If anybody is interested, I have a Google Sheet (link below) by which I'm tracking participants in the Conversion Kit Exchange I've organized for the SF Bay Area. As a side effect of tracking the participants' purchases, shortfalls, and extras, I'm getting a pretty good shape of where the demand is going to fall very short ... and, as an aside, where FFG did not do a good job (though I make no judgments as to how purposeful the disparity is, in terms of driving sales).

The thing I find most interesting so far is the entry for StarVipers. They are running a sizable deficit, whereas the deficit for other ships, both Rebel and Imperial, is all the early, extremely iconic ships. FFG really did a good job with Guns for Hire making StarVipers worth flying and in-demand.

They did a terrible job estimating demand (if they even tried) with Decimators, Lambdas, Gunboats, U-wings, Rebel TIEs, and the Sheathipede. So far it's looking like it's going to be tough to literally give those individual kits away. TIE fighter kits, in particular, are going to be highly in demand.

I really wish they'd simply polled 100 players, collected the data I'm seeing, and build the CKs' contents based on it. I still think the CKs are a very good deal, but it's easy to see when looking at things why some people are angry about the distribution. It could have been much, much better.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1svVWebPHWFq4cbwTx6N2ywZms4LW4LQgFmgwAV61j7U/edit?usp=sharing

Great idea, I will do that in my gaming group.

Not gonna lie, really bizarre inclusions across kits

Funnily enough, the empire almost perfectly fits my collection (3 alphas, 3 bombers, 3 fighters) and I do have a rather shameful 2 Us (I knew they were trash, but they were just SO PURDY)

Otherwise I don't get the Sheathe or especially the quad

If it were four quads I'd at least get the joke, but > 1 is pushing it

ONE is pushing it

I'm not sure what I'm looking at. Does -1 or +1 mean they have one ship uncovered by the conversion kit?

I'm going to be short on Starvipers and have an extra of just about every large based ship. There really is no excuse for just how poorly they have assigned multiples in the kits.

2 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

I'm going to be short on Starvipers and have an extra of just about every large based ship. There really is no excuse for just how poorly they have assigned multiples in the kits.

Well, there could be an excuse. For example, it's possible that the layout and production simply won't support fewer than two of each ship.

... But it definitely feels a little sketchy.

Quote

I'm not sure what I'm looking at. Does -1 or +1 mean they have one ship uncovered by the conversion kit?

Negative numbers are shortfalls, both for individuals and in the aggregate.

1 minute ago, skotothalamos said:

I'm not sure what I'm looking at. Does -1 or +1 mean they have one ship uncovered by the conversion kit?

I believe it's whether they want or are giving one way, each row adds up to the total in the first column. So this group needs 5 more A-wings.

Just now, Jeff Wilder said:

Well, there could be an excuse. For example, it's possible that the layout and production simply won't support fewer than two of each ship.

... But it definitely feels a little sketchy.

I would assume as much. Make a sheet of conversion bits for 2 or 3 different ships. put 2 or 3 copies of that sheet in the box. It's a lot harder to get a single ship in there anywhere. I guess there could have been a one-of sheet in each box for several one-of ships.

Conspiracy theory is that's how many you'll fit in 200 points

Like two xs + core + saws = back to four max

Four buffed xwings (6 health) is approx equal to 8 TIEs according to classic juggle math

Course that's just a baseless conspiracy theory (...or is it?)

Personally, I think it's fairly rational to have X ships we're X = number of times it's shown up across expacs

Also at least two of each

Best I can reason...aside from the X and a few reasonable extras (alpha, bomber, striker, kfighter, fang) ...and the quads

Wtf is with the quads!?!?!

Just now, Jeff Wilder said:

Well, there could be an excuse. For example, it's possible that the layout and production simply won't support fewer than two of each ship.

... But it definitely feels a little sketchy.

I would like someone to ask about that.

Conversion kits are still a pretty good deal for what they offer but I'm going to be hard pressed to get X-wings and Y-wings for the handful of pieces I have extra. Maybe my extra Protectorates and TIE Aggressors? I just wish I had been more aggressive about selling more of my painted minis in the last year. My collection will be much closer to what's included but I will be short 14 small based ships total and will have 7 extra large based ships. There is more than enough cardboard, they have just assigned it stupidly. (or maliciously but I'll not judge either)

I suspect that they have a layouts of punchcard, and that they are giving us a certain quantity of each printing. For example, if the Decision, Lambda, and defender are all one layout, we get two of those sheets, thus enough for two of each. Even though most people don't have a second Lambda or Deci, enough people have 2 defenders that they threw in the second sheet. Giving us two copies of the same sheet rather than two slightly different sheets cuts down on art and tooling costs.

Think of it as getting that second Deci and Lambda dial for free.

Now why there's only 4 TIE/ln dials??? Got me there.

Tough to draw any large-scale conclusions from such a small sample size, but an interesting read nonetheless.

14 minutes ago, BojambaMcMamba said:

Now why there's only 4 TIE/ln dials??? Got me there.

You have to buy the core set anyway so that makes 6 tie dials and that should cover most lists.

32 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

The thing I find most interesting so far is the entry for StarVipers. They are running a sizable deficit, whereas the deficit for other ships, both Rebel and Imperial, is all the early, extremely iconic ships. FFG really did a good job with Guns for Hire making StarVipers worth flying and in-demand.

I had a similar idea in my gaming group with an excel sheet and we came to a similar conclusion. Starvipers for some reason are high on demand. But the sheet gives a great overview of what you need. The only downside is that everyone kind of has to buy all three conversion kits anyway because of the upgrade cards.

2 minutes ago, warmdown said:

you have to by the core set anyway. so thats 6 tie dials. and that should cover most lists.

This sidesteps the point.

If I currently own 8 TIEs and four kits to convert them, I have four unconverted TIES.

If I buy the core set, now I own 10 TIEs, four kits to convert, and two don't need converting, and I have four unconverted TIEs.

If you're not worried about having unconverted ships, that's cool. I, personally, don't want to end up with unconverted ships.

3 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

This sidesteps the point.

If I currently own 8 TIEs and four kits  to convert them, I have four unconverted TIES.

If I buy the core set, now I own 10 TIEs, four kits to convert, and two don't need converting, and I have four unconverted TIEs.

If you're not worried about having unconverted ships, that's cool. I, personally, don't want to end up with unconverted ships.

Why do you need 10 ties fully converted? You probably can max field only 8 anyway. Meaning that you are short two and hence the smart idea with the kit exchange where the cost of 1 imp ship is 50USD/34.

If we made the jump, we'd be screwed on Defenders. We have 6 of those, and more than once they've all been out at the same time (1 epic tournament and 2 kits).

It's the only ship we have that 2 of each wouldn't cover. We'll, and a Kihraxz, but those rarely hit the table together.

I think the only thing I'll really be short of is one GUNBOAT, and I'll have two extra TIEs to trade for that.

In the end I'll have five X-Wings and only four dials. I doubt I would ever fly five X-Wings.

Between all the cool OT revamped hotness, I highly doubt I'll have any trouble trading for the one defender I'm missing

And since I'm not a fan of Fickle Fighters (tm) or Interceptors, I'll probably have an easy time getting whatever I need and enabling someone else's swarm

Course that doesn't address the oddity of certain distribution decisions, but it isn't the worst

53 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Well, there could be an excuse. For example, it's possible that the layout and production simply won't support fewer than two of each ship.

That could only be the case if there are no uneven numbers of other ships. Which we have plenty of. You can mix and match your cards in large printing jobs basically. You have your "page". the cards fit there and you do repeated runs of that page, sometimes from a single roll of paper when using off-set, though with card stock large pre-cat paper sheets are more likely, because cardstock is not ideal on rolls, unlike for example news papers. ?

Cost optimization for off-set printing would be mainly to reduce the number of plates you need and thus you try to use all the space of your paper sheet. Which means as well that you can freely swap the for example 3 decimators down to 2 Decimtors and increase the gunboats for example ... as long as you did not produced those plates. Once you have those, it would be rather expensive to change the composition of cards.

1 hour ago, warmdown said:

Why do you need 10 ties fully converted? You probably can max field only 8 anyway. Meaning that you are short two and hence the smart idea with the kit exchange where the cost of 1 imp ship is 50USD/34.

In my case, it's because I supply ships for multiple friends who might want to fly at the same tournament. That, and the idea that if I have 10 models but I can only ever play with 6 of them at a time, what did I get 10 models for? Why did I just buy two more in a core set?

All of that really misses the point, though. The point is that, per the OP's spreadsheet, People (globally) own TIE/ln's in a proportion that is way out of whack with how the dials are being supplied (globally). Either people will buy 34 more dials for $50 to get dials for those last 4 TIEs that don't have them, or they'll be left with TIEs that don't have dials. Selling two dials in a core set that provides two more TIE/ln models isn't going to reduce the number of "orphaned" TIE/ln ships out there.

None of this is the end of the world, really. I'm still thrilled with the conversion kits. I just feel like it was a bizarre decision to only provide 4 TIE dials. It's super easy to get 5 TIE fighter models (2 in original core set, 1 for Howlrunner, 2 in Gozanti, plus, how many people do you know that bought at least two core sets? I know I did.) Could they at least try to better match how many are out in the real world? I bet they have a pretty good idea how many they produced.

Of course, there is the possibility that there exists some other way to get more dials without models, beyond what we know. They hinted at the fact that there will be a way to convert individual future models as they are released.

2 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

Not gonna lie, really bizarre inclusions across kits

Funnily enough, the empire almost perfectly fits my collection (3 alphas, 3 bombers, 3 fighters) and I do have a rather shameful 2 Us (I knew they were trash, but they were just SO PURDY)

Otherwise I don't get the Sheathe or especially the quad

If it were four quads I'd at least get the joke, but > 1 is pushing it

ONE is pushing it

Makes perfect sense based on the below. I could *understand* fi they'd done extra x-wings/y-wings/a-wings/tie fighters/whatever iconic ships. But there's always going to be people that want differnt ships than anything they moight have extra of. I have 6 kihraxz, 6 scyks, 5 fangs (and plan to buy 1-2 of the new ones), 3 G1As, etc. I only own 3 y-wings (2 from most wanted, 1 rebel), I only had 2 a-wings and 2 b-wings until I got 2 more of each at CAC this year. I only had 5 tie fighters until I won a second gozanti I didn't need then got 7 more for free with no dials to use for HotAC.

This way is at least "fair". You get half (or a bit more) of a list of every single ship, and plenty of ships to make lists and play the game, and 2 kits guarantees you can fly any possible standard list for the faction.

1 hour ago, ficklegreendice said:

Conspiracy theory is that's how many you'll fit in 200 points

Like two xs + core + saws = back to four max

Four buffed xwings (6 health) is approx equal to 8 TIEs according to classic juggle math

Course that's just a baseless conspiracy theory (...or is it?)

Personally, I think it's fairly rational to have X ships we're X = number of times it's shown up across expacs

Also at least two of each

Best I can reason...aside from the X and a few reasonable extras (alpha, bomber, striker, kfighter, fang) ...and the quads

Wtf is with the quads!?!?!

As you say here, if you look at 1.0 numbers (ignoring saw's renegades), this theory fits almost perfectly. # of the ship flyable in 100 (200 post 2e) divided by 2, rounded up, minimum of 1. So if you can run 1-3 you get 2. If you can run 4 you get 2. If you can run 5-6 you get 3. If you can run 8 you get 4. The two exceptions I know of are the hwk and the y-wing, both of which, in 1e at least, you can run 5 of in a list, but you only get 2. One possible explanation is that realistically almost no one ever actually runs 5 of either ship, because you usually have enough points of upgrades that you can't run more than 4. Another possibility is that costs increase based on updated stats, such as a 2 attack mobile arc hwk.

You get 3 quads because you can run 5 in a list. I actually have a 5 quad list (I only actually own 2)

2 hours ago, gamblertuba said:

I'm going to be short on Starvipers and have an extra of just about every large based ship. There really is no excuse for just how poorly they have assigned multiples in the kits.

You can say that, but what's a good distribution? What's good for you will be bad for other players. I'll be short starvipers from 1 kit as well, but in 1e at least, I've never actually flown more than 1 starviper at a time. I'm hoping 2e makes it worth actually doing so, but who knows. Meanwhile, I have 2 ghosts, 2 YV666, 3 jumpmasters, 2 shadowcasters, 2 falcons...

Do we know that we’ll be able to run 8 TIEs at once in a standard squad? If we can- for people with large collections the core, imperial, plus 2 dials from the rebel kit would give you 8 official 2E TIE dials. For non-official the dial is the exact same other than a color change so any 2E cardboard will have the right lines. Same thoughts for B-Wings, Starvipers, and TIE Defenders, could be those ships aren’t going to have generic mini-swarm potential in 2E. I’m in wait and see mode for now, 1x each kit, the Reaper, Renegades, and Core will convert more squads than I can easily run before the second wave and our first look at their future upgrade solution comes out.

1 minute ago, mdl0114 said:

Do we know that we’ll be able to run 8 TIEs at once in a standard squad? If we can- for people with large collections the core, imperial, plus 2 dials from the rebel kit would give you 8 official 2E TIE dials. For non-official the dial is the exact same other than a color change so any 2E cardboard will have the right lines. Same thoughts for B-Wings, Starvipers, and TIE Defenders, could be those ships aren’t going to have generic mini-swarm potential in 2E. I’m in wait and see mode for now, 1x each kit, the Reaper, Renegades, and Core will convert more squads than I can easily run before the second wave and our first look at their future upgrade solution comes out.

We do, they've said academy pilot is 24 points. That doesn't mean you'd WANT to in standard. If it's anything like 1e in that regard, you'd still be better off upgrading one to howlrunner nad only running 7. Probably upgrading another to Iden Versio if you can.

2 minutes ago, VanderLegion said:

We do, they've said academy pilot is 24 points. That doesn't mean you'd WANT to in standard. If it's anything like 1e in that regard, you'd still be better off upgrading one to howlrunner nad only running 7. Probably upgrading another to Iden Versio if you can.

unless there are other restrictions we don't know about yet, which there very well may be.