I read a comment in the thread about hated cards, and it made me think:

What if each player moved one ship, lowest PS in that player's squad first, then the second player moved one ship (lowest PS first), then back to the first, and so on.

If one player has more ships than the other, any remaining they get to move ... again, in PS order.

This is not conceptually complicated ... but does a whole lot of interesting things in the game. Not necessarily all good, but a lot of them very interesting.

"Geez, wow, you've got two ships, PS 10 and 11? I've got six ships, PS 3. Guess I'll move four or five of them after I know where you're going. Weird how being outnumbered kinda hurts in a dogfight, huh?"

Firing wouldn't change, so high PS would still fully keep that benefit.

I had been thinking of something vaguely similar...

...but alternate activation within the PS bands.

- - - - -

e.g.

Player A has Initiative and 1xPS3 plus 2xPS8

Player B has 2xPS8 sn 1xPS9

Activation Phase

A: activates PS3

A: activates 1xPS8

B: activates 1xPS8

A: activates 1xPS8

B: activates 1xPS8

B: activates PS9

Combat Phase

B: activates PS9

A: activates 1xPS8

B: activates 1xPS8

A: activates 1xPS8

B: activates 1xPS8

A: activates PS3

(with all the to-and-fro, might need some sort of marker to indicate who's already attacked)

The problem I see is that it would make swarms king, since arc dodgers wouldn't work anymore. Interesting idea though.

That was how Imperial Assault essentially worked in the beginning and low activation lists got hosed. So no, it's a terrible idea. I don't think it is much better if you actually add the ability to pass into it (like IA did).

Having Initiative switch each round is a better idea, particularly if you were able to restrict the PS bands to Low (Rookie), Medium (Veteran) and High (Ace). But that is unlikely to happen since it requires new cardboard.

This is what killed Aeronautica Imperialis for me... It made Ork lists almost impossible to counter with Imperial or Eldar... OK I'll run away with my first couple of ships so they can't be shot, then see where all your ships are and gang up on them with the rest of my list... rince and repeat.

I like the idea of sequential activation within the same PS.

Alternating activation within PS could be interesting. Alternating activation ignoring PS would make PS basically irrelevant and two-ship lists almost unplayable.

The problem I see is that it would make swarms king, since arc dodgers wouldn't work anymore. Interesting idea though.

Depending on initiative, the arc dodger may actually get to move first, token up, and then laugh as a number of swarm ships bump or overshoot him while the rest take unmodified attacks. How the turns have tabled!

It would be really interesting and some very different tactics would definitely ensue. Should that be the way it is, though? Nah, I don't think so.

In Imperial Assault you have to option to pass if the other guy has more activations than you.

I've been thinking about other counter to the problem of "PS race".

For me, the problem begins with higher PS pilot getting the ultimate guaranteed upper hand - always.

My solution - instead of PS being fixed for the whole match, it instead becomes a "base PS", and the actual values get a little help of randomness.

Quite easy in execution: at the beginning of each turn, after* the dial are set, for each ship, the controlling player rolls a D6 (regular six-sided die) and puts it on corresponding pilot card. The number rolled gets added to the printed PS value, for that turn.

This way, PS1 can become PS7, but will never exceed that value, so "natural" PS 8+ still goes afterwards. However, top PS ship isn't guaranteed to go last. A pilot with a PS value of 7, could potentially roll a 6 and end up at 13, trumping low-rolling higher PS 9+ enemy, etc. This way, the PS-scaling isn't so harsh anymore. Mid-PS ships still tend to go first, but are not completely hosed by arc-dodgers. Low-PS ones get a chance to catch-up with the mid-PS, etc. Flying swarms becomes much more interesting. All you need is a couple ordinary dice.

*This is the hard mode, for easier version, try rolling the "PS die" before setting the dials. It's much less realistic, and doesn't represent the turmoil of space battle in such awesome way, but is way easier on the brain, and doesn't mess up with the usual gameplay/tactics as much (you can plan intersecting paths for your ships without a high risk of bumping).

Armada kinda shows why thats a bad idea.

Running a bunch of Corvettes is pretty mean because you have like 3-4 activations after your opponent is completely done, regardless of what they brought.

Swarms would utterly cripple so many lists because no matter what, 5-6 ships are going to move dead last and have no fear of being dodged due to low PS

I've been thinking about other counter to the problem of "PS race".

For me, the problem begins with higher PS pilot getting the ultimate guaranteed upper hand - always.

My solution - instead of PS being fixed for the whole match, it instead becomes a "base PS", and the actual values get a little help of randomness.

Quite easy in execution: at the beginning of each turn, after* the dial are set, for each ship, the controlling player rolls a D6 (regular six-sided die) and puts it on corresponding pilot card. The number rolled gets added to the printed PS value, for that turn.

This way, PS1 can become PS7, but will never exceed that value, so "natural" PS 8+ still goes afterwards. However, top PS ship isn't guaranteed to go last. A pilot with a PS value of 7, could potentially roll a 6 and end up at 13, trumping low-rolling higher PS 9+ enemy, etc. This way, the PS-scaling isn't so harsh anymore. Mid-PS ships still tend to go first, but are not completely hosed by arc-dodgers. Low-PS ones get a chance to catch-up with the mid-PS, etc. Flying swarms becomes much more interesting. All you need is a couple ordinary dice.

*This is the hard mode, for easier version, try rolling the "PS die" before setting the dials. It's much less realistic, and doesn't represent the turmoil of space battle in such awesome way, but is way easier on the brain, and doesn't mess up with the usual gameplay/tactics as much (you can plan intersecting paths for your ships without a high risk of bumping).

This would just start the PS rae again, as everyone wuold like to have the highest possible base score.

Armada kinda shows why thats a bad idea.

Running a bunch of Corvettes is pretty mean because you have like 3-4 activations after your opponent is completely done, regardless of what they brought.

Swarms would utterly cripple so many lists because no matter what, 5-6 ships are going to move dead last and have no fear of being dodged due to low PS

To me the best way for Fantasy Flight to fight the PS race is to continue to give fantastic abilities to mid tier pilots, and average abilities to higher skilled pilots. (see countess ryad)

I've been thinking about other counter to the problem of "PS race".

For me, the problem begins with higher PS pilot getting the ultimate guaranteed upper hand - always.

They also pay more points for that advantage. Generally speaking, way more points than the value of what they bring in terms of body or damage output.

The primary issue with the PS system is just that its overly granular, so that the difference in cost between PS8 and PS9 is minimal, but in terms of game effect, its the same as if the PS8 were PS1. In theory, the mid-PS ship is getting its advantages vs other parts of the opponent's list, but the ship count in the game just isn't high enough to regularly see a meaningful distribution of multiple PS values on both sides of the table.

I think FFG has probably put a little too much effort into making it work at this point to change anything, but I think a fresh start version of the system would probably be better off with far less granularity (maybe 3 tiers Rookie/Veteran/Ace?) and a greater emphasis on simultaneous attacks. That's pretty much the only way you can minimize the "bidding" issue with the system.

The problem I see is that it would make swarms king, since arc dodgers wouldn't work anymore. Interesting idea though.

Actually this idea would make swarms substantially less effective at what they do best: occupying a large amount of space on the board before anyone else has a chance to move.

Depending on initiative, the arc dodger may actually get to move first, token up, and then laugh as a number of swarm ships bump or overshoot him while the rest take unmodified attacks. How the turns have tabled!

It would be really interesting and some very different tactics would definitely ensue. Should that be the way it is, though? Nah, I don't think so.

It still removes any arc dodgers advantage in moving late turn though. The swarms ability reposition and focus fire arcs after pilots that are typical more depedant on late turn movement or low ship count list would be almost game breaking.

Aleternating in a ps band however...... that adds complexity

It would certainly be an altogether different game entirely.

The suggestion of alternating activations at a given PS may have some merit but doing that as a whole pretty much destroys how X-Wing currently works.

Although moving and shooting are separate activities in X-Wing I've seen plenty of games where sides take turns making activations. In pretty much every case you see people work at making squads as large as they can so they can move those powerful pieces last. Of course in X-Wing moves are decided and locked before anything happens so the reason for moving last is reduced but then you throw in those repositioning actions and you're right back to having a big benefit when you can move last.

Forcing that back and forth to be done in PS order seems especially punishing as you've just killed part of the reason for using higher PS to begin with.

Although moving and shooting are separate activities in X-Wing I've seen plenty of games where sides take turns making activations. In pretty much every case you see people work at making squads as large as they can so they can move those powerful pieces last.

Which is kinda the point.

The reason I called this a "thought experiment" is that I was hoping it would be obvious that I wasn't actually suggesting this as a real change for X-Wing. (It could be a change in a new, reworked and re-balanced, edition of X-Wing, though.)

Right now, IMO, PS is valuable out of all proportion to its cost, and people higher up in the thread have given good examples of how and why.

I think it would be interesting to force players to balance squadron quality in such a way that PS aces, though still having the advantage in the combat phases, can be swarmed and overwhelmed in the movement phases. (By which I mean more than the current blocking mechanics already theoretically allow.)

It would drop a boulder in the current lake, and it's interesting to me what the waves would look like.