4 hours ago, MajorJuggler said:

I think the gunboat is another example of the developers nudging up the game's overall power curve.

It might just be because I'm a newer player and looking backwards, but when I look at the "toolboxes" of a lot of early ships, I feel like the "power creep" exists mostly because of flaws of those early ships, like they start from a negative floor. Like, Contracted Scouts are clearly "creeped" (or rather, an exponential jump) over a lot of similar large ship generics - because early large ship generics were kind of trash and nobody used them (also yes they were originally grossly overpowered but this is presumably because FFG was trying to get people to engage with the generics). So, the Gunboat has jousting output like a Lambda and has more maneuverability (while also retaining it has 3 less health having a lower native attack) - maybe the Lambda really would not have been grossly overpower (or compared to other early ships it might, who knows with early X-wing) if it had white turns. Especially considering that U-Wings are pretty dead for having white turns, and the option for 2 AGI or to do 180s.

I guess I should say I don't mean this as any particular strike against you MajorJuggler, but I feel like people talk about creep or the power curve in an entirely pejorative way when to myself and some newer players increasing the effectiveness or "power" compared to some old ships is good, because aspects of those ships are bad.

Its certainly true that most of the issues with the game would be fixed if the flaws of earlier ships were fixed, but that doesn't mean newer ships don't need nerfs(like the JM5K needed).

Lambda needs a point drop and a less punishing dial. Changing it's hard 2s to whites and shaving 4-5 points off each profile would help. Heck, shave 10 and make it attack 2. It's a shuttle, not an attack ship.

Imperials would be a lot healthier if we had a really cheap crew carrier with 3 crew slots.

26 minutes ago, BadMotivator said:

Heck, shave 10 and make it attack 2. It's a shuttle, not an attack ship

It isn't but Lambdas are still hella heavily armed. They have like four forward laser cannons and secondary ion cannons.

I rationalize that as being represented by the cannon slot. Not all Lambdas will be heavily armed and only have stock laser cannons.

Lambdas need an auxiliary arc, no more no less

ANYWAY, Sounds like the boat is more a lateral move than out and out creep.

Actually, I was thinking of the Sentinel having Ion's standard. Lambdas are just covered in lasers, official stock numbers is two (2) forward-facing double lasers, and then two (2) forward facing wing-mounted double lasers cannons for another four lasers.

And yes also fickle is right they have a single rear facing laser.

But yeah, even if you pulled out the wingtips or body lasers for the cannon slot, then there are still straight up two double cannons left in the other mounting.

18 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Lambdas need an auxiliary arc, no more no less

This is cannon (pardon the pun) and should be done ?

11 minutes ago, UnitOmega said:

Actually, I was thinking of the Sentinel having Ion's standard. Lambdas are just covered in lasers, official stock numbers is two (2) forward-facing double lasers, and then two (2) forward facing wing-mounted double lasers cannons for another four lasers.

And yes also fickle is right they have a single rear facing laser.

But yeah, even if you pulled out the wingtips or body lasers for the cannon slot, then there are still straight up two double cannons left in the other mounting.

Yes....

Still, a Lambda with Engine, Rebel Captive and a defensive Sensor slot card still hits pretty hard against squads of her day ?

1 hour ago, clanofwolves said:

This is cannon (pardon the pun) and should be done ?

Yes....

Still, a Lambda with Engine, Rebel Captive and a defensive Sensor slot card still hits pretty hard against squads of her day ?

I though it was the "march of the cows" list.

3x hlc shuttles just flown in a line abreast

On 15.11.2017 at 10:29 PM, Marinealver said:

Granted there is a lot more exploration on why things are either OP or lame, but again I don't think players understand X-wing despite all their mathematical knowledge.

Before the release of Jumpmasters the forum was full about people calling the doom of the game because of triple torpedo jumpmasters. I think a lot of people understand the basics. ;-)

Just now, SEApocalypse said:

Before the release of Jumpmasters the forum was full about people calling the doom of the game because of triple torpedo jumpmasters. I think a lot of people understand the basics. ;-)

Then why do I still see threads asking if this is the return of Soontir or the fix of X-wings?

Yeah people understand how to value a ship in the meta but I don't think people know exactly what drives the meta. Besides a game is more than just the competitive meta. A competitive meta won't be the sole driver of sales for a particular game. Now I will admit I was a little preoccupied with the release of Wave 9 but I don't remember any threads about U-boats before release. After yes the forum was all full of it.

If the lambda gets a fix (and i'm not entirely sold it needs one), it definitely shouldn't be a cost reduction.

Can you imagine a 5 shuttle list? No way you destroy 50 hit points before time expires in a timed match. Yea they would have hard to maneuver, but 15+ attack dice depending on range is nothing to laugh at either.

I mean, the Lambda was refreshed into the competitive scene with Palp. And it was always living or dying when released on solid Imperial crew (the thing those of us who want to make the U-Wing work would kill for - mean while the ol' Lambda pilots would kill for for a white 2↱). It's still a platform well worth it's point value, you just need the right stuff to do with it. And that's only in a competitive sense, I mean, just off the top of my head, if I cared to fly a space cow I might consider doing something dumb like Kylo+Mangler Cannon for funsies.

(And I mean no offense to esteemed pilots of shuttles. I prefer to fly Incom products. Call me when you get the other Imperial Howlrunner).

What about 4 Nu pilots with linked battery, Mangler cannon and LRS?

Granted, it's no 4 dice attack, but once you get through the shields those crits start to pile up.

7 hours ago, UnitOmega said:

It might just be because I'm a newer player and looking backwards, but when I look at the "toolboxes" of a lot of early ships, I feel like the "power creep" exists mostly because of flaws of those early ships, like they start from a negative floor. Like, Contracted Scouts are clearly "creeped" (or rather, an exponential jump) over a lot of similar large ship generics - because early large ship generics were kind of trash and nobody used them (also yes they were originally grossly overpowered but this is presumably because FFG was trying to get people to engage with the generics). So, the Gunboat has jousting output like a Lambda and has more maneuverability (while also retaining it has 3 less health having a lower native attack) - maybe the Lambda really would not have been grossly overpower (or compared to other early ships it might, who knows with early X-wing) if it had white turns. Especially considering that U-Wings are pretty dead for having white turns, and the option for 2 AGI or to do 180s.

I guess I should say I don't mean this as any particular strike against you MajorJuggler, but I feel like people talk about creep or the power curve in an entirely pejorative way when to myself and some newer players increasing the effectiveness or "power" compared to some old ships is good, because aspects of those ships are bad.

In any given wave, there has historically been a very large variance in how good some ships / pilots are compared to others, even in the same wave. When anyone refers to power creep, they are typically referring to the top-end power curve that is set by the BEST ships in the game. A new ship that's better than an old garbage ship is not power creep unless it is also better than the previous BEST ships. Nobody talks about a ship and calls it power creep because it's better than a wave 1 TIE Advanced. Every ship in the game is better than a wave 1 TIE Advanced. People talk about power creep when a new ship is better at jousting than the Howlrunner TIE Swarm. That's powercreep.

In this case, the Gunboat + HLC is a better straight-line jouster than any other generic ship in the game. Now, generic jousters have been dead for about 2 years now (i.e. they have no contribution to the game's power curve), so it's possible that the Gunboat won't meaningfully contribute to the game's overall power curve. But it probably will, at least a little. I'll spend more time deep-diving on the gunboat mathematically in another month-ish.

6 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

Lambdas need an auxiliary arc, no more no less

ANYWAY, Sounds like the boat is more a lateral move than out and out creep.

For some reason, FFG forums aren't letting me upload PNG files. Otherwise, I would upload the custom "Aft Cannons" Lambda Shuttle only modification card that I made for Community Mod, which grants them an ATT2 rear arc. (Bring Your Own Cardboard, aka Firespray).

50 minutes ago, Warlon said:

What about 4 Nu pilots with linked battery, Mangler cannon and LRS?

Granted, it's no 4 dice attack, but once you get through the shields those crits start to pile up.

Mangler is sort of 'worst of both worlds' - you don't get the shot after SLAM that flechettes give you, but it doesn't hit like an HLC.

I dunno, I tinkered with it - as well as the HLC version - but IMHO, mixing ion boats w/ thread tracers and chimps (which probably won't get used, but might, and the ions DEFINITELY will) alongside flechette boats that have ASLAM...all with LB, of course...it's definitely the way to go.

The 'problem' with the gunboat is one it shares a bit with the Lambda, that I think is going to make it difficult for @MajorJuggler's standard analysis to parse. It's a good jouster, yes, but once you get that first pass...that's it. Very much like the Lambda, it can't turn around to save its life. SLAM helps a LOT with this...but it means you are giving up turns of combat to do. Or, rather, the enemy is shooting you half the time when you cannot shoot them because you are turning around.

It's one of the reasons I'm a big advocate for the four-ship list versions of them - that way, you can better buy time for some of your boats to turn around while others are keeping some pressure on the enemy. (And if you can land that ion+flechette combo, then you are set - you basically have a free turn, yourself, of little-to-no incoming fire to worry about that you can then SLAM through to reposition everyone)

The Assault Gunboat is a very interesting design, and I think I like it a lot. It's so...finicky, but rewarding if you put in the time to it. The dial is definitely a LOT more limiting than I think most people are giving credit for, though....

4 hours ago, markcsoul said:

If the lambda gets a fix (and i'm not entirely sold it needs one), it definitely shouldn't be a cost reduction.

Can you imagine a 5 shuttle list? No way you destroy 50 hit points before time expires in a timed match. Yea they would have hard to maneuver, but 15+ attack dice depending on range is nothing to laugh at either.

You don't need to destroy 50. You need to destroy 1 shuttle and survive.

5 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Before the release of Jumpmasters the forum was full about people calling the doom of the game because of triple torpedo jumpmasters. I think a lot of people understand the basics. ;-)

And all of them were consider Attanni as a weak card..

It's more a 50/50 situation

It's a GUNboat, dammit!

8 hours ago, Cerve said:

And all of them were consider Attanni as a weak card..

It's more a 50/50 situation

Mostly true indeed, but considering the platforms scum had at the time, it kind of was. Dengaroo worked better with lonewolf/zuckuss and PTL and Manaroo, Protectorate fighters were simply not even seen in rebels. Meanwhile Uboots worked better with different upgrades.
With the protectorate fighters coming, "everyone" was predicting old man rau as a power list and the only debate was HOW strong they would be. Now the americans lacked a lot behind the mindlink wave, but in the european meta mindlink lists started to pop up a lot earlier.

Say whut? Gunboat can't turn around? It can move and slam for hard 2s or 3s. It can turn around a hella lot better than a Lambda. It ain't a space cow.

51 minutes ago, BadMotivator said:

Say whut? Gunboat can't turn around? It can move and slam for hard 2s or 3s. It can turn around a hella lot better than a Lambda. It ain't a space cow.

If you SLAM, you don't shoot (with the exception of the flechette cannon or weaker - and doing 1 or 0 damage a turn isn't going to win you many games). Only getting to shoot every other turn, as you are trying to turn around, is not ideal.

Once an enemy gets behind a gunboat, it's in very much the same situation as the Lambda, in that it doesn't have any way to get a shot on them without making some risky decisions.

Seriously - try flying a formation of them. It's a ship quite resistant to theorycrafting - once you are flying it, it's weird.

52 minutes ago, BadMotivator said:

Say whut? Gunboat can't turn around? It can move and slam for hard 2s or 3s. It can turn around a hella lot better than a Lambda. It ain't a space cow.

But, if you're doing an HLC variation, then you lose your shot, so it's almost like you didn't turn around in the first place. It is a decent trade off, I think, the ship totally can swing around fairly well, but unless you're running ASLAM for TLs or using low-power cannons then that's a round you are 100% not shooting, no matter how many guys you have in arc. Other posters are still right, I think that puts the burden of strategy on the opponent to take advantage of these periods.

4 hours ago, xanderf said:

Seriously - try flying a formation of them. It's a ship quite resistant to theorycrafting - once you are flying it, it's weird.

It's a very strong argument not to fly them in formation.

This is a great thread, but I felt obligated to remind everyone that there is NO WRONG way to build a glorious GUNBOAT, because it is, after all, a GUNBOAT.

HAIL GUNBOAT!

5 hours ago, xanderf said:

If you SLAM, you don't shoot (with the exception of the flechette cannon or weaker - and doing 1 or 0 damage a turn isn't going to win you many games). Only getting to shoot every other turn, as you are trying to turn around, is not ideal.

Once an enemy gets behind a gunboat, it's in very much the same situation as the Lambda, in that it doesn't have any way to get a shot on them without making some risky decisions.

Seriously - try flying a formation of them. It's a ship quite resistant to theorycrafting - once you are flying it, it's weird.

Yeah, so?

You don't need to be getting shots every turn. And this isn't a problem with a Missile boat loadout since you can shoot anything as long as you have a target lock.

Unlike the Lambda, the gunboat can actually bug out fast and turn around in a reasonable timeframe. The Lambda literally cannot turn fast enough to keep enemy ships from staying behind it. The Gunboat can shake pursuers and get them back in it's sights. It takes more than one turn, but you don't need to keep shooting every turn. It's perfectly acceptable to take a turn to come around for another pass and set up a shot.

And you don't fly in formation. You fly offset covering each other with your arcs, but with enough room to not trip over each other. It also has the advantage of splitting the enemy's attention. If he focuses on one, the other gunboats will blast him while his chosen target slams away.