My head hurts

*** UPDATE ***

The refined formula for 2-AGI ships has now been factored in. Everything that didn't quite sense before, like the Kihraxz Fighter, is now perfectly accounted for under the new model.

Since your formula requires a lot of reading I'm just curious what you think the Firespray should cost.

Since your formula requires a lot of reading I'm just curious what you think the Firespray should cost.

Since your formula requires a lot of reading I'm just curious what you think the Firespray should cost.

Since last I responded, I found the formula for auxiliary firing arcs and large ship price discounts. A hypothetical PS1 Firespray's stats should cost ~29.6 points, meaning an Imperial Bounty Hunter at PS3 and 33 points is likely ~1-2 points overcosted.

That poor, poor Punisher. I wonder if FFG will ever try to fix it or if they'll just leave it in the obscurity in which they found it. If they do fix it, what form would that fix take?

That poor, poor Punisher. I wonder if FFG will ever try to fix it or if they'll just leave it in the obscurity in which they found it. If they do fix it, what form would that fix take?

Something with like 6 points worth of value, apparently.

excellent post. I will be checking this regularly with each wave.

That poor, poor Punisher. I wonder if FFG will ever try to fix it or if they'll just leave it in the obscurity in which they found it. If they do fix it, what form would that fix take?

Just imagine if they'd done this badly with the Missile Boat.

That poor, poor Punisher. I wonder if FFG will ever try to fix it or if they'll just leave it in the obscurity in which they found it. If they do fix it, what form would that fix take?

Something with like 6 points worth of value, apparently.

That poor, poor Punisher. I wonder if FFG will ever try to fix it or if they'll just leave it in the obscurity in which they found it. If they do fix it, what form would that fix take?

Something with like 6 points worth of value, apparently.

A 3 point title that added an attack die would bring the ship to 100% efficiency according to this model.

A TIE-Punisher with 3 red dice would have 200% offense and 150% defense for a naked stat line cost of 22.5pts. The System slot and awesome upgrade bar cost something, so it shouldn't be under 23pts. The problem here with making the ship flat out efficient is the design of the ship... it's not SUPPOSED to be run naked. It's a heavy ordnance weapons platform, for crying out loud!

If I had to offer a simple and elegant title fix, I would give it a free title where ALL upgrade cards attached to the TIE-Punisher that cost 2pts or more cost 1pt less. This is thematic, fun, saves an appropriate amount of points, isn't overpowered, encourages creativity, and doesn't punish people for stacking upgrades on a ship that's meant to be stacked.

BIG UPDATE TODAY!

Turns out that the X-Wing w/Integrated, TIE/SF, Kihraxz, HWK-290, E-Wing, and Starviper are all underpowered for the exact same reason . Details in the " What Ships Qualify for the Glass Cannon Bonus? " section.

On 12/28/2016 at 6:26 PM, f0rbiddenc00kie said:

[aaa-2] THE BASIS FOR THE FORMULA :
The TIE-Fighter is a thing of beauty. I have discovered that the Academy Pilot is one of the only pilots completely free of fluff. Even the Rebel and Scum Z-95's are not as efficient as the mighty Academy Pilot, each paying exactly 2/3 of a point for the Missile slot and PS2/Illicit. TIE-Fighter dial/actions/upgrades are considered "relatively normal" and do NOT factor into its cost . Completely variable free, cheapest ship in the game, and easily divisible at 12pts for nice round numbers, the mighty Academy Pilot is the perfect basis upon which pricing for all ships can start.

Offense and defense each account for exactly half a ship's base stat line value. The tricky part is that 2 red dice is priced as 100% offensive value, and 3 red dice is priced as 200% offensive value. This means that the game is priced so that two 2-ATK shots is equivalent to one 3-ATK shot. This tells us that FFG likely knew from the start that going from 2 red dice to 3 increases your expected in-game damage by a lot more than 50%, and so they priced accordingly. Good job, FFG. And now I present to you...

[aaa-3] THE FORMULA :
Always start with the TIE-Fighter as the base.
12 * [( offense value + 100) / 2]% * [( defense value + 100) / 2]% = base stat line cost

[aaa-4] OFFENSE VALUE PRICING FOR PRIMARY WEAPONS :
050% offense value = 1-ATK standard
100% offense value = 2-ATK standard, 1-ATK turret
200% offense value = 3-ATK standard, 2-ATK turret
300% offense value = 4-ATK standard, 3-ATK turret
400% offense value = 5-ATK standard, 4-ATK turret (Outrider w/HLC)

[aaa-5] SPECIAL RULES :
AUXILIARY/MOBILE ARCS : Priced as half-way between a standard firing arc and turret.
GLASS CANNON BONUS : Small ships from this class sometimes have a 1pt cheaper cost than their stat line would suggest. See the "glass cannon bonus" under "trends in pricing" for details.
LARGE SHIP BONUS : Receive a 12.5% price discount for their stats.
FAT TURRET PENALTY : This sub-class of large ships do not receive the "large ship bonus."
FAT TURRET PENALTY "CONSOLATION PRIZE" : Wave 8 "Fat Turret" ships and beyond appear to get their first ~1-2pts of utility for free as mild compensation for the "Fat Turret Penalty" being a bit on the harsh side.

It's quite a bit of work you have done there in the analysis of all the ships! But it's stretching it quite a bit to call it an "official" formula for pricing a ship.

There's no real justification given for the formula in its current form, except for it loosely resembling real-world results. But correlation is not causation. A better approach, albeit one that is far more difficult, is to better understand the underlying mathematical mechanisms and then derive a formula based on that.

An excellent read, thanks for the write up OP.

On 2/17/2017 at 9:51 PM, MajorJuggler said:

It's quite a bit of work you have done there in the analysis of all the ships! But it's stretching it quite a bit to call it an "official" formula for pricing a ship.

There's no real justification given for the formula in its current form, except for it loosely resembling real-world results. But correlation is not causation. A better approach, albeit one that is far more difficult, is to better understand the underlying mathematical mechanisms and then derive a formula based on that.

Yeah, it did take some time! I'm very observant and analytical by nature, and started this whole thing because I noticed solid patterns in FFG's pricing, even for the ships that didn't seem ideally balanced. Even if FFG's pricing wasn't perfect... it was consistent . It was at that moment that I decided to find out for sure if FFG did in fact use a formula. After spending a lot of time reverse-engineering this... I am 100% confident that this formula is what FFG uses as the basis for determining how much a ship's stats are worth, so I don't consider it a stretch at all.

Understanding the underlying mathematical mechanisms is exactly what I was trying to do in the first place; the most basic of which was understanding that offense and defense are weighted equally when pricing a ship's stats. Hopefully when you say "mathematical mechanisms," this is what you are talking about. Once I realized that, everything slowly started to fall perfectly into place, and I knew that I was on the right track. I was looking for mathematical patterns, lessons they learned from previous waves, the thought process of a game designer, logical justifications for exceptions and changes to their own rules, and how well the formula aligns with both official in-game costs and (to a lesser extent) perceived perfect balance. The more I used the formula, the more I understood FFG's thought process. They have extremely consistent patterns when it comes to things like pricing new mechanics, very slowly increasing the glass cannon bonus with each wave, consistently overpricing what I call "periphery ships," etc.

Funny enough, finding the base formula was actually the easy part. It was the special rules to the formula that were the killer (especially for large ships and turrets... aye...). Now that I have refined the special rules and have a rough understanding of how they price utility I can see that everything fits flawlessly, even the ships that the community sees as weak. I can account for the pricing, perceived strength, and reasoning for every ship in the game ... except the TIE-Punisher. They must have taken one too many glitterstims for that one. Please note that I only claim to know how FFG prices ship stats . There are plenty of good examples which showcase FFG's poor judgment when it comes to pricing utility and accounting for special weaknesses (like Outrider HLC range 1). Barring any monumental screw up on their end, I am highly confident in my ability to predict the PS1-PS3 value of all future upcoming ships (as long as they are not strongly utility-based like the Quadjumper).

Has anyone tried lightweight frame on the punisher? Granted you can't take guidance chips though.

But it basically turns into a 2 agility ship with the exception of two dice attacks at range 3 all for only 2 points. Makes it much more durable than the bomber then.

You get 3 shields, boost, and systems slot for 7 points more.

37 minutes ago, markcsoul said:

Has anyone tried lightweight frame on the punisher? Granted you can't take guidance chips though.

But it basically turns into a 2 agility ship with the exception of two dice attacks at range 3 all for only 2 points. Makes it much more durable than the bomber then.

You get 3 shields, boost, and systems slot for 7 points more.

I did an analysis of this already because I was curious, too. Putting lightweight frame on a TIE-Punisher puts it from paying exactly 6 points for its utility to paying exactly 5 points. To put it into perspective... equipping LWF on the Punisher puts it into pre-fix TIE-Advanced levels of overpriced, and that's an improvement over where it was before. The only reason you'd ever want to do that is if you're using the Punisher as a dedicated bomber, and it's still going to be bad. It's a marginal improvement... but at least it may live just a tad longer to drop its bombs.

If it's something you want to do, I suggest trying LWF on a Deathrain with no missiles or torpedoes and possibly using Accuracy Corrector. If you plan on using missiles or torpedoes, you're better off with GC or LRS.

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I am 100% confident that this formula is what FFG uses as the basis for determining how much a ship's stats are worth, so I don't consider it a stretch at all.

How much are you willing to bet on that? Thinking "this could be how FFG does it" but claiming 100% certainity? That's saying that the chance of you being wrong about it is zero . That's a "I'd bet everything I'll ever own on it" level of confidence.

If not, then please don't add to the pile of unsubstantiated claims. What you've done is created a model that approximates actual ship prices well through heavy use of fudge factors with the constantly changing "glass cannon bonus" being the most extreme. To claim that it's FFG's, you "discovered" it rather than created it and that it's impossible for you to be wrong about that is frankly dishonest and only serves to undermine what's otherwise a pretty good piece of modelling work.

5 minutes ago, Blue Five said:

How much are you willing to bet on that? If you think the odds of this being FFG's secret formula are geniunely 1 to 0 then there'd be no risk in staking everything you own or ever will own on it, no?

If not, then please don't add to the pile of unsubstantiated claims. What you've done is created a model that approximates actual ship prices well through heavy use of fudge factors with the constantly changing "glass cannon bonus" being the most extreme. To claim that it's FFG's and you "discovered" it is frankly dishonest and only serves to undermine what's otherwise a pretty good piece of modelling work.

You make me want to shout stupid things like "your mom is intellectually dishonest"

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You make me want to shout stupid things like "your mom is intellectually dishonest"

Just winds me up more than it used to, that's all. I think the final straw was the guy who insisted that any small ship that you couldn't run four generics of was overcosted no matter what. That is to say, they insisted any small ship over 26 points is fundamentally overpriced. They were more certain of it than they were certain they weren't a lemur.

Still, at least if they ever try that crap again I can shove TIE/x7 down their throat.

I'm not sure why this ins getting so much flak, but this sounds awesome! (I haven't checked out the math) but this makes a lot of sense. Esp with the Tie as the first model, with no slots or PS confusing things.

This and @MajorJuggler 's jousting value give you a very large account of what is good in the meta. MJ, can we have fun information again about the game? Or did you "solve" the game? Cuz Xwing seems to be in a finer position than it ever was. (with some crazy scum attanii and the punisher being bad bad problems. )

A good picture, just not a complete one, and missing some of the final touchups to make a masterpiece.

Again much like Mathwing Jousting values it only factors mostly stats and a little bit of the dials but not by much. However in that case every maneuver is given a value to calculate it's expected cost. Here you have more of a "trait" system like Glass Cannon Bonus or Large Ship bonus which is abstract at its best. Which it still works since this game is nothing more than an abstraction of a "fictional" setting.

2 hours ago, Marinealver said:

A good picture, just not a complete one, and missing some of the final touchups to make a masterpiece.

Again much like Mathwing Jousting values it only factors mostly stats and a little bit of the dials but not by much. However in that case every maneuver is given a value to calculate it's expected cost. Here you have more of a "trait" system like Glass Cannon Bonus or Large Ship bonus which is abstract at its best. Which it still works since this game is nothing more than an abstraction of a "fictional" setting.

Hoesntly, am I the only one reading this to think: while it contains a lot of exceptions and hand-wavy pointing at designers learning history, it works pretty much exactly the way I expected it to? From a back-track perspective, I could totally see this is the framework and the assumption of slots and dials as costs makes sense.

Whatever, anyway its cool. And punishers argh.

I made a 3 punisher list once. It was fun, but stupidly bad.

1 hour ago, Blue Five said:

How much are you willing to bet on that? Thinking "this could be how FFG does it" but claiming 100% certainity? That's saying that the chance of you being wrong about it is zero . That's a "I'd bet everything I'll ever own on it" level of confidence.

Before I answer this, you should understand a few things about me as a person: I am very skeptical, analytical, I enjoy asking questions and learning, I always want to understand the "why," and I don't like making claims that I can't prove. So to answer your question... yes. Yes, I am that confident. If I wasn't, it would bother me to say it.

To be clear, I'm only saying the chance of me being wrong is about zero when we are very specifically talking about the base formula for ship stats and defining defense and offense values. There's no way for me to know all the special rules, especially since they occasionally add or modify them based on previous wave performance. Heck, it wasn't until about 2-3 days ago that I was able to properly explain why so many ships in the game feel underpowered despite adhering to the formula. There's also nothing wrong with having special rules, especially in a game where new mechanics keep popping up. Also, almost every single "special rule" I have very specifically deal with turrets and large ships, both of which have been around since the start of the game.

The only special rule that I listed that I have doubts on is the "Fat Turret Penalty Consolation Prize," and that's only because I need more data (aka new ships) to confirm it. I was careful with my choice in wording when I wrote that, too, using the words "appear to get their first ~1-2pts of utility for free." If you look at all my other listed special rules, I use very affirmative statements because they are perfectly consistent. If my "Large ship bonus" is off, then it is off by less than 1%, although I have good reason to believe it's spot on.

4 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

I'm not sure why this ins getting so much flak, but this sounds awesome! (I haven't checked out the math) but this makes a lot of sense. Esp with the Tie as the first model, with no slots or PS confusing things.

This and @MajorJuggler 's jousting value give you a very large account of what is good in the meta. MJ, can we have fun information again about the game? Or did you "solve" the game? Cuz Xwing seems to be in a finer position than it ever was. (with some crazy scum attanii and the punisher being bad bad problems. )

MajorJuggler has a much different expertise than I do. His is math, mine is pattern recognition.

His MathWing thread can tell you approximately how much pilot skill is worth for different price ranges and how pilot abilities like Scum Boba Fett affect jousting value. I can't do that.

What I can tell you is what you're paying for and why. What you can learn from MajorJuggler and I are very different things.