Idea I was bouncing around last night. I know its been mention somewhere that FFG either can't or is unwilling to do card only packs. So would it have helped if ever new expansion came with 2 new pilot cards for a previous ship as a bonus. Could this have helped to keep older ships in the game as well as sell more new ones?

Examples

Lancer with 2 Firespray cards

Tie FO with 2 basic ties

T-70 with 2 T-65

People have wanted this sort of thing since Wave 1, but it is clearly not FFG's markeing or sales policy.

Also, at this point in the game, I'd much rather they just made old pilots (read: old ships) playable before adding new pilots to the same craft.

I think it might be cool to have a pilot for the ship that the expansion that it comes with that also flies a different ship. Maybe print a double sided pilot card and have the ship base be for the same pilot on each side but different ships.

I think that would work better in something like an Aces pack than a standard expansion though.

The issue with this is a bit like autothrusters - I would have to but the Lancer to get the Firespray card in the example you gave above.

i do like the idea but think packs like Most Wanted should be more frequent where there is a repainted model (or two) along with the card retrofits you are talking about.

1 minute ago, WWHSD said:

I think it might be cool to have a pilot for the ship that the expansion that it comes with that also flies a different ship. Maybe print a double sided pilot card and have the ship base be for the same pilot on each side but different ships.

I think that would work better in something like an Aces pack than a standard expansion though.

That would be a super cool way of handling ace packs. I'd love to see the ship tokens be double sided such that the same unique pilot is on both sides in different ships, to avoid the issue of needing multiple copies of a set to play certain pilots together.

They already have. Isn't that what Most Wanted is?

I would be totally cool with some Aces/Veterans style releases of older ships to update them with new pilots and toys, and have these releases take the place of new ships. Hell, seeing some of the older ships in regular play again would pretty much be like seeing new ships at this point.

I'd even be up for single ship, repainted releases of older ships if FFG didn't want to go the double pack idea.

While I buy every ship (minus Epic because screw that), I don't think it would be a good idea to release pilots for unrelated ships with another ship. The only exception I can think of is the Scum Most Wanted pack.

3 minutes ago, AwesomeJedi said:

They already have. Isn't that what Most Wanted is?

Most wanted had so far been a one time thing and didn't help Rebels or Imperials. A solution like this could. Doesn't seem like there's much love for this idea anyway. Rather more frequent Ace packs

31 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

Maybe print a double sided pilot card and have the ship base be for the same pilot on each side but different ships.

Would this be an issue in tournament play with possible pilot flip-flopping?

31 minutes ago, Bojanglez said:

The issue with this is a bit like autothrusters - I would have to but the Lancer to get the Firespray card in the example you gave above.

Agreed. Pilot cards need to be with the version of the ship they are relevant to.

18 minutes ago, enigmahfc said:

I would be totally cool with some Aces/Veterans style releases of older ships to update them with new pilots and toys, and have these releases take the place of new ships. Hell, seeing some of the older ships in regular play again would pretty much be like seeing new ships at this point.

I keep hoping for a Rogue One Aces pack with updated/repainted X- and Y-Wings. Despite the fact that my faction of choice is Imperials.

This is sorta along the lines of what i want for Armada: each imperial expansion adds another Imperial Star Destroyer title since theres an insane amount of named ISD's out there with only minor differences, but releasing another ISD to get more of those titles makes 0 sense (as in literally the same ship).

Yes people could get pissy that you have to buy other ships to get this ship to function right. Know what? its already that way. Look at Awings: they ARE playable and ARE fun, but good god you need like 6 different boxes to play one. Aside from a few newer ships i cant think of a single one thats playable with its own box and isnt a filler (academy pilots). Heck even most of the newer ships need atleast 1 card from another box to actually function properly (i cant imagine the UPS without Pattern Analyzers...)

35 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

I think it might be cool to have a pilot for the ship that the expansion that it comes with that also flies a different ship.

I was toying with an idea that takes this to the extreme.
All pilots can fly all of their factions ships, but have a competency rating (with a buff/debuff) for each one.

E.g. the pilot has 1 specialist ship at +1 pilot skill, a few accomplished ships with no change, and the rest competent with -2 pilot skill and no EPT.

5 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

This is sorta along the lines of what i want for Armada: each imperial expansion adds another Imperial Star Destroyer title since theres an insane amount of named ISD's out there with only minor differences, but releasing another ISD to get more of those titles makes 0 sense (as in literally the same ship).

Yes people could get pissy that you have to buy other ships to get this ship to function right. Know what? its already that way. Look at Awings: they ARE playable and ARE fun, but good god you need like 6 different boxes to play one. Aside from a few newer ships i cant think of a single one thats playable with its own box and isnt a filler (academy pilots). Heck even most of the newer ships need atleast 1 card from another box to actually function properly (i cant imagine the UPS without Pattern Analyzers...)

Pretty much the only ship that's actually competitive out of the box with no additional upgrades is Omega Leader TBH. Just possibly named TIE Strikers with Swarm Leader, or Countdown with just Ailerons or AIlerons and Frame.

4 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Pretty much the only ship that's actually competitive out of the box with no additional upgrades is Omega Leader TBH. Just possibly named TIE Strikers with Swarm Leader, or Countdown with just Ailerons or AIlerons and Frame.

I'm one of the few people that would argue that Protectorate can fly great with only what they give you. I know players like to throw autothrusters on there but I feel like the designers intended it to always be at range 1.

13 minutes ago, AdamGATX105 said:

I'm one of the few people that would argue that Protectorate can fly great with only what they give you. I know players like to throw autothrusters on there but I feel like the designers intended it to always be at range 1.

It folds like a wet towel to turrets without Autothrusters. Compare the prices of its aces to the the Striker to see what it costs without booost (and TL I guess).

They price ships with boost to take into account that they can equip ATs I think.

It would be very cool if they made packs like Most Wanted with repaints of the ships to look battle damaged. Call it something like the Rebel Survivors, Imperial Survivors and Scum Survivors series.

Release the with alternate versions of Rebel pilots and Resistance pilots for things like the T-65 and other older ships with titles and upgrades. It would be so cool to see Resistance T-65's and T-70's flying together. And it would allow them to bring older ships back into the fold.

They could do a "Resistance Only" title like "Post War Salvage" for the T-65 that gives it a discounted Tech slot. And do a "Rebels Only" title that gives it a discounted System slot.

I think it would allow them to flesh out the subfactions as well. They wouldn't need to do every ship, just the ones really suffering.

36 minutes ago, AdamGATX105 said:

I'm one of the few people that would argue that Protectorate can fly great with only what they give you. I know players like to throw autothrusters on there but I feel like the designers intended it to always be at range 1.

I mostly agree although I would change it to say "intended it to be most effective at range 1" as I find it can also excel at kiting and think - with AT or not - that was also part of the design choice

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

It folds like a wet towel to turrets without Autothrusters. Compare the prices of its aces to the the Striker to see what it costs without booost (and TL I guess).

They price ships with boost to take into account that they can equip ATs I think.

Yes but the main turret you see is TLT which doesn't work at range 1 so with a careful approach and there speed you can get in range 1 and not worry about TLT

If this gets me a k2so pilot card, I'm sold.

12 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

If this gets me a k2so pilot card, I'm sold.

Dropped the ball on that one no pilot or crew card

40 minutes ago, AdamGATX105 said:

Dropped the ball on that one no pilot or crew card

Agreed.

Here is what it takes to put a new pilot/faction onto a ship: it takes a pilot card and a base tile for the ship. Tiles are fortunately two sides which basically means each one of those can support two pilots although that still means that if you want to fly both pilots you'll need to find another tile as well.

I do like the idea of adding a base tile and some pilot cards to ships to get more functionality out of them. It certainly seems to be a better use of cardboard space than simply printing out two halfs of a completely useless extra dial for a multi faction ship.

slight bit of derail but i dont think FFG had any indication K2S0 would be so popular or important. I mean, aside from comical relief or something that for some reason only R2D2 could access, when has a droid ever been that big in the plot? K2S0 was everywhere and vocal about it, C3P0 and R2D2 might as well not have existed, the plot would have moved on fine without them (though without some cheap laughs).

And goddamn it the final scene with him made me cry!! OVER A DROID!!

11 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

slight bit of derail but i dont think FFG had any indication K2S0 would be so popular or important. I mean, aside from comical relief or something that for some reason only R2D2 could access, when has a droid ever been that big in the plot? K2S0 was everywhere and vocal about it, C3P0 and R2D2 might as well not have existed, the plot would have moved on fine without them (though without some cheap laughs).

And goddamn it the final scene with him made me cry!! OVER A DROID!!

I completely agree. FFG didn't know, so moved on with what they did. This does make me frustrated, though, that FFG isn't told more. All it would take is someone from Lucasfilm or Disney to call them up and give them a list of characters who will be named and have some importance. Same thing kinda happened for Jess, Snap, and Nien when the initial Force Awakens set came out. They were missed and they weren't near as important as K2 was.

I'd kind of prefer FFG to wait until after a movie comes out to properly make cards for characters and to make sure they got everybody, though I do recognize that this doesn't make much sense from a business standpoint.

16 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

slight bit of derail but i dont think FFG had any indication K2S0 would be so popular or important. I mean, aside from comical relief or something that for some reason only R2D2 could access, when has a droid ever been that big in the plot? K2S0 was everywhere and vocal about it, C3P0 and R2D2 might as well not have existed, the plot would have moved on fine without them (though without some cheap laughs).

And goddamn it the final scene with him made me cry!! OVER A DROID!!

If you watch how it should have ended on YouTube what they did with K2S0 I found very believable and wish had happen in the movie

7 hours ago, AwesomeJedi said:

They already have. Isn't that what Most Wanted is?

That was a conversion kit mostly, but yes it is the only expansion that had pilots cards for ship models that was not included.

As for the OP suggestion of placing new pilots in expansion that do not carry the model, I think that is not a good idea as well as it goes against the product model X-wing has. For X-wing every upgrade and pilot card can be used with the ship model that is included in the expansion. It might not be the tournament winning build as you won't get a Fat Han or Palp Shuttle from a single expansion but there won't be anything in that expansion you can't use if you need to fill out a few more points.

As for more pilots for a ship that is what the Special Releases for, you know the Aces, Veterans are for. Huge ship expansion packs provide another opportunity to "update" a ship model but are not it's primary purpose despite complaints from other players.