One of the many reasons I am enjoying 2nd Edition is that as I inevitably seek out the most "complete" ship/pilot its not all that easy to find them besides some early potential exceptions ( Vader, Luke, Boba, Redline, Norra etc. )

Some things a ship could have:

• Good Offense
• Good Defense
• Good Mobility
• Good Support
• Good Pre-Movement Actions
• Good Area of Effect Damage
• Good Control ( Includes Low Init Blocking )
• High Initiative
• High Hit Point
• Low Difficulty
• Low Point Cost

I want even the very best ships in the game to have several significant draw backs (i.e. a couple more than one to be safe ).

As an example...Vader might be able to keep out of arc and get full offensive mods stupidly easily but he should ideally fear being caught in arc by two 2 dice ships with just focus tokens, should also cost an arm and a leg, and be semi vulnerable to blocks.

I hope that for the most part FFG continues to defer to making even our very favorite ships/pilots basically bad in multiple ways. Not for the ships we hate losing to but for the ships we like winning with.

Perfect ships would be some boring **** that you wouldn't even have to play well to do well with

Ships should continue to have flaws and counteplay options, especially when it comes to limited access to defense buffs and action independent anything

Makes the player matter more ?

I'll cosign.

I think the TIE Advanced is a more *interesting* platform or pilot-independent ship than the X-Wing. Requiring the TL for the 3rd die, and then providing the hit-to-crit benefit is interesting. I think the relative prices a little off (probably needs FCS to be worth the same total points), but TIE/ad is a cooler thing on a table.

How are you defining "jank"?

4 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

I'll cosign.

I think the TIE Advanced is a more *interesting* platform or pilot-independent ship than the X-Wing. Requiring the TL for the 3rd die, and then providing the hit-to-crit benefit is interesting. I think the relative prices a little off (probably needs FCS to be worth the same total points), but TIE/ad is a cooler thing on a table.

One of the things I love about the new X-Wing is the servomoters card. It adds an interesting set of options.

7 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

As an example...Vader might be able to keep out of arc and get full offensive mods stupidly easily but he should ideally fear being caught in arc by two 2 dice ships with just focus tokens, should also cost an arm and a leg, and be vulnerable to blocks.

Yeah, especially for Vader. He doesn't have much to give in the way of arms and legs anymore. . .

34 minutes ago, Punning Pundit said:

One of the things I love about the new X-Wing is the servomoters card. It adds an interesting set of options.

It's always cool when a ship can activate trade-offs. In terms of coolness, I'd personally rank Advanced Targeting Computer > T-70 S-Foils (only lose the die out of bullseye) > T-65 S-Foils, but X-Wing would be boring if we all liked only the same ships in the same way. Pulling off sweet Closed-Wing blocks or bends around corners to get shots at key times will lead to some memorable moments.

9 hours ago, JJ48 said:

How are you defining "jank"?

I'll second this question. Namely because Mux with some supporting HLC platforms looks like fun.

12 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

should also cost an arm and a leg two legs

FTFY

Jank is hard to define in context of 2nd Ed, but I've always had it loosely defined as "two or more ships in a combo that are pretty ******* useless without the rest of the combo". It's some funny bull you run to live a dream with, like 8 dice 1st edition Norra.

Like ap-5 by itself isn't jank, because it's cheap and can be supporting someone self-sufficient to make them that much more badass.

A gray Ywing with proton torps that you only enable with an I 6 coordinate from Fenn Rau, though...jank

Mux isn't jank because he can ALWAYS help himself (smart man). Someone like Kyle, who can only support another ship, would be more janky...except Moldy Crow is terrifying regardless

Ffg's done a really good job at making support ships more affordable, relevant, or both so it's harder to make jank combos

10 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

I'll cosign.

I think the TIE Advanced is a more *interesting* platform or pilot-independent ship than the X-Wing. Requiring the TL for the 3rd die, and then providing the hit-to-crit benefit is interesting. I think the relative prices a little off (probably needs FCS to be worth the same total points), but TIE/ad is a cooler thing on a table.

Eh.

To me, difficulty is not inherently interesting. Pulling off difficult things for great rewards IS.

To address the OP, major drawbacks (or flaws) are fine, as long as they are counterbalanced by something awesome. The extremes are more fun, in my opinion.

I also like when ship mechanics make sense... What do I mean by that?

For example, if you have a ship that relies on Locks heavily, it should be great at acquiring and using Locks.

The way to do this right: Punisher 2.0

The way to do this horribly: Punisher 1.0

A ship should have a mechanical flavor, especially if the craft at hand is supposed to be an advanced model filled with high tech gadgets.

The times when I get pissed at a ship, it usually has flaws, but very little in terms of synergy and interesting options. To me that's not interesting. Working harder for mediocre results is just boring. It wouldn't be that big of an issue if every ship was like that, but that's not the case.

I'm not saying every ship should be a powerhouse, I'm really not. I just think pure efficiency (not that the Advanced is doing great on that front) is boring, and is not enough to balance drawbacks.

For example, bullseye mechanics aren't really powerful, because they are tough to pull off, but they FEEL great.

Also, it's STILL really hard to accept that the Advanced is designed specifically not to provide any synergy with the guy it was built for... Especially when we COULD price him as high as he needs to be.

I will say that one of the ships I'm most looking forward to trying out is the Jumpmaster. Between the asymmetric dial and the single mobile arc, it should pose an interesting challenge indeed.

My favourite design still is the lambda for this reason.

8 hours ago, Commander Kaine said:

Eh.

To me, difficulty is not inherently interesting. Pulling off difficult things for great rewards IS.

To address the OP, major drawbacks (or flaws) are fine, as long as they are counterbalanced by something awesome. The extremes are more fun, in my opinion.

[Punishers and TLs... try to trim down the white space, KK? Not every sentence needs it's own paragraph...]

A ship should have a mechanical flavor, especially if the craft at hand is supposed to be an advanced model filled with high tech gadgets.

The times when I get pissed at a ship, it usually has flaws, but very little in terms of synergy and interesting options. To me that's not interesting. Working harder for mediocre results is just boring. It wouldn't be that big of an issue if every ship was like that, but that's not the case.

I'm not saying every ship should be a powerhouse, I'm really not. I just think pure efficiency (not that the Advanced is doing great on that front) is boring, and is not enough to balance drawbacks.

For example, bullseye mechanics aren't really powerful, because they are tough to pull off, but they FEEL great.

Also, it's STILL really hard to accept that the Advanced is designed specifically not to provide any synergy with the guy it was built for... Especially when we COULD price him as high as he needs to be.

IMHO, the *ONLY* think the Advanced lacks because of Vader is an Evade action, which doesn't matter much for single-action pilots since Focus is about as good as Evade on 3 dice. Would more regular or linked actions be nice? Sure, but when compared to other similar ships at this price level, the TIE/ad is pretty normal. Their only gap is in ATC, which I think adds variety and spice, at the right price.

At the same cost as an X-Wing, there is an issue with the Advanced. It's harder to get the same work out of an Advanced as an X-Wing. If it's suitably cheaper, I don't think that's a problem, though. Defensive statline is about a wash, dials are essentially the same, but it takes more effort for the TIE/ad to get the same offensive output as an X-Wing (and they get a slight perk in the crit conversion when they pull it off). So in some gamestates, the Advanced will be noticeably worse, and in some a hair better because of the crit. Player skill can improve the ratio, and the gap between a well-flown Advanced and an average-piloted X-Wing is probably gone. And so here's where points costs come in. If a player is skilled enough to get the work out of an Advanced that someone else could get out of an X-Wing, that means the rest of the list is a lot more powerful. I think that has potential to be good and interesting design.

Alas, the points aren't quite right now.

I'm looking forward to trying to make the massively nerfed VCX-100 do anything remotely competitive haha.

23 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

One of the many reasons I am enjoying 2nd Edition is that as I inevitably seek out the most "complete" ship/pilot its not all that easy to find them besides some early potential exceptions ( Vader, Luke, Boba, Redline, Norra etc. )

What are you putting on Redline? Just proton torps and calling it a day? Or loading her up with torps missiles and bombs?

Gotta do sensors, pro torps, and clusters (+fifth bro, hits like a ****** monster) which still fits a howlie + del + 2 academy miniswarm

Well, BARE minimum Advanced Sensors (they're so incredible with his ability because it isn't an action, it just acquires a lock, and therefore bypasses sensors' downside) and barrage Rockets @ 58 (29 in 1st Ed terms, aka TWO MORE POINTS THAN HE WAS WITHOUT UPGRADES!!!)

Just gotta be careful because barrage doesn't do diddly without focus. You're probably better off with concussion + homing/ion for 61/62

Anyway, the punisher is basically THE most improved design of all the 1st Ed ships (considering where it came from...)

Its named pilots are exceptionally mobile and hit hard, but they burn down QUICK if you **** up (seriously lost Deathrain in one round to four ties with howlie because of a bad move). A+ design and a perfect example of a powerful ship with a glaring weakness to play around