So I wanted to share these thoughts for quite some time now. It often happens that people here question or crack up about the designer's choices and Id like to share my 2 cents about this.

So let's establish a few facts:

1) Quite a few imperial ships seem behind the power curve lately (tie/ln, tie/in, tie/sa, tie/fo, ...)

2) The meta is dominated by very "kitted out" builds with a lot of upgrades (ezramaul, expertise, poons)

3) almost all frequently used imperial fighters have AMAZING pilot abilities (ryad, vessery, inquisitor, qd, vader) and often high ps

4) palp is a very important factor in imperial list building.

5) ffg is incredibly slow in buffing individual ships (poor punisher)

So what is my point?

I have the feeling that ffg tries very hard to fix ships "by the bunch" through introduction of new high-powered upgrades (optics, poons, expertise, bomblet, lwf, new crew...). However, a lot of imperial ships are unaffected, simply because they lack upgrade slots. So, for the imperial faction, ffg establishes "synergy upgrades" or global crew to help these (palp, krennic, operations specialist, swarm leader and now krennic). Rather than fix the individual ships, theyll establish upgrades ON OTHER SHIPS (like crew carriers) that buff these, to bring the likes of soontir, whisper etc back.

I think this is a deliberate strategy and we'll see more of it. So what does this imply? I believe swarms are dead, for instance. What ffg is pushing the imperial faction towards, i think, is a "some ships (aces, miniswarm)"+support.

So palpaces, krennicaces, deci+phantom etc are here to stay.

So, to spark discussions:

Nonsense? Coincidence? Or do you agree with my analysis? what other upgrades of this sort can you imagine? Or would you plead for individual fixes?

The best way to fix a whole slew of Imperial ships would be a bunch of Imperial-only (or even Galactic Empire-only), TIE only upgrades.

Such as

Flexible Combat Fitout . TIE only, Imperial Only. Modification, 2 points.

At the start of setup, choose any number of different Modification upgrade cards you do not have equipped, whose combined points cost is two or less, and equip them.

(Because for goodness’ sake, the Punisher and Bomber with their 3 different fix Modifications, and yes, this does allow the Squint and /sf to have a little flexibility in not always including Autothrusters/LWF, and being able to swap it out for TIE Mk2 and the below Ablative Duranium Panels if there are bombs and harpoons around, and yes it lets QD/Vader get Guidance Chips on top of LWF/Engine)

Ablative Duranium Panels . TIE only. Imperial Only. Modification. Dual card. 1 point.

Side A When you are not the target of an attack and you are dealt a face down damage card, you may flip this card to discard that damage card.

When you are not the target of an attack and you are dealt a face up damage card, you may flip this card to flip that damage card face down, or discard this card to discard that damage card.

Side B (Damaged) When you are not the target of an attack and you are dealt a face down damage card, you may discard this card to discard that damage card.

When you are not the target of an attack and you are dealt a face up damage card, you may discard this card to flip that damage card face down.

(Because honestly, screw Harpoon Missiles, and bombs, and Sabine. Hopefully balanced as those effects can still take shields away, and you only get a maximum of two uses out of it, or one if you want to discard a faceup entirely. Something like this might just manage to unfrack swarms)

Endless Ranks , title, 0 points

Galactic Empire Only, unique TIE Only

When you are destroyed, at the start of the next planning phase, flip your ship’s base token over, and your ship is returned to play anywhere within range 1 of a board edge. Your pilot card is flipped to denote this, and the new ship has no damage cards, all shields, and all discarded and equipped non-unique upgrades except this and any [elite].

The new ship costs 0 points for the purposes of determining the victor of the game.

(The new ship is deployed the following round, which means that if you run out of ships entirely in a single round, the game ends at that point. It costs 0, so it doesn’t add to your MoV, but it can win the game if it (along with other Endless ships) is the only ship left on the board, and it contributes to final salvo if your remaining MoV is equal to theirs, but not in the case of mutual destruction.)

The majority of Empire ships that have issues are TIEs that don't routinely use Engine Upgrade and don't routinely use Titles.

Soooo...

Keep in mind that there's still a Small Ship Only card in the Reaper pack.

A Unique small ship only one...

5 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

The best way to fix a whole slew of Imperial ships would be a bunch of Imperial-only (or even Galactic Empire-only), TIE only upgrades.

Such as

Flexible Combat Fitout . TIE only, Imperial Only. Modification, 2 points.

At the start of setup, choose any number of different Modification upgrade cards you do not have equipped, whose combined points cost is two or less, and equip them.

(Because for goodness’ sake, the Punisher and Bomber with their 3 different fix Modifications, and yes, this does allow the Squint and /sf to have a little flexibility in not always including Autothrusters/LWF, and being able to swap it out for TIE Mk2 and the below Ablative Duranium Panels if there are bombs and harpoons around, and yes it lets QD/Vader get Guidance Chips on top of LWF/Engine)

Ablative Duranium Panels . TIE only. Imperial Only. Modification. Dual card. 1 point.

Side A When you are not the target of an attack and you are dealt a face down damage card, you may flip this card to discard that damage card.

When you are not the target of an attack and you are dealt a face up damage card, you may flip this card to flip that damage card face down, or discard this card to discard that damage card.

Side B (Damaged) When you are not the target of an attack and you are dealt a face down damage card, you may discard this card to discard that damage card.

When you are not the target of an attack and you are dealt a face up damage card, you may discard this card to flip that damage card face down.

(Because honestly, screw Harpoon Missiles, and bombs, and Sabine. Hopefully balanced as those effects can still take shields away, and you only get a maximum of two uses out of it, or one if you want to discard a faceup entirely. Something like this might just manage to unfrack swarms)

Endless Ranks , title, 0 points

Galactic Empire Only, unique TIE Only

When you are destroyed, at the start of the next planning phase, flip your ship’s base token over, and your ship is returned to play anywhere within range 1 of a board edge. Your pilot card is flipped to denote this, and the new ship has no damage cards, all shields, and all discarded and equipped non-unique upgrades except this and any [elite].

The new ship costs 0 points for the purposes of determining the victor of the game.

(The new ship is deployed the following round, which means that if you run out of ships entirely in a single round, the game ends at that point. It costs 0, so it doesn’t add to your MoV, but it can win the game if it (along with other Endless ships) is the only ship left on the board, and it contributes to final salvo if your remaining MoV is equal to theirs, but not in the case of mutual destruction.)

The majority of Empire ships that have issues are TIEs that don't routinely use Engine Upgrade and don't routinely use Titles.

Soooo...

I think Endless Ranks works better as a title for non-unique TIEs. Destroyed TIEs should also count for 1 MOV, as is the case for the Nashta Pup if it is the last ship left on the board. My take:

Endless Ranks
Title. Imperial Only. TIE only. Non-Unique Pilot Only (0)

When you are destroyed, at the start of the next planning phase, this ship is placed within range 1 of any board edge with all shields and no upgrade or damage cards. You may not equip Unique Upgrades.

No upgrade cards makes it not work for Bombers and Punishers.

And flipping the base token to denote it makes it less confusing which ship is which, and it incentivises using named TIEs which is fun.

There's a reason it is the way it is here.