I wish we could do keywords ala Armada, but GODDAMN we'd need an overhaul or 100 years of titles packaged into expansions

I made these suggestions on the basis that they could believably appear in an FAQ update (though it'd be annoying for new players with unupdated printed rules but hey didn't stop ffg from not updating the original core set after the ep 7 core came out)

49 minutes ago, FatherTurin said:

The more I think about it, the more I think that keywords may be the answer. Generate keywords based on a few abilities and give them to entire classes of ship. That would also solve the problem of having to have titles to do things to differentiate a ship that the rules don't allow for (ARC, TIE/sf, Protectorate, as examples).

Possible Keywords:

Ace. This ship activates after all other ships in the activation phase and before all other ships in the combat phase. (Multiple aces would figure out order based on current rules, like huge ships)

Interceptor. Outmaneuver as standard.

Agile. When defending, you may change one die to an evade result.

Dogfighter/Space Superiority/Something Else: essentially Fearlessness as a baseline.

Swarm: forego your attack to add a die to a friendly ship that also has swarm. To hopped up on cold medicine to word it well at the moment.

This would be a nice solution for X-Wing 2.0. It also makes errata easier, as they don't have to change printed pilots, just the reference for the keyword. It would also open up a lot of design space without relying on the title patch system.

You could instead have a massive overhaul (an actual 2.0/second edition, not this 1.4 stuff) where arced fighters had more maneuverability thereby mitigation the benefit of a Turret by having arced ships have more range of positions to get their arcs pointed at it. Setting up more positions where you are in a joust setup between your arcs and their Turret.

You could instead also have (though this doesn't work with Miranda or Nym or the like) the activation phase broken down much the same way that epic is. If large ships had to all activate first it would take away their ability to out position most of their opponents the way currently Dash or upgraded Falcons and Decimators do. Thematically those large ships ought be a little easier to see how they are going to turn and have larger turning radiuses, so instead of being arc dodger class AND turret class in one ship they go back to being just turrets and with lower agility values they still would suffer at the hands of jousters, and even low PS level arcdodgers would likely get their shots and with high Agility fair well against the return fire. And I play Dash when I play and I'm saying this should happen. Also there's no way any large ship should have their 1-hard be white, it should have always been red.

In the end what I'm trying to say is this: If you want to restore the game to a more balanced state, you have to go back and stick to your three-type system of arc-dodger, jouster, turret, clearly define those, make sure that they do not go the way of hard counter rock-paper-scissors, and then keep a ship in those roles not letting it be two of them. That's my thought anyway.

If you're gonna 2.0 it, why not just make all turrets have rotating arcs like the Shadowcaster?

Because it's not a very good mechanic?

Overall I think this is well written and not too heavy handed either. I would be okay with these changes

I just think that trying to make turrets not be able to arc-dodge helps jousters, but it doesn't help arc-dodgers. If you try to fight a turret with an arc-dodger, you're not going to do well as it is. If there was some skill involved in aiming your turrets (like choosing which arc the turret can fire out of), there's a chance for an arc-dodging ship to avoid being shot at by turrets.

But I do definitely agree with ForceSensitive, there shouldn't be ships that do multiple archetypes very well. Making turrets less maneuverable is a good start.

1 hour ago, FatherTurin said:

The more I think about it, the more I think that keywords may be the answer. Generate keywords based on a few abilities and give them to entire classes of ship. That would also solve the problem of having to have titles to do things to differentiate a ship that the rules don't allow for (ARC, TIE/sf, Protectorate, as examples).

Possible Keywords:

Ace. This ship activates after all other ships in the activation phase and before all other ships in the combat phase. (Multiple aces would figure out order based on current rules, like huge ships)

Interceptor. Outmaneuver as standard.

Agile. When defending, you may change one die to an evade result.

Dogfighter/Space Superiority/Something Else: essentially Fearlessness as a baseline.

Swarm: forego your attack to add a die to a friendly ship that also has swarm. To hopped up on cold medicine to word it well at the moment.

Ooooo, I like this. Similar to Magic The Gathering: key words are simply printed on the card with a definition card elsewhere. Then put a FAQ reference to yet... or no reference card and just point to the FAQ for current definition. Do this for torpedos and misses and and and....

i second this.

I don't think Turrets are a bad mechanic, I just think the Squad Point value of some turreted platforms (when combined with certain upgrades) was not properly implemented for too many ships.

The Squad Point system of the game can be used to "properly price" turreted ships such that they are some % less efficient than Arc ships, by estimating how many "free shots" the turret provides.

The YT1300 and Decimator were costed with some sort of increase because they have a turret. (What this means in game is a 60 pt Decimator could only beat 60 equivalent pts of Arc ships if it dodged arcs or PS killed enough to make up for its lack of efficiency.)

The JM5K was not costed this way. It is basically on par stat for stat with most Arc ships.

TLT was not costed this way, or the range 1, out of arc no shot zone (approx 280 degrees) was thought to negate the need for cost increase.

Dash with Outrider HLC is likely not costed this way, or the range 1 donut was thought to negate the need for a cost increase. Especially not costed well if you consider how his ability can be used to dodge more arcs than a normal ship.

My wish list for turrets:

1) Re-cost the ones that are undercosted. Create some baseline "turret tax" and at minimum apply this to the cost of every turreted ship or turret upgrade.

2) Make more upgrades "in arc only". Or reduce dice mods when no ship is in arc. If a lot of the dice mod upgrades weren't usable out of arc, getting the # of hits to make the turret shot worthwhile would be a lower %.

3) Give turrets worse dials. They already get a shooting advantage, why give them a dial advantage too? Of course, costing the dial appropriately would also fix this.

48 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Because it's not a very good mechanic?

I don't know if mobile arc is a bad mechanic, or just a redundant one. As an action, it is quite like a TL, since you have to more or less "declare" your target (minus the offensive action benefits). So, in the current way, yes, using a TL header for out of arc would make more sense.

Regarding the Outmaneuver mechanic: this wouldn't be viable as a hot fix, but one way to balance it for 2.0 is to keep any ship with double reposition from having a TL action.

1 hour ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Because it's not a very good mechanic?

how so?

I find that the mobile arc is a far superior incarnation of the PWT that forces actual decision making on the part of the pilot both flying it and flying against it

Course I don't believe the side quadrants have to be as wide as they are (could be the same length as the primary arc even if it doesn't cover the entire width of that side of the base), but the fact that a mobile arc can be dodged and predicted and requires an action to move (i.e, cannot be moved on bump or obstacle or if the ship needs to reposition etc.) shifts the focus of their playstyle towards positioning and away from dice

even with gyros the Lancer has to give something up (namely EU)

I'd rather see turrets, or at least primary turrets, use their own little armada-style dial cups to plan their turret facing each turn. The whole mobile firing arc system is a bit clumsy for my liking, and this would keep the turret ships' ability to maneuver independent of their firing arc but still make them play the same positioning and guessing games as normal ships.

It's not something you can easily just inject into the game, but I don't think you can really "fix" the game to people's liking with an faq or even years of titles and new upgrades

The 'mobile arc' sounds really dynamic but basically turned out to be the 'set it to the side and fly a big circle arc' which is really dull.

Id rather have turrets.

4 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

The 'mobile arc' sounds really dynamic but basically turned out to be the 'set it to the side and fly a big circle arc' which is really dull.

Id rather have turrets.

but you know they're going to fly in a big circle, so you can counter without much hassle (it's not terrible difficult to get behind one, for example, and if it goes all firespray on you it starts suffering when it has to turn away from the table edge again). The mobile arc telegraphing where the ship can go in order to attack optimally is great for setting up counterplays

turrets can go wherever they please without much consequence, and I find that to be a lot more dull especially when the easiest solution to fighting against such flexible positioning is...just use turrets too

Imo, you have good vision, but the Outmaneuver rule isn't needed.

Remove R1 bonus for all Turrets. - This is a good start.

The problem is that all of these ships are blatantly undercoated: Shadow Caster, Jumpmaster, Scurrg, Protectorate. Oh see a pattern??

Also, attanni needs to be reigned in. Sabine and Cad Bane should nearly be once a game, (it already gives you the bomb slot). Unnerf Palpatine.

And there, the game is fine.

(Yes, TLT and Biggs will still be good, but you can deal with those with conventional weapons).

59 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

The 'mobile arc' sounds really dynamic but basically turned out to be the 'set it to the side and fly a big circle arc' which is really dull.

Id rather have turrets.

Isn't that more a byproduct of the Shadowcaster having a ridiculous dial with hard 3 greens?

eh, SCURRG is not undercosted and neither is the protectorate nor caster. According to juggler's math, the SCURRG clocks in at B-wing efficiency. That hasn't been impressive since TLTs came into the fore.

only one pilot from each (non-jump) ship has consistently frequented top tables (Assajj with Latz back in the day, Nym and Rau). This is a vastly different claim than saying the entire platform is undercosted, as it is with the jumpmaster. Now TLTs are pretty undercosted, as they can jack up even Ys to a B's mathematical efficiency while also being range 2-3 turrets that ignore range 3 bonsuses

Not sure about attanni, personally never had much of a problem with it outside Fenn Scouts, but it'll get pretty limited if the leaked "FAQ" turns out to be real.

I don't really put any store by juggler's math at the best of times, and especially if it shows the 30pt Nym at PS8 with 10 hull and a better dial is equivalent to the 31pt Ten Numb at PS8 with 8 hull.

10 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

I don't really put any store by juggler's math at the best of times, and especially if it shows the 30pt Nym at PS8 with 10 hull and a better dial is equivalent to the 31pt Ten Numb at PS8 with 8 hull.

no see, it's stats per point spent at a base level. It's not 1 B-wing = 1 SCURRG, but what you pay for what you get is approximately the same

except for B-wing named pilots. It's pretty well known that Ten Nub is the second most extreme price jump of any named pilot in the game (most extreme is major rhymer)

5 hours ago, HolySorcerer said:

This is my first comment on a 'fix xwing thread' * so maybe this has been discussed before but imho the main problem is on dials.

Mostly Jumps.

If imperials get more white K-turn/segnors we'd be ok.

Upgrades slots are not a problem per se, as long as you pay for things all good, even if some upgrades are undercosted (Attani...)

Problem with imperials right now is that we have less slots available AND worst dial (Ryad is the exception).

* (usually on squad list subforum)

- EDIT: expanding on the argument above as first reply was me drunk (lots of things going on in Barcelona right now - google it-)

Unlike most nerf/fix threads, this is really well thought out. I disagree with needing a T/L for the TLT, I think that's too harsh, but it wouldn't be a deal breaker for some ships.

I like the Outmaneuver for primary weapons buff. It's simple and makes sense.

Nice work

Honestly, I think the best fix for TLT would be to make it a dual card that functions exactly like the Arc Caster, but that is such a monumental alteration that it would require a complete reprint.

For ships like the Falcon, the mobile arc doesn't seem to fit, at least not as a hard rule. I could see it as the default, but there should be a "gunner option"; so you can throw crew Luke on (or any other attack-oriented crew) to man the turret. At that point, instead of costing an action, pay one attack die for each arc you have to move the turret during the attack phase to bring it to bear on your chosen target (simulating the blasts lost to the void of space as the quad-lasers track a TIE fighter before finally zeroing in on it). As an action, you COULD move the turret, but you could also wait and move it using the gunner during the combat phase; essentially, you choose between spending actions or attack power.

If you ask me, for PWTs, that seems both fair and thematic.

Also, too complicated and elaborate for implementation via FAQ, so its just random musing.

21 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

1.) No range 1 bonus for out of arc shots

2.) TLT could use some kind of limitation

3.) Outmanuever should be a base part of the game

1.) worth a try - plus provides scope to introduce a low PS pilot that "ignores" this rule (i.e. does get the bonus)

2.) rather than the "all-in" of an Attack:TL header (essentially meaning no TL = no shot) I'd simply prefer TL as a requirement to gain the 2nd shot. That way, without a TL, it's only max-ing 1 damage a turn. Maybe even put a 'cannot spend TLs this turn' clause as well.

3.) a way to implement something similar (and reduce the power-level of such a universal change) would be to instead give the attacker a "1 [eye] to a [hit]" mod - with an Outmanoeuvre trigger. Or alternatively, preventing one of the defender's [eye] results from being converted to an [evade]. I dislike the idea of completely removing a die because the whole idea of high agi ships is that they jink their way out of being shot, even when being pursued, thus should retain the maximum dice to try to do so - also leaves a place for Outmanoeuvre to still exist (without the potential of a -2 agi double-up).