Now I know this is never going to happen. The closest thing to a 5th command we will get is the CC Hyperescape where you discard a dial then get out but that is more of a get out of town than a tactical command. But to be fair Dials are really the only hidden information out there and with only 4 commands and one of those commands being dependent on external models the dials are somewhat predictable. More so there really isn't any way to all of a sudden spring up a unplanned command and get the surprise on your opponent other than the occasional ram or opening fire. So what if there was a 5th command on the dial and a 5th command token. Well first lets take a look at the 4 commands. From a strategic standpoint they have all the tactical commands down.

• Movement
• Offense
• Defense
• Support

I don't think I need to explain what dial is which but I am sure everyone will agree Nav is movement, concentrate firepower is offence, engineering is defense and squadrons is support. So what more could be added to the dials. Here are some options that come to mind.

• Communications. This essentially allows you to transfer a command to another ship. Spend this dial to change the top dial or spend a token to switch a token with any friendly ship at medium to short range. Plus there could be an interesting scenario where an Imperial ship slows down when approaching an asteroid field but a key rebel ship is escaping. It might have had concentrate firepower but Vader send a communication "Asteroids do not concern me" and a nav command is put in place pressing that ship to speed through the obstacle asteroid damage be dammed.
• Docking. So this is sort of like a support command but instead of giving squadrons the ability to move it could act as one of two things. Spend a dial to either transfer one Commander, Officer, Team to a ship at close range "you know in case someone needs to apologize to Lord Vader." Or repair a number of friendly squadrons at range one (up to the squadron value) cumulatively up to the engineering value. So a Pelta Command Cruiser (squadron 3 engineering 4) could repair 3 squadrons but only one of those three could recover up to two hit points (1+1+2=4) or it could repair a single squadron of B-wings up 4 points. For the token it can only repair 1 squadron 1 point. Also you could do something offensively with boarding for a weapons team upgrade.
• Scanning. Trying to think of something then I remember the old inspection mechanic from the classic X-wing and TIE Fighters. So lets bring up the scanners and see what we can scope out (mmmm raspberry). Now with most of Armada's information already open knowledge the only hidden information is the dials. So you could discard a scanner dial to look at an opponent's top dial at range 1. As for the token you could spend it to re-roll damage

So those are some ideas. What would you put in for a 5th command and how would the dials and token work?

I was going to say something along the lines of docking. I like yours better than what I thought up for it. Bonus due to the fact that the ability to heal squadrons would really drive "squadron haters" crazy.

How about:

Block - Any enemy attack which would trace it's line of sight through one of your ships hull zones has to target you instead.

35 minutes ago, Barney said:

How about:

Block - Any enemy attack which would trace it's line of sight through one of your ships hull zones has to target you instead.

Let's hope we never get a 'taunt' effect, they are lazy and never make sense.

X-Wing has the Evade action, letting you gain a defensive edge against incoming attacks. Is the Repair command the same thing in Armada? Yes and no. It's defensive, and perhaps you could say that in a capital ship game it's appropriate to have the defensive option be to send damage control crews to patch up the hull breaches rather than fancy flying, but as a defensive-minded player I do sometimes find myself at a loss for a good command when I know I'm heading into that big Round 3 when the storm finally breaks and all ships open fire. If I had a command to lower a small amount of damage before it happens, I know I'd use it a lot.

But in this game we often see a trend that Offense is meant to be superior to Defense. Clashes sometimes with my instincts, but that's how it is.

I think it's part of why we see big juggernaut ships struggle against a handful of small ships. That one Brace token on your ISD is little comfort against two or three MC30s.

I don't really see any glaring things that wouldn't just be an upgrade card to give an alternate effect, such as the Rapid Launch Bays.

The closest thing I can see, similar to a suggestion above, would be a command to improve your defenses in advance. An example might be a command that allows you to spend a defense token without exhausting or discarding it. The dial could let you spend it at full strength (readied, exhausted, or discarded), and the token could let you spend it only if it was readied (green).

14 minutes ago, Darthain said:

Let's hope we never get a 'taunt' effect, they are lazy and never make sense.

As a general rule I disagree; lots of games have perfectly reasonable explanations on how one character forces enemies to attack him when they should not be doing that. But I do agree that it makes very little sense in Armada for every ship to be able to do it. I mean, can you imagine how obnoxious flotillas would be if you didn't have a lot of attacks or dice with accuracy results?

It could maybe work as an upgrade that represented a ship having a device that drags enemy targeting systems over to itself, but that seems like it would be a unique upgrade and probably go in a rare slot like experimental retrofit. Definitely should not be on literally any ship that chooses that command.

On Taunt;

In general I find severe control effects, things that take options away, are dangerous includes. They really need to be implemented very carefully, or they wind up being super fun for one guy and frustrating/boring/ragequit omfg such bullsh*t for the other.

So far armada has done a nice job of implementing real counterplay for each of their control effects. Slicer Tools can be beaten through dial manipulation elements in your own fleet, or simply staying out of range 3. Plus, it requires a tiny ship that doesnt want to get into medium range of the ships most adversely affected by it to get into medium range. Of course, its payout can be huge. I think its an example of a well implemented control effect.

Taunt would concern me, because it almost by definition eliminates some pretty core tactical decisions. Such as who to shoot at, how to activate. We do sort of have a degree of it in the squadron game of armada, with Escort/engagment mechanics forcing target choices to a degree. Ships are a different animal though. But if it was something on a title somewhere, properly costed and put on the right chasis, I could maybe see it. But I would want the design team and playtesters to be super careful with it.

4 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

On Taunt;

In general I find severe control effects, things that take options away, are dangerous includes. They really need to be implemented very carefully, or they wind up being super fun for one guy and frustrating/boring/ragequit omfg such bullsh*t for the other.

So far armada has done a nice job of implementing real counterplay for each of their control effects. Slicer Tools can be beaten through dial manipulation elements in your own fleet, or simply staying out of range 3. Plus, it requires a tiny ship that doesnt want to get into medium range of the ships most adversely affected by it to get into medium range. Of course, its payout can be huge. I think its an example of a well implemented control effect.

Taunt would concern me, because it almost by definition eliminates some pretty core tactical decisions. Such as who to shoot at, how to activate. We do sort of have a degree of it in the squadron game of armada, with Escort/engagment mechanics forcing target choices to a degree. Ships are a different animal though. But if it was something on a title somewhere, properly costed and put on the right chasis, I could maybe see it. But I would want the design team and playtesters to be super careful with it.

When you see how Escort and Intel has slowed down the squadron game to a crawl it's hard to argue that adding similar effects to ships would contribute more than it takes away.

36 minutes ago, Hockeyzombie said:

As a general rule I disagree; lots of games have perfectly reasonable explanations on how one character forces enemies to attack him when they should not be doing that. But I do agree that it makes very little sense in Armada for every ship to be able to do it. I mean, can you imagine how obnoxious flotillas would be if you didn't have a lot of attacks or dice with accuracy results?

It could maybe work as an upgrade that represented a ship having a device that drags enemy targeting systems over to itself, but that seems like it would be a unique upgrade and probably go in a rare slot like experimental retrofit. Definitely should not be on literally any ship that chooses that command.

Taunting only ever had any ground, and even then little, when dealing with non intelligent opponents. I'm not going to stand and fight the bigger guy in armour when I could clobber the pesky thing stabbing me in the side and hurting me more, same goes for that wizard over there that is the real threat. It is a pretty silly mechanic that pops up in MMO games to create their odd ideas of boss fights, they don't ever seem to be able to taunt you though.. it exists to make those (relatively poorly) made games playable, and provide comfortable rolls.

As far as escort, kind of a taunt yes, but with squadrons zipping about around eachother it makes more sense they could get in the way. Failing that it is often easy to get around escort (you need 3 for 'perfect' protection). Ships don't have that kind of positional flexibility.

On the dial are 3 ways to influence your ship and one way to influence squadrons. If I'm leaning new and different I'd say a command to influence other ships would round out the set. Maybe something like, Intel: you may change the command dial of another friendly ship which has not activated this round. It's obviously stepping on some toes in terms of upgrades but it gives you a new option to make one ship less effective while making another one more effective, depending on how the round is going.

15 minutes ago, Darthain said:

...that wizard over there...

This is kind of the problem with expecting some adherence to real life combat. If there were wizards and magic, physical combat would go right out the window. It would be more akin to modern combat, sneak in and obliterate the enemy from as far away and with as small a chance of reprisal as possible. Call of Duty: Hogwarts, basically.

It's certainly a thing you can do, but it doesn't exactly offer a variety of play styles and mechanics like the classic tank, healer, dps model. I'll take a fun game over an FPS where the guns have been reskinned as wands.

We need a Ben Command.

'utility'. Utility functions more or less have to use the other command options for doing Thier thing, but a utility command would be used specifically for shipboard functions. Engineering is the closest to this, but revealing an engineering command could always be used for repairing. The utility would not have that.

Though I can't think of what those commands and tokens would do normally without upgrades. I guess a command you could recover or refresh a spent defense token, and the token would just be a refresh? That's the only thing about a ship that command dials don't influence, though probably for a reason. *Shrug*

3 hours ago, Barney said:

How about:

Block - Any enemy attack which would trace it's line of sight through one of your ships hull zones has to target you instead.

3 hours ago, Darthain said:

Let's hope we never get a 'taunt' effect, they are lazy and never make sense.

On the Taun command well if we had 5 commands the perfect set up would be like a PRS w/LS set up. Where one command is strong against two other commands but is weaker than the other two. I guess with the current model we have defense beats offense navigation beats defense and offense beats navigation. So for squadrons they beat offense? (This may be all wrong)

Taunt could beat navigation and defense but is beaten by squadrons and offense. Well complete the web and you got the Paper Rock Scissors Lizard Spock thing going.

28 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

On the Taun command well if we had 5 commands the perfect set up would be like a PRS w/LS set up. Where one command is strong against two other commands but is weaker than the other two. I guess with the current model we have defense beats offense navigation beats defense and offense beats navigation. So for squadrons they beat offense? (This may be all wrong)

Taunt could beat navigation and defense but is beaten by squadrons and offense. Well complete the web and you got the Paper Rock Scissors Lizard Spock thing going.

Not nearly that simple, considering navigation can beats raw offense, and can provide you defense by getting out of dangerous places, but does nothing to nullify the extra die from concentrated fire. It also potentially puts you in a more powerful (offensive) position. I'd say the commands are not counters at all, but stand alone. I dislike the idea of a 'counter' command.

The scanning command could be useful, but I have trouble seeing how. You are never really shocked by your opponents command, it is typically quite obvious.

2 minutes ago, Darthain said:

Not nearly that simple, considering navigation can beats raw offense, and can provide you defense by getting out of dangerous places, but does nothing to nullify the extra die from concentrated fire. It also potentially puts you in a more powerful (offensive) position. I'd say the commands are not counters at all, but stand alone. I dislike the idea of a 'counter' command.

The scanning command could be useful, but I have trouble seeing how. You are never really shocked by your opponents command, it is typically quite obvious.

Exactly. Commands are not "rock paper scissors" decisions. You don't flip over your command to counter an enemy ship, you reveal a command to execute your own desired action, which may have the effect of countering the enemy action.

The only time revealing a command may be a counter to another command is when reversing a Slicer Tools or Comm Noise command change.

How about 'boarding'? Or something similar.

35 minutes ago, ISD Avenger said:

How about 'boarding'? Or something similar.

No. Leave it as a thematically named upgrade card at most. If you want to simulate a boarding action, FFG makes an awesome game called Imperial Assault that is worth your time. We're here for the spaceships.

4 hours ago, ISD Avenger said:

How about 'boarding'? Or something similar.

For the docking command I suggested a weapons team like storm troopers that can "board" or basically activate with a docking action.

If I could add some sort of four action to the dial, it would most likely be to do something along the lines of the strategic ability. Additionally, I'd put out new versions of the objectives that also could be affected that this new action.

I wouldn't want to see boarding actions happening all the time. Make it an assault (red) objective and that will be enough.

1 hour ago, Kubernes said:

If I could add some sort of four action to the dial, it would most likely be to do something along the lines of the strategic ability. Additionally, I'd put out new versions of the objectives that also could be affected that this new action.

There already is a command for that. It's a squadron command. With strategic squadrons

also, for the "taunt," what about making it a "block" upgrade (so not a command). Thematically, the ship is purposefully moving to physically block the incoming fire.

After an opponent's ship declares an attack against another ship (from "this hullzone" to "that hullzone"), if the line of site traced across one of your hullzones, you may exhaust this card. Your opponent must attack that hullzone instead. You may not spend defense tokens. Edit: This attack counts as having attacked the other other ship for purposes of declaring attacks. (E.g., Paragon would still trigger, but gunnery teams would not be able to target the original victim again)

Im thinking officer slot.

GREEBLEHAUL

15 hours ago, Darthain said:

Taunting only ever had any ground, and even then little, when dealing with non intelligent opponents. I'm not going to stand and fight the bigger guy in armour when I could clobber the pesky thing stabbing me in the side and hurting me more, same goes for that wizard over there that is the real threat. It is a pretty silly mechanic that pops up in MMO games to create their odd ideas of boss fights, they don't ever seem to be able to taunt you though.. it exists to make those (relatively poorly) made games playable, and provide comfortable rolls.

As far as escort, kind of a taunt yes, but with squadrons zipping about around eachother it makes more sense they could get in the way. Failing that it is often easy to get around escort (you need 3 for 'perfect' protection). Ships don't have that kind of positional flexibility.

It's been a while since I played a game with Taunt, but I do recall seeing it explained as a magic effect that compels the target to attack you in a few games. I see your point about going after the real threats but a lot of games these days include a "threat" mechanic. Threat is basically a measurement of how dangerous the enemy thinks you are, so tanks usually have abilities themed around making themselves seem more dangerous than the actual dangers. How well implemented these are is going to vary, but the idea of tricking your enemy into focusing on the wrong guy makes sense. Especially if none of them live to learn from their mistake.

It might be important to specify that I don't mean the classic "Taunt" ability specifically, I've been talking about any ability that either forces an enemy to focus on you or inflicts a strong penalty for not doing so. I do agree that it makes very little sense that yelling an insult is enough to make a genius wizard attack me instead of the healer that's been trivializing all the damage I've taken since the fight started.