I hear a lot of grumbling about gas clouds and how they're easy mode. I've only played one game with them so far (I haven't bought into the new factions yet) and they never proc'd. I haven't formed an opinion myself, but I was kind of surprised that the designers didn't use Strain as a mechanic for clouds, considering both elements were introduced at the same time.

How would gas clouds be if in addition to (or instead of) losing your action, you became strained when moving through them? For one, if you plow through a cloud to get away from an opponent, the strain would somewhat help to cancel out the beneficial effects at being shot at through the cloud.

sometimes. I gotta strain to make gas clouds too

Gain a strain, roll a dice, on a crit gain an ion.

That's what I think would be cool.

I just don't get how a gas cloud is defensive. I think it would be more interesting (and thematic) if shooting through a gas cloud risked detonating it and doing damage to everything near it. Make it be an offensive obstacle instead of a defensive one.

Well, shooting through murky gas would make it hard to hit something on the other side, but I love the idea of making it go boom. Also love the "gain a strain, crit to ion" ability too!

26 minutes ago, sirjorj said:

I just don't get how a gas cloud is defensive. I think it would be more interesting (and thematic) if shooting through a gas cloud risked detonating it and doing damage to everything near it. Make it be an offensive obstacle instead of a defensive one.

It kind of depends on the gas. Some gas is inert and would just block your view.

I do like the idea of gas clouds giving a strain.

51 minutes ago, svelok said:

Gain a strain, roll a dice, on a crit gain an ion.

That's what I think would be cool.

To expand a bit...

What I like about it is that it punishes harder than just gaining a strain. Vader can't just YOLO over the cloud no consequences, because that ion might super matter. Whereas just a strain is... kinda whatever?

If he doesn't get shot, he does a blue after and it clears. If he does get shot, it matters for one roll - which is maybe 3 green dice anyways for obstruction/range, maybe with the cloud bonus too - and then it clears. Or put another way, losing a dice for strain is offset by the extra dice for obstruction, and then you get the bonus evade conversion anyways. Or maybe you only have a mediocre shot at him that round, with range/obstruction compensating for strain. Or maybe you get the dream shot, unobstructed range two at -1 agility, and... your attack dice whiff. Strain cleared.

And landing on a cloud would always be a positive trade defensively, despite the strain. That's before accounting for multiple attacks, where the strain matters progressively less. Adding the risk of ionization makes parking on a cloud a trade-off, where you have to consider carefully the downsides, rather than a no-brainer.

It would also tip the scales on clouds towards "land behind", away from "fly over". Whereas currently I think they're disproportionately weighted the other way.

And.... people always accidentally call them ion clouds anyways.

2 hours ago, sirjorj said:

I just don't get how a gas cloud is defensive. I think it would be more interesting (and thematic) if shooting through a gas cloud risked detonating it and doing damage to everything near it. Make it be an offensive obstacle instead of a defensive one.

The cloud dissipates the laser blast as it passes through the cloud.

How that translates into blank-to-evade instead of mucking with the attack dice is another question (though I suspect it's just for simplicity's sake). How it mucks with torpedoes and other weapons is yet another question (again, simplicity).

On a related note, I wonder why strain goes away after you defend from an attack. "Ooh, my ship is under strain, feelsbadman... ok I just got shot at, ahhh I feel better now." Doesn't make sense. I feel like strain tokens should linger just like stress does. I mean, yeah it would suck to be shot multiple times with a lingering strain token, but it's a red token... it's not supposed to be a picnic. Stress limits your dial AND prevents actions that could conceivably be worth multiple hits on attack or defense.

... and of course. While you're on it, you shouldn't be able to attack. 😃 😃 😃

9 hours ago, MikeEvans said:

On a related note, I wonder why strain goes away after you defend from an attack. "Ooh, my ship is under strain, feelsbadman... ok I just got shot at, ahhh I feel better now." Doesn't make sense. I feel like strain tokens should linger just like stress does. I mean, yeah it would suck to be shot multiple times with a lingering strain token, but it's a red token... it's not supposed to be a picnic. Stress limits your dial AND prevents actions that could conceivably be worth multiple hits on attack or defense.

It may not be the most logical thing, but it's for game balance. If strain caused a ship to stay strained for an entire round, anything that deals it out should go up tremendously in cost. You could also choose not to shoot and force them into a blue maneuver which depending on the scenario is more effective than a shot.

Shoulda just gave us 1 gas cloud, or make a rule you can only bring one. That would make it more strategic in placement if you list REALLY wants them. I think just getting jammed and no action would be better also. That way ships lose locks they are saving, or it cancels the pattern analyzer from giving the ship a token. Makes sense in that Gas Clouds can mess with ship electronics or something. Or maybe even turn a hit to a blank when attacking through it, instead of a green blank to an evade. Since the attacking ship should be less accurate, not the defending ship being more elusive.

just fly dash. hes fine with gas clouds

I'm kind of hoping what they might try to do is make it so that for list building you choose 3 obstacles but can only have 2 obstacles of the same type. That would help deal with the clouds to an extent but would also just help diversify the obstacles taken more.

46 minutes ago, kempokid said:

It may not be the most logical thing, but it's for game balance. If strain caused a ship to stay strained for an entire round, anything that deals it out should go up tremendously in cost. You could also choose not to shoot and force them into a blue maneuver or sacrificing their action which depending on the scenario is more effective than a shot.

Strain doesn't prevent you from taking an action only stress does.

2 hours ago, Phelan Boots said:

It kind of depends on the gas. Some gas is inert and would just block your view.

I do like the idea of gas clouds giving a strain.

When attacking, if the attack is obstructed by a gas cloud you may change one hit result to a crit result.

It's harder to hit through the clouds but if you hit.... BOOM!

7 hours ago, Animewarsdude said:

Strain doesn't prevent you from taking an action only stress does.

Yeah, my bad. I’m just tied to the idea of “clearing stress” with a blue maneuver. Edited my post

I suspect they were initially designed to give a strain token in some manner but then the effect was changed when they realized how problematic it would be component wise for players of the legacy factions.

In a game now where there are so many force users with free mods and other pilots with free reroll abilities, it's just stupidly bad game design to allow them to continue as is. Hopefully they'll rules reference them into something more interesting at some point with truly negative consequences that are thematic.

9 hours ago, kempokid said:

It may not be the most logical thing, but it's for game balance. If strain caused a ship to stay strained for an entire round, anything that deals it out should go up tremendously in cost. You could also choose not to shoot and force them into a blue maneuver which depending on the scenario is more effective than a shot.

I'm completely fine with strain-dealing cards going up in price if strain lasts until it's cleared. Also fine with reducing price of cards that let you take strain to accomplish something else.

24 minutes ago, MikeEvans said:

I'm completely fine with strain-dealing cards going up in price if strain lasts until it's cleared. Also fine with reducing price of cards that let you take strain to accomplish something else.

I'm fine with it staying as-is until we get a good look at how much it affects the current game. From what I've seen in tournaments since Wave 3, the affect is minimal at best.

I just ran Commander Cody on an Arc this weekend, and based on how much I was able to apply the strain and benefit from it, 3 points is almost a stretch.

I really think the gas clouds should have been skip action step, roll a dice. On crit gain ion. Maybe even more than one ion to dissuade large base ships wouldn’t normally care about a single ion.

Their penalty just isn’t there today.

6 minutes ago, ScummyRebel said:

I really think the gas clouds should have been skip action step, roll a dice. On crit gain ion. Maybe even more than one ion to dissuade large base ships wouldn’t normally care about a single ion.

Their penalty just isn’t there today.

I guess just "roll an attack die, on a crit result gain 3 ion tokens" works fine because all are cleared after the ion maneuver. Adding the strain is probably fine as well.

7 minutes ago, Micanthropyre said:

I guess just "roll an attack die, on a crit result gain 3 ion tokens" works fine because all are cleared after the ion maneuver. Adding the strain is probably fine as well.

I’d be completely ok with that. If you’re going to have an autothrusters level power obstacle, you need a big consequence risk for overlapping it

On the topic of gas clouds, I've been really surprised to see some people take them with their respective lists. I've been flying Arcs, and I love them since having a ton of medium ships isn't the easiest list to navigate.

Some people have been taking them with Ace and/or small base reposition lists. Their logic is ducking behind them for the defensive bonuses, but what they're doing is allowing me to just drive right on top of them with minimal consequence and shoot them down.

It'll be interesting to see if good players naturally drift away from them based on certain list types because of how important asteroids can be to some lists.

1 hour ago, ScummyRebel said:

I’d be completely ok with that. If you’re going to have an autothrusters level power obstacle, you need a big consequence risk for overlapping it

But... your opponent also has to pay that price is they overlap it. And if the gas cloud player is playing aces, they're way less likely to have to deal with going over the obstacles than an opponent that's playing a less maneuverable list.

You'd just be making them even stronger for aces then they already are.

1 hour ago, kempokid said:

On the topic of gas clouds, I've been really surprised to see some people take them with their respective lists. I've been flying Arcs, and I love them since having a ton of medium ships isn't the easiest list to navigate.

Some people have been taking them with Ace and/or small base reposition lists. Their logic is ducking behind them for the defensive bonuses, but what they're doing is allowing me to just drive right on top of them with minimal consequence and shoot them down.

It'll be interesting to see if good players naturally drift away from them based on certain list types because of how important asteroids can be to some lists.

what you're describing is the most likely reason why gas clouds work the way they do.

Gas clouds by their nature offer greater benefit to high agility, high mobility ships. You don't really want gas clouds in your B-Wing list because you benefit way less from that obstructed effect than your opponent will, but they're great for Soontir and Vader and Anakin as ways to cover their escape routes when they need to bug out of a fight.

But those aces don't really care about the overlap effect because they're never going to fly over them, because it's such a huge cost for an ace to lose its action. But stuff like the B-Wing and also large ships very much care about the overlap effect because they will sometimes find themselves in a position where the only way to get a shot or a block on that aces is by moving through an obstacle.

If gas clouds were going to have something as crippling as an ion effect baked into overlapping them, then they'd need to balance that by having an equal crippling effect for trying to hide behind it with an ace, like not converting all hits to crits or something. You can't just give the aces the best of both worlds by giving them a bonus for obstructed and giving their opponents a huge handicap for overlapping.