I honestly feel it's stats would be more like this. 2/4/2/2

Really agile ship. But kinda soft in the end. I would loose target lock from action bar. Drop cannon and give it tech. Drop the K-turns and make the 2-turns green. Probably drop the 3 backs to white and make 5 straight white as well. This would make it about 5 points more than an Awing.

5 hours ago, clanofwolves said:

Um, I don't have any idea what this is or its costs......I can't get beyond how STUPID it looks.

The standard TIE l/n is so named for the way it resembles a Bow Tie. The TIE Predator is simply designed to resemble either a 4-in-hand tie, or a Cravat, depending.

Don't be a hater, this is clearly a natural evolution of the TIE lineage.

16 hours ago, Astech said:

Can I say how much I dig this dial? I think it probably needs to be toned down a bit, but the idea behind it is solid. Specifically, I want to call out the way having white hard 2s, but green hard ones creates interesting decisions. The effect is to give it as much maneuverability and stress-shedding potential as a Squint, TIE F/O, or Fang, but without the uniformity of speed that those ships offer.

I think I'd drop the 3 hard turns, the 2 trolls, and the 4K. Doing so would still leave the dial in a really powerful spot, make maneuvering quite a bit more tricky. Another thought would be to keep the 3 hard turns, but, _but_ drop the 3 bank. I'm not sure it makes _sense_, but it certainly would be different and weird.

Unrelated side note: Fish Squadron obviously needs to be 44 points.

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Specifically, I want to call out the way having white hard 2s, but green hard ones creates interesting decisions.

Fairly sure that's how the TAP works.

1 hour ago, Punning Pundit said:

The standard TIE l/n is so named for the way it resembles a Bow Tie. The TIE Predator is simply designed to resemble either a 4-in-hand tie, or a Cravat, depending.

Don't be a hater, this is clearly a natural evolution of the TIE lineage.

But it's neither sleak, fast, nor agressive looking. The solar arrays face forward which seems illogical. can't stop myself; I'm a hater. Wow.....it's simply unavoidable or me. To visceral? Maybe....but. Wow.

18 hours ago, Astech said:

I was pretty surprised at the Defender's 3-3-3-3 statline when I first saw it, but now that it's been appropriately priced it's a monster on the field. The Phantom showed us what a 4-4-2-2 ship could do, but it was a bit limited due to the cloak mechanic. I'm wondering what a 4-4-4-4 natural statline would look like, and how much it'd be worth:

The TIE predator was a next generation starfighter around 160 years ABY, so a super advanced ship. Not only does it have a 4-4-4-4 statline, but it also has a fantastic dial (although nothing absurdly good like *cough* *white k-turns* *cough*), all the standard actions and the extremely useful systems and cannon slots. It's pretty much the ideal ship. 39 points is the cost of the cheapest generic (EPT because it won't be used otherwise), definitively limiting you to 2 in a list. Even so, this thing is a monster - PTL, autothrusters and fire control system would make it absurd.

So, is this thing balanced at 39 points minimum, or would it need to go up?

I've already talked about the dial, so I thought I'd talk a bit about the ship itself.

The very first thing I would say: a ship this maneuverable with this many post-maneuver options that is _this_ tanky should _not_ have any pilots over PS6 with an EPT slot. A ship this hard to pin down would reignite the PS war if it were allowed to get to PS9 or 10 or (shudder) PS11.

In many ways, this ship is a beefed up version of the TIE S/F. So lets see what we can do to make them sufficiently different from one another.

As others have noted: the canon slot doesn't make any sense on this thing. On the other wrist, the Tech slot seems like an obvious addition. However, the tech/system combo is something the Empire already has in the the TIE S/F. Which is something we specifically had wanted to avoid. So lets drop the System slot. In fact: lets drop the system slot, and add _two_ tech slots.

Lets do something radical: lets get rid of the Focus action. Doing so makes the ship ship significantly less survivable against any given attack, and makes the 4 dice hit less hard. The Predator would still have the Evade action, to buff a single defense roll. And the Evade/Comm Relay combo (if we're going to be giving it the tech slot) has proven to be incredibly powerful. Given all the red on this dial, Pattern Analyzer would also be useful on this beast. Fortunately, I've given it a pair of tech slots, so that it can do both.

Now what I think we have is a ship that has a lot of hull and a lot of dice, but loses an important form of dice modification. Meanwhile, with the tech slot, and the Target Lock action, it can do a few things to effectively store actions. This means you have to think about what you're doing a bit more, think a bit harder, and think a bit further ahead.

(Edited to add images of my take on both the ship and the dial)

E

19 minutes ago, Blue Five said:

Fairly sure that's how the TAP works.

Fair point. Let me elaborate: Between the 1 speed maneuvers and the 2 speed maneuvers, the Predator has a full suite of Green maneuvers. But the fact that they'er not all the same speed makes the dial a bit more dynamic than other ships with a full suite of green maneuvers.

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But it's neither sleak, fast, nor agressive looking. The solar arrays face forward which seems illogical. can't stop myself; I'm a hater. Wow.....it's simply unavoidable or me. To visceral? Maybe....but. Wow.

Light moves faster than a sublight space ship in Star Wars, making the orientation of the panels irrelevant.

16 minutes ago, Astech said:

While still kind of broken, this ship has a lot more hard counters- a Juke swarm most notably. Sensor Jammer would make a huge comeback against this thing, although I could see Expertise being stapled to it. The Dial has become kind of meh - better than some but nowhere near JM5K or defender levels. The lack of decent upgrade slots (tech is cool, but mostly unusable) means that this ship will be running more or less naked, with the sole exception of autothrusters.

I'd vouch for this version n a tournament, but it's nothing like the original 4-4-4-4 with the best of everything ship I'd conceived.

I think you're really underestimating how good Comm Relay and Pattern Analyzer are. Comm Relay is basically Imperial Regen. It's not 100% the same, but it acts enough like it to be worth the points. And Pattern Analyzer lets you PTL then shed stress. Or pull a red and PTL anyway (if you didn't start stressed).

Or, the PTL, Primed Thrusters, Pattern Analyzer combo. You basically don't need to care all that much about stress. I can see this ship easily breaking 50 points even at PS4.

Now that I'm looking at that dial as a dial (instead of just the image in my head), I kinda want to add the T-Rolls back in. And I'm itching to give this a title...

I designate this the TIE/fu

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I think you're really underestimating how good Comm Relay and Pattern Analyzer are. Comm Relay is basically Imperial Regen. It's not 100% the same, but it acts enough like it to be worth the points. And Pattern Analyzer lets you PTL then shed stress. Or pull a red and PTL anyway (if you didn't start stressed).

Or, the PTL, Primed Thrusters, Pattern Analyzer combo. You basically don't need to care all that much about stress. I can see this ship easily breaking 50 points even at PS4.

Now that I'm looking at that dial as a dial (instead of just the image in my head), I kinda want to add the T-Rolls back in. And I'm itching to give this a title..

Comm Relay and Pattern Analyser are good, but they're nowhere near as good as Fire Control System and Advanced Sensors/Sensor Jammer. Sensor Jammer + Autothrusters combo is absurdly difficult to hit, and Advanced sensors is the deluxe version of Pattern Analyser. Comm Relay doesn't block anything and requires an action to activate each time, so it's not like Miranda or R2-D2 at all, although it does bear resemblance to R5-P9.

With PTL + Primed Thrusters + Pattern Analyser you still care a lot about stress after the first turn, since you're going to need that evade action to stay alive.

I'm leaning towards the title being:

Next Generation (Title, 3 points, unique)
You may equip upgrades with the Rebel Only and Scum Only restrictions.

18 minutes ago, Astech said:

Comm Relay and Pattern Analyser are good, but they're nowhere near as good as Fire Control System and Advanced Sensors/Sensor Jammer. Sensor Jammer + Autothrusters combo is absurdly difficult to hit, and Advanced sensors is the deluxe version of Pattern Analyser. Comm Relay doesn't block anything and requires an action to activate each time, so it's not like Miranda or R2-D2 at all, although it does bear resemblance to R5-P9.

With PTL + Primed Thrusters + Pattern Analyser you still care a lot about stress after the first turn, since you're going to need that evade action to stay alive.

I'm leaning towards the title being:

Next Generation (Title, 3 points, unique)
You may equip upgrades with the Rebel Only and Scum Only restrictions.

I was thinking about adding a system upgrade, a missile upgrade, and a torpedo upgrade, and then:

I Have You Now (Title. 2 points)

You may make a secondary weapon attack against a ship you have a target lock on, even if they are outside your firing arc, as long as they are within range for that weapon.

And/or:

(Honed predator. Title. 2 points)

When attacking or defending against a ship you have target locked, you may reroll up to two dice.

There's no way this thing should be sub 60 points. It would ravage almost any 50+ build of any ship I can think of...

Well except 2 protectorates, but that's our current pants on head ship that's way undercosted.

Also, lore wise tech doesn't move and/or advance this fast in the SW Galaxy (bizarre dumb legends EU notwithstanding).

16 hours ago, Astech said:

Light moves faster than a sublight space ship in Star Wars, making the orientation of the panels irrelevant.

Speed isn't the issue, panel orientation is. Tell me panels on the sides facing two opposite directions, TIE Adv having additional 45 degree from baseline in both directions, isn't far superior. And if it's not for solar; why? What's the point? Sorry for the debate, I cannot wrap my head around the stupid.

Panels on the sides are useless when the ship is facing towards or away from a system's sun. Forward/reverse facing panels are useless when facing perpendicular to a system's sun. either way, you get the benefit half the time. Solar is useless after a certain distance from the source, so undoubtedly TIEs have other power sources (just more expensive, probably). From one perspective: at least one side panel is useless at all times, whereas two forward panels are both useless half the time.

The 45 degree offset on the TIE advanced has the sole purpose of looking cool. Flat panels are best when you can simply rotate the entire structure for the optimum flat panel angle.

Solar panels have a pathetic wattage in comparison to the enormous kinetic energy involved in space acceleration. So regardless of the panles or their size, they make up a tiny fraction of the craft's energy reserves.

Bit of repost from a prior thread. The panels can draw solar power as an emergency source of energy to putter home.

But that's not their primary function.

In SW fighters and I think everything void-borne, uses inertia drives...
...it's the hand wave reason everything ignores Newtonian physics most of time and why dragons, ww1 planes, and starships fly in similar ways.
These inertia drives create loosely atmospheric conditions. SFoils and TIE panels act on the interia field by slowing part of ships passage through it. Essentially, drag. For TIEs the individual panels provide 12 different drag vectors on each wing... XWing SFoils in open position provide 8 total, but due to being more advanced provide maneuverability close to that of a TIE.

Ships like the Advanced and the Defender have more evenly spaced panels. Making them turn like an Ln (whose panels make it very agile horizontally but not as much vertically)

Looking at how these panels are situated, this future TIE should turn like a pig, but in a 2D plane would have great vertical strafing. So, coming down from its ridiculous, lore defying, undercosted stat line, it shouldn't have good turns or red vertical manipulation, it instead should have a 1 or 2 template (you choose when you do it) barrel roll and a 3 defense/agility.

SW lore guys have been very clever, showing in increase in multidirectional inertia panels on the more sophisticated TIEs. Let's not ignore their thoughtful designs with Mary Sue stats and dials.

1 hour ago, Lobokai said:

Looking at how these panels are situated, this future TIE should turn like a pig, but in a 2D plane would have great vertical strafing. So, coming down from its ridiculous, lore defying, undercosted stat line, it shouldn't have good turns or red vertical manipulation.....

This.

...clearly Lobokai is smarter than I, and a more clever writer.

4 hours ago, clanofwolves said:

Speed isn't the issue, panel orientation is. Tell me panels on the sides facing two opposite directions, TIE Adv having additional 45 degree from baseline in both directions, isn't far superior. And if it's not for solar; why? What's the point? Sorry for the debate, I cannot wrap my head around the stupid.

We all know that physics in Star Wars only follow one rule, the Rule of Cool. If it looks cool, it's in Star Wars. There doesn't need to be any other explanation

...except for Space Wizards. Space Wizards are what explains the rule of cool.

27 minutes ago, haslo said:

We all know that physics in Star Wars only follow one rule, the Rule of Cool. If it looks cool, it's in Star Wars. There doesn't need to be any other explanation

...except for Space Wizards. Space Wizards are what explains the rule of cool.

Love that rule....which means this thing the OP crafted up is gonna have issues making the cut, least with me.

Perfectly balanced at 101 points.

I love the predator but it's not the 4444 ship we're looking for.

I'd I'd love to see it as the evolution of the FO and SF where it's maneuverable and a bit tankier but that just a defender.

Its going to be all about the tech and title options. Talon rolls to make it different.