1 hour ago, Parakitor said:

I had the same question. I understand that comparisons against the current game don't paint an accurate picture, but warning lights started going off in my head when I saw that you can fit 6 TIE Strikers in a squad. I've been terrorizing a lot of squads just with 4 + Doom Shuttle, so bumping it up to 6 Strikers is amazing. I'd play that all day! ...after I buy two more Strikers. It seems like it would be a heck of a squad to beat. I guess I'll just test other stuff until the TIE Strikers are ready to be play tested.

It's a valid point, a few ships end up becoming much cheaper simply because there's no easy way to make them better. The low PS TIE Strikers are difficult to buff without giving them an obnoxious hull increase, so the only other alternative is a cost decrease, which means you can field a whole ton of them. On the other hand, the new benchmark low-PS generic is the New And Improved X-wing which is essentially:

PS2, 3.5 / 2 / 2 / 5 at 41 points

vs the TIE Striker:

PS1, 3 / 2 / 5 / 0 at 30 points (no LWF)

PS1, 3 / 3* / 5 / 0 at 33 points (with LWF)

* virtually 3 AGI with Lightweight Frame

The TIE Striker efficiency is really solid, almost as high as the X-wing's. If I had even more pricing granularity, then I would have started them out at 30.5 points, but I didn't want to over-complicate things any more than needed from a player's perspective.

The general plan for large-scale beta testing once a squad builder is available, is to run some vassal tournaments. I'll start with a 3-week-long tournament with only wave 1 ships, but all upgrades are legal. Then we will do another tournament with all ships through wave 2, then another one adding waves 3-4, etc. I'll have to start thinking about cool custom swag that I can give away to participants and the winners.

Anything and everything is certainly fair game for anyone to test and try out now, but when we really get the ball rolling I want to get the fundamentals really nailed down.

HWK-290

Overview

• The HWK-290 gets an obligatory free title (which can stack with Moldy Crow) that grants it ATT2, and also gives it an extra hull and shield. Since they will now have a 2/2/5/2 statline, you cannot equip Pulsed Ray Shield and this new title. This was intentional to mitigate unnecessary regeneration.
• I intentionally did not change the dial at all, since the ship fills a unique design space that I wanted to retain.
• Kyle Katarn can now give himself a focus token, but gets a significant cost increase, and ability range reduction to range 1-2.
• Palob can steal reinforce tokens. The s ame underlying rule change as with the B-wings and G1-A applies: he has no fore/aft arcs so he can always use the token on defense regardless of attack angle.
• Dace Bonearm doesn't get a stress when he uses his ability, and it gives out an additional ion token, but he can still only use it once per round. He can now double-ion large base ships by himself if his ion cannon turret lands a hit on it.

Pilot Tiers

• Both PS1 HWK-290 pilots (both Rebel and Scum) are tier 3.
• All named HWK-290 pilots (both Rebel and Scum) are tier 2.

Pilot Cost and Ability Changes

Rebel HWK-290:

• Rebel Operative (PS1): cost remains 32.
• Roark Garnet : cost increased from 38 to 42.
• Kyle Katarn: cost increased from 42 to 48, and ability changed to: " At the start of the Combat Phase, you may assign 1 focus token to a friendly ship at Range 1-2."
• Jan Ors: cost reduced from 50 to 49.

Scum HWK-290:

• Spice Runner (PS1): cost remains 32.
• Torkil Mux: cost increased from 38 to 40.
• Palob Godalhi : cost increased from 40 to 44, and ability changed to: " At the start of the Combat phase, you may remove 1 focus, evade, or reinforce token from an enemy ship at Range 1-2 and assign it to yourself. "
• Dace Bonearm: cost reduced from 46 to 45, and ability changed to: " Once per round, when an enemy ship at Range 1-3 receives at least 1 ion token, you may cause that ship to suffer 1 damage and receive 1 additional ion token. "

Key Card Changes

HWK Retrofit

• Title. HWK-290 only. Limited.
• 0 / 0 / 0
• You may equip one additional Title upgrade. Increase your primary attack value by 1. Increase your Hull value by 1. Increase your Shield value by 1. This card cannot be discarded.

Turrets

see Turrets post .

Moldy Crow

cost reduced from 6 to 4 / 5 / 5

Sample Loadouts

(All loadouts have HWK-290 Refit equipped)

Rebel

• PS1 + Ion Cannon Turret (39 points)
• PS1 + Twin Laser Turret (45 points)
• Roark + Ion Cannon Turret (50 points)
• Roark + Twin Laser Turret (57 points)
• Roark + Twin Laser Turret + Moldy Crow (62 points)
• Kyle Katarn + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret (63 points)
• Kyle Katarn + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret + Moldy Crow (68 points)
• Kyle Katarn + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret + Moldy Crow + Jan Ors crew (72 points)
• Jan Ors + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret (64 points)
• Jan Ors + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret + Chewbacca (71 points)
• Jan Ors + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret + Kyle Katarn crew + Moldy Crow (74 points)
• Jan Ors + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret + Chewbacca + Moldy Crow (76 points)

Scum

• PS1 + Ion Cannon Turret (39 points)
• PS1 + Twin Laser Turret (45 points)
• Torkil Mux + Ion Cannon Turret (48 points)
• Torkil Mux + Twin Laser Turret (55 points)
• Palob + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret (59 points)
• Palob + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret + Moldy Crow (64 points)
• Dace Bonearm + {open EPT} + Ion Cannon Turret (53 points)
• Dace Bonearm + {open EPT} + Ion Cannon Turret + Moldy Crow (58 points)

3 hours ago, MajorJuggler said:

HWK-290

Overview

• The HWK-290 gets an obligatory free title (which can stack with Moldy Crow) that grants it ATT2, and also gives it an extra hull and shield. Since they will now have a 2/2/5/2 statline, you cannot equip Pulsed Ray Shield and this new title. This was intentional to mitigate unnecessary regeneration.
• I intentionally did not change the dial at all, since the ship fills a unique design space that I wanted to retain.
• The named pilots generally go up in price, since they have an extra hull and shield.
• Palob can steal reinforce tokens. Same underlying rule change as with the B-wings and G1-A applies: he has no fore/aft arcs so he can always use the token on defense regardless of attack angle.
• Kyle Katarn can now give himself a focus token, but gets a significant cost increase, and ability range reduction to range 1-2.
• Dace Bonearm doesn't get a stress when he uses his ability, and it gives out an additional ion token, but he can only use it once per round. He can now double-ion large base ships by himself if his ion cannon turret lands a hit on it.

Pilot Tiers

• Both PS1 HWK-290 pilots (both Rebel and Scum) are tier 3.
• All named HWK-290 pilots (both Rebel and Scum) are tier 2.

Pilot Cost and Ability Changes

Rebel HWK-290:

• Rebel Operative (PS1): cost remains 32.
• Roark Garnet : cost increased from 38 to 42.
• Kyle Katarn: cost increased from 42 to 48, and ability changed to: " At the start of the Combat Phase, you may assign 1 focus token to a friendly ship at Range 1-2."
• Jan Ors: cost remains 50.

Scum HWK-290:

• Spice Runner (PS1): cost remains 32.
• Torkil Mux: cost increased from 38 to 40.
• Palob Godalhi : cost increased from 40 to 44, and ability changed to: " At the start of the Combat phase, you may remove 1 focus, evade, or reinforce token from an enemy ship at Range 1-2 and assign it to yourself. ".
• Dace Bonearm: cost reduced from 46 to 45, and ability changed to: " Once per round, when an enemy ship at Range 1-3 receives at least 1 ion token, you may cause that ship to suffer 1 damage and receive 1 additional ion token. "

Key Card Changes

HWK Retrofit

Title. HWK-290 only.

0 / 0 / 0

You may equip up to 2 different Title upgrades. Increase your primary attack value by 1. Increase your Hull value by 1. Increase your Shield value by 1. This card cannot be discarded.

Twin Laser Turret

cost changes; see Y-wing post .

Ion Cannon Turret

cost changes; see Y-wing post .

Moldy Crow

cost reduced from 6 to 4 / 5 / 5

Sample Loadouts

(All loadouts have HWK-290 Refit equipped)

Rebel

• PS1 + Twin Laser Turret (45 points)
• Roark + Twin Laser Turret (57 points)
• Roark + Twin Laser Turret + Moldy Crow (62 points)
• Kyle Katarn + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret (63 points)
• Kyle Katarn + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret + Moldy Crow (68 points)
• Kyle Katarn + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret + Moldy Crow + Jan Ors crew (72 points)
• Jan Ors + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret (65 points)
• Jan Ors + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret + Chewbacca (72 points)
• Jan Ors + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret + Kyle Katarn crew + Moldy Crow (75 points)
• Jan Ors + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret + Chewbacca + Moldy Crow (77 points)

Scum

• PS1 + Twin Laser Turret (45 points)
• Torkil Mux + Twin Laser Turret (55 points)
• Palob + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret (59 points)
• Palob + {open EPT} + Twin Laser Turret + Moldy Crow (64 points)
• Dace Bonearm + {open EPT} + Ion Cannon Turret (53 points)
• Dace Bonearm + {open EPT} + Ion Cannon Turret + Moldy Crow (58 points)

Speaking of the HWK, wasn't it the good timing to upgrade the blaster turret ?
Looking at your sample loadouts, the TLT seems to be as much an auto-include as it used to...

Generally speaking, I'm not sure about the hull and shield upgrades on that ship, making it more expensive. I would rather have a cheap support ship, which is not very resilient because not being military-grade (if I remember right, it's a courrier ship, not a warship). In the other hand, I understand the problem of a too cheap TLT carrier...

I agree that it's a good time to fix the Blaster Turret. Just remove the cost of spending the Focus to fire it. You still need it to shoot, but you can spend it on the attack to adjust...or save for defense.

4 hours ago, Giledhil said:

Speaking of the HWK, wasn't it the good timing to upgrade the blaster turret ?
Looking at your sample loadouts, the TLT seems to be as much an auto-include as it used to...

Generally speaking, I'm not sure about the hull and shield upgrades on that ship, making it more expensive. I would rather have a cheap support ship, which is not very resilient because not being military-grade (if I remember right, it's a courrier ship, not a warship). In the other hand, I understand the problem of a too cheap TLT carrier...

This is one of the problems that lies in wait to unhinge all the lovely ideas @MajorJuggler and his band of merry men are planning for our beautiful game....be warned my friends.

8 hours ago, Giledhil said:

Speaking of the HWK, wasn't it the good timing to upgrade the blaster turret ?
Looking at your sample loadouts, the TLT seems to be as much an auto-include as it used to...

Generally speaking, I'm not sure about the hull and shield upgrades on that ship, making it more expensive. I would rather have a cheap support ship, which is not very resilient because not being military-grade (if I remember right, it's a courrier ship, not a warship). In the other hand, I understand the problem of a too cheap TLT carrier...

I tweaked the Ion Cannon Turret for Dace, but haven't gotten to the others yet. Ill go back momentarily and update so the PS1s show the ICT option. So TLT shouldn't be autoinclude, it's just the only vanilla option at the moment.

Increasing hull and shield by 1 each has a couple of benefits. The net durability is about on par with a Y-wing (slightly higher for the HWK, but it's offset by a terrible dial), and the low PS generics cost the same, so whatever I do to the turrets will be balanced roughly the same for both. The other advantage, and this was really the main one, is it avoids 5 TLT swarm scenarios. I don't think that's a direction anyone wants to go.

Both the y wing and hawk TLT are more powerful in the absolute sense, with the y wing getting a cost reduction and the hawk getting more durability. The hawk sees the biggest relative increase, with a the PS1 now having an efficiency around 79% vs the y wing at around 78%. Neither however are as high as the ps2 TLT y wing in the old "stock" meta power curve, which was about 83% back in its heyday.

1 hour ago, MajorJuggler said:

The hawk sees the biggest relative increase, with a the PS1 now having an efficiency around 79% vs the y wing at around 78%. Neither however are as high as the ps2 TLT y wing in the old "stock" meta power curve, which was about 83% back in its heyday.

Man, I just hope you guys get the TLT reeled in so that it's not pretty much an auto-take. Turrets in general that aren't native need to be reeled in. I dig ion and stress mechanics, but as far as damage like TLT without tie ins to the ships primary arc, it just takes the fun of flying away. Keep up the good work!

Me and a friend are trying out some of these builds and mods, I'm sure we'll mess them up good for you, haha.

13 hours ago, MajorJuggler said:

So TLT shouldn't be autoinclude, it's just the only vanilla option at the moment.

I don't know if leaving the turret slot free is viable, but IMO it should be; I really like the idea of a cheap support, that doesn't need to have a good damage output to be interesting.
And btw, if it isn't viable, why bother making the primary a 2-dice attack? (and going the other way around, why not 2 PWT?)

33 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

I don't know if leaving the turret slot free is viable, but IMO it should be; I really like the idea of a cheap support, that doesn't need to have a good damage output to be interesting.
And btw, if it isn't viable, why bother making the primary a 2-dice attack? (and going the other way around, why not 2 PWT?)

Hm, making it an ATT 2 PWT is an interesting idea, this would have the effect of covering the donut hole of TLT.

I am also considering a big change to TLT: "If the defender is at range 2 or is in your arc, perform this attack twice." This would obviously require cost changes, since it wouldn't perform the attack twice if at range 3 and out of arc.

I'm looking into at incorporating similar positional dependencies into some of the other turrets.

Hey MJ - first off, thanks a ton for doing this very cool and very interesting work for all of us. Its very much appreciated

Now, to my question:

On 12/12/2017 at 7:11 AM, MajorJuggler said:

TIE Striker:

PS1, 3 / 2 / 5 / 0 at 30 points (no LWF)

PS1, 3 / 3* / 5 / 0 at 33 points (with LWF)

* virtually 3 AGI with Lightweight Frame

The Striker buff in your revised design is quite significant (which is necessary to bring it to the new power level set by the updated X-wing, as you've already explained). On the other hand, the Tie Aggressor received a very small discount in your proposal, namely:

PS2, 2 / 2 / 4 / 1 at 32 points (vanilla)

PS2, 3* / 2 / 4 / 1 at 36 points (with Unguided Rockets, which are arguably worse than a native 3-dice attack, but OK)
PS2, 3* / 3* / 4 / 1 at 39 points (with Unguided Rockets and LWF)

PS2, 3.5* / 2 / 4 / 1 at 48 points (with TLT, which is arguably stronger than a native 3-die attack)
PS2, 3.5* / 3* / 4 / 1 at 51 points (with TLT and LWF)

So under the Community Mod rules one could take:
- 6 PS1 Strikers with 5 hull and LWF = 198 points (equivalent value of 132 points in standard rules)
- 5 PS2 Aggressors with UGR and LWF = 195 points (equivalent value of 105 points in standard rules)
- 4 PS2 Aggressors with TLT but no LWF (!) = 190 points (equivalent value of 92 points in standard rules)

Do I have that correct? If yes, can you please explain why we see such a profound difference between the two (seemingly) similar ships?

Thanks

V.

50 minutes ago, vladamex said:

Hey MJ - first off, thanks a ton for doing this very cool and very interesting work for all of us. Its very much appreciated

Now, to my question:

The Striker buff in your revised design is quite significant (which is necessary to bring it to the new power level set by the updated X-wing, as you've already explained). On the other hand, the Tie Aggressor received a very small discount in your proposal, namely:

PS2, 2 / 2 / 4 / 1 at 32 points (vanilla)

PS2, 3* / 2 / 4 / 1 at 36 points (with Unguided Rockets, which are arguably worse than a native 3-dice attack, but OK)
PS2, 3* / 3* / 4 / 1 at 39 points (with Unguided Rockets and LWF)

PS2, 3.5* / 2 / 4 / 1 at 48 points (with TLT, which is arguably stronger than a native 3-die attack)
PS2, 3.5* / 3* / 4 / 1 at 51 points (with TLT and LWF)

So under the Community Mod rules one could take:
- 6 PS1 Strikers with 5 hull and LWF = 198 points (equivalent value of 132 points in standard rules)
- 5 PS2 Aggressors with UGR and LWF = 195 points (equivalent value of 105 points in standard rules)
- 4 PS2 Aggressors with TLT but no LWF (!) = 190 points (equivalent value of 92 points in standard rules)

Do I have that correct? If yes, can you please explain why we see such a profound difference between the two (seemingly) similar ships?

Thanks

V.

Hi, first off thanks for your interest!

I haven't gone through updating all the missiles yet, so I wouldn't consider Unguided Rockets to be a useful data point yet.

The TIE Aggressor was balanced around taking TLT, because TLT is a "known quantity". Eventually the other turret upgrades should also be viable as well when I get back to updating them. Also, LWF is basically auto-include on the TIE Aggressor in both Mod-Wing and the stock game, although I could tweak the cost structure slightly going forward. So, the baseline Aggressor build is 48 points for the PS2 with TLT and LWF, which is only 2 points less (at a 200 point scale) than in the stock game for the identical loadout. The barrel roll action synergizes quite nicely with TLT, but it's efficiency is on the extreme low end for damage-dealing turrets. I could drop the cost a point and it would probably be just fine, it would still be less efficient than a PS2 TLT Y-wing. So, don't be too suprised if this ends up happening in the future, even before we get to beta. :-)

On the flip side, the TIE Strikers are pretty efficient now, just not quite as good as X-wings or TIE Fighters. I'm banking on the pre-maneuver movement making up for that small difference. [banking, get it.... heh heh... //end bad pun]. I do think that despite similiar statlines, TIE Strikers and TIE Aggressors are altogether different animals, filling very different functions. That turret upgrade slot goes a long way. :-)

Thank MJ - I think I get your point: the price for the Tie Aggressor needs to be balanced around the "optimal configuration" which includes the most efficient turret, since turrets are the probably main (only?) reason why one would bring a Tie Aggressor in the first place.

Also, my math above was wrong since I've double-counted LWF for the TLT configurations. Actual prices should be:
PS2, 3.5* / 2 / 4 / 1 at 45 points (with TLT)
PS2, 3.5* / 3* / 4 / 1 at 48 points (with TLT and LWF)

This further reduces the apparent "cost/efficiency gap" between the Striker and the "optimal config" for the Tie Aggressor.

Cheers!

MJ, two more questions:

Any idea/plan for enabling the test games on Vassal? Proper Vassal support can help speed up the testing quite a bit with the updated cards and dials.

Also, looking at the updated X-wing, taking 5 Rookies without the Droid at 40 points a piece looks quite tempting, but it's not listed in your pre-built test squads. Is this something you want to have tested as well? Or 5 rookies are not encouraged?

31 minutes ago, vladamex said:

MJ, two more questions:

Any idea/plan for enabling the test games on Vassal? Proper Vassal support can help speed up the testing quite a bit with the updated cards and dials.

Also, looking at the updated X-wing, taking 5 Rookies without the Droid at 40 points a piece looks quite tempting, but it's not listed in your pre-built test squads. Is this something you want to have tested as well? Or 5 rookies are not encouraged?

Once we have squad builder and vassal support, the plan is to run a series of open vassal tournaments. All upgrades will be fair game, but the ships will slowly get phased in. So the first mini-tournament would be wave 1 ships only, probably for about 3 weeks. Then we can do some minor tweaks and do another tournament including wave 2 ships as well, then do a 3rd mini-tournament with wave 3 and 4, etc etc.

I have thought about 5 X-wings, and am considering making Integrated Astromech require that you actually fill the astromech slot. It gets gets around the "problem" of being able to bring 5 X-wings, but it's a pain for the squad builder and card text length. You actually lose quite a bit of durability and cost efficiency by dropping the 1 point droid, so on paper 5 X-wings should still be OK. I'm more worried about getting the TIE Swarm balanced correctly; I expect to go back and tweak the Evasive Thrusters card to be a little better.

Thank MJ for the prompt response!

I think 5x naked Rookie as per the current rules is super-appealing, since each one of them (with S-foils) hits almost as hard as a HLC, so 5 PS2 shots with 5x6 health is better than 4 PS4 shots with 4x7 health against most of the lists. I don't think that there's enough incentive to forgo the 5th ship in favor of more upgrades across the board. But I may be wrong on this

1 hour ago, MajorJuggler said:

I'm more worried about getting the TIE Swarm balanced correctly; I expect to go back and tweak the Evasive Thrusters card to be a little better.

IMO it would be best to leave the Tie Fighter and the Tie Swarm archetype to be as close as possible to (or ideally: exactly the same as in) the FFG rules, so that we can have a stable "point of reference" to be able to compare the two systems one with the other. I'm afraid that if the Community Mod decides to change even this "cornerstone" ship/archetype (which serves as the yardstick for the overall balance/power level for other ships), it then becomes much harder to compare the two systems.

My personal preference for the Community Mod would be to minimize the changes to the extent possible. This will help in several ways: making it easier for the players to onboard to the Community Mod, easier to adjust/adopt the existing tools, easier to run the tourneys, less of a hassle to print new cards, cardboard, etc. I understand that the main goal is to optimize for the best balance, but I think that "minimizing the changes" should be out there as well as one of the secondary goals.

In addition, making the Tie Swarm more powerful means that the overall power level will go up for all the other ships (power creep). I'd much rather have everything else adjusted to the power level of the "vanilla" Tie Fighter/Tie Swarm, than the other way around.

I hope this makes sense

The thing about 4X-wing lists, is that you have a lot of extra points left over, so you're not just going from 4 ships to 5 ships -- you're going from 4 upgraded and/or named ships, to 5 generics. The pre-built X-wing lists take advantage of this. :-)

I needed to decide where to put the power curve. Early on I looked at keeping the TIE Swarm the same, but it created so many cost increases for new ships that you would not have been able to field the same lists in Mod-Wing as you would in the stock game, because it would cost too many points. In the future this may turn out to be the case anyway as FFG power creep continues, but for now at least I tried to baseline it pretty close to the current power curve.

Which means that TIE Fighters need to be able to do alot more consistent damage, and need to last a little longer too.

8 minutes ago, MajorJuggler said:

The thing about 4X-wing lists, is that you have a lot of extra points left over, so you're not just going from 4 ships to 5 ships -- you're going from 4 upgraded and/or named ships, to 5 generics. The pre-built X-wing lists take advantage of this. :-)

Challenge accepted! I'll be starting my test of the Community Mod with 5 naked Rookies as my squad Looking forward to seeing how well it performs!

8 minutes ago, MajorJuggler said:

I needed to decide where to put the power curve. Early on I looked at keeping the TIE Swarm the same, but it created so many cost increases for new ships that you would not have been able to field the same lists in Mod-Wing as you would in the stock game, because it would cost too many points. In the future this may turn out to be the case anyway as FFG power creep continues, but for now at least I tried to baseline it pretty close to the current power curve.

Which means that TIE Fighters need to be able to do alot more consistent damage, and need to last a little longer too.

Got it, makes complete sense.

The "yardstick" and the "reference point" for the Community Mod doesn't necessarily need to be a vanilla Tie Fighter / Tie Swarm - it can be any other well-known ship/archetype. Perhaps 4x Wookies with Commandos is a good choice at this time (as it's very strong/popular archetype, and probably the current "gold standard" for a jousting list)?

As long there is a public and well-known "benchmark" for what is the power-level target of the Community Mod 1.0, I think we're golden. And the reference point can always be changed in future versions f the Community Mod if needed.

Being able to say something like: "Community Mod 1.0 is designed with the power level XYZ as the baseline, and the goal was to adjust the power level of other ships/builds/lists to be as close as possible to that baseline" is an extremely powerful statement

V.

17 hours ago, MajorJuggler said:

On the flip side, the TIE Strikers are pretty efficient now, just not quite as good as X-wings or TIE Fighters. I'm banking on the pre-maneuver movement making up for that small difference. [banking, get it.... heh heh... //end bad pun]. I do think that despite similiar statlines, TIE Strikers and TIE Aggressors are altogether different animals, filling very different functions. That turret upgrade slot goes a long way. :-)

They are. And, as noted, 6 TIE strikers is definitely something to approach with caution.

I agree that a hull upgrade feels wrong - I know you're primarily looking at gameplay over fluff, but whilst hull 4 is tolerable for a decent-weight fighter, hull 5 starts to feel a bit too much, so I'd agree it'd seem wrong.

As a regular striker devotee; if you wanted a way to buff them without overpowering them I'd look to the dial. The catastrophic weakness of the striker in a 'proper dogfight' is how badly the dial collapses to stress - whilst a TIE interceptor just loses the odd white 'edges' of the dial, the TIE striker goes from two white moves chained together to a green dial no better than a T-70 X-wing. Coming out of a segnor's loop or koiogran turn, they feel lethargic verging on crippled, and the same is true whenever they encounter an external force capable of inflicting stress on them.

On a ship that lives and dies by out-flying its opponents, that can be catastrophic.

Spending 4 turns failing to run away from an upsilon shuttle (thanks to the Kylo Ren's shuttle title) remains an embarrassing memory...

Now this is an awkward thing to ask for, because of your 'no new dials' rule (which I approve of on the grounds of simplicity) but there is a realistic way to achieve this; if the TIE striker were to be able to equip Twin Ion Engines MkII as a free (or at least 'slot-less') modification (maybe as an extra clause on Adaptive Ailerons?), then the ship gains speed 2 and speed 3 green banks. That lets it perform its crazy flip-over loops and turns and still come out in an acceptably fast bank, and when hit by something like R3-A2, it's maximum bank speed drops from 5 to 3 rather than from 5 to 1!

In addition, greater ease in shedding stress helps countdown make better use of his pilot ability - with Lightweight Frame and Twin Ion Engines he both needs to use it less and can recover from the consequences of using it better.

7 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

They are. And, as noted, 6 TIE strikers is definitely something to approach with caution.

I agree that a hull upgrade feels wrong - I know you're primarily looking at gameplay over fluff, but whilst hull 4 is tolerable for a decent-weight fighter, hull 5 starts to feel a bit too much, so I'd agree it'd seem wrong.

As a regular striker devotee; if you wanted a way to buff them without overpowering them I'd look to the dial. The catastrophic weakness of the striker in a 'proper dogfight' is how badly the dial collapses to stress - whilst a TIE interceptor just loses the odd white 'edges' of the dial, the TIE striker goes from two white moves chained together to a green dial no better than a T-70 X-wing. Coming out of a segnor's loop or koiogran turn, they feel lethargic verging on crippled, and the same is true whenever they encounter an external force capable of inflicting stress on them.

On a ship that lives and dies by out-flying its opponents, that can be catastrophic.

Spending 4 turns failing to run away from an upsilon shuttle (thanks to the Kylo Ren's shuttle title) remains an embarrassing memory...

Now this is an awkward thing to ask for, because of your 'no new dials' rule (which I approve of on the grounds of simplicity) but there is a realistic way to achieve this; if the TIE striker were to be able to equip Twin Ion Engines MkII as a free (or at least 'slot-less') modification (maybe as an extra clause on Adaptive Ailerons?), then the ship gains speed 2 and speed 3 green banks. That lets it perform its crazy flip-over loops and turns and still come out in an acceptably fast bank, and when hit by something like R3-A2, it's maximum bank speed drops from 5 to 3 rather than from 5 to 1!

In addition, greater ease in shedding stress helps countdown make better use of his pilot ability - with Lightweight Frame and Twin Ion Engines he both needs to use it less and can recover from the consequences of using it better.

Thanks for the thoughts, I have limited play time with the Strikers. It's good to get more eyeballs on it, I'll take a closer pass at them in the next couple of days. Have you played the generics much?

If I don't give them the +1 hull then I would have to revisit my numbers to see what a reasonable cost would be. The game has had significant overall red dice creep, and the new "standard benchmark" attack for Mod-Wing will be X-wings' ATT3 with a free blank reroll, so I'm not quite as worried about giving Strkers 5 hull from a gameplay and balance perspective. The alternative is to make the generics dirt cheap. But you're right 6 with LWF at 5 hull is probably a bit too much. Here's why... I just did a rough approximation that LWF is worth 75% of AGI3. It's probably more like 85% to 95% especially with TIE Fighters getting 'Attack Formation'. I could include the effect directly in my durability calculator code, but that's a bit of code refactorization, so I'll just sweep across a range from 75% to 100% and see how they look at each rate. I'll likely end up increasing the cost of LWF back to 4 points minimum instead of the 3 I have now. (Would have to go back and tweak the TIE Aggressor costs to compensate.)

In any event, I can also just make certain moves green via the title anyway, it doesn't need an additional upgrade. The knee jerk reaction is to make the 1 tun green, but then you can PtL for F+E every round, which also takes away the pre-maneuver boost, and essentially turns it into "every other ship". So I'm not sure what the correct answer would be for the dial.

OK, some minor tweaks, all from some slightly improved theory crafting. I'm still not changing the TIE Striker dial yet, having it be more vulnerable to stress may be a nice design feature rather than a bug. Reserve the right for changing once we playtest obviously. I am inclined to make the 2 banks green (for free), but want to get some playtesting first. If it doesn't really need to change then that's simpler.

Lightweight Frame : cost changed from 3/4/5 to 4/5/6.

TIE Aggressor : PS2, PS5, PS4 (Double Edge) pilot costs each reduced by 2. PS7 (Kestal) cost reduced by 1.

TIE Striker : Duchess cost reduced by 1.

That leaves us with:

On 12/9/2017 at 8:56 PM, MajorJuggler said:

TIE Aggressor

Pilot Cost and Ability Changes

• Sienar Specialist (PS2): cost reduced from 34 to 30.
• Double Edge: cost reduced from 38 to 36.
• Onyx Squadron Escort: cost reduced from 38 to 34.
• Lieutenant Kestal: cost reduced from 44 to 41.

Sample Loadouts

With Lightweight Frame and Twin Laser Turret

• Sienar Specialist (PS2) (47 points)
• Double Edge + Adaptability (52 points)
• Onyx Squadron Escort (51 points)
• Lieutenant Kestal + Adaptability (57 points)
• Lieutenant Kestal + Veteran Instincts (59 points)

On 12/9/2017 at 7:47 PM, MajorJuggler said:

TIE Striker

Pilot Cost and Ability Changes

• Imperial Trainee (PS1): cost reduced from 34 to 30.
• Scarif Defender (PS3): cost reduced from 36 to 33.
• Black Squadron Scout (PS4): cost reduced from 40 to 36.
• Countdown: cost reduced from 40 to 39.
• Pure Sabacc: cost remains 44.
• Duchess: cost reduced from 46 to 41.

Key Card Changes

Adaptive Ailerons

title. TIE Striker only.

0 / 0 / 0

Increase your hull value by one. Immediately before you reveal your dial, if you are not stressed, you must execute a white 1 <Left Bank>, <straight> 1 or <Right Bank> 1 maneuver.

Sample Loadouts

No Modification

• Imperial Trainee (PS1) (30 points)
• Scarif Defender (PS3) (33 points)
• Black Squadron Scout (PS4) + Crackshot (38 points)
• Countdown (39 points)
• Pure Sabacc + Crackshot (47 points)
• Duchess + Adaptability (41 points)
• Duchess + Veteran Instincts (43 points)

With Lightweight Frame

• Imperial Trainee (PS1) (34 points)
• Scarif Defender (PS3) (37 points)
• Black Squadron Scout (PS4) + Crackshot (42 points)
• Countdown (44 points)
• Pure Sabacc + Crackshot (52 points)
• Duchess + Adaptability (46 points)
• Duchess + Veteran Instincts (48 points)

I put up a poll on the FB page for how to buff the Firespray:

1. Replace the rear arc with a mobile arc like in my first draft.
2. "After executing maneuver, if you did not overlap an obstacle or ship, you may perform a free focus or barrel roll action."
3. These both sound like garbage. Something else!

Feel free to go vote!

Thoughts on Tie Punisher. You can give them reload. That would set them apart from Tie Bomber and even make sense as they are full of ammo. Probably still drop the price.

Give them SLAM? It might help them out more as they can bug out when they get cornered. It would allow them to escape and get back to fire ordnance.

Also thought about reducing price of system or allowing 2 systems. I think Sensor Jammer really helps the Punisher, but few take it. It maybe built in Sensor Jammer? Like stealth bomber tech.

Thanks for coming on Shuttle Tydirium podcast! Sorry I was out that time. Family obligations.

If you get to epic, I have ideas. I think epic ships really need more actions per turn. They have many cool actions to interact with other ships, but rarely use them as they Reinforce or Replenish most often. These ships should be full of crew that all do things. Hub of activity. Lots of crew that all don't sit there while targeting crew gets a TL. Think you can create crew or teams that let you do a specific free action per turn, such as free Jam or free Coordinate. Yes, epic don't get free actions, but maybe they can with these. Make epic ships not just become giant targets.

On ‎22‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 4:55 PM, MajorJuggler said:

Thanks for the thoughts, I have limited play time with the Strikers. It's good to get more eyeballs on it, I'll take a closer pass at them in the next couple of days. Have you played the generics much?

A couple of dozen games, always with five identical generics.

Not really enough for a 'statistically significant' maths assessment, but enough to be pretty comfortable with what they do and do not do.

On ‎22‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 4:55 PM, MajorJuggler said:

Here's why... I just did a rough approximation that LWF is worth 75% of AGI3. It's probably more like 85% to 95% especially with TIE Fighters getting 'Attack Formation'.

Sounds about right. Under normal circumstances, it's good enough - it tends to be an issue at long range (but strikers are fast enough to close the gap) and when obstructed (but people rarely voluntarily obstruct shots except for reasons that would make lightweight frame trigger anyway so it doesn't tend to come up much).

The main time it's an issue in practice is supermodified 2-dice attacks (accuracy corrector Twin Laser Turret), or Miranda Doni's 'drop a red die to recover a shield' ability, both of which are really annoying because the way lightweight frame works means you essentially ignore the 'downside' of Miranda's ability.

On ‎22‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 4:55 PM, MajorJuggler said:

The game has had significant overall red dice creep, and the new "standard benchmark" attack for Mod-Wing will be X-wings' ATT3 with a free blank reroll, so I'm not quite as worried about giving Strkers 5 hull from a gameplay and balance perspective.

That sounds about right for what I tend to get thrown at me in practice. Again, I agree 5 hull isn't excessive from a game balance perspective (it's essentially turning them into a Khiraxz with better manoeuvrability and agility but no upgrade options compared to the vast and flexible armoury unlocked by the Vaksai title).

My only concern is if there are any issues with the hull value 'thresholds' - as an off-the-top-of-my-head example, I am probably (for reasons that are fairly obvious given the discussion above) much more concerned about ships with Flechette Torpedoes than most players (aside from the Push The Limit Aces crowd), and whilst I don't object to becoming immune to Flechette Torpedoes, it is an effect which shouldn't be ignored.

On ‎22‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 4:55 PM, MajorJuggler said:

I'll likely end up increasing the cost of LWF back to 4 points minimum instead of the 3 I have now. (Would have to go back and tweak the TIE Aggressor costs to compensate.)

Unless you're going to have a vary-by-tier price for it, I'd say the cost of Lightweight Frame has always felt about right. I wouldn't object to it being 1/2 a point less in current terms, but the TIE/sk is definitely the weakest ship normally seen equipped with it (the other candidates are Aggressors, higher-end unique Bombers, and Special Forces TIEs, all of which are worth significantly more and hence anything making them tougher is also worth significantly more).

On ‎22‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 4:55 PM, MajorJuggler said:

The knee jerk reaction is to make the 1 tun green, but then you can PtL for F+E every round, which also takes away the pre-maneuver boost, and essentially turns it into "every other ship". So I'm not sure what the correct answer would be for the dial.

Definitely not. The Speed 1 turn - both turns - are white for a reason. The TIE striker does chained bank moves very well (bank 1/bank 3 is essentially a 'speed 5 1/2 turn') to the extent that it can keep up with boosting large ships without needing its action to do so, but it does have issues with really tight turns (because the speed 1 bank/speed 1 turn is the fastest it can change course). That inability to turn on a dime but flexibility in long sweeping turns is a big part of its feel - and the latter is a big part of its effectiveness.

I've always thought of the Scarif Defender as a Push The Limit Saber Squadron Pilot who's had agility 3, boost, and push the limit taken off him and a 'knock off' version sold back to you at a discount. It would be easy to make them either too good compared to the interceptor, or too similar to the interceptor, and either would be a bad thing in my view.

Equally, nothing (currently) stops you taking it without the ailerons title and flying it as 'every other ship' - if you're not confident with it it's actually a really good option (the dial isn't bad, just slow) and it makes adding in Pure Sabbac as 'filler' much easier to handle without dedicating a lot of brain-power to. I have a good friend who flies it exactly that way.

That's why I was suggesting either the TIE mkII card or a duplicate of the effect.

On ‎23‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 6:34 AM, MajorJuggler said:

I'm still not changing the TIE Striker dial yet, having it be more vulnerable to stress may be a nice design feature rather than a bug.

I definitely don't see it as a 'bug' - it is a weakness and a sensible one; however if you feel the ship does need a slight kick it's a sensible one to reduce (not remove!) - I wouldn't want to see it with green turns, though - again, the fact that you can only come out of a red move in a bank isn't too bad (after all, the striker's red dial is insanely flexible) but increasing the speed would be nice.

On ‎23‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 6:34 AM, MajorJuggler said:

Imperial Trainee (PS1): cost reduced from 34 to 30.

Fair enough. Imperial Trainees allow some supporting unique upgrades at the moment (4 Trainees + Countdown is a nice squad)

On ‎23‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 6:34 AM, MajorJuggler said:

Scarif Defender (PS3) (37 points)

That's a fairly significant drop given that they're also getting hull 5 into the bargain. Still 5-with-lightweight-frame per squad, but now one of them can be Crackshot Pure Sabbac instead of a generic, or three can be upgraded to Black Squadron Scouts with Crack Shot

On ‎23‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 6:34 AM, MajorJuggler said:

Black Squadron Scout (PS4) + Crackshot (38 points)

I never fully understood why the Black Squadron Scout was 20 points. I get not being able to have it with Lightweight Frame and crack shot at 20 points, because that undercuts the Saber Squadron Pilot massively, but if you were prepared to give up the modification in favour of firepower and a slight PS kick, it didn't seem unreasonable. Besides which, Countdown being the same price just totally outclassed the scouts unless you put a stupidly expensive elite upgrade on them.

On ‎23‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 6:34 AM, MajorJuggler said:

• Countdown: cost reduced from 40 to 39.
• Pure Sabacc: cost remains 44.
• Duchess: cost reduced from 46 to 41.

Countdown - eh. It's a 1/2 point change. I'll trust the maths; it doesn't feel that important one way or another.

Pure Sabbacc - he gets regular use, and no-one complains about him, so I'll accept the premise that he's "costed right"

Duchess - definitely being cheaper is good. A lot of her 'value' is essentially being able to cheaply get to PS10 with a free 'boost' - she's essentially one of the game's best arc dodgers but she doesn't do much else (unlike Soontir Fel's massive token stack, or Fenn Rau's huge pool of dice and free results, for example, she can do bugger all about it if she does get caught in someone's arc).

The reason she's never been 'a thing' is that (in addition to being 1 point more than pure sabbacc!) no amount of clever movement shenanigans matters with so much of the 'threat' out there being ships with primary weapon turrets, turret upgrades, Outrider, and so on. She can't 'dodge' shots, her only trick is avoiding being shot at in the first place.

How big a points decrease will depend on a balancing act - how much is the community mod going to bring the desire to reach for turreted ships rather than 'normal' fighters under control? There is still a potential for an increase in the number of ships - Rookies can now act as a rebel 'heavy swarmer' with 5 ships themselves with just the S-foils upgrade - a 5th arc of fire to avoid also cuts into her value...

1 hour ago, heychadwick said:

Thoughts on Tie Punisher. You can give them reload. That would set them apart from Tie Bomber and even make sense as they are full of ammo. Probably still drop the price.

It would also - rather nicely - help every punisher pilot except deathrain. Which is good as he's the most (only?) effective one at the moment.

The other option is some sort of 'mass launch' ability - something akin to BTL-A4 Y-wing or TIE/D that would allow it to perform multiple [torpedo] or [missile] attacks per turn.

The TIE Punisher carries a ludicrous amount of ordnance, after all - the problem with a missile-armed punisher is not generally running out of ammo so much as launching a worthwhile proportion of its load-out before it goes down in flames.

1 hour ago, heychadwick said:

Give them SLAM? It might help them out more as they can bug out when they get cornered. It would allow them to escape and get back to fire ordnance.

Giving them Reload and SLAM starts to feel rather too much like a bigger assault gunboat, though. Besides which, the TIE punisher ( nee interdictor) was never a particularly fast ship. I never really got why it has boost rather than barrel roll (other than just "we at least want one action to be different to the TIE bomber")

Its job is to troll forwards slowly through defensive fire that would shred 'normal' bombers; if I was going to give it any gimmicks, I'd (very carefully!) consider a means to offer it Reinforce (because, again, getting one more turn of not dying means one more turn of emptying those warhead bins into someone) - with its normal arc and low manoeuvrability, it should be reasonably easy to avoid unless you let the punisher get set up for a head-on attack run, at which point I feel you deserve everything you get.

1 hour ago, heychadwick said:

Also thought about reducing price of system or allowing 2 systems. I think Sensor Jammer really helps the Punisher, but few take it. It maybe built in Sensor Jammer? Like stealth bomber tech.

Cheap Systems upgrades treads on the toes of the TIE/x1 title.

Twin systems upgrades is, however, currently unique and would have a lot of combinations which would be appealing for an ordnance truck - Trajectory Simulator/Advanced Sensors for a bomber, Minefield Mapper/Enhanced Scopes for a minelayer, Accuracy Corrector/Fire Control System for a cluster missiles carrier, etc.

1 hour ago, heychadwick said:

Lots of crew that all don't sit there while targeting crew gets a TL. Think you can create crew or teams that let you do a specific free action per turn, such as free Jam or free Coordinate. Yes, epic don't get free actions, but maybe they can with these.

Automated Protocols is already an exception, so there's no problem with the precedent. Ditto Targeting Co-ordinator - both essentially offering the ship a free action in return for energy.

Making a 'deck crew' team which does the same doesn't seem unreasonable - if it's a more or less unrestricted action I might make it 2 energy for a free action of your choice, instead of 1 for a specific one (recover/reinforce for automated protocols, target lock for targeting co-ordinator).

59 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Making a 'deck crew' team which does the same doesn't seem unreasonable - if it's a more or less unrestricted action I might make it 2 energy for a free action of your choice, instead of 1 for a specific one (recover/reinforce for automated protocols, target lock for targeting co-ordinator).

If you add an energy cost to it then it will be useless. The point is that there are a number of actions that never get used in epic. I'm specifically thinking of Jam and Coordinate. The only way to have people want to use them would be to not cost energy and not prevent them from the better actions. I suggest not a crew/team that allows ANY free action, but one specific action. Jammer Tech - xpts: allows you to get one free Jam action per turn. That type of thing. The point cost and crew/team slot should be the only downside.