Making custom card. How many points to the base cost of a ship should it be? I'm thinking 3, but unsure.

I would say that really depends on the ship and the dial. Minimum would probably be 2-3 but on a ship with more maneuvers than the K-Wing it may need to be more to be balanced.

That one examination of possible ship stat formula has it that the K-Wing pays like, .5 points for SLAM and it's upgrade slots.

Burnout SLAM is 1 point, but obviously once, but is also for Large ships which have that base and often have decent maneuverability - so I'd say 1-2 points depending on the ship's dial.

Totally context dependent. Don't forget Advanced SLAM exists and is not restricted to K-Wings.

1. On an average dial ship (think X-wing) it'd be better than barrel roll but worse than boost, I'd say. At that rate, a parmanent action would be 3 points. If its a one-time ability (burnout) or has a drawback (like scum Cloaking does) then two points is about right.

2. If its available to ships with great dials (like the Interceptor, Fang fighter, Defender, etc) then it needs to be 4 points for a permanent action, and 2-3 for a one-time use.

Upgrade cards are usually costed to avoid abuse. So, Engine Upgrade is totally not worth it on an X-Wing but is practically welded to large base ships. Hence, Vectored Thrusters are a mere 2 points and restricted to small ships. SLAM has a heavy opportunity cost but then is quite useful on a cheap support ship which doesn't rely on shooting.

Very much so. SLAM is a nice trick but not amazing on a purely combat ship. On a ship with appropriate pilot abilities, bomb, crew or illicit slots which can in theory be doing stuff even when restricted from attacking, it's a lot scarier.

What's the card?

Depends on the dial and slots on the ship. With any white turn and bombs and/or illicits? It should cost a LOT.

Without any one of those, quite a bit. With none of those... I could have seen Burnout SLAM not discard itself for a point or two more.

Making custom card. How many points to the base cost of a ship should it be? I'm thinking 3, but unsure.

Not how pricing works. You design the whole ship, then you work out a point cost that works for it.

The true value of abilities depends on the ship so there's no linear formula to calculate it.

The true value of abilities depends on the ship so there's no linear formula to calculate it.

This is true. I'd say its more of a 12-or-so-dimensional plane, with each dimension representing the value of a certain attribute. Hull, shields, agility and attack are relatively straightforward linear relations (e.g. 3 hull + 4 shield + 7 agilty + 9 attack = 50), however the other factors, such as the maneuver dial, are much more difficult to quantify.

For the maneuver dial, I'd go with:

1. Red straights get a numerical value of 1 per individual maneuver. Whites would have 2 and greens three.

2. Red banks again have a 1, whites a 2, and greens perhaps a 3.5 to reflect their higher utility.

3. Red turns have a 1, whites a three, and Greens a 5.

4. Any turn around maneuver (koigran, segnors or Tallon) that is red gets a 3, to reflect its opportunistic value. White would be a 7 to represent its incredible utility, and a green perhaps a 10.

From this, you''d have to scale the whole dial to a numerical value, then add it as a third value.

Other costing considerations are Pilot Skill, number (and type) of typical actions available (most notably boost and barrel roll), the number and type of upgrades available and the presence or absence of special conditions such as the Cloak, Slam and Mobile Firing Arc actions (And soon coordinate, with he Upsilon Shuttle).

By taking the data from every ship so far, you'd get a series of simultaneous equations with the variables defined, and you'd just have to solve for them. I think I know what I'm doing tomorrow...

The true value of abilities depends on the ship so there's no linear formula to calculate it.

This is true. I'd say its more of a 12-or-so-dimensional plane, with each dimension representing the value of a certain attribute. Hull, shields, agility and attack are relatively straightforward linear relations (e.g. 3 hull + 4 shield + 7 agilty + 9 attack = 50), however the other factors, such as the maneuver dial, are much more difficult to quantify.

For the maneuver dial, I'd go with:

1. Red straights get a numerical value of 1 per individual maneuver. Whites would have 2 and greens three.

2. Red banks again have a 1, whites a 2, and greens perhaps a 3.5 to reflect their higher utility.

3. Red turns have a 1, whites a three, and Greens a 5.

4. Any turn around maneuver (koigran, segnors or Tallon) that is red gets a 3, to reflect its opportunistic value. White would be a 7 to represent its incredible utility, and a green perhaps a 10.

From this, you''d have to scale the whole dial to a numerical value, then add it as a third value.

Other costing considerations are Pilot Skill, number (and type) of typical actions available (most notably boost and barrel roll), the number and type of upgrades available and the presence or absence of special conditions such as the Cloak, Slam and Mobile Firing Arc actions (And soon coordinate, with he Upsilon Shuttle).

By taking the data from every ship so far, you'd get a series of simultaneous equations with the variables defined, and you'd just have to solve for them. I think I know what I'm doing tomorrow...

You're on a hiding to nothing. Even if you do manage to derive a formula, that's not how ships in this game are balanced - even when they were priced formulaically, it was still less precise than this.

Balance is a much more holistic process based around playtesting, it's not formulaic.

Hull, shields, agility and attack are relatively straightforward linear relations (e.g. 3 hull + 4 shield + 7 agilty + 9 attack = 50)

The B-wing and the TIE fighter disagree.

And the TIE Bomber. Etc.

This is why assigning point values formulaically doesn't work.

Those specific values are also decidedly wonky anyway, since Shield and Hull Upgrades are both overpriced to avoid them being automatic takes for anything with an empty slot and the spare points.