Expanding on the big thread about 2nd edition that's on the front page right now: Imagine FFG either came out with a new edition, decided to rerelease revised versions of cards, or even just fully embraced hard errata. What cards would you change? How, and why?

One of my first choices would be Engine Upgrade. I would price EU at 2 points, and make it small-ship only, just like Vectored Thrusters. VT is a superior card, that benefitted from the hindsight of several waves of play. And I do understand why EU is 4 points... because it's so good on large ships. However, it's overpriced (imo) on small ships, and underpriced on large ones. Yes, certain small ships have EU practically stapled onto their pilot card (Corran and Vader that I can think of off the top of my head). Vader's solid but not top meta. Corran is up there, but I doubt he would become unstoppable with a 2-point discount, especially in lists where he would be paired with a large ship that can no longer take EU.

The ability to boost should be more limited on large ships... either made more expensive, or more punishing. Leebo is a good example, as he is cheaper than EU but has a cost... that first boost is "free" on a large ship, but the next will ionize you. However, the fact that he uses up an extremely valuable crew slot is such a big deal that it might preclude him from being a reasonable alternative to EU, even if EU no longer worked on large ships. Maybe that's ok.

Thoughts on my choice, or other cards you would pick? I would prefer to see ideas OTHER than TLT, since there are plenty of other threads about that specific upgrade.

unnecessary. we already have a 2nd edition post, and I think the resounding response is that it is too soon (as in years).

I think that what I'd change is make the large ship boost same as the large ship barrel roll: 1 Straight on its side, snug against the nubs, and the final ship position has to have the nubs against the 1 Straight. Simple, elegant, and makes the big ship boost still fast and somewhat arc-dodgy, but not "Get around your entire formation of Crack TIEs."

4 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

unnecessary. we already have a 2nd edition post, and I think the resounding response is that it is too soon (as in years).

I'll be the judge of what is necessary in my own thread, thanks. The 2nd edition post is about whether people want a 2nd edition. This post is meant to be fun theory crafting about a specific aspect of a potential 2nd edition, or if revised cards were ever to be released for the current edition. I do not need to be told whether my thread is worthy. I'm so sick of people raining on parades around here. I know it's nigh impossible for people on these message boards to do this, but if you don't want to participate in any given thread, literally all you have to do is nothing! Why is that so hard?!

5 minutes ago, iamfanboy said:

I think that what I'd change is make the large ship boost same as the large ship barrel roll: 1 Straight on its side, snug against the nubs, and the final ship position has to have the nubs against the 1 Straight. Simple, elegant, and makes the big ship boost still fast and somewhat arc-dodgy, but not "Get around your entire formation of Crack TIEs."

How would you manage a bank-boost with your method? Or are you saying you'd have the choice of quasi-steering the ship to the left or right by placing the template to the left or right of the nubs, and then replacing the ship with the same leeway? This would allow the ship to slip to the right or left a bit if you wanted it to, but it would remain facing forward no matter what you did. I could see that being a feature rather than a bug, though... just another limitation on a large ship that can't maneuver as easily as a small one.

10 minutes ago, mkevans80 said:

How would you manage a bank-boost with your method? Or are you saying you'd have the choice of quasi-steering the ship to the left or right by placing the template to the left or right of the nubs, and then replacing the ship with the same leeway? This would allow the ship to slip to the right or left a bit if you wanted it to, but it would remain facing forward no matter what you did. I could see that being a feature rather than a bug, though... just another limitation on a large ship that can't maneuver as easily as a small one.

That's pretty much it - a large ship SHOULDN'T be as maneuverable as a small ship. I see Boost in general as a sort of "Kick in the afterburners" action, and it makes some sense that a small ship would be able to turn a little bit, but large ships would have problems doing the same.

Other things I'd like to do -

Make all of the "Discard to have an effect" EPTs except Crackshot cost 0 points - Adrenaline Rush, Cool Hand, and Lightning Reflexes. They're all super-marginal, and having them as "Well, I have an empty EPT slot..." fodder is better than just tossing them aside.

Examine all the Astromechs - as it stands, almost all of them are pretty terrible, and the Astro slot is on a lot of ships that need buffs. As long as you limit changes to the offensive ones, like "Targeting Astro - After you execute a white maneuver, you may acquire a target lock" it should be fine - a lot of the problem aces in those ships are welded to R2-D2.

B-Wings should roll 4 Red dice, not 3. If they're going to be glass cannons, then they should at least be CANNONS - and make B-Wing/E-2 take up a Cannon slot, not a Modification slot, because it takes away the B-Wing's cannon to do it .

With regards to the discard EPTs, what about introducing a mechanism similar to Armada's that sees them 'exhausted' when used, and they can them be 'recharged' for use again? Perhaps an action to make ready?

Similarly, something in the same ilk could be done with ordnance. I think we've already seen it in prototype stage with upcoming tadpole pilot who can take a weapons disabled token to "reload" ordnance the next round. While I don't think something like an X-Wing should lose its primary to reload; again, perhaps a 'reload' action for ordnance carries?

In a hypothetical second edition I'd...

Most importantly: punisher, kwing, uwing, IG-88, hwk should be on a "medium base", slightly adjusting some point costs.

Give TIEs a TIE slot and make tie mk 2 and lwf occupy that instead of mods.

Double all base points and readjust finer. Adrenalin rush would be 2pts, as would be cool hand, crackshot 2, vi 3 etc. A lot of epts need cost readjustment. So do crews (Im looking at you, flight instructor)!

Ordnance would be reworked completely: seperate damade from "to hit". Proton torps would be hard to hit but high damage, homing missiles would be easier to hit. So for proton torps: 2 dice to hit. If this attack hits, you may add 2 crits. Then i would make them cheaper. This way, they rule against big ships and suck against agile fighters... AS IT SHOULD BE.

Id rework mines as well to take slightly more skill. Just saying that they DO NOT explode if they hit a ship when placed, but ONLY if movement templates or ship overlap them during a maneuver.

Id limit sabine to bombs from her own ship to free up some design space for bombs.

Id slightly rework cannons and turrets, giving the defender the range bonus at range 3.

1 hour ago, mkevans80 said:

One of my first choices would be Engine Upgrade.

1 hour ago, mkevans80 said:

The ability to boost should be more limited on large ships...

A second edition is unnecessary for both of these. A new engine upgrade card can easily be issued for small ship only with a reduced point cost and the boost action rule for large ships can be an erratum.

It's difficult to think of changing particular cards when we have no rules to work from. I quite like the medium based ships idea @MaxPower mentions.

I'd like to see:

- Reworked Ordnance: There would be two kinds of ordnance capable ships, dedicated ordnance carriers (bomber, punisher, y-wing) and the assault ships with just one (xwing, tie adv, defender). Each of the ordnance types would have a separate Extra munitions type upgrade, giving them unlimited use of that type. The Unlimited Missiles upgrade takes up a missile slot, but you can fire your other missile as many times as you wish. This would have you choose between variety or numbers.
All the missiles and torpedos would have a way of modifying their own dice, the quality of which would depend on the cost of the ordnance.

- Establish a clear playstyle for all factions with unique mechanics, and no mingling. If the empire is the agile, glasscannon, swarmy faction, other factions shouldn't get agile, glasscannon, swarmy ships.... Similarly, Rebels would be the only one to regen, and scum would be the only one to do nasty ass tricks like swapping upgrades or having illicit stuff.

- Rework turrets: All PWT-s are now mobile arcs. All turret upgrades are now reworked. Either everything is to match TLT in usefulness, or TLT to match the other's power (maybe TLT attacks cannot be modified?)

- Introduce objectives into the game in some way or the other, and have other win conditions than "kill everything, failing that, kill more than they do".

- Rework Titles into the two things they currently are: A way of providing an ability to the ship (ARC, TIE Striker, SF Tie, TIE Advanced) and a unique ship that is different from the others of the same type (Falcon, Moldy Crow, Virago, Dauntless)
Ship Abilities would be all free or discounted (like the light syck) and would provide abilities, while Titles would be more expensive and would give more defined advantages along with upgrade slots.

- Obviously, adjust some statlines and ships. Rework the jumpmaster and the Falcon that the main power comes from the title, while the ships themselves remain cheap, but not as strong.

- Remove Slave I from the Empire and add some nice other ship instead, make Han, Chewie and Lando (along with a generic) dual faction pilots for Scum/Rebel, add many many characters as TIE pilots (like Hobbie, Wedge, Sabine, etc.), add Agent Kallus as Fulcrum to the Rebels.

- Make the Lambda have a rear arc. It even has the **** cannon ffs. i'd pay extra for it, just do it.

8 hours ago, mkevans80 said:

Engine Upgrade. I would price EU at 2 points, and make it small-ship only

I suggested an "Engine Upgrade MkII" which was exactly this in the UK FB group a while back.

Man, the sh*tstorm that kicked up!

I'd love to see many of the things people above have suggested (medium bases, changes to PWTs, ordnance overhaul, etc), but for me there are several things I'd really like to see changed.

1) Stress should become a binary thing. You're either stressed, or you're not. Add to that change; all abilities that give a stress for a benefit (like Glitterstim) should only be usable if you have no stress. Also I'd like to see the green hard turn reserved for only the most agile of fighters (I'm looking at you Shadowcaster!).

2) Ion should be tweaked, to allow for more player agency. When you have one or more ion tokens you can either dial in a 2-forward (only manoeuvre on all dials, it gets treated as white) and remove all ion tokens, or you execute your manoeuvre as normal, but take 1 damage per ion token.

3) Big ships should have worse dials. I find it silly that freighters and patrol ships can duck and weave better than some of the most manoeuvrable star fighters in the galaxy. I'm not saying make them shuttle bad, but the jumpmaster, shadowcaster and YT dials are just silly.

And finally the most important of all:

4) Tournament missions! Armada and Imperial Assault are both great examples of how to do this right. Killing the enemy is fun and all, but I feel having secondary objectives will help improve that, and put a pressure on the meta for a more diverse assortment of lists.

43 minutes ago, Stevey86 said:

I suggested an "Engine Upgrade MkII" which was exactly this in the UK FB group a while back.

It's pretty shocking how violently some people react to harmless suggestions like this. How dare you impugn their beloved game?!! It's almost like you said their child is ugly or something. And no matter how good your points are, or how bad the original rule you suggest changing is, there will be multiple people that will defend the RAW with their dying breath. I'm no psychologist, but I'm fairly sure whatever root cause is behind this mentality, is also (to a much higher degree) behind seriously messed up stuff like extreme religious fundamentalism. That's not to say that some guys on the opposite side aren't silly too (wanting to nerf anything into the ground that made them lose their last game, or deciding their expert enough to make sweeping changes to a game they've played 3 times), but come on people.

@mkevans80 Based on your original post, it looks like you want a second edition of the game to nerf a couple cards you don't like. Do you have any ideas that would actually require a complete revision of X-wing?

@MaxPower has some interesting ideas. I agree with some, disagree with others. Most would require a second edition of the game. Some could be handled with erratas.

The problem with most second edition suggestions in the various second edition threads is the surgery-with-a-sword approach. Many of the changes people cry for could be accomplished with revisions of individual expansions. Expansion revisions could be cardboard-only with new bases and pilot cards to rebalance individual ships for competitive play. I'm not the first person to push this idea, and for good reason. Expansion Revisions run less risk of invalidating the majority of X-wing products that work just fine, and balances competition without alienating the casual-only players.

A true second edtion should focus on core mechanics. I don't see a complete failure in any of the game's core mechanics. There are plenty of things FFG could do better, but I think it's a bit excessive to put first edition out to pasture.

10 minutes ago, mkevans80 said:

It's pretty shocking how violently some people react to harmless suggestions like this.

Oh I know. Funny thing is if they bothered to stop and think, they'd see that some of them are pretty good.

I actually put a lot of thought into anything I suggest and check anything it could potentially break before posting it. Then have to spend hours explaining that in great detail to those too lazy/ignorant to figure things out for themselves.

12 minutes ago, jmswood said:

Expansion revisions could be cardboard-only with new bases and pilot cards to rebalance individual ships for competitive play

This is my reaction every time the 2nd Ed. talk comes up.

The issues of pricing costs and inferior dials of older ships, and the odd bit of wording here and there, can easily be done in a card-only errata pack.

Absolutely no need to force people to buy all the ships again (especially when more than half of us probably wouldn't).

I know you said cards, but can I update the HWK's dial? It's suppose to be a fast, agile ship. Not the clunker the dial gives us.

If there was a second edition I would change fundamental mechanics to the extent that most cards would need to be changed.

10 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

I know you said cards, but can I update the HWK's dial? It's suppose to be a fast, agile ship. Not the clunker the dial gives us.

Ridiculous isn't it? Even the sodding Quadjumper has a better dial!

Maybe do a swap with the Shadowcaster?

1 minute ago, Stevey86 said:

Do a swap with the Shadowcaster?

Eh, I was more thinking of it joining the ranks of the Interceptor, the A-Wing, and the Fang Fighter, but copying the Lancer would work too.

7 hours ago, RufusDaMan said:

I'd like to see:

- Establish a clear playstyle for all factions with unique mechanics, and no mingling. If the empire is the agile, glasscannon, swarmy faction, other factions shouldn't get agile, glasscannon, swarmy ships.... Similarly, Rebels would be the only one to regen, and scum would be the only one to do nasty *** tricks like swapping upgrades or having illicit stuff.

7 hours ago, RufusDaMan said:

I'd like to see:

- Remove Slave I from the Empire and add some nice other ship instead, make Han , Chewie and Lando (along with a generic) dual faction pilots for Scum/Rebel, add many many characters as TIE pilots (like Hobbie , Wedge , Sabine , etc.), add Agent Kallus as Fulcrum to the Rebels.

So you want to increase faction identity but also reduce faction identity?

10 hours ago, iamfanboy said:

Make all of the "Discard to have an effect" EPTs except Crackshot cost 0 points - Adrenaline Rush, Cool Hand, and Lightning Reflexes. They're all super-marginal, and having them as "Well, I have an empty EPT slot..." fodder is better than just tossing them aside.

This would make those cards worthwhile in Epic, too. In a 3-hour, 10-turn, 12-ship battle a one-hit-wonder card is just a waste of points.

9 hours ago, MaxPower said:

Most importantly: punisher, kwing, uwing, IG-88, hwk should be on a "medium base", slightly adjusting some point costs.

Medium bases, 100% agreed.

7 hours ago, RufusDaMan said:

- Introduce objectives into the game in some way or the other, and have other win conditions than "kill everything, failing that, kill more than they do".

- Make the Lambda have a rear arc. It even has the **** cannon ffs. i'd pay extra for it, just do it.

Alternate routes to victory would be awesome.

Or, the next Imperial shuttle should do this (we need a Sentinel shuttle. . . )

Good time to replace all ships with gunboat packs.

8 minutes ago, Mattman7306 said:

So you want to increase faction identity but also reduce faction identity?

Faction identity should come from mechanics, not characters. Honoring the lore with things like that would be okay I think

2 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

If there was a second edition I would change fundamental mechanics to the extent that most cards would need to be changed.

I don't think having a 2nd Edition with fundamental mechanic re-writing and keeping the playerbase is really possible. At least not in the next 10 years. Considering the overwhelming statement on here which is "If a new edition is released where I need to rebuy ships, I'm out," a fundamental rewrite would most likely require some rebuying of ships (unless FFG decide to release a pack which contains every card, piece of cardboard & bit of plastic - so upgrades, pilots, bases, dials, tokens, etc) which would damage the playerbase massively.

I think in 10-15 years, if the game has stopped, then re-releasing as a new game might work - but I don't think the kind of rewrite you're proposing would work in the short term.

I'd make it out of mashed potato and the tears of a snail. Whatever we say here is pissing into the wind anyway so why not go wild?