The only reason Rebels are dominating is because FFG made Imperials and Scum so much BETTER than Rebels that they had to nerf them because the community was whining about it.

It's the community that made Rebels top dog, not FFG.

1 hour ago, Stay On The Leader said:

The only reason Rebels are dominating is because FFG made Imperials and Scum so much BETTER than Rebels that they had to nerf them because the community was whining about it.

It's the community that made Rebels top dog, not FFG.

The community whines about stuff in every game.

Ffg has the responsibility of design, not us for complaining when they screw up.

And you admit that they were made powerful on purpose, which means that was not an accident.

Ffg designs ship to be in different spots on the powercurve. By choice. That should stop.

Besides. Whisper was nerfed, palpatine was nerfed... And arguably, even those are less powerful than Sabine, Miranda, TLT, Ghost+Fenn.

When they nerfed whisper she disappeared. When they nerfed the jmk it stayed on for 4 more subsequent nerfs. Miranda has been nerfed once, she is still at the top. She is still cancer.

But yeah, THAT has nothing to do with rebels being the hero faction.

I don't get why people find this hard to believe. They are the space Marines of x-wing. They will always have shiny new stuff to play with, and ffg is very careful about making them good enough. Not so much with other factions. And it shows.

FFG aren't biased, they're just crap.

I'm not saying they are purposefully creating broken ships...

I'm saying that, if an expansion can go both ways in terms of power, they are more conservative in their designs when looking at Imperial ships, and they err on the powerful side for rebels.

Look at the K-Wing and the Punisher... Just list the things they are capable of to anyone who ever played a competitive game. Anyone will tell you which ship is more powerful. That can't be a simple mistake.

Look at the Scurrg and the TIE Aggressor. Same wave. Why didn't the second generic aggressor get an EPT when the Scurrg did?

Is there an in-universe explanation? No, even the flavor text refers to Onyx Sq Escort as elite pilots. It's not the ordnance or the turrets, since both ships have those things.

Lo and behold, the Scurrg became a staple ship for 2 factions, while the aggressor made no splash. Would it be broken with Ruthlessness and TLT? The lack of Kestal and DoubleEdge meta shows that it probably wouldn't. Yet, they were careful about Imperials (which is admirable, really).

Now, were they similarly careful with the Scurrg? No they were not. In it's functions, the ship is similar to the Aggressor, A turret carrying ordnance carrier, but with added survivability and offense... And bombs. And Extra slots. It is a more expensive ship, it should do more, but that ship does not seem like a ship they held back on, not really caring about the possible implications.

This is my problem.

The Empire seems to be the faction where every idea is safely tested out, ever careful about the possible combinations and synergies. At least in the last 6-7 waves.

This is good.

What isn't, is that rebel and scum ships rarely have these careful considerations. Rebel and Scum ships are not conservative in design, they go wild. There are many many examples of this.

This is bad.

Lately, the latter became the standard for designing ships, with the vast majority of older vessels being abandoned.

The same creators of the TIE Punisher and R3 Astromech gave us the Scurrg, Seathipede, and Sabine.

I just think the "multiple comitees" argument is true. There used to be 3 devs working on the game, each of them with their own ideas of what is cool and what is the intended power level, plus each of them surrounded themselves with a group of playtesters that, apparently, didn't talk to the other groups.

Even if they did, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and take in consideration their statement "we designed this expansion for a different game".
That is, by the time they were designing, let's say, the TIE Punisher, they meta was probably transitioning from Fat Han to whatever came after that. Dash Rendar and decimators?
Also they were probably still using their old formula for pricing ships, based on the amount of upgrade icons (regardless their kind) and pure math on the statline (without going as deep as MajorJuggler). In that way you could understand that the TIE Punisher was, perhaps, tested against fat ships and was able to deliver a bunch of homing missiles or proton torpedoes before being destroyed.

At the same time, while they were designing the TIE Punisher, the K-wing wasn't around, so they didn't have it available for comparing. They have said a couple of times that they design a pool of ships and which and when they are released is not really their decision?
Also, a turret and crew upgrade icon is worth more than another missile icon and a system for this kind of clumsy ship, but probably back then they considered them worth the same.

The game has changed, and someone said that Wave 7 was X-wing 2.0. I think the TIE Punisher (as well as some other upgrades released later like R3 Astromech and other crap upgrades) are leftover designs from X-wing 1.0 that they finally find their place on a wave and are released without proper updating.

26 minutes ago, Azrapse said:

The same creators of the TIE Punisher and R3 Astromech gave us the Scurrg, Seathipede, and Sabine.

I just think the "multiple comitees" argument is true. There used to be 3 devs working on the game, each of them with their own ideas of what is cool and what is the intended power level, plus each of them surrounded themselves with a group of playtesters that, apparently, didn't talk to the other groups.

Even if they did, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and take in consideration their statement "we designed this expansion for a different game".
That is, by the time they were designing, let's say, the TIE Punisher, they meta was probably transitioning from Fat Han to whatever came after that. Dash Rendar and decimators?
Also they were probably still using their old formula for pricing ships, based on the amount of upgrade icons (regardless their kind) and pure math on the statline (without going as deep as MajorJuggler). In that way you could understand that the TIE Punisher was, perhaps, tested against fat ships and was able to deliver a bunch of homing missiles or proton torpedoes before being destroyed.

At the same time, while they were designing the TIE Punisher, the K-wing wasn't around, so they didn't have it available for comparing. They have said a couple of times that they design a pool of ships and which and when they are released is not really their decision?
Also, a turret and crew upgrade icon is worth more than another missile icon and a system for this kind of clumsy ship, but probably back then they considered them worth the same.

The game has changed, and someone said that Wave 7 was X-wing 2.0. I think the TIE Punisher (as well as some other upgrades released later like R3 Astromech and other crap upgrades) are leftover designs from X-wing 1.0 that they finally find their place on a wave and are released without proper updating.

Perhaps they can tell that to the emperor...

I've used the Upsilon quite a bit and I actually think it's a really cool ship. It's interesting, well balanced, and has a couple of cool roles to fill. The problem is it can't compete in the current skid-mark of a meta, but hopefully we get a FAQ soon to address that issue.

I've found advanced sensors to be a must on the Upsilon. It really allows you to leverage the coordinate action. Vader crew is also solid, if you're not going the Palp route.

On 11.4.2018 at 5:56 PM, Favoritism Flight Games said:

I want to like the Upsilon, but alas, arc-bound large ships are hot garbage, and this one is about 5-8 points overcosted. I've played with mine extensively, and they never seem to be worth their staggeringly high cost. 4 dice attack seems really good until you realize that this ship isn't the Ghost with an Aux. arc AND a turret slot. LOL.

To fix it, I'd make an ace pack for it that has new dials/cardboard (give it a K turn), and give it a rear Aux arc. Maybe a title that allows you to use a coordinate action at the beginning of the combat phase (take that Fenn!).

I really dislike how over the top some forumites reactions are. This is what led to the contracted scout crisis.

If the upsilon were 8 points cheaper, it would be the best ship in the game. And utter bull. I mean... it would be in every palp ace build ever, and those lists are already very potent.

3 hours ago, Azrapse said:

The game has changed, and someone said that Wave 7 was X-wing 2.0. I think the TIE Punisher (as well as some other upgrades released later like R3 Astromech and other crap upgrades) are leftover designs from X-wing 1.0 that they finally find their place on a wave and are released without proper updating.

Yeah this definitely happened.

Scum came out in Wave 6 and was basically crap, because they had an X-Wing (the Kihraxz) but the game was about B-Wings. So they designed a B-Wing for Scum (the Mist Hunter) but by the time it came out the game had completely changed in Wave 7 and B-Wings were useless too, so the Mist Hunter just sat around looking lonely.

For the points cost and role it seems to want to fill, I feel like the Ups is one crew slot short. It feels like an arc based decimator that serves as a command ship more than it feels like a weapons platform. Based on the TLJ role it played, I could even see it having a white 0 maneuver that adds an ion token when revealed. You know, just sort of hovering there yelling at ships to "get good" before opening fire...

5 hours ago, MaxPower said:

I really dislike how over the top some forumites reactions are. This is what led to the contracted scout crisis.

If the upsilon were 8 points cheaper, it would be the best ship in the game. And utter bull. I mean... it would be in every palp ace build ever, and those lists are already very potent.

8 points may be a bit much, but even at that extreme level:

Starkiller Base Pilot 22 (down from 30) + FCS +Palp + Pattern Analyzer: 34 points. Would it be good? Sure, Palp Aces would be definitely stronger. But would it be game breaking? Hardly. It still dies just as fast as a Lambda, gives up half points easy, and is super-easy to arc-dodge. The 'Best Ships' in the game get to ignore multiple game mechanics. This wouldn't even be close to something like the VCX- even at the full 8pt discount. Plus, I think we can all agree that a full squad of 4 Upsilons with FCS throwing 16 dice at opponents would be hella metal.

21 hours ago, Commander Kaine said:

The Empire seems to be the faction where every idea is safely tested out, ever careful about the possible combinations and synergies. At least in the last 6-7 waves. This is good.

What isn't, is that rebel and scum ships rarely have these careful considerations. Rebel and Scum ships are not conservative in design, they go wild. There are many many examples of this. This is bad.

I nominate Commander Kaine to take over for Alex Davy. All in favor?

1 minute ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

I nominate Commander Kaine to take over for Alex Davy. All in favor?

Prepare for a meta with heavily nerfed turrets and arc dodging galore!

Also, who is Miranda?

Oh wow I wish that would be the case

Guess the best bet for the ups now is to cross fingers for First Order Only Crew (hiya, Snoke!) or Large Ship Only tech

Snoke's Red herring abilities are impressive

Quote

Supreme Leader Snoke

First Order only.

Your ship is worth 0 points.

6 points. Two crew slots

Ultimately useless, but it really throws a wrench in your targeting...

Coincidentally I just made my Upsilon Shuttle changes . I'm intentionally trying to be boring, so it's just cost changes across the board.

10 hours ago, MajorJuggler said:

Upsilon Shuttle

Overview

• The Upsilon Shuttle is already quite unique, so just gets some cost changes. The costs here may still be a hair conservative, but will still be much more competitive and make a good starting point for testing.
• All of the Upsilon pilots except for Kylo are tier 3, encouraging them to be loaded out with a variety of upgrades.
• Dormitz's pilot ability has been tweaked to explicitly prevent the interpretation that he can be placed anywhere on the game board during deployment.
• Kylo Ren's pilot ability has been made optional, to go along with the one-turn delay added to the "I'll Show You The Dark Side" condition card (see VT-49 post ).

Pilot Tiers

• Starkiller Base Pilot (PS2), Lieutenant Dormitz (PS3), and Major Striden (PS4) are tier 3.
• Kylo Ren (PS6) is tier 2.

Pilot Cost and Ability Changes

• Starkiller Base Pilot (PS2): cost reduced from 60 to 53.
• Lieutenant Dormitz (PS3): cost reduced from 62 to 56, and ability changed to: "During setup, other friendly ships may be placed anywhere in the play area at Range 1-2 of you."
• Major Striden (PS4): cost reduced from 64 to 58.
• Kylo Ren (PS6): cost reduced from 68 to 63, and pilot ability changed to: "The first time you are hit by an attack each round, you may assign the "I'll Show You The Dark Side" Condition card to the attacker."

Key Card Changes

Kylo Ren's Shuttle

Cost remains 4 / 4 / 4

Sample Loadouts

• Starkiller Base Pilot + Palpatine (69 points)
• Starkiller Base Pilot + Fire Control System (57 points)
• Starkiller Base Pilot + Fire Control System + Advanced Optics + Fleet Officer (66 points)
• Starkiller Base Pilot + General Hux + Advanced Optics + Fire Control System (70 points)
• Starkiller Base Pilot + Sensor Jammer + Rebel Captive + Kylo Ren's Shuttle (67 points)