How bout this? it does the opposite of Autothrusters. That means Fenn Rau wants this more than AT, because it works nicely with the Title and his ability BUT leaves him susceptible to turrets.

Interceptors can take both, but being in arc at range 2 is still a serious counter to them, as well as Fenn Rau. It also doesn't increase their effectiveness against turrets.

Vader wants this, because he will literally take anything, just to help him survive.

It makes TIE-s tougher jousters, which is nice in the era of fully modded 5 dice attacks.

@Zazaa it's kinda odd to have a card say it's an "Action:" but provides a free action. It wouldn't really be free then.

If we're going the mod route for this card just like Autothrusters how about this:

Reactive Thrusters (Mod):

"Once per round after an enemy ship acquires a target lock on you, you may perform a free barrel roll action. If you do, you may remove a red target lock token from your ship. You can only equip this if you have the barrel roll action."

I decided on once per round because otherwise you could never be target locked unless you're stressed or didn't have room to perform it. Granted those are definitely possible, but for a generic mod it could be unbalanced. Point wise would probably be 2, maybe 1.

14 hours ago, Reiver said:

is it that small ships in general now suffer?

If Worlds are reliable, that's actually true it seems. Just a 4th of lists in the top128 did not use a large base ship, and a 5th did use large base only.

1 hour ago, RStan said:

@Zazaa it's kinda odd to have a card say it's an "Action:" but provides a free action. It wouldn't really be free then.

If we're going the mod route for this card just like Autothrusters how about this:

Reactive Thrusters (Mod):

"Once per round after an enemy ship acquires a target lock on you, you may perform a free barrel roll action. If you do, you may remove a red target lock token from your ship. You can only equip this if you have the barrel roll action."

I decided on once per round because otherwise you could never be target locked unless you're stressed or didn't have room to perform it. Granted those are definitely possible, but for a generic mod it could be unbalanced. Point wise would probably be 2, maybe 1.

I could dig that!

Um.

You guys realise that this thing would have to be insanely overpowered to justify taking it over EU on vader, right?

If I really wanted to give small ship rollers a good mod (I don't think it's a great idea in general- because many of the ships that need something extra don't have the rolls either), I'd go with a 5-point small ship only upgrade that gives you the boost action plus something. That way it's not really a valid upgrade on interceptors and the like, but a good boost for other rollers.

For example:

Small ship only.

If you have the barrel roll on your action bar, your action bar gains the boost action.

When defending, your opponent may not spend focus tokens unless they also have you target locked.

The problem with upgrades like this and autothrusters is it punishes ships with no post maneuvering actions, who are at a disadvantage already.

I rather see an upgrade for ships with no boost, barrel roll, cloak, or slam to help on defense.

As a bonus it would be helping t65 xwings!

Evasive thrusters (mod) 4 points.

Small ship only.

During your modify defense dice step, you may discard this card to perform a free barrel roll action. Then cancel all attack dice. You may only equip this kid if you have (roll) on your..."

so if your stressed or blocked you can't evade.

2 minutes ago, Shenannigan said:

Evasive thrusters (mod) 4 points.

Small ship only.

During your modify defense dice step, you may discard this card to perform a free barrel roll action. Then cancel all attack dice. You may only equip this kid if you have (roll) on your..."

so if your stressed or blocked you. Any evade.

You cannot perform free actions while stressed.

21 hours ago, UnitOmega said:

"Attitude Control Thrusters"

Title. Assign to any forum member. That member may no longer post nerf, fix, or complaint threads.

21 hours ago, Larky Bobble said:

Honestly, I like the idea of combining the three ideas so far presented (edit: as I started typing this) ...

As a Mod name "Thrust ...." sounds better for engine reasons

2 pts: ¨"If defending at range 2 and in arc of the attacker, you may perform a free barrel roll action, if you do so you may change 1 blank evade into an evade result. You then receive 1 stress. Ony ships with Barrel roll.... "

That'll get Soontir back on the table in no time!

Shoot me and I'll:

• Barrel Roll out of arc
• get focused
• flip two blanks to evades
• laugh

36 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Title. Assign to any forum member. That member may no longer post nerf, fix, or complaint threads.

Combine with "Reaction Control System", member can't post reaction images, complain about a type of thread in that thread, or take the obvious bait.

2 hours ago, Elavion said:

You cannot perform free actions while stressed.

Right. Fat thumbs. So I fixed it but that was the idea.

41 minutes ago, skotothalamos said:

That'll get Soontir back on the table in no time!

Shoot me and I'll:

• Barrel Roll out of arc
• get focused
• flip two blanks to evades
• laugh

I presume the Emperor is involved in flipping one of the two blanks? And that he didn´ t stress in the activation phase as he knew that he would only be shot at by ships at range two in the shooting phase, adn that he has free space to BR into... That´ s quite a lot of assumptions.. But I´ d be happy to see Soontir laughing again....

I don´t think it particularly better than Stealth Device on him, myself. Given his already strong action efficiency, the extra evade die in combination with the emperor could be stronger as it´ s applicable at all ranges and arcs (until lost)...

2 hours ago, markcsoul said:

The problem with upgrades like this and autothrusters is it punishes ships with no post maneuvering actions, who are at a disadvantage already.

I rather see an upgrade for ships with no boost, barrel roll, cloak, or slam to help on defense.

As a bonus it would be helping t65 xwings!

I like the idea, even as it is completely countering the original post.

But an evasive benefit for small ships explicitly lacking repositioning actions sounds appealing

Just come out with a card that let's vader equip 2 mods.

Buffing Vader directly seems more practical than something that buffs every single barrel rolling ship. It send like there are way too many of them, and their roles and positions in the meta way too spread out - anything from Jumpmasters and Protectorates right down to Scyks and TIE Bombers. Not to mention the complications of ships like the E Wing, where buffing one pilot might be highly problematic.

The problem is that the elements that make Vader Vader are spread out amongst other imperial ships that are right on the edge of being competitive, and risk being made too powerful. Even assuming Imperial Only, anything with a high PS small base destruction gas to be careful not to buff Soontir or The Inquisitor. Anything based around forcing crits through with ATC has to be built with Kylo in mind. And anything leveraging multiple actions has to remember that PtL (and to a lesser extent EI) exists.

One advantage Vader does have is that at a native 9 and with two natural actions, he doesn't have anything stapled to his EPT slot. Maybe that is where you could target it? Possibly something along these lines:

Dark Forces. EPT. 1 point. Imperial Only. Small Ship Only. When attacking, if the defender suffers critical damage from your attack, assign an evade token to your ship. You may not equip this if your pilot skill is 7 or lower.

That buffs Vader's defences and kind of works for the other prominent imperial force user in The Inquisitor but is kind of anti synergistic with TIE x1, and he'd probably prefer PtL anyway, as would Soontir. In theory you could get some Kylo interactions in high PS TIE shuttles, but without automatic crit generation that's much less scary.

With this, Vader repositions, target locks, shoots first because of his native 9, gets a crit through thanks to ATC, then gets a free evade to help with defence. X7 defenders have shown how hard it is to kill three dice with an evade token every turn, but with the Palp Nerf, lack of a white K and the fact that you can't spam multiple Vaders it should be much leas meta defining than X7s were.

Yeah, I started to think about X7s with a buff on R2... It wouldn´ t be nice...

How about a non BR or Boosting Small Ship defensive Mod then, for all those poor static pilots!