3 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Why are full 360 range 1-3 turrets part of gameplay?

Because they have been part of the Star Wars universe since 1977. You couldn't have had the Falcon without a 360 degree turret. The developers have said as much even recently ( https://m.twitch.tv/videos/159129614?desktop-redirect=true ). As @kris40k said and you'll hear in that Gamasutra interview they have been working on ways of rewarding in arc turret use by the attacker and when defending out of arc (Autothrusters).

3 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

As a new player it still feels like ships with the ability to take shots regardless of arc or range are at odds with the overall gameplay found in the core game and the addictive loop of choosing, bluffing, and predicting movements.

I agree the way primary weapon turrets (PWTs) are implemented in game is disappointing and frustrating. Other turrets, even Twin Laser Turrets, don't bother me quite so much as they often have range restrictions you can fly to avoid them and still get a shot on them. The PWTs though are nasty as they have no range restriction and get that range 1 extra attack die but usually these ships are have drawbacks - except the JumpMaster 5000 which is cheap, nimble, tough and highly customisable. For example compare an Outer Rim Smuggler (YT-1300) or Patrol Leader (Decimator) with a Contracted Scout.

3 hours ago, Test Pilot said:

Or perhaps because it goes a long way to pushing any generic (and a lot of named) ships that rely on green dice, arcs, and have no access to autothrusters (also a design issue) off the table in both casual and competitive formats.

Not if they're costed appropriately.

Unfortunately, they aren't always.

1 minute ago, DarthEnderX said:

Not if they're costed appropriately.

Unfortunately, they aren't always.

Agreed. That's a big part of the "other factors" I mentioned in the next sentence. The undeniable power creep of each new wave also makes the "appropriate cost" a moving target as well. That's a whole other issue though.

3 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

It was,a holdover from wave 2, waaaaay back in thw game's infancy when FFG had no idea how much it would explode in popularity

It is obviously flawed design in a game based entirely around hiding and then revealing a chosen maneuver, but the designers didnt expect the game to last as long as it did back then.

Shadowcaster mobile arc is what the primary weapon turret should have always been, but thats wave 9

While that's the "easy" answer, it doesn't really address the source of the problem (from a game design), the theme of the problem (from the perspective of matching the source material), or provide a wider range of solutions.

"In reality", manually-aimed turrets that are not synced with the aircraft/ship movements (absolutely true of the WW2-era designs that inspired 'Star Wars' in the first place) were EXTREMELY unreliable.

Even without implementing the Shadowcaster mechanic (which is totally awesome - love that it's in the game - but also would prefer it to be just one type of turrent implementation among many), there was still an obvious need to limit turrets in SOME way (just looking at on-screen footage, alone). Could have been as easy as losing 1 or 2 red dice from the attack, when firing out of arc with a 360-weapon. Or granting bonus agility to your target. Or limiting the range to 2 (instead of 3). Or etc.

Hard to imagine how this all got through both playtesting (from the game perspective), as well as thematic evaluation (IE., what did we see on-screen?)....

2 hours ago, Chibi-Nya said:

What do you think about Kanan Rey with strong PWT and technically white Sloop

A) Much more expensive

B) Extra green dice all the time

C) Uses up your EPT and crew - which for Dengar gives him Expertise and K4, so every shot is modded without using your action.

D) Better wingman options for scum due to undercosted, powerful ships - see Tel, Fenn, Assaj

Rey is good, I took her top 8 at a large regional, but she's no-where near the level of Dengar

2 hours ago, Chibi-Nya said:

2 hours ago, Chibi-Nya said:

5 hours ago, Astech said:

But they're mechanically boring - especially in comparison to the mobile arc. The OP makes a valid point - they take precious little skill to fly in comparison to standard front-arc ships. This is especially true for new players, but applies to all skill levels equally.

I'd like to see out-of-arc primary shots grant an extra evade die at all ranges. The only person who cares about it is Dengar, and he needs a nerf.

First of all, Dengar's retaliation can be a torpedo, so that's 4 dice from the best torp carrier in the game. Secondly, Dengar with Punishing One is 45 points - not so much for a PS9 ship throwing 6 dice a turn. In fact, that is the game breaking part of it - Punishing One is the card I'd get rid of if I Boba'd Dengar. At this point in the game, both Rey/Finn and Fat Han are not so bad - they can be fun to play against, and even lose to, because they're a little behind the power curve. It's just the JM5K clinging to the last vestiges of designer goodwill that's keeping the turret salt active.

And its easly to get into R1 with Dengar, and do 4x2. With K4 and Overclocked. Whew.

This game is driven by being Star Wars. One of the more iconic scenes of the original trilogy is Luke shooting 360° range 1-3 from the Falcon. The game would not be Star Wars if that wouldn't work. The question in the title can easily be answered with "because Star Wars".

Primary Weapon Turrets (PWTs) do care about their positioning - they'll die awfully quickly without proper positioning. They're also expensive (usually). What's great is that FFG does think about how they can make the primary firing arc more important for PWT ships; Rey is much weaker against targets not in her arc (in both offense and defense), and Dengar's ability only works in arc as well.

Personally, I see no problems at all with PWTs per se.

360 turrets are balanced thanks to high point cost and low agility. You get 4 tie fighters for about the same cost as a naked han solo or rac.

A swarm could easily est up a Falcon or decimator in 2 turns. The thing that broke turrets was large ship and boost.

A fat han could boost out of arc and Still get modified shots thanks to predator and Luke crew.

3 dice 360 turrets work fine as a game mechanich since they are given a high Price tag. The jumpmaster is a bit crazy with 2 agility but that's a diffirent issue.

The Falcon have Always been a solid ship and only stayed Broken wave 4-6 and it was because of large ship boost and lack of auto thrusters.

Don't fix what aint broken IMO

They are the root of many problems in X-Wing. Autothrusters were a fix to prevent Interceptors and their likes to be hard countered by them, but they started a damage mitigation arms race that saw 2 dice and 3 dice with one modification ships disapear from the meta.

Well this got tense.

4 hours ago, haslo said:

This game is driven by being Star Wars. One of the more iconic scenes of the original trilogy is Luke shooting 360° range 1-3 from the Falcon. The game would not be Star Wars if that wouldn't work. The question in the title can easily be answered with "because Star Wars".

Primary Weapon Turrets (PWTs) do care about their positioning - they'll die awfully quickly without proper positioning. They're also expensive (usually). What's great is that FFG does think about how they can make the primary firing arc more important for PWT ships; Rey is much weaker against targets not in her arc (in both offense and defense), and Dengar's ability only works in arc as well.

Personally, I see no problems at all with PWTs per se.

Expensive ships can still be undercosted. When a Super Dash or fat Miranda or 70 + point Kanan or Dengar can reliably carry more than their point cost and sometimes solo down entire lists, they're undercosted.

And getting things in arc with Rey or Dengar is trivial, as is positioning in general with those ships. It's not hard to care about getting things in arc with those ships.

It's like smoking 'filtered' cigarettes. On paper it seems like it'd be less cancerous, but it's not. You're still getting just as much cancer.

My idea for all PWT would be similar to the mobile but it wouldn't cost an action to change arc, it would be done as part of movement. I would then add a turret gunner crew card that allows you to move mobile arc at the end of activation

10 hours ago, Polaritie said:

Hey, I'd love to be able to fly PS9 with a mean ability and 3 power PWT and white sloop and barrel roll for only 45 points. But Han and RAC start at 46. With normal big-ship dials.

To be fair, Han has 13 total hit points, while RAC has 16. Dengar only has 9, and the extra agility doesn't make up for that. And Han can get White Sloops + an amazing dial thanks to Kanan + HotR title.

A better comparison, I feel, is to the Outrider. Dash with Title + HLC comes in at 48 points. If he was PS9, that'd be bumped up to a theoretical 50 points.

So for +5 points, you get a shield, +1 dice at range 2-3, ignore range 3 bonus, but the significant drawback of being unable to shoot at range 1, along with it being more difficult to crit.

The shield is worth a couple points, so call it... 3 points for +1 dice at range 2-3, but no shot at range 1.

Looking at it that way, I'd say Dengar is probably, at most, 1-3 points undercosted.

Personally, I think the best thing for the Jumps would be to bump the generics up by 2 points, Manaroo and Tel up by 1 (along with changing Manaroo to range 1-2), and Dengar by 2. His ability to potentially fire twice per turn should be worth an extra point, in the same way that The Inquisitor pays extra for his ability.

11 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

It was dumb then. Its still dumb now.

Its still breaking the game now: See Dengar.

I liked the part where your go-to example of a turret being bad for the game is a ship which is really only a major threat against enemies in its primary arc.

Turrets and aux arcs were included in Wave 2 as a counter to ships like Ssontir Fel, who could otherwise dodge arcs all day long. They were meant to be as simple as possible, in order to keep the game streamlined and accessible.

Many people have criticized turrets as essentially being "easy mode." With Engine Upgrade, that can dodge arcs and still get shots. The important thing to note, however, is that these ships were designed so that they HAVE to be getting more shots than the opponent. Most turrets are about 80% efficient as jousters (if I remember correctly), which means that blindly running up to just about any other list in the game will end badly for you.

9 minutes ago, ObiWonka said:

I liked the part where your go-to example of a turret being bad for the game is a ship which is really only a major threat against enemies in its primary arc.

Well, the problem isn't anything particular to Dengar. It's the ship that's the issue, Dengar is just the high-end pilot for it.

12 hours ago, Astech said:

I believe the OP was wondering about the game mechanics, not the lore.

As stated in a recent interview, it is in there as a mechanic BECAUSE of the lore.

2 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Well this got tense.

Welcome to the boards, and have a cocktail.

Mix Passion, Piss, and Vinegar in equal measure and voila! Always serve over 6 small rocks in a 100 ml glass.

I'll have mine shaken, not stirred.

If the best reason the devs can offer is "because Star Wars" i think I pretty much have my answer.

Full 360 full range turrets are out of place and make what I initially thought was a cool nuanced spaceship game a frequently mindless kinda expensive dice roll simulator. That cool game is still in there somewhere its just harder to find than it should be.

For all the fan fare that the competive scene receives and all the in depth analysis by the podcasters and veteran experts.....its pretty obvious after a little while of paying attention that full 360 full range turrets trivialize significant portions of an otherwise interesting game.

1 hour ago, Polaritie said:

Well, the problem isn't anything particular to Dengar.

So my point stands: it was a poor choice of example.

2 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

its pretty obvious after a little while of paying attention that full 360 full range turrets trivialize significant portions of an otherwise interesting game.

You're not wrong, the Internet is just salty. I'm not sure what you wanted to get out of this thread, though. People agreeing with you? Sure, there are plenty of people who agree with you. Is disliking the concept or complaining about it going to change the game? Nope.

33 minutes ago, ObiWonka said:

So my point stands: it was a poor choice of example.

You're not wrong, the Internet is just salty. I'm not sure what you wanted to get out of this thread, though. People agreeing with you? Sure, there are plenty of people who agree with you. Is disliking the concept or complaining about it going to change the game? Nope.

I think yea in part i was hoping to hear that more people see full range full arc turrets as the problem that they are.

I feel like so much dicussion is had about incredibly minor gameplay mechanics by comparison.

From listening to older podcasts from this year the community seemed to lose its mind over things like Palpatine and Zuckuss and Jump Masters point cost and Defenders and now Re-enforce and Dark Side and biggs and scruggs stat line the list goes on.

All of those things seem obviously less problematic and disruptive to the core gameplay loop than 360 full range turrets.

Everytime a full range full arc turret is put on the table im playing a completely different game.

Its like theres been an elephant in the room for sooooo long that the community just got used to it and eventually accepted a broken thing.

13 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

Shadowcaster mobile arc is what the primary weapon turret should have always been, but thats wave 9

Really? I normally really like your objetive view on things, with most I conform.

But the shadow caster is a nightmare designwise for me. If the shadow caster would have NO primary arc I would agree with you. But as it is, it is just like a PWT - only stronger (NO autothrusters, counts as arc for tactican). How many times does a Shadow caster have to move its firing arc? Once a game at most. Thats why you never see the Gyroscopic Targeting - because you normally simply don´´t need it! It works better than a PWT and is costed less.

22 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Its like theres been an elephant in the room for sooooo long that the community just got used to it and eventually accepted a broken thing.

More or less correct. They play a different game, yes. But is it a broken game? No. Until they start winning everything everywhere, just play a different game against them and you'll be fine.