I think that one reason for the empire underperforming in comparison to RebelScum might be that they draw from a thinner pool of uogrades. Rebels have Astromech Units for themself. Scum has Illicit and Salvaged Astromechs (mostly) for themself. RebelScum has a lot of Crew updates that are relatively popular while the Empire doesn't etc.

So how could we introduce Empire specific Upgrades that could be used by a large number of existing Imperial ships?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Title: Standardized Modifications

Restrictions: TIE only, Empire only, Limited

Ruels: You may equip another Title.

You may equip an additional Modification Upgrade with a TIE only restriction.

You may not equip several identical Modification Upgrades.

Cost: 0

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Long story short Every TIE could get an additional modification which would be limited to these who are TIE only. At the Moment this would be

TIE-MK II
https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/xwing-miniatures/images/5/51/Twin-ion-engine-mk2-1-.png/revision/latest?cb=20150706162622
and

Lightweight Frame
https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/xwing-miniatures/images/c/cb/Swx63-lightweight-frame.png/revision/latest?cb=20161205173613

So nothing too broken out of the box imho. Punishers and Bombers would be able to take LwF to boost their defence without giving up GC or LRTC for example.

This would open design space for something that is basically a TIE-specific Upgrade.

Examples for new usefull TIE-only Modifications could be

---

TIE-Turboloader

TIE-only, small ship only

Your Action Bar gains Boost

Cost:2
---
A cheaper version of the engine upgrade Large ships get more mobility out of boosts so I think cost2 is justified for a small ship version. This would enable the TIE Advanced and Defender to get a boost and take vector thrusters which may be bad news for TLT spam.


----
Standardized Ordnance

TIE only

All your Rocket Torpedo and Bomb Upgrades cost 0 Points
Cost: 7 (maybe +/- 2 I am not sure)
----
Not sure how balanced this is but the Idea is that the cost effectiveness of ordnance goes down the more you take. Alpha Strike lists that want to spam as many Rockets or Torpedos as possible in the first engagement aren't pushed with this cause it is too expensive. But Fully armed Bombers and Punishers that have several options for different threats would become viable.


Is this Idea useful or just a mess? What TIE-only Modifications would you like to see?

Just wait until people come here and tell you that the Empire is fine, and when you ask them about the lack of upgrades and slots they quietly walk away without responding.

Because all your arguments make sense if you are selective about your facts.

In this thread, I would like to ask people not to do that. Either acknowledge that the empire has problems, or defend your position against this argument (lack of upgrades). It's hard to take people seriously when they refuse to engage in argument as soon as they run out of answers.

I think the premise (fewer upgrades available) is undeniably true*, and your solution is a good idea.

A cheap boost for small ships is not a problem by now, and a "TIE only" mod is also ok. You could have gone the Vaksai route and reduce their cost, and that might be controversial. But you don't do that, so I don't see why that would be too good.

*Edit: that does of course not mean that there is a causational connection between the two. Imperials did fine at some point while also having less upgrades available. But we also see the tendency towards more upgrades per ship, so I'd say that the relative worth of a larger pool of upgrades clearly increased over time.

Its not the one and only solution. In my opinion the TLT is the biggest balance ****** in X-Wing. They wanted to slow down 'untouchable Sontir' but they overrected. Also nowerdays TLT seems to be the only turret upgrade in existence. If they made it Range 1-2 (like most of the other turrets) and Attack 2 with cost of 3 to 4 it would have been ok I guess.

Imperials are fine. Best balanced faction in the game. Just get rid of stupid OPness in the other two (and buff OT rebel ships).

/thread

4 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

Imperials are fine. Best balanced faction in the game. Just get rid of stupid OPness in the other two (and buff OT rebel ships).

/thread

But we all know that FFG prefers to fix by powercreep, not by nerf. So obviously yours won't happen.

3 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

But we all know that FFG prefers to fix by powercreep, not by nerf. So obviously yours won't happen.

In defense of FFG rewriting existing cards is a lot more problematic then printing new ones. People who are not up to date with FAQs etc. get really confused. Sure most people who visit tournaments are aware but with casual players it starts to become a mess.

Looking at your idea, it seems to generally be a solid boost, and I definitely think it has potential to be balanced (note the potential - I haven't played with it, so it might be entirely broken). The TIE interceptor is buffed, but not broken, as is most stuff. I'll also note that upgrades aren't necessarily good.

26 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

But we all know that FFG prefers to fix by powercreep, not by nerf. So obviously yours won't happen.

Instead they will keep adding more and more useless mechanisms, getting the game more complex, and still keeping older products away from most games, instead of fixing the real problems.
The question is, are you happy with it ? I'm not.

That brings the question to X-Wing 2.0 which is both promising and terrifying.

However I would like to keep this thread focused on this specific Idea and exchange if Ideas for interesting TIE-only Mods and avoid divagating too much in the general factioninbalancepowercreep discussion

Doesn't having fewer upgrade slots keep the costs down, and thus let you fly more ships? Empire loves those swarms. That's my understanding of the faction design anyways.

EDIT: Leia must play X-wing in her spare time. Nerf-herder insult finally makes sense. She wants that power creep fix

Empire is not all swarm and not all swarms are empire. Nobody needs to equipt modifications if he or she wants to keep the costs down. Its more optins which would meen that one could react better to meta changes.

I think the options should be more imaginative than adding boost (or) barrel roll to every ship. That makes just nearly all ships have the same charasteristics.
Some swarm/squadron titles would be nice, especially for the generics which see very little play.

I like the idea of the Empire becoming the faction which has easy access to sideboards - being the faction with unlimited resources and endless ranks of disposable mooks, you could easily do this in two flavours:

1: reinforcements. Hyperspace jumps dropping ships in at odd points on the board or later than turn 0, Thrawn allowing access to a small sideboard of upgrades which you can swap in during setup, etc.

2: endless ranks. An upgrade that allows TIEs, possibly only TIES of certain maximum prices, only generics, or similar, to be replaced with the cheapest generic of their class upon death (probably with no upgrades except maybe ordnance) - the generic wouldn't count towards their force for points purposes, but you'd have to kill it to table them.

Making a lot of the Empire's arsenal competitive would take a lot of creep - so why not give them quantity, where they can't have quality, or flexibility where they can.

38 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

Instead they will keep adding more and more useless mechanisms, getting the game more complex, and still keeping older products away from most games, instead of fixing the real problems.
The question is, are you happy with it ? I'm not.

My post wasn't normative, I didn't say whether I'm happy or not, just that FFG has a clear tendency that makes your snippy remark ("/thread") pointless.

20 minutes ago, Superstrength79 said:

Doesn't having fewer upgrade slots keep the costs down, and thus let you fly more ships? Empire loves those swarms. That's my understanding of the faction design anyways.

Fewer options, not fewer slots.

5 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

I like the idea of the Empire becoming the faction which has easy access to sideboards

And Thrawn is the perfect fluff reasoning for that.

6 minutes ago, Superstrength79 said:

Doesn't having fewer upgrade slots keep the costs down, and thus let you fly more ships? Empire loves those swarms. That's my understanding of the faction design anyways.

EDIT: Leia must play X-wing in her spare time. Nerf-herder insult finally makes sense. She wants that power creep fix

Hehe... no.
For example, the Y-wing and the aggressor are pretty equal turret carriers, with y-wings being slightly better due to the nature of the meta game today. HP is just better than green dice.

However, the Y-wing has access to an astromech, and has more upgrade slots. Does that allow me to bring 5 aggressors with TLT-s? Or even 4 aggressors and another ship? No.

But if an awesome astromech comes out in the future, it will possibly buff the Y-wings.

Also

When new mechanics start to appear in the game (for example, bombing crews like Sabine and Cad Bane) it doesn't help Imperials that their bombers lack crew upgrades. When a new upgrade gives you access to an ability not present in the game before, not having access to that upgrade will make you weaker. Even if the imperial got a bombing crew (or just want to use bombardier) the only ships that can equip it is the Slave 1 and Decimator, with one being garbage and the other not being a bomber.

Having worse slots means each upgrade available that boosts the power of certain ships makes the gap between imperials and the other factions greater. Each powerful illicit slot in the future enhances all scum ships with access to it. Each turret upgrade disproportionately favors rebel and scum lists, because they have more flexibility in equipping them.

Also also

Upgrade slots are venues for fixes and buffs to certain ships, and these the empire lacks. And its only time before more 0 point upgrades come this way, boosting rebels and scum more than the empire.

Probably the only Imperial ship w/o the upgrade problem is the SF

Ironically, the SF is considered to be the saving grace of imperials atm......hmm i wonder why...

1 minute ago, Vineheart01 said:

Probably the only Imperial ship w/o the upgrade problem is the SF

Ironically, the SF is considered to be the saving grace of imperials atm......hmm i wonder why...

Even the /sf suffers a bit. It's now pretty much got at least two good options for every slot except mod, and even that has LWF AND Chimps.

So it's already pretty much hit the limit of how good it can get.

I think FFG needs to accept that a points overhaul is what the game needs, and that they will need to look at doing this every 5 yrs or so.

I don't know that a 2.0 would be needed in regard to changing up mechanics. Simply keep everything as it is but issue a new base point cost for various pilot cards. Call it a draft; Provide it as a PDF. Have a formal channel for feedback and do another draft a couple weeks out. Rinse and repeat until it feels done. Final PDF is availible on the website and all events are required to use these points. If economically viable, offer a pack of replacement pilot cards by faction for a reasonable price.

It is a great game, but all games with a flow of new items coming in start getting wonky. It is a natural process. The point cost fix is the best way to correct for this that does not entail a complete overhaul.

Another one (right out of the turret-hate-part of my brain).

'Fixed Turret'
TIE-only, Limited
You can not attack outside your arc.
Your Turret secondary weapons have +1 Range (max 3) and cost -2 Points (min 0).
cost 0

Basically a TIE-Agressor only thing. Could be fun with the Synced Turret or the Autoblaster Turret. Would practically turn the Ion-Cannon-Turret into an Ion-Cannon

EDIT: It is quite intriguing how the TLT wouldn't be that terrible with this, despite it dosn't profit from the range buff.

Thats why the aggressor bugged me since they had a trend of in-arc benefits and the Aggressor had none (Sync'd Turret does not count since its probably the least used turret that still sees table time)
I was fully expecting it to come with a title to give it in-arc perks, which would then compliment Double Edge. Instead we litterally got a barrelrolling, slightly less durable/more nimble ywing lol.

5 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

Thats why the aggressor bugged me since they had a trend of in-arc benefits and the Aggressor had none (Sync'd Turret does not count since its probably the least used turret that still sees table time)
I was fully expecting it to come with a title to give it in-arc perks, which would then compliment Double Edge. Instead we litterally got a barrelrolling, slightly less durable/more nimble ywing lol.

Would have liked that too. I like the options that come with turrets but I'd like to hae a nice reason to still care about the arc.

30 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

Thats why the aggressor bugged me

The Aggressor bugged me because it's "let's give this faction something it didn't have but the other factions did". And that's something they should never do. I don't want the Empire (or any faction) to get stuff from the other factions, I want stuff that only belongs to the Imperial faction. And then I want that stuff not to be given to the other factions, otherwise it's pointless. Strong characterization is what makes multi-faction games thrive. They should treat the factions like MTG treats the color wheel. If every factions gets all the tools in the game, the game as a whole suffers and becomes stale.

1 hour ago, Giledhil said:

Imperials are fine. Best balanced faction in the game. Just get rid of stupid OPness in the other two (and buff OT rebel ships).

/thread

It's getting more and more doubtful that we are ever going to get the needed nerfs. They just added 2 ships to the game that beats JMKs (and Attani)... How to beat OP? add even more OP. But of course dont give that to the faction that need it the most...

2 hours ago, Hannes Solo said:

I think that one reason for the empire underperforming in comparison to RebelScum might be that they draw from a thinner pool of uogrades. Rebels have Astromech Units for themself. Scum has Illicit and Salvaged Astromechs (mostly) for themself. RebelScum has a lot of Crew updates that are relatively popular while the Empire doesn't etc.

So how could we introduce Empire specific Upgrades that could be used by a large number of existing Imperial ships?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title: Standardized Modifications

Restrictions: TIE only, Empire only, Limited

Ruels: You may equip another Title.

You may equip an additional Modification Upgrade with a TIE only restriction.

You may not equip several identical Modification Upgrades.

Cost: 0

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Long story short Every TIE could get an additional modification which would be limited to these who are TIE only. At the Moment this would be

TIE-MK II
https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/xwing-miniatures/images/5/51/Twin-ion-engine-mk2-1-.png/revision/latest?cb=20150706162622
and

Lightweight Frame
https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/xwing-miniatures/images/c/cb/Swx63-lightweight-frame.png/revision/latest?cb=20161205173613

So nothing too broken out of the box imho. Punishers and Bombers would be able to take LwF to boost their defence without giving up GC or LRTC for example.

I really like this. At the moment most Imperial ships have "must have" upgrades attached to them. Add to that an already limited amount of unique upgrades and you get very limited space for interesting customization. You would also be able to put LWF on the Tie Phantom whitout removing ACD...

2 hours ago, Hannes Solo said:

This would open design space for something that is basically a TIE-specific Upgrade.

Examples for new usefull TIE-only Modifications could be

---

TIE-Turboloader

TIE-only, small ship only

Your Action Bar gains Boost

Cost:2
---
A cheaper version of the engine upgrade Large ships get more mobility out of boosts so I think cost2 is justified for a small ship version. This would enable the TIE Advanced and Defender to get a boost and take vector thrusters which may be bad news for TLT spam.

I do like the idea of other Tie-specific upgrades but i'm not sure that one would be balanced on the Tie/sf or defenders... Would have to be tested.

2 hours ago, Hannes Solo said:

What TIE-only Modifications would you like to see?

- Tie advanced bomb deployment system

Tie-only

Your ship gains the ability to drop a bomb before or after a maneuver (even the ones requiring an action). When you drop a bomb directly on a ship you may detonate it immediately after you have completed your move and actions. If you do, choose 1 enemy ship at Range 1 of the bomb token. That ship suffers 1 damage.

Cost: 3

Our bomb ships dont have a slot for a unique crew like the k-wing/scurrg. This would give Imperial a little more flexibility when using bombs. It combine Genius (1pts), Sabine (1pts) and an extra 1 pts for the ability to drop action bomb pre maneuver as well.

- Tie coordination device

Tie-only

If you have at least 3 ships equiped with this uprade at range 1-2 of each other, they can all roll 1 additional attack dice. Equip this only on ships with a primary attack of 2 or less.

cost: 2

Swarm fix...

- Tie standardization device

Tie only

All ships equiped with this device get the same pilot skill as the lowest one amongst them.

cost: 0

Allows swarms to bring named pilots

Gunboats seem to be addressing upgrade slot concerns with titles, especially in being the only double cannon small ships for linked batteries

It is also the only adv slam ship with reload thus far

Empire doesn't really need unique upgrade slot to be unique, as much as ships with unique capabilities. This means more gunboats, strikers, x7s (still amazing even with no upgrade slots outside mods and epts) and less stuff like gressors and tie adv prototype which basically just ape other ships