have there been any epic ship buffs? haven't been really paying attention to them but with the scum epic dropping relatively soon i was just wondering if they had buffed them in some way. as in the past at-least in my limited experience they get smoked pretty easily by the smaller ships?? also on a related note if ffg started EPIC ops how long do you think a game round would be?

Ordinance tubes and everything from the rebel-flying-potato-transport-whachamacallit.

But being honest here, the Scum cap ship and its included upgrades are pretty good to start with, and Vizago is the cloth from which trolls are cut.

Mostly ordinance tubes though. Turn a cargo deck into a fully-stocked missile bay for 5 points. Load your favorite explosive, preferably something to cover the range gap in your primary weapon, or just something you wouldn't normally be able to spam. With a fair amount of hull to chew through and good screening by your fighters you should easily be able to make up the points you spend.

Just remember that huge ships are usually heavy support. Your huge is going to make for a big target so you'll have to learn to fly it so that it's risky to close in on it.

And don't listen to anyone else: ramming is both viable and honorable, ramming large ships doubly so. You shouldn't hold back with large ships, even in friendly games: you gotta use everything they give you to make up those points before the death of a thousand cuts occurs. If that means blasting them with your primary, great. If that means breaking them against the hull then even greater: if you can pull it off it's like getting a free attack.

The three Huge Ship Only modifications are pretty good. Automated Protocols should be basically stapled to the single-card Huge Ships. The range bonus change was helpful. The Corvettes still struggle to pay for their point cost in my opinion.

I think you could get by with 2 hour rounds in an Epic Tourney but YMMV.

Optimised Generators are pretty good buff for energy hungry builds.

As said Automated Protocols are essential on single card ships.

Also in the rules huge ships start with full energy not at zero which I think was the original rule - that's a massive buff.

Automated Protocols and Ordnance Tubes substantially increase the value of huge ships.

Gunner on a raider. Mmmmmm.

Essentially 3 major buffs:

- Ships start with full energy in tourney play (no idea why only tourney play, but just go with it)

- No more extra greens for longer ranges

- Modifications that significantly improve efficiency.

If you want to get some practice, a Gozanti with Automated Protocols and the turret is a good ship to learn with. Just remember you move and do your action last, so check your final position and place the Reinforcement token appropriately and the ship will perform much better.

The Gozanti has 3 Epic Only modifications. They are all 3 pretty good. They help change things quite a bit. Still, a lot of enemy firepower can take an epic ship down, if the epic ship gets into a bad spot. It does take some strategy and tactics to prevent a bum rush with small based ships. Ion Torpedoes are great for that.