1 minute ago, GreenDragoon said:

Were they prohibitively expensive? I don't remember the points.

That means the "nerf vultures" crowd is now wrong, or the "vultures are too expensive" crowd before July was wrong? Unless of course one would argue that the perfect middle between now and before July is idea.

The points dropped considerably on each piece (base Vulture down 1, struts down 2, discord down 2).

Alright, theoretical question

Say FFG releases a striker pilot with a
3/2/4/1 statline, init 3.
It has a linked red focus from its barrel roll, and Target Lock added to the action bar
It has only EPT, Mod as upgrade bar.
The pilot ability is "This pilot may only be taken in squads where all friendly ships have the 'Adaptive Ailerons'" ability.

Duchess is increased to 45 points in the same update.

How much would this pilot be in order for it to be a useful ship?

Alternatively, make a squad with these things that would have to fit to warrant you flying them, and I'll derive points from there.

Vulture prices were already answered more accurately, so I’ll just delete the answer I had.

15 minutes ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

Alright, theoretical question

Say FFG releases a striker pilot with a
3/2/4/1 statline, init 3.
It has a linked red focus from its barrel roll, and Target Lock added to the action bar
It has only EPT, Mod as upgrade bar.
The pilot ability is "This pilot may only be taken in squads where all friendly ships have the 'Adaptive Ailerons'" ability.

Duchess is increased to 45 points in the same update.

How much would this pilot be in order for it to be a useful ship?

Alternatively, make a squad with these things that would have to fit to warrant you flying them, and I'll derive points from there.

A starting point might be a squad with the three named and two new generics. This would be 201 with Duchess at 45 (and using the current I1s).

The real baseline for me to buy three more strikers would be if it was more like 5K, so space for a few shield upgrades (or afterburners) would be nice.

The things are relatively fragile to any focus fire, so I would discount any EPT outside of crack shot or (with the linked focus) intimidation. That Feels like it could be sneaky good.

43 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Were they prohibitively expensive? I don't remember the points.

That means the "nerf vultures" crowd is now wrong, or the "vultures are too expensive" crowd before July was wrong? Unless of course one would argue that the perfect middle between now and before July is idea.

Vultures and separatists in general were ludicrously understimated around XTC and European.

The general consensus back then was they were good, but way too dicey for most players taste, separatists were the least played faction at the XTC and iirc no team in top4 played brought them. They were also incredibly scarce at European.

Then nantex dropped and sear swarms was the new hotness despite being the same.

How much nantex praying on aces influenced that?

3 minutes ago, Sunitsa said:

Vultures and separatists in general were ludicrously understimated around XTC and European.

The general consensus back then was they were good, but way too dicey for most players taste, separatists were the least played faction at the XTC and iirc no team in top4 played brought them. They were also incredibly scarce at European.

Then nantex dropped and sear swarms was the new hotness despite being the same.

How much nantex praying on aces influenced that?

A modern sear swarm, under original points, was a 232-235 point list- The point changes are highly significant.

56 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Vultures, Struts and Discord Missiles all dropped in price in July and they won the Australian Systems Open. The latter would put just about any list on people's radar.

Vultures have won:

The OZ SOS

St. Louis grand

PAXU

And by vultures, I mean tractor beams with vulture characteristics

Did nothing wrong.

Plz don't nerf FFG.

1 minute ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

A modern sear swarm, under original points, was a 232-235 point list- The point changes are highly significant.

But Paul showed that you don't need a modern sear swarm, and even TA175 is not worth it anymore because of the mirror. Or that's what he said and showed by his list choice.
His Vultures were apparently 21 points more before July (7 for fultures, 8 for struts, 6 for discords).

My point is in part that vultures were already fine, and that we're now collectively overreacting. A small change is maybe necessary. But not as clearly as I hear now in several places.

1 hour ago, svelok said:

waiting to see other people's pegs, commit you cowards

I, uh, I don't think the forums would approve of pegging pictures.

37 minutes ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

A modern sear swarm, under original points, was a 232-235 point list- The point changes are highly significant.

But both XTC and European were played with current Vultures point...

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

Were they prohibitively expensive? I don't remember the points.

That means the "nerf vultures" crowd is now wrong, or the "vultures are too expensive" crowd before July was wrong? Unless of course one would argue that the perfect middle between now and before July is idea.

Drones with struts went from 24 to 20. That's huge.

13 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Drones with struts went from 24 to 20. That's huge.

Just to put that into game terms: it meant that, if you had 5 Vultures w/ struts before, you suddenly had 6. Literally a whole extra ship.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

But Paul showed that you don't need a modern sear swarm

His Vultures were apparently 21 points more before

I agree, Wave 3 Vultures were fine, you just had to run a 220 point list and had Wave 5 ships too.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

My point is in part that vultures were already fine, and that we're now collectively overreacting. A small change is maybe necessary. But not as clearly as I hear now in several places

That seems like two extremely contradictory stances. Vultures were before but are also fine now, with a 30 point swing in the middle?

I do agree that people are overreacting, and Sear lists should go up maybe 4-8 points or so overall. "Minimum Viable Sear Swarm" is as interesting a question as "Minimum Viable Jedi Aces", but Sear swarm isn't the best list in the game right now and is arguably not even the best list in CIS.

38 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Drones with struts went from 24 to 20. That's huge.

I thought it was just 3 total? 1 for Drones, 2 for struts?

7 minutes ago, svelok said:

That seems like two extremely contradictory stances. Vultures were before but are also fine now, with a 30 point swing in the middle?

The fact that 7 ships are used at once means the smallest increments are 7 points. A change of 21 points was too much. 7 or 14 total might have been better.

But if you break it down again to the individual vulture, does a single point really make or break them? I assume that @Transmogrifier was right with the total of -3

5 hours ago, Biophysical said:

Bring back the TIE Bomber Shuttle! I'd love to see super cheap weirdo Imperial Support Crew.

Bring it back, but when you suffer a [crit], you must flip one [crew] upgrade facedown.

10 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

I thought it was just 3 total? 1 for Drones, 2 for struts?

The fact that 7 ships are used at once means the smallest increments are 7 points. A change of 21 points was too much. 7 or 14 total might have been better.

But if you break it down again to the individual vulture, does a single point really make or break them? I assume that @Transmogrifier was right with the total of -3

I think the confusion here is that the go-to changed from 24 point TF Drone with Energy Shell Charges (which stayed the same points after the change) to a 20 point TF Drone with Struts (which cost 23 before the change).

9 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Jan Point Cost Check #1 ( Currently 181 pts total )

Anakin 7B+6, Obi+4 CLT+3 Plo CLT+3=197

Jan Point Cost Check #2 ( Currently 178 pts total )

Burners Vader+4 Soontir+3 GI+2= 187 Jan Point Cost Check #3 ( Currently 183 pts total )

Sun Fac -5
Ensnare+5
Berwer Kret-2
Ensnare+6
Chertek
Ensnare+7 =194

I’m more interested in Chertek Ensnare + 7x Trade drones, currently 182.

Thanks, Paul.

2 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Did nothing wrong.

Plz don't nerf FFG.

Lootboxes? Daring to stand where the LucasArts BF2 stood?

6 hours ago, Transmogrifier said:

Design ideas:
same statline/dial as a TIE Bomber, swap red Reload to red Coordinate
slots: crew, modification
ship ability: you may not equip crew upgrades that cost more than 8 points

Red coordinate I don't dislike. Certainly needs to lose the reload. Maybe Jam instead of Coordinate, since the variant was less of a command transport, and more of a boarding craft. Hrm... Does it make sense for it to have a Lock? Why would a boarding craft a built-in targeting computer? Focus, White Jam, Roll -> Red Jam?

For a ship ability, however, I'd say "You may board huge ships." and then have epic-only boarding rules. Do it in the rulebook to avoid clutter on the card. IMHO, boarding doesn't make sense with large base ships, at least not in this game, but for huge ones, something like a hostile docking, that then deals damage.

I don't think it really needs a cost restriction on crew, since didn't Vader sometimes use one of these?

5 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Were they prohibitively expensive? I don't remember the points.

I believe TF drones were 20 or 21 and Struts were 2.

I've heard several people say that that's basically what they need to go back up to.

Not sure if I agree.

4 minutes ago, Bucknife said:

I believe TF drones were 20 or 21 and Struts were 2.

I've heard several people say that that's basically what they need to go back up to.

Not sure if I agree.

Trade drones were 20, struts were 3, energy shells were 4, and discords were 6 on release.

-1, -2, +1, -2 respectively. Energy shell vultures stayed put and every other version dropped, because energy shells were pretty much the only version anyone was playing. Now it’s the version no one is playing, so maybe other stuff dropped too hard?

Really though, I’m not sure the point here and point there matter, outside of changing the shapes of the puzzle pieces. The piece that fits is the best piece more than the smallest/biggest one.

2 hours ago, AEIllingworth said:

Trade drones were 20, struts were 3, energy shells were 4, and discords were 6 on release.

-1, -2, +1, -2 respectively. Energy shell vultures stayed put and every other version dropped, because energy shells were pretty much the only version anyone was playing. Now it’s the version no one is playing, so maybe other stuff dropped too hard?

Really though, I’m not sure the point here and point there matter, outside of changing the shapes of the puzzle pieces. The piece that fits is the best piece more than the smallest/biggest one.

Some of that is folks figured out it's just better to bring N+1 Vultures without Energy Shell Charges than it is to bring N Vultures with ESC (for most reasonable values of N). Critical Mass seems to matter more than individual power.

The real reason struts went down with that point change is because absolutely no one was playing strut vultures. All we saw were ESC vultures and Maul across the limited CIS meta.

Maybe they have to go back up, but certainly not as far as they came down.

9 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

Hrm... Does it make sense for it to have a Lock? Why would a boarding craft a built-in targeting computer?

krennic or tarkin wouldn't be happy...

some of the cheaper imperial only crews

for this reason i don't think it would be a good idea.