So if a ship has a 180 degree firing arc, it also has a normal one. When do you use each?

the 180 fire arc is just like that on the firespray, they use the same rules. the 180 fire arc is a secondary fire arc and can only be used with a primary weapon, or an upgrade that does not specify, (primary). like finn

In most cases, a ship with any auxiliary fire arc may perform its primary weapon attacks from anywhere in the primary OR auxiliary arcs. Secondary weapons may only be fired from the standard forward arc unless a card ability says otherwise, such as turret secondaries or Nera Dantels' pilot ability.

Also, most cards that say something triggers when "in arc" will trigger from any arc printed on the ship token so this would include standard and auxiliary arcs.

• For example: "Backstabber" has a pilot ability that says, "When attacking from outside the attacker's firing arc, roll 1 additional attack die." If he is slightly off to the side of Bossk in his YV-666, Backstabber may be outside the standard arc, but if he is even partially in the auxiliary 180 degree arc, he may NOT roll an additional die. Note that if he is attacking Han Solo from outside the YT-1300's standard arc, he gets to roll an additional die since the only printed arc for the YT is the standard forward arc.

Nobody has a 180 degree firing arc. There are a couple of ships that have their regular primary arc and two auxiliary arcs arranged in such a way that between the three of them they cover 180 degrees in front of the ship. There's a fairly common misread of the diagram that comes with those ships that can lead people to think they have one normal forward-facing arc and one giant rear-facing arc, but that's wrong.

Auxiliary arcs can be used to fire your primary weapon, and they count as an arc for things that care whether something is in arc (unless it specifies that it wants the thing to be in your primary arc). They can't be used to fire secondary weapons, not because there's a specific rule preventing it, but because there isn't a specific rule allowing it.

In practice, you're mostly going to find yourself with two kinds of situations: things that care only about the primary arc and things that care about arcs in general. If you're doing something that only cares about the primary arc (firing a secondary weapon, for instance), you ignore the auxiliary arcs. If you're doing something that works with both primary and auxiliary arcs (firing a primary weapon, for instance), you use the one that gives you the shortest line of effect to your target.

You may find yourself in a situation where you can use both primary and auxiliary arcs but it would be beneficial for you to ignore the auxiliary arcs. Say your shortest line of attack uses an auxiliary arc and crosses an obstacle, but the part of the target that's in your primary arc isn't obstructed. Or say you have Tactician and your target is at Range 1 when measuring with your aux arcs, but would be Range 2 if you only used your primary arc.

Tough.

You can't decide to use one kind of arc instead of the other when making an attack. In the above situations if you had a cannon (and weren't named Moralo Eval) you could elect to attack with your cannon instead, thus forcing you to only use your primary arc, but if you're attacking with your primary, all the arcs that are valid for primary weapons attacks count.

Thanks

Wish I had seen this thread before I made mine this week:

Post #2 has some unresolved questions