6 hours ago, MarekMandalore said:

How many people have considered that FFG doesn't actually have a formula? Maybe the designers just put together the ship, throw out a rough guess on its points relative to how they think it will perform against other ships, then they playtest and start adjusting their estimated value up or down depending on the playtest data?

The biggest question this raises is "why the numbers they chose at the beginning for the X-wing and the TIE Fighter?" Was it maybe so simple as thinking "Two TIEs should be about equal to one X-wing. If we want to do 100 point games, how about we aim for a max of 4 X-wings, so around 25 points each, varying for pilot skill and upgrades, and maybe 8 TIEs, so 12 points?" Then they started messing with prototypes and refined. And arguably, they didn't refine well enough, as the TIE swarm was early on one of the most effective list archetypes in the game.

Maybe this is how they designed the rest, too? Throw out a number, play, and revise. Revise more for pilot skill, and for pilot abilities. On and on, keep refining over the months of development we're not privy to, and in the end, we get the ships that move around our tables and blow each other up in our imaginations.

Oh, they definitely revise numbers after testing, and if they do have some kind of ship pricing formula on hand (likely) I doubt they take the numbers it spits out as much more than a recommendation.

If I recall correctly the rookie X-wing was originally set to cost 20 points instead of 21 back in the day. But ffg decided that 5 X-wings was a little too scary. So they set it at 21, and it's been overpriced ever since :-)

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Z-95's would indeed give you the biggest alpha strike, but TIE Bombers with EM would give you 3 more shots into the swarm.

5 Z-95s with Scavender crane could potentially get you an infinite number of assault missiles, provided your luck holds out. But Scavenger crane ensures each Z-95 gets at minimum 2 Assault missile shots, taking the total up to 10 vs the bomber's 8.

I'd like to see a 0/0/1/0 ship with an illicit slot. Dead man's switch becomes a lot scarier...

As for Vector calculation of some kind of formula, it's pretty much impossible. Euclidean solutions can only be presented if every ship were to lie exactly on the costing line, and with so many variables the exact point value for a ship is likely to be 10 or so decimals long. In short, in order to solve the equation you must first be sure the equation is perfect, which it clearly isn't. Therefore any formula derived will only work over a narrow range of ships (for instance the 8 health ATT 3 platform - B-wing and G1A) rather than across the board.

Every ship probably pays 1-2 points for the BASE ALONE. I don't think even theoretically you should start at 1 point because of that. I think 3-5 is probably the point range at which you would have to start, 3 being a 1/0/0/1/0 ship.

13 hours ago, Kdubb said:

Every ship probably pays 1-2 points for the BASE ALONE. I don't think even theoretically you should start at 1 point because of that. I think 3-5 is probably the point range at which you would have to start, 3 being a 1/0/0/1/0 ship.

So what would the dial be for that 3 point ship?

As I said before I could strip it down further to a green straight and a pair of red banks all at speed 2. A TIE-Fighter card doesn't match a Z-95 card even if you were going to start at 1 2/2/2/0. So there's got to be something that the TIE Fighter has over the Z-95 which there is the dial.

12 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

So what would the dial be for that 3 point ship?

As I said before I could strip it down further to a green straight and a pair of red banks all at speed 2. A TIE-Fighter card doesn't match a Z-95 card even if you were going to start at 1 2/2/2/0. So there's got to be something that the TIE Fighter has over the Z-95 which there is the dial.

Actions too

The problem with this approach is that we simply don't have nearly enough data for all the things you want to take away. I mean, if we had hundreds upon hundreds of ships already then MAAAYBE we could get somewhat reasonable estimates. However, you're trying to extrapolate into territory the game was never designed to go (aka lower than 12pt territory) using data we don't have.

The most reasonable minimum ship I can think up would be something like a TIE-Fighter with 1 hull priced at 8pts, especially since we don't have the data for any reliable estimate for 1-ATK ships. The best I got is the formula from my thread for guessing 1-ATK ships

base stat line cost = 2(attack) * [(hull + shields) / (5 - agility) + 1.5]
base stat line cost = 2(1) * [(1 + 0) / (5 - 0) + 1.5]
3.4= 2(1) * [(1 + 0) / (5 - 0) + 1.5]

So if you severely extrapolate the numbers, the base stats of a 1/0/2/0 ship would cost 3.8 points, so 4 points. If you look at the Lambda Shuttle and Upsilon shuttle for comparison, they save something in the range of ~10% of their stats for a REALLY bad dial. So if you gave this bare-bones fighter a Lambda dial then it still wouldn't be enough to justify bringing it down to 3 points. That's it. That's the lowest we can go: bare minimum stats, minimum utility, and minimum dial for a minimum point value of 4 points.

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That's it. That's the lowest we can go: bare minimum stats, minimum utility, and minimum dial for a minimum point value of 4 points.

It is easily possible to have a worse dial than a lambda. The epitome of it would be having only a green 2 straight and a red 2 bank. That alone could drop the point value down to 2. By having a primary attack value of zero the ship is automatically maxed at 1.5 points according to your formula, and the terrible dial could take it down to 1 point even. At that point you're looking at a PS1 0/0/1/0 ship that can only shoot effectively at range 1...

On 2/26/2017 at 1:33 AM, f0rbiddenc00kie said:

The problem with this approach is that we simply don't have nearly enough data for all the things you want to take away. I mean, if we had hundreds upon hundreds of ships already then MAAAYBE we could get somewhat reasonable estimates. However, you're trying to extrapolate into territory the game was never designed to go (aka lower than 12pt territory) using data we don't have.

The most reasonable minimum ship I can think up would be something like a TIE-Fighter with 1 hull priced at 8pts, especially since we don't have the data for any reliable estimate for 1-ATK ships. The best I got is the formula from my thread for guessing 1-ATK ships

base stat line cost = 2(attack) * [(hull + shields) / (5 - agility) + 1.5]
base stat line cost = 2(1) * [(1 + 0) / (5 - 0) + 1.5]
3.4= 2(1) * [(1 + 0) / (5 - 0) + 1.5]

So if you severely extrapolate the numbers, the base stats of a 1/0/2/0 ship would cost 3.8 points, so 4 points. If you look at the Lambda Shuttle and Upsilon shuttle for comparison, they save something in the range of ~10% of their stats for a REALLY bad dial. So if you gave this bare-bones fighter a Lambda dial then it still wouldn't be enough to justify bringing it down to 3 points. That's it. That's the lowest we can go: bare minimum stats, minimum utility, and minimum dial for a minimum point value of 4 points.

So what if the dial was literally, 2 straight green and 2 red banks?

With your model, of course it is four points. I'm trying to stip it down to the minimum of everything from dial, atributes, actions even upgrade slots. As I said before we need to go for a better computational model than just the stats. Base , firing arcs, dials, actions, and even upgrade slots now that there is a plethora of 0 point upgrades. The only non-weapon (bombs, cannon, missiles, ect.) upgrade slots that don't have a 0 point cost upgrade card is Astromech, Tech, and Illicit. Look beyond 5 numbers that are all too easy to see.

On 23.2.2017 at 11:53 PM, GrimmyV said:

Too bad you couldn't fit 100 small bases within range one of the field edge. Although I'm not sure exactly how many you could fit...

Not sure if someone ninja'd me yet on this, but as the starting edge is 36*2.54cm = 91.44cm wide and 10cm deep and bases are 4x4cm, you'd fit 2 lines of 22 fighters, to bring an epic swarm of 44.

On 24.2.2017 at 5:22 AM, Blue Five said:

I think the Assault Missile Z-95s would probably lose against the hundred ship horde. They'd probably stand the best chance but 100 one die attacks is a list melting level of firepower.

Ok, setup:

1 pt ships start, 20 in a row (for easyness sake, you can fit at tops 22 in a row), that means you have 5 rows of 20 ships each, and they are all directly side by side with (almost) no space between them.

Bombers with Assault MIssile + Extra Munitions come at 23 points, so I will field 4, making a pair of each.

A Bomber with an assault missile will hit a guy in the 3rd row, hitting everything around it with range 2, that is 3 rows and columns, so it will hit a field of 5x7 fighters, maybe without the corners not exactly sure on that, so let's go with 35 - 4 = 31 fighters. Do that twice and 31 fighters are gone. That's 2 Bomber . Attack with another 2 and you kill another 31. So now what's left of the "epic melting level of firepower" is 38. They cannot even attack all the Bomber because the 'head on' fighters are all dead, so maybe half of them can attack the Bomber . The average damage done on a 1 atk w/focus vs. 2 def no focus roll is 0.29 dmg, so let's say 20 * 0.29 = 6 damage done. Split among multiple Bomber because not all 20 can attack the same one. So all Bomber live on average. This is for range 2, range 3 looks even worse for the melting level of firepower.

Next round, do it either again with the crane on Z95 or just fire another barrage with your bombers, or fly behind them, you just opened 2 large bubbles where you can rush through then turn around to get behind, snipe them off in the remaining rounds. Easily done.

Now you could say that you have "time to split the rows apart". But you don't since the 1pt fighters only have speed 2 and 3 so at most you can get 1 more row in per turn. Which will not help since the missile will cover a 7x7 area anyway which you can still fire after 2 turns when you bloated your 5x20 up to 7x20.

100 ship horde will not have a single chance vs. 4 bombers with 2x Assault missiles

Edit: I'd even go as far as, not a single bomber will die, netting you a 100-0

Assault Missiles hit everything in Range 1, not 2.

You may not even need to kill the horde and it is likely to do that itself when if finds it's impossible to turn around causing it to fly off the other side. Ok, maybe they can bank into each other but that still doesn't get them turned around so it's free shots at their backsides.

Assault Missiles aren't going to hit a 7x7 area however because don't hit a box. You can only fit two bases on the diagonal.

It'll hit a 6x6 with the potential hit four more at the vertical and horizontal extremes for a maximum of 40 kills if the opponent maintains a super tight formation against a list composed entirely of Assault Missile carriers. They're not going to do that.

Starting board state'd look something like this. edit: Nope. A calculation error led to a board 50% too big. The rest of the post is wrong as a result.

The bombers gun forward as fast as they can (forward 4) to get to the swarm before it can disperse. The back rank of the swarm moves first, executing hard turns and banks that don't clear the ships in front of them. The front rank moves forward 3, the second rank moves forward 2.

Next turn bombers go forward 4 again. The first rank of the swarm moves forward 3, the second and third ranks move forward 2.

This places the swarm ranks each two bases apart. Next round is the bombers' first opportunity to move into combat range. If they go forward 4 they'll just catch the second rank at Range 3 (as these swarmers can move at a minimum of 2 forward) so they do that. Rank 1 of swarm forward 3, ranks 2 and 3 forward 2.

And then this happens. Red is 2 damage, orange is 1 damage. Due to the swarm spreading out its ranks by moving at different speeds the maximum kills is about 13 (if you overlap both missile regions.) As the Assault Missile will likely kill the ship it attacks the missiles have to target different ships for maximum impact. The bombers are now exposed to fire from the first and second ranks and from the third also next round. The swarm now has room to break formation, further reducing the efficacy of the Assault Missiles.

The optimum path for the bombers is probably a slower approach and then to hit the first row. Assault Missiles go a long way to evening the odds but 100-0 wipe against the 100 ship list? Not a chance.

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You may not even need to kill the horde and it is likely to do that itself when if finds it's impossible to turn around causing it to fly off the other side. Ok, maybe they can bank into each other but that still doesn't get them turned around so it's free shots at their backsides.

It can turn around, just takes multiple turns. Without the missiles it'll take forever for the bombers to kill 100 HP behind 1 agility.

45 minutes ago, Blue Five said:

Assault Missiles aren't going to hit a 7x7 area however because don't hit a box. You can only fit two bases on the diagonal.

It'll hit a 6x6 with the potential hit four more at the vertical and horizontal extremes for a maximum of 40 kills if the opponent maintains a super tight formation against a list composed entirely of Assault Missile carriers. They're not going to do that.

Starting board state'd look something like this.

The bombers gun forward as fast as they can (forward 4) to get to the swarm before it can disperse. The back rank of the swarm moves first, executing hard turns and banks that don't clear the ships in front of them. The front rank moves forward 3, the second rank moves forward 2.

Next turn bombers go forward 4 again. The first rank of the swarm moves forward 3, the second and third ranks move forward 2.

This places the swarm ranks each two bases apart. Next round is the bombers' first opportunity to move into combat range. If they go forward 4 they'll just catch the second rank at Range 3 (as these swarmers can move at a minimum of 2 forward) so they do that. Rank 1 of swarm forward 3, ranks 2 and 3 forward 2.

And then this happens. Red is 2 damage, orange is 1 damage. Due to the swarm spreading out its ranks by moving at different speeds the maximum kills is about 13 (if you overlap both missile regions.) As the Assault Missile will likely kill the ship it attacks the missiles have to target different ships for maximum impact. The bombers are now exposed to fire from the first and second ranks and from the third also next round. The swarm now has room to break formation, further reducing the efficacy of the Assault Missiles.

The optimum path for the bombers is probably a slower approach and then to hit the first row. Assault Missiles go a long way to evening the odds but 100-0 wipe against the 100 ship list? Not a chance.

It can turn around, just takes multiple turns. Without the missiles it'll take forever for the bombers to kill 100 HP behind 1 agility.

Yes Vectors, spacial orientation, Now we are getting into the REAL math behind X-wing. (It's more than just probability).

Nice scenario of the few vs 100 (although 100 of the same ship is illegal since the most you can have is 12). So if they were all 1 hull then that number would grow to 32 kills theoretically. Again as I said it is not a legal ship and has to be "improved" to no less than a 12 point ship. But I hope this thread opens up the spatial awareness of any mathwingers, meta-solvers, and other table strategists out there. It is easy to see how some people can simply focus no further than the cards and the dice also clears up some of the irritation those that like to arc dodge have against PWTs. Well this has been a good discussion as far as I'm concerned.

8 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

Nice scenario of the few vs 100 (although 100 of the same ship is illegal since the most you can have is 12).

Only in escalation or epic. Standard dogfight tournaments have no rule against having more htan 8 of the same ship in a list. To be fair, you can't GET more than 8 currently, so if we got a ship cheaper than 12 points they might add that rule, but as things stand, it's completely legal

1 hour ago, VanderLegion said:

Only in escalation or epic. Standard dogfight tournaments have no rule against having more htan 8 of the same ship in a list. To be fair, you can't GET more than 8 currently, so if we got a ship cheaper than 12 points they might add that rule, but as things stand, it's completely legal

yeah but FFG already said they will not be releasing a ship lower than 12 points. So I just assume the model cap extends to Standard even though it would simply be redundant.

5 hours ago, Blue Five said:

Assault Missiles aren't going to hit a 7x7 area however because don't hit a box. You can only fit two bases on the diagonal.

It'll hit a 6x6 with the potential hit four more at the vertical and horizontal extremes for a maximum of 40 kills if the opponent maintains a super tight formation against a list composed entirely of Assault Missile carriers. They're not going to do that.

Starting board state'd look something like this.

The bombers gun forward as fast as they can (forward 4) to get to the swarm before it can disperse. The back rank of the swarm moves first, executing hard turns and banks that don't clear the ships in front of them. The front rank moves forward 3, the second rank moves forward 2.

Next turn bombers go forward 4 again. The first rank of the swarm moves forward 3, the second and third ranks move forward 2.

This places the swarm ranks each two bases apart. Next round is the bombers' first opportunity to move into combat range. If they go forward 4 they'll just catch the second rank at Range 3 (as these swarmers can move at a minimum of 2 forward) so they do that. Rank 1 of swarm forward 3, ranks 2 and 3 forward 2.

And then this happens. Red is 2 damage, orange is 1 damage. Due to the swarm spreading out its ranks by moving at different speeds the maximum kills is about 13 (if you overlap both missile regions.) As the Assault Missile will likely kill the ship it attacks the missiles have to target different ships for maximum impact. The bombers are now exposed to fire from the first and second ranks and from the third also next round. The swarm now has room to break formation, further reducing the efficacy of the Assault Missiles.

The optimum path for the bombers is probably a slower approach and then to hit the first row. Assault Missiles go a long way to evening the odds but 100-0 wipe against the 100 ship list? Not a chance.

It can turn around, just takes multiple turns. Without the missiles it'll take forever for the bombers to kill 100 HP behind 1 agility.

Oh wow. I never thought I had to explain the concept of range 1 measuring again but here goes. Range one is 10cm, bases are 4cm, since they all have to stand next to each other it will look like in the picture, and you measure from corner, not the peg. So what you will get is not a circle but 4 quartercircles with straight lines in between, hitting everything except the corners of a 7x7 (as I said). Want proof? I drew a picture for you.

And concerning the setup.

I'm sorry what? The board has only a length of 91.44cm, how are you going to fit 36 spaces in a line? when they're all 4cm wide? Magical space distortion? The most you can fit are 22, which means you'll have to bring at 4 rows cramped right into each other and then another with 12, or for calculation easyness sake you bring 5 times 20 to bring hundred. It doesn't look at all like you shown it.

Meaning you have 5 rows instead of 3, and as I already stated, you can't disperse them all enough so the bombers won't hit a lot of them.

<code>
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 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA 
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Setup would look more like this. And I think you cannot disperse them enough in 2 turns so the bombers won't hit a majority of the squad for death.

Why are you so angry? chiiiiiilll is only gaem, not even gaem is gaem forum

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hitting everything except the corners of a 7x7 (as I said).

Is not what you said. What you said is:

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Which will not help since the missile will cover a 7x7 area anyway

Gotta quote accurately if you plan on mudslinging.

Anyway, on with the show!

I indeed misremembered the base size (mixed it up with another game) and therefore got everything based off that scaled incorrectly. The base size is 1.5 inches. It's not 4 cm as you said either. Got to be precise here.

Anyway, 24 x 24 base grid.

Turn 1, Back Row Forward 2, completely blocked, stays put. Third Row Hard 2, completely blocked, stays put. Second Row Forward 2, Front Row Forward 3, surplus ships forward 3.

Turn 2 back row forward 2, third row forward 3, second row forward 2, front row forward 3.

Could also mix forward 2 and forward 3 in the same row if you want something fancy like this.

If I recall correctly that formation lets them group bank without colliding too.

Assault Missiles go a long way towards evening the odds but they're not going to kerbstomp the broken horde of 1 point doom. And even if they did that's what, one counter? That doesn't make the horde any less broken and this is before you remove some to stick in other ships to help mitigate counters. Say, 70 odd 1 point ships and Captain Kagi.

useing F0rbid0n C00kie's calculations that ship is actualy 4 pts

When it comes to figuring out what may be in range X of something it is pretty common to forget that isn't actually a circle but rather four quarter circles with a flat spots between them.

41 minutes ago, mad mandolorian said:

useing F0rbid0n C00kie's calculations that ship is actualy 4 pts

But that is F0rbid0n C00kie's model. As I said before it doesn't take everything in to account. Instead it focuses on the attributes of the stat-line and does more of an general abstraction of the actions and dials and upgrade builds. Not that it is incorrect math but it is missing quite a few variables. Fox X-wing you need to add in some Vector math (which can be difficult to understand) not just probability math. Now vector probability math that is at a graduate level course. I think Major juggler would be better at explaining the fundamental principles behind that math.

How many points would the Senator's Shuttle from the core set be worth if able to be included in standard play?

Also, how many points would you reduce a ship by if it lost the "focus" action from its action bar?

(Asking because in Attack Wing, not all ships can focus/battle stations as standard and maybe it's the future!)

18 minutes ago, Viktus106 said:

How many points would the Senator's Shuttle from the core set be worth if able to be included in standard play?

Also, how many points would you reduce a ship by if it lost the "focus" action from its action bar?

(Asking because in Attack Wing, not all ships can focus/battle stations as standard and maybe it's the future!)

Interesting question. So Senators Shuttle. Well in my model I didn't include it because it was more of an objective ship.

Base long (sort of half a large base but not quite) Pilot skill 0

N0 firepower (no arc)

Agility 2

Hull 6 (special rule each critical hit is an automatic direct hit)

Shields 0.

Maneuver set { 1 LBank Green, 2 Straight Green, 1 RBank green} (assuming all maneuvers green since shuttle cannot get stressed.)

No actions

No upgrades.

So on the one hand we have slightly better defense with more agility and hull (although hull is slightly construed since every critical hit is a direct hit). Then again we have a worse off dial with no actions and no firepower. The base is longer giving it more distance at speeds 1 and 2 but since it has no higher speeds all that does is increase the minimum movement.

It is not a functional ship where as the 1 point ship concept is functional barely so I will say <1. maybe .75 but I really don't know as I don't have a scale even a sliding one. I was just trying to find the minimum functional ship a starting point so to say for all functional ships in the game. And set that starting point at 1 much like an exponential function. Often many of the confrontations over this topic is from people using a model that only focuses on the stat line and barely takes into account the maneuvering vectors in the game. Hence the Forbidden Cookie model placing it at 4 points. Sure we can strip a ship down to 0 firepower with a standard firing arc no agility 2 hull and only three maneuvers (a 2 straight green and a pair of red banks). But then again that wouldn't exactly be a standard starting point for ships in the game.

16 hours ago, Blue Five said:

Anyway, on with the show!

I indeed misremembered the base size (mixed it up with another game) and therefore got everything based off that scaled incorrectly. The base size is 1.5 inches. It's not 4 cm as you said either. Got to be precise here.

Alright, well maybe we have different base sizes, the one I got over here is exactly 4cm, I measured them. 1.5inches is only 2.54 * 1.5 = 3.81cm. My Range ruler also says exactly 10cm for the distance of range 1 and not 9.525cm (2,5 bases). So I was precise for the materials I got.

Are you using Attack Wing bases or something? That seems a very unlikely level of manufacturing tolerance.