So, this is gonna be a long post... I have been working on some custom ships for X-Wing for some time now. It started out as an entry to the CCL last year, but it soon grew too large for that. I haven't worked on it in a while, but I found the folder on my desktop today and thought I would share.

As the title suggests, these ships are all droid ships. They are all included in the Scum faction, but I have plans with a friend to create a new faction all together for a sort of sub-game to X-Wing, set in the era of the Republic. He was supposed to be working on the Jedi/Republic faction, but I don't know how much progress he has made. Anyways, without further ado.

Ship 1: Vulture Droid

Ah yes, the iconic Vulture Droid. This one was the easiest to design. Cheap, weak and swarmy. I know everyone is gonna have something to say about being cheaper than a TIE, but I don't care. That is why I made the following upgrades for this thing:

These both make it so the cheapest ship is on par with a TIE in points, while also being close in capability. Sure, you can swarm them more unupgraded, but they die really fast that way.

Ship 2: Tri-Fighter

Before I go on, let me quickly describe a mechanic that the droid ships will be introducing. I am sure you noticed that the droids are lacking the focus action. This makes sense thematically, because a droid can't really "focus". Another thing, that I haven't implemented yet on the card is the "Processing Capacity" special rule. Instead of having normal pilot skills, droids will have a processor capacity value, which will take the place of its pilot skill value on the card. If I ever get around to doing it, I plan on changing the orange pilot skill number to a different color to symbolize this. Essentially what this means for the ships is this:

Whenever a droid ship would accrue a stress, instead reduce its processing capacity value by one, to a minimum of zero. A droid ship with zero processing capacity cannot perform actions or red maneuvers. Whenever a droid ship performs a green maneuver or would remove stress, increase its processing capacity value by one, to a maximum of its printed value.

I plan on making this a reference card for droid ships at some point as well. Basically, the more a droid ship taxes itself, the lower its pilot skill goes. Then it has to do greens to get it back up. Anyways, with that in mind, here are the Tri-Fighter pilots:

This ship is the elite droid ship, and it shows in the pilot abilities for these guys, and also in the upgrade cards that would come in its blister.

(small error there, did you notice it?)

Will post the other two ships below.

Ship 3: Hyena Bomber

The Hyena droid will add a much needed dedicated bomber to the Scum faction. On top of having some of my favorite pilot abilities! ^-^

I will go ahead and put the Buzz Droid missile here too, and explain how it work:

Basically, a ship hit by this missile gets 3 tokens (which I should probably make conditions, I designed this card before those tho...). The tokens/condition will have the following rules:

At the start of the combat phase, remove 1 buzz droid token from this ship and deal 1 facedown damage card to it.

Action: remove 1 buzz droid token from this ship.

One damage missiles pretty much, as long as the opponent is okay with using two actions to ditch the buzz droids. Pretty good for 3 point probably. Maybe it needs a target lock restriction.

Ship 4: Gunship

I love the Slaver. Its 180 degree firing arc is so much fun. And the Droid Gunship is the perfect candidate for one. On top of having loads of other mounts for weapons. With some cool, aggressive pilot abilities. And with a systems upgrade to leverage them.

So, what do you guys think? Anything seem OP to you? Anyone have any other cool ideas? Please share them with me!

Reserved

I gave droids 1 hull but 4 agility they are hard to hit but when you do they are done.

5 hull 1 agi will die LONG before it can fire more than one or two pieces of ordnance, let alone 6 slots worth.

I do like the concept of changing PS for something different in context though.

5 hull 1 agi will die LONG before it can fire more than one or two pieces of ordnance, let alone 6 slots worth.

I do like the concept of changing PS for something different in context though.

Well, one of the pilots wants to die before he has shot anything. Maybe they could have a title that lets them negate a damage by discarding a munition? Makes extra munitions really good then.

5 hull 1 agi will die LONG before it can fire more than one or two pieces of ordnance, let alone 6 slots worth.

I do like the concept of changing PS for something different in context though.

Well, one of the pilots wants to die before he has shot anything. Maybe they could have a title that lets them negate a damage by discarding a munition? Makes extra munitions really good then.

That could be kind of cool actually. I'd be incl;ined to design it as a separate munition card.

Flares: 3 points, missile. Once per attack when you would be dealt a damage card, you may discard a [missile, bomb, or torp] upgrade. If you do, if the card was dealt facedown, you may discard it, or if it was dealt faceup you may flip it facedown without resolving its effect.

5 hull 1 agi will die LONG before it can fire more than one or two pieces of ordnance, let alone 6 slots worth.

I do like the concept of changing PS for something different in context though.

Well, one of the pilots wants to die before he has shot anything. Maybe they could have a title that lets them negate a damage by discarding a munition? Makes extra munitions really good then.

That could be kind of cool actually. I'd be incl;ined to design it as a separate munition card.

Flares: 3 points, missile. Once per attack when you would be dealt a damage card, you may discard a [missile, bomb, or torp] upgrade. If you do, if the card was dealt facedown, you may discard it, or if it was dealt faceup you may flip it facedown without resolving its effect.

Although then you could get 12 extra hull on the Hyena for 12 points. 2x Seismic, 1x Tracer, 1x Flare, 1x Munitions, and 1x Astroid Torp. You would only be a 2/1/5/12 for 28 though, so maybe that isn't an issue?

5 hull 1 agi will die LONG before it can fire more than one or two pieces of ordnance, let alone 6 slots worth.

I do like the concept of changing PS for something different in context though.

Well, one of the pilots wants to die before he has shot anything. Maybe they could have a title that lets them negate a damage by discarding a munition? Makes extra munitions really good then.

That could be kind of cool actually. I'd be incl;ined to design it as a separate munition card.

Flares: 3 points, missile. Once per attack when you would be dealt a damage card, you may discard a [missile, bomb, or torp] upgrade. If you do, if the card was dealt facedown, you may discard it, or if it was dealt faceup you may flip it facedown without resolving its effect.

That would be cool for any ship to equip! Maybe it could be discard a munition to add an evade to a roll? Would make a little more sense since it's a flare.

Either works - and yeah, the intention was to come up with something that fit for multiple ships, not just this one.

I like it. They all seem pretty balanced. Maneuver dials in particular are spot-on, I think, and I love the Processing Power mechanic - that's genius.

The Hyena seems maaaaaaybe a little undercosted? As observed above, it would pop pretty quickly. But that Defense Protocols.... Deadeye for droids. That's a terrifying alpha strike. Although once you've paid for munitions....

The Tri-Fighter, again, seems maybe a little undercosted. Compared to the obviously overcosted StarViper, anyways. Or maybe it's just right, and really points up just how badly priced the 'Viper actually is. Heh.

Have you had any chance to playtest them? Run them against a known squad, and you would know right quick if you've got the pricing right.

And have you any thoughts on how to bring them into the GCW era? I realize that you are in essence looking to make a sort of Clone Wars expansion, but I love the idea of some Outer Rim scumbag warlord using a cache of droid fighters in his personal fleet against the oppressive Imperials and snooping Rebels.

The fluctuating PS system is a pretty neat mechanic based on stress, green maneuvers, upgrades and pilot abilities. It does seem thematic and adds another wrinkle into the game for a distinct faction difference. Well done!

Well, they could easily be brought into GCW era by just changing some names around. It was definitely not unheard of for scummy dudes to reactivate droid factories or even repair old droids that they find lying around. That's why they are Scum for now. And even if I did get around to making them their own faction, it would be a sub-faction of Scum. Or at least if you were playing with base X-Wing it would be.

As for undercosted, I don't know. The Hyena is cheaper than the TIE bomber, but it also has one less agility and hull, so I think that should be fine.

The Tri-Fighter is something I'm more worried about. But still, not too much. Comparing it to the Starviper, it does seem too cheap. But that ship doesn't see ANY play nowadays. But when I was designing them I had one idea in mind that I wanted to make work, and that is this list:

1x Teebo w/ Protocols mod and Expanded Processor Banks

1x Copycat w/ Protocols mod and Advanced Swarm Networking

2x Prototype Tri-Fighter w/ Protocols mod and Advanced Swarm Networking.

This gives you a 99 point list that essentially has 4 PS9 droids. Albeit with minimal abilities outside of just being high PS. Idk if that is too powerful or not...

The Hyena isn't cheaper than the bomber though? The Scimitar Squadron Pilot is 16 points...

The Hyena isn't cheaper than the bomber though? The Scimitar Squadron Pilot is 16 points...

Oh... Derp. Well then maybe my droid is overcosted?

The Hyena isn't cheaper than the bomber though? The Scimitar Squadron Pilot is 16 points...

Same points for 1 less PS, but has 1 more bomb slot and a system slot. That system slot I think makes up for the PS, let alone the bomb slot. Although, utilizing too many points in a PS 1 ship with 5 hull and 1 agility....hard to say how much it would be used.

The Hyena isn't cheaper than the bomber though? The Scimitar Squadron Pilot is 16 points...

Same points for 1 less PS, but has 1 more bomb slot and a system slot. That system slot I think makes up for the PS, let alone the bomb slot.

But doesn't make up for 1 AGI and 5 hull. Which is the sort of stat line that can get one shotted by an X-wing at R1 with only a little bit of luck.

To have THAT terrible a stat line without some form of built in damage mitigation, it would have to be significantly cheaper.

The Hyena isn't cheaper than the bomber though? The Scimitar Squadron Pilot is 16 points...

Same points for 1 less PS, but has 1 more bomb slot and a system slot. That system slot I think makes up for the PS, let alone the bomb slot. Although, utilizing too many points in a PS 1 ship with 5 hull and 1 agility....hard to say how much it would be used.

Ninja'd...

On the bright side, this isn't an official release, so I can go back and edit these to make them more balanced. Which I plan on doing after work today. For one, I am spotting too many discrepancies in the wording on some abilities. Also, can someone come up with a better name than "Processing Capacity"? It kinda bugs me...

You also have to take into consideration that since the droid ships can't focus, you have a decently neutered missile and torpedo shot on anything that forces you to spend the target lock. They'd have to completely rely on Guidance Chips or things like Homing missile that don't for the spending of target locks.

Also rendered APTs and Prockets unusable, or near enough.

I think 'Deadshot' could be really op if you load it with 2* Thread Tracers and 2* EM. That would be 6 damage for 6 points if counting Ordnance Tokens. And 4 if only counting cards.

Compare that to an Assault Missile.

Imagine placing it fully loaded with cheap stuff in front of an huge ship.

Well, it doesn't count munition tokens the way I worded it. You would get 4 damage since EM is still a torp upgrade. The cheapest to get 6 damage would be 2x Seismic, 2x Tracer, 2x EM. So 10 points for 6 damage. Still a decent bargain considering Dead Man's Switch is 3 for 1 damage.

Also, EM is limited.

Well, it doesn't count munition tokens the way I worded it. You would get 4 damage since EM is still a torp upgrade. The cheapest to get 6 damage would be 2x Seismic, 2x Tracer, 2x EM. So 10 points for 6 damage. Still a decent bargain considering Dead Man's Switch is 3 for 1 damage.

Also, EM is limited.

Yeah you can't take 2 EM. BUt you can take 1 EM and one Seismic or Flechette Torp.

Alright, quick update. First, I present Decoy Flares:

Tried to make it good but not busted. With an EM it's essentially 3 hull. Pretty good. Maybe I should lower the starting tokens on it to 1. Or make it an action to "load" a token onto it with an action. Idk.

Anyways, here is the other change. Updated the Hyena Bomber. Bumped the hull up and dropped it a point. (Oops...)

Also implemented the "Processing Capacity" value on the card. Don't know if I like the color or not. What do you think?