Missiles that aren't named barrage rockets are pretty crappy in 2.0. Capped at 3 dice compared to torpedoes and requiring a lock to fire means having to invest heavily in high initiative pilots and a bid to make them work and only for a 3 dice attack.

Reintroducing deadeye to the game as a talent would invigorate a ton of ships that are currently struggling. Just make it small ship and missiles only to distinguish it from instinctive aim. Maybe limit to a single charge if using it multiple times would be abusive.

• Deadeye. Talent. `1 point. Small ship only. While you perform an attack with a missile, you may spend 1 charge to change the lock requirement to a focus requirement.

All of a sudden TIE Advances can actually compete even if they're not named Vader. TIE V1s, Z-95s, A-Wings and Scyks similarly get a boost. It's important not to get too crazy with the card's cost because there is a hidden cost of having to pay more points to gain access to the talent slot. In total most 2-dice ships will be paying 9-11 points to gain access a 3rd attack die on the approach when you add up the concussion missile and pilot skill upgrade, which just about matches up with other similar upgrades like Moldy Crow and Special Forces Gunner, although those cards are much stronger since they give 4 dice at range 1. In every case the resulting ships still compares evenly or less than a generic T-65. A deadeye swarm firing a volley of homing missiles can be pretty scary, but not game breaking.

I think it makes sense for them to have avoided Deadeye in the game's initial release, it could have easily become broken. But I think if they release the card as missile only and stick to only printing 3-dice missiles, Deadeye would be a pretty welcome addition for a lot of ships that are struggling right now.

They replaced Deadeye with instinctive Aim.

I don't think they will change or give standard pilots a force power that would cost less than instinctive Aim.

17 minutes ago, Silver_leader said:

They replaced Deadeye with instinctive Aim.

I don't think they will change or give standard pilots a force power that would cost less than instinctive Aim.

I addressed in my post, but maybe 4 short paragraphs qualify as a wall of text.

Quote

Just make it small ship and missiles only to distinguish it from instinctive aim. Maybe limit to a single charge if using it multiple times would be abusive.

They made supernatural reflexes as a force talent yet also made advanced sensors. Again, limiting deadeye to missiles, single use and still requiring a focus would make it objectively worse than instinctive aim, just like how advanced sensors is weaker than supernatural because of its limit to 1 action and therefore also cheaper.

Agreed, though I'd rather they shifted the ability away from the Elite slot instead so that low initiative generics also have access to the functionality too. I know A-Wings don't have modification slots but that would be a good place for it otherwise. I would reword it slightly too:

"Advanced Guidance System"
[Modification]
Setup: remove 1 charge from each equipped Missile upgrade.

When attacking with a Missile upgrade, you may treat "Attack (Lock):" as "Attack (Focus):"

a single charge penalty still lets you get two uses out of most missiles, keeping parity with torpedoes

Targetting Sync for sequel factions, Jendon or Instinctive aim for Empire, Airen + Dutch combo for Rebels, and...apparently very little for scum help mitigate the problem of missiles. As much as I wish for my Z's to pack a little more oof or to attempt to reason taking a Rebel A-wing over a Resistance one or TIE Interceptors and Strikers, I really don't want a universal deadeye to return. That would not only get rid of the interesting shenanigans of Tarkin or Jendon, but it would also make a lot of 2 dice ships boring. The reason why there was so much bomber with barrage rockets is because when you are focused, your primary boosts to that of 3 dice (except at range 1, but no range 3 bonuses for enemies). Now that droid fighters that only need be calculated can fire 3 dice shots by eating other droid calculates (with exceptions such as jam, hotshot, or Palob outright stopping them), pseudo-Deadeye is going to make a jump in appearances.

2 minutes ago, Transmogrifier said:

Agreed, though I'd rather they shifted the ability away from the Elite slot instead so that low initiative generics also have access to the functionality too. I know A-Wings don't have modification slots but that would be a good place for it otherwise. I would reword it slightly too:

"Advanced Guidance System"
[Modification]
Setup: remove 1 charge from each equipped Missile upgrade.

When attacking with a Missile upgrade, you may treat "Attack (Lock):" as "Attack (Focus):"

a single charge penalty still lets you get two uses out of most missiles, keeping parity with torpedoes

If you keep it cheap, then spamming homing missiles could scare Fenn or Soontir if you fan the arcs. Anytime I try to make homing work against low-health targets, by the time the lock is attained, it reaches the game state where it becomes difficult to fire a threatening number with the filler ships remaining.

1 minute ago, player3010587 said:

If you keep it cheap, then spamming homing missiles could scare Fenn or Soontir if you fan the arcs. Anytime I try to make homing work against low-health targets, by the time the lock is attained, it reaches the game state where it becomes difficult to fire a threatening number with the filler ships remaining.

Yeah I think it would have to be pretty inexpensive to be worth taking on top of the investment in the missiles, especially since losing a charge on Homing Missiles drops you down to just 1 shot with them. It also creates an interesting choice for aces caught in arc, since they still have a decent chance of avoiding a 4 dice + focus shot rather than just accepting the auto damage.

To {domain of the Devil} with that.

Rebel alphastrikes are effective enough without having to worry about low PS torp spam. There's no reason to unduly punish low health ships.

Someone needs to experiment more with Dutch/R3/Swarm Twcitcs, I reckon.

Honest question: Do people really like the munitions alpha strike game?

I really don't. I don't think it makes for an interesting game when it tilts the game so heavily in the opening salvo. Obviously I'm just one voice in the crowd here, but is this what people want?

5 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

Honest question: Do people really like the munitions alpha strike game?

I really don't. I don't think it makes for an interesting game when it tilts the game so heavily in the opening salvo. Obviously I'm just one voice in the crowd here, but is this what people want?

It depends.

When you're trying it to expensive high PS units - like Swarm Tactics Wedge or similar - it's not so bad. Deleting a ship combat turn #1 is the list's main trick.

When it's cheap Deadeye PS1 Partisans or similar, THAT'S a problem.

Munitions alpha strike is extremely boring, imho.

Also, poor M12L Kimogila, no missile help for the killergorilla with your suggestion.

I'd rather have the old ion pulse missile back, where you could pretty effectively ionise even large targets.

I don't really see single-modified 3 dice attacks on low initiative, missile platforms as much of an alpha strike compared to the other stuff out there. The most 'oppressive' usage of this would be pairing 'dead eye' missiles with a passive reroll ability like Jonus or Drea, and we're already seen what that looks like - Barrage Scimitars - which is an archetype that is relevant but has counter-play and hasn't warped the meta. The key thing here is keeping the ability isolated to missiles (and keeping Missile upgrades on a similar power curve as they are now). Deadeye Proton Torpedoes *would* be a problem.

Maybe make it so you can't use the Focus during the attack if you change the requirement?

Bringing “Deadeye” back would be a bad idea, there is a reason on force users can use “Instinctive Aim”, they pay a cost because their force users and then an additional 2 for the upgrade. Plenty of small ships are good without needing a buff.

Can you imagine a Proton Torpedo X-Wing not needing a lock. Geez I hope this never occurs. Whether only for Missile or for both it’s not a good idea.

The game is fine without any ordnance and some folks might say it'd be better.

1 hour ago, Transmogrifier said:

Yeah I think it would have to be pretty inexpensive to be worth taking on top of the investment in the missiles, especially since losing a charge on Homing Missiles drops you down to just 1 shot with them. It also creates an interesting choice for aces caught in arc, since they still have a decent chance of avoiding a 4 dice + focus shot rather than just accepting the auto damage.

Having lost many a game to calculating the expected damage of certain gambles (often forgetting that I have won and lost many a game on insane variance from expected values), I'd always take the auto damage! Upsilon shuttles are good not because of the expected value of their damage, but because of the paranoia they strike in the hearts of their opponents. Making it far easier for an A wing to easily tap into that paranoia just once for 4 pt total (granted, this is if it does get a mod slot) is certainly worth it, even if it does only 1 damage. It messes with game state in your favor.

Somethings to keep in mind.

Deadeye proton torps would obviously be broken. Missiles are underpowered, therefore the ships that have that in their upgrade bar can't gain any benefit from it.

Letting ships have access to things like Trick Shot and Crackshot in addition to Deadeye seems problematic. I would keep it as a talent.

Missiles are capped at 3 dice currently and if combined with the cost of obtaining a talent slot, concussion missiles are similar in cost to proton torps (~2 points for a talent slot, 1 point for DE and 6 points for the missile).

2-dice ships carrying missiles are capped at 3 dice, they don't shoot up to 4 atk dice when they get to range 1 like a natural 3-atk ship does.

For reference, here are the points costs for ships that could take Deadeye and Concussion missiles compared to the cheapest 3-dice attack ships, the Khirax and Zeb in the attack shuttle.

Generic Khirax
I2, 6 health, 2agi, 3 atk, 4 atk r1 - 40

Zeb Attack Shuttle
I2, 4 health, 2 agi, 3atk, 4 atk r1 - 34

A-Wing
I3, 4 health, 3 agi
3 atk max, no range bonus - 41

Z-95
I2, 4 health, 2 agi
3 atk max, no range bonus - 32

TIE Adv X1
I3, 5 health , 3 agi
3 atk max, no range bonus - 50

TIE Adv V1
I3, 4 health, 3 agi
3 atk max, no range bonus - 41

Gunboat
I3, 7 health, 2 agi
3 atk max, no range bonus - 44

TIE Aggressor
I3, 5 health 2 agi
3 atk max, no range bonus - 39

M3-A Scyk
I3, 4 health, 3 agi
3 atk max, no range bonus - 40

Note that for the majority of these ships that you can't fit more than 4 in a list. And the ships that you can fit more than 4 are extremely easy for high init lists to alpha strike off the board in the first exchange.

4 hours ago, LagJanson said:

Honest question: Do people really like the munitions alpha strike game?

I really don't. I don't think it makes for an interesting game when it tilts the game so heavily in the opening salvo. Obviously I'm just one voice in the crowd here, but is this what people want?

Totally with you, never been a huge fan

Understand that the real strength of ordinance is denying your opponent the defense mod at range 3. At least in the more useful variants. That is where the real power comes into play. Proton torps are so grossly powerful because it's 4 dice at range 3 and your opponent isn't getting the range bonus to help protect them. Then you hopefully get enough hits through that the crit chews into the hull.

With missiles there are a lot of very cheap carriers. Let's be very careful what we wish for if high hitting ordinance is able to be spammed in mass.

Harpoons were a correction to defense stacking. If we go down that rabbit hole again the pendulum swings back to defense stacking as a reaction. Then hello power creep and we're right back to 1.0 again.

5 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

To {domain of the Devil} with that.

Rebel alphastrikes are effective enough without having to worry about low PS torp spam. There's no reason to unduly punish low health ships.

Someone needs to experiment more with Dutch/R3/Swarm Twcitcs, I reckon.

5 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

It depends.

When you're trying it to expensive high PS units - like Swarm Tactics Wedge or similar - it's not so bad. Deleting a ship combat turn #1 is the list's main trick.

When it's cheap Deadeye PS1 Partisans or similar, THAT'S a problem.

Reading is fundamental

I don't see Deadeye (Focus-to-TL) making a return. After all Instinctive Aim is more inline with the theme.

However I can see maybe something that turns Calculate to TL or Calculate to Focus for use for missiles. Maybe even one upgrade that lets Calculate do both for missiles & torpedo secondary weapons.

Low initiative pilots often do not have the ept slot.... so no dead eye for them.

I think that low init ships that wants to t.lock shoud be fixed with a mod.

Something like

If you renounce to your action (the one that you do after the manouver on your dial) you can acquire a lock at initiative 5 (but you have to declare it after your manouver)

Why not just bring back long range scanners?

I'm not sure I'm totally convinced by the original premise; that is, that missiles are unplayably bad. Sure, Cluster Missiles are most likely overpriced by at least a couple of points, but Homing Missiles, Barrage Rockets and Proton Rockets regularly see play. Concussion Missiles are also potentially very useful, but they have so far been hampered by the fact that most carriers either have access to the more powerful Proton Torpedo (TIE Bomber, TIE Punisher), already have a 3-dice attack (Kihraxz, TIE Advanced x1) or are slightly to hideously overpriced (RZ-1 A-Wing, TIE Advanced v1, TIE Aggressor, K-Wing). Correct the pricing of the latter four, and I'm sure we'll see more Concs hit the table. Similar ships like the Resistance A-Wing and the TIE SF have convinced me that FFG has finally nailed the pricing of those tricksy 2-dice ships.

I think FFG might have slightly overestimated ion weapons in general in 2.0, but I don't think the Ion Missile (and Torpedo) is useless. Note that it is only four points, for three charges. Maybe a point overpriced, but adding three 3-dice attacks with a potentially game changing effect to your A or K doesn't seem all that terrible to me, especially since it negates the range bonus. Have Tallie smack Dutch with one of those on the inital engagement, and you can be sure he won't be handing out any locks the following turn.

Maybe the tl;dr would be this: Have you actually played any of those missiles? I had mostly written them off as well, but after a closer look and some table time, I'm not so convinced of their supposed badness. Also, please no more "I'm not I6 so I can't get a lock." There is a turn after the initial joust, and it is possible to move an I1 generic in such a way that it can set up a lock safely in a turn where it wouldn't be able to shoot anyway.

14 hours ago, Cgriffith said:

there is a reason on force users can use “Instinctive Aim”, they pay a cost because their force users and then an additional 2 for the upgrade.

And - unless they have a force score of 2+, they're also giving up that force charge because you spend it to trigger instinctive aim, but don't have it to modify the shot.