That is right! I really like HWK-290 and the blaster turret is (as per the picture) the basic turret for the ship. But it's never used! Just a simple fix... "Don't have to spend Focus"! I want my blaster turret back!

:-)

47 minutes ago, Jiron said:

That is right! I really like HWK-290 and the blaster turret is (as per the picture) the basic turret for the ship. But it's never used! Just a simple fix... "Don't have to spend Focus"! I want my blaster turret back!

:-)

just used synced turret - it IS a fixed blaster turret. - same cost, same attack, same range - but you get free re-rolls if the target is in arc.

Just take Rage and Inspiring Recruit.

Although there aren't really any good pilots for this loadout except maybe the Scum pilot Palob.

It was fixed on scum Y Wing with R4 but then the timing chart came out

I have used them on HWKs with surprising success but yeah the spend Focus needs to go. Maybe FFG thing it would be OP if hey did that? I can tell you in no way would it be OP

50 minutes ago, Ravncat said:

just used synced turret - it IS a fixed blaster turret. - same cost, same attack, same range - but you get free re-rolls if the target is in arc.

cant use it on lower PS ships until something is in range to TL. often that happens in the 2nd round of combat. for most of the turret ships that wont matter as they have other options for the first combat round but a 1 attack die HWK really has no option.

19 minutes ago, X Wing Nut said:

It was fixed on scum Y Wing with R4 but then the timing chart came out

I have used them on HWKs with surprising success but yeah the spend Focus needs to go. Maybe FFG thing it would be OP if hey did that? I can tell you in no way would it be OP

cant use it on lower PS ships until something is in range to TL. often that happens in the 2nd round of combat. for most of the turret ships that wont matter as they have other options for the first combat round but a 1 attack die HWK really has no option.

Deadeye covers this problem rather nicely (admittedly restricting you to the more expensive HWKs who might have been able to lock normally anyway), and gives you a double-bonus - you get your reroll and a focus token.

To be honest, on a recon specialist/moldy crow hawk you should be so flush with focus tokens it's the one ship I don't see having a problem with the blaster turret's prerequisites if you really need to save that point.

1 hour ago, X Wing Nut said:

It was fixed on scum Y Wing with R4 but then the timing chart came out

I have used them on HWKs with surprising success but yeah the spend Focus needs to go. Maybe FFG thing it would be OP if hey did that? I can tell you in no way would it be OP

cant use it on lower PS ships until something is in range to TL. often that happens in the 2nd round of combat. for most of the turret ships that wont matter as they have other options for the first combat round but a 1 attack die HWK really has no option.

1 - Recon spec actually works pretty well for blaster turret, so do many of the rebel focus passing tricks. Palob and Kavil can make use of blaster turret. Attani works too. It's surprising how workable the blaster turret can be - but it's just surpassed by most other options (autoblaster turret sometimes is useless, sometimes is amazing matchup dependant)

2. You can totally use synched turret on low p.s. ships and have something in range to TL on the first turn - remember that the range of the weapon is 1-2, If you're talking about moving up and being unable to acquire a lock before the enemy moves into firing range - that can be mitigated in a number of ways. Assuming no crew or TL passing tricks, change your approach vector.

A lot of people have this TL problem parroted from others - because it's much more an issue with ordnance, specifically range 2-3 missiles/torps. There are usually 3 scenarios , two of which are more likely...

Scenario 1 - you end your move outside of range 3 and cannot acquire a lock - enemy moves in to range 3 maybe range 2 - can't fire your missile, following round is a range 1 close...
Scenario 2 - You end your move in range 2/3 and get the lock, but the enemy then moves into range 1 or out of arc and you can't fire the missile.
Scenario 3 - you end your move at extreme range 3, and the enemy moves into range 2 and get's nailed by your missile.

With low p.s. ships - it's tough to control range to get scenario 3... this is NOT the case with synced turret. in Scenario 1, you can't fire the turret because the ship is probably out of range anyway. Scenario 2 and 3 are both OK for the synced turret! and it's much easier to fly to approach range control for scenario 2 - especially because you can afford to bring turrets in on flanks - their arc doesn't matter as much. And if you happen to have arc on your first pass TL acquire, you're getting a reroll and not even "losing" the action to merely power the weapon. It's a much better weapon than many people give it credit for, mainly because at 2 points more TLT is just more efficient at damage and range.

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

To be honest, on a recon specialist/moldy crow hawk you should be so flush with focus tokens it's the one ship I don't see having a problem with the blaster turret's prerequisites if you really need to save that point.

So, you suggest to take turret worth 10 points and three slots?

This topic is kind of a joke, although I think it would be just a minor change to make the card viable. I am not buying new ship for other version of the same (synced turret). I would like to use the cards I have for the card. I understand they made this restriction not to make it too powerful but then they released TLT or Dorsal Turret.

Most of the time, I am using Rebel Operative as a turreted filler (with ABT) or Kyle Katarn with Jan Ors (it's cool and allows my other ships evade tokens) and the turret as per point allowance. But it would be so cool if the Blaster Turred would be working at least!

The blaster turret is a fine well balanced turret. The overpowered underprised monstrosity we know as TLT is the problem.

2 minutes ago, Hannes Solo said:

The blaster turret is a fine well balanced turret. The overpowered underprised monstrosity we know as TLT is the problem.

You must be kidding. Nobody ever used that turret past the first time they took it out of the pack. It punishes you with action anti-economy for firing a turret. On a ship that has 1-attack die frontal arc primary weapon.
Why then equipping a turret at all?
Ion turret was taken only for the control factor, but once large ships became prevalent, and especially when Autothrusters came out they went back to the binder unless they used the BTL-A3 Y-wing title, that turned it into a double-tap cannon. That means that even Ion turret was underpowered unless you gave it double tap (even if in-arc only).

Blaster turret is a joke at the same level of Expose and whoever with some minimum math skills can prove that.

The only problem of TLT is that it is too good against low agility small ships that:

• don't have the agility to roll enough evades to avoid it (as aces do)
• don't have enough mitigation thru tokens or upgrades (as aces and large ships do)
• don't have enough health pool to resist it long enough (as large ships do)

If TLT was restricted to be more effective versus large boosting ships, and not so much versus smaller ships, it would keep its reason of existing, while being more balanced, and there would be a reason to pick Synched and Dorsal turrets.
That is why I think this text would fix that turret:

3 hours ago, Ravncat said:

just used synced turret - it IS a fixed blaster turret. - same cost, same attack, same range - but you get free re-rolls if the target is in arc.

Synced Turret is arguably worse than Blaster Turret.

Dorsal Turret is a better Blaster Turret.

Blaster turret

Attack focus

You can only modify your Dice using a focus token for it's standard effect

Done?

14 minutes ago, Azrapse said:

You must be kidding. Nobody ever used that turret past the first time they took it out of the pack. It punishes you with action anti-economy for firing a turret. On a ship that has 1-attack die frontal arc primary weapon.
Why then equipping a turret at all?

Uhm, cause you got a 3 dice turret instead of a 1 dice arc shot? Yes its probably not the most effective weapon but that was (and should be) the price for ignoring your arc.

2 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Deadeye covers this problem rather nicely (admittedly restricting you to the more expensive HWKs who might have been able to lock normally anyway), and gives you a double-bonus - you get your reroll and a focus token.

To be honest, on a recon specialist/moldy crow hawk you should be so flush with focus tokens it's the one ship I don't see having a problem with the blaster turret's prerequisites if you really need to save that point.

trouble is with both solutions you need to spend another upgrade slot to make it work effectively and that can be a very high cost

Just now, Hannes Solo said:

Uhm, cause you got a 3 dice turret instead of a 1 dice arc shot? Yes its probably not the most effective weapon but that was (and should be) the price for ignoring your arc.

The price for ignoring your arc is 5 points. That seems to be the price 3-dice primary weapon turret ships seem to be paying extra over ships with a 3 dice frontal arc (if I remember right, from some MajorJuggler post)(about right if you consider Outrider+Mangler combo).
Blaster turret is making you pay 4 points for 1 less range and no action economy (since you usually need to spend your action on the focus token and spend it to attack without getting its effects). Given that range 3 is huge, and 1 action economy effect is usually in the ballpark of 3 points, it seems that Blaster turret is overpaying a lot for it.

For Blaster turret to be just right, it should be range 1-3 and letting you change 1 eye result to a hit result, or something like that. A 5 points Blaster turret should be undistinguisable from a Outrider+Mangler turret .

4 minutes ago, Azrapse said:

The price for ignoring your arc is 5 points. That seems to be the price 3-dice primary weapon turret ships seem to be paying extra over ships with a 3 dice frontal arc (if I remember right, from some MajorJuggler post)(about right if you consider Outrider+Mangler combo).
Blaster turret is making you pay 4 points for 1 less range and no action economy (since you usually need to spend your action on the focus token and spend it to attack without getting its effects). Given that range 3 is huge, and 1 action economy effect is usually in the ballpark of 3 points, it seems that Blaster turret is overpaying a lot for it.

For Blaster turret to be just right, it should be range 1-3 and letting you change 1 eye result to a hit result, or something like that. A 5 points Blaster turret should be undistinguisable from a Outrider+Mangler turret .

I would agree if had only 1 red dice, but it has 3. You are upgrading an arc-locked attack to an out of arc attack AND you are upgrading your 1 or 2 red dice to 3. Your example would justify a turret upgrade that costs 5 points and says 'you can attack with your primary weapon out of arc' which would give the HWK a 1dice PWT for 5 points. I would be cool with that.

In perspective. J5k players pay not less than 12Points to upgrade a 2dice PWT to a 3dice PWT.

My ideal fix: make it zero points.

Just now, Hannes Solo said:

I would agree if had only 1 red dice, but it has 3. You are upgrading an arc-locked attack to an out of arc attack AND you are upgrading your 1 or 2 red dice to 3. Your example would justify a turret upgrade that costs 5 points and says 'you can attack with your primary weapon out of arc' which would give the HWK a 1dice PWT for 5 points. I would be cool with that.

In perspective. J5k players pay not less than 12Points to upgrade a 2dice PWT to a 3dice PWT.

The Jumpmaster is not a good example of a balanced ship. Probably they checked how expensive was naked Han Solo with its 3 dice PWT (46 points) and compared it with naked Dengar (33 points) and said "Okay, the difference is 13 points, so let's make a title to give it the same firepower for the difference... minus one... 12 points". That only reinforces how undercosted is the naked Jumpmaster.

You also need to consider that secondary weapon turrets are usually equippable by ships that are way overcosted. No way a naked HWK with 1 attack dice, that dial and that action bar is worth 16 points. The ship chasis cost includes part of what the equippable turrets are going to be worth. TLT is worth more than 6 points in vacuum. But not on an HWK or Y-wing that are overcosted by at least 3 points.

6 minutes ago, Azrapse said:

You also need to consider that secondary weapon turrets are usually equippable by ships that are way overcosted. No way a naked HWK with 1 attack dice, that dial and that action bar is worth 16 points. The ship chasis cost includes part of what the equippable turrets are going to be worth. TLT is worth more than 6 points in vacuum. But not on an HWK or Y-wing that are overcosted by at least 3 points.

Yes for sure but the solution would be to balance the cost of the overcosted ships (Y-Wing HWK) and not to balance them out by creating undercosted-no-brainers like the TLT which then can be used to break not undercosted ships (like the scurrgh (yeah it is not the only problem with the scurrgh)).
We can not discuss turret balance and always say 'but the TLT...' cause the TLT is extremly broken. Maybe it looks okish on an Y-wing or a HWK cause they are bad ships if you fly them naked.
Please let's not bring all turrets to TLT levels of OPness. I remember the game bevore the TLT and these turrets where used and they where OK. 5 Points for an Ion Turret seemd fair and the Blaster turret had a clunky action economy but it was OK. You took it on the HWK alongside a recon Specialist paying 7 Points and two slots tu upgrade your 1 die primary to a 1-2 Range 3 dice turret attack. Before the TLT was introduced that didn't felt off.

52 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Synced Turret is arguably worse than Blaster Turret.

Dorsal Turret is a better Blaster Turret.

I can see the argument that Dorsal is than blaster turret. Dorsal Turret is 2 dice at range 2... Consider 3 dice without focus and 2 dice with focus. 1.5 expected hits, with variance allowing for 3 hits, vs 1.5 expected hits with variance not allowing for 3 hits. You can argue that the variance is lower, and so you're also less likely to blank out on the 2 dice, it's similar to the expose problem. You can argue that you can fire Dorsal without an action.. so I'll buy that...

But Synced is way better than blaster turret. - Same Attack value, range and cost... but - You can TL and spend the TL on the same attack - so you never "need" to waste an action just to fire Synced. Like ATC - Once you lock on, Synced will let you continue to fire at the same target, while stacking other actions, and if you can keep the target in arc, you're getting rerolls as if a predator effect, and on something like a y-wing, that's actually better than predator, it's dengar. Consider how much you'd pay for Predator as an EPT. Sure, it's a little more finicky to work with target locks - and you can't switch targets as easily with synced, but that's action economy and 3 die attack turret damage. Most of the time we want to fire at one ship until it's dead.

So compared to blaster turret, we are 1 action ahead on the first shot, and up to 3 actions ahead on the second shot, without any other effects! We're also potentially saving points on crew or EPT for our action economy. Somewhat resilliant to blocking, once a single lock is obtained... Drawbacks - must shoot a locked target, locks can be dropped by countermeasures, exploded ships or expert handling etc... Consider Blaster - can shoot any target, but likely can't modify attack, must have an action each turn you want to fire. I really can't see how you'd argue that Blaster turret is better than Synced. I can see how you can argue that Ion, Autoblaster and TLT are superior choices - for different point costs and purposes. Dorsal's damage output doesn't really compete with Synced Turret. There's a nice bonus to using Synced on a y-wing instead of a Hwk, and range 1-2 overlaps with the Scum hwks very well, allowing for a higher duty cycle between pilot ability and turret. Synced really starts to lose purpose on something like Miranda or Nym, where you can already make 3 dice attacks out of the front arc. Synced works best in front arc - where it's replacing a primary weapon. BTL-A4 Synced Turret with Aggromech is a cool little combo of a ship for 24 points that will put out more damage than TLT in many (but not all cases) (It's got a crazy cycle that works - Fire primary, spend focus, gain lock, fire synced turret, reroll... shot 2 - spend lock, spend focus, gain lock, fire synced, reroll....)

23 minutes ago, Hannes Solo said:

Yes for sure but the solution would be to balance the cost of the overcosted ships (Y-Wing HWK) and not to balance them out by creating undercosted-no-brainers like the TLT which then can be used to break not undercosted ships (like the scurrgh (yeah it is not the only problem with the scurrgh)).
We can not discuss turret balance and always say 'but the TLT ...' cause the TLT is extremly broken. Maybe it looks okish on an Y-wing or a HWK cause they are bad ships if you fly them naked.
Please let's not bring all turrets to TLT levels of OPness. I remember the game bevore the TLT and these turrets where used and they where OK. 5 Points for an Ion Turret seemd fair and the Blaster turret had a clunky action economy but it was OK. You took it on the HWK alongside a recon Specialist paying 7 Points and two slots tu upgrade your 1 die primary to a 1-2 Range 3 dice turret attack. Before the TLT was introduced that didn't felt off.

It felt off to the point to it not have any presence in the competitive scene. It only worked in friendly matches.
The Ion turret Y-wing had presence in Wave 1 because there was no other turret available. Then Wave 3 came out, but Blaster turret was useless on it compared with Ion turret.
As soon as the YT-1300 came out, nobody played ion turret y-wings because the YT-1300 was a better turret with better upgrade and abilities even if more expensive. Because of that, large ships became prevalent and harder to ionize. Fat Han meta.

Ion turret Y-wings only came back first with the Rebel transport because of R3-A2 astromech (the stress bot). Stress + Ion in one attack was quite good for a while (I took it to a tournament), and it only became better when BTL-A4 allowed it to do it twice per attack in wave 6. Notice how nobody still used Blaster turret even when it was 1 point cheaper and same range, with possibility of dealing up to 3 damage! The stress bot also stressed the attacker, so Blaster turret became unusable.

Ship costs aren't going to be balanced like ever. Didn't you see the last FAQ? FFG rather pull their teeth out than changing a number in the cards.
TLT is a bit overpowered because it preys on more ships than it should. It could be toned down a bit (against ships that didn't need to be preyed on) without making it useless. But its pricing was indeed a fix to the overcosting of Y-wings and HWKs. Not only the TLT, but also Also the Autoblaster turret! How is it possible that Autoblaster cannon is 5 points and autoblaster turret is 2 points?
Both TLT and ABT are priced in accordance to the ships that can equip them being woefully overpriced. Blaster is absolutely not. And I am not sure if Synched and Dorsal are, either.

Dorsal is the reliable one. You don't need to worry about moving in close enough to TL then having the opponent stay close enough to shoot at. You don't have to worry about Black One or Countermeasures removing your ability to fire. You don't have to worry about being stressed and unable to TL what you want to fire at... you just fire.

After TLT I think Dorsal Turret is probably the #2 turret for just reliably shooting at things out of your arc and dealing damage. But there's a biiiiiiiiiiiig drop off between #1 and #2.

ABT is second by quite a long way in terms of use and effectiveness, and meta-wing backs that.

In theory Ion and the Synced follow, then Dorsal then Blaster, but the numbers are so low that I doubt there's much reliability in that ordering, with the exception of Blaster.

1 hour ago, Azrapse said:

The Jumpmaster is not a good example of a balanced ship. Probably they checked how expensive was naked Han Solo with its 3 dice PWT (46 points) and compared it with naked Dengar (33 points) and said "Okay, the difference is 13 points, so let's make a title to give it the same firepower for the difference... minus one... 12 points". That only reinforces how undercosted is the naked Jumpmaster.

True, but the Punishing One title is about right by comparison.

Mangler Cannon + Outrider title is a 1 die upgrade for an out-of-arc attack, and it's 9 points net. Punishing One is significantly more than this, because it's not using up any slots.

1 hour ago, Azrapse said:

You also need to consider that secondary weapon turrets are usually equippable by ships that are way overcosted. No way a naked HWK with 1 attack dice, that dial and that action bar is worth 16 points. The ship chasis cost includes part of what the equippable turrets are going to be worth. TLT is worth more than 6 points in vacuum. But not on an HWK or Y-wing that are overcosted by at least 3 points.

The problem is that that approach (deliberately undercosting upgrades that 'only poor ships can take' falls flat on its face, hard, when more capable ships get access to them. There is nothing overpriced about Miranda Doni or Nym, for example.

16 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

ABT is second by quite a long way in terms of use and effectiveness, and meta-wing backs that.

Agreed. It only works on manouvrable turret-carriers, which are relatively limited in number, but it's quite devastating on such.

It's also strong-ish on the Ghost for that large ace-death-zone.

32 minutes ago, Azrapse said:

It felt off to the point to it not have any presence in the competitive scene. It only worked in friendly matches.
The Ion turret Y-wing had presence in Wave 1 because there was no other turret available. Then Wave 3 came out, but Blaster turret was useless on it compared with Ion turret.

I would argue that the Blaster turret was a worse choice then the Ion turret in a meta that had lots of 3 agi-ship-swarms but wouldn't be that bad in a meta with lots of 1 agi ships.
I also would argue that - if proper balanced - turrets should see little play in the high competitive meta. Why this? Compared to an arc attack a turret pays points for being able to ignore arcs. So the balance between a non turret and a turret attack should always be that the arc locked attack gets more bang for its buck, If proper balanced I would expect turrets being popular with less experienced players while mid-range players would weight consistent attacking every round against fewer but stronger attacks. The pro-players however would tend to using arc locked weapons cause they usually know their range rulers and get their arcs right.
Seeing Turrets in the Top games implies imho that these turrets are underpriced.

Anyway I think most people agree that the TLT is OP and degrades basically all other turret options in the 'why should I chose this over an TLT' zone. I do not like discussing buffing turrets with the TLT as a benchmark cause its just so broken.

That aside I would suggest that if any turret would actually be in need of a buff it should get one which is linked to an in-arc mechanic.