I've often thought that things with repositioning actions (boost/BR) ought to have two arcs, one wide, and one narrow in the middle of the base, and be limited to only using the narrow one that turn if they use a repositioning action.

4 hours ago, Vitalis said:

First of all - to look at it from "realistic" perspective: most of the guns in X-wing are forward fixed. That means they real firing arc is around 5 degrees. Anything above that is turning the whole craft to shoot. So it means that shooting something on the edge of its arc means almost banking in place.

Since a a ship's base is an abstraction of its size, position and orientation, I consider its firing arc to be an abstraction of its ability to make aiming adjustments and deflection shots from that general position. Banking and juking "in place" are what I imagine the ships are doing during the Combat phase, sort of the way that barrel rolling makes me re-imagine the maneuver that was selected.

Why would ships with only FWD facing weapons have wider arcs than others? It doesn't make much sense to me.

The ships with alternate Arcs have some logic behind them. The turrets have gunners that rotated them 360 deg, the YV666 has pilot controlled pivoting weapon, the remote control turret lets the pilot set a vector for a targeting computer to aim at, the Ghost has a rear facing torpedo tube like a submarine. An X-wing versus a B-wing has no reason to have alternate arcs.

8 hours ago, Punning Pundit said:

Star Trek attack Wing is all of those things, and yet...

Almost all of those things:

"How did they not expect a miniatures game based on one of the most popular sci-fi franchises of all time to be incredibly popular? Particularly when you make it a game with gorgeous pre-painted minis; relatively low entry price; and easy to learn game mechanics. "

edit: Lol I see some people above me said the same thing.

And at the risk of getting off topic, I kinda wonder what ffg was thinking by not making their runewars miniatures prepainted to the same quality of x-wing...Obv they are trying to hit a different demographic, I would think it would be a lot more successful if they had x-wing quality prepainted stuff though. I thought about going into the runewars minis too until I saw I had to pain everything.

Lets not also forget the fact that the people designing the game now are not the same people who originally made the game so there is that. And the ease of play made the game easier to pick up at the time, even if it led to less design space that they have now. All in all, if and when we get a X-wing 2.0 I imagine a fair few things will change, though who knows how many years that is down the line, if not something that just won't happen considering the outcry it would result in.

13 minutes ago, Gibbilo said:

Almost all of those things:

"How did they not expect a miniatures game based on one of the most popular sci-fi franchises of all time to be incredibly popular? Particularly when you make it a game with gorgeous pre-painted minis; relatively low entry price; and easy to learn game mechanics. "

edit: Lol I see some people above me said the same thing.

And at the risk of getting off topic, I kinda wonder what ffg was thinking by not making their runewars miniatures prepainted to the same quality of x-wing...Obv they are trying to hit a different demographic, I would think it would be a lot more successful if they had x-wing quality prepainted stuff though. I thought about going into the runewars minis too until I saw I had to pain everything.

Keeps me away from Armada and Attack Wing.

Money saved, yay.

I often see people describing what they see as flaws in xwing's design. I also often see them discussing their ideas for fixes and changes regularly. I can honestly say with no disrespect intended that nothing convinces me most people shouldn't be game designers more than these threads. The most common culprit is people who love complexity and minutiae where it doesn't belong and varying arc sizes and blowing out point costs and dice numbers fall into that category.

Broadside arcs certainly has not been explored yet, and it would be nice to see more ships with mobile arcs. And maybe mobile arcs that don't 360--front and side only, or rear and sides only.

And even a rear-only arc for a ship with "stern chasers."

Another easy "expansion" would be to introduce new dice with different ratios of blank/eye/dodge and blank/eye/hit/crit. Instead of rolling 7 dice, "better" ships would roll 2 red and 2 orange attack dice, for example. Or a weapon that uses alternate probability dice.

10 hours ago, Punning Pundit said:

The thing to think about is that simplicity is its own goal. While I do think they should have done a bit more with dice variation and should have doubled the points on just about every card, those are _simple_ changes. Arc sizes are _complex_ changes.

For instance: every new player has to be told that the standard firing arc is 80°. Most all new players believe that it's 90°. I bet one person is going to learn this fact by reading this comment.

Imagine having to learn that some ships have an 80° arc, some 90°, some 45°, etc. Imagine having to not just learn all the dials, but also all the _firing arcs_. You'd have to not just learn how to visualize where your ships will get to, but also what they will be pointing at, in a much more complex way.

The _idea_ of what you're proposing is interesting. I think the Hound's tooth is a good model for how it might be accomplished. But those kind of arc shenanigans will always be a one off, and not a core mechanic.

80 degree firing arc? News to me. And I'm not new. Mind blown. You just upped my game ten-fold!

36 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Broadside arcs certainly has not been explored yet, and it would be nice to see more ships with mobile arcs. And maybe mobile arcs that don't 360--front and side only, or rear and sides only.

And even a rear-only arc for a ship with "stern chasers."

Another easy "expansion" would be to introduce new dice with different ratios of blank/eye/dodge and blank/eye/hit/crit. Instead of rolling 7 dice, "better" ships would roll 2 red and 2 orange attack dice, for example. Or a weapon that uses alternate probability dice.

this all sounds so familiar, but I cannot put my finger on why exactly...

in all seriousness, X-wing could learn a lot from Armada

as Armada learned a lot from X-wing

1 hour ago, Gibbilo said:

I kinda wonder what ffg was thinking by not making their runewars miniatures prepainted to the same quality of x-wing...

I suspect it's a case of being too difficult/expensive to get adequate pre-paints on more organic, dynamic, humanoid figures. The figs for imperial assault are also not pre-painted.

Quote

Keeps me away from Armada ...

What does? Except for the fighters (which are tiny) armada has miniatures that are pre-painted at least as well as XWing.

6 hours ago, Vitalis said:

First of all - to look at it from "realistic" perspective: most of the guns in X-wing are forward fixed. That means they real firing arc is around 5 degrees. Anything above that is turning the whole craft to shoot. So it means that shooting something on the edge of its arc means almost banking in place.

Wider arcs - we already have them in the form of auxilary ones.

Narrow arcs - well that one is interesting! But i thing it is definitely something devs should explore. Imagine 5 dice primary or a ship with reloading torpedos but for example 15-20 degree arc. High risk high reward. I like it.

That's almost a different game that would really require some skill with the dial. "X-wing, Top Gun" We'll never see it on the table, but I wonder how much tinkering with the vassel version it would take to test out your thesis. Also, make all turrets directional, like the Lancer.

3 hours ago, nigeltastic said:

I often see people describing what they see as flaws in xwing's design. I also often see them discussing their ideas for fixes and changes regularly. I can honestly say with no disrespect intended that nothing convinces me most people shouldn't be game designers more than these threads. The most common culprit is people who love complexity and minutiae where it doesn't belong and varying arc sizes and blowing out point costs and dice numbers fall into that category.

This. And I'm a person who generally prefers complexity.

3 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Keeps me away from Armada and Attack Wing.

Money saved, yay.

Armada is a really, really good, well thought out game with great models on a sliding scale. It's an excellent complement to X-wing and I love swapping from one to the other. You're missing out!

If people want variable arcs that's the game they should go for.

17 hours ago, DR4CO said:

Um...

I'm pretty sure no one has ever said that about Attack Wing.

My FLGS is trying to clear their shelves of Attack Wing, and I'll be honest: the models are ugly enough that I'm not even considering buying my favorite Trek ships as desktop toys. They're just... not pretty enough.

14 hours ago, Vitalis said:

First of all - to look at it from "realistic" perspective: most of the guns in X-wing are forward fixed. That means they real firing arc is around 5 degrees. Anything above that is turning the whole craft to shoot. So it means that shooting something on the edge of its arc means almost banking in place.

I always envisioned it as the pilot firing as they were moving into place. Which doesn't really match the timing in the game, but it's my mental model for how things are "actually" working.

8 hours ago, nigeltastic said:

I often see people describing what they see as flaws in xwing's design. I also often see them discussing their ideas for fixes and changes regularly. I can honestly say with no disrespect intended that nothing convinces me most people shouldn't be game designers more than these threads. The most common culprit is people who love complexity and minutiae where it doesn't belong and varying arc sizes and blowing out point costs and dice numbers fall into that category.

Guilty, and I 100% agree.

18 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

Prepainted figs had had never been done well before and were largely reviled by miniature gamers

Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures was very popular. (Not coincidentally to its prepainted status, it's the only other miniatures game I've played.) At its peak, we had 40+ players at events, and 10+ at casual play. Until WotC ****** it up with DDM 2.0 (oh, the irony), I loved DDM. Just as much as I love X-Wing.

Aside from that, though, I have no refuting data points.

I think minor arc variation would have been good. So would a bit more variation in the primary stats.

At least they did it for Armada!

19 hours ago, markcsoul said:

The scale is great, but they definitely mixed eras once they introduced TFA ships into the game.

The main difference is that SW eras are ~20 years, and ST are ~100. Tech also advances much more rapidly in ST; major elements of SW tech are identical across multi-thousand year gaps. The gap between an old ARC-170 coming out of mothballs and a shiny TIE/fo is far less than the first Earth Warp 5 ship facing its sixth generation descendant.

10 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

this all sounds so familiar, but I cannot put my finger on why exactly...

in all seriousness, X-wing could learn a lot from Armada

as Armada learned a lot from X-wing

Well, then I guess I'm a genius, cuz I know nothing about Armada

3 hours ago, Punning Pundit said:

My FLGS is trying to clear their shelves of Attack Wing, and I'll be honest: the models are ugly enough that I'm not even considering buying my favorite Trek ships as desktop toys. They're just... not pretty enough.

BIG DADDY JOE JOE CAN FIX YOU UP BOO BOO PP.

BOSS' BIG TREK... BABY!

ALL OF 'EM MAG.NIFF!

9 hours ago, Sasajak said:

Armada is a really, really good, well thought out game with great models on a sliding scale. It's an excellent complement to X-wing and I love swapping from one to the other. You're missing out!

If people want variable arcs that's the game they should go for.

It is as well incredible boring to watch, and comes with unpainted models, which makes it ugly to watch on top. ;-)

On top it seems to be more expensive than good old X-Wing, less dynamic, longer per round and overall inferior to X-Wing. So yeah, I still gonna pass, even when the game might not be bad, all surrounding factors make it unattractive.

2 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

It is as well incredible boring to watch, and comes with unpainted models, which makes it ugly to watch on top. ;-)

On top it seems to be more expensive than good old X-Wing, less dynamic, longer per round and overall inferior to X-Wing. So yeah, I still gonna pass, even when the game might not be bad, all surrounding factors make it unattractive.

"Boring to watch" is true, which kept me out for a while. PLAYING it, though...I dunno, it's weird. I'm very conscious of when 75 minutes of X-Wing are up and the next round will be starting shortly...I play Armada for what feels like 60 minutes, look at the clock and HOLY CRAP 3 HOURS ARE GONE. It's...I dunno. So much more complex and richer than the time just FLIES by. (But, yeah, I can see why watching it would be something like waiting for paint to dry, when X-Wing is totally the opposite)

Also: note sure what you mean by 'painted models'. Armada is all about the capital ships, and those all come prepainted. Sure, fighters are there, but the stands represent squads of a dozen or more ships, so...the 'fuzziness' around them is totally appropriate. It makes sense, in context.

Next up - it's been cheaper than X-Wing, for me. It helps that the core set actually stands on its own as a pretty **** good game - VERY much in contrast to X-Wing, where the core set is basically just a demo kit and nothing like how the game really is. It certainly isn't "cheap", of course, but neither is X-Wing. IMHO, it's cheap-er, but...well, you're looking at hundreds of dollars, either way, so...

But finally - and this is the thing that I truly don't get - where does "less dynamic" come from? I mean, X-Wing is ALWAYS THE SAME THING. It's one of the few things that kept my playing Star Trek: Attack Wing alongside X-Wing...X-Wing was a great game, but gawds that EVERY...GAME...IS...THE...IDENTICAL...SCENARIO thing just...gets to ya after a few dozen games. Attack Wing answered that with monthly OP events that were always a different (terrible, most the time...but at least different) scenario. In 'Armada'...well you get something over 20 different 'objectives' (basically think 'X-Wing scenario') to choose from for each game. It makes each game play VERY different, even if the same ships were involved on each side.

Meanwhile, a mirror match of Soontir, Vader and Vessery plays each time differently. ;-) The movement system is what makes X-Wing dynamic. Making an unexpected turn, boosting afterwards past some asteroids, making that move just barely, and landing completely out of arc from the opposing flight … that kind of dynamic.

And that kind of dynamic is already included in the base game, the base game is already X-Wing as good as it gets. PWT actually lessen the game more than they increase the fun and while for competitive play you need to spend about $200 that is still rather cheap. X-Wing itself is super cheap and the only reason why competitive lists are expensive is the upgrade cards, which means it becomes even cheaper for casual play which basically just requires a few ships for a 100 point list and is already a blast (X-Wing word 2016 winner and runner ups combined price for models: ~80) , for less than the base game in armada cost. Armada interests me little, I will not claim to know the prices exactly, but it seems like armada is roughly twice as expensive from lists and ship requirements to get similar levels to x-wing. Sounds like a rather significant price difference to me. especially as you can call x-wing cheap without a second thought. But feel free to correct me on the armada pricing.