I just got this idea what if we would of have Pilot Abilities with all genetic pilots etc. Imagine that you fly PS1 TIE swarm that their ability would have been supporting them to fly in swarm for example. Something minor but it could have make them WAY more popular.

I'm just throwing this out here for people to discuss!

I would like if some generics had pilot abilities, could make things interesting if you had generic bodyguards with an inbuilt draw their fire or a generic scout that had some sort of flexibility like adaptability or a pick ur PS at the start f the game type ability.

but it would have to be handled tactfully by FFG though I doubt any of my above ideas would be too broken....

4 hours ago, Zazaa said:

I just got this idea what if we would of have Pilot Abilities with all genetic pilots etc. Imagine that you fly PS1 TIE swarm that their ability would have been supporting them to fly in swarm for example. Something minor but it could have make them WAY more popular.

I'm just throwing this out here for people to discuss!

It's called Armada Where even the generics have keyword abilities, and then the named pilots have special text as well as keywords. For example, a generic TIE has Swarm. Swarm means that when it is attacking a squadron already engaged, it may reroll a die. Howlrunner has the keyword Swarm as well. But she has a special text - when another squadron with Swarm at distance 1 is attacking an engaged squadron, you may add 1 die.

Bam! The keywords mean that even the generics have special traits and features.

Myep mada does this beautifully already

And as with many MANY things xwing can learn from it as the designers learned from xwing

Tie fighters with built in dtf would have me playing them again for the first time since wave 5

Could even vary based on squadron

Black Squad --> dtf

Obsidian --> if enemy is in arc and at range 1 of another friendly , rerolls an attack die

Academy --> attacking it defending, suffer a damage to reroll all your dice

A better idea: What if none of the pilots have special abilities? The best pilots would only have high PS and access to Elite upgrades! That would be amazing. Most of the game would be based on your skill with piloting and players ability to anticipate your opponents moves rather then some special freaking abilities.

There could even be fewer Elite upgrade cards...

You know, sorry for my crap above but this game is already bloated beyond healthy state. We have huge amount of unique pilot abilities, piles of upgrade cards and some of the new abilities are utter nonsense! Special abilities and upgrades are the biggest problem of the game. Sorry again.

1 hour ago, Jiron said:

A better idea: What if none of the pilots have special abilities? The best pilots would only have high PS and access to Elite upgrades! That would be amazing. Most of the game would be based on your skill with piloting and players ability to anticipate your opponents moves rather then some special freaking abilities.

That's basically how it works in HotAC - everyone starts with generic pilots with no abilities.

Rather than fewer Elite Talents, though, there ends up being more, as most the existing pilot abilities end up turning into new EPTs that can be added along the way.

55 minutes ago, xanderf said:

That's basically how it works in HotAC - everyone starts with generic pilots with no abilities.

Rather than fewer Elite Talents, though, there ends up being more, as most the existing pilot abilities end up turning into new EPTs that can be added along the way.

I know, I read that. And when it mentions using multiple Elite talents and abilities, I lost interest to be honest.

Unique pilot abilities prevents the possibility of stacking the same ability like you would have with generics all having pilot abilities. For example, if a generic had Jess Pava's reroll ability, then the entire squad could always reroll all attack dice when in formation. And her ability is just good, not game breaking, but it is when the whole squad has it.

3 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

Myep mada does this beautifully already

And as with many MANY things xwing can learn from it as the designers learned from xwing

Tie fighters with built in dtf would have me playing them again for the first time since wave 5

Could even vary based on squadron

Black Squad --> dtf

Obsidian --> if enemy is in arc and at range 1 of another friendly , rerolls an attack die

Academy --> attacking it defending, suffer a damage to reroll all your dice

To elaborate a tad; That's sort of what Armada did with the Correlian Conflict squadrons. You got new ace pilots for each faction's original four pilots, but you also got a unique squadron somewhere inbetween named Ace pilots and generics. For instance, a Generic X-wing has the keywords Escort (Which prevents enemy fighters from attacking other squadrons if they could attack the x-wing instead) and bomber (which allows fighters to deal critical hits to ships). Rogue Squadron costs 1 point more, but trades that escort for rogue (a keyword which reduces squadron's reliance on capital ships to achieve their full potential). The Gold squadron Y-wing, on the other hand, loses the detrimental heavy keyword normal Y-wings have (Which prevents them from guarding capital ships from attack by fighters) and also changes it's anti-ship armament to be noticeably stronger (1.5 damage on average instead of 1). Since X-wing includes only a handful of ships, such generics wouldn't need to be unique, and while changing the primary weapon or agility value of a ship would probably be too drastic a change, perhaps you could add an action to these super generics' action bar.

would be very easy to accidentally create a monster.

Even subtle abilities like Luke's singular defensive focus mod could escalate to being rather irritating if massed. Imagine a tie swarm if they had that ability by default, they'd still die fairly quick but they have pretty good odds of surviving 1 more attack now.

7 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

would be very easy to accidentally create a monster.

Even subtle abilities like Luke's singular defensive focus mod could escalate to being rather irritating if massed. Imagine a tie swarm if they had that ability by default, they'd still die fairly quick but they have pretty good odds of surviving 1 more attack now.

That's just a question of repetition (to avoid too many unique abilities that's need curtailing) and knowing where to put things

For example, if the academy gets an inaldra like ability you could spam it on every ps 1 low hull ship (cap out at ps 1 striker/fang). You SHOULDN'T, however, put it on an x7 delta because that's just monstrous

Make them all relatively simple and dice mod related and things should be dandy

Could also copy relatively unused epts such as wingman, low power but interesting effects

I think using the space where a pilot ability would go would be a cool place to put the much desired "Squadron" mechanics. An ability that triggers with other identical pilots.

Academy Pilot: While attacking or defending, you may reroll 1 die for each other friendly Academy Pilot within range 1. You may not reroll more than 2 dice with this ability.

Obsidian Squadron Pilot: At the start of the combat phase, if there is another friendly Obsidian squadron pilot within range 1, you may perform a free Focus action if you do not have any Focus tokens.

Rookie Pilot: When a friendly X-wing at range 1 with a higher Pilot skill performs a Focus or Target lock action, you may immediately perform the same action. If you do, receive 1 stress token.

Red Squadron Pilot: You may spend focus and red target lock tokens on friendly Red Squadron Pilots within range 1-2 as if they were your own. If you spend another friendly ship's focus or target lock token, receive 1 stress token.

All of these would encourage multiples of that type of generic. Academy Pilots get up to 2 rerolls each. Obsidian squadron pilots would give each other focus actions. Rookie Pilots wouldn't need each other necessarily, just a better pilot to tag along with, but multiple Rookie pilots following Wedge around could be nasty. Red Squadron pilots would work together at the cost of stress.

If all generics had pilots abilities, they wouldn't be generic. OTOH, as Bad Motivator points out, Squad mechanics would allow you to make generics slightly less generic, if you wanted them to be.

Not true

Long as they don't have a dot next to their name, they're not unique and are therefore "generic"

Plenty of other game systems give their nonnamed units special abilities

Now you definitely don't want squad abilities (assuming they only trigger across a ship type) because that just stifles list building by relegating ships to specific lists. Abilities that trigger based on the positioning of other friendlies is a better idea

46 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Not true

Long as they don't have a dot next to their name, they're not unique and are therefore "generic"

Plenty of other game systems give their nonnamed units special abilities

Now you definitely don't want squad abilities (assuming they only trigger across a ship type) because that just stifles list building by relegating ships to specific lists. Abilities that trigger based on the positioning of other friendlies is a better idea

On one side, it gives a reason to actually use generics in a way that can compete with the top pilots without needing to include those pilots at all.

On the other hand, the same, wouldn't wanna mix Aces with pilots much anymore. Would be All generics or All aces, but there's still variety.

or we could not artificially limit player decision and just have both

12 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

or we could not artificially limit player decision and just have both

We always have liberty to do house rules sure!

15 hours ago, Chibi-Nya said:

On one side, it gives a reason to actually u in a way that can compete wit h the top pilots without needing to include those pilots at all.

On the other hand, the same, wouldn't wanna mix Aces with pilots much anymore. Would be All generics or All aces, but there's still variety.

Not necessarily . As i did with one of the generics above, you could give it a bonus based on a potentislly non-generic. Wedge leading a squadron of rookies would be cool.

17 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

Now you definitely don't want squad abilities (assuming they only trigger across a ship type) because that just stifles list building by relegating ships to specific lists.

Abilities that trigger based on the positioning of other friendlies is a better idea

For the former, I would, because I don't mind a little fluff that makes the game feel like Star Wars.

For the second part, we already have those kinds of abilities. . .

You don't want the former even for fluff

For example, what if you want to fly Ys with Xs ala Yavin4

What about Bs, Ys, Xs and As ala ROTJ? Or ties with interceptors/strikers?

You don't want shortsighted limitations for fluff purposes. That just restricts that kind of lists you can field, competitively AND thematically

39 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

You don't want the former even for fluff

For example, what if you want to fly Ys with Xs ala Yavin4

What about Bs, Ys, Xs and As ala ROTJ? Or ties with interceptors/strikers?

You don't want shortsighted limitations for fluff purposes. That just restricts that kind of lists you can field, competitively AND thematically

I would give each squadron a different ability based on fluff and the needs of the chassis. . .

"Vanilla Squadron" would work, of course, but could be harder to make sure you don't wind up OP somewhere now or in the future.

I mean, unless you are suggesting this would work across various chassis styles. In which case, IHMO, it's no longer a "squadron" mechanic, just a low-PS perk.

this sounds a bit like the prototype ideas for this game (see last page of comments), where every pilot has "some sort" of ability.