So the B-Wing sort of seems like the old X-wing. It seems a little outclassed for the amount of points it costs. At the very least there seems to little call for a 2-Cannon craft.
Just spit balling an idea: Side A: Normal Side B: disarm token, decrease the difficulty of K-Turn and T-Rolls.
So how'd you design the configuration card for a B-Wing?
Semi-related: It would be nice to have the B-Wing cockpit modification to add either a crew or gunner.
Edited by RaithnorI'm not sure it really makes sense as a flippable configuration, as it's pretty much always on. Also, thematically, I don't know that it really makes sense for it to decrease maneuver difficulty, as the frame is already turning like normal anyway, and the pilot's ride would actually be far rougher than normal if not for the inertial compensators. Rather, the primary benefit seems to be the ability to stay on target and aim better even while performing tricky maneuvers.
So maybe something to encourage tricky maneuvers? "While attacking, you may reroll one die for each Stress you have," or something like that.
The B-Wing has S-foils similar to the X-wing, call them Servomotors if you'd like. Closing them turns the b-wing into basically a flying wing, which would make vertical loops easier and if rotated vertically make a "sideways loop" easier.
I know it's space so aerodynamics like this shouldn't enter into it, but it is Star Wars which is basically "Fighter planes in space".
Most big lumbering 1agi ships don’t do hard 1s and 1ts. That is the gyroscopic at work allowing bonkers maneuvers at close range.
I think the thing they need which would be easiest to do is play off of the uniqueness of having the two cannon slots. Have a discount in the app that only applies to cannons on Bwings. Make it so taking an HLC and Ion isn’t prohibitvely expensive. Be a dangerous Swiss Army knife that is still just an explodable Bwing. Doesn’t seem game breaking.
arent the bwing sfoils more for decreasing its profile than helping it move or attack?
I dont recall ever seeing one in the movies/shows close its wings unless it was trying to squeeze past something.
46 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:arent the bwing sfoils more for decreasing its profile than helping it move or attack?
I dont recall ever seeing one in the movies/shows close its wings unless it was trying to squeeze past something.
Yeah, I thought it was mostly for landing.
51 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:arent the bwing sfoils more for decreasing its profile than helping it move or attack?
I dont recall ever seeing one in the movies/shows close its wings unless it was trying to squeeze past something.
"Decreasing its profile" could also be argued in term of "Increasing its agility".
I agree, B-wing closed for landings. It should get a title/mod/whatever to make it hit harder. It’s the Mike Tyson, not Mohamed Ali type fighter.
Also, the agility should be higher when within bullseye arc. It’s profile is very slender.
Edited by Ccwebb
Before 2.0 came out, I had an idea not so much for the S-Foils, but for the gyroscopic cockpit which basically translated as a mobile bullseye arc: if you have the ship vertical, nothing changes, main body to the left, everything to the left of the bullseye arc to the side of the base is now considered the arc and mirror that for when the main body is spun to the right (there could also be a special mobile bullseye arc indicator to help avoid confusion and make the 1.0 B-Wing fully compatible with this idea).
As for S-Foils closed, maybe make it where you CAN'T keep them closed all the time or at least wouldn't want to. Completely disables primary weapons, but cannons tale a -1 to their dice.
While I generally don't think it's thematically necessary for B-Wings to have S-Foils, I like the idea from the first post. How I'd word it:
Personally, I think it'd be important to also turn off special attacks. Doing some sort of a flip and tossing a Torpedo in someone's face seems wrong for a B-Wing, where the S-Foils are mostly closed for landing. I started to think about taking disarm tokens to discard stress, but that doesn't really work either, since you could just leave the S-Foils open without thinking about it, unless there was some other penalty.
Should be quite simple, instead of Focus > Barrel Roll it should be the other way around to show off how agile they are.
Maybe a whole set of linked actions that start with a Barrel Roll like giving an Evade or a Focus or even a Reinforce
Like the Fang's spinning, I don't think this should actually be represented by a card in the game.
The B-Wing’s problems go beyond a flippable S-Foil card. It would help, but closing it’s wings for a burst in maneuverability or agility isn’t going to help it like it did the X-Wing. Right now it needs a reason to exist beyond 2 cannon slots on the reddest dial in the Rebellion. Having red maneuvers is fine and expected... But having so many with so few white and blue maneuvers, while you have a focus > roll linked action, is limiting. And simply lowering the cost (a.k.a. the “ork fix”), won’t solve the underlining problems the ship has.
If ever there was a ship in 2.0 that should have a built-in cannon-gunner effect like IG-88B or 1.0 Tie Defender, it would be the B-Wing. Give it something like that, and I won’t care how red the dial is, or whether it’s S-Foils flap.
7 hours ago, Raithnor said:So how'd you design the configuration card for a B-Wing?
I wouldn't. Whilst a B-wing might have 'S-foils', the mechanic in the game is uniquely the X-wings, and it should stay that way. That's what the B-wing needs, a signature trait, not a copy/paste job from the X-wing.
I think its shtick should be something cannon related. The B-wing was known to be a poor flyer but with an extensive loadout bristling with cannons and advanced targeting system for making things go boom. I would like to see Linked Battery reincarnated for the B-wing with an ability akin to something like 'after attacking perform a bonus attack with an equipped cannon on locked targets' or 'after performing a cannon attack, you may perform a bonus attack with a different equipped cannon'.
Just wanna say that your speculations here aren’t in vain so speculate away:).
Personally, I’d like to see decreased speed 3-4 maneuvers when closed and perhaps some kind of alpha strike (primary + special weapon attack) capabilty when opened.
11 hours ago, Raithnor said:The B-Wing has S-foils similar to the X-wing, call them Servomotors if you'd like. Closing them turns the b-wing into basically a flying wing, which would make vertical loops easier and if rotated vertically make a "sideways loop" easier.
Based on what? S-Foils exist in Star Wars to make ships more compact when they land or dock. If the S-Foils of a B-Wing or X-Wing didn't close, the craft would need abnormally long landing-gear and ladders to get the crew in and out. The U-Wing closes it's foils for landing mode so that the craft doesn't take up a ridiculous amount of space. And that's it.
The only time we see X-Wings close their foils during combat in canon sources is when Poe does it to squeeze in a narrow hole at Starkiller Base and when Hera does it to squeeze under the sensor tower of an ISD in Rebels. In both cases, it was only done to minimize the ship's profile. ****, if having your foils closed somehow made you faster or more maneuverable we'd have certainly seen the Red Squadron X-Wings doing it during their attack runs at Yavin, especially since they didn't need their laser cannons. And we see ships routinely accelerating to attack speed after opening their foils. If anything, ships with their foils closed should be slower and less maneuverable, not moreso.
But, this is a game, and FFG needed to find ways to make toggling them opened and closed game-relevant. The only other time it was game relevant was in an N64 on-the-rail Rogue Squadron arcade game, where perpetually opening and closing your foils gave you little boosts of speed. But that game is hardly canon, especially since like Wedge needs to kill over 100 TIE Fighters in the Endor level ... yea super realistic.
4 hours ago, BVRCH said:...'after performing a cannon attack, you may perform a bonus attack with a different equipped cannon'.
I like this idea. Bonus attacks are pretty powerful, so requiring that both be from different cannons will drive the price up, which seems like a decent trade-off.
5 hours ago, BVRCH said:...
I think its shtick should be something cannon related. The B-wing was known to be a poor flyer but with an extensive loadout bristling with cannons and advanced targeting system for making things go boom. I would like to see Linked Battery reincarnated for the B-wing with an ability akin to something like 'after attacking perform a bonus attack with an equipped cannon on locked targets' or 'after performing a cannon attack, you may perform a bonus attack with a different equipped cannon'.
I’d use that. I actually find it rather disheartening that the Linked Cannons came out in v1 when Bs were all but wiped off the board by Twin Laser Turrets. And now we’ve got Bs with 2 cannon slots and a fat load of “meh...” to fill them with.
I can see linked cannons returning once the Gunboat gets it's official release... with a buff to XG-1 to get that second cannon slot (a boy can dream!)
What if the B-Wing either got configuration cards like the Gunboat to represent different loadouts? They could do that as a way to bring back the variant seen in 1.0 where it added a Crew slot to the craft, or they could have a unique configuration to represent the B-Wing prototype from Rebels. Alternatively, it would be interesting if they had something that let it shift its bullseye arc over to the left or right at the start of the round, would be interesting to see that in conjunction with HLC on them.
1 hour ago, JJ48 said:I like this idea. Bonus attacks are pretty powerful, so requiring that both be from different cannons will drive the price up, which seems like a decent trade-off.
Yeah exactly, not only will it bump the price up balance against its bonus attack, but it will also make having 2 cannon slots actually useful. It'll feel like a B-wing should too. It's a slow mover, but if it gets you in its arc, you're going to cop some hits. Combo's like Tractor Beam into an HLC, or Jamming Beam into Ion Cannon could be really nice and worth putting a B-wing on the board.
39 minutes ago, It’s One Of Ours said:I’d use that. I actually find it rather disheartening that the Linked Cannons came out in v1 when Bs were all but wiped off the board by Twin Laser Turrets. And now we’ve got Bs with 2 cannon slots and a fat load of “meh...” to fill them with.
Yeah I totally agree.
4 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:The only time we see X-Wings close their foils during combat in canon sources is when Poe does it to squeeze in a narrow hole at Starkiller Base and when Hera does it to squeeze under the sensor tower of an ISD in Rebels.
Luke specifically tells Biggs and Wedge to close their wings in ANH to increase to full throttle in the trench run. You can disagree all you want but in Star Wars physics closing your foils on a T-65 does increase it’s top speed. Likely because the guns don’t fire in that configuration and the extra power is diverted to engines, aerodynamics has nothing to do with it.
Also a side note, never once seen an xwing enter lightspeed without it’s wings closed, further proof the ship has more engine power with the wings closed.
Edited by LordFajubiMaybe if it gets its crew upgrade slot again it can do something useful.
There are many crew members that could give the b wing an hand: Nien Numb, Leia (although you can place her on other ships), GNK, Kanan etc... not to mention new ones you could get.
2 hours ago, LordFajubi said:Luke specifically tells Biggs and Wedge to close their wings in ANH to increase to full throttle in the trench run.
No he doesn't.
You're hearing him say "Biggs, Wedge let's close up, we're going in, we're going in full throttle". He's not referring to the s-foils here, though, he's referring to formation.
Here's Darth Vader earlier in the battle using similar terminology
More importantly, you're missing the key point that regardless of what Luke says, they don't actually close their s-foils. Luke tells them they're going in full throttle, and all three X-Wings do it with their s-foils open. I don't know about you, but to me 'full throttle' sounds pretty much like 'max speed', and if they can reach max speed with the foils open, seems unlikely they need to close them to go faster, no?
If closing the s-foils actually did make the X-Wing faster then why, of all times and places, did they not do it in the trench run? That was the absolute best time to do it. All they needed was straight line speed, and didn't even need guns.
Again, as @AllWingsStandyingBy said
6 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:And we see ships routinely accelerating to attack speed after opening their foils.
Here we see Garven Dreis give the order to open s-foils, and only a few moments later he orders them to accelerate to attack speed. That is an undeniable example of the X-Wing going faster than it was previously after opening the s-foils, not closing them.
2 hours ago, LordFajubi said:Also a side note, never once seen an xwing enter lightspeed without it’s wings closed, further proof the ship has more engine power with the wings closed.
Irrelevant. The hyperdrive works completely differently from sublight thrust. Engine power can't matter against the hyperdrive power, because X-Wings with their tiny engines are just as capable of entering hyperpace as massive Star Destroyers. If closing the s-foils made a difference in engine power such as to enable FTL travel, then logically it could also be used to dramatically increase the ship's speed to relativistic but not superluminal levels more easily, but that simply isn't something we see happen. We also have no real clue about the physics of hyperspace. S-foils could simply be a preferential configuration in hyperspace because it better protects from shear forces for all we know.
2 hours ago, LordFajubi said:Likely because the guns don’t fire in that configuration and the extra power is diverted to engines, aerodynamics has nothing to do with it.
But if the question is simply one of power, why couldn't you just reroute that power with the wings open anyway? For what practical reason would you need to use power to actuate the servos serve and move the wings to transfer power?
Also, given that the only real source for closed s-foils being faster is the Rogue Squadron games, and similar, why can't equal authority be given to the X-Wing games which says you can transfer power from weapons to engines with the foils open, and that that makes the X-Wing faster?
Either they're both true (and therefore arguably contradictory) or they're both game mechanics. Can't have it both ways.
6 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:The only time we see X-Wings close their foils during combat in canon sources is when Poe does it to squeeze in a narrow hole at Starkiller Base and when Hera does it to squeeze under the sensor tower of an ISD in Rebels.
There's another example, in case you wanted an OT source.
You don't see them close all the way, but you can start to see Wedge close his s-foils to squeeze through a narrow section of the DSII tunnel just before Lando loses the dish.
And again, Wedge keeps them open for almost the entirety of the attack run. If closing the s-foils would have made him faster, why not keep them closed the whole way?
6 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:If anything, ships with their foils closed should be slower and less maneuverable, not moreso.
There's a very decent argument to be made that X-Wings are more maneuverable with their s-foils open, as it spaces the engines apart a little further. Assuming X-Wings maneuver via vectored and proportional thrust (i.e turning left means more power comes out of the right thrusters, and less out of the left) spacing them further apart increases the displacement of the thrusters vs the centre of mass, and means less engine power is needed per thruster to produce a thrust bias. In other words, spacing the engines out more makes it easier to turn.
That said, in terms of earth physics there's no real argument that closing or opening the foils would affect speed. The thrusters point the same way in both cases, and don't change their alignment. Maybe there's something there in the fact that the avionics won't be perfect, and any slight imbalances in thrust from each engine would have less of an impact when they're all pushing closer through the centre of mass? In other words, if the X-Wing 'wobbles' less with the s-foils closed, the net forward speed would be slightly higher. Or conversely, you can push more power out of the engines knowing it won't make the X-Wing as wobbly/hard to handle. Idk. Seems like the gains would be minimal, but it's the best I can do.
I've maintained since 1st edition that the b wing needs a ship ability of Prime Thrusters+hera. (Can barrel roll and do red maneuvers while stressed, if you aren't too stressed)
Let's it chain some awesome maneuvers together as long as it stops before it tears the ship apart.