This is probably how X-Wing 2.0 will work - they're trialling it with the Runewars double dial.

18 hours ago, BadMotivator said:

This would not be a good idea. It would kill Aces even more than they already are. They're supposed to have an advantage with their actions. That and shooting first is the benefit of high pilot skill.

They also have an extremely high skill ceiling to play, so it's not like arc dodging aces are easy mode. Mindlink crap and Sabine k-wing bombs are easy mode.

You are talking about skill floor, and bombers and aces have roughly the same skill floor. Both work by making descisions based on perfect knowledge of the board state and the skills you need to master before being good with them are just template judgement. If you have that down both are, compared to single action arc ships, relatively easy.

Now Mindlinkers? They do the same things as others, but a lot more efficiently, making them easier than lists doing similar things (see: Fangaroo vs. Palpaces).

The "reactive"-ness of the action phase brings a tactical level into otherwise the strategic planning of the dial setting phase. It is an important part of what makes X-wing such a fun game. This holds true not only for the the top PS-aces, but for ALL ships with more than 1 possible action available during the activation phase - even a 8 PS1 academy TIE Fighter swarm.

Learn to use low PS blocking to force your opponent into the perfect position from your perspective. It is so much fun...

1 hour ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

You are talking about skill floor, and bombers and aces have roughly the same skill floor. Both work by making descisions based on perfect knowledge of the board state and the skills you need to master before being good with them are just template judgement. If you have that down both are, compared to single action arc ships, relatively easy.

I disagree - if you don't think a couple of turns ahead, you'll easily put both your arc dodgers and your bombers in positions where they have no good options for the next turn(s), and while that spells "no damage" for bombers, it spells "dead ship" for arc dodgers.

My own personal preference is to decrease the number of decisions made with perfect knowledge of the board state. Low PS action bombs and high PS re-positioning are both frustrating to play against for basically the same reason.

I would be very interested to see the results if somebody tried playing the game this way.

The only way I would personally agree to something like this is if ptl didn't exist, any low ps generic with ept would become too ace-like why have ps at all, and if multi action ship chains were removed think sabine in a shuttle. Other than that it looks ok past machine gunning actions.

1 hour ago, haslo said:

I disagree - if you don't think a couple of turns ahead, you'll easily put both your arc dodgers and your bombers in positions where they have no good options for the next turn(s), and while that spells "no damage" for bombers, it spells "dead ship" for arc dodgers.

Last time I checked 9 health melt pretty quickly when everyone has 3+ dice with TL and focus... When you screw up your K-Wings they are dead for sure, no way out. When you screw up your ace? You have 3 dice, autothrusters, often you are turteled up...you may very well just luck out of situations that should spell certain doom. And don't even get me started on what happens if you fail to plan ahead a few turns with your arc-locked, single action ships.

22 hours ago, Jetfire said:

I strongly dislike it as it applies to X-wing specifically as it is a dogfighting game. I strongly like it in regards to Armada which is a fleet command game.

Agree. The "plan 3 turns ahead" thing is what turned me off the most about Armada. Having to guess everything at the beginning of the turn removes a lot of the moment-to-moment tactics from the game.

I'd call it "Expert Mode X-Wing".

7 hours ago, SOTL said:

This is probably how X-Wing 2.0 will work - they're trialling it with the Runewars double dial.

If Runewars really is a test for X-wing 2.0, I'll stick with Runewars and X-wing 1.0. I just can't afford to buy X-wing all over, but that's another topic.

Now, the thing that really makes the double dial work in Runewars, is that each item on the dials has a color (called a 'stance'). Actions (what we would call 'maneuvers') can only be modified by a modifier (what we call 'actions') of a matching color. Now, the reason this breaks down is because in Runewars there are more than just maneuvers on the first dial, allowing your units to stay motionless should you choose to do so. This doesn't work for a starfighter combat game which is meant to be dynamic. Moreover, there is no turn/bank maneuver. Instead, you select a march action (move straight forward), and a modifier that can change that to a bank or turn.

EDIT: But let's imagine that the first dial is just maneuvers. You could possibly bring this second dial idea to X-wing, but without the color matching. However, the second wheel then feels a bit cumbersome because without restrictions, there is no dynamic decision making. If you did use colors, you would end up with a situation where you could only perform an Evade or Target Lock action on certain maneuvers (I think the Focus action would be white so it would match all maneuvers).

I'm not saying they can't come up with a way to make it work, but it will end up feeling very different from both Runewars and X-wing.

On May 18, 2017 at 2:16 PM, Jetfire said:

I strongly dislike it as it applies to X-wing specifically as it is a dogfighting game. I strongly like it in regards to Armada which is a fleet command game.

That's about how I feel on it. X-Wing is a dogfighting game and I feel like the way actions work now simulate the reactive-ness and faster speed of dogfighting better than the proposal in the OP. Armada is a slower fleet game and handles "plan your actions in advance" pretty well.

X-Wing where you have to plan your actions prior to moving would be an incredibly different game and it's not one I think I would like as much. The concept of 'Pilot Skill' in this game doesn't bother me, I don't think generic ships in general are dead or unplayable, and I'm not looking for a game where everything is perfectly balanced against everything else.

For boost and barrel roll yeah. Absolutely. They should have too for fake physics same. You can just decide after traveling so far that you want to barrel roll, the point of a barrel roll is that you don't run into the shop in front of you, so why can't you when you bump them? For the others, meh doesn't really work.

10 hours ago, Parakitor said:

EDIT: But let's imagine that the first dial is just maneuvers. You could possibly bring this second dial idea to X-wing, but without the color matching. However, the second wheel then feels a bit cumbersome because without restrictions, there is no dynamic decision making. If you did use colors, you would end up with a situation where you could only perform an Evade or Target Lock action on certain maneuvers (I think the Focus action would be white so it would match all maneuvers).

I'm not saying they can't come up with a way to make it work, but it will end up feeling very different from both Runewars and X-wing.

This makes the most sense I've seen yet, tying actions to manuevers. There would be no actions persay but how you fly opens a potential list of available things that can happen. This would eliminate ships having an action list because of what they are but make it dependent on available manuevers. A straight move might give you a k-turn and TL list, a soft bank could have boost, a hard turn could have barrel roll and evade. Focus would be in every list. Speed would also change the list and every ship would have the same template so it would only require 1 master list for all ships.

I like that any ship could do anything conceiveably as long as you had the manuever. Stress could be a built in PTL effect of you can activate any number of actions in your available list but you stress for each past the first and would funtion like it does now. If you are stressed you get no action other than remove a stress by making an actionless move but any move counts, no red and green bs. You would also have to eliminate giving stress as an ability or attack because it would respresent a pilot pushing themselves not an abuseable control mechanic.

Ions could drop your speed but not force a 1 forward drift. I can even see shield regen as a possibility or something like a fortify action for non shielded ships that gives them a single crit immunity. Sorry for the convoluted post but I started and got excited at the possibilities. Lol I really like this idea.