I've posted this idea in various forms in other threads, so here's the scoop.

In my fairly limited experience, Epic's biggest issues were :

1. Cumbersome/slow gameplay.

2. Piles of cards were a nightmare.

3. Abilities/upgrades/ordinance becoming horribly imbalanced on a larger pionts scale.

I'm no genius, but this is what I'd propose:

Use all the same dials and pilots from X-Wing 2.0, but entirely different upgrades, points and stats (which would all be handled by the ffg app).

1. All non-epic ships use 1/2 HP of their normal X-Wing HP, ROUND DOWN. (T65=2hull+1s, TIE=1hull, etc).

2. All generics would track damage with on-board tokens rather than drawing damage cards. (Easy to do when most ships have 1 or 2 HP.)

2.1. Each player would only draw damage cards for their command ship and/or squadron leader (like Luke/Vader).

This would probably necessitate an alternate damage deck, which I'd be totally fine with as long as it was also fair and usable for the epic ships. this alone, I believe would be a solid foundation for a quick and exciting larger scale dogfight, without changing attack values or agility

And finally,

3. Alternate balanced ordinance and massively changed upgrades, only accessible to your Aces and Command Ships. (Seriously... generics shouldn't ever get upgrade...unless they're scum, but that's another argument for another topic).

K.

That's it! That's basically how I'd do it, anyway.

Cheers!

How many times have you tested this?

1 hour ago, Bucknife said:

In my fairly limited experience, Epic's biggest issues were :

1. Cumbersome/slow gameplay.

2. Piles of cards were a nightmare.

3. Abilities/upgrades/ordinance becoming horribly imbalanced on a larger points scale.

Hi. I've played a fair amount of epic. Not the most of anyone, but more so than the average bear. I don't agree with you on your assessment. I think it's what I've heard people who don't play epic say what they have heard of the problems with epic. I'll go into more detail.

1. Cumbersome/slow gameplay.

In this instance, I will really say it's up to people not having a lot of experience in playing Epic and it bogs down. The first aspect is preparing for the game. If the players take the time beforehand to prepare the cards and ships, it's not so horrible to set up. Maybe print off a list builder what is on each ship and not even bother with the cards. Get all the dials and such in a ziplock bag the night before. Get it ready so that setup doesn't take an hour. You should have all your stuff ready to go ahead of time and that will drastically reduce the time to play.

Next comes the rules. Once you learn all the rules it really doesn't bog the game down. You will be surprised at the amount of time people really need to spend to figure things out. After a few games, you don't have all those issues and it's not a real problem.

Another thing is making choices in list building. New epic players will do something like buying 8 Academy Pilots because it's cheap. The problem comes in with when it's time to do Init 1 for Empire. It takes so long, the other player has wandered off or is distracted with something. It can often speed the game up to buy your ships in blocks and at different Init levels just to break up squadrons. Instead of 8 Academy, just do 4 Academy and 4 Obsidian. Yes, you spend 4 whole points more, but in Epic, it's worth it just for the game play speed up.

I do recommend you buy ships in little squadrons. Take 3-4 of a ship type and have them all fly together like a little attack wing. I usually go for ships of 3, unless Tie Fighters. So, take 3 Y-wings of the same type and fly them together as a little unit. Take 3 Interceptors and fly them as a little unit. 4 Tie Fighters the same. Set up these little squads on missions of their own. These Y-wings attack enemy capital ship. These A-wings intercept those going for the Y-wings. Things like that. I've even heard of some people using one dial for all of them and just arranging it so that they don't bump if it gets to the point that they would bump. So, it speeds up the effort of picking a dial for the little formation. Just fixing a little bumping is worth the time spent worrying about how you take a corner. Just nudge it a little so it doesn't bump and still take an action.

2. Piles of cards were a nightmare.

Experienced or smart players won't spend a lot of points on a lot of upgrades, except maybe for the capital ships. Even then it can be very dangerous. For some players, the large budget of an Epic game makes them want to buy aces with all the bells and whistles. They usually die to concentrated fire of the player who doesn't do such foolishness. Also, the more upgrades someone has, the more things you have to forget. When you are doing a big game, it's just too hard to keep track of all the little stuff on a ship. Even keeping track of astromechs on a T-65 gets hard to remember. Play a few games and you will see it's really not a good idea to put lots of upgrades on ships.....except maybe on the Epic ones. Maybe.

Also, spending too many points on upgrades is a bit of a problem, as I address below:

3. Abilities/upgrades/ordinance becoming horribly imbalanced on a larger points scale.

I'm a bit split on this one. There are certain special abilities of certain pilots that are just broken in Epic. Captain Jonus and Jan Ors are too much for Epic. Their abilities need to be restricted to non-epic ships. I am sure there are a few more that just break Epic in 2.0, but I haven't delved too deep yet. Gavin Darklighter might be at that level. So, I think there needs to be an evaluation by FFG of all the abilities to see what works in Epic and what is too much. I would think, though, that these powers are much fewer than one would think.

Ordinance can be too much. When a lot of ships with ordinance fire on an epic ship, it can take it down quite fast. It is good that Epic ships move last and are harder to actually get a TL on, but it can be pretty bad. Part of it is the points system for what you get from the Epic ships vs. the cost of the ordinance. Personally, I believe that if you kept the Epic ships the same points as they were in 1st Ed (basically halving the points of what they were) than you would get a much more reasonable ship for the points.

Overall, though, I would say that most upgrades in Epic were a waste of points. The best aces would just die so fast too concentrated fire in Epic. Same for large based ships loaded with upgrades. When you have 8 generic Tie Fighters or 6 X-wings facing something, it won't last long no matter what upgrades you take on that sucker. Spending points on Aces or fancy upgrades is the biggest mistake that new players make when they start playing the game. Anything expensive or too shiny just gets focused fire down. I've seen 1st Ed Soontir Fel die so many times in the first round that I just laughed when I saw him on the table in Epic games.

===========================

OK.....so now that I've given my peace on what you say are the problems with Epic, what do *I* think are the problems of Epic?

1. Action Economy

Part of the problem is that these ships are such focal points of the battle, but each section only got one action, no matter how many crew you had on board? So....the gunnery crew was going to sit there and do nothing if the captain was going to tell the Comm Officer to Jam someone? Or....someone actually spent an action to Jam instead of something else. In other words, these Capital ships were full of crews that are highly trained to do their job and should be doing more than one action per section. You want to have it variable on size of crew? That's OK. Have Crew or Teams that will let you do Free Actions per turn. Or...increase the number of actions you can do. However you want to name it. Epic ships are these floating fortresses full of crew that are just eager to do their job. Let the Epic ships do more actions per turn. If you are able to Target Lock someone, Jam a couple more, and also do a Reinforce on a section, I see the Epic ships being more viable.

Overall, I see upgrades that let you do a free action each turn. Buy a Weapons Crew to get a free TL each turn. Buy a Comms Crew to get a free Jam (and make it further than R1 for Epic). Things like this.

2. Cost Effectiveness of Epic ships

As stated before, the cost of the Epic ship vs. what you got was not enough. Ordinance made it too easy to destroy one. The ships didn't get enough actions for what they were worth. It just became not worth it to actually put an Epic ship on the table for the points. So, until they come out with a new rule set, I suggest keeping the points value the same as they were for 1st Ed, which is effectively cutting them in half. You have to do something overall to make the Epic ships be worth the points you spend on them. Either they are too expensive or you need to give them more abilities. Probably a mix of the two.

============

Mix some of the things in the first portion with the fixes for the problems that I see for Epic and I think you will have an excellent game system.

So the thing about Epic is that it was just breaking the 100 (now 200) point system. Huge ships were allowed in epic but were not a critical component until much later. However because there was not many formats that allowed for huge ships (even as obstacles) out side a few cinematic scenarios huge ships were considered by the player base an inseparable component from epic. FFG would reinforced this after all factions had a huge ship available to them.

So on huge ships, well the main problem behind huge ships was they were so different they had a whole new set of rules to be applied to them. They didn't take focus, evade, or stress tokens. They had their own actions unique to them. There was an energy management system that controlled their weapons and movement. Playing a huge ship was like playing a different game all together. Movement was different, actions were different. Even Target lock the shared action had different rules to them.

However I think 2nd edition already has the fix for epic and it is in many of these huge ship only systems being put in the game. So huge ship actions like Jam and Reinforce are now seen on many standard sized (small - large) based ships. Also a charge system which can function as the energy system has been added to many pilots and upgrades. So playing with a 2nd edition huge ship will be more familiar with those that have already played a standard game of x-wing.

Not to say there are some differences that need to be addressed. Movement will likely be using the same template to keep the ships aesthetic of big lumbering vessels. There is also the section cards as we expect these huge ship to use multiple dual sided cards to indicate it taking server damage. There is also the 2nd edition rules on turrets and different firing arcs that will likely have to be addressed considering many of the huge ships were just given a PWT or a turret weapon.

So in short I am sure that 2nd edition Epic will not be as slow as it is in 1st edition once the huge ships (and maybe a few larger ones) come out.

I think they will replace the "epic points" system with the more granular 2.0 Threat system, only applied to huge ships only.
I mean, the players will agree on an Epic Threat level of 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.
Then they will pick up huge ships to match the chosen Epic Threat level.
A rebel transport would be epic threat 1, the imperial and scum Gozantis will be epic threat 2, and the corvettes will be epic threat 3. Or something like that.

Then the players have 300 squad building points to bring small, medium, and large ships and upgrades for all ships (small, medium, large, and huge).

This solves the biggest problem of epic in 1.0, that was that the cost of fielding and equipping a huge ship was always less effective than spending the same amount of points on small and large ships.
Essentially, the huge ship chassis is now "free", since both players have to agree to an Epic Threat level. Then it's their decision to put more or fewer upgrades on the huge ship as they see fit.

This also solves the problem when a player had 300 points that they spent all on cheap small generics, ending up with a huge squad that took hours to move. Instead, the amount small-large ships remains manageable.

Well the cost issue is easily fixed in 2.0, both at release and by their ability to alter it post release. Also, upgrades who's value varies can also no be costed appropriately using simple equations. For example, if upgrade Bob is worth more depending how many other ships are in your own squad (n) its price can be x*n, or x+n, etc. If it's more about the number of enemy ships then you can approximate that using the squad value limits (l), so it's value might be x*(l/200) (meaning it's just x for standard, double that for a 400 game, etc). Such equations would be so simple there wouldn't be any problem for people using the PDFs instead of the app.

6 hours ago, heychadwick said:

Part   of the problem is that these ships are such focal points of the battle, but each section only got one action, no matter how many crew you had on board? So....the gunnery crew was going to sit there and do nothing if the captain was going to tell the Comm Officer to Jam someone? Or....someone actually spent an action to Jam instead of something else. In other words, these Capital ships were full of crews that are highly trained to do their job and should be doing more than one action per section. You want to h  ave it variable on size of crew? That's OK. Have Crew or Teams that will let you do Free Actions per turn. Or...increase the number of actions you can do. However you want to name it. Epic ships are these floating fortresses full of crew that are just eager to do their job. Let the Epic ships do more actions per turn. If you are able to Target Lock someone, Jam a couple more, and also do a Reinforce on a section, I see the Epic ships being mor  e viable.

 Overall, I see upgrades that let you do a free action each turn. Buy a Weapons Crew to get a free TL eac  h tu  rn. Buy a Comms Crew to get a free Jam (and make it further than R1 for Epic). Things like this. 

I like this. How about taking it further and making teams more like their own little ships, with not just their own actions but their own tokens too? So a gunnery team could focus, for example? Some teams would share their tokens (such as a team taking target locks) and others wouldn't where appropriate, that would be up to the text on the team card.

Fix for Epic? I suggest a conversion kit to second edition.

12 minutes ago, Sasajak said:

Fix for Epic? I suggest a conversion kit to second edition.

Great thoughts and stat of a conversation @Bucknife

This would be an easy one, I agree @Sasajak

Loved (and usually always love) @heychadwick 's response(s). I wasn't gonna quote him though --due to it's size, he's a talker-- but I agree that the best, most fun epic battles are when ships are very simplistic and spammed. Don't get me wrong: upgrades on epic ships are a must, but NOT on fighters I've found... save, oddly enough, prockets on v1.0 TIE/Adv Prototypes (crazy fun), ion turrets on Y-Wings (quite strategy altering) and Proximity mines on TIE Bombers (board control). Everything else is OK if you have a massive brain, but not important for enjoyment at all. Really, when we have Epic games with a "no-upgrade on generics and limit one named pilot" it's actually more fun and faster.

Also, for those who love the classic Academy TIE, they are the absolute, and hands down, best ship to use in Epic.

4 hours ago, Azrapse said:

I think they will replace the "epic points" system with the more granular 2.0 Threat system, only applied to huge ships only.

Epic Points were only introduced for official Epic events after people usually won if they didn't take any epic ships and just poured their points into snub nosed fighters. So, it was really just a way to force people to actually use the epic ships. If you can fix epic ships to be worth their points, you won't need epic points.

1 hour ago, mazz0 said:

I like this. How about taking it further and making teams more like their own little ships, with not just their own actions but their own tokens too? So a gunnery team could focus, for example? Some teams would share their tokens (such as a team taking target locks) and others wouldn't where appropriate, that would be up to the text on the team card.

There is a danger of making it complicated and cumbersome again if you do too much. I was just thinking that you spend points on upgrades that gave you free actions. Epic ships weren't allowed free actions before, but that was part of their problem. I don't know about Focus or not, specifically. You could just do something like Gunnery Team allows you to do either a free Focus or TL action. Make the Focus unable to be spent on defense. I think this would put it in a format that people understand and really simplify the whole thing.

There are other teams you can do. You can have a team that does a free Jam action. Have a team that can do a free Coordinate action. Or....have a Comm Team that can do either a Jam or a Coordinate. You have to choose what you want to do. I believe that the range for Epic ships to do either a Jam or Coordinate needs to be bumped out, though, to make them worthwhile. Jam for at R1 for an Epic ship isn't really worth it as things try to stay out of it's way. You can always make it that R3 works for Jam and Coordinate. It's the only thing that makes those actions even worth it. I could even see the possibility of you doing it for multiple ships. Or maybe there is a special Crew card that can enhance it further. Comm Team gives you the free action to do it. Epic makes it R0-3. Special Crew allows you to do it to more than 1 target.

Going back to the Gunnery idea, you can have a Crew that allows special things for shooting. Maybe have a Crew that allows you to Focus? It's a thought. The general idea is that these ships are full of crew that are all capable and there to do their job. If you DON'T spend points on them, it's as if you have a skeleton crew that is there to only keep the ship moving.

There is balance in the aspect that there are only so many Team slots available to an Epic ship. Same for Crew slots. Which Crew or Team do you take for your ship? It can also get expensive. Even with all these free actions, the epic ships can be destroyed due to concentrated firepower pretty quickly. So, it might not be worth it to spend too many points on them. Overall, the big ships should be the important centers of the battlefield that effect all around them. I think numerous actions really makes that happen without being too crazy powerful.

I would love to see Epic crits that also kill off Teams and Crew. There might be some now, but I can't remember exactly.

28 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

I wasn't gonna quote him though --due to it's size, he's a talker -- but I agree that the best, most fun epic battles are when ships are very simplistic and spammed. Don't get me wrong: upgrades on epic ships are a must, but NOT on fighters I've found... save, oddly enough, prockets on v1.0 TIE/Adv Prototypes (crazy fun), ion turrets on Y-Wings (quite strategy altering) and Proximity mines on TIE Bombers (board control). Everything else is OK if you have a massive brain, but not important for enjoyment at all. Really, when we have Epic games with a "no-upgrade on generics and limit one named pilot" it's actually more fun and faster.

Yeah, I got home from game night and had a couple of beers and read the first post and got into ramble mode. I'm now in that "I've had my coffee, but don't want to start reading work emails yet" mode.

I think the best games are done with appropriate upgrades and no more. For example, Y-wings with Ion Cannon Turrets or Dorsal Turrets. That's appropriate. Also, some ships with ordnance is good. Not always, but when appropriate. Tie Bombers, Punishers, Y-wings, and ordnance focused ships would probably have them in an Epic game. Sometimes T-65's should have Proton Torps. I probably wouldn't bother with Astromechs, though, for all the ships that can take them. One, you tend to forget about them, and two, the cost adds up after a while. Then there are some balance things like all ships taking Marksman, which would just crush an epic ship. If you don't know, crits are brutal to Epic ships.

I will say that it's often funny when you play against someone who isn't used to Epic and they make an Epic list. It's just a handful of really elite and beefed up ships. 4-5 snub nosed and one large based ship full of epic crew. They end up looking across the table at 12-16 enemy fighters and know they are screwed.

EDIT: I do want to try Epic out where the points don't change to 2nd Ed points. So....don't double them. I want to see how they work if they were basically half as expensive.

9 hours ago, Ccwebb said:

How many times have you tested this?

This post is based on conversations with several squadmates who play epic regularly. But we haven't had the chance to playtest them yet.

As I mentioned, these ideas would ideally have app support with rebalanced points, upgrades, and probably an alternate damage deck, none of which I've taken the time to map out on my own.

It's a hopeful theory that invites community input and testing!

Isn't Epic 2.0 pronounced Armada 🤣

1 minute ago, Scum4Life said:

Isn't Epic 2.0 pronounced Armada 🤣

Nah, that’s some dead game nobody but a few ancients play in the corner.

Epic is the correct way to have large Star Wars space battles with relevant minis

Sounds like you're trying to design a nearly new game... Classic Battletech vs Alpha Strike.

4 hours ago, heychadwick said:

EDIT: I do want to try Epic out where the points don't change to 2nd Ed points. So....don't double them. I want to see how they work if they were basically half as expensive.

Just did this again on Tuesday. Huge ships get their specific equipment (teams, hardpoints, cargo, etc) at 1.0 prices, crews are 2.0 points and cards. They will still die quick to focus fire, but they don't feel quite as bad. Besides, epic is a casual game right now. We play it for fun to break up the competitive games and give people a break.

24 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

Sounds like you're trying to design a nearly new game... Classic Battletech vs Alpha Strike.

Just did this again on Tuesday. Huge ships get their specific equipment (crews, hardpoints, cargo, etc) at 1.0 prices, crews are 2.0 points and cards. They will still die quick to focus fire, but they don't feel quite as bad. Besides, epic is a casual game right now. We play it for fun to break up the competitive games and give people a break.

Classic Battletech all the way. I don't even know this other one you talk about. Don't talk blasphemy.

Good to hear about the points! I figured it would probably be that way. I mean, why gouge the points up when they were too expensive before? I'd like to try that soon. One of our locals has all the ships, but never played. Maybe I can mock up some Crew cards, too?

38 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

One of our locals has all the ships, but never played. Maybe I can mock up some Crew cards, too?

It's worth it even just to toss the stuff on the map without an objective, but if you got one, great. 2.0 rules all the way otherwise... and just realized, as normal epic fashion, we screwed up a rule. Oh well, not like we kept score anyway.

I wouldn't mock up any crew cards initially. The old YASB 1.0 is still around and works for huge ships - just don't put crews on. Do that manually with a pencil and your collection of 2.0 crew cards.

By the by, Tarkin with a Sensor Team on a Raider is hilarious. "Go forth my TIE swarms, target their cruiser and I shall lead you to victory!" The pile of target locks...

11 hours ago, heychadwick said:

Hi. I've played a fair amount of epic. Not the most of anyone, but more so than the average bear. I don't agree with you on your assessment.

I only play Epic. And I pretty much agree with 99% of what heychadwick said. But I would add a few additional comments.

12 hours ago, Bucknife said:

In my fairly limited experience, Epic's biggest issues were :

1. Cumbersome/slow gameplay.

2. Piles of cards were a nightmare.

3. Abilities/upgrades/ordinance becoming horribly imbalanced on a larger pionts scale.

1. The game is not cumbersome or slow, unless you are placing your expectations for Standard on it. Yes, it will take longer. But a lot of Heychadwick's suggestions can help speed up the game. But people need simply accept that a game of Epic is the night's entertainment. You won't get 3 games in during a single sitting.

2. Yeah, this is true. And this is why the official app really needs to print out viable play sheets.

3. With this, I have often found the reverse. TLT spam could be an issue, but imbalanced pilots and combos are one-hit-wonders that get lost in the larger pool of generic ships that can bring them down wolf-pack-style.

Quote

Use all the same dials and pilots from X-Wing 2.0, but entirely different upgrades, points and stats (which would all be handled by the ffg app).

1. All non-epic ships use 1/2 HP of their normal X-Wing HP, ROUND DOWN. (T65=2hull+1s, TIE=1hull, etc).

2. All generics would track damage with on-board tokens rather than drawing damage cards. (Easy to do when most ships have 1 or 2 HP.)

2.1. Each player would only draw damage cards for their command ship and/or squadron leader (like Luke/Vader).

This would probably necessitate an alternate damage deck,

3. Alternate balanced ordinance and massively changed upgrades,

Absolutely not this. Epic at its core should play exactly like X-Wing, which the exception of Huge ship mechanics. As was noted above, listbuilding should feature a different emphasis, but actual gameplay should be the same for S/M/L ships. Changing all the small ship mechanics will be confusing to players who might move back and forth between Epic and Standard, and having Epic be a significantly different variant will only further marginalize players who prefer Epic from the XWM community as a whole.

It's already bad enough that we have to put up with this **** in every Epic thread:

Quote

Isn't Epic 2.0 pronounced Armada 🤣

One main change I would like to see for Epic is a Huge Ship Damage Deck that applies to any Huge ship, rather than the 1.0 each-ship-needs-its-own system.

The only wish I have for Huge ships would be a power management option.

In general I find the system interesting and enjoyable to use, but I think it would make sense to be able to route power back out of a weapon system.

So if you have energy sitting in an ion cannon, you should be able to move it back to the main card.

Maybe have an upgrade that lets you move it directly to another weapon card.

Although there might be some timing clarification that would need to happen regarding the energy step to make that distinction meaningful.

@heychadwick and @Darth Meanie , as usual both are spot on.

I love epic, a lot of fun to play and makes this game feel more Star Wars-y than tournaments do.

@Bucknife , The majority “house rules” seem to focus on that Epic ships suffer in action economy and not feeling.... epic... enough. Some ideas that I’ve tried are:

•epic ship points do not count towards the total. (Load them up!)

•epic can do all upgrade Actions in addition to normal action

• small ship primaries can’t damage the epic shields, only secondary weapons.

But.... to speed the game along and keep it organized, print out your lists before hand.

I havnt played Epic often but I agree with the Action Economy problem,and note that the combat effectiveness problem was partially solved by adding more action economy in the form of automated protocals (Epic PTL), Ordinance tubes (Free reload actions), and optimized generators (not strictly action economy, but energy economy, which is related)

I would like to see epic ships have a Teams Stat, next to their hull/shields/ect, to represent how many things they can do simotaniusly- that is, how many actions the ship can take on it's turn, and remove the 1-of-each-action rule just for ships with a Team stat.

If I were setting it up, epic ships would all have Calculate, Track (epic lock, with caveats such as needing a team to reapply it every round), and Reinforce, with multiple reinforces stacking but still have the 1 point chip damage rule. Additional action types can be ship or upgrade based. Some epic upgrades may require multiple actions to activate.