So I was initially pretty bummed out that FFG made the missing blue line a "feature". It makes Reinforce a worse action in a head-on joust because it's easier to be to target either section of the C-ROC when you use the firing arc as the divider. But I decided to actually check out the lines of sight in Vassal and compare to the Gozanti. It's not nearly as bad as I thought.

Above are the C-ROC (red) and Gozanti (green) base shown side by side. Also shown are the LOS at each extreme to both the fore and aft sections. The area between the rulers on either side is the area where an enemy ship is able to target BOTH sections of the ship. The area is pretty much the same for both, but it is pushed down toward the fore in the case of the C-ROC. This means, as I said, the C-ROC is worse off in a straight on joust because it's easier for your opponent to just target the section that isn't being Reinforced. However the angle isn't as steep as I thought, so in practice I don't think it will matter that much.

Below are the two superimposed on top of one another (I did this by hand so it doesn't look perfect, but it's close enough):

I still think it's silly that FFG isn't owning up to their mistake and instead are making a permanent change to the ship, but in reality the change is not as bad as I thought.

Check out the mission picture in the new news article. The C-ROC ship base has the blue line on it.

1 hour ago, bgrelle said:

Check out the mission picture in the new news article. The C-ROC ship base has the blue line on it.

That's because it's a Gozanti base, not a C-ROC base. Note the green firing arc and different outline of the white ship icon.

Maybe they're trying to curtail Scum & Villainy from being OP in Epic play.

Kidding of course. It seems that Epic players are more level headed than their Competitive play brethren.

5 hours ago, bgrelle said:

Check out the mission picture in the new news article. The C-ROC ship base has the blue line on it.

That's the first thing I noticed when I read the article

Unless I'm mistaken (I don't really play Epic much) the lack of a blue line also gives the C-ROC true 360 degrees coverage with the Heavy Laser Turret, correct?

4 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

Unless I'm mistaken (I don't really play Epic much) the lack of a blue line also gives the C-ROC true 360 degrees coverage with the Heavy Laser Turret, correct?

The Gozanti also has true 360 because there is only one ship card to attach upgrades to, so you can fire from any point on the base to determine line of sight to a target. But good thought.

I was really bumbed about the FAQ and blue line mistake for a solid half hour. But then I came to the same conclusion you have - it really will affect very little. Using the firing arc line is a pretty elegant work-around, and even makes some sense when considering the shape of the ship.

But just...why? It seems like FFG has made a lot of little slip-ups lately in their products, and this is one of the worst. What's happened to their quality control?

Yeah I'm usually a very vocal and staunch defender of FFG but this is the first time I've been disappointed in them. Not mad... just disappointed. And then there's the obviously hastily written, typo filled FAQ entry on it. Like c'mon guys, get your **** together.

FFG must have lost their really good quality assurance person half a year ago, because their games have been plagued with small errors like this for that amount of time. Netrunner is especially hard hit.

Does the FAQ ruling not create a massive disadvantage? I always thought "aft" crits were worse than "fore" crits. This new ruling seems to make the "aft" much easier to target...

7 hours ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Yeah I'm usually a very vocal and staunch defender of FFG but this is the first time I've been disappointed in them. Not mad... just disappointed. And then there's the obviously hastily written, typo filled FAQ entry on it. Like c'mon guys, get your **** together.

All your Starkiller base are belong to us.

3 hours ago, Gingerleo said:

Does the FAQ ruling not create a massive disadvantage? I always thought "aft" crits were worse than "fore" crits. This new ruling seems to make the "aft" much easier to target...

Like all transports, the C-Roc shares its shields with both aft and fore sections. Crits are very dangerous, but what is even more dangerous is to have both sections exposed at the same time (which negates the reinforce action). Defkhan1's drawing sort of proves that its not such a big deal.

Also, while all huges so far have more damnable crits in the back, do we know that it is the case with the C-Roc? Would anyone who managed to get their hands on it please share?

4 hours ago, Gingerleo said:

Does the FAQ ruling not create a massive disadvantage? I always thought "aft" crits were worse than "fore" crits. This new ruling seems to make the "aft" much easier to target...

It's possible, but I wouldn't call it a "massive" disadvantage. In fact, considering all the scummy, not-nice things like Cloaking Device and Pulse Ray Shield, it kind of fits in with Scum's theme. (From a certain point of view.)

Before you guys take FFG to the pillory for bad QC consider this. They are making content for Episodes 7, 8 and 9 as well as for three stand alone movies in addition to their other X-wing content which is in addition to their other Star Wars games and their other games including the recently released Rune Wars. A missing Blue Line is a ridiculously small fart in the scheme of things. Lighten up!

21 minutes ago, Stoneface said:

Before you guys take FFG to the pillory for bad QC consider this. They are making content for Episodes 7, 8 and 9 as well as for three stand alone movies in addition to their other X-wing content which is in addition to their other Star Wars games and their other games including the recently released Rune Wars. A missing Blue Line is a ridiculously small fart in the scheme of things. Lighten up!

They should hire more people then. Too much work should never be a valid excuse for poor quality, and in my experience is not an excuse most customers would accept if you present it to them.

Fact remains that it IS bad QC, and it comes on top of other bad QC/general lack of interest in Epic from FFG (just have a quick read through Epic tournament rules for example).

1 hour ago, LordBlades said:

They should hire more people then. Too much work should never be a valid excuse for poor quality, and in my experience is not an excuse most customers would accept if you present it to them.

Fact remains that it IS bad QC, and it comes on top of other bad QC/general lack of interest in Epic from FFG (just have a quick read through Epic tournament rules for example).

You mean the ones that haven't been updated since 2015?

1 hour ago, LordBlades said:

They should hire more people then. Too much work should never be a valid excuse for poor quality, and in my experience is not an excuse most customers would accept if you present it to them.

Fact remains that it IS bad QC, and it comes on top of other bad QC/general lack of interest in Epic from FFG (just have a quick read through Epic tournament rules for example).

Don't forget the need for companies to control the balance sheet. It's easy to armchair solutions when you're not paying for them. We only see the mistakes and complain about stuff we think are unbalanced but our view is hampered by tunnel vision. We see only have a very narrow view of the situation. Granted the missing blue line should've been caught before going to the printer but there may have been talk of changing the location or omitting it all together. The reason it's not there may be more complicated than "somebody effed up". We don't know the why and only notice the absence.

How does it affect the game? It doesn't. Either accept the FAQ or draw your own line. Problem solved. And before anyone suggests that FFG should replace all those bases missing the "thin blue line" or FAQ'd upgrade cards, the cost/benefit analysis has probably been done. Doing so would bring a lot of good will back to FFG, the cost to do so probably out weighs the benefits.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the missing blue line matter more about los TO rather than los FROM? If Front is defined as anything outside of arc, as opposed to the blue line I think I get more freedom when shooting at a Croc.

No matter where you stand on this [missing blue line] issue, telling people to "settle down, lighten up, or chill out," isn't helping at all. If you don't care about quality, consistency, or neglected rules (epic), then do it quietly. Otherwise, you're just trolling people who literally want the Game to be the best it could possibly be.

It's only epic. Who cares. Model looks great.

3 minutes ago, tortugatron said:

It's only epic. Who cares.

Why you stuck up, half-witted, scruffy looking nerf herder!

(Wow. That's gotta be the meanest thing I've ever said to anybody on the forums. But it's a Star Wars quote, so it's okay.)

7 minutes ago, tortugatron said:

It's only epic. Who cares. Model looks great.

I thought FFG did... I was wrong.

6 minutes ago, lazycomet said:

I thought FFG did... I was wrong.

"I care."

The fact of the matter is there was a production error. How it happened I am sure is being addressed within FFG so that it will mitigate issues like that in the future. Once a massive run like this is done it is not possible to fix. The printing process does not work like that. The way the colors are laid down would prevent them from just running them back through the process to add the blue line so once its done its done.

You would need to discard all of the printed product and begin again from raw print stock.

Print stock has a lead time (my company prints literately hundreds of tons of paper every month) so once this error is discovered if you decide to redo the run you would need to place an order to get new stock for it. When you set up presses it takes a lot of time to do that as well, so you just lost all that print time and you cant leave the press configured while you wait for new stock from your paper suppliers. Bottom line is once they printed this base it was going in the product to be shipped because any other solution would have caused considerable delay and added unacceptable costs.

Producing a little FAQ to change the rule was a far cheaper and more acceptable way of dealing with the mistake.

I personally dont think its a big problem, however I think the FAQ solution was a little bit of a window into the process for us. I suspect that no one at FFG found out about the error until the already packaged product hit the US and samples were pulled to inspect. Otherwise they would have printed the changed arc in the rule sheet for the ship and made the adjusted arc part of the nature of the ship.

1 minute ago, GringoFett said:

I suspect that no one at FFG found out about the error until the already packaged product hit the US and samples were pulled to inspect. Otherwise they would have printed the changed arc in the rule sheet for the ship and made the adjusted arc part of the nature of the ship.

On the contrary, virtually all images of the C-ROC on announcement articles show no blue line. The only exceptions have the C-ROC model superimposed on a Gozanti base. So they've likely been aware for sometime, even before they went into packaging, but couldn't do anything about it. Idle speculation, anyway. Your other points are well said.

I'm not buying this thing anyway, but I'm satisfied with the work around. I'm just hoping people at my shop start getting excited to try some Epic now!