2 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

28 seems to be a better cut off.

Rebels: Norra is 29, Lowhhrick is 28, Miranda is 29, Nym is 30, the large base rebels are more expensive of course. The other pilots of the ships you mentioned are negligible. Keyan is 29, but also negligible

In all your examples the base cost of those ships is 25 or under. We're saying the same thing but are just using a different metric (I decided to adjust for the pilot skill and provide the cost of the cheapest ship with the understanding that the ace is more likely to see play and the total package cost would be in 30+ points range).

Scum does have some good options for crew on large ships that do not cost 50+ points once put together (Just compare Lancer with Decimator)

2 minutes ago, PT106 said:

In all your examples the base cost of those ships is 25 or under. We're saying the same thing but are just using a different metric (I decided to adjust for the pilot skill and provide the cost of the cheapest ship with the understanding that the ace is more likely to see play and the total package cost would be in 30+ points range).

Scum does have some good options for crew on large ships that do not cost 50+ points once put together (Just compare Lancer with Decimator)

Ah, now I got it, I only look at the ships that are actually being used. The hypothetical ship you're talking about would end up at the same spot, but you're using the baseline which makes more sense when talking about hypotheticals.

On ‎08‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 11:03 PM, GreenDragoon said:

HSCP: whooping 74% (however in absolute numbers, that's 17, the most used unique crew is Rey with 221, and K4 is most likely higher. Gunner had 34 uses on imperial ships)

Gunner and Hotshot Copilot are just an amazing pairing, and with Imperials it's easy to get a high PS turret that can field them, which I guess explains it.

On ‎08‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 11:03 PM, GreenDragoon said:

Hux (why isn't he used more? Too expensive?)

Partly. He's support crew, but if you've got two aces + support ship, a TIE shuttle plus fleet officer does the job for far fewer points.

Theoretically he'd support a mini-swarm well, but I don't tend to see people using mini-swarms these days, and Operations Specialist does that pretty well, too; when you've got a decently swarmy swarm, getting 2-3 free focus tokens out of it is pretty likely, making it a better deal.

Imperial ships that don't carry crew are so aggressively priced that they make up for the cost of a Decimator or Shuttle (which is also super aggressively priced). The fact they can load up an incredible ship like RAC and still have room for an ace is the difference between them and other factions - a loaded Ghost can only take Biggs.

Vader, Kylo and Palp are such amazing crew that this post seems a little entitled.

The imp issue is all of our ships except the Phantom (which has its own issues) are dedicated crew carriers, not random crew slot ala JM5K or ARC170
Most of the imp specific crew are really good, just really hard to use. System Officer is awesome but unless its on a Stridan its insanely hard to get it off every turn, and if you use Stridan you got a limited green issue (to give an example)

Vader Crew, Rebel Captive, and Mara Jade are probably the only imp crew that isnt supporty, but the only non-dedicated shuttle we got is the Decimator and its basically limited to one or two builds due to its price.

This is why i really hope whatever we get in Wave12/potentially the Silencer has a single crew slot and is NOT a dedicated transport. While i dont plan to tote around vader in a legit fighter craft, having the deterrence of Rebel Captive or sheer irritant of a mara jade that can swivel around your head would be awesome.

I am just looking for Thrawn Crew, but the problem I see with him as a crew is what would his ability be? He is a tactical genius that studies his opponent and is able to accurately predict his next move and plan for it in advance. That being said his ability would have to be something like this:

At the end of the place forces step select one ship and assign the "Know thy enemy" condition card. (this is a direct reflection of his own philosophy, " To defeat an enemy, you must know them. Not simply their battle tactics, but their history, philosophy, art.")

"Know thy enemy" Condition card:

A ship with this condition card must set and place his dial down face up first before any other dial may be set or placed until he is destroyed. Once destroyed remove this card. If Grand Admiral Thrawn is removed from play remove this card.

The problem with this is what would he cost?

A "fix" for the firespray chassis would go a long way towards fixing some of the imperial crew issues. Imagine something like a "patrol variant" mod or title that decreases cost by a point or so and adds barrel roll.

That would be a great way to get some more bang for the buck out of the firespray as a combat capable crew carrier.

Part of the problem could be is that Empire lacks crew carrying ships that people want to fly.

Imagine if we had a better balanced less ridiculously broken version of Kanan. Strange that a mechanic of making your entire dial GREEN is Rebel only.

Better than green, since it bypasses a great deal of things regular greens dont.

Random thought here, but after the x7 errata it's been kinda neat if isanne affected friendly ships since she's a free evade action

Be amazing on the TIE shuttle

On 2017-08-08 at 6:03 PM, GreenDragoon said:

Prompted by a thread and /u/isop on reddit I did some digging regarding crew and imperials. I used meta-wing, limited to wave11 (13.7.17) until today (8.8.17).

There are 65 crew in total. 23 are exclusive to Rebels, 16 for Scum, 11 for Empire, 15 are neutral.
A total of 2246 times are these crew cards used in a squad. Mind that there can be an overlap, so we are not looking at 2246 different squads. We are also not looking at 2246 usages of a crew card because non-uniques can be used more than once (looking at you, K4 security droid on Jumps!). Despite these limitations I think we can get something interesting out of it.

Crew exclusive to Rebels amounts to 988 entries (44%)
Crew exclusive to Scum amounts to 619 entries (28%)
Crew exclusive to Imperials amounts to 220 entries (10%)

Neutral crew amounts to 17%.
I split them further up, because the idea is that we'd see more on imperial ships if imperials were content with their crew choices but just chose non-exclusives because they are better. That would explain the very low amount of imperial-exclusives out of the total pool because the crew slot is already occupied.
But instead we see that 29% of these 17% are used by imperials - which is almost perfectly what we expect to reject the idea that imperials are happy with crew choices.*

We can also look closer at the 11 crew for empire. The good ones are Palpatine, Vader, Kylo, Rebel Captive, and apparently Systems officer. The rest is Kallus (huh? That far down?), Ysanne Isard, Hux (why isn't he used more? Too expensive?), Fleet Officer, Mara Jade and Moff Jerjerrod. The better 5 are 81% (178) of all imperial. Including Kallus and Ysanne ups that to 91%, or 200.

Comparing these 178 or 200 to the 988 of rebel exclusives is interesting. Keep in mind that it is skewed towards uniques. However that's not too much of a problem because Wookie Commandos is the only non-unique Rebel-exclusive crew card. K4 Security droid is likely much higher, could be double, but that doesn't affect imperials much. If anything it's worse than I'm claiming. I also took a closer look at a non-unique imperial, Systems officer. There wasn't a single squad where he's used more than once.

So what is the limiting factor here? Are crew carriers bad for the empire? I don't belive that - after all, RAC is the 6th most frequent pilot for imperials, Kylo as shuttle pilot is 9th.

Or do imperials need more diversity for their crew options?

(edit: porque no los dos?)

* It's interesting though that some neutral cards are used very often on imperial ships and one not at all. Top8 of neutrals, amounting to 87% of neutral cards:

• Gunner is used 40% on imperial ships
• Recon Specialist: 15%
• Intelligence Agent: 30%
• Inspiring recruit: 22%
• Tactician: 16%
• Tail Gunner: whooping 0%
• HSCP: whooping 74% (however in absolute numbers, that's 17, the most used unique crew is Rey with 221, and K4 is most likely higher. Gunner had 34 uses on imperial ships)
• Operation Specialist: 65%

Edit: Also, Rebels and Scum have (salvaged) astromechs as an additional form of exclusive crew which exacerbates the problem.

Yeah, it's sad. I really hope the next few waves are going to bring imperials unique upgrades on par (or close) with the other factions, particularly for the crew slot.

There is hope: Captain Phasma, Snoke (my hopes are high for a decent Palp replacement), Thrawn, Krennic, Galen Erso (if Kalus has an Imp card, why not him as well..), generic Storm trooper (cant believe they dont have a crew card yet), Death Trooper, Darth Maul, Spy droids (from movies or the psycho one from Rebels)... so many possibilities

Some unique upgrades for Tie swarms (fighter or fo) would also be welcome.

2 hours ago, algnc said:

Imperial ships that don't carry crew are so aggressively priced that they make up for the cost of a Decimator or Shuttle (which is also super aggressively priced). The fact they can load up an incredible ship like RAC and still have room for an ace is the difference between them and other factions - a loaded Ghost can only take Biggs.

Vader, Kylo and Palp are such amazing crew that this post seems a little entitled.

If they are so aggressively priced and so amazing, then they should be showing up more, but they are not. That should be giving you warning bells. The crew you pointed out are good, but have limiters that make them poor choices for the type of ship I believe we are talking about here. Any entitlement you see is on your end.

Thrawn Crew Card Option: Call it Strategic Advantage or something.

Choose Side A or Side B during the place Forces Step.

Side A: 4 Pt - You may perform a Free Coordinate Action during any phase. ( #Thats right...any phase... )

Side B: 1 Pt - At the start of the activation phase increase the pilot skill of a friendly ship by 1. ( #Screw you Thweek/Nym )

On 8/8/2017 at 8:25 PM, RufusDaMan said:

Our heavy bomber does not have a crew slot sadly

Punisher needs something; I'd think a crew slot would be mandatory on a ship that sized. Maybe a Title that gives it some cool ability to actually work? Maybe: adding a crew slot? an EPT? additional mods with cost reduction? And a bombing tech crew that gives Imps their Sabine bomb buff.

Hux isn't used more because he was designed for use three metas ago, when you could watch all the red dice you slung get shrugged off by low HP token stackers.

But there were lots of other things designed that deal with Hux's favorite prey just as well if not better and at lower price point.

What does it matter if one of your hits is uncancelable nowadays? You're just as likely to push the damage through anyways under sheer red volume.

What does it matter if you hand out 3 focus tokens? One can't be used on defense, and hey Attanni Mindlink is cheaper why aren't you flying Scum.

hux is more valuable because of the triple focus than he is because of the undodgable hit.

Usually when i have him on Stridan i always give the condition to Stridan because hes not going to benefit from the defensive side of the focus anyway. It gives all 3 of my ships some potency, while fleet officer leaves one hanging.

42 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

hux is more valuable because of the triple focus than he is because of the undodgable hit.

Usually when i have him on Stridan i always give the condition to Stridan because hes not going to benefit from the defensive side of the focus anyway. It gives all 3 of my ships some potency, while fleet officer leaves one hanging.

A guy around here uses Hux on a lambda with the two named SFs to pretty good affect. Likewise, he useally give the condition to the Shuttle, while enjoying extra focus tokens on his heavy hitters.

On ‎8‎/‎8‎/‎2017 at 5:12 PM, BlueSquadronPilot said:

Not enough Imp diversity, for both crew and their carriers.

Right. Just to keep the sample size small, look at material sourced from Rebels:

Rebels get the Ghost, and each main character as both a pilot and as a crew version, plus side characters like Rex and Ahsoka.

Imps get Kallus for crew. And the Inquistor as a pilot. Obvious oversights to nearly all the recurring Imperial officers and officials, and still no sign of the Sentinel-class shuttle. The game completely neglects the officers' corps over and over again to pump out another TIE variant which of course means no crew cards.

In truth, same for Rogue One. You get every rebel hero save K-2SO, and the Imps can't even muster Krennic.

On 8/8/2017 at 3:28 PM, ficklegreendice said:

Def one of the bigger crimes of game design was tarkin not being range 1-3 and epic only

You know, there's a really easy fix for this...

PLAY MORE EPIC!

Even imperial assault has vader's droids.... A hot crew dump with an epic ship in the new trilogy timeline (you know they're coming) could really give some love to those imperial large bases sitting on the shelf.

The main problem with Imperial crew carriers is that, at 100/6 point level, you are sacrificing a huge chunk of your list to carry that crew around. And typically on a ship that doesn't contribute much offensively speaking(Decimator exempted).

If the game moved to 150 points, I think crew carriers would be more viable as it wouldn't be as big a chunk of your list just to ferry Palp/Hux/etc... around in. Imperials in general might do better because they'd be able to use some of their core combos more effectively.