So I was looking through defensive crew options when trying to put together a list for the upcoming Upsilon shuttle and came across Flight Instructor, a card I have never seen used before. I assume it came out a t a very odd time as I just can't see any reason why you'd take it? Surely recon specialist would be better as you can just change the focus to an evade and still have a focus left.

The only thing I can think is that it came out when they meta contained a lot of PS1/PS2 swarms, in which case it would be quite decent as you can reroll an eyeball OR a blank?

Is there any scope for using this card in the current meta?

It's never been worth taking, it's always been terrible.

18 minutes ago, Goseki1 said:

Is there any scope for using this card in the current meta?

No. Never has and I doubt there will be. Have to stick to Lone Wolf (or scum Boba I guess) for defensive rerolls. Pity it's unique really

In a Venn diagram, this card sits in the intersections of the sets:

Have a spare crew slot, have 4 points spare, really want to be able to re-roll 1 focus result on defence

I've never seen it played, and I don't think I ever will....

It's the four points that kills it. Maybe at 2 points it would see some play. While defensive buffs are deliberately kept rare in this game at this point in the design space I think they erred a little too cautiously on the price point.

With this and lone Wolf you could reroll a blank and an eye ball. But it's so expensive... It's so odd looking back at some of the earlier designs choices they made.

1 minute ago, Trevor Goodchild said:

It's the four points that kills it. Maybe at 2 points it would see some play. While defensive buffs are deliberately kept rare in this game at this point in the design space I think they erred a little too cautiously on the price point.

Doubtful. Crew slots are at a premium, and consider that 2 points gets you Agent Kallus, and Wired only costs 1 point...

2 points to reroll ALL eyeballs, or ALL blanks against PS1 might be OK. The only place it would be really potentially questionable woudl be Phantoms.

Weirdly this and rec spec both came out in wave three. I mean, sure you can use it if you get attacked multiple times/were unable or willing to take a focus action. But its such an edge case that it can't justify being a less flexible, less reliable and yet more expensive card.

maybe with scum Sabine....

Just now, Antipodean Ork said:

maybe with scum Sabine....

Taking one terrible card and glomming it onto another terrible card doesn't make either of them less terrible. RecSpec will be better on Scum Sabine in like many if not most circumstances, for one less point, and Scum Sabine is bad anyway.

So it's like Wired. Only half of Wired because it's only on defense not attack. Only not a full half of Wired because it's only one dice you can reroll.

So it's about 0.3 of Wired at 4x the cost, making it approximately 93% less cost-effective than Wired.

On a more intuitive level, it's one of those cards that I think is really good and I want to use, but then I see the cost and I think "...no."

This card comes from a meta where it was relatively difficult to get high damage attacks, and because of that, defensive mods were considered hyper-powerful, and priced accordingly.

In the actual meta it is difficult NO TO GET ultrahigh damage attacks, thus, its cost is now a bad joke.

Totally obsolete card, pending a errata/revised version of Xwing, like many others.

It was actually pretty good, in wave 3. The ability works on each defense - so vs a tie swarm, it could save a surprising amount of damage. If you want to stack defense - Juke, Jammer, Flight instructor phantoms are pretty nasty, the multiple defense dice make it more likely that you'll get a focus result, and taking the evade action, you don't have a focus to spend.

But - in the meta of the single large attack, with higher pilot skill and lots of efficient crew - it's not the best option.

I think it's horrible, but in truth, I've never used it. I'll use it on my Tie Phantom tonight just to confirm.

Hothie used it a bit on a Firespray in one of the Vassal tournaments. Whenever it worked we were like, "Dude, that was such a good call!" His Firespray was sturdier against swarms by a small margin, but it just didn't end up being enough. Pity that it doesn't do more for less, but as has been stated, the design mentality was different back then. The designers are very in-tune with the game, and often come out with cards that arrive just a bit too late, like Hotshot Copilot, for example [EDIT: to fight torp scouts]. Flight Instructor also seems like it was one wave too late.

if it was 2pts or a flatout change to an evade, it'd be good. 4pts for a single reroll even if its defense is pathetic, especially when its not a total reroll its only reroll a focus (for most pilots)

If you know you are going to be playing against an Academy Pilot TIE swarm, it works well. A friend of mine put a Lambda with Flight Instructor and Sensor Jammer in a squad with Carnor Jax and something else that I can't remember. He knew I was going to be playing a swarm. I was able to eventually kill the shuttle but it took forever.

Flight Instructor would need to be something like this to be worth 4 points and a crew slot:

"When defending, you may reroll 1 of your defense dice. If the attacker's pilot skill value is "2" or lower, you may change one your [FOCUS] results to an [EVADE] result instead."

I've been toying with the idea of Lancer Sabine with Flight Instructor, but as has been mentioned, its pretty much a 100% worse option compared to RecSpec. I did think though, "Oh! But RecSpec still requires an action!" But then I realized the rounds I'm not taking an action, I am just going to use Glitterstim anyways, making Flight Instructor pretty much useless, sooo.... Ya. That.

I was all set to defend this card, but then realized I was thinking of Fleet Officer. Yeah, even I have never used this card.

Like most here, I've never used this card but I'll try it out tonight. Just for something different. Defensively on big ships I've had very good luck with Lando. He's been very good luck.

1 hour ago, Parakitor said:

Hothie used it a bit on a Firespray in one of the Vassal tournaments. Whenever it worked we were like, "Dude, that was such a good call!" His Firespray was sturdier against swarms by a small margin, but it just didn't end up being enough. Pity that it doesn't do more for less, but as has been stated, the design mentality was different back then. The designers are very in-tune with the game, and often come out with cards that arrive just a bit too late, like Hotshot Copilot, for example [EDIT: to fight torp scouts]. Flight Instructor also seems like it was one wave too late.

I'm thinking HotCop was actually designed to combat Torpedo Scouts, but after they became dominant, the updates to R4 and Deadeye, they decided they needed a faster decision. Card text updates, while clunky in my opinion, can be released as soon as the playtesting completes on them, whereas they have to wait on the production and shipping for content in new expansions to reach the market.

What about putting Flight Instructor on Captain Rex?

He rolls 3 defence dice which will make the most out of the Flight Instructor (the more defence dice you are rolling means the more opportunity to reroll a focus result with the Flight Instructor). Then for his action you can take an Evade token. Makes him pretty hard to kill and lets him pour on his Suppressive Fire for longer. He is only 19 pts with Flight Instructor.

26 minutes ago, Stubby said:

What about putting Flight Instructor on Captain Rex?

He rolls 3 defence dice which will make the most out of the Flight Instructor (the more defence dice you are rolling means the more opportunity to reroll a focus result with the Flight Instructor). Then for his action you can take an Evade token. Makes him pretty hard to kill and lets him pour on his Suppressive Fire for longer. He is only 19 pts with Flight Instructor.

Rey is 2 points cheaper and will more times than not prove far more valuable.

Was it ever useful?