24 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

That's odd. They are a non-TL-guided weapon, and thus should not deny the R3 defensive bonus.

What does TL have to do with anything? They have the icon denoting no R3 bonus.

51 minutes ago, costi said:

What does TL have to do with anything? They have the icon denoting no R3 bonus.

Yes - the icon means no R3 bonus, I know.

But now that secondary weapons doesn't automatically deny R3 bonus, it would have made sense that only TL-required weapons (if you prefer, weapons with guidance systems) would deny the bonus.

4 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

Yes - the icon means no R3 bonus, I know.

But now that secondary weapons doesn't automatically deny R3 bonus, it would have made sense that only TL-required weapons (if you prefer, weapons with guidance systems) would deny the bonus.

A missile or rocket hits just as hard no matter the range. It blows up when it hits with the same explosive force. Guns, on the other hand, are rapid fire weapons that are more likely to have more rounds hit in close proximity to a target than farther away, hence their range bonuses. I always hated the old cannon rules and am happy they fixed them and left all the warheads alone.

Now, scientifically speaking, that's mostly a bunch of happy horse $#!+. Explosives in space have nowhere near the same impact as in an atmosphere - you'd need direct hits for them to be truly effective, but they would also have unlimited range. The Russians have proved that you can have very accurate fire with heavy cannons from an airplane (I know the MiG-29 has a means to aim its cannon and that cannon is a big one). But its Star Wars, not Science Wars, so I try to turn my brain off so I don't spoil my fun. Too much realism = not fun.

19 minutes ago, Bad Idea Comics said:

A missile or rocket hits just as hard no matter the range. It blows up when it hits with the same explosive force. Guns, on the other hand, are rapid fire weapons that are more likely to have more rounds hit in close proximity to a target than farther away, hence their range bonuses. I always hated the old cannon rules and am happy they fixed them and left all the warheads alone.

Now, scientifically speaking, that's mostly a bunch of happy horse $#!+. Explosives in space have nowhere near the same impact as in an atmosphere - you'd need direct hits for them to be truly effective, but they would also have unlimited range. The Russians have proved that you can have very accurate fire with heavy cannons from an airplane (I know the MiG-29 has a means to aim its cannon and that cannon is a big one). But its Star Wars, not Science Wars, so I try to turn my brain off so I don't spoil my fun. Too much realism = not fun.

I never said it should hit "less hard" due to range. But in x-wing, weapon accuracy and damage are the same - amount of red dice.

So when trying to land difficult shots ( long range, through rocks..), this is represented in game by a defensive bonus.

Torpedoes/missiles deny R3 range bonus because they are guided, unlike, for example, primary weapons or cannons.

But they have to acquire a TL to get the shoot opportunity.

Barrage ain't TL-guided, it would make perfect sense that they don't deny R3 bonus.

But for gameplay, it makes perfect sense.

3 minutes ago, Bad Idea Comics said:

But for gameplay, it makes perfect sense.

I'm not so sure about that (I would have made them R1-2 only with the Focus requirement, as for now it just seems a bit lazy and easy to use), but I can definitely live with it.

41 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

Torpedoes/missiles deny R3 range bonus because they are guided, unlike, for example, primary weapons or cannons.

That is pure speculation on your part and not actually supported by anything official.

It's a gameplay mechanic.

It's simply far easier and less complicated to remember that 'missiles deny the range 3 bonus'. The icon is just there as a visual reminder.

1 hour ago, Giledhil said:

I'm not so sure about that (I would have made them R1-2 only with the Focus requirement, as for now it just seems a bit lazy and easy to use), but I can definitely live with it.

Ew, that'd be **** awful

Give 2 dice primary ships the same dice they'd have at range 1 for....no reason?

Barrage Rockets deny range bonus because a.) Gameplay (limited use weapon, requires having a focus and not having spent it to fire) and b.) It compensates for lack of tl with numbers

Barrage rockets are perfect and literally what make the bomber/aggressor playable. They better not get changed

58 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Ew, that'd be **** awful

Give 2 dice primary ships the same dice they'd have at range 1 for....no reason?

Barrage Rockets deny range bonus because a.) Gameplay (limited use weapon, requires having a focus and not having spent it to fire) and b.) It compensates for lack of tl with numbers

Barrage rockets are perfect and literally what make the bomber/aggressor playable. They better not get changed

Support ships and crews make bombers totally playable.

Or, if you don't want to rely on support solutions, high Initiative pilots also work.

That's just my opinion, but I find barrage rockets are a lazy solution to the ordnance problems.

2 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

That is pure speculation on your part and not actually supported by anything official.

It's a gameplay mechanic.

It's supported by logic. Sorry if that doesn't appeal to you.

If gameplay mechanics make sense, without being much more complicated, it's all the best imo.

eh, I think Barrage Rockets are exactly what ordnance should be

Conditional attacks that don't completely invalidate the majority of pilots because of their lower Initiative and don't overpower the rest of the game with 4 dice, but which reward you for getting your action + holding onto your token + firing at range 3 + bullseye arc if you got it

Best designed upgrade in the game by far, imo

I actually like the TL mechanic, and the fact that you can rely on support ships to overcome the PS issue. Coordinated assault FTW.

Plus, HLC is the perfect upgrade

On 8/20/2018 at 8:35 PM, Captain Lackwit said:

Because I have other stuff to do.

Not only that, but I can wait for the official stuff.

Then why even post in this thread?

6 hours ago, ThinkingB said:

Then why even post in this thread?

Because some of us have a point to make about very few of us having first hand experience, and too many people saying stuff is broken, without a full release.

12 hours ago, Giledhil said:

I actually like the TL mechanic, and the fact that you can rely on support ships to overcome the PS issue. Coordinated assault FTW.

I think I understand your perspective. The issue I see is that it's very difficult to make a support option that can do what you describe efficiently without it being more efficient to support a high PS ship (e.g. Why use Fenn Rau to coordinate a Lock to one Y-wing when you can use AP-5 to coordinate an action to Wedge with Proton Torpedoes and then have wedge take a lock. And that's 93 points vs. 91). There are a few support cards which kind of get around this, but most of them have issues of their own;

-Provided Dutch can get the lock at I4, I don't think he much cares what the initiative of his wingman is since it's only one more lock. But I4 isn't always enough against Han, Guri, Wedge, Vader, Luke, or... You get my point (You can use a staggered approach with the wingman behind Dutch to cover him if the target comes in close to him, though).

-Colonel Jendon can give everyone back a slightly worse long-range sensors for two turns, which is obviously better when you have lots of ships moving early. However, this does mean your opponent can use all the old tricks that worked against LRS against you, but since you're relying on charges, it's possible to stall you out and force you to waste the charges. On the plus side, you don't need to pop Jendon immediately in order to get an efficient shot with your ordnance the way you did when guidance chips were a thing (Since LRS lost a lot of efficiency compared to Guidance chips if you didn't get Focus+Target Lock over two rounds).

-Grand Moff Tarkin can give every other ship a lock on the ship he has locked every other turn. Again, this is better the more ships you have. Unfortunately, he's expensive, especially since he has to pay a tax to get Krennic if you want to use a Reaper or Lambda as his ride (Tarkin requires a Lock action, and the decimator is the only Imperial Crew carrier with a native lock action). Mass Locking a single ship is also awkward if you're spread out after the initial engagement.

So yeah. What you're describing does exist, but it's clunky. It also must be said that relying on mass locks is a nightmare against swarms, which are now resurgent. And I mean, it's a good thing that an archetype has an uphill battle against some other archetypes while being strong against others, but the logistics of juggling 3+ locks against a 6+ ship Swarm is just unpleasant ("Everybody Lock Howlrunner" isn't necessarily the right answer, especially since she can force multiply her squad while out of range to attack or be attacked herself if the Swarm player gets the approach right).

Edit: Just to be clear, I'm not against lock-based ordnance (And the Tie Advanced, which plays much the same) being more difficult to use. Torpedoes and Missiles are more powerful than regular attacks*. They should be more difficult (Game mechanics which are more difficult to use should reward their proper execution with superior results). And it's not even a 1-1 ratio of skill in to power out (As much as such a thing can be said to exist in even an abstract sense)**. But the opinion (derived in part from past experiences) of a fair number of players including myself is that a lot of the lock-based attacks in 2.0 are not significantly more effective for low initiative ships, yet require a lot more effort to pull off even semi-optimally.

*Well, missiles are more powerful than the regular attacks of their dedicated carriers. That's less true of some Imperial ships like the Advanced or Defender, unfortunately.

**Extra credits did a great video on this. Here it is if you're interested

Man HLC should really be renamed "Mildly Rewarding Trick Shot Cannon"

QUE ANNOUNCER VOICE:

"Are you bored with X-wing? has grinding the optimism from bright eyed noobs become so easy that its lost its allure?

well OH BOY! have we got the significant handicap you've been looking for!

Just grab your favorite canon platform and pay a few points, and you'll be narrowly failing to line up your bullseye arc in no time! What's that little timmy? You did land a shot! That's swell. Now your opponent gets to enjoy their range 3 bonus! HaHA, you'll be GIT'in GUD in no time"

in all seriousness it's fine for the points, just think the "Heavy" might be a bit of a stretch.

HLC would have been great at 20 points with its old rules text. nerf just seems like someone in the design team was sick of losing to their friends BroBots. HLC also gave less agile ships a chance against arc dodgers for a fair price, so it's weird that it was viewed as a problem. Maybe Gunboats would have been too spammable, who knows

On 8/20/2018 at 8:43 PM, Bad Idea Comics said:

Why not? I wrote new maneuvers on 1.0 dials and my opponent simply wrote his maneuvers down on a pad. The rest can simply be printed out and we used ion or crit tokens for keeping track of charges. Now that all the info is available I can't imagine waiting. It's been great fun and I'm looking forward to plenty more 2.0 games before 9/13.

some people might not want to destroy playable game components

8 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

some people might not want to destroy playable game components

Hence my opponent writing maneuvers on a separate pad. Obviously, not everyone has the same level of enthusiasm or drive to play 2.0 with the tools we have available now. I understand some folks want to wait for the official components, but if the desire is there the game is totally playable right now. It only takes a modicum of effort and you can enjoy 2.0 immediately. Obviously you wouldn't be playing any tournaments this way, but there's no reason to hold back unless you simply don't feel like it.

10 hours ago, Squark said:

I think I understand your perspective. The issue I see is that it's very difficult to make a support option that can do what you describe efficiently without it being more efficient to support a high PS ship (e.g. Why use Fenn Rau to coordinate a Lock to one Y-wing when you can use AP-5 to coordinate an action to Wedge with Proton Torpedoes and then have wedge take a lock. And that's 93 points vs. 91). There are a few support cards which kind of get around this, but most of them have issues of their own;

Isn't the same exactly true of the Fenn Rau Y-Wing situation, just in reverse?

AP-5 co-ordinates Wedge to do a focus at Init 1. Wedge then moves at Init 6, has full view of the board to take his lock and fire torps with full mods.

Or

The Y-Wing moves first at Init 2 and takes a focus action, because its target hasn't moved yet and is out of range for the lock. After the target moves, Fenn Rau moves and co-ordinates the Y-Wing to perform a lock it is now able to achieve. The Y-Wing gets to shoot with (potentially) full mods.

The Wedge example is mildly more efficient as shooting first means you have a much higher chance of keeping your focus to spend on the attack, whereas the Y-Wing may need to spend it on defence before it gets to shoot. But that's a pretty minor difference all things considered. And yeah, the Wedge combo is 2 points cheaper but again, that's a pretty minimal difference. In theory, the Y-Wing's reload means you can perform the combo more times than Wedge can.

You mentioned Dutch being able to help lower Init Y-Wings, and that's true. But you can also use him to chain the high PS co-ordinate combo for massed fire.

GSB moves, takes focus.

Dutch moves, takes focus.

Fenn moves, co-ordinates Dutch.

Dutch gets to take a target lock action as a result (important for his trigger)

Dutch uses his ability to give the GSB a lock.

Now you have two Y-Wings with torps who were able to get locks on their targets after the targets had moved and have full mods against those targets. Throw some R3 astros in there and things can get silly.

All depends on good formation flying and the ability to guess your opponent's moves well, but that is literally the core skillset of playing X-Wing.