Mobile arc all turrets or do a steep turret tax. Points are the ultimate equilizer.

33 minutes ago, Makaze said:

What's wrong with masturbation?

I hear you go blind. Or it makes Jesus cry. Or maybe it makes blind Jesus cry?

This is what we did in ours, it works really well.

Granted, we've also rebalanced a lot of cards to make it even more streamlined, but this would still work in regular X-Wing casual games.

33 minutes ago, citruscannon said:

This is what we did in ours, it works really well.

Granted, we've also rebalanced a lot of cards to make it even more streamlined, but this would still work in regular X-Wing casual games.

Yes, I was thinking about tagging you, but then I forgot it midway through the post

I still think the turret concept and game mechanic is fine. The problem is FFG stopped costing turrets appropriately. Add to this a plethora of undercosted "automatic evade" mechanics which are obviously better on undercosted turret platforms and the whole thing goes out of whack.

There are still plenty of turret platforms which have to consistently outplay arced ships AND roll hot reds in order to succeed.

If we add 4+ pts to anything with more than a front arc, and 2-4+ pts for auto evade (includes you autothrusters) and regen mechanics, the game gets into a much better state.

Or heck, lets trade all auto convert / add result mechanics into reroll / roll +1 dice so there is more RNG. XWing will feel A LOT more like XWing with this more RNG to help make comebacks even possible.

5 minutes ago, phild0 said:

I still think the turret concept and game mechanic is fine. The problem is FFG stopped costing turrets appropriately. Add to this a plethora of undercosted "automatic evade" mechanics which are obviously better on undercosted turret platforms and the whole thing goes out of whack.

There are still plenty of turret platforms which have to consistently outplay arced ships AND roll hot reds in order to succeed.

If we add 4+ pts to anything with more than a front arc, and 2-4+ pts for auto evade (includes you autothrusters) and regen mechanics, the game gets into a much better state.

Or heck, lets trade all auto convert / add result mechanics into reroll / roll +1 dice so there is more RNG. XWing will feel A LOT more like XWing with this more RNG to help make comebacks even possible.

Obviously, a drastic rewriting of all costs will solve all problems, but FFG let that ship sail a long long time ago.

Also, in some cases it might work, but sometimes a ship is just mechanically underwhelming. This is why I like the X-Wing fix. It adds a new element to the ship, making it more fun.

Also, I would not like the Lambda class shuttle, even if it came for 15 points. It's not fun to fly. Even if I could have 6 of them on board, and decimate everything, I wouldn't like it.

Sometimes it is not about power or costs. Sometimes things just aren't fun. Turrets aren't. Even appropriately costed ships with turrets suck.

18 minutes ago, phild0 said:

I still think the turret concept and game mechanic is fine. The problem is FFG stopped costing turrets appropriately. Add to this a plethora of undercosted "automatic evade" mechanics which are obviously better on undercosted turret platforms and the whole thing goes out of whack.

There are still plenty of turret platforms which have to consistently outplay arced ships AND roll hot reds in order to succeed.

If we add 4+ pts to anything with more than a front arc, and 2-4+ pts for auto evade (includes you autothrusters) and regen mechanics, the game gets into a much better state.

Or heck, lets trade all auto convert / add result mechanics into reroll / roll +1 dice so there is more RNG. XWing will feel A LOT more like XWing with this more RNG to help make comebacks even possible.

I think this is bang on.

What we found in the mod I mentioned above was that once we 'fixed' turrets, it necessitated the almost hard and fast rule of very few/no token stacking without preconditions. Basically, it wasn't turrets that were broken, but the ease of picking up both focus/evade on multiple ships without much extra effort. Generally speaking, stacking of crew members daisy-chained with EPTs and pilot effects caused enormous problems. To be honest, leaving turrets as is, but just recosting everything was an equally viable tactic we could have gone. I made a design decision though that having turrets required to pick their targets made for more interesting gameplay. (And also lets us play with things like having some turret platforms be demonstrably better than others via upgrades that let them fire at multiple targets.)

In our case, we're making ships defensively much weaker, and so it necessitates weaker turrets effects out of arc, but in the case of actual X-wing, The moment you drop turrets in overall power, the sheer defensive power of some arc-dodging ships would make them nearly impossible to kill. It's not an easy balance. The early turrets in X-wing were often dramatically weaker than the versions that came afterwards, and costed much higher.

4 minutes ago, citruscannon said:

I think this is bang on.

What we found in the mod I mentioned above was that once we 'fixed' turrets, it necessitated the almost hard and fast rule of very few/no token stacking without preconditions. Basically, it wasn't turrets that were broken, but the ease of picking up both focus/evade on multiple ships without much extra effort. Generally speaking, stacking of crew members daisy-chained with EPTs and pilot effects caused enormous problems. To be honest, leaving turrets as is, but just recosting everything was an equally viable tactic we could have gone. I made a design decision though that having turrets required to pick their targets made for more interesting gameplay. (And also lets us play with things like having some turret platforms be demonstrably better than others via upgrades that let them fire at multiple targets.)

In our case, we're making ships defensively much weaker, and so it necessitates weaker turrets effects out of arc, but in the case of actual X-wing, The moment you drop turrets in overall power, the sheer defensive power of some arc-dodging ships would make them nearly impossible to kill. It's not an easy balance. The early turrets in X-wing were often dramatically weaker than the versions that came afterwards, and costed much higher.

Yup. I think AT should be the first upgrade to go after turrets are nerfed. I really dislike them as an upgrade.

Did you also remove passive defensive mods (like AT)? Those are more suspect than actions I think

1 hour ago, Commander Kaine said:

Yup. I think AT should be the first upgrade to go after turrets are nerfed. I really dislike them as an upgrade.

Did you also remove passive defensive mods (like AT)? Those are more suspect than actions I think

Yes, no AT.
no PTL either for that matter. We've scrubbed pretty much all conditionless token stacking from the game, as well as defensive mods. The best defensive mod you can get is a sensor jammer. Basically all the arc-dodging ships have some options at action stacking, but passive mods are pretty rare. Any ship that really "needed" an upgrade, we pretty much did our best to provide it as an option via what are called "chassis" cards. Each ship has their pick of 3-4 of these.

The interceptors for example can pay for a 4-point chassis card that allows them to pick up a focus/evade (basically a slightly weaker Fel+ PTL), but beyond that that's the closest to PTL any ship can get. Any pilot abilities that overlapped with this aim were rewritten. Interceptors only get something like PTL it by virtue of having only 3 hull. Whereas something like the X-wing definitely doesn't get PTL abilities but has a baked in adaptive ailerons. In both cases, neither ship is invulnerable to turrets, and neither ship is particularly safe at any range. The interceptor does however enjoy a genuine level above in terms of maneuverability.

In doing this, by making these ships really vulnerable to fire, it really amps up the power of turrets, hence why having a target lock on turrets became a necessity with this approach. Altogether, it fits, and whenever something creeps above the power level set by the first wave of ships, we shave it back down.

6 minutes ago, citruscannon said:

Yes, no AT.
no PTL either for that matter. We've scrubbed pretty much all conditionless token stacking from the game, as well as defensive mods. The best defensive mod you can get is a sensor jammer. Basically all the arc-dodging ships have some options at action stacking, but passive mods are pretty rare. Any ship that really "needed" an upgrade, we pretty much did our best to provide it as an option via what are called "chassis" cards. Each ship has their pick of 3-4 of these.

The interceptors for example can pay for a 4-point chassis card that lets for defensive token stacking (basically a weaker Fel+ PTL), but beyond that that's the closest to PTL any ship can get. Any pilot abilities that overlapped with this aim were rewritten. Interceptors only get something like PTL it by virtue of having only 3 hull. Whereas something like the X-wing definitely doesn't get PTL abilities but has a baked in adaptive ailerons. In both cases, neither ship is invulnerable to turrets, and neither ship is particularly safe at any range. The interceptor does however enjoy a genuine level above in terms of maneuverability.

That's not necessarily the way i'd do it, but IIRC you don't change dials and stats, right? That certainly places some limitations on the game, so an understandable decision.

I actually have a game mode I've been developing, but I'm afraid it is a bit hard to get into with even more rules than yours.

6 hours ago, Alpha17 said:

I hear you go blind. Or it makes Jesus cry. Or maybe it makes blind Jesus cry?

Wait till you are married and with kids and lets open the masturbation subject again then.

10 hours ago, Commander Kaine said:

Now if you don't think this sounds good, please don't post in this thread. Also, I would like to keep this discussion fairly on topic and focused, so keep that in mind.

"If you agree with me speak up if you don't get lost"
A fine example how discussion is conducted in modern society!

Jeeeez, what do they teach kids at school these days....

6 minutes ago, tsondaboy said:

"If you agree with me speak up if you don't get lost"
A fine example how discussion is conducted in modern society!

Jeeeez, what do they teach kids at school these days....

I'm not for silencing anyone, it's just in order to get a constructive discussion going, we need to rein in the tangentially related subjects, and I made that clear in the post.

I'd welcome criticism as well, if it weren't on the level of: "stop whining and git gud"

But sadly, the forum proved that is the level of discourse here.

It's not as much censorship, as it is a suggestion of topic. Now, you can either respect my wishes and participate within the given parameters, or not. Your choice.

I can handle myself in an argument, if you have constructive comments, let's hear them. But if you just wanna come here and insult my intelligence... Well bring it on.

Just don't expect basic courtesy from me afterwards.

53 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

That's not necessarily the way i'd do it, but IIRC you don't change dials and stats, right? That certainly places some limitations on the game, so an understandable decision.

I actually have a game mode I've been developing, but I'm afraid it is a bit hard to get into with even more rules than yours.

We alter stats, but don't touch dials. Although baseplates unfortunately end up being partially obsolete because of this, we found it to be an acceptable compromise. Basically we're reducing the number of cards in the game to nearly 1/4 what there are in X-wing, and recosting and reworking just about all of them.

The format is a complete card conversion from X-wing. This unfortunately makes some things impossible to do, like adjusting dials, but we've figured out ways of doing it via the "chassis" cards. For example, how do you make an experimental TIE fighter with a cannon slot? Like this:


so when it comes to adjusting turrets, we do everything from adjusting cost to adjusting the stats of the ship they came on, to make sure that the slot isn't overpowered for the ship that it comes on.

11 hours ago, Gilarius said:

The mobile arc of the Lancer demonstrates how all turrets should have been implemented.

10 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

Mobile arcs are what they should have been

6 hours ago, Pewpewpew BOOM said:

Mobile arc all turret

While I think the theory of the mobile arc turret is a good effort to address out of arc attacks, it is hideously implement on the model. It’s just so cumbersome. I don’t know what the answer is but it’s so painful watching my opponent mess around with that ridiculous indicator. Then you’re both bobbing up and down to look under the model to check which arc is active like some sort of ritual.

I will propose a simple rule rewrite for three reasons:
- It is something that can be done in the errata document without having to modify all affected printed cards.
- Even when it doesn't solve the problem with consistent token stacking or passive modifiers stacking (like Expertise) at least it lowers the limit on how much damage they can dealt.
- It is a credible effect of trying to fire a turret in real WWII air combat/Star Wars space combat, and this game does have a simulationist component.

Rule:
When a Small or Large ship attacks outside of their firing arc, if their maneuver this round was white or red, or they performed a boost or barrel roll this round, they must roll one fewer attack die .

Motivation:

• It is very hard to aim at a moving target from a turret unless your pilots is deliberately making it easy for you to line your shots by performing only simple maneuvers. By penalizing maneuver that aren't green, along with boosts and barrel rolls, we simulate this.
• A ship shouldn't be effective both at arc dodging and turreting, at least at the same time. If you want to use your turret to full effect, then you become at the same time quite easier to hit.
  If you are going to arc dodge by performing boosts and barrel rolls (Dash, Ghost+Fenn, Chiraneau, Han), then you will be limited to the amount of damage you can deal. Even if you stack passive Expertise with passive rerolls, most of the time you won't be able to deal more than 2 damage per attack.

How would this affect some known ships:

• Dash: Your HLC rolls 3 dice unless you move greens AND don't barrel roll. It's not bad, but this ships is also paying 13 points for this.
• Classic Falcon: They are hit hard by this rule. They need to limit themselves to a 2 dice peashooter while fleeing away from threats. If they maneuver right so that they can afford to move green for a round (under no danger of being attacked, for example), they get their full turret back.
• TFA Falcon: This ship likes making segnor loops to get targets in arc for Rey, so most of the time it will not be affected by this rule.
• Y-Wing: Mostly unaffected by this rule if they equip R2 Astromech or Unhinged Astromech. Without these astromechs, they are hit very hard, since they only have 2 green maneuvers. The Stresshog isn't affected by this rule at all.
• K-wing: The K-wing will be strongly affected by this rule since they don't have a lot of repositioning choices to get targets in arc. Miranda's ability gets a strong debuff with this, since when regenerating, the attack would be reduced by two dice, and when spending a shield to add one die, it would be countered by this rule. She will work at full effect only when performing any of the 4 green maneuvers K-wings have.
• Ghost: This ship would be forced to move very slowly if it want to make most of a docked Phantom I. That would clearly make it much easier to be hit. If this ship gets a boost by a coordinating Fenn, it would be affected by the rule and see its damage output considerably reduced.
• Jumpmaster: Dengar wants to have targets in arc, and he has the dial to get this done, so he wouldn't mind this rule so much. The Bumpmasters, however, would be more affected, since they usually barrel roll to do their duty, and their puny 2 dice turrets would be reduced to 1 die.
• Shadowcaster: It's not technically a turreted ship, so it's not affected at all.
• TIE Aggressor: It has a good amount of greens, so it would have a chance to fire its turrets to full effect as long as it can afford moving with greens. TIE Mark II would become quite popular for these guys.
• Decimator: Even when this ship has speed 3 green maneuver, it would still need to decide whether to arc dodge or fire its turret to full effect.
• Scurrg: This ship has a good amount of greens, but most of the time this ship does turns or barrel rolls to be able to lay bombs on their enemies. In both cases, it would affect its turret's damage output. So you need to decide to either fly fancy to drop some bombs, or have a strong turret.
• HWK: A sad example of collateral damage of this rule, this ship would be most affected by it. Its few greens would make it an easy target if it wants to fire its turret to full effect, perhaps forcing it to always try and joust with it.

Edit: Just realized that this rule would buff tractor beams against small turret ships, since it would count as a boost or barrel roll. Is this a bad thing?

First of all, I don't think turrets are issue number one.
To be honest, I don't even think all turrets are an issue. Turrets were in the game since Wave 1.

I wouldn't treat the PWT. It's either on very expensive ship, or it's low-power. If you would remove PWT from Millenium Falcon, the most iconic ship of Star Wars universe would die out.

Now let's talk about turret upgrades:

Autoblaster Turret - this one is strong but needs big imput from the player as mentioned in OP. Range 1 is extremely limiting and shooting with 2 dice is not that great. Even if you spam it it's difficult to do serious damage. OK

Blaster Turret - who use it? If this one wouldn't exist, nothing would happen. Cancel

Dorsal Turret - this one is actually very good. Again, limited range, better at close range but avoidable. It's will not deal more then your usual primary weapon and with limited range.

Ion Cannon Turret - my all time favourite, limited range, low damage, Ion Token. OK

Synced Turret - well designed turret. Again Range 1-2. OK

Twin Laser Turret - Range 2-3 means you don't have to go to the thick of the fighting, also, you ignore the defenders benefit of Range 3 which is more added value. You attack twice so you basically assure damage. And lots of damage because you can shoot at range 3. Mean! Forbid!

How powerful would be the Thug Life if the range for TLT would be 1-2? It would also help to have less turret slot carriers (talking small ships, HWK, Y-Wing, Agressor would be enough).

TL,DR: it's not turrets per se, it's the range of the one turret that makes it sick.

12 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

The answer is never more dice

Especially not given how consistent turret modifiers are

Indeed.

• Ultimately, X-wing is a dice game, with upgrade cards and manoeuvring giving you the means to 'fettle' your red and green dice rolls.
• Because of the way X-wing attacks work (it's not how many hits you get, it's how many hits you get in one roll in excess of the defence roll ), multiple dice modifications and bonus dice stacked will give you a 'greater than the sum of the parts' benefit; two weaker attacks are generally worth significantly less than one good one.
  • Because said dice modifications and bonus dice generally come from upgrades, the ship with the largest upgrade bar* generally wins, through either exceptionally modified attack dice, or a combination of super-modified green dice, the ability to spawn extra defence results, or the ability to regenerate damage.
  • The ship with the largest upgrade bar is generally either a large ship or a why-the-bloody-heck-is-this-not-a-large-ship like the ARC-170, Scurrg, K-wing, and so on.
  • Since such ships are larger, multi-crew vessels, they generally have either extended arcs of fire, primary weapon turrets, or turret slots, letting it win a straight shootout against 'arc dodgers'.
  • The ship with the largest upgrade bar is also inevitably the ship which has, rather than doesn't have, an elite upgrade and a pilot ability, which, as a side effect, means it also tends to have the better pilot skill - meaning it moves after and shoots before its generic equivalent, letting it win a battle of maneuver against 'jousters' or its lesser brethren with the same chassis.
  • Because of the way repositioning actions work, a lower pilot skill generic invests more to use a boost or barrel roll (because it doesn't get another action) and gets less out of it, because it's using it to enhance its pre-defined dial manoeuvre based on where it thinks its opponent will be rather than correct it based on where its opponent actually is.
  • Because of the way manoeuvre templates work, large based ships with boost and barrel roll gain much more flexibility than small based ships.
  • Any 'fix' card which can be fielded is always able to be attached to the 'best' pilot(s). Which is why, for example, TIE/x1 was essentially the 'Vader fix' not the 'TIE Advanced fix', and why when talking about balance, it's worth being precise and talking about Nym, Miranda Doni, Quickdraw, Norra Wexley, Kylo Ren, Lowhhrick, Fenn Rau, Darth Vader, etc, not the generic names of the chassis.

• As noted, the problem can be viewed in a couple of ways:
  • A generic 'jouster'** has a challenge of getting shots on the arc dodger or turret;
    • The former can 'shimmy' its position with boosts or barrel rolls to jink outside your arc easily - but does so whilst often giving up its own shot - the decisive measure should be how often it can avoid your arc whilst still getting a shot itself .
    • The latter can turn any which way because it doesn't have to line up shots itself, which means that it never gives up shots whilst playing arc dodger.
  • The problem is that a lot of arc dodgers and turrets can still outshoot (when evades are taken into account) a jouster in a head-on pass. Which is why only ordnance-armed jousters (or to be more exact: 'ship XYZ with Harpoon Missiles') are really seen now.
  • Whilst, by taking a bunch of low-level generic jousters or arc dodgers you do save points, saving points compared to uniques is irrelevant. They only matter if saving those points lets you buy another ship . Given that a meaningfully combat-capable generic costs you about 20-25 points, in 100 points you have to gut the capability of most of the ships in a squad to fit in an extra ship. (Compare to epic games where that often works out at maybe 2 points, tops, per ship).

* where all the upgrades can apply simultaneously . Having Missile, Modification, System, Crew and Elite is multiple upgrades because all apply at once. Having Missile, Missile, Torpedo, Torpedo is basically just a single secondary weapon with ammo reserves.

** Note - just jousting over and over is boring. But consider this to be 'relatively unmanouvrable ship with an emphatic right end and wrong end'.

2 hours ago, Azrapse said:

I will propose a simple rule rewrite for three reasons:
- It is something that can be done in the errata document without having to modify all affected printed cards.
- Even when it doesn't solve the problem with consistent token stacking or passive modifiers stacking (like Expertise) at least it lowers the limit on how much damage they can dealt.
- It is a credible effect of trying to fire a turret in real WWII air combat/Star Wars space combat, and this game does have a simulationist component.

Rule:
When a Small or Large ship attacks outside of their firing arc, if their maneuver this round was white or red, or they performed a boost or barrel roll this round, they must roll one fewer attack die .

Motivation:

• It is very hard to aim at a moving target from a turret unless your pilots is deliberately making it easy for you to line your shots by performing only simple maneuvers. By penalizing maneuver that aren't green, along with boosts and barrel rolls, we simulate this.
• A ship shouldn't be effective both at arc dodging and turreting, at least at the same time. If you want to use your turret to full effect, then you become at the same time quite easier to hit.
  If you are going to arc dodge by performing boosts and barrel rolls (Dash, Ghost+Fenn, Chiraneau, Han), then you will be limited to the amount of damage you can deal. Even if you stack passive Expertise with passive rerolls, most of the time you won't be able to deal more than 2 damage per attack.

How would this affect some known ships:

• Dash: Your HLC rolls 3 dice unless you move greens AND don't barrel roll. It's not bad, but this ships is also paying 13 points for this.
• Classic Falcon: They are hit hard by this rule. They need to limit themselves to a 2 dice peashooter while fleeing away from threats. If they maneuver right so that they can afford to move green for a round (under no danger of being attacked, for example), they get their full turret back.
• TFA Falcon: This ship likes making segnor loops to get targets in arc for Rey, so most of the time it will not be affected by this rule.
• Y-Wing: Mostly unaffected by this rule if they equip R2 Astromech or Unhinged Astromech. Without these astromechs, they are hit very hard, since they only have 2 green maneuvers. The Stresshog isn't affected by this rule at all.
• K-wing: The K-wing will be strongly affected by this rule since they don't have a lot of repositioning choices to get targets in arc. Miranda's ability gets a strong debuff with this, since when regenerating, the attack would be reduced by two dice, and when spending a shield to add one die, it would be countered by this rule. She will work at full effect only when performing any of the 4 green maneuvers K-wings have.
• Ghost: This ship would be forced to move very slowly if it want to make most of a docked Phantom I. That would clearly make it much easier to be hit. If this ship gets a boost by a coordinating Fenn, it would be affected by the rule and see its damage output considerably reduced.
• Jumpmaster: Dengar wants to have targets in arc, and he has the dial to get this done, so he wouldn't mind this rule so much. The Bumpmasters, however, would be more affected, since they usually barrel roll to do their duty, and their puny 2 dice turrets would be reduced to 1 die.
• Shadowcaster: It's not technically a turreted ship, so it's not affected at all.
• TIE Aggressor: It has a good amount of greens, so it would have a chance to fire its turrets to full effect as long as it can afford moving with greens. TIE Mark II would become quite popular for these guys.
• Decimator: Even when this ship has speed 3 green maneuver, it would still need to decide whether to arc dodge or fire its turret to full effect.
• Scurrg: This ship has a good amount of greens, but most of the time this ship does turns or barrel rolls to be able to lay bombs on their enemies. In both cases, it would affect its turret's damage output. So you need to decide to either fly fancy to drop some bombs, or have a strong turret.
• HWK: A sad example of collateral damage of this rule, this ship would be most affected by it. Its few greens would make it an easy target if it wants to fire its turret to full effect, perhaps forcing it to always try and joust with it.

Edit: Just realized that this rule would buff tractor beams against small turret ships, since it would count as a boost or barrel roll. Is this a bad thing?

Why overcomplicate it? A flat -1 red out of arc is fine.

Just to throw that in here:

It seems that there is a broad consensus about how maneuvering should matter. But what does that mean? Answering this question helps inform possible changes to turrets, and it‘s really simple:

The ability to take a shot without being shot back!

There needs to be a safe spot where you can shoot without being shot. Dash allows that, and so does the mobile firing arc. This immediately tells us why PWTs are a bad idea, why TLT on Miranda/bomb carriers/PS11 boosters are horrible, and how to fix it.

It does not have to be a mobile arc for everything, other means are fine too. Range 3 band for example, playing against a synced turret or ion turret is both more fun and easier. It puts burden of execution on both players! Maneuvering matters again.

1 minute ago, GreenDragoon said:

Just to throw that in here:

It seems that there is a broad consensus about how maneuvering should matter. But what does that mean? Answering this question helps inform possible changes to turrets, and it‘s really simple:

The ability to take a shot without being shot back!

There needs to be a safe spot where you can shoot without being shot. Dash allows that, and so does the mobile firing arc. This immediately tells us why PWTs are a bad idea, why TLT on Miranda/bomb carriers/PS11 boosters are horrible, and how to fix it.

It does not have to be a mobile arc for everything, other means are fine too. Range 3 band for example, playing against a synced turret or ion turret is both more fun and easier. It puts burden of execution on both players! Maneuvering matters again.

This is my biggest problem I think with the K Wing, by the by. TLTs by design, at least have a donut hole that you can get in. The K Wing has a PWT *AS WELL*. If it didn't, Miranda would be a lot less toxic.

30 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

It seems that there is a broad consensus about how maneuvering should matter. But what does that mean? Answering this question helps inform possible changes to turrets, and it‘s really simple:

The ability to take a shot without being shot back!

No, that's not what it means. That's an arbitrary straw man you just decided to set up.

38 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Why overcomplicate it? A flat -1 red out of arc is fine.

Because it's too easy to overnerf something with a too strong change. We have had examples of that in the game.

Most turret ships just don't have the ability to keep targets in arc because they weren't designed to. However they were costed as if they had a turret able to fire 360 degrees all the time.
Take the Patrol Leader decimator. It's 40 points for a large base that, with your simplified rule, couldn't ever fire more than 2 dice out of arc once you get behind it. Is that really worth 40 points anymore?
Is a 1 die at range 2, 2 dice at range 1 Dorsal Turret worth its cost?
You cannot do so drastic changes to the game.

Turret ships are okay as long as they limit themselves to being WWII flying fortresses: clumsy ships that are able to shoot out of arc while being able to "tank" incoming damage from arc dodgers for a limited time.
The problem started when these ships "learned" how to arc dodge (boost, barrel roll), mitigate incoming damage (C-3PO, regen, Senson Jammer+Fenn), lay bombs (K-wing, Scurrg), roll lots of dice (TLT, Ghost+TLT), become immune to bumps while stacking passive modifiers (Maul, Expertise, Ezra); and often all of the previous at the same time.

It is okay to make the choice between arc dodging to avoid incoming fire, a strong out of arc attack, or maneuvering for dropping a devastating bomb. But not everything at the same time, all the time.
By limiting out of arc damage output to greens and no boost/barrel roll, they retain the ability to attack hard out of arc, or arc dodge, or reposition. But they need to make a choice.

14 minutes ago, SOTL said:

No, that's not what it means. That's an arbitrary straw man you just decided to set up.

You call it straw man in bad faith, I call it my understanding. That is what it boils down to.

Compare to the insightful way to distinguish arcdodgers from jousters, and how their difference is whether they are willing to take a shot back while they can shoot themselves or not. Similar idea.

Edit: for those who never saw it, the idea is that there are 4 combinations of shooting and being shot, and arcdodgers and jousters differ in their priorities.

Jousters:

1. Shoot, avoid a shot
2. Shoot, receive a shot
3. Don‘t shoot, avoid a shot
4. Don‘t shoot, receive a shot

Arcdodgers have number 2 and 3 flipped. They prefer to avoid shots even if it means they can‘t shoot.

I propose now that we can think about turrets with that in mind, and that avoiding a shot is never an option. This is a problem regarding maneuvering, because the best outcome for an arc dodger is his third option out of 4

6 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

You call it straw man in bad faith, I call it my understanding. That is what it boils down to.

Compare to the insightful way to distinguish arcdodgers from jousters, and how their difference is whether they are willing to take a shot back while they can shoot themselves or not. Similar idea.

The ability to maintain fire on a target with a turret is not fundamentally a problem, so long as it's appropriately costed. There's nothing mechanically wrong with what turrets do, and I 100% appreciate both the variety they bring to gameplay & strategy, and the thematic games they produce where the Falcon tries to dodge and outrun a bunch of TIE Fighters.

There are a lot of turrets in the game - both on ships and on upgrades - and the vast majority of them aren't worth playing.

Would I change TLT if I had the chance? Yes. And I'd take Outrider with it. I was re-reading an old blog where I basically predicted precisely the TLT-led game state that we had now as the outcome of the nerfs that were coming in. But I wouldn't touch turrets mechanics overall, because they're not the enemy. In all the years I've been playing the game there's not a single PWT ship that's been a problem because of it's PWT .