I had a bit of an idea today for perhaps an upgrade card reflecting the 'optimum range' a ships lasers/guns were set up to.

Star Wars dog fights obviously lean heavily on WWII dogfights. In WWII an ace would have his aricrafts guns set up or calibrated to converge at a certain distance... any close or further from the optimum and you would lose accuracy and the amount of damage that could be caused. If for example the cannons were set so that all the bullets converged at 300 meters then you needed to be that close to get the most effective burst.

Could this convert to an xwing upgrade card?

Essentially it would let you 'rejig' the range mods. Like 'adaptability' you could chose how 'calibrated guns' would be set up pre game. You could opt for mid range (+0 at R1, +1 at R2 an +0 at R3) or long ranger (-1 at R1, +0 at R2 and +1 at R3).

While superficially it might seem to benefit some ships too much its worth thinking that as its a total 'flip' setting your cannons for long range is going to be disastrous to you if someone can stick at close range etc.

Any thoughts. I've pretty much just woke up with this as a thought after reading the book on WWII aircraft last night and neither play tested this or thought it through so if its got a major flaw... be gentle

Hmmm, on second thoughts...

I guess it works with the core mechanics but the sheer quantity of range specific special abilities would probably make some ships/pilots phenominally good or bad with it.

I think it was the first rogue squadron book where Wedge discusses this very thing with the techs working on his Xwing.

Not sure I'm a fan of this, primarily because a lot of ships have guns that move (either manually or computer assisted), which would make locking them to one optimal range inefficient since theoretically they should be able to adjust to the situation.

But if I was to implement something like this, then I'd probably make it work slightly different from yours. Obviously it would need some cleaning up in the wording if it was to be put on an actual card, but that's not gonna happen.

Medium Range Calibration: While attacking, ignore your range modifiers. When attacking an enemy ship at range 2 reduce it's agility by 1 up to a minimum of 0.

The idea here being that, because of the calibration you lose your range 1 modifiers as the guns become inaccurate at that range, and because of additional medium range accuracy, they become easier to hit with (thus, reducing enemy evades)

Long Range Calibration: While attacking, ignore your range modifiers. When attacking an enemy ship at range 3 reduce it's agility by 1 up to a minimum of 0.

Normally just cancels the modifiers for the enemy, but would be powerful (probably too powerful actually...) for secondary weapons.

This is exactly why cannons have no range bonus, that are calibrated for range 3, and are not better at range 1.

I'll also point out any pilot that gets a range 1 bonus (mauler, TBC) as having calibrated to close range.

While it seems like a cool idea i think everyone would just leave it at range2.

No range3 benefit and theres PLENTY of reasons to stay away from range1, and this wouldnt modify things like Fenn's ability so he still wants range1 and you dont.

TIE SFs would abuse the hell out of this, as its uber easy to end up range2 after doing a dodgy maneuver to sidestep someone and almost impossible to be range1 out the ass unless you barrelrolled around someone.

Though i would totally be that guy that brings a list of highspeed snipers lol. Just because i can.

I like the thought behind the idea, even if it doesn't seem at the moment like it would work well in the game.

I think no although there are a few ships it could really make sense on.

Anything with "chin" guns like your Y-Wing or TIE Fighters would be unlikely to set a single convergence point as the distance between their "guns" is small enough that if you're hitting you have a much longer optimum range band. You may have read about how WWII fighters may have their multiple guns set at some convergence point but there were many different ways to do that; furthermore any ship with centerline or near centerline guns rarely bother with convergence.

During the war the P-39 was one of the ally's best "sniper" fighters because having all of that firepower in its nose allowed it to be bore sighted straight ahead giving it a great number of shots on target. Something like the P-51 would have a much smaller "optimum attack range" and being closer or further away would hurt that number of shot.

Besides the ships with centerline guns you also have those ships with turrets that presumably fire along a narrow but variable path. If you're weapon barrels are less than a meter apart why would you set a convergence point for them?

Now the ships it makes the most sense on are those that have their weapon barrels a long ways apart. The X-Wing is easily the best example of this. Presumably if all the barrels were boresighted straight ahead something like an A-Wing could fly at it head on and be safe. Where this idea fails is that it seems to me like the ship's targeting computer may have enough sway with each barrel that it automatically sets the optimum convergence based on the target being shot at.

If I go back to the old X-Wing video game when it came to something like mine busting I NEVER wanted to use an X-Wing or B-Wing to do it. This is because I usually just went in with iron sights and when the Y-Wing and A-Wing both fired very close to my line of flight so I never needed to directly target a mine. When shooting at something that was moving the X-Wing automatically adjusted the convergence of its weapons to the range of your selected target; there were times I swear I fired and I watched an X pattern flash before me as the weapons quickly converged before leaving my LoS.

Were I to introduce something related to convergence I'd be doing it with something tied to the firing pattern (fire-link) a given ship is using. Back to the video game you had 4 shots at once that were powerful when they land but slower repeat times, fast single shots that didn't hit as hard, and then 2 shot pairs which were a compromise between the two.

It's a cool idea, but it would be really counterintuitive, after playing with regular range bonuses. Maybe give it a shot and tell us how it goes.

And cool reading, i've come across similar accounts of pilots wanting their guns calibrated differently.

And @Obiwonka. I remember reading that.

Wait

so if its calibrated to range 3

does that mean that as the beam is travelling at range 1-2 its not at full strength ?

so it gain energy while accelerating to full speed (remember, speed on light is constant? not anymore, there's research trying to disprove that)

Now if you talk about projectiles then I'd understand, although I'd want to know how much a projectile's speed can vary over the course of a few clicks in a vacuum.

so if its calibrated to range 3

does that mean that as the beam is travelling at range 1-2 its not at full strength ?

so it gain energy while accelerating to full speed (remember, speed on light is constant? not anymore, there's research trying to disprove that)

Now if you talk about projectiles then I'd understand, although I'd want to know how much a projectile's speed can vary over the course of a few clicks in a vacuum.

It is not about energy, it is about accuracy, and concentrating/spreading fire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_harmonisation

Wait

so if its calibrated to range 3

does that mean that as the beam is travelling at range 1-2 its not at full strength ?

so it gain energy while accelerating to full speed (remember, speed on light is constant? not anymore, there's research trying to disprove that)

Now if you talk about projectiles then I'd understand, although I'd want to know how much a projectile's speed can vary over the course of a few clicks in a vacuum.

That is certainly a place where any arguments should start to fall apart but the point of convergence is to have a bunch of smaller shots hitting the same place at the same time for what essentially comes down to a single bigger boom.

Wait

so if its calibrated to range 3

does that mean that as the beam is travelling at range 1-2 its not at full strength ?

so it gain energy while accelerating to full speed (remember, speed on light is constant? not anymore, there's research trying to disprove that)

Now if you talk about projectiles then I'd understand, although I'd want to know how much a projectile's speed can vary over the course of a few clicks in a vacuum.

When you have multiple guns you can focus them all on a single point and decide how far forward of you that point is.

If you have only a single gun, this is less possible.