14 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

Like Nantex pricing? *weeps*

Actual serious note, I'd almost say just sub 30 for the cheapest. Mostly worse than an RZ-1.

Yeah they look like the generic i2 would be worth about 28 points, maybe 27, in light of the v1 baron, an i1 could've gone down to 26, but definitely not 25.

PS: and this without config. With config I expect about 28 for Esk, 30 for Besh.

On 10/15/2020 at 9:41 PM, theBitterFig said:

Without a config, I guess this is worth at least 1 point more than a Scyk or TIE/fo. Besh seems like almost-Advanced Optics (with the caveat that Locks are harder than Focus) in effect, so 2 points seems fair what it contributes to total value. 25 + 1 + 2 = 28. That's my thought process.

But then, TIE/v1 at 28 are probably better than these, so 27 doesn't seem absurd.

And if this is 27, dangnation does it make the 29 point RZ-1. Look. So. Very. Overpriced.

I think 2 points more than scyk/fo buy in, because of better hp quality, and 1 more initiative. Besh seems worth at least 3 points to me, puts that at 30. Esk is probably worth 1 point, puts that at 28. As for lock being harder than focus, they have linked boost>lock. Also, don't forget that Besh makes them bombers...

6 hours ago, Cerebrawl said:

Besh seems worth at least 3 points to me, puts that at 30.

Maybe. The hits-added are slightly better than Advanced Optics (both improve Hit/Blank, but Hit/Eye is more common than Blank/Blank, so Besh gets a bit of an advantage). However, the inflexibility of a Lock really adds up in my opinion. Can only use it against one ship rather than opportunistically, you have to have the right position for the action, and you can't spend it on defense to stay alive and get a shot rather than be Init Killed. Lock "requirements" are just significantly harder than focus "requirements".

Meanwhile, Advanced Optics probably isn't worth 4 points on a TIE/fo, might not even be worth 3--we just don't see Optics FOs anywhere. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about the Optics Life, but it might not even be worth it on TIE/sf (historically, non-Optics SFs have actually done better than Optics ones).

Then again, Barrage Rockets : Concussion Missiles :: Advanced Optics : Besh works out to 8:6::4:3, so maybe.

I'm mostly just typing this out to focus my own thoughts... I might be coming around on slightly more expensive V-Wings...

6 hours ago, Cerebrawl said:

Also, don't forget that Besh makes them bombers...

Again, maybe. Mostly, I don't think slots are worth points. TIE Strikers don't really pay for their bomb/gunner slots compared to Interceptors, for example.

8 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Mostly, I don't think slots are worth points.

Preaching to the scum choir there. Still, that device slot does have value. If you can field 6 of them with Besh and concussion bombs or thermal detonators... Well, that's a thing.

2 minutes ago, Cerebrawl said:

Preaching to the scum choir there. Still, that device slot does have value. If you can field 6 of them with Besh and concussion bombs or thermal detonators... Well, that's a thing.

28 would allow 6 with Proton Bombs or (I'm guessing) Thermals... these seem worth about the same amount as Bomblet Generator, with some perks and some drawbacks.

Concussion Bombs are very aggressively priced because FFG thinks the must-drop rule is enough of a downside, but that remains to be seen, and they might just be underpriced.

11 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

28 would allow 6 with Proton Bombs or (I'm guessing) Thermals... these seem worth about the same amount as Bomblet Generator, with some perks and some drawbacks.

Concussion Bombs are very aggressively priced because FFG thinks the must-drop rule is enough of a downside, but that remains to be seen, and they might just be underpriced.

28 with Besh would be quite underpriced indeed.

Sorry for the sloppy stream game. I was tired as **** from a quick errand, a 9.5 hour shift, playing Counterstrike to not risk sleeping through it all only for a possible 2.5 hours of sleep, and then the X-Wing. I can handle a bunch of X-Wing, but not on top of that stuff beforehand. I was paired against something I was hard countering so it's not like I was going to lose it anyway.

Incidentally, my loss came from my 2nd game of Spamtex. As per the simulations, practice, and the precedent set by Round1, I traded Vonreg for at least 2.5 bugs. Danced around so they can't get me, etc. etc. Lazily dialed the 5 forward instead of the 4 forward or the 3 bank, and used autos to dodge arcs. The positioning was such that the subsequent roll + hard turn drove me off the mat by a few pixels. Goodbye full HP untouchable point fortress.

On the brightside, Kylo got halved only once and never destroyed. But I suppose fleeing off the board is embarrassing. The matchup gods have blessed me with not facing certain I6's, let alone any I6. More bonuses to the 5-1 finish as opposed to being 6-0 is that people will complain slightly less about Supernat Kylo being the bug killer of the week and how cancerous he is. But hey, since this is a Polish tournament, it's like the Witcher: you need to make a monster to kill the monsters only to realize that many of the monsters are actually OK and that the real monsters are the people who ***** about monsters, such as the monster created to fight the OG monster.

Tagging @pyoinator and @ToiletPaper Fiend because I am far too tired to be bothered to text with my thumbs. Staying awake for announcements and then sleeping.

11 hours ago, Cerebrawl said:

Besh seems worth at least 3 points to me, puts that at 30. Esk is probably worth 1 point, puts that at 28.

3 sounds reasonable for Besh. As @theBitterFig said, the flexibility of the lock versus the focus for Advanced Optics means it should be less. Esk is likely worth 0.

You can't prove that I double posted.

1 hour ago, 5050Saint said:

3 sounds reasonable for Besh. As @theBitterFig said, the flexibility of the lock versus the focus for Advanced Optics means it should be less. Esk is likely worth 0.

On a single ship in a 1 v 1, Esk might be a 0 point upgrade. With its ability to chain ion when there are multiple Esks in a list, especially with its synergy with Marksmanship, 1 point is the hard minimum for me. Though FFG being FFG might just up Marks to 2 points so that Esk can be the "free" default set up for Nimbus's.

7 hours ago, 5050Saint said:

You can't prove that I double posted.

Can't I?

7 hours ago, 5050Saint said:

Esk is likely worth 0.

Anyhow, I'm tentatively rating Esk higher than many people. Not better than Besh, but better than nothing. I think it should be priced 0 (and maybe even Besh 0) and the costs baked into the chassis. I like "ship ability" configurations.

But back to Esk... I just have this feeling that maybe it's sneaky good. I'm eager to see it show up in the Probability Calculator eventually, seems relatively easy to include. Well, I suppose there's an "At Least One Crit" percent chance listed. 21.1% on 2 dice vs a B-Wing, 17.2% against an X-Wing, 13.3% against an A-Wing. That's not terrible, since you don't give anything up if you don't succeed--it'd just then a normal attack.

But I suppose that a regular Ion Cannon has a 50% chance to leave an unfocused A-Wing Ionized. And maybe it's just unfun to have a blighter/pest that's got a chance to just highroll into a game-changing Ion token, without laying out the points for a *real* Ion weapon.

7 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

On a single ship in a 1 v 1, Esk might be a 0 point upgrade. With its ability to chain ion when there are multiple Esks in a list, especially with its synergy with Marksmanship, 1 point is the hard minimum for me. Though FFG being FFG might just up Marks to 2 points so that Esk can be the "free" default set up for Nimbus's.

I can't possibly see FFG increasing Marksmanship to 2 points, but it'd be really easy for Esk to cost 0. Just make the V-Wing cost 1 point more than otherwise. With a ship-specific upgrade, it's really easy to do. How much would a Gunboat be worth without OS-1 or XG-1? Not 32, to be sure, when a TIE Bomber is 27. And that's fine.

In a faction where the V-19 has roughly equivalent toughness and offense, having a higher price on any V-Wing options--but giving the V-Wing extra offensive power via Esk--is probably a good thing.

I see our old friend Fifty-Percent Foslo has made another cut.

Configs being 'baked into' the cost of a ship with one of the configs costing 0 is a fantastic design space, as it allows ships to have modular ship abilities without allowing totally generic swarms. A lot of people believe pricing is some super objective thing but often its about making choices on what should be valuable and what a thing should be 'about.'

The X-wing, for example, is a better ship for not being allowed to ditch its S-foils for a few points, even though you would almost certainly do just that in many lists.

Esk is WAY better than people are giving it credit for though and is worth much more than 0 points, even though I think at least one config should cost 0 points. At 1 point, you effectively can evaluate it as a 2 point 'force an ion down a ship's throat' ability every 2 turns as long as you can land a bullseye. I would pay 2 points for an 'ion crackshot,' forget about an effect that lets me get crits every turn I can bullseye and ion every other turn if I can bullseye, especially if I had more than one. Ion 'scales' based on how often you can do it: Ionizing 3 ships is way better than ionizing just once, and ionizing every few turns is way better than ionizing twice per game. The 'ionsmanship' combo also scales with ship count, as if you can land a marksmanship proc on a charged V-wing and have 2 spare V-wings ready to go, you can basically infinitely chain ion much more consistently than even the Y-wing turret spam list could.

Besh is more 'generalist' but is also low key the less 'dangerous' one. Besh makes the ship a lot more consistent on locked targets by letting the lock be a 'super calculate' but your ultimately capped still at 3 damage. It just lets the V-wing get that 3 damage slightly more often than other ships with 2 dice. Esk, combo'd with a 1 point talent, is extremely scary to be in bullseye for because vs a player who knows what they are doing it means your entire gameplan falls apart, and it has a 'chain reaction' style effect if you don't have ships available to keep those V-wings 'honest.'

I could see them both being 'baked in' and costing 0. Even if one is, in a vacuum, better, they both enable the ship to do such radically different things its like comparing apples to highly ionized oranges, which is good. You want to make linear comparison hard in order to make the game more about strategies striving to enact their plans rather than having the most guns in a jousting line, and its actually super hard and contextual to compare 'consistent damage' to 'ion effects' which is why some ion effects have a 'tax' for their ion effect, and others are cheaper for 'not doing damage' depending on how they are activated. I would take a few Esk in a mini-swarm to try to bully brawly lists, and Besh for when I am dueling highly agile ships I expect to have low uptime vs so I can lock to double mod or utilize focus defensively and the lock as focus on turns when I get in arc.

Alright, Fort Hyperspace. Your time has come.

1 hour ago, Hoarder of Garlic Bread said:

Alright, Fort Hyperspace. Your time has come.

Thane with Deadeye shot here we gooooooooo!

I need a card in X-Wing that lets me tell Anakin the story of Darth Plagius the wise mid-game

@gennataos Will Overdrive Thrusters be good on Daredevil Nien? I know they'll be good on old Poe, but a Nien who could end over three bases away from a position and rotated 90* without stress seems cool. Will he have to be locked by M9G8 to be worth it?

With Pattern Analyzer you could focus and double reposition as per the usual, but now your options are expanded.

21 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

I need a card in X-Wing that lets me tell Anakin the story of Darth Plagius the wise mid-game

you need an excuse to do that?

TIE Striker generics still feel really weird.

Like they are either a point or two overcosted if they want to be truly disposable (And they are incredibly frail, seeing as they are less durable than a Z-95) or they can go up a point or so and get a shield and be less-consistently 2-shot?

The bomb and gunner tax that they pay (which is effectively only for named pilots) feels like it's also causing them to be in a wierd role.

Can we get a config for generics that removes the bomb and gunner slot, adds a shield?

I like TIE Striker generics. I wish they were more viable.

22 hours ago, Hoarder of Garlic Bread said:

@gennataos Will Overdrive Thrusters be good on Daredevil Nien? I know they'll be good on old Poe, but a Nien who could end over three bases away from a position and rotated 90* without stress seems cool. Will he have to be locked by M9G8 to be worth it?

With Pattern Analyzer you could focus and double reposition as per the usual, but now your options are expanded.

I've never liked Nien, sooo...maybe? If I'm playing a list with OT in it, let's be honest, it's going to be on Poe.

Blog #11

I like Tri Fighters.

They are cool.

Anyone else remember the "Has FFG abandoned X-Wing?" threads from earlier in the year? They seemed a little situationally unaware before, but now they feel down right silly. I'm getting so much FFG content now that it's getting harder to process all of the new information. Normally, I have at least a few months to absorb new expansions, but it feels like every week I'm getting so much that parsing it all is a task.

2 hours ago, 5050Saint said:

Anyone else remember the "Has FFG abandoned X-Wing?" threads from earlier in the year? They seemed a little situationally unaware before, but now they feel down right silly. I'm getting so much FFG content now that it's getting harder to process all of the new information. Normally, I have at least a few months to absorb new expansions, but it feels like every week I'm getting so much that parsing it all is a task.

I don't even have an adjective to describe the reality that people thought ffg would be unaffected by a global pandemic, I struggled to process it then, and struggle to process it now.

7 hours ago, catachanninja said:

I don't even have an adjective to describe the reality that people thought ffg would be unaffected by a global pandemic, I struggled to process it then, and struggle to process it now.

To be honest, there's a lot of projecting and assuming going on in these forums.

To not sound negative, I will say that the booster engines + I5 ship ability is a neat synergy. SLAM or shoot? Get the info then decide in system and git that Jedi!

1 hour ago, Hoarder of Garlic Bread said:

To be honest, there's a lot of projecting and assuming going on in these forums.

To not sound negative, I will say that the booster engines + I5 ship ability is a neat synergy. SLAM or shoot? Get the info then decide in system and git that Jedi!

*attempt to get Jedi and die to oddball*