It occured to me that with the new lock rules measuring while locking is now an intended feature of this mechanic as you may first measure any number of objects (asteroids, mines, ships) and then choose one. As one range is 2 1/2 base length you can now „peek“ around and check your next move/maneuver. Vader can (ab-)use this by himself. Imagine Vader in position to take a shoot. He wants to lock (to trigger Adv. Targeting Computer and FCS) but maybe can also barrel roll out of arc of the defender in direction of an obstacle. It seems with RAW and RAI he can now „check“ (there is still room for misjudgement with the range ruler) with his target lock (by measuring both „targets“) first if he can do the barrel roll then take it or save one force.

Other pilots can at least glimpse distances for the next round planing their maneuvers ahead or need coordinate.

Seems like a little „buff“ to the target lock action.

Ultimately it's a pretty neutral situation because the opponent gets the same information too. In general any good player already has the ability to judge these kind of things without the extra information from the TL action anyway.

The converse is that it costs an action, and it forces you to lock *something* which you might not want.

It's not an abuse it's literally what you are supposed to do when you lock, measure everything then pick.

It's just another advantage to locking, your sensors go active.

its not bonus information, it's what you get when you target lock.

In other words, it’s just like it’s always been. People have been doing this sort of thing with target locking actions since 1.0 wave 1.

You don’t even need the target lock action a lot of times. During the initial approach, during the combat phase you can check for range for your ships, even if the opponents are clearly out of range, and get an idea of what speed maneuver you want to do next in order to engage when/where you want to.

1 hour ago, Herowannabe said:

In other words, it’s just like it’s always been. People have been doing this sort of thing with target locking actions since 1.0 wave 1.

You don’t even need the target lock action a lot of times. During the initial approach, during the combat phase you can check for range for your ships, even if the opponents are clearly out of range, and get an idea of what speed maneuver you want to do next in order to engage when/where you want to.

Except now you have to lock something. So now no checking to see if you should boost by trying to target lock something you know you can't because you will just end up locking a rock or an allied ship and have no action left for that boost.

6 hours ago, Icelom said:

Except now you have to lock something. So now no checking to see if you should boost by trying to target lock something you know you can't because you will just end up locking a rock or an allied ship and have no action left for that boost.

Indeed, but that’s kind of besides the point. The OP was about taking a target lock action that you wanted to take and (presumably) were confident that would succeed, and then using measurements to other objects to get additional information out of that lock.

yeah if anything this got weaker in 2.0 since you cant do the boost thing anymore.

Either you are forced to lock a friendly ship or rock after you gained info that you are just out of R3 of the enemy, or it somehow failed and you dont get a boost anyway.

And i dont think anybody except the Interceptor/Awing can boost after a targetlock, its the other way around for all the linked actions im aware of.

Yes, in a way this is less abusable in 2e than it was in 1e. The only difference is that now once you start measuring, you are locked (heh) into the lock action, so you can't try to lock something that is clearly out of range in order to gain information then perform a different action.

Yep, not an abuse, just one of the benefits of using the action. In 1.0 you were getting the benefit without spending the action, which was the problem. And it can backfire now if you gave up your action and your opponents higher PS ship surprises you by moving into firing range with a mod.

17 hours ago, Herowannabe said:

In other words, it’s just like it’s always been. People have been doing this sort of thing with target locking actions since 1.0 wave 1.

You don’t even need the target lock action a lot of times. During the initial approach, during the combat phase you can check for range for your ships, even if the opponents are clearly out of range, and get an idea of what speed maneuver you want to do next in order to engage when/where you want to.

Indeed, I know I did it just as a practice, I came across one player who only had the epic range 1-5 ruler which could squeeze out a little more information. I think the issue here is 2.0 now has actions that have fail conditions and those conditions result in a loss of action. The only action you can't fail are token actions, but jam, barrel roll, and boost all can cost you your action if you misjudge it. But you can fail a target lock and not suffer the penalty.

I still think in 1.0 the push back was from many of the players were used to playing previous games which had lets just say some restrictions on premeasuring and they consider the ability to estimate distances by looking a rewardable skill . I remember the late John Totalbiscuit Bain talking about some zerg macro tools they added in a patch of SC2 where they were experimenting with putting the Queen Egg infusion ability on auto-cast. IT seemed like a good thing allowing Zerg players to not have to micromanage their economy and focus on base building unit composition and battlefield micro. But again the whole "it removed the skill" argument came along and that QoL change was discarded in the patch. TB didn't like it and said who wants to watch someone make their 3 min queen hatchery clicks every game? The skill wasn't necessarily complementing the gameplay, for which I have to agree.

But now onto Target Lock, in 1.0 when you can't fail an action if you had one, the closest thing to failing is completing an action that placed you in a worse position then before. (i.e. barrel rolling out of arc and into range 1 of a proton bomb). That aspect of failure is still there but now with failing actions which was a hit to the arc dodging archtype play-style (which are the biggest skill-Hutts of the game mind you), but again there are the tokens focus/evade/calculate which can not be failed (only discarded or stolen). So I am split on if a failed TL action should count the same as a failed Barrel Roll action or just lets you have a different action (one that you could fail on). I think the best compromise is that you can fail a target lock action but then you cannot make another target lock action after that. Who knows the same could be done with barrel roll and boost if we need to shrink the skill gaps for using those actions.

1 hour ago, Marinealver said:

But now onto Target Lock, in 1.0 when you can't fail an action if you had one, the closest thing to failing is completing an action that placed you in a worse position then before. (i.e. barrel rolling out of arc and into range 1 of a proton bomb). That aspect of failure is still there but now with failing actions which was a hit to the arc dodging archtype play-style (which are the biggest skill-Hutts of the game mind you), but again there are the tokens focus/evade/calculate which can not be failed (only discarded or stolen). So I am split on if a failed TL action should count the same as a failed Barrel Roll action or just lets you have a different action (one that you could fail on). I think the best compromise is that you can fail a target lock action but then you cannot make another target lock action after that. Who knows the same could be done with barrel roll and boost if we need to shrink the skill gaps for using those actions.

4

It's just another aspect of risk vs reward, same thing goes when you put down your dial

"looks like I can make the barrel roll, but am I willing to risk it if I fail?"

It adds some extra excitement and thrill to the game, and I love it.

What you are suggesting takes that away, I can say "I am target locking" to check the range to a ship I know is out of range to see how close I am to know if a boost would get me there or not. Or I target lock thinking I am in range but it turns out I am not so I can do a boost to get in range. However, in the current second edition world, I have to ask myself "am I in range of that ship? or should I boost in to make sure I am? if I am in range now I would like a target lock or a focus, but if I'm not I need to boost... ahhh what should I do?"

Its just way more fun when your decisions have more meaning and are more important and the failed actions are very good at doing that and I have never once thought FFG made a mistake, the game is simply a better game with how actions fail.

If you want your solution then pay for a talent slot and points for composure and then remove all risk/fun.

1 hour ago, Icelom said:

It's just another aspect of risk vs reward, same thing goes when you put down your dial

"looks like I can make the barrel roll, but am I willing to risk it if I fail?"

It adds some extra excitement and thrill to the game, and I love it.

What you are suggesting takes that away, I can say "I am target locking" to check the range to a ship I know is out of range to see how close I am to know if a boost would get me there or not. Or I target lock thinking I am in range but it turns out I am not so I can do a boost to get in range. However, in the current second edition world, I have to ask myself "am I in range of that ship? or should I boost in to make sure I am? if I am in range now I would like a target lock or a focus, but if I'm not I need to boost... ahhh what should I do?"

Its just way more fun when your decisions have more meaning and are more important and the failed actions are very good at doing that and I have never once thought FFG made a mistake, the game is simply a better game with how actions fail.

If you want your solution then pay for a talent slot and points for composure and then remove all risk/fun.

I wouldn't call every decision risk vs reward. That is almost like declaring every win a result. If you want actual Risk vs Reward then use Jek Porkins. You want to have every game be the perfect play wins, but there was a whole article on how that is not X-wing. It is not Risk/reward or Chess with dice it is a table top miniatures wargame with the scifi theme of Star Wars. Making it a no noobs allowed game gets you well, where Mallaufax is at. Sure clutch decisions are great for gameplay but if it is every micro decision then the game is stupid, not fun.

37 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

I wouldn't call every decision risk vs reward. That is almost like declaring every win a result. If you want actual Risk vs Reward then use Jek Porkins. You want to have every game be the perfect play wins, but there was a whole article on how that is not X-wing. It is not Risk/reward or Chess with dice it is a table top miniatures wargame with the scifi theme of Star Wars. Making it a no noobs allowed game gets you well, where Mallaufax is at. Sure clutch decisions are great for gameplay but if it is every micro decision then the game is stupid, not fun.

In your opinion...

to me, the added excitement of maybe not making a barrel roll adds a ton of fun.

Not sure how failing barrel rolls and boosts can equate to chess... every move you make in chess succeeds if anything adding in the ability to fail moves it away from that sort of game.

If you don't want the skilled player to win then what you want is a simple random number generator and the winner is whoever rolls higher.

I don't want the game you want, and I certainly would have stopped playing as a noob if I realized that skill was inconsequential to the game. Decisions have to matter or there is no point in playing the game might as well just toss a coin.

Jek Porkins is random not at all the same thing as taking a risk that your barrel roll will fit.

On 10/1/2018 at 9:35 AM, Vineheart01 said:

yeah if anything this got weaker in 2.0 since you cant do the boost thing anymore.

Either you are forced to lock a friendly ship or rock after you gained info that you are just out of R3 of the enemy, or it somehow failed and you dont get a boost anyway.

And i dont think anybody except the Interceptor/Awing can boost after a targetlock, its the other way around for all the linked actions im aware of.

Except Targetting Computer is removed! AAAAUUUUUUGGGGHHHHH! We now need our rerolls from Predator (Soontir) or support craft such as Sloane or Howlrunner. But TBH, none of the interceptors would want to lock anyway, if given the opportunity to equip the Computer.

Oh yeah...forgot about that....

literally never use interceptors atm. I dont see a reason to use them over phantom/strikers at ALL (both price or performance, both are lacking in the interceptor imo)

11 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

Oh yeah...forgot about that....

literally never use interceptors atm. I dont see a reason to use them over phantom/strikers at ALL (both price or performance, both are lacking in the interceptor imo)

I have run soontir twice now (once with elusiveness and once with predator) and he was very very good for me. Double repositioning with a token is nice. Not sure how i feel about the others, seems like the fang fighter outclasses them pretty hard. I can definitely see a reason to take them over a striker (generics) same point cost trade a hit point for an evade dice (might be worth it no idea) and gain a really big pile of action efficiency and flexibility. 34pts is pretty good for the alpha, you gain a **** of a lot for 11pts over an academy tie.