Bah, they didn't explain the thought process behind the stupid TIE SF dial.

Hmmm ...

I think I may have a problem. The number of storage bags and foam for my X-Wing ships now exceeds the number of suitcases and storage bins I own to store everything else I own.

Oh well, I may as well commiserate by buying more ships and bags !!!

If you haven't stolen your wife's china cabinet to display your ships yet, then no Problem. You can stop any time you want still....

See Goodman sitting there all serene? Those looks like bowling balls in the background. They are actually mouse ears. He's a Disney/FFG secret agent plant--he has all the info, and he's NOT TALKIN'!!

i was kinda expecting them to explain why the hell large ships have such insane dials.

All i saw was "we noticed the unhinged astromech and 3sloops on jm5ks so we made it a 2sloop to dodge that" - i'll admit, THANK YOU FOR NOTICING THAT but still wtf is with the dial as it is...so insane... a large ship should not be out maneuvering an xwing

In space it takes the same force to maneuver the falcon as it does to maneuver a tie fighter.

i was kinda expecting them to explain why the hell large ships have such insane dials.

All i saw was "we noticed the unhinged astromech and 3sloops on jm5ks so we made it a 2sloop to dodge that" - i'll admit, THANK YOU FOR NOTICING THAT but still wtf is with the dial as it is...so insane... a large ship should not be out maneuvering an xwing

In space it takes the same force to maneuver the falcon as it does to maneuver a tie fighter.

Inertia still applies, more mass = more inertia.

Similar to the numbers on the cards, i think the dials suffer from not enough maneuvers to distinguish between the slow, space cows and the super-fast interceptors. This is something that really cant be fixed so they have to make dials like they do: seemingly random. So many ships even back in wave2 (falcon) have moves that make no sense for that ship to have, yet it does anyway. Or, its missing a maneuver that makes no sense for it to be missing. One could say they were removed for balance (jm5k 3sloops) but some ships are utterly crippled by their dial choices and if they see play at all its because the 1-2 pilots they got that are actually good vastly outweigh the terrible dial (Keyan actually makes his dial amazing, Vader double action bypasses the odd choice of greens and lack of 1turn, Corran is a powerhouse behind a terrible wheel, etc etc).

Yes i know their dials are rarely the sole reason that ship sucks but its a big contender.

I know its not FFG's fault since Starwars in general has a bad habit of ignoring basic physics that is inertia and vacuums, but there are so many ships that just LOOK clunky and unwieldy that are actually insanely nimble and quick. Top speed does NOT equal maneuverable - seeing a TIE fighter suddenly cut a sharp corner doesnt mean its a crazy fast ship, it means its a crazy LIGHT ship so it can do that without ripping itself apart. Technically the Falcon, JM5K, Hounds Tooth, and YT2400 shouldnt be able to do a hard turn slower than 3 or even that much. In space, top speed is only limited by structure integrity not your engines push power (thats acceleration), these ships are far too bulky to logically be able to suddenly shift to the left like nothing happened.

i was kinda expecting them to explain why the hell large ships have such insane dials.

All i saw was "we noticed the unhinged astromech and 3sloops on jm5ks so we made it a 2sloop to dodge that" - i'll admit, THANK YOU FOR NOTICING THAT but still wtf is with the dial as it is...so insane... a large ship should not be out maneuvering an xwing

In space it takes the same force to maneuver the falcon as it does to maneuver a tie fighter.

no.

Inertia still applies, more mass = more inertia.

Hmm yes that would be correct for turning.

Going straight however should be equal.

I would say a larger ship likely a larger engine and turning thrusters that are larger to make up the difference so it would balance out.

Going straight for the most part is equal. Most ships have access to a 4fwd, even if its red. Very few dont have it at all. Only reason the Falcon wasnt given a 5fwd is because of large base tax, it still moves forward as fast if not slightly faster than a tie fighter side-by-side.

Similar to the numbers on the cards, i think the dials suffer from not enough maneuvers to distinguish between the slow, space cows and the super-fast interceptors. This is something that really cant be fixed so they have to make dials like they do: seemingly random. So many ships even back in wave2 (falcon) have moves that make no sense for that ship to have, yet it does anyway. Or, its missing a maneuver that makes no sense for it to be missing. One could say they were removed for balance (jm5k 3sloops) but some ships are utterly crippled by their dial choices and if they see play at all its because the 1-2 pilots they got that are actually good vastly outweigh the terrible dial (Keyan actually makes his dial amazing, Vader double action bypasses the odd choice of greens and lack of 1turn, Corran is a powerhouse behind a terrible wheel, etc etc).

Yes i know their dials are rarely the sole reason that ship sucks but its a big contend

I disagree. The dial is has little to nothing to do with why the advanced was basically DOA and the e-wing doesn't see any play outside of corran. Those ships are both entirely due to being massively overcosted (when you need to give your ship a 5 point upgrade at -4 points to make it playable, it's way too expensive). The b-wing is more limited by it's dial, but that didn't stop 4BZ from being a big list before TLT, and later uboats, pushed it out. Again, the dial had nothing to do with why they stoppe seeing play.

I know its not FFG's fault since Starwars in general has a bad habit of ignoring basic physics that is inertia and vacuums, but there are so many ships that just LOOK clunky and unwieldy that are actually insanely nimble and quick. Top speed does NOT equal maneuverable - seeing a TIE fighter suddenly cut a sharp corner doesnt mean its a crazy fast ship, it means its a crazy LIGHT ship so it can do that without ripping itself apart. Technically the Falcon, JM5K, Hounds Tooth, and YT2400 shouldnt be able to do a hard turn slower than 3 or even that much. In space, top speed is only limited by structure integrity not your engines push power (thats acceleration), these ships are far too bulky to logically be able to suddenly shift to the left like nothing happened.

Technically the slower you're moving the easier it is to turn (and the faster you can do so). The 1 turn means you're moving significantly slower even if it's a tighter turn, so it doesn't really bother me.

Well, at least they clearly admit that they are having fun creating the dials...

"Ok, now we'll design a TIE with a rear firing arc"

"Sure!, good idea"

"Turning 90º is extremely important for a ship with a rear arc, right?

"Indeed, that's why we'll make two thirds of its hard turns red"

- Dev Team rolls on floor, laughing -

Ahhh, Fun times

Suddenly a lot of things make a lot of sense.

Well, at least they clearly admit that they are having fun creating the dials...

"Ok, now we'll design a TIE with a rear firing arc"

"Sure!, good idea"

"Turning 90º is extremely important for a ship with a rear arc, right?

"Indeed, that's why we'll make two thirds of its hard turns red"

- Dev Team rolls on floor, laughing -

Ahhh, Fun times

Speaking seriously, though, that's really not much of a limitation

It never bothered me while flying backdraft, even when I executed it to get into range so I could FCS for vess

Hell, this past month I've flown nothing but ARCs (very occasional backdraft) and Norra almost never hard turns at all (ptl r2d2)

With the aux arc, though, it just isn't a big issue

Not every article has to be a preview or breakdown of upcoming stuff.

GIMME MY ACE WING FIX... YUB-SNARGS... MUCK-YUCK!!!

...

Bah, they didn't explain the thought process behind the stupid TIE SF dial.

BECAUSE IT DID NOT NEED TO BE EXPLAINED!!!

GOT IT YET?!?!?!

lol this article makes me giggle a bit.

"The A-wing does not have access to barrel roll, and therefore doesn’t have quite the same incredible repositional power as the TIE interceptor. Also, with its low attack value, it doesn’t hit nearly as hard. However, it’s cheaper and more durable, and the low pilot skill A-wings have therefore proven much stronger than the low pilot skill interceptors."

translation: "A-wings are great. Interceptors are great. Except that some of them aren't. But we didn't incorrectly price those ones that aren't great! They just naturally are different ships and that's why some are bad and some are good!"

______________

"On the JumpMaster 5000, for example, we knew we couldn’t make the Segnor's Loops speed "3" maneuvers because that would be too powerful in tandem with Unhinged Astromech."

translation: "We didn't want to make it too broken, just... broken. So we gave it an extra PS over most generics, an Elite, green turns, kept one of the Sloops white, gave it barrel roll, 9 health behind 2 agility, a turret primary... Oh, did we mention the torps and Salvaged Astromech combo yet?"

______________

"When we designed the Protectorate Starfighter, we wanted to supply a third interceptor-type ship that had its own identity and feeling."

translation: "So we wanted the Fang fighter to fly different. But let's be real- all we are going to see is Fenn Rau with PTL flying as much like Soontir as possible."

______________

"There’s no magic formula for pricing an X-Wing ship."

translation: "We are not willing to pay someone who could use proper math to create a pricing formula for X-wing which would assure ships are not over or under priced, because it is a great way to allow us to revisit ships and make players purchase more X-wing ships."

______________

"So the dial definitely factors into things. The Protectorate Starfighter’s Zealous Recruit has one less shield and pilot skill than the Cartel Marauder Kihraxz, but a better dial and more actions, so they wound up costing the same."

translation: "So the dial definitely factors into things. The Protectorate Starfighter’s Zealous Recruit has one less shield and pilot skill than the Cartel Marauder Kihraxz, but a better dial and more actions, so they wound up both being overpriced. Also, don't mind that we didn't even mention that the Zealous Recruit has one more agility as well. Because that obviously isn't worth noting."

______________

"The Protectorate Starfighter’s dial was also a lot of fun to develop."

translation: "The Tie/FO dial with Tallon rolls instead of Sloops was also a lot of fun to develop."

Love these guys, but oy... I wish this was a little more real. Like, why make the comparison of the Fang and the K fighter? Why not say, "The K fighter is overcosted, so it's a good example of us failing to properly cost the ships dial." Instead of comparing it to a new release it really doesn't compare to at all?

Funny, if a bit cynical, and not altogether accurate.

Alex Davy didn't even come on to X-wing until wave 4. Blaming the current team for under/over-costed anything from the previous wave is unfair and inaccurate, and insinuating it's some marketing conspiracy to sell more ships by including those fixes in the future is just ridiculous. Using those much needed fixes to sell Epic ships is another thing altogether, but I don't know if it's the design team choice or the marketing division, but I have my suspicions.

You could blame him and Frank for the issues created my the TIE Phantom, which forced them to "Balance Up" future releases, creating power creep, and the need to design more fixes for older ships that were under powered by comparison.

Frank & Alex have already stated in other interviews that the Heavy Scyk title probably should've added a Shield along with the weapon slot, and the Kihraxz might have been a point cheaper but they prefer to err on the safe side, which can lead to over costing, (I guess they don't want a repeat of the Phantom Menace).

I really don't think any mathematic formula will give you a perfect costing system be cause the area control aspect of the game is likely too dynamic to easily quantify into a numeric value, it needs to hit the table, with various pilot/upgrade and squad mate combinations, and face off against a wide array of archetypes.

Anyway, I liked the article, I'm very interested in the reasoning behind X-wing design choices and the direction the devs are going.

Bah, they didn't explain the thought process behind the stupid TIE SF dial.

BECAUSE IT DID NOT NEED TO BE EXPLAINED!!!

GOT IT YET?!?!?!

Joe, I get that in your world a bag of dirt with a Star Wars logo on it is awesomesauce. Some of us are a little more demanding than that. I, for instance, will only buy a Star Wars shirt if it has a TIE Fighter on it.

The TIE SF was THE TIE Fighter in the film. Practically all the merchandising for TIE Fighters went to that ship. Poe flew it!

I got the shirt (actually 2), some micromachines, a Hot Wheels one, the Bandai kit, a Revell kit and the Lego one. So I was looking forward to using it in X-wing.

And here it comes with a crappy, very un-TIE-Fighter dial. So when they post an article talking about dials and they say they try to stay true to the source films, I would like to know what made them think the SF needed red turns. GOT IT YET??

Bah, they didn't explain the thought process behind the stupid TIE SF dial.

BECAUSE IT DID NOT NEED TO BE EXPLAINED!!!

GOT IT YET?!?!?!

Joe, I get that in your world a bag of dirt with a Star Wars logo on it is awesomesauce. Some of us are a little more demanding than that. I, for instance, will only buy a Star Wars shirt if it has a TIE Fighter on it.

The TIE SF was THE TIE Fighter in the film. Practically all the merchandising for TIE Fighters went to that ship. Poe flew it!

I got the shirt (actually 2), some micromachines, a Hot Wheels one, the Bandai kit, a Revell kit and the Lego one. So I was looking forward to using it in X-wing.

And here it comes with a crappy, very un-TIE-Fighter dial. So when they post an article talking about dials and they say they try to stay true to the source films, I would like to know what made them think the SF needed red turns. GOT IT YET??

I think it's due to the aux arc and barrel roll combination. being able to take a 1,2, or 3 turn followed by a barrel roll, combined with dual arcs allows for far too much area control for it's cost. You still have a lot of positional capability and arc coverage with just the 2 turn + BR, and if you really need the 1&3 turn BR options there are ways to do it, such as Captain Yorr, but it'll cost you.

If a statistician created all the costs, there'd still be errors. There are too many variables for it to be practical.

As an example, a statistician would likely price Finn lower than he currently is, based on the value that he gives most ships. Designers and playtesters see that he's a demon with Rey, who they want him to be partnered with anyway - given the theme driven abilities of the set, so he is priced to be effective with her without being under or overcosted (to their minds).

I'd take a developer's instincts over a statistician any day. And stats was once my profession as a teacher...

Bah, they didn't explain the thought process behind the stupid TIE SF dial.

BECAUSE IT DID NOT NEED TO BE EXPLAINED!!!

GOT IT YET?!?!?!

When 4 of them come rolling in on a Gozanti people will understand.

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Here's a comparison between the TIE/sf I made with Echolocation. The top is 2 turn + BR, the bottom is 1,2, and 3 turns + BR.

The complaint I have more of the the article is what I have with how waves and products are released:

'By the way the wave comes out next week'

Why can't we have a more solid release date for these beforehand? We know these have been ready since Gencon couldn't there at least have a date set set by then? At least the Month?

The complaint I have more of the the article is what I have with how waves and products are released:

'By the way the wave comes out next week'

Why can't we have a more solid release date for these beforehand? We know these have been ready since Gencon couldn't there at least have a date set set by then? At least the Month?

I am sure the Gen Con ships were either flown or put on a ship before the print run was complete. The bulk of the shipment was coming through a different method and, having worked with customs, there was no way to be certain exactly which week it would be cleared. They let us know an exact date very shortly after knowing an exact date, which is needed for the new policy of simultaneous release.

The stock available at Gencon could very easily have been shipped to the states by air, expressly for the event. The actual wave arrive in a gigantic cargo freighter, which is affected by weather, curents, ports, labor unions, etc. and that's just getting everything to california. From there everything has to make it's way to FFG's warehouses, then to the distributers, then to the stores. There's a ton a factors that make setting a street date much earlier impractical.

Also, don't we already know they hit the stores on the 22nd.

The complaint I have more of the the article is what I have with how waves and products are released:

'By the way the wave comes out next week'

Why can't we have a more solid release date for these beforehand? We know these have been ready since Gencon couldn't there at least have a date set set by then? At least the Month?

I am sure the Gen Con ships were either flown or put on a ship before the print run was complete. The bulk of the shipment was coming through a different method and, having worked with customs, there was no way to be certain exactly which week it would be cleared. They let us know an exact date very shortly after knowing an exact date, which is needed for the new policy of simultaneous release.

The stock available at Gencon could very easily have been shipped to the states by air, expressly for the event. The actual wave arrive in a gigantic cargo freighter, which is affected by weather, curents, ports, labor unions, etc. and that's just getting everything to california. From there everything has to make it's way to FFG's warehouses, then to the distributers, then to the stores. There's a ton a factors that make setting a street date much earlier impractical.

Also, don't we already know they hit the stores on the 22nd.

So can I kindly ask both of you where do they post the release dates for them because I've looked at all four ship's product pages along with skimming all the last few articles and found nothing. Is there some place consumers can look up dates at all?

Today's article said next week and they usually release on Thursdays. Hence the 22nd.