There is nothing wrong with ordnance, as is. Miranda Doni, A-wings and the like give suitable platforms for missiles - especially homing missiles. As for torpedoes, all they need is a dedicated carrier with either a title giving them costly, but unlimited ammunition, or numerous facilitated upgrades, like an astromech, systems and two torpedo slots.

As for the first, the X-wing was known for its ability to cripple capital ships with its 6 proton torpedoes (see the X-wing books for more). As to why they were only given one torpedo slot is beyond me:

Extended Magazine: (T-65 x-wing only, title) (0)

Place 2 extra munitions tokens on each [torpedo] card equipped.

This opens up a whole lot of X-wing builds, and brings the T-65 back into the game:

Wedge Antilles (38) - So, PS 9 , agility reducing Wedge is back. This time with consistent fire averaging something like 3.75 hits per shot. Good luck, Soontir

Proton Torpedoes

Predator

Targeting Astromech

Guidance Chips

Extended Magazine

Or on the cheap:

Rookie Pilot (25)

Proton Torpedoes

Guidance Chips

Extended Magazine

Spam 4 in a list, or 3 and Biggs, and you've got a fantastic joust.

Thematically, this make sense, as the two things that put the T-65 above its TIE fighter opposition were its shields and its long-range strike capabilities with proton torpedoes.

If torpedoes "need" something isn't there something wrong with ordnance? I don't believe many people feel like ordnance is unplayable, but it could probably use some tweaking.

There is nothing wrong with ordnance, as is. Miranda Doni, A-wings and the like give suitable platforms for missiles - especially homing missiles. As for torpedoes, all they need is a dedicated carrier with either a title giving them costly, but unlimited ammunition, or numerous facilitated upgrades, like an astromech, systems and two torpedo slots.

As for the first, the X-wing was known for its ability to cripple capital ships with its 6 proton torpedoes (see the X-wing books for more). As to why they were only given one torpedo slot is beyond me:

Extended Magazine: (T-65 x-wing only, title) (0)

Place 2 extra munitions tokens on each [torpedo] card equipped.

This opens up a whole lot of X-wing builds, and brings the T-65 back into the game:

Wedge Antilles (38) - So, PS 9 , agility reducing Wedge is back. This time with consistent fire averaging something like 3.75 hits per shot. Good luck, Soontir

Proton Torpedoes

Predator

Targeting Astromech

Guidance Chips

Extended Magazine

Or on the cheap:

Rookie Pilot (25)

Proton Torpedoes

Guidance Chips

Extended Magazine

Spam 4 in a list, or 3 and Biggs, and you've got a fantastic joust.

Thematically, this make sense, as the two things that put the T-65 above its TIE fighter opposition were its shields and its long-range strike capabilities with proton torpedoes.

If torpedoes "need" something isn't there something wrong with ordnance? I don't believe many people feel like ordnance is unplayable, but it could probably use some tweaking.

Part of the problem at least with the T-65, is that IA can't be taken with Guidance Chip, and Ordnance is quite expensive if you only have a single torp spot. One of the things both the Special-K and T-65 have in common is that they are meant to be multi-role fighters but they have problems leveraging their ordnance slot, which means they end up getting compared with Superiority fighters and coming up lacking.

The Bomber and Jumpmaster make Ordnance work (even after the change to Dead Eye)

The Punisher, the issue is not Ordnance it's the chassis from what I can see.

Now that dual cards are a thing, in XW2.0, I would make all torpedo and missile cards dual cards. A few have mention their dislike for target locks only at R1-3 bar a few cards exceptions. I'm in the camp that target locks should be acquired wherever on the map. Now that being said, back to my dual card idea...By Making munitions dual cards, one side would be the acquisition of target locks at any range, and the other side would be the range it could be fired at.

For instance: Proton Torpedo- SIDE 1 you may acquire a target lock at any range. At the end of the combat phase you may flip this card over...SIDE 2 ATTACK you may flip this card over to perform an attack at R2-3

Fixes your extra munitions problem, fixes target locks on low PS, the dice you throw doesn't matter in this example because I'm only taking into the firing and acquiring mechanic, and you can't abuse the same missile or torpedo every turn.

Separation of damage and accuracy is probably the #1 priority for any re-imagining of the game system for pretty much all attack types.

Missile chase system sounds thematic. But X-wing originally probably wss designed to be easy and fast-played (thus probably also only one tyoe if attack die), a lot of missiles on the board would slow down tremendously.

Torpedoe firing with templates...almost like older sailing games (e.g. GWs Man o war), could be worth looking into. Torpedoe damage then however has to be worth it, cause they are easier to avoid than a firing arc.

If map-wide target locking is allowed, then there might be some systems or ships which makes locking them more difficult (systems packed Hwk e.g.). Or some defensive action you can take, making locking you more difficult.

I like the idea of Torpedoes having a hard time vs high agility ships, but doing massive damage to low agility ships, and Missiles being the opposite. However!

If I bring a few Y-Wings and X-Wings to a fight against a TIE swarm, I'm going to feel a bit cheated that I spent a bunch of points on Torpedoes that won't be very useful.

And vice versa if it's A-Wings vs Party Busses.

Partly this is simply meta calling - and making ships feel more distinct. If some ships do better against big things and some against small things... well, that's not really a change to how the game plays already.

Partly I do think that the dedicated ordnance carriers ought to get some means of side-decking ordnance - e.g. a card which costs as much as the most expensive missile or torp that goes in the mod slot and says 'replace this with a missile or torp of your choice during setup' for instance. Again, going back to the old video game where you got a briefing about roughly what sort of thing you might expect to face, and chose your loadout accordingly.

I also think the costing of the slots needs to be carefully considered. Adding an ordnance slot shouldn't cost anything, really; you have to get spendy with them to make them worth it.

Either that, or the slots SHOULD cost, but the ordnance should be undercosted accordingly, and there should be a generic chardaan-style option for each to fill it with if you want to run light instead.

Now that dual cards are a thing, in XW2.0, I would make all torpedo and missile cards dual cards. A few have mention their dislike for target locks only at R1-3 bar a few cards exceptions. I'm in the camp that target locks should be acquired wherever on the map. Now that being said, back to my dual card idea...By Making munitions dual cards, one side would be the acquisition of target locks at any range, and the other side would be the range it could be fired at.

For instance: Proton Torpedo- SIDE 1 you may acquire a target lock at any range. At the end of the combat phase you may flip this card over...SIDE 2 ATTACK you may flip this card over to perform an attack at R2-3

Fixes your extra munitions problem, fixes target locks on low PS, the dice you throw doesn't matter in this example because I'm only taking into the firing and acquiring mechanic, and you can't abuse the same missile or torpedo every turn.

At the risk of comitting heresy.....

There has been another two Flightpath games whose names end in 'Wing'.

The first was Star Trek Attack Wing....and it was okay (ish) but not as well balanced as X-wing....although attempts have been made through ongoing expansions to reign it in and correct it a bit.

D&D Attack wing was very different in play despite fairly minor tweaks to the rules, and included a few things they learned in Star Trek. A few of the better ideas in this one retroactively ended up in the Star Trek game.

I'm not holding either up as an example of amazing game design, but both have ideas which can be profitably plagiarised. For starters, 99% of the secondary weapons in both were not 'discard-on-fire' one use weapons (and those that were tended to be cheap or utterly devastating as a result - like the faintly ridiculous Transphasic Torpedoes*).

Instead, they had two main ways of tracking ordnance:

• "Disabled" tokens - place a token on the card, which prevents you using it, and which requires an action to remove. Essentially functionally identical to 'flip this card on an action'.
• "Time" tokens - place a number of tokens on the card, which prevents you using it, one of which is removed in each subsequent end phase without you doing anything specific.

The two mechanics suit different pilot types - the former suit pilots with awesome action economy (Push The Limit or similar) who can 're-arm' their torpedoes and reacquire their target lock every turn. The latter is good for people who don't have that, because whilst they can't speed up getting their torpedoes re-armed, they can get their lock back and spend a couple of turns manouvring however they want (white, red, whatever) to set up the arc of fire for their next shot.

* No, you're not reading that wrong. That's a range 2-3, ten dice attack.

As a compromise to those pushing for unlimited Target Lock range, I would put something in the core Target Lock rules like:

Ships that have an equipped Astromech, Salvaged Astromech, System or Tech upgrade, may acquire Target Locks on any enemy ship in the play area.

I am also with those pushing for wording on Torpedoes to be along the lines of TLT simulating they are easier to dodge, but crush you when they hit.

Example:

Proton Torpedo

Attack 3

If this attack hits, cancel all dice results and the defender suffers 2 Hit and 1 Crit.

Ships that have an equipped Astromech, Salvaged Astromech, System or Tech upgrade, may acquire Target Locks on any enemy ship in the play area.

In a putative X-wing V2, you can make sure the price for an astromech (or whatever) includes this, but this is definitely an ability worth points and would need to be baked into the value of (for example) R2-D2, who's already very good. I'm fine (in theory) with everyone being able to do it, but allowing some people to do it and not others is worth a non-trivial cost.

Making "if they hit" weapons which are the reverse of a TLT (high accuracy, low damage) is sensible. A 2-3 dice weapon which does extra damage on a hit makes sense - after all, it's basically the same theory as the plasma torpedo, just more so.

At the same time, you need to bear in mind the levels of defense in a new edition. If Push The Limit is a 'baked in' property of the rules, you need to deal wiith (for example) Soontir Fel with Push The Limit and something else (let's say Lone Wolf). Given that one of the major functions of ordnance is to provide 2-3 dice ships with the means to hit super-elusive targets, be vary wary of knocking that crutch away.

I would change 2 things about ordnance. The first thing would be to give them more uses. I mean, don't tell me an X-wing, or any fighter for that matter, real or not, has enough munitions for just a single shot. Maybe have two-three uses out of every ordnance card, with Extra Munitions giving you maybe +2 or double uses. Of course we have Scouts and all those things that could abuse that, but still, ordnance is never carried as a single-use weapon, especially not on dedicated ordnance carriers.

The second thing I would change would be interaction with huge ships. This actually surprised me when I first started X-wing, that huge ships can be damaged by simple ship attacks. You would think that huge ships could only be damaged by ordnance (or other huge ship attacks), but no. As the rules are right now, a swarm of TIE Fighters makes much better work on a huge ship that their points equivalent of bombers/k-wings/y-wings etc. And that is why huge ships actually feel very underpowered. Sure, they can regen all of their shields, but that costs them energy and can't be done every turn. Also what use is getting back 6 shields when a TIE Fighter swarm does at least double that damage on you. And don't tell me that a ship of that class/size would be so easily damaged by simple lasers...

Let missile as is, but maybe with a bit more set damage like other have proposed.
For torpedo, i'd design new target lock token. The first side is the same we use (blue or red, A/B/C/Etc) but the other side is a torpedo icon, also either blue or red and with the same letter inside. When you fire a torpedo, you use the target lock then flip the target lock to the torpedo icon. That means a torpedo is on it's way to the target. At the end of the combat phase, all torpedo reach their target and deal damage. These torpedo can be shot down by fighters, at the cost of losing the opportunity to fire on an enemy ship.
i guess they'd also need to deal more damage on average than other method of attack since they would be harder to pull-off, maybe like a built-in guidance chip in each?

Some great ideas in this thread.

Decoupling the hit from the damage dealt sounds like a winner to me

One thing that has always irked me slightly is that, aside from the abilities of a few named pilots, ships that are dedicated ordnance platforms like the Bomber, Punisher, B-Wing etc, don't perform any better with ordnance than any other ship

Theme-wise I suppose there's no good reason for that - the Y-Wing was a museum piece - The bomber was a pair of metal tubes full of bombs with an engine bolted on to the back. Only the B-Wing and Punisher could be considered as advanced platforms.

Nonetheless from a gameplay perspective I do feel like there should be some kind of incentive to field them over and above another ship that just happens to have a missile or torp slot

Admittedly "I just think they should" isn't the best argument in the world - but hey

I like the idea of Torpedoes having a hard time vs high agility ships, but doing massive damage to low agility ships, and Missiles being the opposite. However!

If I bring a few Y-Wings and X-Wings to a fight against a TIE swarm, I'm going to feel a bit cheated that I spent a bunch of points on Torpedoes that won't be very useful.

And vice versa if it's A-Wings vs Party Busses.

Then don't completely sell out on torpedoes. Throw an assault missile or two in there.

The biggest change should be going to a larger point system, which FFG has stated they should have done. 200 points for standard play and then price out everything accordingly (Academy Tie ~24 points). That would give you a lot more flexibility on how you price upgrades and pilots.

One thing that has always irked me slightly is that, aside from the abilities of a few named pilots, ships that are dedicated ordnance platforms like the Bomber, Punisher, B-Wing etc, don't perform any better with ordnance than any other ship

But they generally do now.. They have access to more slots so they can make use of Extra Munitions which make ordnance significantly less costly.

I would say the Bomber and K-Wing are probably the best platform for ordnance... The Punisher has issues.

The second thing I would change would be interaction with huge ships. This actually surprised me when I first started X-wing, that huge ships can be damaged by simple ship attacks. You would think that huge ships could only be damaged by ordnance (or other huge ship attacks), but no. As the rules are right now, a swarm of TIE Fighters makes much better work on a huge ship that their points equivalent of bombers/k-wings/y-wings etc.

In my X-Wing 2.0 ideas, there is an armor mechanic. Basically an always-on Reinforce token. Can be cancelled by either downgrading a crit to a hit, or by having the "armor piercing" keyword.

This way, a Huge ship- or any ship with armor- can still be _hurt_ by a TIE swarm (2 hits would do one damage, or a hit + crit would do 2 damage), but it would be tougher.

The more I think about it, I think Torpedoes and Missiles should be focused on their specific tasks (Large/Huge ships and Small ships, respectively), but should have on-miss mechanics.

For instance:

Proton Torpedo:

Attack: 2

Range 2-3

Spend a target lock and 1 ordnance token to perform this attack. You may convert one blank result to an (eyeball)

On hit, the defender suffers 4 damage

On miss, the defender must discard all (buff) tokens, or take one stress.

Your Falcon is probably going to get hurt, soontir probably won't, but will take an extra stress. Either way, I'm getting value for my points.

I am in the camp of accuracy and damage dice being separated. This would give so much more room to design weapons. I also think ships should all have Armada style keywords that give bonuses when attacking the things they are built to kill. Bomber keyword gets a bonus against freighter/patrol(large ships). Fighter keyword gets a bonus against bombers. Freighter/patrol gets a bonus against fighters. This would really help keep ships to the role they are intended for. Oh and please fix the dials for large and small ships. No large ship should be able to outmaneuver a fighter. Watch the movies Ties buzzed around the Falcon like it was standing still!

Oh and please fix the dials for large and small ships. No large ship should be able to outmaneuver a fighter. Watch the movies Ties buzzed around the Falcon like it was standing still!

It's not the dials, it's the templates. I've done a bit of experimentation, and there's almost a way to fix it with the standard tools, but it's tough to describe.

Oh and please fix the dials for large and small ships. No large ship should be able to outmaneuver a fighter. Watch the movies Ties buzzed around the Falcon like it was standing still!

It's not the dials, it's the templates. I've done a bit of experimentation, and there's almost a way to fix it with the standard tools, but it's tough to describe.

I know. I have done the same and keep coming back to the conclusion that they should have separate sets of templates. I know it is more stuff to setup but I think it would be much better that way.

target lock arc matches firing arc.. Exception would be some larger ships hat could have better radar or radar officers. Also some fighters could have radar upgrade that allows for a wider firing arc.. Not really munitions related though..

target lock arc matches firing arc.. Exception would be some larger ships hat could have better radar or radar officers. Also some fighters could have radar upgrade that allows for a wider firing arc.. Not really munitions related though..

Interesting idea, in all this time that change never occurred to me, but it's much more in keeping with what we see in the movies. It would also keep a re-designed, more efficient torpedo or missile in check against over powering primary, cannon, and turret weapons.

and I'm not sure it would be fun with 5 different die types

Ever played Imperial Assault? That has six.

You just pick up the right colours. A toddler could do it.

Ever played Imperial Assault? That has six.

You just pick up the right colours. A toddler could do it.

You get used to it.

The problem with the Imperial Assault/Descent dice is that compared to X-wing's die, it's a lot harder (or at least less intuitive) for a new player to understand what a good die pool is for a given attack or defense roll. This comes for teaching IA to several players. I'd like to see 1 new attack die added, but have is similar to the rpg's Force die, and IA's yellow die.

Things are fine now. But to save all of the heart ache from missiles and torps being bad...

I would change all Attack[target lock] or Attack [focus] to give you the token instead of spending it. (i dont think chips would exist in this universe)