the infinite stress model. That way, once they get past 2 stress, I know that ship is NEVER K-turning which makes it a lot easier to kill. Because if Tyco can't K-turn, once you get an Interceptor in behind him he's got a very, very low chance of shaking it.

Hera allows red moves while stressed, but you can't take actions. And actions happen to be super important in this game.

And Soontir after he PTLs? If he wants to turn it can only be at speed 2. Which makes him predictable and easier to block. And a blocked Soontir with no actions is in a REALLY bad spot. But PGS is going to talk around this point because he thinks positioning isn't important, despite constantly complaining that a bank boost should be a red maneuver.

Having to predict an opponent with your maneuver. You know, actually being good at the core gameplay mechanics.

Being locked into 2 speed maneuvers or a 4 green straight is not limiting. Typical greedy Imperial player, trying to tell me how limiting the INTERCEPTOR dial is.

And you're **** right it wouldn't be a thread if I didn't find a way to complain about Palp Aces. Palp Aces dominating everything is the most problematic thing in the game currently, and it being eliminated from the game would improve it significantly. I was told this crap when I complained about the Pre-Nerf Phantom and Fat Turrets.

Seriously? You just got baited, took it like it was candy and ran as fast as you could? Maybe you are just picking fights for the sake of enjoyment rather than having an actual discussion about the game.

Come on guys.

Guess what? If you see that a ship is going to be limited to only 2-speed turns because it needs to unload a stress, that makes it INFINITELY easier to block. And when you block Soontir, he gets no tokens or arc dodging.

And yes, being limited to a speed 2 turn or going straight IS limiting. Especially when you are tasked with predicting where every other ship that might be in your way is going to end up, because if you predict wrong and bump someone, you stand a decent chance of dying. Soontir without his actions is just an Interceptor, and there's a reason no one flies generic Interceptors (it's because they go pop too easily).

Honestly, people have done kind of insane mathematical analyses of various tournament lists, and the last one I checked showed Palp Aces to be the least overpowered of the overpowered lists. But I always laugh when you rail against Palp Aces, being someone who admittedly plays Palp Aces all the time "just to show how broken it is."

BUT, here was my actual point. Sure, there are ships that can stress stack, but there is no ship that avoids ALL of the negatives of having stress. Some ships can take actions while stressed (Tyco) but then can't use a red maneuver. Then there are other ships who can take red maneuvers, but can't take actions. Then there are builds that allow a ship to build up stress and be fed actions by another ship, but then the ship can't red maneuver and the action feeding ship loses its actions.

So there's always a downside to stress stacking. And now there's the BMST, a stressed ship opens itself up to just getting dealt damage cards, which makes it Soontir's worst nightmare since he's high pilot skill and clears his stress AFTER everyone else on the board takes their actions.

Guess what? If you see that a ship is going to be limited to only 2-speed turns because it needs to unload a stress, that makes it INFINITELY easier to block. And when you block Soontir, he gets no tokens or arc dodging.

And yes, being limited to a speed 2 turn or going straight IS limiting. Especially when you are tasked with predicting where every other ship that might be in your way is going to end up, because if you predict wrong and bump someone, you stand a decent chance of dying. Soontir without his actions is just an Interceptor, and there's a reason no one flies generic Interceptors (it's because they go pop too easily).

Usually though in practice if there is a decent possibility that Soontir think he'll get blocked he take the 2-speed turns the other direction and turtle up.

It does make his attacks more predictable but when close he is still hard to nail down without several ships shooting at him for token removal or one really cool low PS A-Wing like in last years finals.

Guess what? If you see that a ship is going to be limited to only 2-speed turns because it needs to unload a stress, that makes it INFINITELY easier to block. And when you block Soontir, he gets no tokens or arc dodging.

And yes, being limited to a speed 2 turn or going straight IS limiting. Especially when you are tasked with predicting where every other ship that might be in your way is going to end up, because if you predict wrong and bump someone, you stand a decent chance of dying. Soontir without his actions is just an Interceptor, and there's a reason no one flies generic Interceptors (it's because they go pop too easily).

Usually though in practice if there is a decent possibility that Soontir think he'll get blocked he take the 2-speed turns the other direction and turtle up.

It does make his attacks more predictable but when close he is still hard to nail down without several ships shooting at him for token removal or one really cool low PS A-Wing like in last years finals.

That's true, but then he usually puts himself in a poor attacking position and it might take him a round or two to reposition. And in most games, there are usually at least a few rounds where the board gets really congested which really gives you a headache when flying Soontir. There's been more than one time when I'm holding Soontir's dial looking at the cluster of ships and asteroids in front of me and I just pray that my straight 4 green will clear the mess in front of me. And there are others where no matter what I chose, there was basically a 50/50 chance of getting blocked, so I try to pick the spot to get blocked where I get shot at less.

But needing to run/turn away is a negative to stress. And he's never going to want to be anywhere NEAR a ship with black market slicer tools, because a 50% chance to lose 1/3rd of my health is not something to fool with.