14 hours ago, Transmogrifier said:

FFG's costing of PS has been fundamentally flawed from the beginning and they have never fully addressed the problem. The fixed arithmetic scale they use for costing PS on basically all ships is a very poor approximation of the actual value PS affords the different ships/pilots. The value of PS is in the amount of extra damage it allows you to deal over the course of a match: you deal extra damage by getting an additional attack off before dying, you deal extra damage by being able to pick up TLs and fire ordnance, you deal extra damage by repositioning to get shots/get better shots, you deal extra damage by repositioning to avoid shots, live longer and get more attacks off, etc.

Certain ships/pilots/upgrade combos are much better able to get that value from PS - a ship that can reposition and has a lot of health/damage mitigation is going to be able to use higher PS much more effectively. See Captain Kagi (+6 points for +6 PS, pilot ability over a PS 2 Omicron Group Pilot) - paying for PS8 on a Lambda Shuttle only gains you the opportunity to get one extra shot out of the shuttle before you die. Since the shuttle has an awful dial, you may not even get this last shot since it becomes trickier to keep enemy ships in arc as the match goes on. Compare to Carnor Jax (+8 points for +7 PS, EPT, pilot ability over PS 1 Alpha Squadron Pilot). Carnor's PS not only allows him to get off an extra attack, it also allows him to reposition using boost and/or barrel roll to avoid taking fire and/or get better shots. He's paying basically the same cost for a dramatically better effect.

Oh, absolutely. Except that they're not always completely rigid ond the pricing formula - notice that Soontir costs an extra point above the +8 PS.

Notice that even with "Alpha Pilots suck, but Soontir with that 1pt surcharge is still totally awesome" as a baseline comparitor... they made the baseline hull more efficient and removed the surcharge. You'd think they'd see Soontir as a hint that you wanted more surcharge, not less...

9 hours ago, Reiver said:

Oh, absolutely. Except that they're not always completely rigid ond the pricing formula - notice that Soontir costs an extra point above the +8 PS.

Notice that even with "Alpha Pilots suck, but Soontir with that 1pt surcharge is still totally awesome" as a baseline comparitor... they made the baseline hull more efficient and removed the surcharge. You'd think they'd see Soontir as a hint that you wanted more surcharge, not less...

We're both in full agreement here about the problem. I just wanted to emphasize where the problem comes from and the fact that it's not going to be solved by tweaking a point here or there - it requires a dramatic shift in FFG's understanding of what makes PS valuable and then updating their approach to ship costing accordingly.

I think a good thought experiment is asking yourself how many naked Alpha Squadron pilots would you trade for a Soontir Fel with a standard loadout - let's say 35 point Soontir Fel with Push The Limit, Royal Guard Title, Autothrusters, Stealth Device. If you were flying Soontir, how many PS1 interceptors piloted by a similarly experienced player do you think you could take on at once and still have a 50/50 chance of winning? If ship pricing reflected value, your answer would be 2 (35 point Soontir vs 36 points of Alpha Squadrons). However, I think most players would feel comfortable taking on at least 3-4 Alpha Squadrons, potentially more. That's a huge gap in terms of pricing vs. value.

2 hours ago, Transmogrifier said:

We're both in full agreement here about the problem. I just wanted to emphasize where the problem comes from and the fact that it's not going to be solved by tweaking a point here or there - it requires a dramatic shift in FFG's understanding of what makes PS valuable and then updating their approach to ship costing accordingly.

I think a good thought experiment is asking yourself how many naked Alpha Squadron pilots would you trade for a Soontir Fel with a standard loadout - let's say 35 point Soontir Fel with Push The Limit, Royal Guard Title, Autothrusters, Stealth Device. If you were flying Soontir, how many PS1 interceptors piloted by a similarly experienced player do you think you could take on at once and still have a 50/50 chance of winning? If ship pricing reflected value, your answer would be 2 (35 point Soontir vs 36 points of Alpha Squadrons). However, I think most players would feel comfortable taking on at least 3-4 Alpha Squadrons, potentially more. That's a huge gap in terms of pricing vs. value.

Fully decked out? 3 Alphas should be more than enough. Two actually if you hand out PTL for them ;-)

Point here is that having upgrades on one expensive ship is buying those upgrade cost once, while the same upgrades on 3 ships cost you 3 times as much.

1 hour ago, SEApocalypse said:

Fully decked out? 3 Alphas should be more than enough. Two actually if you hand out PTL for them ;-)

Point here is that having upgrades on one expensive ship is buying those upgrade cost once, while the same upgrades on 3 ships cost you 3 times as much.

Going to have to respectfully disagree on two Alphas being able to take out a fully upgraded Soontir, but if you have that skill and power you could be the hero this city needs.

10 minutes ago, Hydralisk101 said:

Going to have to respectfully disagree on two Alphas being able to take out a fully upgraded Soontir, but if you have that skill and power you could be the hero this city needs.

Two fictional alphas with PTL would be 46 points or even 50 if fully decked out includes double mods. ;-)
Soontir did get a lot of special goodies, which the Alphas had been excluded from. If your point is about pilot skill, than indeed autothruster+targeting computer with PTL would be the "right" way to equip those alphas to make it comparable to the 35 point soontir with his PS9 ;-)

The alphas suffer less from their PS and more so that they are basically 18 point - 3 hull x-wings without shields AND target lock.
Now if you want a different comparison point wise, the way FFG things, take a naked 27 point Soontir fel vs a 26 point Saber Squadron. I would go lower with the pilot skill, but that is the first one who got push the limit an EPT.

I love how this thread morphed from "I'm running Scum Attani with a Jump and ++ and won!" And we're all like, "yep, that was easy" to debates on grand old retired Soontir and how many squints it would take to best him back in the day. Nice!! Keep up the wonderful dialogue!

Circling back to the point and original topic: Dengar and Fenn Rau are both high PS pilots that gain a ton of value out of their high PS - it allows both ships to generate much more damage before they die than would be possible if they had lower pilot skills. FFG's use of a (roughly) 1 squad point per PS pricing scheme is a significant part of why these ships are so dominant - they aren't paying enough for their PS. This is more obvious with the Protectorate Fighter since a lot of the low PS versions of the Protectorate aren't generally seen competitively. That's because for a fragile, maneuverable ship, PS is especially important for avoiding damage - ships with high enough PS to dodge arcs are worth flying (Old Terroch, Fenn Rau) while lower PS pilots aren't. This problem is a little harder to see on JumpMasters since the ship in general is so undercosted, but Dengar is still gaining a disproportionate amount of value from his PS compared to the squad point cost he is paying for it. There is a reason that squads involving these ships can afford to take dramatic initiative bids.

Edit: disclaimer: there are a number of other issues at play here (Dengar and Fenn Rau's pilot abilities are ridiculously powerful, Attanni Mindlink is incredibly efficient, etc.) but I think it's worth teasing out each component of what makes these ships so dominant. The other issues at play get a lot of attention but I don't see a lot of discussion about the problem with PS costing very often.