1 hour ago, Forgottenlore said:

The Ghost is being attacked by Vorlons!

And so it begins...

2 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

But, I really need to know that FFG gives a **** about other styles of play before committing to rebuying a game I already own.

One thing I've learned from playing a bunch of old games that have gone OOP, is that if you rely on developer support to make a game great, you will ALWAYS be disappointed.

What we need to do in the very short term is figure out a way to graft Huge ships into the 2.0 framework. And even if FFG never adds their own Huge ship mechanics, we can all just keep on doing our thing. A good system works, even if it's not official. Like the Heralds of Ruin kill team rules, the Inquisimunda system for 40K, the Epic community STILL developing new content and running tournaments, ten years after their system was dropped by GW, or closer to home, the Heroes of the Aturi Cluster.

I'm excited by 2.0 not because it makes sport wing better (what a great term, lol!) but because it levels the playing field and gives the ships that came out too early, a chance to fly again. And I want to figure out a way to make the Huge ships work in 2.0.

But I would also be just as happy to keep on playing 1.0 for the time being, especially if it means I can keep using the huge ships.

7 hours ago, Chucknuckle said:

One thing I've learned from playing a bunch of old games that have gone OOP, is that if you rely on developer support to make a game great, you will ALWAYS be disappointed.

What we need to do in the very short term is figure out a way to graft Huge ships into the 2.0 framework. And even if FFG never adds their own Huge ship mechanics, we can all just keep on doing our thing. A good system works, even if it's not official. Like the Heralds of Ruin kill team rules, the Inquisimunda system for 40K, the Epic community STILL developing new content and running tournaments, ten years after their system was dropped by GW, or closer to home, the Heroes of the Aturi Cluster.

I'm excited by 2.0 not because it makes sport wing better (what a great term, lol!) but because it levels the playing field and gives the ships that came out too early, a chance to fly again. And I want to figure out a way to make the Huge ships work in 2.0.

But I would also be just as happy to keep on playing 1.0 for the time being, especially if it means I can keep using the huge ships.

I think the starting point there will be:

Handle energy and actions the same

Use same maneuver energy and cards.

Double the costs.

Make slight tweaks from there.

Leave ps/init the same but one of the early tweaks might be ps1-2 goes init1

Ps3-4 goes init 2.

Otherwise there's little enough overlap that it shouldn't be too rough.

Plus it gives the epics 1 thing the other ships in 2.0 lack. 1.0 style turrets. That helps the strength issue a bit right off the bat.

By doubling the hull points and toning down or capping the shield regen I think the huge ships will feel more like huge ships. It bothered me that you essentially had to commit all ships to bring down a huge ship in a single round, otherwise it would just regen back to full shields again the next turn.

To me if feels much more thematic that huge ships slowly get more and more damaged during the course of the battle (losing one system or capability after the other) instead of being a much more an on/off state as the current implementation (exaggerating a bit here for emphasis...)

One of the design philosophies of X-wing 2ed seams to be that the game progresses towards the end state and infinite regen and impenetrable defences is of the past. I hope this philosophy is carried over to epic play as well.

On 5/25/2018 at 12:38 AM, Hinnyboy said:

It bothered me that you essentially had to commit all ships to bring down a huge ship in a single round, otherwise it would just regen back to full shields again the next turn.

I feel like this comes more from the realm of theoretically possible than how it actually goes.

If it recovers shield with any real volume then it isn't reinforcing. A single ship with 3/4 attack dice modded can keep an epics shields in that failing state no need for a swarm of ships. The energy taps them out too cause it regens slower than recover can dump it.

So sure with engineering team and tibanna gas they can fully regen twice in a whole game. But they'll be unreinforced speed 1 maneuvering sitting ducks doing it.

On 5/24/2018 at 4:39 AM, Darth Meanie said:

This is 100% my qualifier for bothering to move forward with this game.

I am tired of feeling like the neglected second cousin in XWM. This conversion, while pretty dang cool in terms of rethinking the game from the ground up, is nevertheless obviously focused on easy adjustments to the meta and balance for Sport-Wing.

We don't even have any idea when Epic 2.0 might happen. Sadly, I suspect 1-2 years.

I own the entire game in spades; I really don't need to buy anything to enjoy X-Wing 1.0 for years to come. OTOH, I would like to see my options grow. But, I really need to know that FFG gives a **** about other styles of play before committing to rebuying a game I already own.

Otherwise, I can spend my time figuring out how to get purrgil into the game.

Right. If you design any rules for these please post them here!

I made these some time ago:

But still have not really got around to make rules for them, let alone to write down a scenario [RL continues to intefere with all my wild ideas ]

Scenarios are funs, and scenarios with Rebels will spellbind kids.

On 5/24/2018 at 1:56 AM, Chucknuckle said:

What we need to do in the very short term is figure out a way to graft Huge ships into the 2.0 framework. And even if FFG never adds their own Huge ship mechanics, we can all just keep on doing our thing.

Since I enjoy playing a fair amount of Epic X-Wing casually, my plan is to just directly port the huge ships over into 2.0 pretty much as is. Since the points values appear to be "doubling" for 2.0 to the 200pt limit, I think Epic will then be played at 600pts (2 Players) or 800pts (4 Players).

For the Huge ships, I'm just planning on doubling their current costs and the costs of all of the Huge Ship Only upgrades. Then leave everything else the same, for the most part. Obviously someone like Reikaan will need to read "treat their Initiative as" (instead of Pilot Skill, but simple enough).

If Huge Ships are a bit underpowered as many people seem to think (I disagree, but it's not hugely relevant), then with dice modification becoming harder in 2.0 if Huge Ships remain the same they should be comparatively better to the 2.0 small/medium/large ships.


Other changes I'd implement :

When a huge ship overlaps a small/medium/large ship, the overlapped ship is destroyed and the huge ship rolls 1/2/3 attack dice and suffers any damage rolled.

The only other question, then, is to decide whether Huge Ship JAM actions will work as they do in 1.0 (adding stress tokens until there are two) or if it should be updated to reflect how JAM works generally via Jamming Beams in 1.0 and Jam in 2.0. I could see the Huge ship JAM action allowing for two JAM tokens to be placed on the target ship. I think that's more thematic and fun than having it just deal stress as it does in 1.0.

As for the Huge Ship turrets, I'd just let them function as they do in 1.0 (360). It's much simpler, and a small buff to Huge Ships like this probably won't break the format. Huge ship's don't need Bullseye arcs added to their bases, nor do they need their movement templates and bases to have all the added lines for BRs/TRs/overlaps. So the components as-is should be plenty functional.


Anything I've missed or overlooked?

1 hour ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

If Huge Ships are a bit underpowered as many people seem to think (I disagree, but it's not hugely relevant), then with dice modification becoming harder in 2.0 if Huge Ships remain the same they should be comparatively better to the 2.0 small/medium/large ships.

Now that's a good point I hadn't thought of, and yet it's painfully obvious now that you say it. With the power creep being pulled back, a direct port of 1.0 epic ships should actually fair a bit better... I'm going to need to try that out after our shop converts over.

AllWings, currently, huge ships can't use focus tokens or action. What about Force or Calculate tokens?

20 hours ago, Gilarius said:

AllWings, currently, huge ships can't use focus tokens or action. What about Force or Calculate tokens?

They can use Focus tokens, they just cannot be assigned Focus tokens (see the new EPIC FAQ on Esege). Given this, I would cautiously be all right with letting them spend Calculate or Force tokens, if they had some way to gain them (e.g. through equipping Crew that had access to such tokens, if any such crew exist in 2.0 -- I have not been following all the unboxings and such so I do not know for sure).

What's interesting is we know Gunner-Luke (2.0) has Force Points, but as it stands it's worth noting that Epic Ships do not have Gunner Slots, only regular crew slots. I think that directly porting 1.0 Epic stuff into 2.0 with doubled points costs is probably fine, despite that it misses out on Gunner crew slots being applied to Epic ships. Since the Gunners we've seen in 2.0 seem to involve mobile arcs (e.g. moving Mobile Arcs), these actually wouldn't be useful on direct-port Epic ships since Epic ships do not have anything resembling a mobile arc. Epic ships would retain their true 360 degree attack (or "can attack even out of arc") weapons like the CR-90 primary (more of a 140 Degree arc, since it can't cross the blue line), the Gozanti-only turret, and the C-ROC-only turret. The other weaponry on Huge Ships (e.g. Single Turbolasers, Quad Laser Batteries, Ion Batteries, etc.) fire in a fixed arc and not in a mobile arc.

A reasonable method. I'm hoping we get at least some sort of guidance over how FFG intend to combine 2nd with huge ships, but I suspect we'll have to try things out and see what works.

19 hours ago, Gilarius said:

A reasonable method. I'm hoping we get at least some sort of guidance over how FFG intend to combine 2nd with huge ships, but I suspect we'll have to try things out and see what works.

Yea, I don't think we'll see Epic Ships officially supported in 2.0 anytime in the next year or two. If they had a strong intention to do it, I think the Conversion Kits would have featured one of each Epic ship for each faction. They may offer guidelines for an "Epic" Format where the points values or higher, without any actual Epic Ships being available, for those who want to play mass battles.

Which means it'll be on fans to port the ships over. Once I get my hands onto the conversion kits and 2.0 stuff at Gencon and really have a chance to pour through it, I'm planning on making some nice-looking 1.0 --> 2.0 direct port custom cards in the aesthetic and language of 2.0, and then posting those here and elsewhere for groups who are interested in using their Epic Ships and the Epic format casually. It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing!

You're the hero we need

Love epic and more ships would be great, like the hammerhead corvette for one. Hopefully the new animated series will also introduce some possible epic ships for the resistance and first order factions.

Just dropped in here to say absolutely never ever to ISD. Same reason we don't want SSD for Armada. It's not the scale we want. True scale for an Imperial Star Destroyer would be 5.93m or 19' 5" long. By comparison, correct scaling for the CR90 would be 55cm or 22 inches, just about 50% longer than the model they made. It's a reasonable fudge for playability. The ISD would not be.

If you want to play with ships that big, play Armada. They need more people playing that game anyway (and it really doesn't take as long as everyone pretends it does - maybe the length of two X-Wing matches).

But other than that, keep the 2.0 ideas flying!

23 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Just dropped in here to say absolutely never ever to ISD. Same reason we don't want SSD for Armada. It's not the scale we want. True scale for an Imperial Star Destroyer would be 5.93m or 19' 5" long. By comparison, correct scaling for the CR90 would be 55cm or 22 inches, just about 50% longer than the model they made. It's a reasonable fudge for playability. The ISD would not be.

If you want to play with ships that big, play Armada. They need more people playing that game anyway (and it really doesn't take as long as everyone pretends it does - maybe the length of two X-Wing matches).

But other than that, keep the 2.0 ideas flying!

This guy gets it.

7 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Just dropped in here to say absolutely never ever to ISD....

<snip>

Too late ?

On 5/29/2018 at 11:51 AM, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Since I enjoy playing a fair amount of Epic X-Wing casually, my plan is to just directly port the huge ships over into 2.0 pretty much as is. Since the points values appear to be "doubling" for 2.0 to the 200pt limit, I think Epic will then be played at 600pts (2 Players) or 800pts (4 Players).

For the Huge ships, I'm just planning on doubling their current costs and the costs of all of the Huge Ship Only upgrades. Then leave everything else the same, for the most part. Obviously someone like Reikaan will need to read "treat their Initiative as" (instead of Pilot Skill, but simple enough).

If Huge Ships are a bit underpowered as many people seem to think (I disagree, but it's not hugely relevant), then with dice modification becoming harder in 2.0 if Huge Ships remain the same they should be comparatively better to the 2.0 small/medium/large ships.


Other changes I'd implement :

When a huge ship overlaps a small/medium/large ship, the overlapped ship is destroyed and the huge ship rolls 1/2/3 attack dice and suffers any damage rolled.

The only other question, then, is to decide whether Huge Ship JAM actions will work as they do in 1.0 (adding stress tokens until there are two) or if it should be updated to reflect how JAM works generally via Jamming Beams in 1.0 and Jam in 2.0. I could see the Huge ship JAM action allowing for two JAM tokens to be placed on the target ship. I think that's more thematic and fun than having it just deal stress as it does in 1.0.

As for the Huge Ship turrets, I'd just let them function as they do in 1.0 (360). It's much simpler, and a small buff to Huge Ships like this probably won't break the format. Huge ship's don't need Bullseye arcs added to their bases, nor do they need their movement templates and bases to have all the added lines for BRs/TRs/overlaps. So the components as-is should be plenty functional.


Anything I've missed or overlooked?

I like this idea, keeping turrets 360 for epic. Will make them unique and give an advantage.

I like the regenerating shields, also makes them unique and a force. I mean the corvettes are SUPPOSED to be anti-fighter support, but the corvette should melt under turbo laser fire.

On ‎5‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 7:52 AM, Dabirdisdaword said:

I feel like this comes more from the realm of theoretically possible than how it actually goes.

If it recovers shield with any real volume then it isn't reinforcing. A single ship with 3/4 attack dice modded can keep an epics shields in that failing state no need for a swarm of ships. The energy taps them out too cause it regens slower than recover can dump it.

So sure with engineering team and tibanna gas they can fully regen twice in a whole game. But they'll be unreinforced speed 1 maneuvering sitting ducks doing it.

The other problem is that once you start to damage a Huge ship, if you don't kill it in a single round, you have to keep attacking it. Otherwise, it will be full shields again.

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

The other problem is that once you start to damage a Huge ship, if you don't kill it in a single round, you have to keep attacking it. Otherwise, it will be full shields again.

You call that a problem I call it a feature. They are corvettes and freighters after all.

A few things that I have thought about for Epic 2.0. The 2.0 design space should reduce card bloat and make the game simpler.

1. Ships should naturally be able to hold target locks equal to the number of ship cards they have. No reason to have to staple Weapons Engineer.

2. The huge ships should be able to naturally use fighter ordnance or have plenty of there own with better range and mods.

3. The epic ships should all have ship abilities built in that make them each feel unique, like the Gozanti docking.

4. I would love to see "Commander" slots similar to Armada. A big leader with global game effects that can really bring something to the table.

5. Leverage charges to have cool effects time themselves out during epic games, ala 2.0 Leia Crew. Countermeasures and Flak would be cool options to use with charges.

6. Jam action should now match the normal game.

7. Stop maneuvers need to be a thing.

8. Epic ships need tractor beams.

9. Since you can lock objects and any ship (friendly or enemy) in 2.0 epic ships really need have an opportunity to use that change. Locking friendly ships should be a big synergy and locking objects should protect you from them, etc.

Salutations All-

So my gaming group has been looking at this very thing since FFG performed the unboxing, and have done quite a bit of work in playing with a custom redesign that hopefully has a similar feel to 2.0. We are attempting to approach this from a similar stance to how the Devs have stated in their many videos, with one of the biggest being that we aren't worrying about points cost until everything else feels right (not too mention there are still a LOT of point cost variables that have yet to be seen).

General Changes:

We have removed the Energy mechanic from Epic as well as the Recover Shields action.
Energy is being substituted with a variation on the Charge mechanic that has been previewed, and while some cards will definitely have the ability to recover shields, the mechanic itself being A) dependent on Energy and B) Having the 'large waves' of hit points as someone put it making the gameplay experience frustrating and C) goes against the general idea of regen having a reduced function in 2.0. With the removal of Recover Shields, we also can greatly increase the Shield and Hull values of each section. We utilized the VCX-100 as a baseline inspiration per Section, as it is canonically almost or greater than half the size of the existing epic ships.

Pilot Cards
ALL Epic ships are getting two Pilot Cards. Each ship Card is treated as a separate ship in almost all cases, and we are truly exemplifying that in our current design. The big change being that the Initiative of both sections is no longer the same. First, this allows the movement to still be managed, as the Aft section will ALWAYS control movement during the activation phase of the Epic Ship. As a result, we have eliminated the "Epic" portion of the activation phase, to streamline it more in to the 2.0 play experience. Second, this lets an Epic Ship attack TWICE during the Engagement phase, at different times. We feel this helps assist with the Epic Feel of the ship, and gives a unique niche to the style of ship.

Upgrade Slots
While they are not necessarily printed on the cards anymore, our approach to Epic is that Epic Ship upgrades and Standard Ship upgrades should NOT cross contaminate. By having these be universal in 1.0, it caused ALOT of headache (mostly crew cards). As Epic Ships and Standard ships should feel and play DIFFERENTLY, it makes the design space much more difficult when they share it due to these balancing concerns. As a result, Modifications and Crew will NOT be found on our Epic Ships. Instead, we have expanded the functions of Teams and Cargo, as well as added a new upgrade, Commander.
>>Teams have been used incorporate many of the generic (and some unique) crew options that work well for epic ships, as a result, our epic ships have more Team Slots.
>>Like teams, Cargo has been expanded, where many of the previous Modifications that were found for Huge ships are now here, and as a result, more slots per ship.
>>The idea behind Commanders is that they should give Epic Ships 'Genre-breaking' abilities, along with that there is only 1 at most per Epic Ship.

Hard Point Upgrades
With the added rule in 2.0 that a ship can only every receive ONE bonus attack, regardless of source, we believe this SHOULD carry into Epic. However, Hard Points should be able to grant additional attacks despite this rule. As a result, we treat Hard Point Upgrades this way:
>>Hard Point Upgrades provide additional armament to your Epic Ships and are handled somewhat differently in terms of the number of attacks your ship can make from the normal rules. You may perform each attack on a Hard Point once, in addition to your Primary attack or other attack options. However, any bonus attacks from these attacks (such as Quad Laser Cannon) still must follow the rule of only ONE bonus attack per ship. Note: As each Section is treated as a separate ship in the Engagement phase, each Section may perform a total of one bonus attack, granting an Epic Ship essentially two bonus attacks if utilized by each section.

Actions
As before, each section may ONLY perform actions on its action bar. As free actions have been removed from 2.0, we see no reason to continue to functionality of Epic ships being unable to gain additional actions. As many have stated and we agree with, action economy has become a huge thing in X-wing, and 2.0 is fully embracing this. As a result, we have incorporated many ways for Epic ships to gain additional actions. However, as a Base Line, each section still only performs 1 action. In addition, we believe Epic Ships should be able to gain Focus and Coordinate tokens, however, this should be rare occurrences and will not be on the native action bar on any Epic Ship. We have also added one new action to for Epic ships: Energize.
>> Energize: When performing an Energize action, you may spend any number of [Charge] to regain an equal number of [Charge] on any number of your Pilot or Upgrade cards. For example: If you spend 2 charge from your Aft Section, you could either give one Upgrade two [Charge] OR your Fore Section and one upgrade one [Charge] each OR two upgrades one [Charge] each.
>> Jam: Now functions as it does it Standard Play for 2.0.
>> Reinforce: functions nearly identical to Standard Play. However, as I start to post the Pilot cards we have made, you will notice that EACH section has the Reinforce action. Whichever section performs the Reinforce Action receives the Reinforce token. It is possible for the entire Ship to Reinforced if BOTH sections perform the action (As Reinforce now has a limit of at least 1 damage coming through, we feel this isn't overly powerful, while also providing a boost to the Epic ship feel and resiliency).
>> Target Lock: Each section may acquire and spend target locks with the appropriate action. Target locks are no longer "shared" by each section.

Movement
We have altered the Epic Maneuver Tile to that attached. We have kept the 30 degree turns as the farthest that a turn can be performed by an Epic Ship, as we believe this adds to the large / heavy feel of an epic ship. All movement is now measured with the template lined up with the BACK edge of the Epic Ship. This Maneuver Tile removes nearly ALL of the 'fishtailing' effect that the old provided, and it removes level of need to move small ships out of the way (On a personal note: This is also much easier for Storage in my maneuver template case as it gets rid of the awkward shape!). We did play with a 3 Turn maneuver, as well as increasing the forward maneuver to 5 to provide greater options, but felt this took away from the large / heavy feel at the speeds those ships started to move. We may try to bring them back, but now like it where it is at. We are looking at a Stop Maneuver, but are uncertain if an Epic Ship should be able to STOP every round, which may be able to be mitigated depending on how Stress works with Epic...

Str ess
This.... we haven't figured out yet. We do NOT believe that Epic Ships should be immune to stress, however we are not certain if this needs special treatment for incorporation just yet. Right now, we are treating it as the standard mechanic of it denies which ever section is Stressed an action. ALL Manuevers of an Epic Ship are currently considered 'Blue', and the Fore Section (which does not reveal maneuvers) is considered to have performed a Blue Maneuver at the beginning of Activation.

Ramming and Obstacles
We share the opinion that Ramming should not destroy ships outright. However, we also believe that a Huge Ship should ALWAYS complete its maneuver. Currently we are playing with a mechanic that is inspired by Armada, but are still uncertain about it as it feels somewhat clunky.
>> Overlapping Epic Ships: After executing a maneuver, if an Epic ship overlaps another Epic ship, use the standard rules for overlapping. However, overlapping an Epic Ship does not cause you to skip the "Perform Actions" step. Instead, EACH ship are dealt a faceup damage card.
>> Overlapping Standard Ships: If an Epic ship overlaps a Large, Medium, or Small ship, the overlapped ship(s) position(s) are adjusted by the controller of the Epic Ship to allow the Epic Ship to complete its maneuver. Ships adjusted in this way must still be in contact with the Epic Ship as well as their previous position (if their previous position is completely covered, the Epic Ship controller moves them to as close as possible to their previous position while still in contact with the Epic Ship). After their position is adjusted, the controller of the Standard Ship may adjust their facing to any direction. Standard ships then roll a number of attack dice base on their size, and suffer any damage or critical damage rolled: Small - 4 dice; Medium - 3 dice; Large - 2 dice. The Epic ship also rolls 1 attack die, and suffers any hits or critical effects rolled. Overlapping a Standard Ships does not cause the Epic Ship to skip the "Perform Actions" step.
>> Overlapping Obstacles : If an Epic ship overlaps an obstacle, it rolls 3 attack dice and suffers any damage or critical damage rolled. Then remove the obstacle. Overlapping a Obstacles does not cause the Epic Ship to skip the "Perform Actions" step.
>> Standard Ships Overlapping Epic Ships: When a standard ship overlaps a basic ship, it follows the standard rules for Overlapping ships. In addition, the player controlling the overlapping ship rolls 1 attack die, and suffers any damage or critical damage rolled.

Ship Tiles and Arcs
This is the other battle that we are currently figuring out. Our intent is to discover a way to Standardize the tiles like the 2.0 tiles have done with the arcs and ship sections, however, firing arcs are where we are currently beating our head against the wall with. We need them to be able to be standardized for Hard Point arcs that are not simply forward, as well as Turret Hard Point options. We have come up with three different styles (see my next post), but are not exactly happy with any of them. Any thoughts on it would be greatly appreciated (hunting for how others may have done it is actually how I found this thread).

((This may be my very first post on these forums, though I have been a long time lurker. Our gaming group has been playing this game for a couple years now, on both competitive and casual play. In addition, I have done a lot of custom design work for many local gaming groups in the Las Vegas area for various RPGs, Miniature, and Board games for nearly two decades.))

Here are the three Ship Tiles that we have been looking at for arc variation. Currently our group is leaning on some variant of Type B, but we are really just not happy with any currently. Note: For Variant C, we would were looking at some type of Shared Arcs variant rule for Epic Ships, but are hesitant as we really like that each section can be essentially treated as a separate ship.

EDIT: Of course hours after posting this, we have come up with a fourth option after a week of nothing... Option D is a mix of A and C... By adding a "shared arc" in addition to the arcs presented, we can have the best of both worlds! We will be creating an icon for this so it can be easily represented in the range for Attacks on Pilot and upgrade cards.

Raider A

Raider B

Raider C

Raider D

My apologies, I am unable to post images of the Ship Cards or Upgrade cards with have already given a 'finalized' look due to my upload limit as I am newly posting on these forums. If / when my limit is increased, I will post what I have and will continue to do so as I complete others assuming the interest is there. Most of our finalized stuff is for the Raider as it is the local favorite, though I am working to complete the other four Epic ships as well (which currently DO have alot of cards/upgrades in the form of handwritten notes on index cards). (EDIT: Okay, yeah, still not used to Forum things, despite being in IT by trade...)

Here are the Imperial Raider ship cards (Crippled are still forthcoming). I have run out of time, but will be back later to post the currently finalized upgrades.

EDIT II: Change the host of the images again, as I just found out the previous weren't visible to the greater public. Please let me know if you are able to see the 3 (6) pilot cards...

@LawstDragon . Real nice ideas. I have a thought on stress for you to think about. For standard ships, the stress mechanic is used to represent a pilot who is multitasking to the point of being overtaxed or to represent a pilot who has taxed the ship to its limits and has his hands full just keeping it under control.

Since epics need to represent crews of hundreds or more, I think the compromise would be that if a game effect that causes stress hits an epic, perhaps the token is assigned to a team or commander upgrade. Removal could be dependent on some trigger other than a maneuver color, such as end of the round or spending charges.

Rough example: A Commander upgrade could allow a stop maneuver. That would cause a huge strain on the ship itself as well as throwing the crew around so the cost would be assign a stress token to the commander and to two equipped Team upgrades. After the next activation phase, discard these tokens.