I was looking at the most common upgrades for Kylo in the Silencer on Listfortress [ https://meta.listfortress.com/pilots/281? ], and the two most prominent upgrades are Hate (force power) and Advanced Optics (tech). While I understand that regenerating Force tokens is great, you have to be hit for that ability to trigger. Am I missing why this upgrad is so popular? Advanced optics seems like the choice for making Kylo's dice more consistent.

What am I missing about Hate? And why it is so popular on Kylo? Isn't optics (assuming you have the extra point) a more optimal choice?

optics isn't more optimal because you can just take both

also, just imagine you're taking concentrated fire or are getting shot at by a higher I pilot or another I 5 with first player

every force you regenerate is another focus result you can turn into a hit or evade

If you can only take one, take advanced optics. You can use force for real eye results (such as hit blank eye, or blank blank eye).

If you can take both, the correct answer is yes.

The two explained above.

With the answer clearly defined in the first two responses, I look forward to the 7 pages of discussion that will inevitably follow.

Also Optics is like .04 hits better than just taking the target lock so YMMV.

Hate always gives you a force to trigger Kylos ability. And going against swarms can be a godsend by giving you a force back after getting plinked for 1hp.

Adv Optics is only good when paired with torpedoes or dealing with i6 ships that you cant get a lock on or dealing with swarms and you dont want to lock a ship that someone like Quickdraw might one shot, etc.

With proton torps, a focus + lock + adv sensors is like 3.97 expected hits vs 3.67 with just lock and 2 force vs 3.75 with lock + focus.

If you are a good enough player that your opponent never hits you, then Hate is not a good power. But the fact is that you will take those hits, and the ability to turn that negative into a positive by regenerating Force points makes it amazing. It also lets you be much more aggressive in the use of those points.

I have yet to field Kylo in 2E but I can confirm that Hate is very nice on Asajj. There’s nothing like regenerating defense, and the cost is cheap as heck.

The downside of Optics is that it really requires you to have a Focus token every round, and only provides value if you spend it offensively and not defensively.

Hate is a pretty limited-use upgrade (almost surely no more than 5 bonus force charges per game on Kylo), but it might fit more naturally into someone's playstyle. You don't have to adjust your actions to utilize an upgrade. If you're the kind of player who uses double reposition a lot--and thus doesn't have focus tokens for Advanced Optics--you probably would be better off with Hate.

It's kind of a shame that Brilliant Evasion was priced into oblivion. At 2-3 points, it might have been an interesting alternative to Hate (which I half think should cost more than 3 points).

3 hours ago, RunnerAZ said:

Advanced optics seems like the choice for making Kylo's dice more consistent.

A turn of phrase occurred to me: maybe Advanced Optics allows Kylo's red dice to be more consistent, but it forces his actions to be more consistent, too.

I don't like AO on Kylo without Hate because you are spending your focus at I5 and it severely limits your defence to just your force.

Optics allows strong offense without being in range to lock. This is specifically why its good. Kylo moves first alot because FO costs are balanced. Because of the order on the ship ability you cant boost lock so often take focus boost anyway. Having a focus improves your defense since you dont have to use it or force charges to modify on offense and can save the tokens to defend.

Hate allows strong offense from spending force “freely”. It also helps a little when defending against multiple shots. However, why are you defending against multiple shots? The answer is AAAAA exists and so does Tie Swarm. With Hate, kylo can say nope to entire lists of 2 dice attacks. Also because Kylo spends so much time moving first he tends to try to force jousts alot against other Aces which means he defends intentionally, which means Hate procs. Of course you prefer to flank but you cant always flank.

Both are excellent. Hate is default first to include. Optics is second if pts are available. That doesnt mean Optics is bad at all. Its amazing! Especially with Torps and Instinctive Aim. Xwing has nuance two things can be good.

Most players discuss these cards wrong and dont understand why optics can be significantly better on offense due to turn order and the ridiculously high volume of i5-i6 moving after kylo in the meta.

19 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Optics allows strong offense without being in range to lock. This is specifically why its good. Kylo moves first alot because FO costs are balanced. Because of the order on the ship ability you cant boost lock so often take focus boost anyway. Having a focus improves your defense since you dont have to use it or force charges to modify on offense and can save the tokens to defend.

Hate allows strong offense from spending force “freely”. It also helps a little when defending against multiple shots. However, why are you defending against multiple shots? The answer is AAAAA exists and so does Tie Swarm. With Hate, kylo can say nope to entire lists of 2 dice attacks. Also because Kylo spends so much time moving first he tends to try to force jousts alot against other Aces which means he defends intentionally, which means Hate procs. Of course you prefer to flank but you cant always flank.

Both are excellent. Hate is default first to include. Optics is second if pts are available. That doesnt mean Optics is bad at all. Its amazing! Especially with Torps and Instinctive Aim. Xwing has nuance two things can be good.

Most players discuss these cards wrong and dont understand why optics can be significantly better on offense due to turn order and the ridiculously high volume of i5-i6 moving after kylo in the meta.

I'll be that guy and say that i'm sorry and disagree with most of those.

If you have kylo, Optic is the first stapled card on him. It allows a very strong offense (close to 90% chance of 3 hits IIRC) with an easy action that's not range dependent and that he can almost always do, even with Ion, crits, etc.
Hate is good because it's cheap and it's a fail safe. But to trigger it you NEED to take damage, meaning it will trigger at most 6 times in a game. Now, saving 6 extra life, at the cost of 3 points, is amazing, but really you should never put yourself in a situation where more than 1 ace, or more than 2 swarmy ships, are shooting at kylo. Kylo is a flanker through and through, and that's why he works best with heavy duty ship that can tank and be aggressive, like Upsilon or a bunch of Tie-SF. If a whole list of swarm is shooting at kylo, hate can help you, but really, you made a mistake and over committed.

Optic is also awesome, because it mean taking focus is always the right choice, and if you turns out to not need it on attack you have a free mod on defense, as opposed to TL.

Also, if you're playing FO, it's very easy to have a 4-5 points bid in a kylo list. It's by no mean the 9 + bids that empire can take, but it's still pretty good and will give you good odds of being second player.