How does making it an upgrade card not just make it an auto include?

Does it really improve list variety when both players can include it and now we are right back where we started only with 10 or so less points to build variety into our fleets?

I just don't see a way that fixes this issue without a core rules change.

Yes! Get rid of the activation advantage mechanic all the way!

Spreading points over multiple units has more advantages than disadvantages even without being able to out activate the opponent. Multiple small attacks are just better than one big attack simple due to the nature of defence tokens.

Add this to the core rules: "If you have fewer unactivated ships than the opponent you may skip the activation." Also something similar for squadrons.

Do NOT add some upgrade or commander or other ability that offers a "skip activation" ability. This would just shift the activation advantage metagame.

Get rid of it all the way. It is a bad mechanic that limits competitive lists and makes multiple flotillas ( = cheap activations) an almost must have.

#GetRidOfActivationAdvantage #MakeBigShipsGreat

19 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

How does making it an upgrade card not just make it an auto include?

Does it really improve list variety when both players can include it and now we are right back where we started only with 10 or so less points to build variety into our fleets?

I just don't see a way that fixes this issue without a core rules change.

Thank you! Someone else who gets it.

What if it's a large-ship only officer upgrade? Something like:

Experienced Navigator: 5pts

Large ship only. During your turn, you may spend a Nav token or exhaust this card instead of activating a ship.

Open to tweaking but this would let large ship fleets have a way to 'pass' but there is a cost, both in points, tokens, and opportunity cost for your officer slot. And MSU has no access to it since it is large ship only.

3 minutes ago, Rettere said:

What if it's a large-ship only officer upgrade? Something like:

Experienced Navigator: 5pts

Large ship only. During your turn, you may spend a Nav token or exhaust this card instead of activating a ship.

Open to tweaking but this would let large ship fleets have a way to 'pass' but there is a cost, both in points, tokens, and opportunity cost for your officer slot. And MSU has no access to it since it is large ship only.

"Cannot be on Small or Medium ship" or even just not Small. I want my Executor!

Though really I agree that it should be a rule not just another auto include component. I don't want a "solved" game and an upgrade this important seems to "solve" the problem of how to make a good list.

Thoughts (not that I am stating there is a problem, but for the discussion):

1) Put it in a defensive retrofit or weapons team slot (call it something that makes sense there) and that makes you give up something good. So it is not an auto-include.

and/or

2) Large ship only, that by itself limits the number of times you can include it because they are so expensive.

and/or

3) Discard the card, not exhaust.

My real issue with Flotillas: The big ships could generally push a big squadron strike at the cost of activation. Now you can get activation, and it ALSO makes the squadron value less useful on the big ships. Plus you can get the BCC. It's tough to justify not taking them.

58 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

How does making it an upgrade card not just make it an auto include?

Does it really improve list variety when both players can include it and now we are right back where we started only with 10 or so less points to build variety into our fleets?

I just don't see a way that fixes this issue without a core rules change.

I guess cause it would be large base only? The MSA (Mass Small Activations) fleet can't take it?

5 hours ago, Barney said:

Rather than a pass mechanic, how about flotilla's activate in the squad phase with an exception that each large base ship in your fleet allows you to activate one in the ship phase?

i haven't any experience in playing this, just throwing it out there as another option.

I think flotillas activating in the squad phase works pretty well in theory. I'd just leave it at that, no extra rules. You really need a good size group to test these things though. Playing one game with a friend and saying "it works!" isn't good enough.

1 minute ago, homedrone said:

I guess cause it would be large base only? The MSA (Mass Small Activations) fleet can't take it?

18 minutes ago, Rettere said:

What if it's a large-ship only officer upgrade?

You can easily fit a large ship and 4-5 smaller ships in a fleet with 2 aces for squad cover. Rebels benefit from this more than Imps do. Ackbar80 is 180 points and you can fit 4 flotillas for under 80 points, which was actually one of the lists that made top 8 at Worlds. Tycho+Shara are 33 points and probably the best ace duo in the game.

There are variations of 6 activation Ackbar80s too.

The activation issue cannot be fixed with upgrades. It needs to be a core rule change.

My thoughts on passing;

1) A passing mechanic should not work if the two fleets have the same number of activations. Being able to pass while you have the same number if not more ships than your opponent would be too strong. This probably rules out an upgrade card, as it would be dead weight in some matchups.

2) Such a rule shouldn't come into play when ships are lost. Fleets become less organized as they take losses, not more organized. I also don't think a mechanic should do anything to disincentivize destroying a ship. Again, this kind of rules out an upgrade card.

3) This is more subjective, but I feel some degree of activation advantage should be preserved. Out activating your opponent by one is a nice advantage, but it generally comes at a cost. It's only when one fleet has a significant activation advantage that things start to get out of control in my experience.

So, my idea; Before deployment, if your opponent's list has two or more ships than your own, you receive one "Delay token" for every two ships you are outnumbered by. Each turn, you may flip a delay token to its opposite side (Color coded like the initiative token) instead of activating a ship, but only if your opponent has more undestroyed ships that you.

Let the activation play in peace. Create another tactic that could fight it reliably.

1 hour ago, BrobaFett said:

How does making it an upgrade card not just make it an auto include?

Does it really improve list variety when both players can include it and now we are right back where we started only with 10 or so less points to build variety into our fleets?

I just don't see a way that fixes this issue without a core rules change.

Well, it wouldn't be an auto include for fleets without a large ship... but I see your point, it certainly would be for those with big ships. But then more people would be taking big ships, so that's something.

Seems to me that people fall into two different camps

Camp 1: this is simply a balance issue that currently favors small ships and many activations vs large ships and fewer activations. Ergo the solution is an upgrade card or two that will rebalance the problem.

Camp 2: This is a fundamental fail of the game mechanics that disproportationatly favors having as many activations as possible with negligible draw backs from taking only small ships. Ergo you need to alter the core rules in order to correct what is a rules issue.

I fall into camp two.

Why should I be forced to give up upgrade slots and points so that I can try to some how match my opponent who most likely will have included the same upgrade in his fleet. Because the fundamental problem is there virtually NO drawbacks to having the highest number of activations possible. Implementing a pass mechanic.

After giving it about 5 min of thought I've come up with a middle ground idea that doesn't destroy the viability of high activation fleets from the fear of the triple ISD fleet passing then obliterating everything in its way.

"If there is a disparity between the number of ships included in each list, the player with the the fewest ships gets a number of tokens equal to the difference in ships from his opponent. During the course of the game before activating one of his ships the player my discard one of his tokens in order to pass his activation back to his opponent."

This allows for lower activation fleets to have a finite resource that can be used for that critical moment during the game when he needs to delay activations. Creates a bluffing component as well of trying to get your opponent o waste his delay tokens.

4 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

I think y'all are missing the point. The point would be to give the player with the least amount of ships the ability to pass a number of times equal to the difference between their list and their opponents list.

Anyone ever played Bolt Action? That game has a very interesting way of taking turns, basically both players put coloured die into a bag equal to the number of units they have. So if one player has 4 units he gets 4 dice and if the other has 6 he gets six. Turns are essentially taken by order of the dice removed from the bag. So its quite possible to take several goes consecutively. I found this a very interesting concept and often thought about implementing it for a game of armada to see how the game would pan out. It adds a level of randomness to the game which i found very appealing, because most of us can plan ahead per turn knowing what we will activate first,second etc etc.

I really should give it a try and see if it would actually work.

just a thought but what if instead of passing you still past turns. For example you have a double ISD list, and your opponent has 5 activations you activate then he activates then you activate you have no more activations left. Your opponent then has 3 more activations. Boy put in a rule that says if you do not have any activations you may activate another ship if it has An unrevealed command dial. So in this scenario by taking five activations you give the double ISD the ability to activate ISD a second time in that round. Then do the round end would be triggered once every ship has at least one revealed Command dial. So ships with a higher command suddenly become a little bit more appealing as if you don't have any other ships to activate in your opponent does you can activate that ship again in the round. I feel like this might prompt a balanced approach to Fleet building. Anyone have a nice activations so that your ship that you really want to activate last like demo gets to activate last, but if you put in too many activations you start to feed your opponent higher quality activations of Their Own. This is only just a theory and trying to think outside the box of a simple pass mechanic. And it's something that makes command values a little bit more interesting on ships and a shape with only a one command value would never get the opportunity to activate again and that same round we're a shape with three and two might I think it might help balance out Fleet building but again activating and ISD 2 or 3 times and around seems fairly powerful. But again to counter that you take less activations. But again it might just evolved into a large ship game which is something you don't want, as we want Variety in the game. Again it's just an idea a suggestion definitely would need play testing, just trying to think of different options.

22 minutes ago, Milienius said:

I think y'all are missing the point. The point would be to give the player with the least amount of ships the ability to pass a number of times equal to the difference between their list and their opponents list.

That's not what the upgrades do that I was referring to. If you can't tell, I'm against upgrade based passing. Rule based passing works much better.

What I find intriguing about all this, is that there are at least two ships that DONT rely on activation abuse.

Arquiten - Intel Officer, Dual TurboLaser Turrets

CR90A - TRC

Now one of these we have seen many times for quite a long time, and it highlights why I find this intriguing. For a long time the TRC90A was used as activation delay for rebels and it drove imperials mad. The reason was very simple. The TRC90A was never just activation delay, it had a primary purpose. It is a ship which doesnt depend on activating at a specific point in the sequence, it stays at long range out of danger and every turn nibbles at its opponent before moving into a new position of relative safety. It spread the damage and activation quality out over the full turn rather than occupying a burst point at the start and end of the turn.

In this wave the imperials received their own version. The Arquiten. It serves the same purpose, it adds damage and activation quality outside of the traditional burst points. Which coincides with a second unit which already did for imperials, one which was much hated by rebels. Major Rhymer.

And here is the key, for a long time we have had fleets which didnt lean on activation abuse, and yet somehow with the introduction of flotillas these types of fleets have been shunned and it isnt obviously clear why. Outactivating as a concept is generally used to try and avoid taking heavy burst damage at the start of the next turn. There are three ships which epitimise this, MC30, Yavaris and Demolisher. The MC30 can be ignored as it doesnt hurt at the end of turn, so only burst once. Yavaris has been brought to such a point where like Demolisher it can hit hard at the end of the turn and again at the start of the next. Its not the flotillas themselves which have changed the game, though they do help.

So my observation is that the reason that activation advantage is so highly valued is that players are overreliant on burst damage. Now whether this is due to player choice or game design is quite a different question. Should Yavaris and Demolisher be weakened? Or Should the alternative TRC90's and Arq's be strengthened along with other sustained damage units added?

Whether the activation sequence is ABAA or AABA makes little difference, the burst damage remains unaffected.

I use 2 TRC90s as activation delays in my squadron heavy fleets. I don't own a 3rd flotilla on either side so I can't get the extra padding. TRC90s work very well at going 1st and 2nd since it forces my opponent to move closer to my bombers which allows my flotillas to push them. And once my bombers engage, the TRC90 can go 4th n 5th and deal the finishing blow.

On Imps, I prefer FT Raider and a TRC Arq. It's a bit more expensive but serves the same purpose.

33 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

What I find intriguing about all this, is that there are at least two ships that DONT rely on activation abuse.

Arquiten - Intel Officer, Dual TurboLaser Turrets

CR90A - TRC

Now one of these we have seen many times for quite a long time, and it highlights why I find this intriguing. For a long time the TRC90A was used as activation delay for rebels and it drove imperials mad. The reason was very simple. The TRC90A was never just activation delay, it had a primary purpose. It is a ship which doesnt depend on activating at a specific point in the sequence, it stays at long range out of danger and every turn nibbles at its opponent before moving into a new position of relative safety. It spread the damage and activation quality out over the full turn rather than occupying a burst point at the start and end of the turn.

In this wave the imperials received their own version. The Arquiten. It serves the same purpose, it adds damage and activation quality outside of the traditional burst points. Which coincides with a second unit which already did for imperials, one which was much hated by rebels. Major Rhymer.

And here is the key, for a long time we have had fleets which didnt lean on activation abuse, and yet somehow with the introduction of flotillas these types of fleets have been shunned and it isnt obviously clear why. Outactivating as a concept is generally used to try and avoid taking heavy burst damage at the start of the next turn. There are three ships which epitimise this, MC30, Yavaris and Demolisher. The MC30 can be ignored as it doesnt hurt at the end of turn, so only burst once. Yavaris has been brought to such a point where like Demolisher it can hit hard at the end of the turn and again at the start of the next. Its not the flotillas themselves which have changed the game, though they do help.

So my observation is that the reason that activation advantage is so highly valued is that players are overreliant on burst damage. Now whether this is due to player choice or game design is quite a different question. Should Yavaris and Demolisher be weakened? Or Should the alternative TRC90's and Arq's be strengthened along with other sustained damage units added?

Whether the activation sequence is ABAA or AABA makes little difference, the burst damage remains unaffected.

I think it's just that players are cognizant of 2 important things:

Opportunity and efficiency.

Opportunity to do damage is something that is both fleeting and in very limited supply in the game. High activation is a way to deny opportunity to an opponent.

Now, if Opportunity is a rare beast indeed, one must extract maximum efficiency from it (burst).

As for the larger question, I have suggested in the past that a simple rule would be that a player can pass a number of times equal to the difference of their activations and their opponents activations minus 1

Minus 1 because you don't want to take away all the advantages of bringing high activation lists and frankly 4 activations vs 3 is a meh. You really are tying to fix 6 activations vs 2 or 3. If the rule is always in effect it also takes into account combat losses. Its easy to remember and leverage (you have 5 I have 3, I get to pass once. I destroy 1 of yours I have no pass, I destroy 4 of yours you have a pass).

Naturally this whole thing could be also fixed by simply saying flotillas are not ships for the purposes of tabling, which would also be fairly elegant.

3 minutes ago, Hastatior said:

I think it's just that players are cognizant of 2 important things:

Opportunity and efficiency.

Opportunity to do damage is something that is both fleeting and in very limited supply in the game. High activation is a way to deny opportunity to an opponent.

Now, if Opportunity is a rare beast indeed, one must extract maximum efficiency from it (burst).

All fine, but opportunity ISNT rare if you build differently.

I'm in favor of a pass rule. Too often things just go down screwy. I recommend two puffs before a pass. Im so sick of people getting three, even four puffs before a pass. It really makes me feel like I have no agency in whats going on at the table. If you just make it puff-puff-pass you ensure that both sides get a better draw.

Looking for playtesters to help me look into this.

In any game with a pass system, one or the other player will always have the "control" of passing. Either I can simply hold up the game, or we can get into a staring match, or I can functionally forbid you to pass unless it is to my advantage. I want a passing system to include important choices and consequences. Last time this came up, I suggested a three-pass rule. I still like it.

In short, three passes in a row, (me, you, me) and the round ends. Move to the squadron phase, all ships that did not activate discard their top command dial.

The way I see it working is this: On my turn, I don't like the tactical situation. I don't want to move forward, or I want to wait for the enemy to come to me, or whatever. So I pass.

My opponent has two options: either he can take an action, which, at least in theory, is playing into my hand, or he can refuse to take the bait. If he passes, then I'm right back where I was a second ago.

Now that it's back to me, I can either go ahead and make the move, or I can end the round. I'll be right back here next round, though, so it behooves me to move.

An alternative might simply be to forbid the third pass. If I pass, and my opponent passes it right back, I must take an action. That, however, functionally means I can only pass if my opponent lets me. By giving me the option to end the round, it means that he can only take away my "pass" option if he's willing to keep things as they are now. This also encourages an aggressive play style; if I'm winning, I might be perfectly happy to end the round early. You, who are losing, must come to me, if you want to attack my ships.

36 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Whether the activation sequence is ABAA or AABA makes little difference, the burst damage remains unaffected.

I don't think that is so. As it isn't really between ABAA and AABA but more aBaA followed with ABaa. Demos power comes from the whole last-first thing. When you out activate you increase your chance you will be the one doing the last-first. And the "A" ship can take orders other than just pushing squadrons around. The "a" ships get to push damage while staying safe with their scatter tokens. The "B" ship can't push squadrons and navigate or repair. MSU gets to execute more commands.

'ed

3 minutes ago, Hastatior said:

I think it's just that players are cognizant of 2 important things:

Opportunity and efficiency.

Opportunity to do damage is something that is both fleeting and in very limited supply in the game. High activation is a way to deny opportunity to an opponent.

Now, if Opportunity is a rare beast indeed, one must extract maximum efficiency from it (burst).

5 minutes ago, JgzMan said:

In short, three passes in a row, (me, you, me) and the round ends. Move to the squadron phase, all ships that did not activate discard their top command dial.

Would that mean anyone can pass at any time? I don't that that would really help. You should only be allowed to pass if you have fewer activations left than the opponent otherwise it comes down to activation advantage again.

13 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

I'm in favor of a pass rule. Too often things just go down screwy. I recommend two puffs before a pass. Im so sick of people getting three, even four puffs before a pass. It really makes me feel like I have no agency in whats going on at the table. If you just make it puff-puff-pass you ensure that both sides get a better draw.

Looking for playtesters to help me look into this.

But isn't that unfairly forcing activations onto someone who has never puffed before? requiring them to puff twice when they don't even know if this is the game for them?