Early, I know, but I feel like there’s one thing the Separatists might really need, and that’s built-in ion protection.
Obviously they’ll have plenty of non-droid pilots, but a faction that’s primarily droid-centered feels like it’d be overly vulnerable to a simple weapon all other factions have easy access to.
Anybody else think they’ll build something into at least some of their ships to counterbalance that?
Edited by SpiderManaEven currently Ion is strong against Droids. Guri, the IGs and anything else that adds calculate is shut down by being Ionized. Only action permitted to an Ionized ship is Focus, which droids don't get (barring Guri adding a focus token when at range 1 of an enemy).
To be fair, being ionized only affecta the perform action step, so there's plenty of ways for the seperatists to work around ion. The trick will be balancing their ion countermeasures when the enemy doesn't bring any ion weapons.
4 minutes ago, Squark said:To be fair, being ionized only affecta the perform action step, so there's plenty of ways for the seperatists to work around ion. The trick will be balancing their ion countermeasures when the enemy doesn't bring any ion weapons.
You're stuck with a blue 1 straight for a maneuver when Ionized...
13 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:You're stuck with a blue 1 straight for a maneuver when Ionized...
He’s referring to the action restriction, which penalizes droids more than other pilots, everyone is stuck with the movement restriction.
I’m aware that droids are already affected moreso, but the fact of the matter is that the Separatists’ forces are primarily droids. That’s my point.
They’ll probably bring in Geonosians, and an Umbaran fighter would be pretty cool, but outside of that I think all of the fighter-sized ships listed under the Separatist Navy are droids or primarily piloted by droids? And obviously they have options like Jango (though I could see them wanting to keep the Firespray to one faction), Maul’s ship is the only one they’ve announced so far, and Dooku will undoubtedly show up.
Just a passing thought, and I’m guessing maybe Vultures and Hyena Bombers at least might have a ship ability that gives them a slight bonus after being ionized, to counteract it (even just gaining a calculate token).
They may be more vulnerable to ions than other factions, but FFG has to be careful not to make ion protection too good for them. Maybe something that helps spread tokens to nearby ships, but also limits how many of that token each ship can have (to prevent stacking everything on one ship)?
So the question is, are droid pilots getting a cost discount relative to what their initiative and abilities dictate. I’m not talking hypothetical separatist, I mean today. Do the current crop of droid pilots come in more points efficient than their raw numbers suggest?
Given how FFG has already done something they hadn’t in 1.0, namely make some lower initiative pilots more points if their ability justifies it, then could not that ion weakness justify their being cheaper?
Would that be enough, or would having some form of baked in coordinate for vulture droids and such (think along the lines of ship type calculate Attani style action sharing for them) to reflect how they work together. Shared telemetry or something. That way a swarm is more resilient to ion than one or two ships, as you lose the ability to mitigate.
6 minutes ago, JJ48 said:They may be more vulnerable to ions than other factions, but FFG has to be careful not to make ion protection too good for them. Maybe something that helps spread tokens to nearby ships, but also limits how many of that token each ship can have (to prevent stacking everything on one ship)?
For sure. And there aren’t splash-damage ion weapons in 2.0 as of yet, right? So maybe Vultures will be cheap enough that you don’t have to worry too much about one being ionized. Or maybe if they come in a swarm-on-one-base as speculated, they could require an extra ion token or just have completely different ion effects.
There are plenty of ways they can balance it. I just don’t want to see this faction get the shaft in any way. Especially since I feel like the Republic is just way more interesting personally, and I feel like more popular over all? Maybe I’m wrong there, but still.
Just now, SpiderMana said:For sure. And there aren’t splash-damage ion weapons in 2.0 as of yet, right? So maybe Vultures will be cheap enough that you don’t have to worry too much about one being ionized. Or maybe if they come in a swarm-on-one-base as speculated, they could require an extra ion token or just have completely different ion effects.
There are plenty of ways they can balance it. I just don’t want to see this faction get the shaft in any way. Especially since I feel like the Republic is just way more interesting personally, and I feel like more popular over all? Maybe I’m wrong there, but still.
I’ve got no interest in droids personally, but am all over the idea of Jedi Starfighters.
3 minutes ago, SpiderMana said:For sure. And there aren’t splash-damage ion weapons in 2.0 as of yet, right? So maybe Vultures will be cheap enough that you don’t have to worry too much about one being ionized. Or maybe if they come in a swarm-on-one-base as speculated, they could require an extra ion token or just have completely different ion effects.
There are plenty of ways they can balance it. I just don’t want to see this faction get the shaft in any way. Especially since I feel like the Republic is just way more interesting personally, and I feel like more popular over all? Maybe I’m wrong there, but still.
Personally, the droids have more appeal to me, though I certainly have an interest in collecting Republic, too.
I'm not too worried, though. I expect Separatists will have some unique tricks of their own.
1 hour ago, SpiderMana said:they come in a swarm-on-one-base as speculated
I really hope not.
7 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:I really hope not.
Yeah, I don't think Vulture droids are small enough. Buzz droids, sure, though those'll probably be upgrades rather than separate ships.
7 minutes ago, JJ48 said:Yeah, I don't think Vulture droids are small enough. Buzz droids, sure, though those'll probably be upgrades rather than separate ships.
I can see buzz droids as a device, a missile, or (if they decide to utilize the original programming, buzz droids were repurposed repair droids) a repair upgrade for the ship it is on. Not really as a full unit on their own. Vultures are the same length as a TIE/Ln.
I guess I had just sortof gone along with peoples’ thoughts on that. I never looked up their actual size and it’s been a while since I’ve seen any of the movies oops.
I’m not worried that they’ll be unbalanced, ion was just a particular thing I felt they might need help with.
Delivering Ion isn’t actually that easy, but they are almost garaunteed to get the Sheathipede as it was one of their main support ships and the coordinate off that will help Droid Fighters out of a bad Ion situation.
Its likely they will get some other Command style ship, as well as heavy Droid fighters on medium bases which will be less vulnerable.
Finally they will be packed with non Droid mains like Dooku, Jango, Assaj, Maul, and Grevious (not actually a Droid) to name a few.
I feel like Sepratists will probably feel like Empire mixed with Scum.
I'm definitely in the camp that would prefer to see a mighty droid swarm that flippin' hates seeing the other side pack ion. It's fluffy because droids, but more importantly, clearly defined weaknesses are good for balancing equally strong abilities and carving out a unique factional identity.
9 hours ago, Hiemfire said:I can see buzz droids as a device, a missile, or (if they decide to utilize the original programming, buzz droids were repurposed repair droids) a repair upgrade for the ship it is on. Not really as a full unit on their own. Vultures are the same length as a TIE/Ln.
I could see those too for the buzz droids.
Attack Wing fighters were some really interesting design space. Armada has 3 ships on a stand for fighters, why not 2 vultures on a stand? It would be a way to be even swarmier without having to move more bases. Lose half your hit points? Maybe also lose half your attack power. Could be something as simple as giving them a couple shields, a couple hull, 2 red dice, and something like "if this still has shields, add an attack die". Ion would be brutal against it!
4 hours ago, DodgingArcs said:Delivering Ion isn’t actually that easy, but they are almost garaunteed to get the Sheathipede as it was one of their main support ships and the coordinate off that will help Droid Fighters out of a bad Ion situation.
Maybe it’s because I play agl 1 Rebel ships a ton, maybe it’s because I got an inordinate amount of the new ion crit, but I would tend to disagree with that sentiment in my experience.
2 hours ago, nexttwelveexits said:I'm definitely in the camp that would prefer to see a mighty droid swarm that flippin' hates seeing the other side pack ion. It's fluffy because droids, but more importantly, clearly defined weaknesses are good for balancing equally strong abilities and carving out a unique factional identity.
Yeah I guess it would be better if they balanced it without taking away that weakness away.
55 minutes ago, Jyico said:I could see those too for the buzz droids.
Attack Wing fighters were some really interesting design space. Armada has 3 ships on a stand for fighters, why not 2 vultures on a stand? It would be a way to be even swarmier without having to move more bases. Lose half your hit points? Maybe also lose half your attack power. Could be something as simple as giving them a couple shields, a couple hull, 2 red dice, and something like "if this still has shields, add an attack die". Ion would be brutal against it!
Definitely think Buzz Droids will be built into ordnance, probably landing a condition card?
I’ve seen that idea for multiple droids per base, and it’s certainly plausible. Who knows tho.
Come to think of it, will Vultures be like IG Pilots, with different skills and all the same Initiative? Or will they have a couple initiative options or no pilot skills at all? How monotonous will the separatist army be in that way? ?
Again, I’m fully aware they have non-droids coming too. But I’m more excited for the droids
42 minutes ago, SpiderMana said:Maybe it’s because I play agl 1 Rebel ships a ton, maybe it’s because I got an inordinate amount of the new ion crit, but I would tend to disagree with that sentiment in my experience.
Yeah I guess it would be better if they balanced it without taking away that weakness away.
Definitely think Buzz Droids will be built into ordnance, probably landing a condition card?
I’ve seen that idea for multiple droids per base, and it’s certainly plausible. Who knows tho.
Come to think of it, will Vultures be like IG Pilots, with differe nt skills and all the same Initiative? Or will they have a couple initiative options or no pilot skills at all? How monotonous will the separatist army be in that way? ?
Again, I’m fully aware they have non-droids coming too. But I’m more excited for the droids
OOOH! "Assign only one hidden dial for any number of friendly vulture ships, during the activation phase they either execute that maneuver or perform a 2 straight and get a stress"
True swarm flying!
Edited by JyicoI don't think the droids would get some sort of ion protection. I think they'll get more ways to get around stress and things that cause stress. Maybe they get some sort of ability to perform actions while stressed.
I think droid fighters will have fewer red and blue maneuvers. They'll have an open dial while at the same time being predictable. They're machines so they always fly within the parameters of their ship.
Where they get stress is all their re-positioning will be linked actions with White Calculate into the red re-position. So they could do some usually stressful maneuver and still calculate and then barrel roll or boost but they have to pay next turn with a 1 straight blue which is their only move to clear the stress.
And maybe they get something like White Calculate linked to White Evade because they'll be predictable. You know what they're going to do but it doesn't make them easier to kill. So any move on the dial and calculate and barrel roll and get a stress and next is a one straight but they calculate and evade. They're droids. They should have "sub-routines."
They could maybe have a lot more sharing or benefiting from being close to one another. Like one droid could do the calculate to red re-position but the next ship to move if it is in range one and reveals the same maneuver can calculate and white re-position.