Hello mathematically inclined XWingers! I have a somewhat complex (for me) scenario and I was wondering if you could help me figure it out:

The question: What is my expected overall damage on a single target?

The scenario:

1. Static Element: 4-tie fighters, each with evade token +Juke ept, each attacking the same target once.

2. The Modifying Element: A gunboat attacking the same defender as the tie fighters (attacks first), with a focus token, with either

A. Barrage Rockets; B. Jamming Beam C. Tractor Beam

3. The Defender: Always 1 focus token, starting with one defense die --> up to 4 defense die

_______

I image that the more HP a target has, and if a single defense die, then tractor beam is probably the way to go. The answer seems trickier to me against someone like a 3 agility ace, with 3 hull, with a focus. Do you take a missile instead and just try to wipe them off the board? Jamming beam to strip the focus?

(Also for the enthusiasts who like to make things extra complicated. What if on tie fighter spent the evade token already? What if 3 tie fighters?)

You might want to check out this great tool:

http://xwing.gateofstorms.net/2/multi/

I know you want maths not questions, but are you sure you want Juking TIEs? That's pretty awful. I mean whatever else the answer comes back with, it'd be a better result if you weren't Juking TIEs.

1 hour ago, SOTL said:

I know you want maths not questions, but are you sure you want Juking TIEs? That's pretty awful. I mean whatever else the answer comes back with, it'd be a better result if you weren't Juking TIEs.

Do you know they are bad without the maths to prove it ? ;D . And if the answer to that is yes, then post it here for me plz

Also, I'm personally wondering if in 2.0 they are worth more because losing/using a focus token matters more than it did in 1.0

So I envision it kinda like your 1.0 snapswarm list where the more snaps you have the better they get. Or with the old crackshot lists, back when crackshot was more usable, the more cracks you have the better they get. Maybe the more jukes you have the better they get.

So, while I don't plan on bringing a list like this to a tourney (yet), I'm wondering if there is a way to optimize it (hence the above question) and I'd like to play around/test it.

Scenario A: Gunboat with Barrage rockets (but no rerolls!), 4TIEs with Juke, all range2:

• Defender with 1green+focus
  • 4.94 damage
• Defender with 2green+focus
  • 4.01 damage
• Defender with 3green+focus
  • 3.04 damage
• Defender with 4green+focus
  • 2.17 damage

Scenario B: Gunboat with Jamming beam, 4TIEs with Juke [EDIT: Careful, all numbers here are assuming that the defender lost his focus against the Jam independent of hit/miss]

• Defender with 1green+focus
  • Jam hits: 89% to hit, TIEs do 4 damage
  • Jam misses: 11% to miss, I don't care enough to do the math by hand to calculate the probability of Jam missing and the defender keeping the focus. But the damage would then be 3.08
• Defender with 2green+focus
  • Jam hits: 70% to hit, TIEs do 3.58 damage
• Defender with 3green+focus
  • Jam hits: 46% to hit, TIEs do 3 damage
• Defender with 4green+focus
  • Jam hits: 27% to hit, TIEs do 2.4 damage

Scenario C : Gunboat with Tractor beam, 4TIEs with Juke

• Defender with 1green+focus
  • Tractor hits, focus kept: 4 damage
  • Tractor missed, focus spent: 4 damage
  • Tractor missed, focus kept: 3.08 damage
• Defender with 2green+focus
  • Tractor hits, focus kept: 3.08 damage
  • Tractor missed, focus spent: 3.58 damage
  • Tractor missed, focus kept: 2.51 damage
• Defender with 3green+focus
  • Tractor hits, focus kept: 2.51 damage
  • Tractor missed, focus spent: 3 damage
  • Tractor missed, focus kept: 1.88 damage
• Defender with 4green+focus
  • Tractor hits, focus kept: 1.88 damage
  • Tractor missed, focus spent: 2.41 damage
  • Tractor missed, focus kept: 1.31 damage

EDIT: C corrected

And to comment: If the defender in scenarios B and C can keep the focus after the first attack, then the numbers after will be of course lower!

But even so we can already tell that Barrage rockets is always better except against 4 agility in B+C, or against a hitting Tractor against 3 agility.

So that is the only edge case that you'd have to look into any further if you want to simply compare to barrage rockets.

How are juking TIEs getting 4.9 damage? He should only be rolling 4 hits on average as he's no dice mods.

Were you focusing your attacks?

3 minutes ago, SOTL said:

How are juking TIEs getting 4.9 damage? He should only be rolling 4 hits on average as he's no dice mods.

Were you focusing your attacks?

That includes barrage rockets+focus. But I always inserted the link so you can check if I made a mistake, which is entirely possible

@GreenDragoon

For scenario C, why would the defender spend the focus if the tractor was going to hit? (it would bring no value to the equation)

@Gibbilo

This scenario gets more complex if you can account for things like the tractor to move a ship onto a rock (perhaps causing an additional damage) or moving the enemy ship into range one of the ties. Or moving the ship into arc of a ship that may not have had arc. Unfortunately, you can't take both barrage rockets and a tractor beam on a gunboat (clever ffg and there making us decide things).

Pure damage is not the only factor to be considered in this scenario and it's where the old mathwing kind of falls apart, this may be one of the scenarios where some trial and error is needed to determine what actually produces more damage in practice.

This is fun. What changes if TIEs are at range 1? Or just 3attack ships.

Scenario A: Gunboat with Barrage rockets (but no rerolls!), 4TIEs with Juke, TIEs range1 :

• Defender with 1green+focus
  • 6.9 damage , +1.96
• Defender with 2green+focus
  • 5.89 damage , +1.88
• Defender with 3green+focus
  • 4.74 damage , +1.7
• Defender with 4green+focus
  • 3.63 damage , +1.46

Scenario B: Gunboat with Jamming beam, 4TIEs with Juke , TIEs range1:

• Defender with 1green+focus
  • Jam hits: 89% to hit, TIEs do 6 damage
  • Jam missed: 5.04 damage
• Defender with 2green+focus
  • Jam hits: 70% to hit, TIEs do 5.51 damage
  • Jam missed: 4.34 damage
• Defender with 3green+focus
  • Jam hits: 46% to hit, TIEs do 4.78 damage
  • Jam missed: 3.5 damage
• Defender with 4green+focus
  • Jam hits: 27% to hit, TIEs do 4 damage
  • Jam missed: 2.66 damage

Scenario C : Gunboat with Tractor beam, 4TIEs with Juke, TIEs range1:

• Defender with 1green+focus
  • Tractor hits, focus spent: 6 damage
  • Tractor hits, focus kept: 6 damage
  • Tractor missed, focus spent: 6 damage
  • Tractor missed, focus kept: 5.04 damage
• Defender with 2green+focus
  • Tractor hits, focus spent : 6 damage
  • Tractor hits, focus kept: 5.04 damage
  • Tractor missed, focus spent: 5.51 damage
  • Tractor missed, focus kept: 4.34 damage
• Defender with 3green+focus
  • Tractor hits, focus spent: 5.51 damage
  • Tractor hits, focus kept: 4.34 damage
  • Tractor missed, focus spent: 4.79 damage
  • Tractor missed, focus kept: 3.5 damage
• Defender with 4green+focus
  • Tractor hits, focus spent: 4.79 damage
  • Tractor hits, focus kept: 3.5 damage
  • Tractor missed, focus spent: 4 damage
  • Tractor missed, focus kept: 2.66 damage

Having a focus is very important, also but not only because you have juke. It looks like jamming beam is really not a good contender against a single mod ship when you attack 5 times.

Going to range 1 is of course a good idea for offense, but more importantly it massively improves the control cannons! Not Jam, that's still equal or worse than barrage. But Tractor can profit much more, and even against 2 green dice there's a case where you do more damage already. Against 3 green dice it doesn't even matter whether you hit the tractor as long as the focus is spent. That sounds strange, but the barrage rockets deal 0.6 damage on their own and have a 53% chance to remove the focus. If you deal no damage but did remove the focus then that's better on average. And then against 4 dice, the tractor is just better than barrage, unless you miss and he can keep the token.

What I didn't add and won't do is the case when the Gunboat goes to range1, too, and gets his range bonus. And I also won't compare range1 gunboat, 3 range1 TIEs and a range2 TIE, or other combinations of that...

The point is, you need a good reason not to take Barrage, and these numbers look like there is barely any.

1 minute ago, Icelom said:

For scenario C, why would the defender spend the focus if the tractor was going to hit? (it would bring no value to the equation)

because he's as mindless as I am...

2 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

The point is, you need a good reason not to take Barrage, and these numbers look like there is barely any.

My reasoning would be the none math covered intangibles I listed in my previous post that a tractor beam brings to the party.

4 minutes ago, Icelom said:

My reasoning would be the none math covered intangibles I listed in my previous post that a tractor beam brings to the party.

yes, that's a good point.

Jamming beam however only improves damage, and does a good job in this specific scenario as it is basically as good as a barrage rocket and saves you 4 points. But unless you really need these 4 points, you might as well go with barrage rockets instead and have more reliable damage.

I corrected the Cs in both

16 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

because he's as mindless as I am...

Thanks for compiling all of these its neet to see.

I do think barrage rockets are probably the best choice overall, especially considering the tractor drops huge amounts of value as ties die (the jam has no value.... its a bad weapon trading your attack to remove a single token is just trash, maybe on an m3a as its the cheapest platform but even then I don't think so... any opponent would gladly trade a single token to stop a ship from attacking them). I can just see an argument for the tractor allowing more damage simply by being able to move the enemy ship where you want it to be, as well as reducing incoming damage (from being on rocks, or traveling through them and costing actions)

edit: i guess a jamming beam could strip a bunch of tokens (say tl+f) on an enemy ship before it has the chance to use them offensively against you... but planning on this scenario seems like a bad idea (especially because you need to put that on a more expensive higher initiative pilot in order for it to work)

7 minutes ago, Icelom said:

I  do think barrage rockets are probably the best choice ove  ral  l  

Agreed. Your point with losing TIEs is really important here!

8 minutes ago, Icelom said:

I  can just see an argument for the tractor allowing more d  amage simply by being able to move the enem  y sh  ip where you want it to be, as well as reducin  g  incoming damage 

Yes, but that can also be countered by careful flying. Which might be worth it already in some cases?

9 minutes ago, Icelom said:

i   guess a jamming beam could strip a bunch of tokens (say tl+f) o  n an enemy ship before it has the chance t   o     use t   h  em

Well the price of 2pt makes it maybe worth? The scenario I imagine is a list that will use jamming beam against lower IN and something else against higher? In that case it would be another tool. Then it raises the question in what case jam would be better than an attack?

Maybe when you 100% can‘t kill the ship with the jam carrier, but have one that can (eg a proton left) with low HP or just before half points. You want to engage but really not lose the ship, and jamming will safe it?

That‘s awfully specific but would be worth 2 points?

1 hour ago, Gibbilo said:

I  'm   wondering if there is a way to optimize it 

I’m taking Howlrunner for re-rolls this week. Have no maths to back up whether this is any good ?

Juking TIEs

(40) "Howlrunner"
(4) Juke
Points 44

(26) Black Squadron Ace
(4) Juke
Points 30

(40) Iden Versio
(4) Juke
Points 44

(30) Del Meeko
(4) Juke
Points 34

(42) "Duchess"
(1) Crack Shot
(5) Proton Bombs
Points 48

Total points: 200

According to the probability counter, the only time an unmodified Juked attack will have higher average damage than a focused attack to an unfocused defender is 2 attack against 2 defense die. And it's a pretty tiny difference, 0.85 compared to 0.895. Otherwise, a focus will do better statistically than Juke.

Rule of thumb is: Unless you're getting a free evade token somehow (Full Throttle, Stygium, Sabine), Juke isn't worth the points (often for both the talent and the slot) and the opportunity cost.

The "JukeSwarm" I was thinking of:

• Howlrunner (Juke) (44)
• Valen Rudor (Juke) (32)
• Black Squadron Ace (Juke) (30)
• Black Squadron Ace (Juke) (30)
• Whisper (Juke, Collision Detector) (61)
  • total 197, bid 3

Anyhow, a 2 dice attack with Juke and Howlrunner against a 2 green defender without focus does an average of 1.252 damage. A 2 dice Focused Howlrunner attack does 1.11 damage on average against the same unfocused 2 green dice.

Jukeswarm's synergies are probably a lot more fragile than just focusing and taking cheaper ships. Meanwhile, you'll be throwing wet noodles if you run up against a Luke (Luke Counters Juke!), and Boba Fett probably care much either. If you barrel roll or K-Turn, the lower ship count will really hurt as well. Consider an alternate list where you drop Collision Detector from Whisper, run the TIEs without any Talents, and you'll be able to swap Valen Rudor for two Black Squadron Aces. (5*1.11 = 5.55) > (4*1.252 = 5.008). There's some chance Valen Rudor would also have a focus token from his ability, which would claw back most but not all of the difference, but JukeSwarm isn't going to be better than just running TIEs. But it's probably not *that* much worse if you wanted an excuse to field a squad with a massive number of alt-art Jukes from Store Championships.

• Howlrunner (40)
• Black Squadron Ace (26)
• Black Squadron Ace (26)
• Black Squadron Ace (26)
• Black Squadron Ace (26)
• Whisper (Juke) (56)
  • total 200, bid 0

19 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Having a focus is very important, also but not only because you have juke. It looks like jamming beam is really not a good contender against a single mod ship when you attack 5 times.

Going to range 1 is of course a good idea for offense, but more importantly it massively improves the control cannons! Not Jam, that's still equal or worse than barrage. But Tractor can profit much more, and even against 2 green dice there's a case where you do more damage already. Against 3 green dice it doesn't even matter whether you hit the tractor as long as the focus is spent. That sounds strange, but the barrage rockets deal 0.6 damage on their own and have a 53% chance to remove the focus. If you deal no damage but did remove the focus then that's better on average. And then against 4 dice, the tractor is just better than barrage, unless you miss and he can keep the token.

What I didn't add and won't do is the case when the Gunboat goes to range1, too, and gets his range bonus. And I also won't compare range1 gunboat, 3 range1 TIEs and a range2 TIE, or other combinations of that...

The point is, you need a good reason not to take Barrage, and these numbers look like there is barely any.

See this is the type of stuff I thought we might try and figure out better! Intuitively it seems like barrage is probably better overall with more versatility and the numbers seem to support that. However I think we learned some weird scenarios, specifically related to tractor beam, where you could justify it as a side inclusion, especially if high agility squads start coming back

18 hours ago, Icelom said:

Thanks for compiling all of these its neet to see.

I do think barrage rockets are probably the best choice overall, especially considering the tractor drops huge amounts of value as ties die (the jam has no value.... its a bad weapon trading your attack to remove a single token is just trash, maybe on an m3a as its the cheapest platform but even then I don't think so... any opponent would gladly trade a single token to stop a ship from attacking them). I can just see an argument for the tractor allowing more damage simply by being able to move the enemy ship where you want it to be, as well as reducing incoming damage (from being on rocks, or traveling through them and costing actions)

edit: i guess a jamming beam could strip a bunch of tokens (say tl+f) on an enemy ship before it has the chance to use them offensively against you... but planning on this scenario seems like a bad idea (especially because you need to put that on a more expensive higher initiative pilot in order for it to work)

Yeah this is unfortunate but I think you are right here. I was hoping now that focus tokens are worth more, stuff like Jam would be better, especially if combo'd with something like juke, but it doesn't seem to be the case. And also, now that we are starting to establish that tractor beam can maybe do some work, save some points, and also we then get into all kinds of incalculable scenarios related to its ability to reposition, I think it might be worth bringing more frequently then we as a community probably acknowledge right now.

18 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Agreed. Your point with losing TIEs is really important here!

Yes, but that can also be countered by careful flying. Which might be worth it already in some cases?

Well the price of 2pt makes it maybe worth? The scenario I imagine is a list that will use jamming beam against lower IN and something else against higher? In that case it would be another tool. Then it raises the question in what case jam would be better than an attack?

Maybe when you 100% can‘t kill the ship with the jam carrier, but have one that can (eg a proton left) with low HP or just before half points. You want to engage but really not lose the ship, and jamming will safe it?

That‘s awfully specific but would be worth 2 points?

You are right, when I designed this squad one of the scenarios I had in mind was focusing a lower IN ship during the engagement. Not sure what I would do against someone like Fenn or Vader though...

I think part of the attractiveness also is that if you are facing someone with a lot of high IN you are probably facing someone with fewer ships and fewer attacks, once again making taking a focus on your side potentially less attractive and making an evade more attractive.

Running a juke squad gives you even more flexibility of evade vs. focus when facing an opponents ace squad (might be less relevant now that people are doing more swarmy things in 2.0, but we don't know how the meta will change). This also might matter more if you are running a middling squad with decent pilot abilities, but not the IN to outfly real aces, more flexibility on the focus vs. evade choice could help you maintain some damage while staying alive 1 turn longer to use that native ability.

10 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

The "JukeSwarm" I was thinking of:

• Howlrunner (Juke) (44)
• Valen Rudor (Juke) (32)
• Black Squadron Ace (Juke) (30)
• Black Squadron Ace (Juke) (30)
• Whisper (Juke, Collision Detector) (61)
  • total 197, bid 3

Anyhow, a 2 dice attack with Juke and Howlrunner against a 2 green defender without focus does an average of 1.252 damage. A 2 dice Focused Howlrunner attack does 1.11 damage on average against the same unfocused 2 green dice.

Jukeswarm's synergies are probably a lot more fragile than just focusing and taking cheaper ships. Meanwhile, you'll be throwing wet noodles if you run up against a Luke (Luke Counters Juke!), and Boba Fett probably care much either. If you barrel roll or K-Turn, the lower ship count will really hurt as well. Consider an alternate list where you drop Collision Detector from Whisper, run the TIEs without any Talents, and you'll be able to swap Valen Rudor for two Black Squadron Aces. (5*1.11 = 5.55) > (4*1.252 = 5.008). There's some chance Valen Rudor would also have a focus token from his ability, which would claw back most but not all of the difference, but JukeSwarm isn't going to be better than just running TIEs. But it's probably not *that* much worse if you wanted an excuse to field a squad with a massive number of alt-art Jukes from Store Championships.

• Howlrunner (40)
• Black Squadron Ace (26)
• Black Squadron Ace (26)
• Black Squadron Ace (26)
• Black Squadron Ace (26)
• Whisper (Juke) (56)
  • total 200, bid 0

I think you and others above make some good points about the potential synergistic fragileness of a juke swarm, though I think the point about barrel rolling or K-turning hurting the juke synergy could also be made against a tie focus swarm as well. Also, thanks for confirming that we finally have a good use for alt-art juke cards.

11 hours ago, Tvboy said:

According to the probability counter, the only time an unmodified Juked attack will have higher average damage than a focused attack to an unfocused defender is 2 attack against 2 defense die. And it's a pretty tiny difference, 0.85 compared to 0.895. Otherwise, a focus will do better statistically than Juke.

Rule of thumb is: Unless you're getting a free evade token somehow (Full Throttle, Stygium, Sabine), Juke isn't worth the points (often for both the talent and the slot) and the opportunity cost.

I was actually thinking about this last night. As it turns out a Juke+Evade 2 dice attack has higher expected damage against an un-focused 2 dice or even 3 dice defender than a standard 2 dice attack plus focus. .... ?!?! this kind of blew me away!

But of course against a focused defender that difference is actually inverted right?

So the lesson is perform a focused attack or two to break the defenders focus, and then perform juke attacks to maximize damage?!?!

Now im starting to imagine all kinds of weird mini squads of 2 or 3 ties where a certain number take focus and the rest juke !

1 hour ago, Gibbilo said:

I think you and others above make some good points about the potential synergistic fragileness of a juke swarm, though I think the point about barrel rolling or K-turning hurting the juke synergy could also be made against a tie focus swarm as well. Also, thanks for confirming that we finally have a good use for alt-art juke cards.

While focus-based ties are also weakened without focus tokens, they're enough lower in price that you probably have more of them. That's it.

The issue is that you're spending 4-8 points (the talent slot itself often costs points) for something that is only marginally better, if at all, than what you can get for free and that you might not even get to use if the defender is focused or if your Juke ship is forced to spend its evade defensively before it gets to fire. Why pay points for Juke when you can take a focus for free? 4-8 points can quickly add up to a full ship or at least a named pilot over a generic if you're trying to add it to multiple ships.

1 hour ago, Tvboy said:

The issue is that you're spending 4-8 points (the talent slot itself often costs points) for something that is only marginally better, if at all, than what you can get for free and that you might not even get to use if the defender is focused or if your Juke ship is forced to spend its evade defensively before it gets to fire. Why pay points for Juke when you can take a focus for free? 4-8 points can quickly add up to a full ship or at least a named pilot over a generic if you're trying to add it to multiple ships.

Well you're right, but I think we need to clarify what we are talking about now.

I think we've established that a Juke "swarm" probably isn't going to work, even with a tractor beam or jamming beam to support it.

However I think we've also identified a sublist with interesting possibilities (a Juke "gang"?), which could work if you bring a fighter screen to act as blockers or distractors to the real component of your list and you have <23points left over.

2 hours ago, Tvboy said:

The issue is that you're spending 4-8 points (the talent slot itself often costs points) for something that is only marginally better, if at all, than what you can get for free and that you might not even get to use if the defender is focused or if your Juke ship is forced to spend its evade defensively before it gets to fire. Why pay points for Juke when you can take a focus for free? 4-8 points can quickly add up to a full ship or at least a named pilot over a generic if you're trying to add it to multiple ships.

Yes, offensively, you are worse off with Juke/Evade than a Focus. But Juke gives you an offensive buff without having to spend a token which can then be used for defense. Also there is nothing more fun and satisfying than your opponent rolling evades and then Juking one to a focus. This makes them spend a focus to prevent a hit and loose their offensive bonus or take more damage then they would’ve. For me 4 points is just the right price. Not so cheap I’ll take it every time and not so expensive that I’d just take an extra TIE or upgrade to a ship instead.

Juke can also mess with target priority if they are lower initiative. Do you focus fire the juke ship that has already spent its evade, or do you try and strip the evades off of the other three juke ships next to him?

2 hours ago, Sasajak said:

Yes, offensively, you are worse off with Juke/Evade than a Focus. But Juke gives you an offensive buff without having to spend a token which can then be used for defense. Also there is nothing more fun and satisfying than your opponent rolling evades and then Juking one to a focus. This makes them spend a focus to prevent a hit and loose their offensive bonus or take more damage then they would’ve. For me 4 points is just the right price. Not so cheap I’ll take it every time and not so expensive that I’d just take an extra TIE or upgrade to a ship instead.

That first sentence isn't exactly correct. A 2-dice attack with Juke/Evade is mathematically better than focus against 2 or more green dice which aren't protected by focus token, with or without Howlrunner. Part of what Juke does is that it scales across ships, because focus tokens are typically a really limited resource. I think part of the reason Jamming Beams aren't likely to improve a Juke list is because Juke is one of the better token strippers out there. It's essentially Darth Vader crew: your opponent spends a focus token, or takes a damage.

But even once we've established that a single Juke ship might be better than a single non-Juke ship at individual damage, folks don't fly single ships in X-Wing, but squads limited by cost. Juke isn't enough better at damage that it justifies the cost.

//

I also keep forgetting about the hidden benefit, that focus tokens spent on defense mean they can't be spent on offense. I personally don't think it's enough to make Juke better than non-Juke, but I don't have hard reasons for that. Seems hard to properly account for in a squad, since there are a lot of variables with regard to ship Initiative.