Proton torpedo cost depends on whether you are generic or limited. Generic cost doesn’t change, cost for limited pilots goes up an arbitrary amount.

Having just finished shed the last Krayts, I have a hunch that all those proton torpedoes aren’t going on generics, where they’re probably Fine (tm).

it might not hurt to have most ordnance costs scale with initiative

There are quite a few things that should scale with init. (Any Coordinate ability, any repositioning ability, any bullseye arc ability that triggers after the activation phase, and so on.)

Don't take things out on poor Sunny Bounder. They def should depend on initiative. What're the odds we ever get there?

8 minutes ago, svelok said:

it might not hurt to have most ordnance costs scale with initiative

1 minute ago, Jeff Wilder said:

There are quite a few things that should scale with init. (Any Coordinate ability, any repositioning ability, any bullseye arc ability that triggers after executing a maneuver, and so on.)

Counter: Is there really a substantial difference between torps at I5 and I6?

additionally: I would argue that this should bring in more I4 generics than scaling by initiative, and I want to live in that world.

Just now, gamblertuba said:

Don't take things out on poor Sunny Bounder. They def should depend on initiative. What're the odds we ever get there?

That which is dead may never die? 😂

It's a can of worms. Just about everything that doesn't vary in cost could be argued that it should vary by initiative. Do we want a scaling cost for every upgrade?

That said, I could see some minor scaling by grouping iniatives into low (1 and 2), medium (3 and 4), and high (5 and 6) and vary a little off that for the things that are really pronounced.

4 minutes ago, PaulRuddSays said:

Counter: Is there really a substantial difference between torps at I5 and I6?

Whisper probably thinks so.

3 minutes ago, PaulRuddSays said:

Counter: Is there really a substantial difference between torps at I5 and I6? 

Most of the times I've seen this kind of costing suggested, it's been three different point costs--initiatives 1&2/3&4/5&6.

1 minute ago, GeneralVryth said:

It's a can of worms. Just about everything that doesn't vary in cost could be argued that it should vary by initiative. Do we want a scaling cost for every upgrade?

I don't necessarily want a scaling cost for every upgrade, but I want the value of initiative to be properly reflected in the costs of ships at that initiative. So far FFG doesn't seem very good at recognizing the immense value of I5 over I4 and I6 over I5.

Scaling upgrades would be easier in terms of balancing the costs of X Init pilots than trying to balance the base pilot would be. (I think, anyway.)

my hunch is FFG will just increase the cost of proton torps. By how much is anyones guess but i can see it being +3pts. now 12pts total.

Why not just widen the price difference between lower and higher initiative. Kinda catches all.

0/10 thread does nothing to address the multitude of problems facing 18th century Ireland

8 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

Why not just widen the price difference between lower and higher initiative. Kinda catches all.

This.....

I'd higher initiative is the problem then deal with that, any other changes just moves the issue to some other effect

That being said I have moved away from ordnance the more I play second edition. Ordinance is fantastic against players you are better then (so don't need it) and gets weaker the better your opponent is then you (so you are spending points on stuff you won't use when you are allready behind ). Due to ordinaces firing requirements it can be flown around this becomes more relevant the better your opponent is to the point of making it bad against someone who fly's better then you and those points are now a waste in a matchup you were allready behind on.

Several games now I have not allowed by opponents to even fire there ordinance , so they have paid upwards of an entire other ship that was never used. When I see lists just packed with missiles and torps I wonder if they would do more damage by just having an effective blocker in the list instead.

Just my 2 cents, alot of this could just be my playstyle and not representative of other people (for example if you are less aggressive then me it may be the opposite)

@Icelom Does that include barrage rockets too?

What? This isn't a modest proposal at all! Where are recipes for homeless children?

31 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

Why not just widen the price difference between lower and higher initiative. Kinda catches all.

I lean mostly towards this. It avoids any fiddly overhead involved with new price scaling, and gets at the fact that *everything* is better at higher initiative.

I can see the other side's point, though.

42 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

Why not just widen the price difference between lower and higher initiative. Kinda catches all.

3 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

I lean mostly towards this. It avoids any fiddly overhead involved with new price scaling, and gets at the fact that *everything* is better at higher initiative.

I can see the other side's point, though.

See, people are widely suggesting that a rise in the price of Protorps would be fair.

But that's not the case for lower-initiative ships that can't get a TL on the first pass, and the enemy can force R1 with a boost by engagement phase 2. That's why people are suggesting the differing upgrade costs for that. Yes, generally making high-initiative more expensive specifically compared to their lower-initiative counterparts might seem just as fair, but then you're left with the ones who are only a problem with their Protorps.

And if you nerf i5/6 too much, while you might push a few lazy bums to fly something more difficult, you're also alienating a large portion of players who just wanna fly Aces, not to mention you risk hanging popular characters out to dry.

It's all a very finely tuned environment. Unfortunately there probably isn't any one answer, so we just have to wait and see and hope FFG figures something out.

13 minutes ago, SpiderMana said:

See, people are widely suggesting that a rise in the price of Protorps would be fair.

But that's not the case for lower-initiative ships that can't get a TL on the first pass, and the enemy can force R1 with a boost by engagement phase 2. That's why people are suggesting the differing upgrade costs for that. Yes, generally making high-initiative more expensive specifically compared to their lower-initiative counterparts might seem just as fair, but then you're left with the ones who are only a problem with their Protorps.

And if you nerf i5/6 too much, while you might push a few lazy bums to fly something more difficult, you're also alienating a large portion of players who just wanna fly Aces, not to mention you risk hanging popular characters out to dry.

It's all a very finely tuned environment. Unfortunately there probably isn't any one answer, so we just have to wait and see and hope FFG figures something out.

Which is why I would say the real answer is twofold. First, widen the price gap due to initiative, and second, add some upgrades that favor lower initiative pilots more than higher initiative pilots. Things that let you do something at the end of the activation phase/beginning of the combat phase for some kind of cost fit well (if the effect is the equivalent of an action I would make the cost a focus token and something else or make the effect more limited).

34 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

I lean mostly towards this. It avoids any fiddly overhead involved with new price scaling, and gets at the fact that *everything* is better at higher initiative.

You think Quadjumpers would be more valuable at Init 6?

To lend a machete to your mental thicket, is it that the torps themselves are the problems or that the pilots using them are? The #1 torp user easily is Redline, a super undercosted pilot that can casually fire the torps fully modified at I5. Other big offenders are pilots like Luke who can also casually fire at I5 and while he may not have a focus, will pretty much always have 2 force. As someone who's played a lot of torp users, you're not super worried about a torp with just a lock behind it for mods. It semi-consistently 3 hits and rarely gets less than 2, but it's genuinely uncommon to see 4. The torp is going to hurt especially with the auto crit, but based on average expected results, a cost of 9 isn't unreasonable. The problem is when you start heavily dipping into pilots that can skew the math into full strings with almost every shot. I'd argue, these pilots are problematic and need to be costed accordingly regardless of available secondary weapons because their abilities offer an exceptional value even removed from this particular upgrade.

TL:DR it's not the torps or the initiative, it's the specific pilot abilities

14 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

To lend a machete to your mental thicket, is it that the torps themselves are the problems or that the pilots using them are? The #1 torp user easily is Redline, a super undercosted pilot that can casually fire the torps fully modified at I5. Other big offenders are pilots like Luke who can also casually fire at I5 and while he may not have a focus, will pretty much always have 2 force. As someone who's played a lot of torp users, you're not super worried about a torp with just a lock behind it for mods. It semi-consistently 3 hits and rarely gets less than 2, but it's genuinely uncommon to see 4. The torp is going to hurt especially with the auto crit, but based on average expected results, a cost of 9 isn't unreasonable. The problem is when you start heavily dipping into pilots that can skew the math into full strings with almost every shot. I'd argue, these pilots are problematic and need to be costed accordingly regardless of available secondary weapons because their abilities offer an exceptional value even removed from this particular upgrade.

TL:DR it's not the torps or the initiative, it's the specific pilot abilities

This is mostly consistent with the way I was looking at it, which is why it could make sense to cost it based on having abilities beyond the chassis.

ord'nance will never mesh with this rules system. its one of the things many assumed would be fixed in 2.0 because it was such an obvious design flaw in 1.0, but instead its just a repeat.

by defining the ordnances behaviour as a regular attack(even with TL reqs), then a missile/torp is simply compared to a standard attack for value. either its better than a standard attack for the points or worse than a standard attack right off the bat. (this is not true for "effect" on hit weapons like ion torpedoes. ill get back to that)

if its worse, its DOA. for example you would never pay 15 points for a one time 3 red shot when you could simply upgrade the chassis to better effect

if it is basically a regular attack for normal pricing, then it becomes pointless to equip unless you really really want your favorite 2 red die pilot to roll 3 red or whatever. in this case its essentially a fix or thematic choice, which is fine but begs the question why it needs to be in the game at all

the real problem arises when the missile/torp increases raw damage beyond the normal 2/3 dice range the system is built around, because now its objectively better with no drawback and the obvious WAAC strategy becomes alpha striking which is what broke first edition.

so basically from a game design perspective, ord'nance should only exist in the game for effects that change gameplay dynamics and make the strategically different WITHOUT power creep.

so primarilly control aspects like ion or stress, but theres room for range shenanagins and chassis specific goodies as well

in real life missiles replaced dogfighting in war, because theyre technologically superior to guns. if they exist in game as nothing more than power creeped attacks, then its triple jumps and harpoon swarms all over again... "win at innitiative: the game" forever. to prevent that FFGs whole philosophy towards ordnance needs to change

47 minutes ago, Vontoothskie said:

ord'nance will never mesh with this rules system. its one of the things many assumed would be fixed in 2.0 because it was such an obvious design flaw in 1.0, but instead its just a repeat.

by defining the ordnances behaviour as a regular attack(even with TL reqs), then a missile/torp is simply compared to a standard attack for value. either its better than a standard attack for the points or worse than a standard attack right off the bat. (this is not true for "effect" on hit weapons like ion torpedoes. ill get back to that)

if its worse, its DOA. for example you would never pay 15 points for a one time 3 red shot when you could simply upgrade the chassis to better effect

if it is basically a regular attack for normal pricing, then it becomes pointless to equip unless you really really want your favorite 2 red die pilot to roll 3 red or whatever. in this case its essentially a fix or thematic choice, which is fine but begs the question why it needs to be in the game at all

the real problem arises when the missile/torp increases raw damage beyond the normal 2/3 dice range the system is built around, because now its objectively better with no drawback and the obvious WAAC strategy becomes alpha striking which is what broke first edition.

so basically from a game design perspective, ord'nance should only exist in the game for effects that change gameplay dynamics and make the strategically different WITHOUT power creep.

so primarilly control aspects like ion or stress, but theres room for range shenanagins and chassis specific goodies as well

in real life missiles replaced dogfighting in war, because theyre technologically superior to guns. if they exist in game as nothing more than power creeped attacks, then its triple jumps and harpoon swarms all over again... "win at innitiative: the game" forever. to prevent that FFGs whole philosophy towards ordnance needs to change

Spot on, IMHO.

I would only add 2 points:

Throwing more dice is acceptable, but it should be hard to set up, like the old adv proton torps.

And I have always advocated that missiles/torps should have a 180-degree "anything in front of me" arc. Guidance is present on ALL advanced fire-and-forget ordnance.

OR

Ordnance always strikes last.

Light beams get to their targets immediately; missiles are torpedoes must physically travel the distance at sublight speeds. Bye-bye alpha strikes; everyone gets a zeta strike. So now ordnance can be more powerful. . .but you might not live to see it hit.

14 hours ago, SpiderMana said:

See, people are widely suggesting that a rise in the price of Protorps would be fair.

But that's not the case for lower-initiative ships that can't get a TL on the first pass, and the enemy can force R1 with a boost by engagement phase 2. That's why people are suggesting the differing upgrade costs for that. Yes, generally making high-initiative more expensive specifically compared to their lower-initiative counterparts might seem just as fair, but then you're left with the ones who are only a problem with their Protorps.

And if you nerf i5/6 too much, while you might push a few lazy bums to fly something more difficult, you're also alienating a large portion of players who just wanna fly Aces, not to mention you risk hanging popular characters out to dry.

It's all a very finely tuned environment. Unfortunately there probably isn't any one answer, so we just have to wait and see and hope FFG figures something out.

All of what you said is pretty much why I'm only "mostly" in favor of widening the gap.

But I think having too much scaling with initiative is kind of an overhead nightmare. Folks have suggested everything from Ordnance to Juke and Supernatural Reflexes should scale with Initiative. I don't want to have to look up every upgrade on some grid. So why not just make initiative more expensive? Because at some point, low-upgrade high Initiative ships will become prohibitively expensive on their own. It's nice to just toss in a low-upgrade Soontir, because he pops so easily. Of course, the fact that he can't take Torpedoes probably means that he'd get a lower price increase than Wedge would get. But of course, if Wedge costs more simply because he's got an unfilled Torpedo slot, maybe Torpedoes should be more expensive? It so easily goes round in circles.

Maybe the best approach is some of each. Increase Protorps and Barrage Rockets 1 point each, increase most Init 6 by about 3 points, Init 5 by 2, Init 4 by 1, and then add on some sort of minor scaling factor. Wedge gets a scaling +2 rating, and any upgrade with the "scaling" tag gets +2 cost. Maybe some ships like Scyks get a scaling -1 rating. Maybe some upgrades don't get the tag. Maybe some ships get a rating which works on all upgrades, and not just on scaling-tag ones.

And really quickly this becomes a hot mess of complications. It's probably more balanced, but there's a cost to it, in that it's nearly impossible to just think about list building.

So in general, I kinda think making initiative more expensive is a simpler solution. It has different drawbacks than other schemes, but they all have drawbacks.

13 hours ago, Jeff Wilder said:

You think Quadjumpers would be more valuable at Init 6?

Probably not. But Quads are kind of a weird ship, so who cares? It's not like this is some impressive "gotcha!" which invalidates the concept that higher Initiative should mostly be more expensive. Most ships are more valuable at higher Init.