Would anything break if Krennic could help not just one, but several ships?

I know this is not the case, but just bear with me.

Largest benefit would be the TIE fighter... But since the Swarm struggles, it would actually be a really nice offensive buff, that would be balanced by the large number of counters.

Interceptors, bombers, advanced-s all need help to compete really, and it wouldn't break aggressors, strikers and phantoms either.

So the benefits are not game breaking, and QD would not be able to benefit still.

It also works flavor wise... You would probably have more than one prototype in later stages of development.

Would anything break? Is this the worst idea ever?

better believe it'd be broken

you're getting a ridiculous scaling investment on a flat-cost upgrade that, given the current wording, would also apply to the ship he's on

plus we don't know if his condition does anything else

Where things get iffy if the "add a shield" part of the Optimized Prototype condition. For 5 points, everyone in your squad gets one more hp. Assuming the lowest ps TIE reaper is the same pointvalue as an OGP, you can have 6 Academy Pilots in that list. That is 7 health and his trick with canceling die for 5 points. That's pretty insane. And there sure as heck a more lucrative way to leverage that free health across the list. And, like @ficklegreendice pointed out, there still might be more to Krennic's condition (I doubt it, but we just don't know).

So yeah, I'd call that pretty broken.

42 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

Where things get iffy if the "add a shield" part of the Optimized Prototype condition. For 5 points, everyone in your squad gets one more hp. Assuming the lowest ps TIE reaper is the same pointvalue as an OGP, you can have 6 Academy Pilots in that list. That is 7 health and his trick with canceling die for 5 points. That's pretty insane. And there sure as heck a more lucrative way to leverage that free health across the list. And, like @ficklegreendice pointed out, there still might be more to Krennic's condition (I doubt it, but we just don't know).

So yeah, I'd call that pretty broken.

Obv the price would be upscaled. I didn't write that though.

But it's not like some cards don't have ridiculous value. Sabine comes to mind.

not even sabine does two damage to every ship caught in a bomb blast

gotta be really careful with scaling upgrades

2 defenders with extra shields.... and the damage thing? no thanks. I still don't agree with 3 shield cap out... should be 2 because Defenders are already scary enough!

2 hours ago, Commander Kaine said:

Obv the price would be upscaled. I didn't write that though.

But it's not like some cards don't have ridiculous value. Sabine comes to mind.

Which is why I didn’t consider uping the price. As you have written the original question, it’s too much.

With your new idea of uping the price, it can be balanced. However, the upscaling of price would need to be considerable.

I believe Sabine crew to be a poor example. While she is powerful, she hands out one damage a turn (as long as bomb tokens are still around). Using the Reaper and six TIEs example from before, Krennic is giving out up to seven free shield damage a turn (though it can be rendered useless if the enemy team had no shields) and the equivalent of 32 points of Shield Upgrades. Even taking @Wiredin‘s example of two defenders (and assuming a Reaper for the third) gives out up to three assured shield damage a turn and 12 points worth of Shield Upgrades. A global Krennic is light years ahead of Sabine.

2 hours ago, Commander Kaine said:

Obv the price would be upscaled. I didn't write that though.

But it's not like some cards don't have ridiculous value. Sabine comes to mind.

If the price is increased it wouldn't be OP, *if* that price is correct

Sabine also isn't guaranteed damage (regardless what people moan).

Theres still stipulations like being in range 1 of a token, as well as the cost of having to at least equip and bomblet or bombs

2 hours ago, piznit said:

Sabine also isn't guaranteed damage (regardless what people moan).

Theres still stipulations like being in range 1 of a token, as well as the cost of having to at least equip and bomblet or bombs

It is close enough with Miranda

Right...so your adding 40+ points of Miranda to guarantee your damage with Sabine vs crew cost of Krennic adding 6-7 shields if it applies to all allies

It'd be very, very broken in Epic play, which is something people still do. In 100/6 I don't think it's OP, but it could be an abusive NPE

A Reaper with Krennic is about 25 points upon release, and that leaves room for 6 TIE fighters. Any list with significant shields is going to pretty much auto-lose. Depending on the actual price of the PS1, you might even be able to fit an Operations Specialist into the second crew slot.

That kind of list is enormously match up dependent. You're going to win or lose based on the matchups, and that's not good for the game.

2 hours ago, piznit said:

Right...so your adding 40+ points of Miranda to guarantee your damage with Sabine vs crew cost of Krennic adding 6-7 shields if it applies to all allies

Flying a 6 ship swarm next to Krennic, while seemingly provides a great value... It also means you are flying 6 tie fighters.

Would TIE fighters break the game, if they had 1 shield, and they could remove shields when attacking? I suspect not. In fact, it would bring back TIE fighters in a balanced way. They would be powerful... They would be more survivable, but not obscenely, and they could provide a stronger earlier threat. But their offensive power falls off by late game, and TIE fighters are still not terribly effective.

Let's say, you fly 4 interceptors... They have similar problems, too much hate against their playstyle.

The biggest offender is clearly the defender (hehe...). It is a capable ship, but a 2 defender + 1 reaper with krennic, is still a pretty tame list compared to what is available to rebels. I doubt 3 low ps arc locked ships are going to break the game. Even if they are powerful and tanky.

Gunboats wouldn't be problematic since Krennic doesn't trigger on secondary weapons. Same with aggressors. While +3 HP to NU-s or Aggressors is not insignificant, but it is also not game breaking.

Double aces with Krennic support, possibly with harpoons at high PS is also probably questionable, but again, most of the applicable ships could use the help. Vader is still fairly limited by his ship, the Inquisitor is squishy... Neither Kylo nor QD is applicable. Soontir could use the help. Would it be powerful? Yes. Would it be broken? Not by a long shot.

In epic... well, yeah. I concede that point. It would be broken in epic.

1 hour ago, Commander Kaine said:

Flying a 6 ship swarm next to Krennic, while seemingly provides a great value... It also means you are flying 6 tie fighters.

Come to think of it, NyManda has a very favourable matchup against that kind of super-swarm. Nym's proton bomb followed by two harpoons will crit everything, followed by either 2 kills or splash damage on a very, very dead target. If the TIEs try to come in piecemeal ten multiple rounds of high-PS harpoons followed by arc-dodging the remaining few will finish the list off. Once Miranda gets behind them it's all over.

Ghost/Fenn and Miranda/Low/Sheathipede have worse matchups, but not impossible. Rey in the Falcon will laugh, and all Imperial aces will not care in the slightest. It's a hard counter to rebel regen, but so are infinite harpoons.

4 hours ago, Astech said:

It'd be very, very broken in Epic play, which is something people still do. In 100/6 I don't think it's OP, but it could be an abusive NPE

This. Or well, these. Both of these points (Epic and NPEs).

Busted to **** and gone, but not because of the TIE swarm list, because of the Reaper/Aces list. Vader/Whisper/Reaper with Krennic and Kylo would be hideous.

Loving Krennic with Vader, or Inquisitor.

Oooh what if it was...

"All ships of the same type."

A whole squad of "Optimized Prototypes" sounds awesome and thematic.

Honestly I doubt there would be a single type of ship that would actually cause that to be problematic.

Assuming there's no extra text on it. But personally I'm assuming there's extra text on it giving it a defence-roll benefit of some sort too. Probably spend a result to get an evade token.

15 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Honestly I doubt there would be a single type of ship that would actually cause that to be problematic.

Assuming there's no extra text on it. But personally I'm assuming there's extra text on it giving it a defence-roll benefit of some sort too. Probably spend a result to get an evade token.

I'm not sure, but that would change things for sure

1 hour ago, phild0 said:

Oooh what if it was...

"All ships of the same type."

A whole squad of "Optimized Prototypes" sounds awesome and thematic.

If you made it 'same type and same pilot' that might be enough of a downside to work. Thus changed, it could only benefit generics - which for the Empire, tend to be on the mediocre side at the moment. Probably still need a cost increase, though.

Much depends on the dial of the Reaper - IE., how much of a penalty it is to bring at all. (The Lambda, for example, has always been considered a pretty big downside to bringing ol' sparky into a list)

1 hour ago, xanderf said:

If you made it 'same type and same pilot' that might be enough of a downside to work. Thus changed, it could only benefit generics - which for the Empire, tend to be on the mediocre side at the moment. Probably still need a cost increase, though.

Much depends on the dial of the Reaper - IE., how much of a penalty it is to bring at all. (The Lambda, for example, has always been considered a pretty big downside to bringing ol' sparky into a list)

I think that bringing a penalty ship is flawed design, and I am mad at ffg for not addressing that in the lambda.

It puts too much weight on the shoulders of other ships/cards, which will become too powerful as a result.

Because the lambda sucks so much, palpatine has to be really good. Same with soontir.

If the lambda was able to pull his own weight, there would be no issue with palpatine being nerfed.

No ship should be a punishment. I really hope that with the Reaper they realize this.

I don't like it, because it breaks design on almost every Imperial ship in the game. I know there are lots of Imperial ships which need help, but I'd much rather have fixes for each of those ships, than one ungodly strong Crew, who realistically only flies in one ship (given "works on all ships," putting him in a non-Reaper would almost surely be foolish).

I’m just happy Krennic is more useful than Hux 99% of the time, and his card hasn’t even been fully spoiled.

3 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

I don't like it, because it breaks design on almost every Imperial ship in the game. I know there are lots of Imperial ships which need help, but I'd much rather have fixes for each of those ships, than one ungodly strong Crew, who realistically only flies in one ship (given "works on all ships," putting him in a non-Reaper would almost surely be foolish).

I guess that's a fair criticism.

Very well. You got me. Cheers.