Long Range Scanners is not exactly broken right now, but its also not exactly good either. About the only place it sees competitive play is on a lone bomber or on Miranda/Scurrgs.
Current text reads,
"You can acquire target locks on ships at Range 3 and beyond. You cannot acquire target locks on ships at Range 1-2. You can equip this card only if you have Torpedo and Missile in your upgrade bar."

I was thinking about the card the other day and realized that if we change one word we might be able to revitalize the meta and bring a lot more ships back to the forefront of the game.

"You can acquire target locks on ships at Range 3 and beyond. You cannot acquire target locks on ships at Range 1-2. You can equip this card only if you have Torpedo OR Missile in your upgrade bar."

With this one word change, any ship that has ordnance can get it off during the first engagement. This would help a ton in reducing not only Biggs frustrations, but it would impact the survivability of every high health low agility ship on the top tables (Miranda, Scurrgs, Norra). It's also an elegant fix because it benefits low PS ships, you still have to telegraph your target, and it doesn't push Deadeye out of the meta (because Deadeye allows you to change targets on a whim).

What do you guys think?

It was meant to be a TIE Bomber fix, so I'm not sure it should be changed. Also, changing that definitely helps Jumpmasters even more.

I'm sure it'll see play on TIE Bombers when they get fixed with Sabine's TIE Bomber!

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Antilles_Extraction

25 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

It was meant to be a TIE Bomber fix, so I'm not sure it should be changed. Also, changing that definitely helps Jumpmasters even more.

I'm sure it'll see play on TIE Bombers when they get fixed with Sabine's TIE Bomber!

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Antilles_Extraction

I'm not sure you can call it a jumpmaster buff. It shuts down much of the benifit they gain from R4 Agromech.

26 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

.... changing that definitely helps Jumpmasters even more.

Well we could always make it small ship only

5 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

I'm not sure you can call it a jumpmaster buff. It shuts down much of the benifit they gain from R4 Agromech.

Yes you would get the torp off on the initial joust, but then you wouldn't be able to use r4 to get TL+Focus every round.
And you wouldn't get Guidance Chips.

Five Khiraxz fighters with focus and TL on the opening engagement. They don't even need ordnance. Or bring back BBBBZ, again with fully modified opening attacks.

I think you are playing with fire if you do that. It's a powerful card for 0pts. If they did that, they would have to change it to unique to not get spammed. By putting missiles and torpedoes gives them control for future design purposes.

I think the Vaksai is already going to be a strong counter to the current meta. Deadeye Black Sun Aces with Ion Pulse or Cruise Missiles are only 25 points each. Against Fairship Rebels, they beat most of the list on Pilot Skill. Against Nym/Miranda, Deadeye makes Ion Pulse missiles into a constant threat.

If you could take both Guidance Chips and Long Range Scanners, ordinance platforms might be better. You could acquire a target lock before you got into range AND you would also do good damage once you got into range.

15 minutes ago, BadMotivator said:

If you could take both Guidance Chips and Long Range Scanners, ordinance platforms might be better. You could acquire a target lock before you got into range AND you would also do good damage once you got into range.

That's probably the inevitable TIE Bomber fix. It would also mean that this card could see play on the ship it was intended for.

Considering ordnance spam is one of the most meta-warping archetypes, I'd say it's a pretty bad idea. Sure, it helps underpowered ships like U-Wings and B-Wings, but it's also a free buff for Jumpmasters, Rey, 4x TLT, Dash, post-buff Kihraxz or party bus.

It would have to be something like a card which can only be equipped if you have 4 or more combined Torpedo, Missile, and/or bomb slots. Or just make it a Punisher/Bomber only title/mod.

Ordinance Calculation Suit: Mod: 0 points: You may equip 2 additional Mod upgrades costing 1 point or less. You may only equip this upgrade if your upgrade bar has 4 or more Torpedo, Missile, and Bomb upgrades.

or

Ordinance Calculation Suit: Title: 0 points: TIE bomber or TIE punisher only. You may equip 2 Mod upgrades.

2 hours ago, Kieransi said:

It was meant to be a TIE Bomber fix

Agreed, it just didn't go far enough.

2 minutes ago, BadMotivator said:

...just make it a Punisher/Bomber only title/mod.

Ordinance Calculation Suit:

Title (0) points

TIE bomber or TIE Punisher only

You may equip 2 Mod upgrades of 2 or fewer points and your bar gains a systems slot.

Yeah, I think this would even break 'em, but they might see play.

I reckon there's plenty enough ordinance in the game now. The problem is not really that LRS is bad but chips is better for ordinance carriers and there're plenty of ways of getting that TL you need and a focus.

With the change you propose, I'd wager you wouldn't see much more ordinance but I'd stick it on just about any generic I have especially anything with FCS and an ordinance slot. So: it'd make U-wings and B-wings and the like better. Which might not be a terrible thing honestly.

1 hour ago, BadMotivator said:

If you could take both Guidance Chips and Long Range Scanners, ordinance platforms might be better. You could acquire a target lock before you got into range AND you would also do good damage once you got into range.

We'll see how Gamma Veterans do with Harpoons and LRS. They can easily get a focused, TLed attack for 24 points at PS6 with Adaptability.

Add: "You may equip one additional modification."

So Chips or Lightweight Frame become options.

I don't think LRS would help anyone

16 hours ago, Elavion said:

Considering ordnance spam is one of the most meta-warping archetypes, I'd say it's a pretty bad idea. Sure, it helps underpowered ships like U-Wings and B-Wings, but it's also a free buff for Jumpmasters, Rey, 4x TLT, Dash, post-buff Kihraxz or party bus.

Will it really buff those lists?
Jumpasters love R4 Agromech, so they can get TL+Focus nearly every turn. With LRS they lose guidance chips and can't target lock at range 1-2. R4/Guidance seems a better combo in this case.
4x TLT has to stay at range 2-3 so the target lock restriction isn't that bad. However most 4xTLT lists focus all the time for defense. LRS would give them one target lock more than they used to have, which doesn't seem that powerful.
Party Bus is usually high enough PS to target lock someone anyway, or uses Clusters for that sweet range 1-2 alpha strike. In either case, Guidance seems a better upgrade, so LRS wouldn't buff them.
Dash I can see it buffing, but its not that much of a buff. Most Dash builds we see now have Lone Wolf and Rey, so LRS would just eat their mod slot. Also countermeasures or engine upgrade are Dash's usual go to's for mods.
It would buff K-Fighters' alpha strike potential a lot with the new Vaksai build, but is that a bad thing? We might actually see the on the table!

17 hours ago, wurms said:

I think you are playing with fire if you do that. It's a powerful card for 0pts. If they did that, they would have to change it to unique to not get spammed. By putting missiles and torpedoes gives them control for future design purposes.

Its powerful sure, but I think it would buff lower ps ships the most. Most aces already have competition for their mod slots, and the restriction of "can't target lock at range 1-2" hurts ships that can do multiple actions.

Really the only ships I see this buffing is low ps generics so they can get their ordnance off (or have a stronger joust with primaries).

53 minutes ago, AngryAlbatross said:

Will it really buff those lists?
Jumpasters love R4 Agromech, so they can get TL+Focus nearly every turn. With LRS they lose guidance chips and can't target lock at range 1-2. R4/Guidance seems a better combo in this case.
4x TLT has to stay at range 2-3 so the target lock restriction isn't that bad. However most 4xTLT lists focus all the time for defense. LRS would give them one target lock more than they used to have, which doesn't seem that powerful.
Party Bus is usually high enough PS to target lock someone anyway, or uses Clusters for that sweet range 1-2 alpha strike. In either case, Guidance seems a better upgrade, so LRS wouldn't buff them.
Dash I can see it buffing, but its not that much of a buff. Most Dash builds we see now have Lone Wolf and Rey, so LRS would just eat their mod slot. Also countermeasures or engine upgrade are Dash's usual go to's for mods.
It would buff K-Fighters' alpha strike potential a lot with the new Vaksai build, but is that a bad thing? We might actually see the on the table!

I'm under the impression you haven't been to a tournament this year

-Existing JM5k builds don't have much use for LRS, but they would open up a lot of other options for them.

-TLT spam very often ends up with some ships in obviously out of combat situations. Some games would easily end up with 10+ free target locks for them, and even 4 is amazing.

-Party Bus always flies at PS2 (otherwise it's called differently) and cluster missiles are extremely rare on it. 9 times out of 10 it comes at the cheapest possible build of Zuckuss, Dengar, 4-Lom. Guidance Chips are usually a better fit for a VI Bossk (though in the current PS10+ meta I'd go for the TL without a second thought), but LRS is good at all those times when it doesn't want to invest points into ordnance.

-EU and CM are nice on dash, but I've seen around one of each this year, and played against at least 50 Dashes with an open mod slot. They usually can't afford a high-cost modification.

-We have no idea how well the new Kihraxz will perform, so buffing it before it's even released would be a tad riddiculous. the 4xHarpoon list is definitely capable of doing well.

1 hour ago, Elavion said:

I'm under the impression you haven't been to a tournament this year

-Existing JM5k builds don't have much use for LRS, but they would open up a lot of other options for them.

-TLT spam very often ends up with some ships in obviously out of combat situations. Some games would easily end up with 10+ free target locks for them, and even 4 is amazing.

-Party Bus always flies at PS2 (otherwise it's called differently) and cluster missiles are extremely rare on it. 9 times out of 10 it comes at the cheapest possible build of Zuckuss, Dengar, 4-Lom. Guidance Chips are usually a better fit for a VI Bossk (though in the current PS10+ meta I'd go for the TL without a second thought), but LRS is good at all those times when it doesn't want to invest points into ordnance.

-EU and CM are nice on dash, but I've seen around one of each this year, and played against at least 50 Dashes with an open mod slot. They usually can't afford a high-cost modification.

-We have no idea how well the new Kihraxz will perform, so buffing it before it's even released would be a tad riddiculous. the 4xHarpoon list is definitely capable of doing well.

I won the local store champion ship here (15 players I think). I will admit that in Texas the meta is not the same caliber as some places, but there was Dengar Tel and ReyNorra.

I still don't think those buff's are that big, but perhaps I have not played as much against those lists. Every time I see a "Party Bus" its the VI Bossk version.

On 9/14/2017 at 2:22 PM, Kieransi said:

It was meant to be a TIE Bomber fix, so I'm not sure it should be changed. Also, changing that definitely helps Jumpmasters even more.

I'm sure it'll see play on TIE Bombers when they get fixed with Sabine's TIE Bomber!

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Antilles_Extraction

Yeah, but the fix will be "Rebels only".