New Ship Mechanics, Hold the Ships

By Darth Meanie, in X-Wing

Inspired by this thread:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/273164-re-design-any-1-ship-of-your-choosing/

what new ship mechanic would you like to see for XWM that isn't necessarily ship-dependent?

I've seen ideas for medium bases, yellow maneuvers (cool idea, BTW @theBitterFig ), and Range 4 attacks.

One thing not mentioned in the other thread yet is Broadside Arcs Only for a Small or Large ship.

What else might we have??

Edited by Darth Meanie

Adding a die to primary following a green maneuver and/or gaining an ion token; or treating a green as a red to regain a shield.

take that Miranda

On 4/9/2018 at 2:02 PM, Darth Meanie said:

Inspired by this thread:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/273164-re-design-any-1-ship-of-your-choosing/

what new ship mechanic would you like to see for XWM that isn't necessarily ship-dependent?

I've seen ideas for medium bases, yellow maneuvers (cool idea, BTW @theBitterFig ), and Range 4 attacks.

What else might we have??

So what is a "yellow maneuver?"

I'm glad you asked!

In the same way that Reload was originally a pilot ability on Quinn Jast, Yellow Maneuvers are essentially what Ello Asty does to his Tallon Rolls. It would be a maneuver which is treated as white if you are not stressed, but treated as red if you are stressed.

For example, the best ship to use these would be the Jumpmaster. The white left Segnor's Loop, the Right Hard 1 and 2, the Right Bank 3, and now that I think about it, maybe even the Straight 4, should be Yellow moves. If you aren't stressed, they're fine. Your dial is wide open. If you are stressed, however, your options are significantly more limited. It'd add an actual drawback to the asymmetric dial.

Basically, it's a way that a dial could be made a little better or a little worse.

*edit* or whatever color would work out best for adaptive design. The baseline mechanic is what interests me, and Yellow was originally just chosen because red/yellow/green stoplights, although it may not be the best pick in practive.

Edited by theBitterFig
3 minutes ago, GrimmyV said:

Adding a die to primary following a green maneuver and/or gaining an ion token; or treating a green as a red to regain a shield.

But not if you are pulling the green to shed stress. No double dipping!!

need a mobile arc that doesn't allow primary weapons to fire out of the primary firing arc. then make it the standard for turrets

it's very easy to do, and about the only way you're going to distinguish scum falcon from both the jm5k and the Lancer

3 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Basically, it's a way that a dial could be made a little better or a little worse.

If only granularity was as easy to implement in the rest of the game.

Just now, Darth Meanie said:

But not if you are pulling the green to shed stress. No double dipping!!

We duh, it’s allowing for different uses of colors on maneuvers. The ‘stabdard’ Procedure when pulling a green would be forfeited to use the new abilities. Plus if you treat a green as a red, well, then it isn’t green is it. There’s no stress shedding going on.

10 minutes ago, GrimmyV said:

If only granularity was as easy to implement in the rest of the game.

We duh , it’s allowing for different uses of colors on maneuvers. The ‘stabdard’ Procedure when pulling a green would be forfeited to use the new abilities. Plus if you treat a green as a red, well, then it isn’t green is it. There’s no stress shedding going on.

Well duh my donkey.

Since there is no "timing window" on a maneuver, is the maneuver green (and thus allow shedding of stress) until you make the choice to regen a shield (when it then becomes a red, regaining the stress).

Somewhere out there is the guy who will try to pull that ****. . .

Rules lawyers. Give them zero wiggle room. Unless you like FAQ entries.

Edited by Darth Meanie

A sideways maneuver that's essentially a barrel roll or sideways decloak, but actually on the dial.

One I've had for a while: Yellow dice for ion weapons. Some faces show ion, some faces show damage. Each ion you roll deals ion tokens, each damage you roll can be cancelled as normal. Some ships/weapons roll a mixture of red and yellow dice.

And then Blue dice for hard to fly ships. They're basically different defense dice that are more random. They have a side that rolls two evades, a side that rolls one evade, two focus sides, and four blank sides.

And black dice for autocannons and other low-damage, low-skill, high quantity weapons. They've got four sides showing damage, one focus side, and three blanks.

And white dice for specialty weapons. Two critical hit sides, two focus sides, and four blank sides.

More dice types allows more flexibility of game design. Too late for X-Wing, but I really liked this in Imperial Assault.

Corellian Slip - a bank manouevre at the end of which the ship based is turned 90 degrees to face in the direction of travel.

3 minutes ago, Antipodean Ork said:

Corellian Slip - a bank manouevre at the end of which the ship based is turned 90 degrees to face in the direction of travel.

I was muddling over an idea for a slip maneuver (small ship only) that lays the 1 straight against the side of the base, then the ship moves forward to the rear nubs.

A 4 bank would be a nice, new, non-complicated option.

And I would still like to see a U-turn option:

GMG154-high_x700.jpg?v=1512153932

+1 for thread

Well, my great idea for fixing everything wrong with the game are General Actions.

What are General Actions, you ask?

Well. Let me tell you.

Basically I'm revamping how actions work in the game. All pilots have access to certain actions, regardless of chassis. These actions are independent of the Action bar.

List of General Actions:

Focus (Because... why waste ink on that? Everyone has it)
Push the limit (Because it adds a new element to the game. Stress becomes very important, and dials suddenly count way more. The yellow move idea works with this really well)
Gain the Advantage (new action) Next turn, treat your pilot skill value as 1 points higher.

Some actions would be available to many ships, but not all.

Recover would be available to all ships with Shield values. In 100/6 it would be something like: You may receive a WD token to recover 1 shield. Ships without shields become 2 points cheaper across the board.
Reload would be available to all ships with ordnance slots. (With all missiles and torpedoes rebalanced around Cruise Missiles as the baseline. But they would be also fairly expensive.) You can just reload

Hmm.. That's for starters. I think more on what else.


Most missiles and torpedoes being limited to ranges 3-5. They gain a stronger identity, represent the X-Wing computer game better, and getting inside range with dogfighters becomes a thing.

New maneuvers from existing templates. New attack dice with different distribution.

7 minutes ago, All Shields Forward said:

Most missiles and torpedoes being limited to ranges 3-5. They gain a stronger identity, represent the X-Wing computer game better, and getting inside range with dogfighters becomes a thing.

yeah ordunance being what amounts to a one shot primary is idiotic.

its either broken op or garbage based on how it compares with a standard primary attack, and it adds nothing to the game.

range 3-5 ord'nance would solve a lot of problems

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

Well duh my donkey.

Since there is no "timing window" on a maneuver, is the maneuver green (and thus allow shedding of stress) until you make the choice to regen a shield (when it then becomes a red, regaining the stress).

Somewhere out there is the guy who will try to pull that ****. . .

Rules lawyers. Give them zero wiggle room. Unless you like FAQ entries.

You make the decision when flipping the dial, meaning the maneuver was ‘never’ green as far as the ‘game state’ is concerned. Just like Stay on Target.

If this isn’t a core mechanic baked into the game (which it should be) it would be listed on what ever upgrade or pilot ability it is listed as. Just like Stay on Target or any other ‘change maneuver color’ ability.

If this thread is Fantasy X-wing then don’t crap on the fantasy.

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

So what is a "yellow maneuver?"

I'm glad you asked!

In the same way that Reload was originally a pilot ability on Quinn Jast, Yellow Maneuvers are essentially what Ello Asty does to his Tallon Rolls. It would be a maneuver which is treated as white if you are not stressed, but treated as red if you are stressed.

For example, the best ship to use these would be the Jumpmaster. The white left Segnor's Loop, the Right Hard 1 and 2, the Right Bank 3, and now that I think about it, maybe even the Straight 4, should be Yellow moves. If you aren't stressed, they're fine. Your dial is wide open. If you are stressed, however, your options are significantly more limited. It'd add an actual drawback to the asymmetric dial.

Basically, it's a way that a dial could be made a little better or a little worse.

That's a really, really nice idea.

1 hour ago, Antipodean Ork said:

Corellian Slip - a bank manouevre at the end of which the ship based is turned 90 degrees to face in the direction of travel.

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

I was muddling over an idea for a slip maneuver (small ship only) that lays the 1 straight against the side of the base, then the ship moves forward to the rear nubs.

A 4 bank would be a nice, new, non-complicated option.

And I would still like to see a U-turn option:

I have toyed with side slip maneuvering ideas as well:

6KknnVW.jpg

QGSvHOB.jpg

Corellian Slip (EPT, 3 pts)

perform a free B-roll action. Then either:

rotate your ship 180 degrees

or

perform a free evade action.

Then receive a stress token.

um, that is a mess, isn’t it.

I love sideslip, by the by, it's a mechanic I've often played about with myself. I think it's really interesting.

One mechanic I'd love to see, for something notoriously difficult to control and unpredictable, is a ship that MUST turn 90 degrees in a direction of its choice at the end of every manoeuvre. So it literally couldn't go straight, it would have to sideslip to do it.

2 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

So what is a "yellow maneuver?"

I'm glad you asked!

In the same way that Reload was originally a pilot ability on Quinn Jast, Yellow Maneuvers are essentially what Ello Asty does to his Tallon Rolls. It would be a maneuver which is treated as white if you are not stressed, but treated as red if you are stressed.

For example, the best ship to use these would be the Jumpmaster. The white left Segnor's Loop, the Right Hard 1 and 2, the Right Bank 3, and now that I think about it, maybe even the Straight 4, should be Yellow moves. If you aren't stressed, they're fine. Your dial is wide open. If you are stressed, however, your options are significantly more limited. It'd add an actual drawback to the asymmetric dial.

Basically, it's a way that a dial could be made a little better or a little worse.

This is an amazing idea - sadly kind of impossible to implement at this point, as you'd need to re-issue dials.

Or, well, I mean...FFG could always implement it on ships going forward, but...rather a lot of ships would have benefitted from it to begin with.

34 minutes ago, GrimmyV said:

Corellian Slip (EPT, 3 pts)

perform a free B-roll action. Then either:

rotate your ship 180 degrees

or

perform a free evade action.

Then receive a stress token.

um, that is a mess, isn’t it.

Well, I guess I don't think of a slip as a change in direction so much as a lateral movement.

So, technically a BR, but not the same mechanic in terms of final ship position.

But I do like the idea of an EPT that makes BR into an evasive maneuver instead of just repositioning. I would (maybe) give it a higher point cost and skip the penalty of the stress.

Edited by Darth Meanie

What about an ability that gave you a use or a benefit for unspent evade results on dice? I know they aren't exactly a plentiful commodity at the moment, but this would at least make them have more impact and value. Requires at least two, possibly three native evade dice to equip. Evade tokens, autothrusters, palp, etc should probably all work with the effect.

Maybe like an attack of opportunity type rule that punishes low attack value ships from even trying to harass a much more maneuverable ship. It could also be a maneuver bonus that lets you have another chance to move out of arc. It could be sort of like building a limited bank of evade results to use later, possibly with a restriction like only replacing blanks. Dunno what exactly the effect should be tbh.

Suddenly Miranda losing a die has more downside. The extra attack rolls from TLT help trigger the effect more often as well.

1 hour ago, RebelProfundity said:

What about an ability that gave you a use or a benefit for unspent evade results on dice? I know they aren't exactly a plentiful commodity at the moment, but this would at least make them have more impact and value. Requires at least two, possibly three native evade dice to equip. Evade tokens, autothrusters, palp, etc should probably all work with the effect.

Maybe like an attack of opportunity type rule that punishes low attack value ships from even trying to harass a much more maneuverable ship. It could also be a maneuver bonus that lets you have another chance to move out of arc. It could be sort of like building a limited bank of evade results to use later, possibly with a restriction like only replacing blanks. Dunno what exactly the effect should be tbh.

Suddenly Miranda losing a die has more downside. The extra attack rolls from TLT help trigger the effect more often as well.

To the first, I have a feeling/hope Krennic will do this - we've nto seen the whole condition card yet and it would add a nice symmetry if you could spend unused results to take free evade actions.

1 hour ago, RebelProfundity said:

What about an ability that gave you a use or a benefit for unspent evade results on dice? I know they aren't exactly a plentiful commodity at the moment, but this would at least make them have more impact and value.

...

It could be sort of like building a limited bank of evade results to use later, possibly with a restriction like only replacing blanks. Dunno what exactly the effect should be tbh.

Suddenly Miranda losing a die has more downside. The extra attack rolls from TLT help trigger the effect more often as well.

It would certainly help the 'swinginess' of evades - I mean, how many times have we all rolled 4 native 'evade' results on 4 dice against a 1-hit attack, and against the following 3-crit attack you roll 0 evades on 5 dice. Your evade results are "statistically" about where they should be, but it sure doesn't feel like that at all...

It's a common enough mechanic in dice games. For example, FFG's own "Elder Sign" has spell cards you can acquire for the investigators, which have one or two slots on them where you can store a dice result for later use.

You'd really want it (like it is in 'Elder Sign') to be a fleet-wide draw, though. IE., a "Will of the Force" card you place alongside your fleet with 2 or 3 dice slots on it. Then add a third step to 'Roll attack dice' and 'roll defense dice' where the person rolling the dice can remove any one die rolled and put it on one of those slots set to the facing you rolled (removing its effect from the current result). At any future point, that die could then be removed to replace a blank result. Would that work as a possible mechanic? (Heck, I guess that could even work as an EPT upgrade - still allowing a fleet-wide draw from the card, but I don't know there is the wording room for it...)