Like anyone asked, lol.

So there are two major ways aircraft are designed to survive, one is to increase survivability (making it take more damage) the other way is to make it unhittable (stealth, speed, etc). It is very clear that the imperial ships are designed to not be shot at and are still the best when it comes to maneuvering. However, X-wing is not a good place for real life strategies. Thematically it makes sense but it is costing the imperials.

it is no surprise that Star Wars space is more like ww2 dogfighting than it is a realistic space battle. And in many ways you can see that the game reflects that pretty well. What it doesn't reflect well is how ineffective turrets were at defending bombers. Bombers were shot down all the time. Their survivability was not enough to withstand interceptor fighters. This is why aircraft would fly alongside bombers to protect them. So why are turrets SO good at protecting our heavy aircraft in he game?

simple, this game is 2-D.

highly maneuverable aircraft can do some real damage because of their ability to change what plane they fight on. The ability to climb is a very powerful attitribute. in Vietnam, Migs were used fantastically because they would wait for F-4s to get close to their airfields, then they would deploy in a swarm quickly and force the F-4s into close range dog fights. At those distances, the F-4s' rockets were not very effective. It wasn't until we had some defectors join the US until the F-4 started having major air victories. Ultimately we learned how to outfly the pilots and beat them (we increased our PS lol)

and that's another thing X-wing struggles with, distance. We are fighting with rockets and ordinance of all kinds, in real dogfights, it really doesn't matter what you are flying, a missile is deadly if you are hit. The F-14 excelled incredibly at that by pushing their missile range passed the opponents radar. F-14s could destroy you before you knew they were in the air. But the F-14 didn't carry just one air to air missile, they carried a few, you know. Just in case.

I am jumping all over the place historically but I think it's important so I can show the extremes. Ultimately, X-wings style dogfight is dogfighting between the Korean and Vietnam war. They had rockets that weren't 100% accurate and more often than not they had to rely on dogfighting in air to air combat.

the imperials use a real aeronautical survival strategy. It should theoretically work but the game just is not real enough. So here are my thoughts.

an agility bonus for ships getting fired on outside of a standard arc. Much like autothrusters but always present. It's just not easy to shoot things moving while you are moving in the opposite direction that you are facing. Ask any cowboy who isn't John Wayne how hard it is to hit a moving target while you are also moving.

also, if you are going to invest in ordinance you should get more than one shot, standard. Extra munitions is nice but for how little damage proton torpedoes do, you should be able to bring more than one to the party. That's how real aircraft do it.

no, I'm not going to suggest making this 3D chess. That's just crazy talk lol.

tl;dr, imperial ships use a real strategy to keep aircraft from being shot down. There is no excuse for how poorly they are represented. I believe the game itself needs a tweak to save imperials without changing how imperials operate.

1) agility bonuses against out of arc turrets.

2) multiple ordinance by default if you choose to take them.

i love X-wing and I fly mostly rebels. Truth is I am sick of killing rebels and scum. I want to see more imperials. All I'm saying here is there isn't much wrong with the imperials design strategy. The game just is not designed realistically enough for a real survival plan to be usable. I think that should change.

Before I close, I know I ignored the elephant in the room. Bombs are really only present because of the 2-D nature of the game. You can't avoid it. Agile aircraft next to an explosion still die. Anti-aircraft makes random explosions in the air all the time and it works. Sorry imperials, being able to take multiple AA shots is what makes aircraft like the A-10 awesome. Survivability design has you beat there.

BONUS: I love the T-70, reminds me of how the super hornet F-18 is actually a different aircraft verses the normal F-18. The Navy pulled a fast one and convinced folks to get them a new aircraft by pretending it was the old tried and true one. The T-70 is a scaled up T-65 and I love it.

Pretty much what I've been saying for forever.

Firing a turret while your madman pilot is rolling all over the place is really difficult.

Battlefield 1 is a good example, where the only time I can hit an enemy plane whilst Manning a turret in my squadmate's aircraft is when they're directly behind us and we're going in a straight line.

My solution is to simply let the defender reroll 1 green dice if they are outside of the attacker's firing arc. That way all these friggin large base PWTs with ridiculously good dials would actually have an excuse to have good dials, they want to keep things in arc, and would actually have a reason to use a Kturn!

Quote

It is very clear that the imperial ships are designed to not be shot at and are still the best when it comes to maneuvering

Stopped reading here sorry.

Have you ever seen Dash, Miranda, Nym, Dancing Poe, Han /w engine - move?

Echo, Echo is up there, but the rest?

Not so much..

Green dice are NEVER the answer. Maybe autothrusters out if arc benefit for everyone but even that doesn't address the core issue of 360 fire in a game about manuevering

Turrets should just be mobile arcs

Green dice re-roll sounds great, but I wouldn't want Omega leader using it.

What about making it a title? I suck at naming things, but something like "High Agility Spacecraft", 0 points, TIE only.

When your ship is defending, if you are outside the attacker's firing arc, you may reroll one defense die.

This way for the ships with a good fix (Tie defender for example), they now have to pick which fix they use. And I think I could sacrifice one mod off a royal guard interceptors for this since my 2nd mod was always stealth device and the reroll is better.

2 hours ago, Keffisch said:

Stopped reading here sorry.

Have you ever seen Dash, Miranda, Nym, Dancing Poe, Han /w engine - move?

Echo, Echo is up there, but the rest?

Not so much..

Your loss. Why would you just stop reading the whole post because you disagree with a minor introductory point? I never understood that mentality

2 hours ago, Keffisch said:

Stopped reading here sorry.

Have you ever seen Dash, Miranda, Nym, Dancing Poe, Han /w engine - move?

Echo, Echo is up there, but the rest?

Not so much..

That's fair. I was speaking more about a naked ship without upgrades. I should have also added Imperial speed as well to their survival mechanic.

36 minutes ago, ScummyRebel said:

What about making it a title? I suck at naming things, but something like "High Agility Spacecraft", 0 points, TIE only.

When your ship is defending, if you are outside the attacker's firing arc, you may reroll one defense die.

This way for the ships with a good fix (Tie defender for example), they now have to pick which fix they use. And I think I could sacrifice one mod off a royal guard interceptors for this since my 2nd mod was always stealth device and the reroll is better.

this is where the game theory gurus can do their work lol. My only thought would be that it could be annoying carrying a ton of titles that are auto-include. I see a lot of folks talking about how we need to change the ships and in the case of imperials, I don't think the game gives their design enough credit.

1 hour ago, ficklegreendice said:

Green dice are NEVER the answer. Maybe autothrusters out if arc benefit for everyone but even that doesn't address the core issue of 360 fire in a game about manuevering

Turrets should just be mobile arcs

I would love to see some of the statistics on the best way to implement my idea (I know they are out there but I haven't looked recently). My idea is to just simulate the natural problems with turrets on aircraft. They are just as potent if you get hit so removing red dice doesn't really make sense. Making it easier to dodge (or harder to hit your target) seems to be the way to go. A free evade or something may be statistically better.

I don't want 360 turrets to go away. They were present in WW2 on bombers so it still seems fitting to have them in the game. Even the Twin Laser turret makes sense. Just seems like a turret that fires A LOT of projectiles to hit their target. Eventually one has to hit, right?

One of the other things about improving defense against a turret out of arc is it is a rule that does not need to be included in the core sets. This would save on reprinting and allow the basic core set to go unchanged.

I apologize for the multi-post. I forgot how to multi-quote lol

6 minutes ago, Mackaywarrior said:

this is where the game theory gurus can do their work lol. My only thought would be that it could be annoying carrying a ton of titles that are auto-include. I see a lot of folks talking about how we need to change the ships and in the case of imperials, I don't think the game gives their design enough credit.

Gameplay > fluff though. The auto include is kind of annoying, but probably necessary since that's how turrets work. If turrets had always been mobile arcs like the Lancer than no problem.

The auto include of this title is an easier fix than undoing all the point costing of PWTs and how they work.

Also, I think this title + Tie/D or X7 would be too much. Don't need to fix one OP thing by making something else more OP

I think people would have less of a problem with turrets if TLT wasn't a thing. Fat Turrets were countered by Autothrusters fairly effectively I think...

Great observations though! It would be nice if imperial low health ships got some sort of buff to their defense dice. Should have just made LWF equip-able on anything without shields.

1 minute ago, AngryAlbatross said:

I think people would have less of a problem with turrets if TLT wasn't a thing. Fat Turrets were countered by Autothrusters fairly effectively I think...

Great observations though! It would be nice if imperial low health ships got some sort of buff to their defense dice. Should have just made LWF equip-able on anything without shields.

TLT is a tough nut to crack. On a brighter note, I was at a local tournament and saw a Jake/Rey list wipe out 4 TLT Y-wings so there is that. I wonder what would happen if TLT rolls couldn't use focus or target lock.

Tie's with 3 agility should be able to roll an evade dice when they barrel roll, on an evade they get a free evade action.

Essentially their own version of lightweight frame balanced for them.

Interesting thread @Mackaywarrior about the state of X-Wing dovetailed with some military air combat history, a fun read. I always applaud a thinker who backs up his thoughts with facts and interesting illustrations/connections.

I to wish the field was more balanced as well, Imperials just lack the tools. It's so odd to think one cannot fly Interceptors anymore competitively, though they should always be competitive in a Star Wars fighter v. fighter game. Something truly has to give...

10 minutes ago, Mackaywarrior said:

TLT is a tough nut to crack. On a brighter note, I was at a local tournament and saw a Jake/Rey list wipe out 4 TLT Y-wings so there is that. I wonder what would happen if TLT rolls couldn't use focus or target lock.

TLT is simple, just fix the rules so all turrets and cannons use the normal range rules.

Missiles have thrust and guidance so they don't care about range except to lock on. Cannons and Turrets should.

14 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

Interesting thread @Mackaywarrior about the state of X-Wing dovetailed with some military air combat history, a fun read. I always applaud a thinker who backs up his thoughts with facts and interesting illustrations/connections.

I to wish the field was more balanced as well, Imperials just lack the tools. It's so odd to think one cannot fly Interceptors anymore competitively, though they should always be competitive in a Star Wars fighter v. fighter game. Something truly has to give...

Thank you, @clanofwolves !

I just really love this game and want to help. I don't expect ALL ships to be competitive all the time but the imperials' lack of representation just seems wrong. It isn't like they are using an obsolete design strategy. They are following the Energy-maneuverability theory incredibly well.

Performance = Velocity * ( (Thrust - Drag) / Weight)

This Theory is not enough to make an aircraft incredible but the creators of the theory created some phenomenal aircraft, like the F-16. It is a great base-line for fighters to use. Couple it with some fancy tech like stealth and you are on the road to having a great aircraft.

The imperials match this more than any other faction. Now tack on a little bit of survivability like shields on a TIE-Advance, or more durability like the Defender, or some REALLY fancy tech like the TIE Phantom, and you should have some great aircraft. The fact that even with great pilots these do not show up tells me that the environment the game creates makes this strategy non-functional. So either we change the environment or we stop using this strategy to make ships and the latter just seems heart-breaking. It wouldn't feel like Star War if TIEs could take more than a couple hits lol

I have beef with bombs being the penultimate counter to maneuverable ships and Aces. Bombs are meant to be loaded up on bombers for the purpose of bombing runs against large targets: capital ships, ground targets, etc. Why in gods name do the mechanics of this game use bombs as counters for ships like Interceptors? Like honestly, can you imagine a TIE bomber pilot trying to pull off crazy maneuvers trying to get above an A-Wing so he can drop a bomb on it? It just makes no sense, and I'll argue that bombs are one of the most un-fun, un-thematic, and anti-imperial aspects of this game. Change bombs (like allow ships to roll Agility against their damage), and suddenly the whole landscape of the game becomes more favorable for Imperials as a faction.

Failing the above, FFG should consider re-calculating the points associated with the Agility stat- considering there are so many ways to bypass it. Ships with high Agility should be cheaper, pretty much across the board.

An example of a pilot using the agility of their ship to avoid bombs:

1 hour ago, ficklegreendice said:

Green dice are NEVER the answer. Maybe autothrusters out if arc benefit for everyone but even that doesn't address the core issue of 360 fire in a game about manuevering

Turrets should just be mobile arcs

I cant say how much i agree with this. All turrets should work like the Shadowcaster. If you dont pilot well you must waste an action to move your arc.

just allow ships to roll unmodded green dice against bombs... or maybe unmodded green dice minus 1 if that nerfs bombs too much.

I've heard some of the idea behind PWT is it represents multiple crew: i.e. the Falcon had two 360 turrets manned separately from the person flying the ship. If you look at how many seats the K-Wing has, it likely does as well. Same with the YT-2400, etc.

Apparently the pilot of Shadowcaster had to manually control the turret, hence the mobile arc. (So I don't think AT work at R1-2 against the mobile arc, right? Random Q, anyways...)

So that being said, maybe ships that would have one pilot, but have a turret upgrade, get converted to mobile arcs, but that would be too complex.

I like the idea of range bonus vs all turrets. Also, kinda like auto thrusters, as a rule you should be able to change one (eye) to an (evade) if you are out of arc. That way a high AG ship w/AT pretty much gets 2 evades out of arc vs turrets, even without tokens. They can still get pegged on a bad roll, but it is unlikely.

Bombs...yeah. hmm. Action bombs landing on a ship that hasn't moved doesn't make a ton of sense, but at the same time they'd be next to useless if they couldn't work like that.

SLAM action bombs seem to be the main problem, not a lot of other action bombs out there.

Reveal bombs function well being at the end of activation. Maybe, at the end of activation when a bomb goes off, AGI 3+ ships within R1 may receive a stress to perform an additional BR or boost action to try to escape? (Even if they have already BR/boosted this round).

That way, they might just avoid it all together (like Obi-Wan), but end up stressed, and may be out of position.

1 hour ago, Jetfire said:

TLT is simple, just fix the rules so all turrets and cannons use the normal range rules.

Missiles have thrust and guidance so they don't care about range except to lock on. Cannons and Turrets should.

Here ya go.

It's not even hard to define that split, either. If the weapon requires to be discarded to be used, it ignores range penalties or bonuses.

If it doesn't, it does suffer the range penalty and can get bonuses. (Not as big a deal as it sounds - TLT and HLC cannot fire at range 1, so never get the bonus either way, and ions and flechettes would really like to be able to get 4 dice rolls more often, even if it does not increase their damage output so much as reliability)

AFAIK, the only weapon that falls foul of splitting cleanly on that line is 'unguided rockets', which...well...I mean, unguided . Soooo...yeah, makes sense they still see that range penalty, then.

About the only thing that is problematic is secondary weapons limited to range 1 (or otherwise short range) for balance reasons that would now be even more effective. I mean...range 1 is pretty short, so maybe these need the help, but...they would have to be evaluated...

• Advanced Proton Torpedoes
• Proton Rockets
• Cluster Missiles!
• Arc caster cannon
• Autoblasters!

54 minutes ago, hawk32 said:

just allow ships to roll unmodded green dice against bombs... or maybe unmodded green dice minus 1 if that nerfs bombs too much.

Yeah I think the efficacy of bombs on agile fighters is pretty silly at this point. They make perfect sense against larger ships the way they work now but you should be able to dodge if you are small, fast and maneuverable.