I should start this by saying I’m OCD, not quite CDO (with the letters in order… AS THEY SHOULD BE), but I definitely have my moments. I’m also an IT guy and was at one point studying to become an Engineer. Solutions to problems seem fairly logical. So with that, I’ll say I’ve been thinking a lot about X-Wing and some of the complaints people have had. (He nudges stuff, he rolls his dice weird, his dice are hot, sloppy play, etc). I also really like that this game *could* be “precise”. We call this "a game of millimeters" but when it comes down to it we just aren't that precise. It isn’t now by a longshot, but it could be. What would it take to get it there? I had a few ideas!

First off: dice rolling. Its really hard to not get flustered when someone carefully places dice in their hands and flops them on the table from 2” up. Its hard to not think someone is ~cheating~ in this manner. Especially if that just so happens that they get the 4 crits on 3 dice that always seems to happen (dig at someone local J ). But is it their dice rolling? Or are they the one person that statistically has this happen? Repeatedly? Are they the anomaly? My OCD also goes a little nuts when someone rolls/blasts dice all over the place. One here, another hit the extra pile of dice and must have been the crit in that pile, another is off your end of the table, a 4th knocked over your ship… I understand that you really want to ROLL those dice, but we have to find some medium! So I researched online, and built the best crappy-constructed dice tower I could as a prototype. Behold the genius that I'm shocked hasn't been done earlier! (This was done last winter)

A dice tower in the shape of a turbolaser tower has MANY uses! Casual, tournament, everyone alike can find some sort of use for this thing. It rolls dice. It looks awesome. It fits theme-wise. And if you get multiples together you can have your own death star battle. Now I realize my prototype is too big, it’s a foot tall. There’s no catch tray, the dice shoot across a 3 foot map. They knock over ships, etc. But hey, it’s a prototype! I have one I’m working on that can be 3d printed and is only 6 inches tall. Or there’s those European guys that made one out of wood. I might buy one of those!

I can honestly say this was tested THOROUGHLY. At least 1000 rolls of 4 dice through this thing and *1* die got stuck. Pretty good!

Secondly: the dice. I’ve had plenty of ffg dice. Each and every person has to realize that they are their own anomaly. You singly do not represent a statistical average. You never will. You could play this game for 20 years, rolling 100’s of dice a night, and you might get close. Knowing that: sometimes your dice really are trying to kill you. And sometimes they aren’t. And sometimes they roll hot, and sometimes they don’t. And sometimes its when you need it, and most of the times it isn’t. But hey, this IS a dice game, so what’s up with the “cheap” crafted dice with the obviously unbalanced bubbles? I don’t know.

However, I did really yearn for a set of those clear ones from the 2014 regionals. They should have been better! Like craps dice! But unlike craps dice which are horrible if you’re not on a craps table (research it), these were supposed to be fair dice. They still had bubbles. Imagine my dismay. So I bought some 3 ^rd party ones. A few sets. I gave out lots of the Sagaborn ones and they are great for casual nights. Pretty close, clear, almost perfect. Then I rolled one pair of their 19mm 1000 times (along with a pair of FFG dice) through the dice tower I made above. We put little stickers over each face so it wasn’t just counting blanks (2 separate faces), etc. I numbered the first die 11-18, the second die 21-28, etc. That way we could roll 4 at once, and call out 4 numbers. Another guy would type them into the spreadsheet, and the last one would verify. It took us 3 or so hours to roll 4 dice 1000 times. And what we found? This particular red Sagaborn die is hot. I may sell it on eBay, but the other 3 looked to be pretty good over 1000 rolls. I would guess within 2% of expected is good, and I’m sure the math inclined can double check the work, here’s the results! Red dice are crit/hit/hit/hit/focus/focus/blank/blank, Green dice are Evade/evade/evade/focus/focus/blank/blank/blank from left to right.

I'm sure you can scrutinize the process. We put stickers on die faces, had 3 different people rolling dice through the tower, and those same 3 at different times were inputting results into Excel. I have not double checked the results but believe they are accurate to our standards.

(This are the other guys that helped me, Agustin and Sam!)

Third: The templates. **** these things drive my OCD crazy. Yes, you’re allowed “slop”, but I’ve seen more than my fair share of nudges, not-aligned templates, and the like to know you should have hit that asteroid, not cleared it by a hair’s width. So, I made some that I’ve been tinkering with that are PRECISE. It was easy, I had Jim over at Litko cut me some of the ship markers, then I used acrylic glue and a form to get them all glued onto the templates. The only thing that would make them “better” would be those little rubber feet I use on my ships. A little pressure and NO SLIDING! Also, no bending! And you can move over asteroids with ease. Not to mention you can still use the other side, it just lines up ships a lot easier. Train with these things and your current maneuvering might actually get better. Maybe? Probably not, but it ~feels~ more precise. Which was the goal! I do have one quam about these templates, they are not good for dropping bombs. Nor large ship barrel rolls. But a 1 and 2 speed straight as extras may fix that. I've also tested these lots and got plenty of feedback but have never brought them to a tournament. I don't know if that would be right... they could be modified in a bad way or in a way to my advantage I guess. But they sure work nifty

Now, its not that I’m just solving problems here, or bringing another spin, I’m truly trying to get FFG to notice that some people have a ton of grievanc es and these products would probably make the game a little better. Simple improvements I know. However, I also like tournament play. And I’d gladly fork over $50 (or more) for a set of 7 of each die, precisely made/balanced/etc, a 3d printed or molded dice tower, and some precision templates. Throw in some acrylic asteroids and debris? I’m up around $100. And I don’t think I’m the only one…

What do you think?

One final thought: Since I made the templates, dice tower, and did the 1000 rolls of doom there have been other products come out. Someone in Europe has a wooden dice tower in the shape of a turbolaser (I may have to get one if my 3d printing of a turbolaser never pans out!) and Nerd-X has some gorgeous clear dice that may or may not be controversial for rolling averages. I won't be re-testing anything anytime soon, as my testing buddies and I are still numbered-out from months ago!

Precision is great. It just becomes a huge hassle to set up anywhere but home.

Magnetic mats looked great and actually played amazingly, but everyone got used to the very slippery mousepad material.. which tends to look amazing with their prints.

I should add one last thing - I built a playmat a long time ago. It uses the thicker Home Depot shelf liner and acrylic doesn't budge at all. Its actually been called "too precise". I recommend it if you get the chance to build your own! Gripmatz I think has exactly the same material. If you glue it down to a board it works great. Its actually difficult to pull the templates up!

And I hear those magnetic mats also work wonders....

Love the precision templates.

Another note on those templates is that you can still flip them over and use them just like normal, with the added benefit that they align better on ships.

Those templates look great ! Nice work.

Litko should produce those, I'd buy them in a jiffy if they did.

RE: Dice Dropping.

If you do this you should have your hands broken.

You could also take the game a little less seriously.

Loving the precision templates. Great idea.

Those "precision templates" aren't hard to produce, but you will have to include some minor tolerance (about 0.5 - 0.7 mm I'd say) as the nubs on the bases aren't exactly identical (the distance between them and the thickness of them). As someone who produces templates I can tell you it was "interesting" to do a production run just to discover that our templates didn't fit into every base out there :-(

But you can at least make sure that the template is exactly aligned with those precision templates. If you don't mind I will run a production series of them, to see how they work :-)

I'm digging that precision template.

Huh. I was all ready to come in arguing that taking the precision element too seriously isn't a great thing for the game... but... man, those templates actually look really handy.

So fine. You win this round.

You could also take the game a little less seriously.

I could, and I do at many times! Hence, the Turbolaser tower which was also crafted because we play HOTAC and it was supposed to look a lot better. There are also places that this game is growing into that can be more serious that may require something more precise... like a nifty event that's happening in a couple months that 300+ people are going to

Those "precision templates" aren't hard to produce, but you will have to include some minor tolerance (about 0.5 - 0.7 mm I'd say) as the nubs on the bases aren't exactly identical (the distance between them and the thickness of them). As someone who produces templates I can tell you it was "interesting" to do a production run just to discover that our templates didn't fit into every base out there :-(

But you can at least make sure that the template is exactly aligned with those precision templates. If you don't mind I will run a production series of them, to see how they work :-)

Absolutely! I'm no producer of goods like this, just thought it was a fun exercise to see if it was possible. I've thought that they could be produced on a single thickness acrylic sheet, and then I found this awesome use for ones with the drop template:

Litko should produce those, I'd buy them in a jiffy if they did.

He didn't glue them together, but he does make all the parts and can engrave them any way you want. I used the acrylic glue he sells. If you've ever seated a computer processor and used thermal paste to mate it to a heatsink you can also create your own.

Those "precision templates" aren't hard to produce, but you will have to include some minor tolerance (about 0.5 - 0.7 mm I'd say) as the nubs on the bases aren't exactly identical (the distance between them and the thickness of them). As someone who produces templates I can tell you it was "interesting" to do a production run just to discover that our templates didn't fit into every base out there :-(

But you can at least make sure that the template is exactly aligned with those precision templates. If you don't mind I will run a production series of them, to see how they work :-)

Incredible!

I can't stand dice towers.

You could also take the game a little less seriously.

I could, and I do at many times! Hence, the Turbolaser tower which was also crafted because we play HOTAC and it was supposed to look a lot better. There are also places that this game is growing into that can be more serious that may require something more precise... like a nifty event that's happening in a couple months that 300+ people are going to

Those "precision templates" aren't hard to produce, but you will have to include some minor tolerance (about 0.5 - 0.7 mm I'd say) as the nubs on the bases aren't exactly identical (the distance between them and the thickness of them). As someone who produces templates I can tell you it was "interesting" to do a production run just to discover that our templates didn't fit into every base out there :-(

But you can at least make sure that the template is exactly aligned with those precision templates. If you don't mind I will run a production series of them, to see how they work :-)

Absolutely! I'm no producer of goods like this, just thought it was a fun exercise to see if it was possible. I've thought that they could be produced on a single thickness acrylic sheet, and then I found this awesome use for ones with the drop template:

Yaaas

Those "precision templates" aren't hard to produce, but you will have to include some minor tolerance (about 0.5 - 0.7 mm I'd say) as the nubs on the bases aren't exactly identical (the distance between them and the thickness of them). As someone who produces templates I can tell you it was "interesting" to do a production run just to discover that our templates didn't fit into every base out there :-(

But you can at least make sure that the template is exactly aligned with those precision templates. If you don't mind I will run a production series of them, to see how they work :-)

Please, let us know when you do, because I want a set!

Incredible!

How did you get the measurements for the templates? Because I hate to tell you this but the ffg cardboard ones vary quite a bit. I hope you took that into account.

How did you get the measurements for the templates? Because I hate to tell you this but the ffg cardboard ones vary quite a bit. I hope you took that into account.

They ones I made are just a regular set of engraved Litko templates, and I glued on the bottom tabs on either end (also a litko product, its a ship marker or something). The templates are as accurate as Litko makes them, just with no more wobble at the end! I can put them next to cardboard ones but it won't make much sense... however they do align with Regional Champ templates over a few years (not mine, a friend has multiple sets)

The problem I have with dice towers with regard to X-wing is that dice modification doesn't mix well with them. I used a dice tower for a few days before shelving it because they really slow down play. You really need a larger and shallower tray if you want to use one for X-wing, which runs into space concerns. I don't know about everyone else's situations, but at the tournaments I go to, you're lucky if you have enough space to put your templates.

Honestly, I would be more likely to use your trayless dice tower than a normal one with a tray.

The templates are a product you could sell, they are most impressive.