So in contrast to "Imperials/Rebels/Scum only" cards:

A maybe interesting card type would represent anti-faction cards. It would probably go more into the direction of niche cards, but could still be fun (and atmospheric most of the time)

Example:

When attacking a scum and villany ship...

When defending against an imperial attack...

When overlapping a rebel ship...

(It should of course not be a very common card type, but mabe few of them)

Thoughts?

In Magic the concept is called "color-hate" and WotC has found it to be an almost universally terrible idea. You have no control over whether such a card is going to even be usable in a given game, so in order to be worth taking they have to be massively OP to compensate for the times when then are totally worthless, and that makes them massively un fun to play both with and against.

To achieve the basic effect in flavor based missions, far better to rely on mission specific special rules.

counters to very specific things are pretty dumb, said less elloquently than FL

I don't like specific faction counters for the reasons already mentioned, but what I could get behind would be "Not for faction " restrictions that would allow upgrades not usable by one of the factions.

could be interesting, but has the problem of I brought the anti-scum card but they are flying imperial.

Although you could have a double sided card with two effects one for a certain instance anti-rebel, the other side a more general effect.

the problem going forward is to make something new you have to add something not in the game yet new dice, new upgrade slot, new mechanic and that can change the game for good or bad.

GW has some rules that make you specifically stronger against certain races. And its utter bs because theyre 99.9/10 of the time a pretty solid unit to begin with, but when they happen to face Daemons for instance they become insanely stronger.

Upgrades geared towards a TYPE of unit is fine. Upgrades geared towards a FACTION are not.

Make them flip cards that have their faces placed at the beginning of the match so that the card is only good against 2/3 factions:

"I Have You Now"

Imperial Only

When attacking a Rebel ship, if you are out of its primary firing arc, you may roll one additional attack die.

*flip*

"No Disintegrations"

Imperial Only

When defending against a Scum ship, you may discard this card to have the attacker roll no attack dice this round.

"Bounty Hunter"

Scum Only

At the start of the first round, choose an enemy Rebel ship. When attacking or defending against that ship, you may change one of their hit results or evade results to a focus result

*flip*

"Ruthless Outlaw"

Scum Only

When you declare an attack on an Imperial ship, you may discard this card to have the defender roll no defense dice this round.

"Defector's Experience"

Rebel Only

When attacking an Imperial ship inside your firing arc, you may change one of your focus results into a crit result.

*flip*

"Smuggler's Experience"

Rebel Only

When defending against a Scum ship, you may change one of your blank results into an evade result.

You're SOL if you run into the same faction, but you benefit against 2/3 factions. Faction-hatecards like these would become a serious meta call, just like they were/are in MtG.

Obviously these are just thematic things I tried whipping up on the spot and have no clue how balanced they are, but I figured I'd just throw around some ideas.

The way your going about it doesn't seem like the best idea, but I could see it as a way to create upgrade cards that fit two faction but make the other OP/ not fit.

If there is going to be conditions, why not? I like SpikeSpiegel's expansion on the idea.

IG88E, I assume you are better than IG88D, it's math.

I'm still struggling with the concept that Rebel Captive is amazing against Imperial ships, like Soontir, Inquisitor and Whisper, while actual Rebels like Han and Miranda just don't seem to care that much.

Are we sure this is a Rebel Captive?

Even Autothrusters, a specific turret hate card, has universal utility built in.

Or zuckuss, which empire especially love to whine about as if green dice would save them otherwise

He's just good v anyone (well except non obstructed or range 3 vcx or vt49s)

You already have a very literal anti-faction card. It's called Autothrusters, one upgrade that makes Rebel fat PWT's not worth their points, ever.

Unless Rey, but that's already in-arc, so doh.

In Magic the concept is called "color-hate" and WotC has found it to be an almost universally terrible idea. You have no control over whether such a card is going to even be usable in a given game, so in order to be worth taking they have to be massively OP to compensate for the times when then are totally worthless, and that makes them massively un fun to play both with and against.

To achieve the basic effect in flavor based missions, far better to rely on mission specific special rules.

Does this mean there is no way we are going to get a Detect Evil upgrade?

You already have a very literal anti-faction card. It's called Autothrusters, one upgrade that makes Rebel fat PWT's not worth their points, ever.

Unless Rey, but that's already in-arc, so doh.

there is literally nothing literally anti-faction about a card that works on rebel, imperial and scum PWTs and SWTs alike

With only 3 factions I don't think this is a good idea. They will either bee too weak to make an impact or break the game to a two faction mess.

GW has some rules that make you specifically stronger against certain races. And its utter bs because theyre 99.9/10 of the time a pretty solid unit to begin with, but when they happen to face Daemons for instance they become insanely stronger.

Upgrades geared towards a TYPE of unit is fine. Upgrades geared towards a FACTION are not.

Agreed. Anti-small ship(flechette torpedoes), anti-ace(dengar), anti-generic (predator), anti-that-one-guy-in-particular-of-my-choice (Kallus) are all fine, because every faction has a variation on the theme (even if they do it differently).

Anti-imperial is just bad, because either I'll play Imperial all day, or no Imperial all day. And that won't necessarily be a factor controllable by me but will massively swing the effectiveness of my squad.

The only card that come to my mind would be the Rebel Captive that background-wise should be restricted to attacks by rebel ships ... but then this card would also be much weaker.

Generally I think that this would not be a good idea for X-Wing.

GW has some rules that make you specifically stronger against certain races. And its utter bs because theyre 99.9/10 of the time a pretty solid unit to begin with, but when they happen to face Daemons for instance they become insanely stronger.

Upgrades geared towards a TYPE of unit is fine. Upgrades geared towards a FACTION are not.

Agreed. Anti-small ship(flechette torpedoes), anti-ace(dengar), anti-generic (predator), anti-that-one-guy-in-particular-of-my-choice (Kallus) are all fine, because every faction has a variation on the theme (even if they do it differently).

Anti-imperial is just bad, because either I'll play Imperial all day, or no Imperial all day. And that won't necessarily be a factor controllable by me but will massively swing the effectiveness of my squad.

though im still waiting for that large-ship geared card.

Gravity Well bombs would be a good one: If you are a Large Ship, -2 Agi and no range3 or obstructed benefits. If you are a small ship, -1 agi. Token is removed at the beginning of the End Phase.