3 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

The Interdictor I took 1st and 2nd place with at both Adepticon tournaments last year? That Inte  rdictor?

I'm happy for your win, and happy for your 'dic's representation, but not convinced that means anything overall for the appropriateness of the Interdictor's cost. (it also doesn't mean I'm NOT convinced, mind you; mostly this was an excuse to use "'dic" in a sentence.)

That being said, would you mind sharing that list? I love the Interdictor and would love to see how it earned some glory.

2 minutes ago, Rocmistro said:

I'm happy for your win, and happy for your 'dic's representation, but not convinced that means anything overall for the appropriateness of the Interdictor's cost. (it also doesn't mean I'm NOT convinced, mind you; mostly this was an excuse to use "'dic" in a sentence.)

That being said, would you mind sharing that list? I love the Interdictor and would love to see how it earned some glory.

http://cannotgetyourshipout.blogspot.com/2018/03/eric-adepticon-wrapup.html

This was prior to the (much-needed) flotilla nerf, mind you, but you'll still see similarly-outfitted Interdictors doing well nowadays, just not quite the same type of fleets.

I'm not going to dispute that prior to wave 7 the Interdictor was basically junk but I think it's because FFG overvalued the experimental retrofit slots moreso than it overvalued the contain defense tokens.

2 hours ago, Tirion said:

Contain with dco is amazing

Look at you, in here like you still play this game. You're not wrong though.

31 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

I don't think contains were ever intended to be on par with other defense tokens. They're for most purposes (but not all!) the worst defense tokens in the game and generally it seems like ships that have them are priced accordingly. It's better to have them than not have them, but they're not great.

This exactly. They're not the best defense token, but they were never meant to be. It's up to you as the player to either make them worthwhile or determine whether you can deal with the cost you paid for them in the event they're not useful.

I don't want every token to be brace, that would be terrible and boring.

2 hours ago, Rocmistro said:

"When you receive faceup damage card (or cards) as the result of an enemy's attack, you can spend a contain token to turn one of them facedown."

Purely from a daydreaming standpoint--this is more of a sidegrade than an upgrade. It works better against APT and Dodonna's Pride (...), but worse against the standard crit effect some of which take effect immediately and are then flipped over anyway (Projector Misaligned, Structural, etc).

Thanks, Snip, I'll check it out.

How would you run it now limited to just 2 flotillas?

Regarding the total sum of a ship's cost; I suppose we'll never know exactly how a game designer goes about something like that, but obviously they have to include the cost of all it's attributes, both independently and in conjunction with each other. I have no doubt that's tricky, but based on my perception of the overall efficacy of the Contain token, I think there's reason to believe that it might be overvalued. To Dras's question; no I have no proof or evidence aside from what Truthi's spreadsheet turns up when the smoke is cleared and even that will be questionable.

Hence this thread.

7 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

...

I don't want every token to be brace, that would be terrible and boring.

Purely from a daydreaming standpoint--this is more of a sidegrade than an upgrade. It works better against APT and Dodonna's Pride (...), but worse against the standard crit effect some of which take effect immediately and are then flipped over anyway (Projector Misaligned, Structural, etc).

-Nor do I. Totally agreed. Even as such, while Brace is probably the "best" defense token, Evade can be made to be useful with how you fly, and how you synergize with other cards, ships, components, etc. Mon Mothma, for example, or a fast Cracken fleet.

-I think i mis-described my intent for how it would work in my daydream world; the intent would be you get to see the faceup crit before deciding if you used a Contain...but if you did decide to use it, you do not suffer the affects of the Crit (because you turn it facedown). Ie, it's a retroactive denial, not a "repairing" of the critical damage card. Does that make sense?

I mean, I'm shocked no one has suggested this possibility:

Contain is, for the most part, not as good/valuable as the other defense tokens, but that's all part of the design.

A big part of what balances ships is what defense tokens they have, and surely contain tokens add less to a ship's value than say a Brace Token. For instance, consider the Endeavor title: 4 Points to add a Contain token to a liberty. Surely, if there was a title that added a brace to a large ship that didn't have one that title would cost... well a heck of a lot more than 4pts...


So, the fact that some responders are saying:
(a) Contain is actually really great and useful and it makes a huge different all the time in my games!!!111!!!!1!
while others claiming
(b) Yea, Contain sucks, here are ways it could be made better!!!111!!!1111!!

means that, in my opinion, everyone is likely missing the point that Contain is, by design, generally not as useful as a Brace or a Redirect token, but this has likely been taken into account when designing and costing the ships that have Contain tokens and allows for interesting differences between ship types

1 minute ago, Rocmistro said:

-I think i mis-described my intent for how it would work in my daydream world; the intent would be you get to see the faceup crit before deciding if you used a Contain...but if you did decide to use it, you do not suffer the affects of the Crit (because you turn it facedown). Ie, it's a retroactive denial, not a "repairing" of the critical damage card. Does that make sense?

Gotcha. So basically like Medical Team, just unrestricted. http://starwars-armada.wikia.com/wiki/Medical_Team

Wouldn't necessarily be opposed to that in a revised system, though I still wouldn't want it to apply to special crits personally.

The Contain ( SSD with DCO) is about to become a huge part of the Armada

(Something Big is Coming)

18 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

I mean, I'm shocked no one has suggested this possibility:

Contain is, for the most part, not as good/valuable as the other defense tokens, but that's all part of the design.

Erm... did you read the thread before posting?

18 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Means that, in my opinion, everyone is likely missing the point

As above

What Ginkapo said; the title of the thread is "Contain, a second class defense token".

I absolutely understood/stand that it is not as good/valuable as the other defense tokens.

I suppose then what I'm doing is-

-asking if everyone agrees that is true (seems the case that they do)

-lamenting/remarking on whether or not that's a bug or a feature.. (seems most agree that's a feature; I'm not so sure)

-even if it's true it was intended to be a second class defense token, and even if its also true that it's priced as a second class defense token, I am pondering if the baked-in "cost" of the contain token is appropriate to each ship it's a part of. (And, again, I would say I'm not convinced they got it right for the Interdictor or MC75, both of which are 2x Contain ships....)

I would also add that I'm coming around to the idea that they are not as junky as I first thought. And also that is part of the point of this thread.

Vader LOVES the contain token…

3 minutes ago, mr_mithrandir said:

Vader LOVES the contain token…

True but that's a fringe case where the value of the Contain token is (or should be tied more to Vader's cost than the actual contain token). Should the Rebels pay more for their contain tokens because Vader might be in the fleet? Of course not; they can never leverage his ability. Thus, FFG would not (or at least, God, I hope not) ever say "The baked-in cost for a contain defense token is 4 pts, but we're going to value it at 6 points, because Vader can leverage it for offense." To do so but would be...intellectually indefensible given that no Rebels can use Vader's ability.

1 minute ago, Rocmistro said:

True but that's a fringe case where the value of the Contain token is (or should be tied more to Vader's cost than the actual contain token). Should the Rebels pay more for their contain tokens because Vader might be in the fleet? Of course not; they can never leverage his ability. Thus, FFG would not (or at least, God, I hope not) ever say "The baked-in cost for a contain defense token is 4 pts, but we're going to value it at 6 points, because Vader can leverage it for offense." To do so but would be...intellectually indefensible given that no Rebels can use Vader's ability.

Yet somehow red dice in a side arc cost more for rebels than imperials....

1 minute ago, Ginkapo said:

Yet somehow red dice in a side arc cost more for rebels than imperials....

Not disputing this, Ginkapo, but I don't know what case you're referring to here.

6 minutes ago, Rocmistro said:

Not disputing this, Ginkapo, but I don't know what case you're referring to here.

I think he's pointing out that a given element's costing isn't necessarily constant from one ship to the next, especially between factions. Specifically, that an Imperial contain might cost 6 because it might be leveraged by Vader, whereas a Rebel one might be 4 because it can't; just as a side-arc red die might be worth 8 on a Rebel ship but only 5 on an Imperial because Ackbar.

Wow, I really hope that's not true.

Imagining Arquitens under Ackbar certainly makes it seem true. Plus both dual contain ships have serious redeeming qualities.

The Interdictor has access to Targeting Scrambler, Brunson and engineering 5 (ideally 8.) Defense tokens are closer to gravy there than on any other ship in the game. Especially given that part of the Dictor’s base cost is due to cheap area control. It has other issues, like poor shielding, but that lends itself to the contain as is. As for the MC75, it’s an amazing package of death with pretty much every slot it could need and boasting synergy with a whole lot of commanders and builds to boot. It definitely doesn’t need help right now.

4 hours ago, Mad Cat said:

Changing the Contain basic rules would probably make the Damage Control Officer redundant and hurt the power slightly of Dodonna, APTs, Dodonna'd pride etc.

May I suggest a new officer like a milder, cheaper version of the DCO. e.g.

• Damage Mitigation Droids: 2-3 Points. In the spend defence tokens step you may exhaust this card to look at the top damage card before spending a contain token.

Contains of course have other uses. Spending them on Vader/Cymoon fleets to reroll attack dice is one. The other is replacing them for an evade with Captain Needa to use with TRCs.

The issue is more the officer slot than than the cost of the card. I agree with the idea that DCO should be built into the token, I'll gladly pay an extra cost on the ships that have contain for that functionality but giving up the slot is rough.

There are still plenty of ships that don't have contains that ACM and the like would work against.

3 hours ago, Rocmistro said:

Thanks, Snip, I'll check it out.

How would you run it now limited to just 2 flotillas?

Honestly the problem it has nowadays is it's vulnerable to tabling and the squad component is too anti-squad. The 3-ship version (Interdictor, Quasar, Gozanti) that I took first with is my preferred version of the fleet at this point but it would need a full-on overhaul after the flotilla nerf. Whatever new version you came up with needs to answer the question of "why isn't this just another Thrawn 2 ship fleet?" which can have a good answer but you need that answer if you're otherwise running Imperials with heavy squads nowadays. I seem to recall hearing of a Screed Interdictor Glad Raider 2 Goz fleet with a lot of squads doing well at one of the Regionals. Interdictor with HIEs, Glad with Demo, Kallus, and Flechettes to make other ace balls sleepy, and just designed to mulch through shields and let the bombers pound other ships to pieces.

4 hours ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

The Contain ( SSD with DCO) is about to become a huge part of the Armada

(Something Big is Coming)

Played @Karneck on vassal last night, and dco has save him from around 10 acm hits on his SSD, which'Limped' away shield less with 14 hull left as a result..

Not so much limped as gloriously plowed through the remains of a mighty Imperial LMSU fleet with no fear.

It was a great game and really showcased how effective the SSD can be when using good combination of cards.

Granted I was running it with Tua/W Adv. projectors. We still have no idea if that's allowed or not.

Next version I plan to drop Tua and see how things go.

Prediction: boarding party Vader will become more of a thing in response to the SSD.

3 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:

Prediction: boarding party Vader will become more of a thing in response to the SSD.

Was all part of FFG's masterplan to make raiders useful for something...

21 minutes ago, PodRacer said:

Was all part of FFG's masterplan to make raiders useful for something...

Oh, Raiders are useful. When you enter the Tomb of the Raider King, it's only a matter of time before you DIE! I've seen things, man....

29 minutes ago, PodRacer said:

Was all part of FFG's masterplan to make raiders useful for something...

A Raider can definitely do it, but with the slots open-ish a Pryce Kuat seems just made for the task. Go in last, strip DCO, vomit crits and sadness upon them.