An interesting option could be:

6 recurring charges. When you perform a primary weapon attack whilst you have 6 charges, you may spend up to 6 charges to add half many dice to the attack, rounding down.

So, +1 die every other round, +2 dice every fourth round, or +3 dice every sixth round.

Death Sticks (5 pts)

Action: Spend 1 charge. Choose 1 crew upgrade equipped to an enemy ship at range 0-1. Remove one charge from that crew upgrade.

1 charge (non-recurring)

Nose-mounted Lightsaber

Illicit, small ship only, 6(?) pts

At any moment a ship is at Range 0 and in your front arc, you may roll an unavoidable red die attack, no green dice allowed 😈

not sure on name or points, but something that would boost action efficiency would go a long way towards helping scum ships out. maybe 1 charge (non-recurring), take a stress to link any action. would let talonbane or the keerax set up a lock/focus, etc.

1 hour ago, Hiemfire said:

🤨 How? There is no option to spend any charges which would delay the recharge cycle. As written all your opponent needs to do is time their moves so that on turns 4, 7, etc. they're not in arc which is not too hard...

Because when a ship activates in the end phase, It can decide in which order it does the things that it does in the end phase.

This would allow the player to choose between gaining a charge and then losing all charges or losing no charges and then gaining a charge. And then the following turn he can lose all charges and then gain a charge.

I guess it’s not that breakable but specifying timing is generally better to prevent the loopholes that come from simultaneous effects.

1 minute ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Because when a ship activates in the end phase, It can decide in which order it does the things that it does in the end phase.

This would allow the player to choose between gaining a charge and then losing all charges or losing no charges and then gaining a charge. And then the following turn he can lose all charges and then gain a charge.

I guess it’s not that breakable but specifying timing is generally better to prevent the loopholes that come from simultaneous effects.

Okay. I must have been misreading since I thought you were implying there was a way outside the End Phase to burn a charge. That said, you've got a weird understanding of how the End Phase works. The " before you would recover charges" is needed for the upgrade to function the way you want but not because the controlling player has any choice in the matter. Regaining charges is a game effect and that would happen before any card abilities unless otherwise specified per the rules on Ability Queue. I still think that for 6 points the upgrade is way too easy to counter.

:Illicit or Crew if Squad Includes Temmin Wexley

1 Charge, 10 Pts.

"Mister Bones"

When attacking, after the neutralize results step,

if the defender would be reduced to 1 Hull, you may spend 1 charge to add 1 (crit) result to your roll.

27 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Okay. I must have been misreading since I thought you were implying there was a way outside the End Phase to burn a charge. That said, you've got a weird understanding of how the End Phase works. The " before you would recover charges" is needed for the upgrade to function the way you want but not because the controlling player has any choice in the matter. Regaining charges is a game effect and that would happen before any card abilities unless otherwise specified per the rules on Ability Queue. I still think that for 6 points the upgrade is way too easy to counter.

Maybe so? If it weren’t, it would be taken too much, plus pricing could change. Note that it’s not limited though. A swarm of Z-95s that BITE on turn 4 would be pretty sweet. A 4-3 double-tap Ketsu against a tractored target would be NASTY! And so on. 6 seems cheap to me.

Note: I got this idea from a thread where we were discussing how to represent the B-6 prototype’s composite laser cannon. My idea basically worked the same way, but was bullseye only, threw 6 dice, and turned all hits to crits. Hard to land but it can PUNCH! I like it better than low-dice, high bonus damage attacks because it’s rewarding a very tricky play and clever planning rather than rewarding getting lucky on a statistically unlikely roll.

Launcher Safety Bypass

Illicit, 2 points. Requires [Missile] slot.

Action: Recover up to 2 charges on an equipped [Missile] upgrade. Then, roll 1 attack dice and suffer 1 [Hit] / [Crit] damage for each matching result.

5 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

double-tap Ketsu

Banking on the Lancer getting a gunner slot in Jan? Ketsu can't double tap at the moment. Still, even with running 6 Binarye or BSS with these, it isn't hard for your opponent to time their engagement to mitigate heavily or eliminate the threat of this upgrade. At best against a decent player a squad equipped with these will have their first engagement at base dice (looking at turn 2, 3 or 5) and then maybe have arcs on with allot fewer of them in turn 7 with the upgrade giving its boost.

Forged Identification Codes

Illicit. 4 points. 1 charge.

After an enemy ship at range 2-3 acquires a lock on you, if your charge is active, break their lock and lose 1 charge.

At the start of the engagement phase, if an enemy ship is at range 1, lose 1 charge.

Directed Jamming Array

Illicit / Modification. Requires [Rotate] action. 5 points.

Action: Jam a ship in your [Turret Arc] at range 1-2. If that ship is at range one, you may treat this action as red to assign one additional jam token.

Homing beacon: Device: 1 charge.

During systems phase, launch Homing Beacon. All target locks assigned to you are assigned to the homing beacon. These TL can not be removed until the Homing Beacon is destroyed:

2 hull, 0 agility.

Points: 6

I know, a bit wordy, it could be cleaned up. Basicly an idea from watching Firefly. The scumiest of a crew motivated by money, and sometimes the right reasons.

Hidden Arsenal . Illicit Slot. Cost 3.

Add 1 charge to one device already on this ship.

Point Defense Array (Large or Huge ship only) Cost: 10

3 charges, non-recurring

While you defend against a [missile] or [torpedo] attack, during the Modify Defense Dice step, you may spend 1 charge to roll one attack die. If you do, on a [hit] or [crit] result, add one [evade] result to your defense roll.

Hammer head movement: looked this up on wikipedia's page on air acrobatics.

Requires calculate: no organic life form could survive the foces this exerts on a ship:

Charges: 2

Perform a barrel roll. After the ship is placed, rotate 180 degrees. Gain a stress.

Small/ medium base only

Cost: 8

Oh No! It's Loose! (Condition): You may treat your full front arc as your bullseye arc. At the beginning of the End Phase, this ship is destroyed.

Unsure of the upgrade point cost. Probably 3.

EDIT: Changed the name of the condition to better suit the theme.

Unsure of the point cost. Probably a 10, maybe a bit higher.

5 minutes ago, President Jyrgunkarrd said:

Unsure of the point cost. Probably a 10, maybe a bit higher.

nice. I'd maybe have the calculate action as a requirement as well.

You should also probably take a stress for that just given the precedence for cards that spin you... but meh. You're already paying 10+ points for a single use effect that you have to telegraph to your opponent and set-up a turn in advance.

I thought about having calculate as part of the requirement somehow, but I feel like that really shoehorns the card into very specific lists.

7 minutes ago, Da_Brown_Bomber said:

nice. I'd maybe have the calculate action as a requirement as well.

2 minutes ago, President Jyrgunkarrd said:

You should also probably take a stress for that just given the precedence for cards that spin you... but meh. You're already paying 10+ points for a single use effect that you have to telegraph to your opponent and set-up a turn in advance.

I thought about having calculate as part of the requirement somehow, but I feel like that really shoehorns the card into very specific lists.

Yeah I wouldn't bother with calculate, either. The thing I don't like is that it's pretty hard to handle not-90-degree rotations and still keep the center of the ship in the same place. I guess you could put a template across the middle of the base and use that as a reference point, but that feels really awkward to me.

8 minutes ago, lordvorkon said:

Yeah I wouldn't bother with calculate, either. The thing I don't like is that it's pretty hard to handle not-90-degree rotations and still keep the center of the ship in the same place. I guess you could put a template across the middle of the base and use that as a reference point, but that feels really awkward to me.

Yeah; any card akin to this one would probably need to come in a set with some sort of special turning key for handling rotating in place.

EDIT: As well as, naturally, Rebel upgrades that are for some reason 1/2 the post cost of illicit upgrades while doing the same thing but better.

26 minutes ago, President Jyrgunkarrd said:

I rather like this idea but perhaps it could be suffer one hit and one strain to perform an attack at range 0

Or equivalent damage after dice have been neutralised.

Gravity Well Generator - 5 points

Medium or large base only.

During the system phase you may give 2 tractor tokens to all ships, of a base size smaller than you, at range 0-1, then receive a Jam and weapons disabled token.

When ships are Tractored in this way they can only be moved if their bases will be closer to the ship that applied the tractor tokens.