This was my first ship (I thought it looked cool, ok?). I've managed to make some interesting while rather inefficient lists with the thing and I've had some success against friends. I also managed to not place last at a store championship one time. One issue though, is the attack. I realized a while ago that for all it's firepower, an upsilon does not have the dial to be consistent or to support a death cannon build archetype. For 2.0 I'd like to make some changes to the ship, and I would like to hear your suggestions as well.

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For starters, I'm going to propose a 2 die primary. This will serve to distinguish it from the lambda in a manner similar to its 1.0 attack value. The upsilon having a two die primary means that it can have a greater mechanical focus on support (or at least its own brand of it) and we can leave the dial more or less alone, all the while not having to make it much cheaper.

The upsilon in universe is home to a wide array of sensors and jammers. While 1.0 provides some upgrades that suggest this, the wings of the upsilon were in fact built for the purpose of maximizing sensor coverage. What does this mean? Upsilon pivot wing titles. I'll leave the rest of that to you.

It wouldn't be hard to adjust the pilots. Dormitz might not even need to change if the upsilon can be costed well. Stridan, on the other hand, poses design risks that I'd prefer ffg not have to work around. Maybe make him coordinate whenever he uses a crew effect. Kylo pilot needs to change or go in my opinion. I think he's more at home on a silencer and even then I'm not a fan of his pilot ability. The condition is fine, but the distribute-by-attack doesn't sit well with me. Make him the one pilot that cares about arc? Friendlies shooting at someone in your arc get to boost before shooting?

UPDATE - EPIPHANY: The upsilon needs 3 crew. Why? We need more ships with 3 crew. (I'm not sure if the YV-666 still has 3 but I know the decimator got a gunner replacement.)

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On to you. I'm eager to hear how you'd bring the upsilon into relevancy! If not for the OG standard play coordinater with just the dumbest title upgrade, for the beautiful model with the fragile guns.

3 hours ago, Prosk_019 said:

For starters, I'm going to propose a 2 die primary.

The issue is, it clearly has a LOT of guns and they appear very big. There may be an argument for dropping its firepower a bit and extending the arc out to forward 180, though (I could believe swivel-mounts), as that makes getting shots off easier whilst still giving it credible firepower.

I've always rather liked it as it stands, though.

3 hours ago, Prosk_019 said:

It wouldn't be hard to adjust the pilots. Dormitz might not even need to change if the upsilon can be costed well.

Dormitz is great, to be honest. Combined with Hyperwave Comm Relay he lets you get a massive strategic advantage easily. I've seen someone really prod buttock and record names with a Triple Batwing list using Dormitz; having two Upsilons appear in your face turn 1 is terrifying.

3 hours ago, Prosk_019 said:

Stridan, on the other hand, poses design risks that I'd prefer ffg not have to work around.

How so? He's never been excessively powerful in 1.0, but his pilot ability is genuinely good. At its basic level, it gives you co-ordinate at a longer range (range 3) but he gives all other support crew (primarily Hux) a touch more range. Note that there aren't many crew available to the First Order at this time, and his ability pointedly doesn't work with range-to-enemy-ships.

3 hours ago, Prosk_019 said:

Kylo pilot needs to change or go in my opinion. I think he's more at home on a silencer and even then I'm not a fan of his pilot ability.

You and a lot of other people. I'll Show You The Dark Side being a condition is one thing, but shield-piercing auto-criticals is another. That said, in 2.0, Blinded Pilot is less crippling (it only stops you modifying dice, not shooting at all). I'd like to think his ability will get changed, though. More importantly, no, now we have him in a silencer I don't think he belongs as the pilot for an Upsilon. Crew , yes, but not pilot.

Assuming the ship gets a white co-ordinate (because it has one at the moment, and is a second-generation Lambda, which is getting one), it's still pretty good, but it does need something to boost it a touch. The big problem is that if it has a 'death cannon' as you put it, you can't afford to spend all your actions boosting everyone else at a cost of firing your own expensive guns. Maybe giving it co-ordinate/link/target lock, or something similar?

3 hours ago, Prosk_019 said:

If not for the OG standard play coordinater with just the dumbest title upgrade, for the beautiful model with the fragile guns.

It may be because I use TIE strikers a lot (who are incredibly sensitive to stress) but I find the Kylo Ren's Shuttle title bloody terrifying. 2 points to automatically stress a ship at range 2, every turn, without needing any action on your part is really good.

The title itself is really wordy and might as well just have been "your opponent chooses one of their ships within range 1-2 and assigns it a stress token" but that's still good for its cost, especially with smaller squads.

Also Stridan crew. Giving you R1-3 on your upgrades and abilities.

Seems that I've made some errors. The upsilon's got a pair of L-s10.2 twin heavy laser cannons but the wiki page mentions its " lack of offensive capabilities" which was the only thing I remembered. I like the idea of the 180 arc. It would distinguish itself from the lambda while retaining consistent damage output.

I worded my position on stridan poorly. My issue with him is that I'd like for ffg to be able to design crew without worrying about his effect so that they have more freedom to do interesting stuff. His ability could be changed for one that doesn't have as much of a long term and far reaching influence as it does now, potentially affecting design decisions on most upgrades that are released.

Also yeah, I only meant that the title is dumb because of its wording. Poor wording on my part once again! Though I guess a case could be made for how it's just kind of a more forgiving mara jade, and that it doesn't add a whole lot to the game in terms of variety?

11 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Also Stridan crew. Giving you R1-3 on your upgrades and abilities.

Ok, I actually really like this. Him being a crew already slightly limits the kinds of combos you could pull off for broken effects. Now I kind of want stridan crew to be a thing, but perhaps with some restraints of the kinds of upgrades or scope of effect. Maybe make him the Major Rhymer of non-ordinance (or just crew) and have his card be double sided like adaptability for a plus or minus one range?

26 minutes ago, Prosk_019 said:

The upsilon's  got a pair of L-s10.2 twin heavy laser cannons but the wiki page mentions its " lack of offensive capabilities" which was the only thing I remembered  .  

Always take anything in the wiki with a grain of salt. I'm not saying it's not quoted from somewhere, but, regardless, it may be under-armed for its size, but quad heavy laser cannon mounts has to rate a sizeable amount of dakka.

26 minutes ago, Prosk_019 said:

I worded my position on stridan poorly. My issue with him is that I'd like for ffg to be able to design crew without worrying about his effect so that they have more freedom to do interesting stuff. His ability could be changed for one that doesn't have as much of a long term and far reaching influence as it does now, potentially affecting design decisions on most upgrades that are released.

I don't think it particularly does, though. Today, he benefits a reasonable number of crew (Fleet Officer, Operations Specialist, Systems Officer, General Hux, Inspiring Recruit, Death Troopers) but I can't think of one that he represents an effect you'd be 'worried' about. Yes, they're all better on him than on other ships, but that's what you're paying his cost for. I can't think of any rules effect which would be so overpowered that you'd have to forbid pairing it with Stridan aside from (old-style) Biggs, and that is something FFG are NOT going to bring back into existence, especially not as an upgrade you can put on whatever ship you like.

26 minutes ago, Prosk_019 said:

Also yeah, I only meant that the title is dumb because of its wording. Poor wording on my part once again! Though I guess a case could be made for how it's just kind of a more forgiving mara jade, and that it doesn't add a whole lot to the game in terms of variety?

It's both more and less forgiving. Range 1-2 is a lot more dangerous than range 1, but it's only 1 ship and you get to choose which one it affects.

It's a really good upgrade - stress is a powerful effect when you don't need to do anything to trigger it, and range 2 of a big ship is a huge chunk of the board, but equally, your opponent gets to choose which ship takes the stress, so it's not like there isn't ways to respond to it that minimise the effect.

That said, there's not much sign of stress-inflicting tools in the conversion pack - no flechette weapons, no rebel captive, death troopers stop you clearing stress but don't cause it - so whilst I suspect the title will continue, it might well change its nature a touch.

Also note that with the First Order moving to a separate faction, the Upsilon is the only game piece you can (currently) think about using for control and support purposes, so it wouldn't be a bad idea.

20 minutes ago, Prosk_019 said:

Ok, I actually really like this. Him being a crew already slightly limits the kinds of combos you could pull off for broken effects. Now I kind of want stridan crew to be a thing, but perhaps with some restraints of the kinds of upgrades or scope of effect. Maybe make him the Major Rhymer of non-ordinance (or just crew) and have his card be double sided like adaptability for a plus or minus one range?

Three observations:

1) With the First Order being separate, the Upsilon is the only First Order crew carrier so you're not doing anything different to a Major Stridan shuttle aside from giving up one of your crew slots! (and - especially if you're getting rid of Kylo too, meaning Dormitz is the only named Upsilon pilot in a faction which is already catastrophically short of unique pilots).

2) All friendly-boosting crew upgrades are range 1+, and I can't honestly see a situation where any co-ordinate or token hand-off effect would be range 2+ (I can see it for weapons, or gunnery effects, but for stuff like squad leader and officers?). As a result I can't see any possible upgrade where you'd want to pay points to reduce the radius of its effect.

3) Making his ability work on 'enemy ships within range' upgrades is a whole different kettle of fish and one that shouldn't be touched with a bargepole, because abilities which only hit enemy ships at a given range hitting them at a greater range could easily be broken as heck: off the top of my head, Intimidation works at range 0 (because that's the new rules definition for 'in base contact' ) - if you're worried about balance do you really want Stridan able to reduce the agility of every ship within range 1 against any attacker simply by existing?

6 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I don't think it particularly does, though. Today, he benefits a reasonable number of crew (Fleet Officer, Operations Specialist, Systems Officer, General Hux, Inspiring Recruit, Death Troopers) but I can't think of one that he represents an effect you'd be 'worried' about. Yes, they're all better on him than on other ships, but that's what you're paying his cost for. I can't think of any rules effect which would be so overpowered that you'd have to forbid pairing it with Stridan aside from (old-style) Biggs, and that is something FFG are NOT going to bring back into existence, especially not as an upgrade you can put on whatever ship you like.

Don't get me wrong, as he is now, he's a very useful but non-oppressive pilot which makes many upgrades straight up better. I actually love the notion of that as a concept; instead of combo-ing with existing upgrades, improving existing upgrades. I'm just not attached to his current ability and would like for ffg to have a little more breathing room when they design the upgrades that the first order will use in 2.0. Proper range restriction might make for some quite interesting effects which require more player input for a more rewarding effect.

(Plus, I'm a sucker for the quirky, and 'smart' design that an effect inspired by his current ability could potentially have, see my idea for a version of stridan crew above in response to Blail Blerg's frankly brilliant idea.)

So I've got some ideas for First order upgrades that could come in an upsilon 2.0 expansion, but just the effects and not the type of upgrade they'd be and without the names of some. I'm thinking the upsilon should have jam as well as some interactions with it in titles and pilot abilities. Also, assuming 2.0 jam works how I think it does with it only being range 1, I'd probably make the upsilon increase that range somewhat.

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FO crew - This first one I'm pretty proud of - action: up to 2 other friendly ships at range 0-2 gains a focus, an evade, and a jam token. (I think this might be similar to a certain rebel crew but the way it's worded and executed is smarter and more First Order-y I think)

After you fully execute a maneuver, you may place one of your stress tokens on to a jammed ship at range 1-2. (This is just cruddy 4-LOM)

UPDATE:

Stridan 2.0 - After you coordinate, you may place a jam token on an enemy ship at range 0-1 of the ship you coordinated. If you do, receive 1 jam token.

Pilot - When a friendly ship in your firing arc attacks with its primary weapon, if you have 2 (maybe 1) or fewer stress tokens, you may receive one stress token to have it roll one additional attack die. (Perhaps it could have built-in inspiring recruit?)

Pilot - When you receive a stress token, each other friendly ship at range 0-2 may choose to also receive a stress token to perform a white boost or barrel roll action.

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I'll update this as I come up with stuff. I'm leaning towards the first order as a self-detrimental faction akin to scum, but purely offensive or with not much left to chance. I'm imagining the pilots and crew as aggressive rather than cunning or reckless.

This is a neat topic, as I also fell in love with the Upsilon shuttle. @Magnus Grendel already made most of the points I was going to make, but I want to return to the primary weapon.

I agree that 4 attack dice makes this ship odd in the way that it plays. It has the attack power to be a heavy hitter, but not the dial for it; it has the stats to make it a support ship; but not the price for it. I'm wondering if there's not a clever way to bump up the attack power without having a 4 dice primary. For example, in Runewars they just announced a hero who can dial in a "die enhance modifier" on their dial, so that when they perform a melee attack, they can roll one additional attack die. Now, we know from Expose, that taking an action to increase your dice is not as good as taking an action to modify your dice. Still, something like that, or the Advanced Targeting Computer on the TIE Advanced could underscore that this is a heavily armed transport, but still keep the price down. I'm struggling here because everything I come up with seems to make it more expensive than a 4 dice ship, rather than less expensive. Here's one last idea:

" Overcharged Weapons : While you perform a primary attack, change all [crit] results to [blank] results. Then change all [hit] results to [crit] results."

This gives it overwhelming offense when it hits, but decreases the likelihood of hitting, just a little. Not sure if this should still have a primary weapon value of 4-dice or 3-dice [EDIT: Definitely a 3-dice ability]. I'm not even going to vehemently defend this ship ability - it could be way out of line for X-wing Second Edition, but I just wanted to brainstorm with you about this awesome ship.

I think that if its dial stays the same, your ability wouldn't be too much of an issue in terms of power level but it might lack consistency. Perhaps a 180 forward arc for the sake of staying in the fight, and then some kind of interaction with the bullseye - maybe your ability?

On 7/13/2018 at 10:48 AM, Magnus Grendel said:

Three observations:

1) With the First Order being separate, the Upsilon is the only First Order crew carrier so you're not doing anything different to a Major Stridan shuttle aside from giving up one of your crew slots! (and - especially if you're getting rid of Kylo too, meaning Dormitz is the only named Upsilon pilot in a faction which is already catastrophically short of unique pilots).

2) All friendly-boosting crew upgrades are range 1+, and I can't honestly see a situation where any co-ordinate or token hand-off effect would be range 2+ (I can see it for weapons, or gunnery effects, but for stuff like squad leader and officers?). As a result I can't see any possible upgrade where you'd want to pay points to reduce the radius of its effect.

3) Making his ability work on 'enemy ships within  range' upgrades is a whole different kettle of fish and one that shouldn't be touched with a bargepole, because abilities which only hit enemy ships at a given range hitting them at a greater range could easily be broken as heck: off the top of my head, Intimidation works at range 0 (because that's the new rules definition for 'in base contact' ) - if you're worried about balance do you really want Stridan able to reduce the agility of every ship within range 1 against any attacker simply by existing? 

Yeah, my excitement for combining all those design aspects really got the better of me there. The new Major Rhymer sets a precedent for those kinds of shenanigans being no bueno for 2.0. I suppose I just figured that making him work like the adaptability card would, in the instance of a range 2 support crew being released, give you more to think about with how you'd fly the ship without just making it work at all ranges. That way he could be costed more aggressively I think.

I see it dropping to the following statline 3/1/5/7 which should drop about 4-7 points off the blasted thing in 1.0 terms.

The Upsilon is not and never has been a bad ship. In fact outside of Kylo it was almost balanced outside the cost. Decimator cost without the Turret really show cases the difference in 1.0 of how much a Turret meant for a large ship.

Stridan and Dormitz are fine as is even translated into 2.0 mechanics. I think you will either see General Hux or Captain Phasma as the 4th Pilot. I can also see Kylo Crew and Kylo the Pilot having/doing different effects based on the new mechanics as well.

I would like to keep the 4 dice forward primary attack, but lower on the other stats perhaps even 0 agility, however I would love it to have a white stop maneuver, because that would make it an artillery piece (and allow you i reinact TLJ) alternatively I could see it having all 3-greens including hard turn to make it faster..look at those engines.

Honestly, I would like to see us lose the pilot Kylo card. It was done solely to include the villain character.

I *DO* want to see the Kylo crew have Darth Vader crews 1.0 ability - I think it fits him.

I'll show you the Dark Side can be a darkside force upgrade.

the ship itself is a command ship.. it definitly should have a white coordinate as a given. An ability that allows you to coordinate two ships at a time would not be for off I think.

Instead of dropping a red, they should make it the only 5 die primary in the game just to spite the Rebels lol

2 hours ago, RedHotDice said:

I would like to keep the 4 dice forward primary attack, but lower on the other stats perhaps even 0 agility, however I would love it to have a white stop maneuver, because that would make it an artillery piece (and allow you i reinact TLJ) alternatively I could see it having all 3-greens including hard turn to make it faster..look at those engines.

0 agility with only 12 hull and shields combined doesn't seem enough for me. And I guess they'll change the hull/shield ratio as well. I think it should keep that 1 die in defense. But a white stop makes much sense.

As a side note: Have you considered that the Upsilon wont have to differentiate itself from the Lambda now that the First Order is a separate faction?

23 hours ago, wampabait said:

As a side note: Have you considered that the Upsilon wont have to differentiate itself from the Lambda now that the First Order is a separate faction?

I think it still will. The Upsilon might be the First Order's equivalent of the lambda but the First Order are going to have their own faction identity to go along with it, and would probably use their support ships in different ways to the Empire.

I'm interested in what sort of support options are there with double tech slots and the host of new actions.

11 hours ago, Commander Kaine said:

I'm interested in what sort of support options are there with double tech slots and the host of new actions.

Indeed. A lot of it will depend on what tech upgrades and officers survive, too.

The Imperial box is noticeable for the lack of most of the 'officer' upgrades (there's plenty of new, unique officers - Rees/Tarkin/Sloane/etc - but few 'tactical officer' equivalents).

Assuming General Hux still has more or less the same effect, he'll be about the only way to issue focus tokens to a large swathe of a squad, which, combined with Stridan is a big deal.

(I'm hoping we get Captain Canady, as about the only really competent officer we've seen in the First Order to date)

Targeting Synchroniser is pretty useless - without weapons officer or fire control system to generate free locks, most of the time you'd just stick with using it on the Upsilon's own death cannons.

Pattern analyser, on the other hand, would be awesome with either linked actions or red actions.

I'm unsure about the token-retaining ones. Token stacking is possible, if more limited, and these only get you the token if you perform the action and then don't spend the token that turn. Advanced Optics could do with being more expensive , but it only really gets you extra focus every other turn or so in practice, so I don't think it's too powerful to be allowed to exist at all.

I dunno.

The lambda gets focus/reinforce/co-ordinate/ jam .

Focus is inevitable.

Surely co-ordinate is a given as it was the first ship to ever get it, and I think we can assume there's no chance of a repositioning action (It's not that much better than the lambda). The Lambda also packs a red jam - since the upsilon is the First Order's only support ship, I'd imagine it will get jam too. Getting it as a linked action would be nice - co-ordinate/linked/jam makes for one heck of a support ship from a single action.

A big difference would be target lock; the lambda can't (but gets ST-321 which essentially gives it Co-ordinate/linked/lock) but not being able to would properly kill targeting synchroniser.