So X-Wing seems to be inundated by alpha attacks from missiles and torpedoes. This seems to have caused the less beefy craft to run for the hills. So why are there no countermeasures to missiles or torpedoes in Star Wars? We’ve had chaff and flares since world war 2 and we are arguably far behind Star Wars technology level.

So I propose two ways in which to handle this.

1. Have Chaff and Flares (or change the name to sound more Star Warsish) as 2 point upgrades which can be affected by Extra Munitions. Chaff can negate one torpedo attack and flares can negate one missile attack, but only for the ship equipped with said countermeasures. Here the worry can be that this would cause missiles and torpedoes to just go away completely as some missiles are expensive, but as we have seen there are now new mechanisms to have spent missiles/torpedoes renewed and chaff and flares should never gain that ability. Also Chaff takes one torpedo slot and Flares take one missile slot, and are expended when used.
2. Have Chaff and Flares (or change the name to sound more Star Warsish) as a 0 point upgrade which can be affected by Extra Munitions, Guidance Chips and Munitions Failsafe. Chaff can negate one torpedo attack and flares can negate one missile attack, but only for the ship equipped with said countermeasures. Each time these countermeasures are used the defender must roll equal attack dice to the incoming attack and may modify with focus and pilot/crew re-roll abilities. If the attacker has greater hits+crits than the defender, the attack proceeds as normal with the attacker’s current roll standing as their attack. If the defender has greater hits+crits than the attacker, then the attack was successfully thwarted by the defender’s countermeasures. Also Chaff takes one torpedo slot and Flares take one missile slot, and are expended when used. This makes things far more random (hence the cost), but still provides the defender with a chance.

There may be better ways to introduce chaff/flares. Just a thought. Let me know what you think, or if you have a better idea. Either way, I hope Fantasy Flight includes some kind of ordinance countermeasures.

There is already such a card and it is called "Countermeasures". The issue with that card is that it is large ship only, and, to a lesser extent a modification. That it costs three points is not doing it any real favors either.

Negate is a bit strong. Cancel a die, maybe, but negating an attack from a disposable card is a bit much.

Chaff works specifically on radar guided missiles, and flares on heat seaking. Both require the well timed dump of the appropriate countermeasure, followed by a high-G turn away from the oncoming ordnance, which puts the pilot under severe stress, and may not even work.

Torpedoes, on the other hand, aren't even designed to hit the target, rather they explode beside it (traditionally, though SW could just be taking naming liberties here and they work the same). There's no chaff/flare equivalent for a torpedo unless you go into things like sonic decoys, which are a whole other ball game.

I think you could cover the whole thing under "Ordnance Countermeasures" for the sake of gameplay. Maybe a 1 point discard to cancel 2 dice, or a 1 point dual side that exhausts but can be reloaded by action (chaff/flares are very limited in how many are carried) that cancels 1 die. I think it should at least force a stress or weapons disabled, too, if not a forced manoeuvre to boot. You can't just drop some magic dust and spirit away the multiple missiles tracking your every move.

No.

Just no. Alpha strike lists are hardly the problem in this meta. Bombs are. Turrets are (though mostly because bombs wiped out the aces that countered turrets). Ordnance weapons had been terrible for the first 4 years of X-wing. Then they were too good. Now they're in a good spot. They require skill to set up correctly but provide just enough payoff to make them worthwhile if you manage it. There's no reason at all to wipe them out of the meta once more and that would be exactly the result of what you propose. Ordnance platforms find it challenging enough to set up that one opportunity to fire their torpedoes that wins them the game. If you deny it, they probably won't get another chance.

Also: game design 101: don't create upgrades that counter certain archetypes so hard that they become extinct but are completely useless against everything else. There's just no way to price such upgrades right. If you set their cost in a way that reflects their efficiency against the chosen archetype, the list that takes them is screwed when it faces anything other than the said archetype, because it invested quite a few points in useless upgrades. And if you make them so cheap that anyone can put them in their list "just in case", the target archetype will just get wiped out, making the game that much less diverse and interesting.

Um.... I know my WWII history, and while flares did exist, they weren't a countermeasure. And chaff was designed to scramble radar. WWII didn't have the missiles we have today, and what they did have were either big, anti-vehicle, or anti-personal. No Air-to-air. Gunfighting was still the only effective tactic for fighters until Vietnam, and since Star Wars combat is based on WWII dogfighting, I never really expected to see fighters with countermeasures like that.

Rant over.

Gameplay wise. I don't think it's a good idea. Like others already said, alpha strike isn't the big issue right now, though I've never had bomb problems either.