Even with perfect balance, the number of pilots you see on the top tables will only get smaller of the total game as we continue to get many more new releases.

I think you have that backwards? In near-perfect balance, then by definition, if you have 100 pilots then each pilot would be represented about 1% of the time. The limit to the number of pilots that make the top tables would only be limited by the size of the cut and the number of events. If you had a large enough sample size, like for example an entire Regionals season, then you would see pretty much every pilot make the cut at a proportional rate.

Near-perfect balance is hard to achieve and there will always be some uneven distribution, but it should certainly be possible to get closer to an 80/20 distribution vs the ~20/80 distribution that we have now.

B. At the risk of turning this into the usual tourney vs. casual debate, ships that fail in the 100-point gladiatorial arena are not always inferior choices in larger point games.

Is this true though? As someone who doesn't venture beyond 100 point play as often as I'd like, I feel like if I played an epic game competitively (which if you were playing "competitive" epic I think you are missing the whole point, but anyways), a hoard of UBoats would squash just about everything in its path. Same with x7 Defenders.

Am I totally missing something in larger point play that would make these less effective?

Technically, what he said was that ships that aren't normally considered good in 100 pt games are better, not that ships that aren't already good aren't good anymore in Epic. I will say, though, that at least for games with larger point limits, the U-boats aren't nearly as good as they are currently. What works in their favor in 100 pt games is that you are usually only facing off vs. a few ships....such as 3-4. If you can spend your Torpedoes to blow up most of them in a few turns, the game is drastically in your favor. Also, even if all enemy ships fire before you do, they probably won't be able to kill one of your ships before it fires. The more ships the opponent has, the less effective the Alpha strike of the U-boats works.

For example, if you took a bunch of Red Squadron T-65's vs. U-boats, I would expect the X-wings to win. The X-wings would fire first and have the firepower to blast enough U-boats apart before they could fire. It would take at least 2 Torpedoes (and possibly 3) to destroy one X-wing. The trade out is in the favor of the X-wings.

Ships that are able to token stack and do well in 100 pt games generally don't do as well in larger games. I'm not saying they don't do well, because they do, but they don't do as well. The exception is Soontir Fel. He's terrible in Epic games as concentrated fire can kill him pretty fast.

...I see now why I've taken such a break from these forums. We seem to have two kinds of people in this thread: those who understand math and those who decry efforts to balance the game.

A more balanced game hurts nobody. [...] Why decry this?

I might disagree with that rather broad statement. First FFG is forcing no one to buy wave after wave. But this type of business model is what is driving some people away from the game itself. I like a balanced game as many do. But the constant upgrades is costly and get to where the game is not gaining depth but just complication. Sorting through a few hundred upgrades or having to remember which works with what. Having to buy the various S&V ships to improve you Imperial ships.

It isn't that we decry the efforts to balance the game. I would love a more balanced game. But the way it is being balanced is something that pushes some away. Of course there will always be hyper-competitive people with enough disposable income to keep buying something new to re-balance something old. The same is true with GW and Attack Wing. But after a while people get fed up and move to something else.

Even with perfect balance, the number of pilots you see on the top tables will only get smaller of the total game as we continue to get many more new releases.

I think you have that backwards? In near-perfect balance, then by definition, if you have 100 pilots then each pilot would be represented about 1% of the time. The limit to the number of pilots that make the top tables would only be limited by the size of the cut and the number of events. If you had a large enough sample size, like for example an entire Regionals season, then you would see pretty much every pilot make the cut at a proportional rate.

Near-perfect balance is hard to achieve and there will always be some uneven distribution, but it should certainly be possible to get closer to an 80/20 distribution vs the ~20/80 distribution that we have now.

Assuming that every ship is taken in the first place in equal proportions, that player skill is even and the strength of a list is a linear quality in which the linearly superior list will win frequently enough to not skew the results. The only thing top table results are conclusive evidence of is who got to the top tables. As a balance indicator they're deeply flawed, especially if you don't have the data on what entered.

Given the diligence with which you've approached ensuring the assumptions for MathWing itself are sound it seems inconsistent that you'd treat top table results as anything more than a loose indicator.

It isn't that we decry the efforts to balance the game. I would love a more balanced game. But the way it is being balanced is something that pushes some away. Of course there will always be hyper-competitive people with enough disposable income to keep buying something new to re-balance something old. The same is true with GW and Attack Wing. But after a while people get fed up and move to something else.

Given they can't change what's written on the cards what would you suggest they do? Leave weak ships alone? You can get that by simply not buying the "fix packs".

What lists the top players take IS an indicator of balance because they usually take some of the best options at a given time. And not everyone who makes the cut is a returning top player.

I would argue that the top lists ARE ghe better inducator because looking at all lists that are entered, you could have ANYTHING show up. Someone showing up with 6 naked hwks, or a BUNCH of people showing up with 6 naked hwks is in no way an indicator of it being a good list.

Given they can't change what's written on the cards what would you suggest they do? Leave weak ships alone? You can get that by simply not buying the "fix packs".

Actually while rare they have changed what is written on a few cards. Nevertheless as many have hoped for they could offer upgrade only packages. I'm sure some will still decry this saying they already have pilot and upgrades. But this solved two problems, beyond that.

Both pilots and upgrades can be reworded and repointed. Additionally we could buy Autothrusters without buying the actual ship expansion. The obvious down side is that they will have to revise or come out with new card only expansions annually to keep up with rebalancing old ships to new releases.

This would be markedly less expensive or hard on players as they can buy the ships they actually want then buy upgrade only packs. But I believe this isn't the direction we are going.

Regardless that doesn't change or counter my point which is to say that the current model of ever expanding complication, mechanics, depth, fixes, buffs, nerfs all wrapped up into ships one may not want anyway can and will drive some people away.

P.S. there have already be several threads on BGG about some new players saying how expensive in products you may not want and complicated the game can be. Though not a majority view it does seem to have a bigger voice than a year ago.

What lists the top players take IS an indicator of balance because they usually take some of the best options at a given time. And not everyone who makes the cut is a returning top player.

I would argue that the top lists ARE ghe better inducator because looking at all lists that are entered, you could have ANYTHING show up. Someone showing up with 6 naked hwks, or a BUNCH of people showing up with 6 naked hwks is in no way an indicator of it being a good list.

Agreed. Looking at every list that is entered in to a tournament and using that as a barometer for what is competitive indicates that every single player is going to a tournament to win, is aware fully of the meta, and is not placing personal enjoyment of specific ships that are under performing ahead of competitiveness.

But that 80% number tells a much different story now than say, in Wave 2. Or even Wave 5. Even with perfect balance, the number of pilots you see on the top tables will only get smaller of the total game as we continue to get many more new releases.

Which is why I like looking at the tier 2/tier 1.5 stuff for the greater health of the game.

The only thing top table results are conclusive evidence of is who got to the top tables. As a balance indicator they're deeply flawed, especially if you don't have the data on what entered.

Given the diligence with which you've approached ensuring the assumptions for MathWing itself are sound it seems inconsistent that you'd treat top table results as anything more than a loose indicator.

Premise #1: Optimally evaluating balance (either post or pre-release) requires the full history of data at premier level events including player matchups, player ELO, player lists, and match scores (MoV) for each match.

I'll go one step further: if you're not gathering (or generating) player ELO rankings, exact lists, and match scores when playtesting, you're playtesting wrong.

Premise #2: In a skill-based game like X-wing, it is appropriate to balance the game for the upper tier competitive levels. (See: all competitive Blizzard games.)

Unfortunately, we are lacking quite a bit from X-wing tournament results:

• No ELO ratings for players
• Player names aren't always even known
• Matchups are not known
• Scores aren't always known

So the question is: if all we have is a list of the players/squads that made the cut and their final placement after the elimination rounds, is this sufficient evidence to make conclusions about the quality of the squad archetypes that made the cut?

I believe the answer is yes.

Due to Premise #2, I only care about the results between top-level players. We already know that the top 20% of players are going to beat the other 80% in the overwhelming majority of matches, so looking at "what was brought to Regionals" is actually largely irrelevant. If Paul Heaver brings even a semi-competent list, he is going to beat Mr. New Guy 9 times out of 10 regardless of what Mr. New Guy brings.

Put another way: lets say we try to determine what lists are good by looking at the lists that made the cut, compared to all the lists that were entered in the tournament. Lets say the TO runs Cryodex, uploads it to List Juggler, and enters all the player names and squads, so we have 100% of the lists, 100% of the matchups, and 100% of the scores. Great! We have all the info, we can finally now determine what lists are the best, right?

Wrong! Without knowing the ELO ratings for each player, we have violated Premise #1. Example: Mr. New Guy hears that Palp Aces are good, so he brings them to his first tournament. Unfortunately for him, it's a high skill list and he goes 1-5. Is Palp Aces a bad list? Of course not. But it will appear to be a bad list if you use an overly simplistic {lists in the cut} vs {all lists taken} metric.

So, without ELO ratings, what can we do? What we really need is another separate tournament where only the best players play each other, thereby allowing the quality of the lists to become a differentiating factor. As it turns out, this feature is conveniently already built into the tournament structure: the elimination rounds.

So, what I have done is look at all the lists that make the cut and use that as the baseline starting point. Then, you can compute how well each list does after it makes the cut. Get enough tournament data, weight the results by the size of the tournaments, and you get a scatter plot of {post-cut appearance rate} on the x-axis, and {post-cut performance} on the y-axis. There is still a distribution in player skill, so this measurement would be improved with ELO information, but the player skill gap variance is significantly lower in elimination than Swiss. And when you have the entire data set from a season of Regionals, the statistical quality of the data is dramatically improved.

I finally started doing this for the 2016 Regionals season, and there's some really interesting data in there. There's a lot that can be said about that data, which is an altogether different discussion, but suffice it to say that it can indeed be used to determine the balance of the game. If you doubt that, go talk to Paul... he uses this information every year to determine what the best squad archetypes are in the meta, he does a huge amount of X-wing homework based on it, he makes powerpoint presentations locally about it, and then he wins Worlds 3 years in a row. Paul doesn't just win Worlds because he is a great player, he wins because of the amount of time he spends in preparation, which is directly driven by the balance indicators that you have referred to as "deeply flawed". I think it is safe to say that Paul is onto something.

What lists the top players take IS an indicator of balance because they usually take some of the best options at a given time. And not everyone who makes the cut is a returning top player.

I would argue that the top lists ARE ghe better inducator because looking at all lists that are entered, you could have ANYTHING show up. Someone showing up with 6 naked hwks, or a BUNCH of people showing up with 6 naked hwks is in no way an indicator of it being a good list.

Agreed. Looking at every list that is entered in to a tournament and using that as a barometer for what is competitive indicates that every single player is going to a tournament to win, is aware fully of the meta, and is not placing personal enjoyment of specific ships that are under performing ahead of competitiveness.

And I would disagree. If it is the BEST option, it is out of balance with the other options. You essentially just said that cream is the same as milk, and while they come from the same cow, they are not the same thing.

So, without ELO ratings, what can we do? What we really need is another separate tournament where only the best players play each other, thereby allowing the quality of the lists to become a differentiating factor. As it turns out, this feature is conveniently already built into the tournament structure: the elimination rounds.

So, what I have done is look at all the lists that make the cut and use that as the baseline starting point. Then, you can compute how well each list does after it makes the cut. Get enough tournament data, weight the results by the size of the tournaments, and you get a scatter plot of {post-cut appearance rate} on the x-axis, and {post-cut performance} on the y-axis. There is still a distribution in player skill, so this measurement would be improved with ELO information, but the player skill gap variance is significantly lower in elimination than Swiss. And when you have the entire data set from a season of Regionals, the statistical quality of the data is dramatically improved.

I finally started doing this for the 2016 Regionals season, and there's some really interesting data in there. There's a lot that can be said about that data, which is an altogether different discussion, but suffice it to say that it can indeed be used to determine the balance of the game. If you doubt that, go talk to Paul... he uses this information every year to determine what the best squad archetypes are in the meta, he does a huge amount of X-wing homework based on it, he makes powerpoint presentations locally about it, and then he wins Worlds 3 years in a row. Paul doesn't just win Worlds because he is a great player, he wins because of the amount of time he spends in preparation, which is directly driven by the balance indicators that you have referred to as "deeply flawed". I think it is safe to say that Paul is onto something.

So, if you are only looking at data from top lists, how does this help the game as it stands? No one will ever bring the lowly Scyk, and the X-Wing is non-competitive. Does the game march on without these ships, since no data will every be collected about them? Or does R&D keep throwing fixes at them til they stick?

The fact that they dont wjow up is the data telling you they need a fix. The developers decide what they want to do and use playtesting to settleconcthr actual fix.

The fact that they dont wjow up is the data telling you they need a fix. The developers decide what they want to do and use playtesting to settleconcthr actual fix.

Well, that's rather simplistic. That's like "stuff falls, so there's gravity." No one needs MajorJuggler's analysis for that.

To MajorJuggler (sorry I don´t like to repeat big blurbs of prior text)

I respect what you have produced to add to our understanding of the game. You have taken your love to another level. It is useful, but it doesn´t look at combos, synergies, disruption through movement, board layout etc. For base costs on a jousting perspective it gives great calculations but there are many other factors involved. According to the pure maths, it should predict that Soontir just ain´t that good, but he is. Tie Fighters should be dominating, but they aren´t. I don´t recall you pulling out Dengaroo from your hat. I do remember you calling the Tie X7s for their raw efficiency, and they are now players, but again they aren´t dominating.

You can believe that mathematicians would make the game better balanced. In part they might, but if the game is perfectly balanced and one error is made regarding a combo, then the game is doomed. With a more relaxed approached with minor errors around, the system can absorb the shock of an error like U Boats without keeling over. The supposed Joust-Arc Dodge-Turret-Ordnance Tic-Tac-Toe with combos combined puts it on the quantum computing level of calculation to examine all permutations and game states.

You state that a Nash equilibrium would result in all ships being played. A Nash Equilibrium is a stasis where no one has the motivation to change their strategy as they will have an relatively unfavourable outcome if they do. It´s not a dominant strategy equilibrium but it shares the same characteristic of no one wants to change. Technically it wouldn´t be a healthy game if you call it such.

Finally, with regard to your final comment above regarding looking at all major tournaments and crunching the data (ala P.Heaver). It´d be great but I don´t see how that´s relevant to creating a balanced release for a next wave. Playtesters by definition are testing uncharted waters and so the data wouldn´t really be relevant. It would be very useful if they released a V2.0 though, however that may be.

Anyway, all kudos for what you have given us. I wish you well.

The fact that they dont wjow up is the data telling you they need a fix. The developers decide what they want to do and use playtesting to settleconcthr actual fix.

Well, that's rather simplistic. That's like "stuff falls, so there's gravity." No one needs MajorJuggler's analysis for that.

Sure, but what about ships that make the cut but dont win overall? Or just make the cut but always lose their forst elimination round.

The fact that they dont wjow up is the data telling you they need a fix. The developers decide what they want to do and use playtesting to settleconcthr actual fix.

Well, that's rather simplistic. That's like "stuff falls, so there's gravity." No one needs MajorJuggler's analysis for that.

Sure, but what about ships that make the cut but dont win overall? Or just make the cut but always lose their forst elimination round.

In those cases, my back-of-the-envelope calculus would posit that those ships are "balanced" but

A. Were played poorly (human err, if you will), although this would only apply if they were an outlier squad

B. Are balanced overall but could benefit from an Upgrade card to be "top tier"

C. Are almost balanced but definitely still need a small tweak, probably from an Upgrade card.

OTOH, I was talking about ships that never see the light of day at all in tourney.

The fact that they dont wjow up is the data telling you they need a fix. The developers decide what they want to do and use playtesting to settleconcthr actual fix.

Well, that's rather simplistic. That's like "stuff falls, so there's gravity." No one needs MajorJuggler's analysis for that.

Sure, but what about ships that make the cut but dont win overall? Or just make the cut but always lose their forst elimination round.

In those cases, my back-of-the-envelope calculus would posit that those ships are "balanced" but

A. Were played poorly (human err, if you will), although this would only apply if they were an outlier squad

B. Are balanced overall but could benefit from an Upgrade card to be "top tier"

C. Are almost balanced but definitely still need a small tweak, probably from an Upgrade card.

OTOH, I was talking about ships that never see the light of day at all in tourney.

B) which would be exactly an example (as Im pointing out) of how majorjugglers data could indicate a ship needs a minor Upgrade of side of cases where the ship isnt used at all.

C) see B

We already know what ships dont see the light of day and need fixed. Thats not what MJ is looking for with his data.

The fact that they dont wjow up is the data telling you they need a fix. The developers decide what they want to do and use playtesting to settleconcthr actual fix.

Well, that's rather simplistic. That's like "stuff falls, so there's gravity." No one needs MajorJuggler's analysis for that.

Sure, but what about ships that make the cut but dont win overall? Or just make the cut but always lose their forst elimination round.

In those cases, my back-of-the-envelope calculus would posit that those ships are "balanced" but

A. Were played poorly (human err, if you will), although this would only apply if they were an outlier squad

B. Are balanced overall but could benefit from an Upgrade card to be "top tier"

C. Are almost balanced but definitely still need a small tweak, probably from an Upgrade card.

OTOH, I was talking about ships that never see the light of day at all in tourney.

A) maybe if it happens once or twice. If a ship makes the cut frequently but cant make it further thancthat, its probably not player skill every time (no idea if this actually happens. Nust an example)

B) which would be exactly an example (as Im pointing out) of hoe majorjugglers data could indicate a ship needs a minir Upgrade ofside of cases wheee the ship is t used at all.

C) see B

We already know what ships dont see the lifht of day and need fixed. Thats not what MJ is looking for with his data.

Vander your keyboard is having some troubles it looks like buddy.

I suck at typing on my phone and dont go back and proofread enough

I respect what you have produced to add to our understanding of the game. You have taken your love to another level. It is useful, but it doesn´t look at combos, synergies, disruption through movement, board layout etc.

In my non-public v3.0, I am looking at the full action economy, including combos, synergies, and movement disruption (adjustable). The approach is not to actually simulate a battle, so the obstacle layout is not needed (or wanted) to perform statistical analysis. You can however determine what the relative firing duty cycle (i.e. arc dodging) needs to be for a particular ship to break even with its cost.

For base costs on a jousting perspective it gives great calculations but there are many other factors involved. According to the pure maths, it should predict that Soontir just ain´t that good, but he is. Tie Fighters should be dominating, but they aren´t. I don´t recall you pulling out Dengaroo from your hat. I do remember you calling the Tie X7s for their raw efficiency, and they are now players, but again they aren´t dominating.

I haven't made the most recent analysis public due to IP issues and giving FFG all this information for free, but I have touched on all the above in some context occasionally on the forums, or on Nova Squadron Radio. For those you just mentioned:

• Soontir + PtL + SD + AT is one of the most cost efficient loadouts in the entire game, and that is without including Palpatine or his PS9 arc dodging capability.
• (Non-crackshot) TIE Fighters are now clearly predicted to be very sub-par. This is due to a combination of 2ATT no longer being able to hit hard targets (direct reduction to jousting efficiency), and a general inflation of the power curve with new releases.
• I have made the analysis on Dengaroo public. Dengar +P1 + OCR4 + Zuckuss + Manaroo focus is worth >100 points in raw jousting value, and that is before considering his Plasma Torpedo or Countermeasures. He's a beast.
• When x7s were first spoiled I predicted that they would absolutely outclass generics (TIE Fighter, Z-95, B-wing), and would do just fine against generic TLTs. Then we got hit with a bunch of Aces with dramatically better cost efficiency than the previous baseline (Inquisitor, Omega Leader, etc). Just before the x7's released I went on record on NOVA with a follow up analysis, concluding that while the Defenders would absolutely be better than generics, due to general inflation of the power curve from named aces and Jumpmasters, they should land right about in line with the game's new power curve.

You can believe that mathematicians would make the game better balanced. In part they might, but if the game is perfectly balanced and one error is made regarding a combo, then the game is doomed. With a more relaxed approached with minor errors around, the system can absorb the shock of an error like U Boats without keeling over.

If a new game element is introduced to the game, like U-boats, that suddenly and irreversibly invalidates two-thirds of the previous lists overnight, then it doesn't matter how you got there or what your analysis was pre-release. It's done, and the meta just got nuked.

If the designers were more well-informed, these kinds of extinction level events will be LESS likely to happen, not more. Anything that can be identified can be analyzed. Combos like Dengaroo are harder to find, but regardless of your design method you need to find them first, because if they get into the wild, you're doomed regardless if you used mathematical analysis or not. It's out there, and it's going to do its thing. Finding the combos at this point is almost as important as knowing how to analyze them.

The supposed Joust-Arc Dodge-Turret-Ordnance Tic-Tac-Toe with combos combined puts it on the quantum computing level of calculation to examine all permutations and game states.

Again, I'm not trying to simulate every possible battle scenario with A.I.s battling each other, so no, I definitely don't need to analyze all possible game states.

You state that a Nash equilibrium would result in all ships being played. A Nash Equilibrium is a stasis where no one has the motivation to change their strategy as they will have an relatively unfavourable outcome if they do. It´s not a dominant strategy equilibrium but it shares the same characteristic of no one wants to change. Technically it wouldn´t be a healthy game if you call it such.

We are already in a Nash Equilibrium right now. Every time a new wave has been "solved" and the meta settles down to a consistent state, you are in the long-term steady state Nash Equilibrium. Then a new wave comes and shakes things up for a few months.

The Nash Equilibrium applied to the game "paper-rock-scissors-lizard-spock-dengaroo-PalpAces-Uboats" simply means that on the whole (not as an individual), the proportion of how often each archetype shows up has reached a steady state where every squad wins at the same rate. It doesn't mean that all squads will appear at the same rate, and in fact squads that are outright dominated by other squads (see earlier post) are pruned from existence entirely. It's simply the mathematical set of equations that describes the playerbase naturally bringing lists to try and counter "the meta".

Finally, with regard to your final comment above regarding looking at all major tournaments and crunching the data (ala P.Heaver). It´d be great but I don´t see how that´s relevant to creating a balanced release for a next wave. Playtesters by definition are testing uncharted waters and so the data wouldn´t really be relevant. It would be very useful if they released a V2.0 though, however that may be.

If FFG releases a 2.0 they have no mechanism to prevent balance from getting completely out of whack again. They could reboot to 2.0 in wave 11, and then in wave 12 they could accidentally introduce stuff that inflates the power curve again. If they don't even know how to quantify the the current power curve, let alone predict how effective unreleased content will be, then it is virtually guaranteed that power creep will eventually result.

Good to hear a little bit from the design team.

So Thematic is suppose to be important. Really? So....Large ships fly faster than small fighter ships? Really. They turn better too? I get the Falcon but as for speed....in Hyperspace. Otherwise those TIEs were strafing the hell out it.

Best dials for large ships...wow.

Yes...I love this game but really having a huge problem with the dials of large ships.

Did you watch the new movie? where ray took a broken down millennium falcon and almost no pilot training and schooled 2 tie fighters? Out manoeuvred the crap out of them, one of them failed to make a bank and crashed that she made in the falcon.

Someone mad the 55-65 point ships can move.

Yup, all of the LARGE Ships come with BADASS ENGINES... so go figure... They Can Move!!!

Kind of like how a space shuttle is a Huge Ship but can outrun a small base ship like an F-16. Ridiculous. Everyone knows big things can't move fast.

for the record, in space your ship size has nothing to do with SPEED - which is how fast you are moving relative to a fixed position over time.

Size has everything to do with maneuverability (the ability to change your vector at various speeds) and acceleration (rate of change of speed).

The only reason in real life our massive aircrafts dont break crazy mach speeds like the F15 is because of structure integrity reasons. If that element was thrown out, in a straight line size would mean nothing in terms of max speed. Oh and btw mach speed is a variable number depending on altitude (would you believe me that the u-2 can technically break mach1? at altitude, which is 70k+ feet, it most certainly can)

In fact, in space where airflow resistance isnt a factor and if we ignore the structure integrity issues, a larger ship would probably outrun most small ships because of the sheer power their engines have to have to even push that thing. Once you get mass moving in a vacuum it keeps moving until it hits something or gravity grabs it the opposite direction. Now once we throw in asteroids, stations, huge ships, or anything else the bigger ship has to dodge and thus slow down, the smaller ship will catch them because they can turn at a higher speed due to less mass.

...

**** it the more i talk about this crap the more i realize just how bogus SW physics is lol

Yeah because as I read your first sentences I was ready to be cute and reiterate they have POWERFUL Engines for that very reason.

You should just do what I learned to do a long time ago: JUST LOVE STAR WARS.

Space wizards with lazer swords. Just accept it and everything will be fine.

We are already in a Nash Equilibrium right now. Every time a new wave has been "solved" and the meta settles down to a consistent state, you are in the long-term steady state Nash Equilibrium. Then a new wave comes and shakes things up for a few months.

...

**** it the more i talk about this crap the more i realize just how bogus SW physics is lol

Yeah because as I read your first sentences I was ready to be cute and reiterate they have POWERFUL Engines for that very reason.

You should just do what I learned to do a long time ago: JUST LOVE STAR WARS.

Space wizards with lazer swords. Just accept it and everything will be fine.

-

(...) No one will ever bring the lowly Scyk (...)

Nordic championship, ML Scyks placing 10 out of 71, just saying.