4 hours ago, DagobahDave said:

Do you know if FFG is developing a cards-and-cardstock expansion for X-Wing right now or not?

I'll wager that you don't know. If you're honest, you have to admit that it's entirely possible that FFG is currently proving you wrong.

Wrong about what? I've said it's unlikely they'd do it, not impossible. Don't assume I'm one of the all too many people on this forum who state their wild speculation as axiomatic truth. It's entirely possible that they'd release card only expansions. However, outside of an X-wing version of Corellian Conflict I don't see why they would.

There seems to be a prevalent belief on this forums that the fact that something would sell is then it's plausible that FFG will make it. "People would buy them" is often used to defend card only expansion idea threads.

What is repeatedly forgotten is that FFG's resources and funds are finite. If you choose to develop one product then you choose not to develop another. The resources put into developing the Corellian Conflict were not put into developing more ships for Armada. The resources put into developing the Scum C-ROC were not put into developing a second rebel ace pack. If FFG develops a rebel ace pack after the C-ROC then they're not developing a Scum ace pack.

Everything comes at an opportunity cost: you can only develop so much at once. Why would they make a card only Aces pack that takes more development time and sells for less when they could make something like Rebel Veterans instead?

You've got to stop thinking about what FFG will make in terms of what you want and think in terms of what they want. You have to set your own preferences aside and approach this entirely from FFG's perspective. Making card only expansions means making fewer plastic model expansions, proven products that sell well enough to make X-Wing a 40K competitor. Does FFG have a strong motive to do this?

Although I'm not sure they'll ever release such a thing I could see automated defense satellites as universally available. These would be cheap "ships" that don't move more than speed 1 (although they may be able to move any direction and boost/roll are still issues) and probably aren't really tough and don't natively pack a lot of firepower but they may not be easy to hit and probably have plenty of upgrade slots for secondary weapons and maybe some other things.

On 2/22/2017 at 0:08 PM, Marinealver said:

Here you go folks fill it in. Basic instructions

• X-wing goes in Red
• HWK-290 goes in Orange
• Kihrax goes in yellow
• Firespray-31 goes in blue
• TIE Defender goes in Green
• TIE Fighter goes in Purple
• Assault Gunboat goes in Grey
• Y-wing goes in White

On 2/23/2017 at 4:52 AM, clanofwolves said:

Obviously FFG missed the boat on the ARC as it should have had Imperial and Rebel pilots...heck, even Scum.

Well for the ARC they could just give it an alternative astromech slot (Imperial Astromech) where they really missed up was on the title not making it Rebel only. Now that could be an easy pen & in change errata as they have resulted to it more for their balance changes. But again like the the clone-wars Y-wing, why would the Galactic Empire keep such relics?

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Well for the ARC they could just give it an alternative astromech slot (Imperial Astromech)

Which other ships will use that slot?

2 minutes ago, Blue Five said:

Which other ships will use that slot?

The Clone-wars Y-wing

Scurrg bomber is an ideal candidate. Non PWT, both Scum and Rebel and it's already in Armada. Just do it already FFG.

On 2/23/2017 at 11:56 AM, Blue Five said:

Everything comes at an opportunity cost: you can only develop so much at once. Why would they make a card only Aces pack that takes more development time and sells for less when they could make something like Rebel Veterans instead?

Different products with different aims. I don't see this sort of thing replacing Aces-style expansions, which may be the assumption behind some of the criticism. But Aces packs are self-contained, which limits their ability to address more than a couple of ship types at a time, just once or twice a year.

I don't think design and playtesting sweat are nearly as expensive as you seem to. Paper and card printing certainly is cheaper and less complicated than plastic model manufacturing, like by an order of magnitude or two. There's an article by Christian T. Petersen about the X-Wing models manufacturing process that might be enlightening, if you want to track it down.

At this point I think it makes sense to release some card-only packs in between the long production periods on new expansions with plastic models, because the backlog of ships in need of some help is growing faster than the plastics seem to be keeping up with. I think card packs would be super popular if they promised to revive several classic ships at once, which Aces packs can't do (but Most Wanted sort of did). Driving sales on existing products can be profitable, because one way to save money on design is to design things that encourage players to buy more of the things you've already designed. Give them an excuse to buy that second or third E-Wing, to fill out their A-Wing swarm, and for a Rebel-only player to buy an Imperial Lambda.

They might get other profits in less direct ways. These could encourage players to put their classic ships back on the table more often, which will also show up on Twitch and YouTube, which will help to bring in new players who see the more familiar ships being played, which might sell core sets. If they also included something novel like Chewbacca in a stolen Lambda shuttle, it would be hard for casual players to resist. Heaping a lot of love on Waves 1-3 in one easy purchase might bring lapsed players back into game, especially if they prefer classic ships.

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Different products with different aims. I don't see this sort of thing replacing Aces-style expansions, which may be the assumption behind some of the criticism. But Aces packs are self-contained, which limits their ability to address more than a couple of ship types at a time, just once or twice a year.

Replacing entirely? No. But the resources you put into an experimental cardboard expansion aren't going into other things. Yes, you could make a cardboard pack that fixes four ships. You could also make two aces packs with the same amount of design work.

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Paper and card printing certainly is cheaper and less complicated than plastic model manufacturing, like by an order of magnitude or two.

If the margins for card only expansions are better than for plastic ship boxes then why doesn't FFG already make card only expansions? It's not as if it's a revolutionary idea they hadn't thought of. The fact that they don't is a strong indicator that they believe they make more money with ships in the box than without.

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I don't think design and playtesting sweat are nearly as expensive as you seem to.

Then why is the content per expansion of X-Wing so low? Yes, you could compress the design time to expedite the release schedule but that's how you get Attack Wing. I see no reason to believe X-Wing isn't using all of its allocated design time.

If design weren't a limiting factor then they could do a Most Wanted style batch of additional content in every Aces pack. With more in them they'd sell better, no?

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I think card packs would be super popular if they promised to revive several classic ships at once, which Aces packs can't do (but Most Wanted sort of did)

FFG only has so many design hours per release cycle. How many is several ships at once? Four? Six? If the cardboard pack is going to contain twice the material an Ace Pack does then it's going to take twice as many design hours to make. That time could instead be used to produce two Aces packs.

If it ever becomes more profitable to do card packs than ace packs then they'll probably do so. But I can't see any reason why the margins would invert.

On 2/21/2017 at 10:53 AM, benbaxter said:

I can imagine an x-wing fix that could include Soontir.

Assuming he kept the same PS and pilot ability as he has in an Interceptor, I could see Soontir with Stay On Target and Targeting Astromech being fun.

On 2/23/2017 at 11:56 AM, Blue Five said:

What is repeatedly forgotten is that FFG's resources and funds are finite. If you choose to develop one product then you choose not to develop another. The resources put into developing the Corellian Conflict were not put into developing more ships for Armada. The resources put into developing the Scum C-ROC were not put into developing a second rebel ace pack. If FFG develops a rebel ace pack after the C-ROC then they're not developing a Scum ace pack.

You continue to speculate about what FFG can and can't do. Your argument is spurious, and it's like it's never occurred to you that FFG can hire new designers if a game line's workload becomes greater than their ambitions for it.

7 minutes ago, Blue Five said:

But I can't see any reason why the margins would invert.

Tell me what the margins are, if you know.

I'll wager you don't.

1 hour ago, DagobahDave said:

You continue to speculate about what FFG can and can't do. Your argument is spurious, and it's like it's never occurred to you that FFG can hire new designers if a game line's workload becomes greater than their ambitions for it.

...

Depends on what the goal is. Now ultimately it is to make money hence why FFG has its manufacturing done in china (where mass manufacturing is the cheapest in the world). Hiring new designers may not be in FFG's best financial interests. If X-wing became such a great ambition and the design space was too crowded, they might release a second edition like what they did with many of their LCGs.

It is safe to say that FFG probably knows what it can and can't do better than anyone who is outside of the company. After all much of the information is not public information for obvious reasons. I think the C-ROC is a clear example of what FFG can and cannot do. For example the Heavy Scyk title, FFG can't just reprint every scyk title that they made and send it out to all distributors and customers who happen to have the product. However they can post a pen & ink change (a change that acts as a permanent overwrite of what was previously written akin to crossing out the old text and writing in pen the new text) in a FAQ. They can also make a new product that has the errata card inside and distribute it for sale.

40 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

Hiring new designers may not be in FFG's best financial interests.

I don't think they even need to hire new designers to squeeze in new X-Wing card-only expansions. FFG apparently has the flexibility to create entirely new games without dropping older games, so I'm assuming that card-only expansions for little old X-Wing wouldn't require a massive reallocation of resources.

On 2/21/2017 at 1:25 PM, DailyRich said:

Which they apparently cannot do. Or else Most Wanted would have been just that. That DID include cards and cardboard bits for ships that WEREN'T in the box (the HWK and the Firespray), but it still contained models.

Sure they can. They've just got to have some kind of special reason to do it. Armada had the Correllian Conflict and that was just cards and cardboard. Cost 30 bucks too! The reasoning there was that it was a campaign in a box... PLUS some extra cardboard. X-Wing could do the exact same thing.

3 hours ago, DagobahDave said:

I don't think they even need to hire new designers to squeeze in new X-Wing card-only expansions. FFG apparently has the flexibility to create entirely new games without dropping older games, so I'm assuming that card-only expansions for little old X-Wing wouldn't require a massive reallocation of resources.

Except for they are not having card only expansions. It goes against their business model for X-wing. You might say well Armada had a card only expansion but Armada has a different business model.

Sorry, there will be no card only packs outside of organized play.

I think more cross faction ships and pilots will come in the future.

At the very least Rebels will likely get Fenn Rau, Scum will likely get Mining Guild TIEs and a S um YT-1300 is very likely IMO around the launch of the Han Solo movie.

Empire will likely get none of that sadly. Not small ships anyway.FFG seems to see the Empire as the TIE faction. They went digging for TIEs deep enough they found the Punisher, rather than release a more popular non-TIE.

1 hour ago, Marinealver said:

Except for they are not having card only expansions. It goes against their business model for X-wing. You might say well Armada had a card only expansion but Armada has a different business model.

Sorry, there will be no card only packs outside of organized play.

It's so silly to me that anyone is trying convince me that my hypothetical product would never be made, based entirely on speculation about FFG's inner workings. Go ahead and beat up my drawing of Sasquatch with your drawing of a leprechaun.

On 2/23/2017 at 4:49 PM, Marinealver said:

The Clone-wars Y-wing

And the vwing

3 hours ago, DagobahDave said:

It's so silly to me that anyone is trying convince me that my hypothetical product would never be made, based entirely on speculation about FFG's inner workings.

It's based more on the fact that FFG has had four years to do it and hasn't yet.

13 hours ago, Crabbok said:

Sure they can. They've just got to have some kind of special reason to do it. Armada had the Correllian Conflict and that was just cards and cardboard. Cost 30 bucks too! The reasoning there was that it was a campaign in a box... PLUS some extra cardboard. X-Wing could do the exact same thing.

Most Wanted still had models in it. But yeah there were enough cardboard for 3 additional ships. Which could be understandable given the conditions and the price for a 3 model kit.

As for CC I was not impressed. But Armada has yet to impress me. As I mentioned before CC was a 3 product requirement. You could say the same about Most Wanted but you could also argue the value proposition with Most Wanted far better than you could with CC.

6 hours ago, DailyRich said:

It's based more on the fact that FFG has had four years to do it and hasn't yet.

Tell me what that means to you, without speculating on FFG's inner workings.

2 minutes ago, DagobahDave said:

Tell me what that means to you, without speculating on FFG's inner workings.

That there's a reason for them not doing so beyond, "Eh, we just don't like money."

1 minute ago, DailyRich said:

That there's a reason for them not doing so beyond, "Eh, we just don't like money."

And what is that reason?

On 2017-02-23 at 10:52 AM, clanofwolves said:

As far as the ARC-170 being a Clone Wars era fighter, that is true. But are you also stating that the game is to be set in a fixed time? If so, why the timeline variety of ships? And why would you assume that only Rebels would re-purpose a ship and not the Empire who would have access to potential fleets of them?

If I remember it right, there were ARC-170s in Catalyst (the Rogue One prequel book) and launched from a Star Destroyer (Tarkin's if I recall). So they didn't totally abandon them when the VSD and TIE/Ln were in service.

8 hours ago, DagobahDave said:

And what is that reason?

The most logical conclusion is that there's something in their licensing that prevents them from doing so.

6 hours ago, DailyRich said:

The most logical conclusion is that there's something in their licensing that prevents them from doing so.

You're speculating about things neither of us have a way of knowing.

It took years for FFG to offer plastic bases and pegs for sale. What's the most logical conclusion you can come to about why that took so long?

My assumption (which is really all we have) is that it's mostly a matter of finding the right time to do things, and probably not at all about specific licensing terms with regard to packaging models and their cards together. Most Wanted is evidence that FFG has (at least) some ability to do this with X-Wing. And we know they can do it with Armada.

But of course what FFG has done in the past isn't a reliable indicator of what they'll do in the future. Remember the confusion about Wave 5 being the first two-ship wave? We seem to accept the ARC-170 as just another ship in the game now, but it's a prequel ship and we weren't supposed to have those. I'm not complaining, just giving some examples of things that were unprecedented or seemed unlikely at some point.