So with a lot of the actions that were originally exclusive for Huge ships being included in large and small ships in Wave 10 and beyond, now is a question on what other Epic mechanics can be added into standard and how would it be good for the game (besides making Epic game more familiar to players). We already talked about Reinforce, Jam, and Coordinate actions. So now lets talk about the other mechanics in Epic Energy systems.

So Energy, besides being the replacement of firepower in all the support convoy ships (such as Transport and Carrier) it serves as the primary maneuver management system. In standard maneuvers were all about stress management. You can't do too many red maneuvers without following it up with a green, likewise you can do white maneuvers all day. For huge ships it is energy, energy powers your weapons, and allows for certain actions such has the Recover action. Do easy maneuvers that don't strain the engines (like one straight) and you will generate the most energy. Push the Engines for maneuvers like a 2 bank or a 4 straight and you will get less energy to distribute.

But most of you already know that, so the question is how do you get energy on a regular small or large based ship? Well here are a few ways.

• Unique dials, Each ship has it's own dial so making a dial that has both difficulty (color) and energy (pink dots) can be done. So now you got a ship that not only get stressed as a large or small ship but also generates energy. Now you could do energy generated on low speed or high speed maneuvers (pressing engines is harder on the pilot but generates more energy or something along those lines. not all maneuvers need to generate energy. The GR-75 4 straight generates no energy.
• Energy in place of Firepower, Okay that being said it would obviously be a support ship, but with energy main problem even in Epic is how it is spent. Aside from Hardpoints and Recovery action Energy doesn't seem to be used in a intuitive manner. So what can energy do? Well how about regenerate friendly shields? Or flip or repair damage cards.
• Access to the Recovery action. Obviously is energy is needed for recovery. Thing is recovery drains all energy. So how do balance recovery with energy is something to keep in mind.
• Cargo and Hardpoint upgrade slots. So this is possible. Now of course there doesn't need to be a range 5 range ruler with the ship. If someone has the upgrade they also have the range ruler.
• Ion damage, again the arch nemesis of energy, ion tokens. Get zapped by a TION-D or a Ion Warthog and zap goes your energy.

Again these are just some features that could be added into Standard. I don't think all of them would be good but just something to open up discussion. What do you think?

I've always loved the energy mechanic in epic, except they did it backwards. They should have had the ship generate its energy stat each round, minus an amount based on your maneuver. As it currently works, a ship that gets hit with a lot of ion tokens is likely to just go fast, since they won't be getting the energy anyway. If the maneuver subtracted energy, you'd have ioned ships trying to go very slow to squeeze whatever energy they could. Which is what should happen when a big ship is heavily ioned.

As for porting energy mechanics into standard, I just don't see it happening. You'd need a lot of new rules to do it and the effects you could achieve can be done in other ways (dual cards to represent recharging, speed restrictions, and so on) so it wouldn't provide any real benefit.

Plus, you'd have the issue of there already being ships (decimator, ghost) that SHOULD use it, if it existed, but don't.

I think recover could be added by disabling weapons when you take the action - then recover one shield token or perhaps as many shield tokens as the primary attack value. I love the energy mechanic for huge ships but putting it in standard play I'm not so sure.

8 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

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Plus, you'd have the issue of there already being ships (decimator, ghost) that SHOULD use it, if it existed, but don't.

True, but that sort has come the norm with Wave 9 especially the TIE/SF in comparison to the Lambda Shuttle. But as for Ghost and Decimator the stress management is enough to simulate the energy spent. VT-49 Decimator has no red maneuvers so it has to use an action or upgrade to get stressed.

They wrote new rules for the reinforce action for small and large ships.

They surely can do it again for Recover, or the other epic mechanics.

Regarding retrofitting the mechanic to older ships, they can release something like :

Energy Cells

Modification

When performing a green maneuver, assign as many energy tokens as 3 minus the speed of the maneuver.