7 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

Whatever.

People are thinking NOW, versus when there are 7 factions, 4 factions with 5 ships or less.

Think whatever you want.

It's funny to watch this argument, because in a lot of cases people are arguing 2 different things. As you've said, your point is more about premier events, which mostly don't start until at least wave 3. Which is likely to add a lot more variety. A lot of the counter arguments are about the games right now.

What are your thoughts on System Opens @Tlfj200? Philly is happening in late November, so we may not even have wave 2 yet. Would you rather second edition format or extended?

Just now, evcameron said:

It's funny to watch this argument, because in a lot of cases people are arguing 2 different things. As you've said, your point is more about premier events, which mostly don't start until at least wave 3. Which is likely to add a lot more variety. A lot of the counter arguments are about the games right now.

What are your thoughts on System Opens @Tlfj200? Philly is happening in late November, so we may not even have wave 2 yet. Would you rather second edition format or extended?

My thoughts is FFG will do extended, and [hopefully] just keep extended at system opens, and move to second edition format for hyperspace.

I'm purely guessing though.

Can someone link me to the calculator that gave numbers on "how many shots/how long it takes to destroy X ship" ?

Please and thank you

Just now, RStan said:

Can someone link me to the calculator that gave numbers on "how many shots/how long it takes to destroy X ship" ?

Please and thank you

http://xwing.gateofstorms.net/2/ship_durability/

1 minute ago, RStan said:

Can someone link me to the calculator that gave numbers on "how many shots/how long it takes to destroy X ship" ?

Please and thank you

http://xwing.gateofstorms.net/2/ship_durability/

edit: @Tlfj200 those some fast fingers... You must vassal.

1 minute ago, RStan said:

Can someone link me to the calculator that gave numbers on "how many shots/how long it takes to destroy X ship" ?

Please and thank you

Woo....too slow

Holy crap that was quick and responsive. You people are amazing.

5 minutes ago, RStan said:

Holy crap that was quick and responsive. You people are amazing.

Gate of Storms is the 2nd most amazing thing anyone has ever contributed to X-Wing.

2 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Gate of Storms is the 2nd most amazing thing anyone has ever contributed to X-Wing. 

And the 1st is googly eyes on ships...

3 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Gate of Storms is the 2nd most amazing thing anyone has ever contributed to X-Wing.

The most amazing is Saltmaster5000?

3 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

If you are interested in military lessons applicable to the game though then that podcast won‘t help. There are better podcasts and books for that.

jokes on you, i'm just a junkie, I don't think I can apply interesting tidbits from wars of logistics to xwing.

With that being said, please recommend me! MORE!

MORE!

34 minutes ago, viedit said:

And the 1st is googly eyes on ships...

Correct

44 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

The most amazing is Saltmaster5000?

Wrong.....Cryodex from @Killerardvark

29 minutes ago, Brunas said:

jokes on you, i'm just a junkie, I don't think I can apply interesting tidbits from wars of logistics to xwing.

With that being said, please recommend me! MORE!

MORE!

1.) "When Diplomacy Fails" is a really good history podcast. It's by an Irish history grad student, so he tends to be pretty unbiased. It focuses a lot on the trends and failings of people that lead up to war, as well as the major political events that shape the outcome of the war. I'm just finishing up a 7 or 8 part series on the 30 years war. He's a big fan of that 1600-1800 time frame, so if that time period is interesting to you, that's another reason. It comes from a fairly academic position.

2 & 3) A few years ago take put recordings of some of their courses out as podcasts. I've found two that are really good. There's a history of Ancient Greece course that's fantastic and an Early Middle Ages one that is really good also. I like diving deep into stuff when I'm interested, so make of that what you will.

4.) Dangerous History podcast. Also by a history professor. It's history from a libertarian anarchist point of view. It stays away from conspiracy theory stuff, but he will mention conspiracy theories that arise around the subject he's talking about. Very detailed about his sources of information, which makes it all the more stomach churning some times. Start with the "Rmemember the Maine" episode for a good example of what you're getting into.

6 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

1.) "When Diplomacy Fails" is a really good history podcast. It's by an Irish history grad student, so he tends to be pretty unbiased. It focuses a lot on the trends and failings of people that lead up to war, as well as the major political events that shape the outcome of the war. I'm just finishing up a 7 or 8 part series on the 30 years war. He's a big fan of that 1600-1800 time frame, so if that time period is interesting to you, that's another reason. It comes from a fairly academic position.

2 & 3) A few years ago take put recordings of some of their courses out as podcasts. I've found two that are really good. There's a history of Ancient Greece course that's fantastic and an Early Middle Ages one that is really good also. I like diving deep into stuff when I'm interested, so make of that what you will.

4.) Dangerous History podcast. Also by a history professor. It's history from a libertarian anarchist point of view. It stays away from conspiracy theory stuff, but he will mention conspiracy theories that arise around the subject he's talking about. Very detailed about his sources of information, which makes it all the more stomach churning some times. Start with the "Rmemember the Maine" episode for a good example of what you're getting into.

Oh my..... is this thread --of all threads-- becoming educational?

7 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

Oh my..... is this thread --of all threads-- becoming educational?

Relative to the rest of the forums, it’s a low hurdle.

13 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

A few years ago take put recordings of some of their courses out as podcasts. I've found two that are really good. There's a history of Ancient Greece course that's fantastic and an Early Middle Ages one that is really good also. I like diving deep into stuff when I'm interested, so make of that what you will.

Same timeframes: Ancient warfare magazine podcast, and medieval warfare magazine podcast. They talk mainly history, but a huge part of historic strategy/warfare is understanding the historical context. Also I just like listening to them.

43 minutes ago, RStan said:

Wrong.....Cryodex from @Killerardvark

I wouldnt mention that around people who went to GSC

36 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

Oh my..... is this thread --of all threads-- becoming educational?

Its always been educational.

2 hours ago, Brunas said:

jokes on you, i'm just a junkie, I don't think I can apply interesting tidbits from wars of logistics to xwing.

With that being said, please recommend me! MORE!

MORE!

However, if you were interested in applying something to xwing...

It depends on your interest and available time, but what you will want most are the “Principles of War”. The German word is “Gefechtsgrundsätze”, meaning principles of battle. Some US military theorists (e.g. Friedman, see below) agree that the name is more suitable because they are generally more directly and easily applicable to battles, so on tactical and operational levels, rather than on a strategic level.

A place to start is Wikipedia, but I did not find them in the FM 3-0, if you want primary sources.

For podcasts, there is one called “The Principles of War”. An Australian reserve and/or staff officer puts out 30min episodes aimed at young officers and senior NCOs.

As for books, Col Summers wrote “On Strategy” where he uses (the contemporary version of) the principles of war to analyze the Vietnam War. He wrote “On Strategy II” after the Gulf War in 1991, doing the same exercise. The first one is enough though.
I had mentioned “Strategy: the Logic of War and Peace” by Edward Luttwak before. He walks through the different levels of strategy from a technical to tactical, operational to (grand) strategical point of view. (As a side note, he explained back in 1987 why the “Holdo maneuver” of TLJ does not mean that hyperspace drives strapped on an asteroid ruin Star Wars forever…). He explains the concepts of linear strategy and paradoxical strategy, and these two concepts are very useful to think about X-wing in general, and about NPEs specifically. (The kind of NPE I’m talking about is when essentially only one player is playing. That is, he doesn’t need to take the actions of the other player into account and is basically playing a single player game. In such a case, there exists a perfect way to play. A player can perfect his approach, his maneuvers, his turn 0, everything. The game is solved once that solution is found. Of course that's the most extreme case which we had not really seen so far, but we got close at some points...)
A former US marine, Cpt B. A. Friedman, released a book last year where he tried to rethink tactics – the book is called “On Tactics” and wants to be for tactics what strategy got from Clausewitz’ “On War”. Especially the first four principles Friedman discusses – mass, maneuver, firepower, tempo – are interesting for X-Wing. The rest of them is not applicable or only with some more work and abstraction (surprise, shock, deception, confusion and morals).
There are plenty more books to be recommended, from old classics like Jomini and Clausewitz themselves to authors trying to interpret these two. Then there is plenty on ancient and medieval history if you are interested. For the First World War I highly recommend “Infantry attacks” written by Erwin Rommel. Quite the opposite to this very detailed point of view are books on so called RMAs, Revolutions in Military Affairs where authors take the large brush and highlight large scale changes over centuries. Browning, Black and Knox wrote good ones, the former two starting at the end of the 18^th century and the latter going from 1300 to 2050.

Obviously, I have to mention Sunzi’s Bing Fa, the “art of war”. I have read it the first time 15 years ago when I had no understanding about anything, really. Reviewing it regularly over this time had me realize again and again how little I had understood before. It is an extremely concise work, but it also requires a lot of knowledge to be useful. In that sense I would never dare to do those almost literal applications to X-wing as some in the community tried… (e: I think I have to add that I commend Dee's attempt which was both interesting and educational. It's just something I would never attempt because I know how wrong I was in the past and very likely still am. The principles of war I mentioned are comparatively trivial)

57 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Same timeframes: Ancient warfare magazine podcast, and medieval warfare magazine podcast. They talk mainly history, but a huge part of historic strategy/warfare is understanding the historical context. Also I just like listening to them.

If that's the podcast I'm thinking of, those guys are clearly game nerds as well.

3 hours ago, Tlfj200 said:

Whatever.

People are thinking NOW, versus when there are 7 factions, 4 factions with 5 ships or less.

Think whatever you want.

And why are you blaming them? It's not like there are 7 factions, 4 factions with 5 ships or less now or until a few months at least...

ONCE we will have 7 factions we will see, now I was arguing against the idea that playing 2nd edition rather than extended to help some mythical potential new players who, even where theyt actually exist, aren't complaining.

Let's cross the bridge when we come at it. Why should we self impose on ourselves unneeded limits meanwhile?

1 minute ago, Sunitsa said:

And why are you blaming them? It's not like there are 7 factions, 4 factions with 5 ships or less now or until a few months at least...

ONCE we will have 7 factions we will see, now I was arguing against the idea that playing 2nd edition rather than extended to help some mythical potential new players who, even where theyt actually exist, aren't complaining.

Let's cross the bridge when we come at it. Why should we self impose on ourselves unneeded limits meanwhile?

self impose on... what, exactly?

Stores around here are doing second edition, because people asked for it. If your store wants to do extended: by all means.

I think the discussion is only relevant when it comes to OP/premier events, of which there are very, very few until March of next year.

I've only dabbled in military history, but one of the more interesting books I've read was this one. It's an exploration of cultural attitudes towards warfare vs. the practical reality of warfare in a given time and place. So not only exploring discrepancies between idealized versions of warfare vs. what is actually occurring, but also how cultural attitudes/assumptions create dynamics that don't necessarily need to exist/don't make sense in a vacuum. You can see parallels in X-Wing with local/global metas, "honorable jousts", scrub mentality, etc.

Sorry @Tlfj200 - people seem to be targeting you over my poke at things. While I do enjoy watching things burn down, this wasn't an intentional fire lighting.