So now that the prequel era factions are confirmed, I'm getting excited about new mechanics for Clone and Droid pilots. Sure, we already have some 'droids', but they're as unique and nearly as versatile as flesh-and-blood pilots, so differentiating them merely through the calculate action makes sense. But for the CIS' hordes of low-intelligence droid starfighters, I think a different approach has to be used.

Droids and the CIS:

CIS starfighters are known to be incredibly inflexible and limited in number, but ultimately cost-effective. I think the best way to institute their lacklustre processing capabilities is with an Armada-esque turn-based delay on manoeuvre dials. In other words, cheaper droid starfighters might have to set dials 2 or even 3 turns in advance, but naturally come at a steep discount. Then, introduce parallel to the release of Vulture, Hyena etc starfighters, a support craft (probably the Sheathipede to start) with either an innate ship ability or crew options to reduce the number of turns ahead each and every droid ship in play has to assign to itself.

Ultimately, you end up with an interesting strategic decision. Do you choose a veritable swarm of 19 point Vulture droids at the cost of having to plan every manoeuvre 3 turns ahead? Or is removing 2 Vulture droids to work in a vulnerable Sheathipede to assist you with the opening engagement a better use of your points? Is adding a second Sheathipede worth it? Counterplay options might include a system upgrade that negates the abilities of all "control ships" at X range during the planning phase, so that dual ace builds don't immediately die.

If having to plan the 'full' manoeuvre several turns ahead is a bit much, requiring droid ships to choose the speed of their manoeuvre in advance could be a nice compromise.

Clones, Jedi and the CIS:

Jedi are pretty easy to institute as a whole - relatively expensive pilots with some combination of force value and force talent slots across a variety of frames, most likely with powerful abilities on the named characters requiring the spending of force tokens to activate.

Clones are more interesting. I think there are two thematic ways to institute them. Firstly, give what would normally be the "elite generic" (such as a Royal Guard Interceptor pilot in 1st edition) a pilot ability, but don't make them unique. So Wolf Squadron pilots can gain a focus token whenever another Wolf Squadron pilot is destroyed, bombs dropped by Gold Squadron pilots do an additional damage for each bomb that already hit the target this round, etc, etc. I think this would seamlessly create the "squadron title" mechanic so many want - generic, cheap abilities that link a squad into a cohesive whole with strong synergy.

The second way to institute Clones is with a universal buff based on the number of clones in your squad. Clones inherently understand each other, and can adapt to each other's circumstances very quickly, so it makes sense that the more there are on the field, the stronger they perform. Something like a rule in the CIS/Republic core set stating " The pilot skill of a clone is equal to the number of friendly clones on the battlefield " would really give an interesting feel to the faction, and could be instituted alongside the first mechanic above, since it doesn't require use of the pilot skill space. "Standard" Clones have an asterisk as their Initiative value to indicate this. "Elite" Clones like Oddball can be assigned a "+X" to their Initiative value to indicate that they receive a pilot skill equal to the number of friendly clones plus X.

Naturally, clones will cost a great deal more than the spammy factions of the CIS and Empire, but given their nature, they can make a devastating 3-5 ship synergy based squadron or excellent mid-PS support for a Jedi like Anakin or Obi-Wan.

Conclusion:

I think that the ideas I've presented above will be difficult to balance well, especially against 2 ace builds, but I think that with the power of rapid cost adjustment through the app, the process should be relatively painless. It'd also give both factions a nicely unique feel. What flaws can you see in the ideas I've presented? And how would you institute the Republic and CIS factions to give a unique feel to them?

Often suggested is cheap droid swarm with like 8-10pt ships for CIS. That's neither practical (board crowded with ships, bump-wing) nor fun (turns take forever, ,ental strain for both sides to keep track of so many ships, bleeding MOV all the time).

One solution could be a medium base with 3 models on it. It starts with like 3 attack dice, and 1 agi, and maybe 6 hull? TL, calculate. After 2hull are shot off, first droid fighter destroyed, att drops to 2, agi increases to 2. At 2 hull left, the second fighter is destroyed, agi goes to 3.

Also, Dark Force powers on Count Dooku!

CIS faction : What you are describing for there (the dial delay) is an entirely different game and not how the game of X-wing works - so not going to happen. I think the new "calculate" action/token and the IG-2000's advanced droid brain, sets the scene on what we are going to expect from the CIS faction (= various forms of attani mindlink "light").

Republic faction : The force powers for the named pilots/jedis is a given - again this is one of the new game mechanics of 2.0. For the clones I dont really see your "clone mechanic", to me clones are just generics - if you have to make them "different" than other generics, then perhaps as they are "breed" for war, they do not get stressed as easily, so less red on the dial? But I don't really see this as a necessity - rather I think the Jedis could have a lot of support force-powers to help their troops - similar to the movies.

Less technologically advanced than the later periods: What I would like is for the CloneWars ships to overall be "worse" in attack power /defence, than the ships of the later periods representing the natural technological advancement the later ships have over these earlier ships, but compensated for by "attani mindlink light" for the CIS faction, and "jedi support" for the Repulic faction:

21 minutes ago, Managarmr said:

One  solution could be a medium base with 3 models on it. It starts with like 3 atta  ck  dice, and 1 agi, and maybe 6 hull? TL, calculate. After 2hull are shot off, first droid fighter destroyed, att drops to 2, agi increases to 2. At 2 hull left, the second fighter is destroyed,  agi goes to 3. 

Plus, using the centre line of your base and the one straight , you could downsize to medium and finally small base.

It imply 3 cardboards, 3 base and specific pegs, but it is quite possible without messing the play.

In fact I love your idea.

Another, way less fun, is to give a ship 2 charges, when destroyed, it can use a charge to be discard all damage card and be placed in the deployment zone (respawn style).

46 minutes ago, Sciencius said:

Less technologically advanced than the later periods: What I would like is for the CloneWars ships to overall be "worse" in attack power /defence, than the ships of the later periods representing the natural technological advancement the later ships have over these earlier ships, but compensated for by "attani mindlink light" for the CIS faction, and "jedi support" for the Repulic faction:

The Star Wars universe is technologically stagnant, and the fire power of ships is a function of how fast you want them built and how much you want to pay for them.

I like the idea of multiple small ships on the same base. The droid (vulture?) fighters had this for their hasbro toys, where they were sold as a triple that the child could take in one hand by putting them on a sort of handle.

What if none of the CIS ships had actions except calculate? Different ship add new actions to all CIS ships action bars.

Along a similar line, all ships would come with 2 dials. The second dial is used when certain conditions are met. Maybe 3+ of that model on the list, command shuttle that upgrades dials, or a configuration card that alters dial.

I would also like to CIS having an upgrade card that let them control droid pilots of other factions. Or a restraining bolt torpedo, target droid ship does a white stop every turn until the condition is removed...

I hate the idea of multiple dials per ship as well as the idea of multiple ships per base.

Look to calculate for how the droid fighters will work. They might even just have Advanced Droid Brain, on all the droid fighters, or some variation on it. Unique droid fighters would give extra things to do with calculate or synergize with calculate. Leader-type ships and pilots will give their allies more capability in some way.

I feel like the clones will be very efficient. I think the republic faction identity will be efficient clone pilots and jedis with crazy powers in fragile ships- forcing a tactical decision in squad-building of efficiency versus awesome crazy powers. So, a clone pilots ability will be pretty straight-forward stuff like, "when you attack, spend a charge to force the defender to re-roll a defense die of your choice" while jedis get nuts stuff like, "action: spend a force token, barrel roll with a 3-turn."

I wanna see swarm ships. I.e. large base ships that start out with lots of hull and attack, and low or no agility, and lose attack and gain agility as they take damage, with the caveat of only taking 1 damage per attack max, and being immune to crits.

I’d prefer mini bases over multi-bases. Some kind of rule where they can’t block would be necessary though.

4 hours ago, NilsTillander said:

The Star Wars universe is technologically stagnant, and the fire power of ships is a function of how fast you want them built and how much you want to pay for them.

Wrong.

Evidence:

1. Over the course of the movies the Death Star which was capable of destroying a single planet "grew" into StarKillerbase capable of destroying several planet systems at once. Also, in "The Last Jedi" it suddenly became possible to track ships through hyperspace, something clearly not possible in "A New Hope" - all examples of technology advancing through the movie-timeline.

2. Perhaps more importantly, in the game , we already have the "Tech" slot signifying the technical superiority of the First Order and Resistance Ships. And perhaps the best case, which is infact from where I got my idea, is the ver 1.0 " Alliance Overhaul " title, giving the Arc-170 a native Republic ship with 2 attack dice in that era , an additional red attack dice for 0 pt for the Rebels.

Case closed.

5 hours ago, Sciencius said:

CIS faction : What you are describing for there (the dial delay) is an entirely different game and not how the game of X-wing works - so not going to happen. I think the new "calculate" action/token and the IG-2000's advanced droid brain, sets the scene on what we are going to expect from the CIS faction (= various forms of attani mindlink "light").

Republic faction : The force powers for the named pilots/jedis is a given - again this is one of the new game mechanics of 2.0. For the clones I dont really see your "clone mechanic", to me clones are just generics - if you have to make them "different" than other generics, then perhaps as they are "breed" for war, they do not get stressed as easily, so less red on the dial? But I don't really see this as a necessity - rather I think the Jedis could have a lot of support force-powers to help their troops - similar to the movies.

Less technologically advanced than the later periods: What I would like is for the CloneWars ships to overall be "worse" in attack power /defence, than the ships of the later periods representing the natural technological advancement the later ships have over these earlier ships, but compensated for by "attani mindlink light" for the CIS faction, and "jedi support" for the Repulic faction:

I like this!

The real question is will there be a Caption Rex for the Clones!

Premice: there will not be any fighter cheaper than 23 points for the cheapest generic.

Premice: cheap battledroids will use calculate on 3 agility, making them defensively inferior than imperial ships.

Vulture Battledroid

Tie fighter esque dial, 3 hull, 3 agility, no shields; calculate, evade, roll, red boost; 2 die front arc primary... And a 3 die bullseye only primary.

Pilots: Beacon Slave (24 points) init 1,

Independent Droid (26 points) init 3 with talent,

Squadron Relay Droid (??? Points) (init 3 unique with talent: once per round when you recieve a calculate token, all other friendly ships with the calculate action at range 0-2 gain a calculate token. When you receive a jam token, all other friendly ships with the calculate action at range 0-2 gain a jam token.)

Advanced Model Prototype(??? Points) init 5 unique with talent: when you perform an action, gain a calculate token.

The idea being that individual battledroids, without Howlrunner, Mauler, Scourge, backstabber and the rest, can't threaten their whole firearc with significant damage. But with a bullseye primary, they can force people to perform last minute evasion instead of dice mods, resulting in a different play experience- fighting a vulture swarm will be very different than fighting a howlswarm. The uniques are meant to be rarer models- a yellow-shoulder "squadron sergent" giving Attani Mindlink, but who makes sense to be deployed only 1 per battle squadron; and an advanced protype meant to give even Actis Jedi a run for their money, but simply not available in battlefield spamming numbers.

hehe - read that pilot as "bacon slave"

Here was an idea for C.I.S. droid fighters. Something that makes them less affected by stress but more susceptible to ion damage.

The one thing I really hope they include is Yoda regenerating two force tokens per turn. Or possibly using force tokens for full focus benefits, but I'd rather he regen more of them.

Clones don't all have to do the same thing the same way - there were several individual clones that stood out - I'd like to see them as named pilots.

I concur with the concept of all of the Clone Wars era ships being a bit underpowered. remember when the 1.0 ARC 170 came out it only kicked out 2 reds and the Alliance refit card was a 0 pt upgrade for it to bring it up to 3 reds. They may keep it at 3 reds now, but it's a heavy hitter, so practically every other ship needs to have only 1-2 red dice. That's very significant. Of course, I'm only thinking of the major ships - there are actually lots of ships in this era that may hit a lot harder than what I'm thinking of right now.

One other thing I've noticed, the cost of an Academy Pilot TIE is 23 pts. It has to be that cost because otherwise you could field 9 of them. The cost of Howlrunner has to be 40 pts because otherwise you could field 7 Academy Pilots and Howlrunner. I feel these were conscious decisions by the Devs to avoid bogging down the game with too many ships. A tourney game needs to be completed in 75 minutes - each extra ship costs time. This tells me that they'll continue this methodology with the Vulture droids. They'll have to run 23 pts minimum to maintain this balance, so they have to have something significant about their design that puts them on-par with your basic Academy pilot.

6 hours ago, Bad Idea Comics said:

The one thing I really hope they include is Yoda regenerating two force tokens per turn. Or possibly using force tokens for full focus benefits, but I'd rather he regen more of them.

Clones don't all have to do the same thing the same way - there were several individual clones that stood out - I'd like to see them as named pilots.

I concur with the concept of all of the Clone Wars era ships being a bit underpowered. remember when the 1.0 ARC 170 came out it only kicked out 2 reds and the Alliance refit card was a 0 pt upgrade for it to bring it up to 3 reds. They may keep it at 3 reds now, but it's a heavy hitter, so practically every other ship needs to have only 1-2 red dice. That's very significant. Of course, I'm only thinking of the major ships - there are actually lots of ships in this era that may hit a lot harder than what I'm thinking of right now.

One other thing I've noticed, the cost of an Academy Pilot TIE is 23 pts. It has to be that cost because otherwise you could field 9 of them. The cost of Howlrunner has to be 40 pts because otherwise you could field 7 Academy Pilots and Howlrunner. I feel these were conscious decisions by the Devs to avoid bogging down the game with too many ships. A tourney game needs to be completed in 75 minutes - each extra ship costs time. This tells me that they'll continue this methodology with the Vulture droids. They'll have to run 23 pts minimum to maintain this balance, so they have to have something significant about their design that puts them on-par with your basic Academy pilot.

Agreed across the board. The Vulture has to be worth at least as much as a tie fighter or the game drags to a stop even more than with a tie swarm. I would argue that it also has to be mechanically different from a tie fighter as well, for varietys sake. The Vulture, Tie fighter, and Z95 may occupy the same price point but should play differently, even when all are in 8 ship swarms.