Thing is though, it's also a lot less likely to succeed in firing first, since knowing you will get a jam if you don't block it, you can freely spend your tokens without worrying about later use in the round, purely to avoid the Deplete, since they will go away anyway. RAC/Reinforce is like... the worst case scenario.

It's a potentially interesting upgrade that's stronger on higher-init ships, but I'm not sure how you design something that's inherently better on low-init except maybe Passive Sensors or the like.

I think timing could play a big part of these missiles for low-initiative pilots (assuming Deplete works like a red-dice Strain). Yes, if you fire at somebody who was already Stressed or otherwise planning to do a blue maneuver, the Deplete is pointless. Fire at someone who really wants to K-turn or S-loop next turn, though, and you force them to make a choice.

Shooting first, means moving first. Good ace players wont be too scared.

What I LOVE about mag pulse is that it helps counter alpha strike lists that spam ordnance. Before, you either need a dodgy ship, or you just eat three or four torpedoes. Jamming beams problem was that it was range 1-2 and what you want to jam are locks at range 3. Now we can. This has been needed in the game for awhile. Woulda been useful with all the alpha going on in early 2.0 days.

It is also a way to remove reinforce tokens from ships like RAC. Reinforce has always been immune to abilities like Old Teroch and Palob, and we finally have a way to counter it.

Mag Pulse are needed in the game. I think the deplete token may be a bit too much (as adding and removing red dice in this game is about 8pts worth alone), but the range 3 single damage and jam are very much needed and appreciated to control power of certain ships that your list may be weak against. Similar to Diamond Boron Missiles, they are a great way to strengthen your squad against swarms and formations lists.

1 minute ago, wurms said:

Reinforce has always been immune to abilities like Old Teroch

Reinforce isn't immune to Teroch in 2e. Just to clarify.

8 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Reinforce isn't immune to Teroch in 2e. Just to clarify.

True, but it turns out basically everyone is immune to Terochs ability because it's awful. Every time I see him being flown, I keep being like "Terochs ability?" And then the players will helpfully remind me how garbage it is because it's failing to trigger despite him being in the middle of 3 ships.

Incidentally, back to Mag Pulse missiles, we have no idea how much they cost or even what depletion does and we're already calling it an NPE? That has to be a record even for these forums.

1 minute ago, MasterShake2 said:

True, but it turns out basically everyone is immune to Terochs ability because it's awful. Every time I see him being flown, I keep being like "Terochs ability?" And then the players will helpfully remind me how garbage it is because it's failing to trigger despite him being in the middle of 3 ships.

Uh... no? Good Teroch players line up alphas based on his ability, which can act as an effective force multiplier. That’s like saying Fenn is garbage because some players get caught in arc R2, or that Tavson is rubbish because people don’t shoot at him.

3 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

Incidentally, back to Mag Pulse missiles, we have no idea how much they cost or even what depletion does and we're already calling it an NPE? That has to be a record even for these forums.

Don’t you remember Resistance Leia? I didn’t need to put her on the table to know she needed Luke gunner prices to not be cancer.

59 minutes ago, wurms said:

Shooting first, means moving first. Good ace players wont be too scared.

What I LOVE about mag pulse is that it helps counter alpha strike lists that spam ordnance. Before, you either need a dodgy ship, or you just eat three or four torpedoes. Jamming beams problem was that it was range 1-2 and what you want to jam are locks at range 3. Now we can. This has been needed in the game for awhile. Woulda been useful with all the alpha going on in early 2.0 days.

It is also a way to remove reinforce tokens from ships like RAC. Reinforce has always been immune to abilities like Old Teroch and Palob, and we finally have a way to counter it.

Mag Pulse are needed in the game. I think the deplete token may be a bit too much (as adding and removing red dice in this game is about 8pts worth alone), but the range 3 single damage and jam are very much needed and appreciated to control power of certain ships that your list may be weak against. Similar to Diamond Boron Missiles, they are a great way to strengthen your squad against swarms and formations lists.

For clarity as to what @thespaceinvader is saying. Teroch removes all green tokens, not just focuses and evades.

They already scale with initiative because higher I costs points and higher I ships have a bigger opportunity of giving up other attack options and PS kill potential. Most 5s and 6s are enough of your list to where they're not just trying to push through 1 damage.

Swarm Tactics is the scary case here IMO since it lets you get a supportish cheap ship a high I shot.

23 minutes ago, itsJALbert said:

They already scale with initiative because higher I costs points and higher I ships have a bigger opportunity of giving up other attack options and PS kill potential. Most 5s and 6s are enough of your list to where they're not just trying to push through 1 damage.

Swarm Tactics is the scary case here IMO since it lets you get a supportish cheap ship a high I shot.

Exactly, if they cost about 6-7 points, it'll be possible to have quickdraw, swarm tactics, and 3 Tie-SF with passive, and make them all shoot at I6. So my guess is that they'll make them cost around 10 points for things like that.

TOTAL swing and a miss from FFG. It’s like they realized our missiles are bad, but instead of pricing them down to usefulness, they came out with one that’s stupid strong. Wrong call.

DBM was cool. This is not. I thought they were doing away with most free-effect-upon-hit cards? Plasmas and concussions work, but they’re situational and/or expensive. These are good against almost everything.

This thing had better be at least 9 points. Maybe they’ll finally realize how overpriced the existing missiles are?

54 minutes ago, DarthSempai said:

Exactly, if they cost about 6-7 points, it'll be possible to have quickdraw, swarm tactics, and 3 Tie-SF with passive, and make them all shoot at I6. So my guess is that they'll make them cost around 10 points for things like that.

How is that a scary list? Ignoring that QD and the SF are quite possibly in line for an increase, orienting your whole squad to get a 3 damage I6 alpha that dampens opponent return fire seems and QD's primary seems... Reasonable. I'm assuming 6 points, 2 charges for missiles and you fit in at 199.

Pop QD, threat is gone. Survive 2 rounds of missiles, threat is low. Outfly a block that needs to maintain R1 for Swarm Tactics, you're doing fine.

@wurms I agree that the jam and crit effects are a solid tool against alpha strikes. If the weapon only did jam and a crit, it would be a groovy missile and I'd play it. It would be cheaper than this disarm version too and thus more accessible for generics.

The deplete token is what really puts this over the top - with deplete and jam you just totally poop on any shots coming back your way. I'm ok with neutering alpha strikes, but think about what this does to your average ship. You've gone from a 3-dice focussed attack to a 2 dice unmodded attack (and heaven forbid you only had a 2 dice attack to begin with).

Deplete and jam are both way better when delivered early in combat, so this weapon ought to at least double in price as it scales up from i2/3 to i5/6. Honestly, I'd like it to scale something like 7/7/8/10/15/18/20.

@heychadwick This post is nothing about games going to time, it's about mag pulse missiles making the game go longer because nothing dies

3 hours ago, itsJALbert said:

They already scale with initiative because higher I costs points and higher I ships have a bigger opportunity of giving up other attack options and PS kill potential. Most 5s and 6s are enough of your list to where they're not just trying to push through 1 damage.

Swarm Tactics is the scary case here IMO since it lets you get a supportish cheap ship a high I shot.

Cheap, high initiative ships with a missile slot become great counter-alpha support if they can prevent a highly modified torpedo shot.

Airen Cracken springs to mind, or even maybe Odd Ball. Inquisitors with Heightened Perception could work well, too.

7 hours ago, wurms said:

Shooting first, means moving first.

Not if your initiative is higher than the opponent

Kinda illustrating the problem here, the only way to not super care about high I mags is to be the same I so you can just move after

33 minutes ago, gadwag said:

@wurms I agree that the jam and crit effects are a solid tool against alpha strikes. If the weapon only did jam and a crit, it would be a groovy missile and I'd play it. It would be cheaper than this disarm version too and thus more accessible for generics.

The deplete token is what really puts this over the top - with deplete and jam you just totally poop on any shots coming back your way. I'm ok with neutering alpha strikes, but think about what this does to your average ship. You've gone from a 3-dice focussed attack to a 2 dice unmodded attack (and heaven forbid you only had a 2 dice attack to begin with).

Deplete and jam are both way better when delivered early in combat, so this weapon ought to at least double in price as it scales up from i2/3 to i5/6. Honestly, I'd like it to scale something like 7/7/8/10/15/18/20.

@heychadwick This post is nothing about games going to time, it's about mag pulse missiles making the game go longer because nothing dies

Do we yet know exactly what Deplete does? Even going off the assumption that it removes a red die, it could easily have a lower limit (e.g. not below 2) or only affect primary attacks or something. That would still be a pretty potent effect, but just how potent really depends on the actual effect of the Deplete tokens.

Given how MASSIVE a one red die swing can be, I'm rather hoping it'll change a die result or something

Which would make it VASTLY inferior, obviously, but that's why mags also jam

Here's something I dislike about Mag Pulse Warheads: it breaks the linearity of damage.

I *LOVE* the 2e design on Ion Weapons and Tractor Beam and Jamming Beam, where each results provides *one* thing, and each marginal result provides *one* more thing. One damage (as with a primary attack), one more Ion token, one more Tractor token, etc.

MPW provides *three* negative effects with one result over your opponent's Evade total: a crit, a jam token, and a deplete token (whatever that actually does), and then after that, additional hit/crit results *do nothing*. I greatly dislike that.

I think 1 result = 1 effect is superior design.

//

If I were to redesign this card: Everything the same except: "If this attack hits, you must use uncancelled hit/crit results inflict jam or deplete tokens instead of damage if possible, but may not inflict the same token twice." So you can still inflict a Crit, a Jam, and a Deplete, but only if your opponent has 0 evades and you roll at least hit-hit-crit.

With the example of Quickdraw (3 red + Lock) vs Redline (1 green + Focus), you can still Crit, Deplete, and Jam. It'll happen 15.8% of the time, rather than 89.6% of the time. A no-damage but Jam/Deplete attack would happen 58.0% of the time, so you could pretty reliably shut down Redline's attack, but at the cost of the entirely of QD's attack. If it worked like that, I think it could be pretty fair. It would still be a very disruptive weapon, but you'd have to *earn* each result, rather than have them all presented to you for as little as a single hit result.

15 hours ago, heychadwick said:

You seem to go under the assumption that all games have a time limit. Only tournament games have time limits. This is unnecessary to have fun. I also consider the time limit pretty lame when it encourages people to rush in with an alpha strike and then run away until time runs out.

Not quite. Barrage Rockets are R 1-3, but require 2 missile slots. So....this is the first missile that only takes 1 slot that is R 1-3. I did notice this, too, though, and find it noteworthy.

Casual games also have time limits, even if those limits are "When the store/club closes." or "when one player needs to pack up and go home because they've got work tomorrow."

I mean, I live on nearly the opposite side of the greater metropolitan area from my gaming club of choice, so I usually have to pack up earlier than I'd like to get home at a decent hour.

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

Here's something I dislike about Mag Pulse Warheads: it breaks the linearity of damage.

I *LOVE* the 2e design on Ion Weapons and Tractor Beam and Jamming Beam, where each results provides *one* thing, and each marginal result provides *one* more thing. One damage (as with a primary attack), one more Ion token, one more Tractor token, etc.

MPW provides *three* negative effects with one result over your opponent's Evade total: a crit, a jam token, and a deplete token (whatever that actually does), and then after that, additional hit/crit results *do nothing*. I greatly dislike that.

I think 1 result = 1 effect is superior design.

//

If I were to redesign this card: Everything the same except: "If this attack hits, you must use uncancelled hit/crit results inflict jam or deplete tokens instead of damage if possible, but may not inflict the same token twice." So you can still inflict a Crit, a Jam, and a Deplete, but only if your opponent has 0 evades and you roll at least hit-hit-crit.

With the example of Quickdraw (3 red + Lock) vs Redline (1 green + Focus), you can still Crit, Deplete, and Jam. It'll happen 15.8% of the time, rather than 89.6% of the time. A no-damage but Jam/Deplete attack would happen 58.0% of the time, so you could pretty reliably shut down Redline's attack, but at the cost of the entirely of QD's attack. If it worked like that, I think it could be pretty fair. It would still be a very disruptive weapon, but you'd have to *earn* each result, rather than have them all presented to you for as little as a single hit result.

I’m pretty much always on your wavelength. Though I was thinking “turn one hit result to a crit result. Each hit result deals one Jam and one Deplete token.”

So 3/3 is nearly impossible in most cases. This still gives a way of making it happen without being nearly guaranteed. Or you get two crits if you nat one. Or 2 jam/strain but no damage. MUCH more fair IMHO.

Disappointed in this card. A nice high cost could still let it be fair though.

I didn't notice it was range 1-3 as well. I agree that range 1 shots aren't so big a deal - since you'll normally have 3 dice at range 1 anyway - but it's still another thing in favour of the mag-pulse missile; for example, a YT-1300 or YT-2400 can potentially use it to cover the forward arc at all ranges whilst the turret is slewed left/right.

14 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

TOTAL swing and a miss from FFG. It’s like they realized our missiles are bad, but instead of pricing them down to usefulness, they came out with one that’s stupid strong. Wrong call.

I don't think Missiles are bad. They aren't great, and I'm OK with that. There are some ships with Missile slots where I wonder why. They could be better, but I"m OK with them not.

12 hours ago, gadwag said:

@heychadwick This post is nothing about games going to time, it's about mag pulse missiles making the game go longer because nothing dies

I usually don't care, but it is only 3 charges. It can't be all that crazy. It could be a legitimate counter to the Alpha Strike meta.

8 hours ago, clockworkspider said:

Casual games also have time limits, even if those limits are "When the store/club closes." or "when one player needs to pack up and go home because they've got work tomorrow."

I mean, I live on nearly the opposite side of the greater metropolitan area from my gaming club of choice, so I usually have to pack up earlier than I'd like to get home at a decent hour.

OK....yeah, even casual games can take too long. I don't see 3 charges making it a horrible experience.

34 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

OK....yeah, even casual games can take too long. I don't see 3 charges making it a horrible experience.

I don't think they'll be too bad either, but just keep in mind that they're not limited, so multiples in a list will be possible. Also, reloading exists.

Regarding cost, I’m sure this has occurred to many people, but for the rest: these essentially cannot cost less than 10 points because then the SF might take them preferentially to the gunner.

If the developers want that to feel like a real decision, the price can’t be less than gunner... and probably not more than Proton Torpedoes. We won’t know pricing for a while, but it’s fair to guess we’re looking at 10-13 points. My money is on the upper end of that range, because there are so many torp carriers that you could easily run into unanticipated combos if it’s too cheap.

Do we think these will have Initiative based costing?

Just now, SabineKey said:

Do we think these will have Initiative based costing?

They might.