2 hours ago, droz69 said:

Magnus, wow, sorry man. I just reread some of the stuff I put up there and I mistyped some things. lol. On R5-D8 it should read:

At the end of the Combat phase, you may discard a facedown damage card, then roll a defense die. On a Focus result, discard this astromech (At 3 points, it was still way too tough to use. Make it so just on focus results, and can always happen. Combined with IA, it can prove to be very tanky, as long as it doesn't blow itself up in the process, and only works on facedown damage cards. Porkins will still love this mech).

That sounds...not too bad

It's still really powerful - it's only got to trigger once to equal a hull upgrade at the same price, but there is a realistic chance on a non-porkins X-wing that it won't trigger at all (because going from zero shields to zero hull in one combat phase is quite feasible, aside from the potential to suffer one or more face-up damage cards). The focus result/discard is a nice enough counterbalance to not having to do anything to trigger it.

15 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

That sounds...not too bad

It's still really powerful - it's only got to trigger once to equal a hull upgrade at the same price, but there is a realistic chance on a non-porkins X-wing that it won't trigger at all (because going from zero shields to zero hull in one combat phase is quite feasible, aside from the potential to suffer one or more face-up damage cards). The focus result/discard is a nice enough counterbalance to not having to do anything to trigger it.

These were exactly my thoughts as well. It's meant to be a porkins droid, but can be useful on others. I still believe that every droid should provide an Elite slot is above PS2 and no elite slot already, which would easily fix a lot of these T-65 pilots. If Hobbie, Garven, Red squad pilot and to some degree Tarn all had EPT's, I think we'd see a lot more play out of them. They all have some of the best abilities in the game, but they are seriously gimped because of a combination of dial and no ept on a ship that doesn't get any reposition in a game where every ship that is top tier has repositioning.

On ‎08‎/‎09‎/‎2017 at 11:17 PM, droz69 said:

If Hobbie, Garven, Red squad pilot and to some degree Tarn all had EPT's, I think we'd see a lot more play out of them. They all have some of the best abilities in the game, but they are seriously gimped because of a combination of dial and no ept on a ship that doesn't get any reposition in a game where every ship that is top tier has repositioning.

Not every ship has to have Elite upgrade slots. The Red Squadron Pilot, I agree - because he doesn't have a pilot ability, and doesn't have a high enough PS to matter, so there's no reason to field him over a rookie (who sees little enough use as is). More importantly, elite slots aren't good at granting repositioning - Expert Handling is kind of sucky compared to vectored thrusters or BB-8 (one reason I don't want to see 'have barrel roll' as an X-wing fix is that they already have so many ways to get the action and I'd rather not make those obsolete) and Daredevil can actively blow your own ship up without a further, 4-point, non-integrated astromech modification

The named pilots without elite upgrades are okay. If I wanted to improve them, I'd probably cut their cost.

In fact, that's what I'd prefer to do with all the T-65s:

• The T-70 is currently 'okay' - mostly in the form of Poe Dameron, but Jess Pava and Nien Numb also get use, as do 4 x Blue Squadron Novices. In a world where having even one pilot 'useable' at a store championship level is a good thing, that's not bad.
• The T-65 needs something; it's currently just bad. Its only real star is Biggs, who is never seen escorting other X-wings and is pretty much just a caddy for his pilot ability.
• The problem with X-wing 'fixes' that you see improving the X-wing is that making the X-wing more expensive for more points....makes it a T-70, because that's the point of the T-70.
• Cutting cost, on the other hand, moves the X-wing into the 'heavy swarmer' bracket - where you can field 5 x 3-dice primary ships in 100 points - you don't need to cut the cost by much to allow this!
• Cutting cost by a couple of points also allows you to field the 4 mid-tier aces - Tarn, Hobbie, Garven and Jek, with astromechs. That's actually quite an interesting squad; yes, the X-wing dial, but you've got at least 2 pilots in there who can pull 'white' K-turns, which is good.
• A cheap astromech which allows repositioning would be good (see the hinted at "Flight Control Astromech" in the Phantom II) but I'm worried that it just becomes an auto-include.

Love the idea Magnus. I tend to agree with you on the cost cutting approach as well. If you can collectively reduce the cost by 2 to 3 points per ship, it makes them much more viable as well.

On 9/5/2017 at 8:17 PM, TylerTT said:

The trend is to make newer stronger cards not make old cards better. They could make one or two new astromechs that esentially deleat all those old cards from the competitive pool.

Which is the wiser approach. I'd rather have "dead" cards than buckets of errata. And, as @Stoneface stated, sometimes they come around.

Quote

How would you "fix" the many bad Astromechs?

Trap, neuter, and release. Then forget about 'em.

Heh. I'm only half-kidding when I say that X-Wing 2.0 should print cards with nothing but name, illustration, and QR code. Scan the code -- sell a dedicated scanner with updateable memory for $10, for those situations in which a smartphone won't work -- get the current card text (and FAQ, and outstanding questions).

It's the 21st century!

2 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Heh. I'm only half-kidding when I say that X-Wing 2.0 should print cards with nothing but name, illustration, and QR code. Scan the code -- sell a dedicated scanner with updateable memory for $10, for those situations in which a smartphone won't work -- get the current card text (and FAQ, and outstanding questions).

It's the 21st century!

Shoot, let's go all in: Install a tiny reprogrammable chip into the stand of each figure. It holds the ship's info and all attached cards' info. Strap on one of these, and just touch the base for a readout: FORCE LINK!!

20 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

In fact, that's what I'd prefer to do with all the T-65s:

• The T-70 is currently 'okay' - mostly in the form of Poe Dameron, but Jess Pava and Nien Numb also get use, as do 4 x Blue Squadron Novices. In a world where having even one pilot 'useable' at a store championship level is a good thing, that's not bad.
• The T-65 needs something; it's currently just bad. Its only real star is Biggs, who is never seen escorting other X-wings and is pretty much just a caddy for his pilot ability.
• The problem with X-wing 'fixes' that you see improving the X-wing is that making the X-wing more expensive for more points....makes it a T-70, because that's the point of the T-70.
• Cutting cost, on the other hand, moves the X-wing into the 'heavy swarmer' bracket - where you can field 5 x 3-dice primary ships in 100 points - you don't need to cut the cost by much to allow this!
• Cutting cost by a couple of points also allows you to field the 4 mid-tier aces - Tarn, Hobbie, Garven and Jek, with astromechs. That's actually quite an interesting squad; yes, the X-wing dial, but you've got at least 2 pilots in there who can pull 'white' K-turns, which is good.
• A cheap astromech which allows repositioning would be good (see the hinted at "Flight Control Astromech" in the Phantom II) but I'm worried that it just becomes an auto-include.

The trick of the 'cheap astromech' that makes the X-Wing into a swarmer, is to do something that makes higher-skill pilots (including Biggs) NEVER want to take it.

Something like...

Trainee's Astromech
Cost: -2
After you complete a maneuver or perform a boost or barrel roll action, receive one stress token for each enemy ship in your fire arc.

It's not actually bad for low-skill swarmers. Indeed, theoretically, they don't care about it at all and it just gives them a discount and feeds IA - they simply have to 'lead' their targets and make sure nothing is in their sites when they end THEIR movement (and rely on the enemy moving into their arc to get a shot). High-skill pilots? I mean, wow...yeah, could never take it.

Try targeting astromech on Snap Wexly with primed thrusters and intensity. 2pts is alright priced for that one