1. Microjumps: Now admittedly the jump they make in the book is about 600,000 km and is supposedly just barely possible because it is already almost too short but this could be an interesting mechanic (and maybe made more “realistic” if paired up with another, later entry on this list).

A Microjump card could reed something like this: “If there are no other ships at range X of you, you may discard this card to execute a speed Y maneuver with no yaw“ (I deliberately left the activation trigger/timing open as that would be part of balancing this card and as I said I am not particularly interested in getting bogged down with the details)

2. Stealth: The book makes a very strict distinction between stealth and cloaking. Cloaking is an active technology that makes you and your emissions “invisible” to enemy sensors. Stealth on the other hand means shutting down almost all ship systems. This way the ship radiates almost no emissions and makes it very difficult for sensors to differentiate it again the background nothingness of space. The big downside of Stealth is of course that a ship in stealth can neither use active sensors nor their engines let alone weapons without being detected, where as a cloaked ship might use those systems undetected. Stealth is used to great effect in the book by both capital ships and squadrons alike. And both could be implemented in interesting ways into armada. Though stealth, the way I imagine it in armada, would not be a simple upgrade card but rather an entirely new gameplay mechanic.

Stealth for ships: Ships can be deployed as being in stealth mode. A ship deployed in stealth mode has all its upgrade cards turned to the back side (and also not shown them to the opponent before the battle). Stealth ships are deployed as usual but can not attack, execute any commands or use any of their upgrade cards (maybe even get a yaw debuff). Once a stealth ship activates it may decide to end its stealth status. It then flips all its upgrade cards to the face up side and is no more in stealth mode.

So stealth ships are still on the board as normal but are very limited in their abilities but can provide a great surprise to the opponent once powered up.

Stealth for Squads: Squads that are in stealth mode have their squad card turned upside down. When you deploy a squad in stealth mode you put a number token on its squad card. Squads in stealth are not represented by a squad miniature on the playingfield but rather by a numbered token corresponding to the numbered token on its squadron card. Squads in stealth can neither attack nor trigger any of their effects. When a Squadron activates it may end its stealth status. If a stealth squadron moves, is attacked or engaged by another squad it automatically looses its stealth status. If it does it flips its squadron card to the face up side and replaces the numbered token on the playfield with its miniature.

So stealth squads have the additional advantage over stealth ships that you don't even know what kind of squadron the tokens on the playingfield represent but they also have the additional handicap of not being able to move on their own because drive emissions from movement would give away their position.

3. Starfighter tractor filngs or Slingshots (as they are called in the book): Here Capital ships particularly ISDs lock onto starfighter with their tractor beams and fling them past the ships. This is used in conjunction with stealth Squadrons. Moving a squadron with tractor beams does not give the presence of that squad away since apparently, tractor beams can not be detected by sensors. So if the Stealth mechanic from point 2 would be in place there could be an Offensive Retrofit upgrade that lets you move stealth squads without them loosing their stealth status.

A card might read: You may choose up to X squads. Theses squads may perform a speed Y maneuver without loosing the stealth status.

For current Armada, where we don't have a stealth mechanic this slingshot maneuver could still be interesting. Here there could be an Offensive Retrofit upgrade that would let you fling up to X squads but since tractors can not push squads in any direction but only pull them towards the tractor beam generator this upgrade would not let you move squads in any direction but instead a squad could make a speed Y maneuver but that maneuver needs to go through the point of origin of the Tractor beam. Which could be represented by the yellow targeting point on the front hull zone of the ship. This way it is different from Fighter Coordination Team but also weaker, which might be necessary because an ISD is supposed to be able to perform this maneuver. (This restriction could also be added to the stealth version)

So the Card might read: You may select up to X (unengaged friendly...) squadrons. They may perform a speed Y maneuver that must go through the yellow targeting point of your front hull zone.

4. Interdiction Mines and Hyperspace squads: So in the final battle of the book there is a really cool scene where the protagonists have something that could best be described as an interdiction mine. It is basically a small cloaked self-sustaining device that creates a heavily localized interdiction field around it. Unbeknownst to the enemy this cloaked device is placed next to one of their ship. This allows a squad of TIE Defenders to drop out of hyperspace extremely precisely right on top of the enemy ship. Surprising them and avoiding the dangerous approach flight where the enemy would have them in flack range but where the TIE Defenders weapons might not yet be in effective range.

Now this kind of requires a new squad keyword “Hyperdrive” and the addition to appropriate squads and with that also a cost re-balance... (this would probably also change how theses squadrons deploy normally, Yada yada yada... ) (the idea of adding a “Hyperdrive” keyword to the game is a whole different and interesting topic for itself that I don't want to go into further here). The idea is that you can set aside certain squads at the beginning and then deploy them later around such an interdiction mine or around an Interdictor SD.

Lastly this might also play together well with the Microjump idea. So maybe instead of just being able to do a jump there wold be an upgrade card that lets you make a speed X maneuver with no yaw if the maneuver ends withing range Y of an interdiction mine or an Interdictor SD.

Now several of my proposals require deep changes to existing gameplay systems. So I am aware that many of them might not be implementable without a 2.0 reboot of Armada but I think it is still fun to think about such ideas and ultimately I think it is Armadas goal to relatively accurately depict Star Wars space combat and give players the ability to replay battles, tactics and maneuvers from canon stories. So I think it is not to crazy to hope that maneuvers and techniques that are absolutely canon will someday find their way into this wonderful game.

Also for everyone that made it this far. Have a high five for making it through this wall of text 🖐️ and tell me what you think of theses ideas!