Obviously, this would be something that could only be played with in a casual game or a thought experiment, but I started wondering: how much would it change the meta if the total squad points allowed were 150, BUT: large-based ships cost double points (just the pilot card)?

It's not such an increase in point totals that you really need a larger playing surface for it, but the tax on large-based ships means there's an incentive to stick with small-base ships.

One could also consider additional variations where upgrades might cost double for large-based ships as well.

I'm not a competitive player, so maybe this would just make some things vastly worse, but I thought it might be an interesting thought experiment. I also figured that since I don't really get opportunities to test it out, maybe other people could try it out and let me know how it goes?

Well, large base ships already cost double point...

1 hour ago, NilsTillander said:

Well, large base ships already cost double point...

Ehh, many are very well costed and have access to abilities and upgrades that put small bases to shame. Never mind the inherent speed increase over small bases and wider access to PWT and aux arcs.

i think it's an interesting change worth testing.

Things like the U-Wing become more useless than it already is. It would be much better to do custom points per individual ship.

You think jankyard is tough now? Drop rex and give it some real teeth with the extra 50 pnts then watch it get broken.......

Also, 3 dice swarms!!!!!

1 minute ago, Ralgon said:

You think jankyard is tough now? Drop rex and give it some real teeth with the extra 50 pnts then watch it get broken.......

Also, 3 dice swarms!!!!!

But then, 6 ps 5 deadeye, cruisemissile, GC gamma vets come, and thats 30 dice you have to soak up. Twice.

I actually play 150 points as standard. It's a **** of a lot of fun... and the whole large ships costing more isn't a bad idea, but a TAD extreme. Maybe instead of 100% more expensive, go for 50% more expensive.

I'm running a game next weekend. I'll let you know how it turns out

Or 6 Snap+Juke a-wings with Jake Farrell along to kill Biggs before he gets an action.

i mostly play 150 point casual, and i'd say that big ships tend to be worth less in that mode because there are more opponents to focus them down. for example an unteched ghost with 16 hp but 0 agility might face 6 or seven 3 dice primaries the first round and pop without firing a shot. maybe add ten points to jumpmasters or whatever but im way more concerned about 6 named rebels or 8 missile alpha strike than triple decimators or 6 U-wings. its good to think about tweaking the game though, leads to fun quirky matchups!

1 hour ago, RufusDaMan said:

But then, 6 ps 5 deadeye, cruisemissile, GC gamma vets come, and thats 30 dice you have to soak up. Twice.

Just wait till guns for hire drops and its 6-7 vaski/z95's which still (mostly) have a 4 dice modified primary if they get donut holed ......

1 hour ago, Vontoothskie said:

i mostly play 150 point casual, and i'd say that big ships tend to be worth less in that mode because there are more opponents to focus them down. for example an unteched ghost with 16 hp but 0 agility might face 6 or seven 3 dice primaries the first round and pop without firing a shot. maybe add ten points to jumpmasters or whatever but im way more concerned about 6 named rebels or 8 missile alpha strike than triple decimators or 6 U-wings. its good to think about tweaking the game though, leads to fun quirky matchups!

Agreed. The more ships shooting, the less game time a high HP low agility ship has.

RoV

1 hour ago, Rat of Vengence said:

Agreed. The more ships shooting, the less game time a high HP low agility ship has.

RoV

Unless it has reinforce+ crew tricks or droid mitigation. Scum and imps gain offense, rebs become turtles.

Edit: dunno how effective it would be with the ps, but thats 6 kashyyyk defenders with commando's........

Doubling the point cost of anything that doesn't already cost 0 or 1 in this game would kill that thing.

If you think large-base ships are undercosted, then adjust each one's cost individually. Doubling is overkill.

Double points is ridiculous. Would make all large base ships unplayable. Huge swarms is what would be great with 150 points, even against current large bases.

Triple Brobots!

( if we disregard the doubling of large ship costs )

9 minutes ago, ABXY said:

Triple Brobots!

( if we disregard the doubling of large ship costs )

B,C and mangler kath or zuckuss with d onboard could be pretty bonkers

If you increase the points available to spend it sort of defeats the objective of increase the cost of big ships.

Did somebody manage to do a thing with a Firespray?

Harsh.

1 hour ago, Deadfool said:

If you increase the points available to spend it sort of defeats the objective of increase the cost of big ships.

No it doesn't, it helps balance it. Like mentioned already though, this particular method doesn't work so well, but the idea is that you can only just fit three Scouts in 150 if they are 50 each.

3 hours ago, Infinite_Maelstrom said:

No it doesn't, it helps balance it. Like mentioned already though, this particular method doesn't work so well, but the idea is that you can only just fit three Scouts in 150 if they are 50 each.

No, it doesn't. A lot of the costings are based around 100pnts. Go take a peek in the epic thread for broken builds...... by the time you take out some geared epic ships it's about what you have to play with.

Sure you increase the usefulness of several ships that suck at 100 pnts. But you create so many new issues and broken combinations that work because you cant effectively field them together ay 100 pnts.

Also Mindlink anybody?

A big reason why I play xwing is the length of the game. I wouldn't play anymore if they went up to 150 points. There's a reason why epic blows.

Double cost large ships seems mostly to be overkill just to block a few specific problems. I play a lot of epic, and it's been my experience that with more points to play with, large ships pop pretty quick. (Admittedly, I haven't played epic with or against brobots or JM5Ks, but if they are outliers, they should be addressed specifically, rather than neutering the Falcon as well.)

That said, I think higher point matches can be very fun. I often play dogfights around 120, occasionally up to 150, with quite a few 300 point epic battles around the edges. For design reasons, keep tourneys at 100/6, but casual should be variable to the degree of enabling a wider variety of play styles, squad designs, etc.

19 hours ago, Freeptop said:

Obviously, this would be something that could only be played with in a casual game or a thought experiment, but I started wondering: how much would it change the meta if the total squad points allowed were 150, BUT: large-based ships cost double points (just the pilot card)?

It's not such an increase in point totals that you really need a larger playing surface for it, but the tax on large-based ships means there's an incentive to stick with small-base ships.

When you scale up points the risk of alpha striking removing ships in an unpleasant way increases as you're not focused 3 attacks onto 1 ship, but 4 or 5 attacks.

I've thought for a while that the game would be better if you REDUCED squad size to 90pts and played 60 minute rounds with the intention of adding an extra round into swiss. That smaller squad size itself penalises large ships by often meaning you wouldn't be able to support them with a strong wingman.

2 hours ago, SOTL said:

When you scale up points the risk of alpha striking removing ships in an unpleasant way increases as you're not focused 3 attacks onto 1 ship, but 4 or 5 attacks.

I've thought for a while that the game would be better if you REDUCED squad size to 90pts and played 60 minute rounds with the intention of adding an extra round into swiss. That smaller squad size itself penalises large ships by often meaning you wouldn't be able to support them with a strong wingman.

So maneuvering becomes pretty critical, along with making sure you don't put all your eggs in one basket, right? Is that really a bad thing?

There's a reason I labeled this as a "thought experiment". I wasn't proposing that tournaments actually shift to this. I was curious as to how it would affect the meta if it did. For that matter, I find your idea intriguing as well. I'd be curious to know if anyone has tried 90pt games, and how that affected squad building as well.

150 points would makes games go too long. 120 points though could be played in the same amount of time. The main benefit, in my view, would be to move the meta away from 2 & 3 ship builds. Doubling large ship cost is not needed.

I haven't tried 90 points, but I have played 60 points with special rules, like minimum 2 ships. Also, placing 12 asteroids with no board edge restrictions. It's pretty much like starting the middle of a close 100 point game.