If you haven't seen it already, the spoiler for Angled Deflectors is out now, and we can put reinforce on a lot of ships that never had it before. I had to recalibrate my thinking for what this actually means, given that it's not been possible previously to put it on something with more than 1 agility. As such, I went through and checked a few key probabilities to figure out whether this is even something I care about playing with. Bottom line up front, it's potentially super strong on force users - in combination with force, angled deflectors can reduce variance swings against your end-game piece substantially and increase the likelihood of your win condition making it to the end-game. On the other hand, you're giving up a shield off the bat, so you're paying for the reduced variance by effectively taking a hit to begin with.

Please note that this is exemplary... you should still think about what it means for you and your list. If you'd like to play with different scenarios (e.g., Reinforce + focus), give it a shot at: http://xwing.gateofstorms.net/2/multi/

All calculations assume 3 incoming hits and calculate the average damage and probability for each number of hits . Lines with "+ Force" indicate exactly 1 force point.

In the sample lines below, this denotes that 3 green dice with a focus token will take an average of 1.13 damage from the 3 incoming hits. You'll take at least 1 hit 75% of the time, at least 2 hits 31% of the time, and 3 hits 5% of the time.

Average 1 hit 2 hit 3 hit

3G + Focus: 1.13 0.75 0.31 0.05

Results

Average 1 hit 2 hit 3 hit

4G + Focus: 0.65 0.48 0.15 0.02

4G + Evade: 0.67 0.51 0.15 0.00

4G + Reinforce: 1.00 0.84 0.15 0.00

4G + Reinforce + Force: 0.65 0.63 0.02 0.00

4G + Evade + Force: 0.25 0.23 0.02 0.00

4G + Nothing: 1.52 0.84 0.51 0.15

Average 1 hit 2 hit 3 hit

3G + Focus: 1.13 0.75 0.31 0.05

3G + Evade: 0.93 0.68 0.24 0.00

3G + Reinforce: 1.19 0.95 0.24 0.00

3G + Reinforce + Force: 0.89 0.84 0.05 0.00

3G + Evade + Force: 0.46 0.40 0.05 0.00

3G + Nothing: 1.88 0.95 0.68 0.24

Average 1 hit 2 hit 3 hit

2G + Focus: 1.75 1.00 0.60 0.14

2G + Evade: 1.39 1.00 0.39 0.00

2G + Reinforce: 1.39 1.00 0.39 0.00

2G + Reinforce + Force: 1.14 1.00 0.14 0.00

2G + Evade + Force: 1.14 1.00 0.14 0.00

2G + Nothing: 2.25 1.00 0.86 0.39

Average 1 hit 2 hit 3 hit

1G + Focus: 2.38 1.00 1.00 0.38

1G + Evade: 2.00 1 .00 1.00 0.00

1G + Reinforce: 1.625 1.00 0.63 0.00

1G + Reinforce + Force: 1.38 1.00 0.38 0.00

1G + Evade + Force: 2.00 1.00 1.00 0.00

1G + Nothing: 2.63 1.00 1.00 0.63

Of course, when you reinforce, you don't have a green token to mod your attack shot. This math should be a lot more familiar to people, but it's worth looking at how much it hurts your attack efficiency? Fundamentally the same format as above - average is the amount of hits you expect on average, with percentile amounts for how often you can expect at least that many results.

If you’re throwing…

Average 1 hit 2 hit 3 hit 4 hit

4R + Focus: 3.00 0.99 0.94 0.73 0.31

4R + Force: 2.60 0.99 0.90 0.59 0.18

4R + Nothing: 2.00 0.93 0.68 0.31 0.06

3R + Focus: 2.25 0.98 0.84 0.42

3R + Force: 2.08 0.98 0.78 0.31

3R + Nothing: 1.50 0.88 0.50 0.13

2R + Focus: 1.50 0.93 0.56

2R + Force: 1.44 0.93 0.50

2R + Nothing: 1.00 0.75 0.25

I used to be like you, but the game broke me. Broke me down to my core and showed me the cold hard truth of reality.

Heroics triggers 32 times per game on average and the likelyhood of blanks increase when you don't have it.

Selfless never triggers, ever.

Statistics is a lie.

9 minutes ago, prauxim said:

Statistics is a lie.

Just get yourself an infinite improbability drive!

Mostly I worked this out for myself to decide whether it even makes sense to play around with things like TIE/SFs or Silencers. I think we all know that passive modifications are good, but it was a little surprising to me how much better this gets when you add force to it. It's so much better that I don't see the point of taking this on something that doesn't get extra mods somehow (e.g., Norra, for a non-force user).

17 minutes ago, prauxim said:

Statistics  is a  li  e  . 

Hence the saying ‘there’s lies, **** lies and statistics’...

Another factor to consider on these is that they can muck around with your MOV. If your ship has an odd number of shields/hull (Kimogilas, ARCs-170, Resistance X-Wings, Vader), then equipping this mod will actually reduce your half-point threshold by 1.

21 minutes ago, prauxim said:

I used to be like you, but the game broke me. Broke me down to my core and showed me the cold hard truth of reality.

Heroics triggers 32 times per game on average and the likelyhood of blanks increase when you don't have it.

Selfless never triggers, ever.

Statistics is a lie.

This math checks out, based on the number of times I've rolled all focuses when I took a TL, or all blanks when I took a focus.

I'm curious why you decided to include Evade, Reinforce and Reinforce + Force in this comparison, but not Evade + Force.

Also, assuming that the incoming attack is always 3 hits is super favourable to reinforce vs evade on 2 green dice because it ignores the big hole in reinforce's mechanics.

This feels like something of cherry picked sample to me...

1 hour ago, PaulRuddSays said:

Just get yourself an infinite improbability drive!

Mostly I worked this out for myself to decide whether it even makes sense to play around with things like TIE/SFs or Silencers. I think we all know that passive modifications are good, but it was a little surprising to me how much better this gets when you add force to it. It's so much better that I don't see the point of taking this on something that doesn't get extra mods somehow (e.g., Norra, for a non-force user).

Lol, yeah I need one. I love stats and used to make a lot of fun of people who didn't base decisions on stats/executed results, but awhile back I had a run of dice so bad and for so long (about 9 games) that it made me question basic laws of mathematics.

Looking at your numbers my take away would be that Angled Deflectors is best on 1 agi, regardless of having force. Also the lost shield is the least valuable on 1 agi. Basically you'd just reinforce anytime you expected to take multiple incoming shots from a single side. You'd want the ship to still maintain target priority even with a reinforce, so we're probably talking big-ship point fortresses.

Also how does 3G+Reinforce change the odds of 1 hit vs 3G-Nothing? Typo?

47 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

I'm curious why you decided to include Evade, Reinforce and Reinforce + Force in this comparison, but not Evade + Force.

Also, assuming that the incoming attack is always 3 hits is super favourable to reinforce vs evade on 2 green dice because it ignores the big hole in reinforce's mechanics.

This feels like something of cherry picked sample to me...

Only two ships can get force+evade, and one has to pay a force to do so*. I wouldn't be surprised if @PaulRuddSays just forgot the Aethersprite and Ezra could get an evade*.

It would be worth adding 2 hits and 4 hits into the mix, though.

*Although the latter is not terribly relevant since angled deflectors on an attack shuttle is a terrible idea. And it's not like Ezra is tearing up the competitive scene in the Attack shuttle.

Edit: Okay, you can also put force using crew on a Reaper or Quadjumper. Or combine debris gambit and a force-using crew. So I guess it might be more relevant than I thought, although I'm still inclined to attribute the ommission her to forgetfulness than maliciousness.

10 minutes ago, Squark said:

Okay, you can also put force using crew on a Reaper or  Quadjumper. Or combine debris gambit and a force-using crew. So I guess it might be more relevant than I thought, although I'm still inclined to attribute the ommission her to forgetfulness than maliciousness.  

And the TIE/v1

56 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

I'm curious why you decided to include Evade, Reinforce and Reinforce + Force in this comparison, but not Evade + Force.

Also, assuming that the incoming attack is always 3 hits is super favourable to reinforce vs evade on 2 green dice because it ignores the big hole in reinforce's mechanics.

This feels like something of cherry picked sample to me...

It's already a bit of a data dump - you're welcome to calculate it for 2 incoming hits if you want, where reinforce is likely to make less of a difference. I picked 3 hits because every player is going to see a lot of these coming in... nearly half of 3R + focus are going to yield this result, and there are a lot of 3 attack ships in the game.

I will add Evade + Force, as that's pretty straightforward.

14 minutes ago, Squark said:

Only two ships can get force+evade, and one has to pay a force to do so*. I wouldn't be surprised if @PaulRuddSays just forgot the Aethersprite and Ezra could get an evade*.

It would be worth adding 2 hits and 4 hits into the mix, though.

*Although the latter is not terribly relevant since angled deflectors on an attack shuttle is a terrible idea. And it's not like Ezra is tearing up the competitive scene in the Attack shuttle.

Edit: Okay, you can also put force using crew on a Reaper or Quadjumper. Or combine debris gambit and a force-using crew. So I guess it might be more relevant than I thought, although I'm still inclined to attribute the ommission her to forgetfulness than maliciousness.

I won't add 2 and 4 hits just because it's a lot of formatting, and this computer doesn't have Excel or Pages, so I'm doing all of it manually out of Notepad. If someone thinks it's valuable, they're welcome to add it in via a quote as a "FTFY".

I haven't played against an Aethersprite, though they've been played on tables around me... so you're right, this basically didn't occur to me

This Machine works out the exact probability of success for one x-wing card.

I've just sucked the fun out of one Wave.

Tell me. Are you still going to use the card? Be honest; this is for posterity.

Look @Darth Meanie we all know that, as an Epic player, reinforce is vastly stronger there so it’s a card you’ll find

Quite operational

2 hours ago, PhantomFO said:

Another factor to consider on these is that they can muck around with your MOV. If your ship has an odd number of shields/hull (Kimogilas, ARCs-170, Resistance X-Wings, Vader), then equipping this mod will actually reduce your half-point threshold by 1.

and ^THIS^ is the Achilles heal in that upgrade. It was the reason why not to take torps/missiles in 1st ed early waves because they not only would decrease the number of ships you can field but increase the points lost when the ships were destroyed. Unless this upgrade has a cost of 0 this will never work.

I think the b-wing will love this upgrade as long as you have a way of giving the reinforced ship a focus or lock or stress... and 8 to 7 hit points is still 4 for half points...

21 minutes ago, BenDay said:

I think the b-wing will love this upgrade as long as you have a way of giving the reinforced ship a focus or lock or stress... and 8 to 7 hit points is still 4 for half points...

Likely a bit of an expensive combo (probably should be), but this + Shield on Fearless/Talonbane. I'm liking the potential. Also might be nice on Black Sun Aces if it isn't too expensive. Might try it on Scyks for giggles as well.

7 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

This  feels like something of cherry picked sample to me... 

I think ADs are perfect on Anakin at i6. Because he will know whether there's a 4hit proton or 3x3hit attacks or just a 2hit attack coming at him.

With that in mind, this is great work by @PaulRuddSays

Did Guri just get stupider???

Since we don't know its pricepoint, I don't know if its broken. Might be alright, if its price is based on initiative. The ship is also loosing 1 shield and has to use its action to reinforce. Force users really like this card and Lt. Sai really wants a wingman with this.

I really can't believe FFG actually made this card. I would've thought this type of card would be released much later, like Wave 10, after they ran out of ideas. Sigh...

Okay, that's my initial reaction. Only time and points will tell how much this upgrade will change the meta. I do like how you have to sacrifice a shield to equip.

@PaulRuddSays , thanks for doing the math.

8 hours ago, Marinealver said:

and ^THIS^ is the Achilles heal in that upgrade. It was the reason why not to take torps/missiles in 1st ed early waves because they not only would decrease the number of ships you can field but increase the points lost when the ships were destroyed. Unless this upgrade has a cost of 0 this will never work.

I wouldn't say that, either. Torps and missiles in 1.0 were bad because the average damage of an unmodded Proton Torp was lower than a Focused primary shot.

This will probably find a home on something like a Palp Reaper or a Scurrg. There might even be an argument for it on Boba Fett, as his reinforce action is red. We'll need to see the points.

4 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

I think ADs are perfect on Anakin at i6. Because he will know whether there's a 4hit proton or 3x3hit attacks or just a 2hit attack coming at him.

True, but in Anakin's case you've got to compare it to what he could have achieved by pressing the panic button and using his purple evade action. If it's a trio of focused 3-dice attacks, then reinforce is a massively better choice, especially if in a less agile -7b, but I feel like getting Anakin shot up by a trio of goons probably falls under "don't allow this to happen" territory.

Against a proton torpedo, even a double-modified one, an evade token will do you just as much good - and, theoretically, using your action on a boost or barrel roll might do you even more good by escaping the shot entirely.

12 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

If  it's a trio of focused 3-dice attacks, then reinforce is a massively better choice, especially if in a less agile -7b, but I feel like getting Anakin shot up by a trio of goons probably falls un  der "don't allow this to happen" territory. 

Yes, and this leads back to the discussion of whether insurance type upgrades are a good idea or not.

I guess it's just my style to combine insurance upgrades with an aggressive playstyle, so I get to use them more often.

11 hours ago, Squark said:

Only two ships can get force+evade, and one has to pay a force to do so*. I wouldn't be surprised if @PaulRuddSays just forgot the Aethersprite and Ezra could get an evade*.

It would be worth adding 2 hits and 4 hits into the mix, though.

*Although the latter is not terribly relevant since angled deflectors on an attack shuttle is a terrible idea. And it's not like Ezra is tearing up the competitive scene in the Attack shuttle. 

Edit: Okay, you can also put force using crew on a Reaper or Quadjumper. Or combine debris gambit and a force-using crew. So I guess it might be more relevant than I thought, although I'm still inclined to attribute the ommission her to forgetfulness than maliciousness.

Three ships natively

The TIE Advanced v1 is the big one.

The reason it's relevant is because we have a 3 agility ship with a white evade action and two Force tokens in the Grand Inquisitor. And 3 agility with evade and Force is better than 3 agility with reinforce and Force (against one attack 3 hit attack, as is our data point here).

And guess what, Grand Inqy isn't exactly tearing up the meta with his own brand of NPE "you can't damage me nonsense". Because there's more to the mechanics than just blocking a lot of damage in the ideal situation.

Now before you come back to me with all the arguments as to why Grand Inqy isn't getting played (his high cost, the Force requirement for him to get 3 dice attack etc), just remember that all of those arguments will apply to Angled Deflectors too.

I maybe shouldn't have worded my last sentence the way I did, I'm not accusing anyone of anything. But incomplete data is still incomplete data, regardless of whether it's forgetfulness or maliciousness. I'm just a bit suspicious when the only exclusion a data set makes is the one element that doesn't fit the presented conclusion.

11 hours ago, PaulRuddSays said:

I picked 3 hits because every player is going to see a lot of these coming in... nearly half of 3R + focus are going to yield this result, and there are a lot of 3 attack ships in the game.

Sorry, but this seems like a strangely contradictory sentence to me.

Do you really see nearly half of a subset of ships in the game as being 'a lot'?

The idea that even a small majority of shots you face in a given game will be three hits just doesn't jive with my experience of the game at all.

Even ignoring all the 2 dice attack ships that definitely get played, like TIE Fighters, V-19s, Y-Wings etc, the strong average result for 3 dice attacks - whether you look at mean, median or whatever - is still 2 hits. I've played against Vader a lot recently, and even with his incredibly easy access to full mods and 3 dice, he still rolls 2 hits a not inconsequential number of times.

I'm aware this probably sounds a bit hostile. It's not meant to be, I just don't really know a better of expressing my counter arguments. Thanks for putting in the legwork for this, it's very useful data and it's so much easier to just refer to to this rather than spending minutes on the dice calculator myself.

5 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

I think ADs are perfect on Anakin at i6. Because he will know whether there's a 4hit proton or 3x3hit attacks or just a 2hit attack coming at him.

With that in mind, this is great work by @PaulRuddSays

Sure.

Anakin gets a bit more defensively consistent. A bit.

It seems unlikely this card will be cheap. So if Anakin takes this with 7B, he's going to be even more expensive. And it gets super situational, because you've given up agility and now one of your extra shields for insurance that only makes sense against more than one attack (because reinforce is the same or worse than an evade against one 3 dice or 2 dice attack respectively, which obviously is the bread and butter of attack rolls).

If he doesn't take 7B, then he can't take this and Calibrated Targeting, because they both take a mod slot.

So he can probably afford to take this for the defensive coverage, but his attack is still weakened and he's still not exactly cheap. Also, the reinforce is again worse than the evade on 3 greens in most cases (the exception being if you've run out of Force, where the reinforce being white instead of purple makes it much more attractive) vs one attack. So again it's just coverage against multiple shots.

At that point, you have to ask: wouldn't it be better to just.... not get shot twice in a round? Maybe by using that I6 to arc dodge instead? Maybe by using Afterburners to get a free boost out of one arc so you can use your actions to token up against the other? And if he's not running 7B, then as the other player what's to stop me just ignoring this expensive, defensive, low offence ship so that I can do my damage to the rest of the list and then just play for time?

And all of this is without discussing that the reinforce has to prevent at least 2 damage across the course of the game that couldn't have been prevented any other way to make up for the loss of the shield and the cost and opportunity cost of the card. And that's assuming that AD will be the same cost or cheaper than a Hull/Shield Upgrade. If it's more expensive, then it needs to prevent 3 damage. So all told you're basically looking at Anakin taking two shots a round for three rounds to really justify it.

Just saying, @GuacCousteau , you come across as pretty argumentative, as if there was something that annoys you beyond the topic at hand. Maybe that's not the case, maybe it is, it's fine for me either way. Just thought I let you know in case it wasn't intended.

13 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

Sorry, but this seems like a strangely contradictory sentence to me.

Do you really see nearly half of a subset of ships in the game as being 'a lot'?

The idea that even a small majority of shots you face in a given game will be three hits just doesn't jive with my experience of the game at all.

I have the numbers (for hyperspace) and 3dice attack ships make up just more than half of all ships that are played as close as 1 month ago. I really doubt that this changed a lot. That means your expected average attack has 3 or more dice (due to range 1 or ordnance on 2attack ships).

16 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

At that point, you have to ask: wouldn't it be better to just.... not get shot twice in a round?  Maybe by using that I6 to arc dodge instead? Maybe by using Afterburners to get a free boost out of one arc so you can use your actions to token up against the other? And if he's not running 7B, then as the other player what's to stop me just ignoring this expensive, defensive, low offence ship so that I can do my damage to the rest of the list and then just play for time?

The post here was just a part of the full argument. If you're interested:

• The mod slot is usually empty
• Anakin knows when he can take the TL or reinforce. You will likely do one or the other, only rarely will you take a different action. I've used evade some times if necessary, but now you have even another option depending on the number of shots!
• It will also save you some force in defensive use: you know perfectly whether you can spend a force to reduce to 0, or not spend force if you can e.g. reduce to 1 only anyway (a hit-hit-blank and you roll focus-blank? Reinforce, safe the force).
• He can now do more against higher dice number attacks: 4 hits from a torpedo? double evade (by spending force) + reinforce, take just one. Same with 3 hits if you don't get perfect evades.
• He goes down to 2 shields only. But, he still has R2 with his 2 charges, so 2 shields are great.
• Especially while regenerating, if you somehow still end up in 2 arcs, you can reinforce. Otherwise, maybe evade.

Overall, it's a contingency. Of course you shouldn't end up in multiple arcs. But I know I do over the course of a tournament day. It's the same discussion with Hate on Vader, or Heroic on an ace. Some people prefer to take the insurance upgrade, others don't. I don't think it is clear cut enough to be as smug about it. But I'd be happy to learn one way or the other.