2 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

I don't think the Nantex is going to kill off the ability to play High Aces, but I think it is going to make it harder. I think that right now there isn't a natural predator to High Aces and only bad dice or mistakes can lose you the game. So, it's good to see a nice counter to High Aces out in the wild.

I agree. I think there needs to be counters to ace play that aren't simply a deeper bid for other aces. As long as those counters don't outright mean the ace player losses. I don't want to see that for any archetype.

But I don't think that Nantex are a complete hard counter or are unbeatable for the ace player. Its a rough matchup, but that's fine.

I'll just keep playing knife's edge ace lists and try to do well enough to scrape out more wins than losses.

4 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

You can't really fix this card without errata. You can price it to where it's almost completely unplayable (multiply it by about 2-3x) but that's kind of sad and takes some flavor from the ship. My favored solution: Move the trigger to the end phase.

Moser, how do you feel about errata that makes you spend tractor to reposition a ship?

15 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Moser, how do you feel about errata that makes you spend tractor to reposition a ship?

What, as part of the tractor rules? Because two of the pilots require actually tractoring enemies, and it’s the tractor rules that reposition things, not anything on the Nantex...

18 minutes ago, Matanui3 said:

What, as part of the tractor rules? Because two of the pilots require actually tractoring enemies, and it’s the tractor rules that reposition things, not anything on the Nantex...

Yes, as tractor rules in general. You'd pick either repositioning a ship or the one less die when a ship gets tractored.

47 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Moser, how do you feel about errata that makes you spend tractor to reposition a ship?

This would seem like a really interesting fix. And would make tractors in general a lot less difficult to face, from a play experience perspective.

9 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Yes, as tractor rules in general. You'd pick either repositioning a ship or the one less die when a ship gets tractored.

That itself would cause problems with how the Nantex was designed.

57 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Moser, how do you feel about errata that makes you spend tractor to reposition a ship?

Hrm...

So an opponent either gets the movement, or the reduced agility...

Ensnare could still work, if you don't reposition yourself.

Possible unintended consequence: a Nantex could reposition and clear itself of it's own Tractor token. I think that kills the suggestion for me. Sure, Ensnare is weakened, but overall I don't think it improves things. It'd mean a Nantex could just reposition without losing agility, which throws off their balance overall. Gravitic Deflection is close to ignoring the negative penalty to agility, so this change would be close to a 5-point buff to the basic defenses of the Nantex.

7 minutes ago, Matanui3 said:

That itself would cause problems with how the Nantex was designed.

It would definitely remove the penalty for repositioning with its ability turning it into a 3 agility 4 hp arc dodger that ignores obstacles while it repositions. Renders gravitic and any other Nantex ability that builds off of tractor tokens pointless pushing the I4 and I6 into the "why bother" range.

12 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

pushing the I4 and I6 into the "why bother" range.

I really don't see it as a problem if the CIS i6 is a turbo niche combo bait card that isnt actually good in typical play, and a lower initiative pilot is the actually competitive one.

It's sort of saying quite a lot about the game that many people seem to.

6 minutes ago, svelok said:

I really don't see it as a problem if the CIS i6 is a turbo niche combo bait card that isnt actually good in typical play, and a lower initiative pilot is the actually competitive one.

It's sort of saying quite a lot about the game that many people seem to.

🤨 Okay, that back handed insult aside, apply the suggested tractor mechanic change beyond the Nantex now to everything that makes use of tractor. Or is your focus so narrow you don't see the point of doing so...

Just now, Hiemfire said:

Okay, that back handed insult aside, apply the suggested tractor mechanic change beyond the Nantex now to everything that makes use of tractor. Or is your focus so narrow you don't see the point of doing so...

Just an observation on how i5/6 oriented the game is, that the natural impulse is that the highest init pilot is meant to be the best one.

7 minutes ago, svelok said:

I really don't see it as a problem if the CIS i6 is a turbo niche combo bait card that isnt actually good in typical play, and a lower initiative pilot is the actually competitive one.

It's sort of saying quite a lot about the game that many people seem to.

The problem is, the change would also turn off the I4 and would make Gravitoc Deflection even more useless.

2 minutes ago, svelok said:

Just an observation on how i5/6 oriented the game is, that the natural impulse is that the highest init pilot is meant to be the best one.

Being as my preferred pilots are I1-4 (most of best abilities in game being in the I3-4 range in my opinion), I must have gotten caught in the periphery of that stab then. This is still important though: "apply the suggested tractor mechanic change beyond the Nantex now to everything that makes use of tractor." Snowball effects suck, especially for S&V when they get caught in the nerf blast aimed at someone else... 😠

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

Possible unintended consequence: a Nantex could reposition and clear itself of it's own Tractor token. I think that kills the suggestion for me. Sure, Ensnare is weakened, but overall I don't think it improves things. It'd mean a Nantex could just reposition without losing agility, which throws off their balance overall. Gravitic Deflection is close to ignoring the negative penalty to agility, so this change would be close to a 5-point buff to the basic defenses of the Nantex.

The consequence is intended. The Nantex can already reposition and clear itself of it's own tractor by giving it to another ship. To your other point, the Nantex can already reposition without losing agility by giving the tractor away. Only now, the opponent isn't punished for it.

1 hour ago, Hiemfire said:

It would definitely remove the penalty for repositioning with its ability turning it into a 3 agility 4 hp arc dodger that ignores obstacles while it repositions. Renders gravitic and any other Nantex ability that builds off of tractor tokens pointless pushing the I4 and I6 into the "why bother" range.

I don't see why. You can still tractor someone and get Chertek or Sun to use their ability, they just don't get consequenceless reposition in addition to their ability.

1 hour ago, Hiemfire said:

"apply the suggested tractor mechanic change beyond the Nantex now to everything that makes use of tractor." Snowball effects suck, especially for S&V when they get caught in the nerf blast aimed at someone else... 😠

This is a consideration. but Spacetugs could still get both bonus the -1 agility and reposition debuff if they put a small base in bullseye, and tractor beams could do the same if they land more than one hit. Unkar Plutt would get a boost from this change as he can now spend the token he applies to himself to reposition and now be -1 agility. Some Shadowcaster shenanigans would be hit by this though. But overall, I think you could reduce the cost of tractor beams with this change, making non Quadjumper control more prevalent.

4 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

The consequence is intended. The Nantex can already reposition and clear itself of it's own tractor by giving it to another ship. To your other point, the Nantex can already reposition without losing agility by giving the tractor away. Only now, the opponent isn't punished for it.

I don't see why. You can still tractor someone and get Chertek or Sun to use their ability, they just don't get consequenceless reposition in addition to their ability.

This is a consideration. but Spacetugs could still get both bonus the -1 agility and reposition debuff if they put a small base in bullseye, and tractor beams could do the same if they land more than one hit. Unkar Plutt would get a boost from this change as he can now spend the token he applies to himself to reposition and now be -1 agility. Some Shadowcaster shenanigans would be hit by this though. But overall, I think you could reduce the cost of tractor beams with this change, making non Quadjumper control more prevalent.

You forgot Lattz pilot. Combine your suggestion with the v105 nerf to tractor effects and I think even at 1 point tractor beams would be unlikely to be taken in the resulting meta...

23 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

The consequence is intended. The Nantex can already reposition and clear itself of it's own tractor by giving it to another ship. To your other point, the Nantex can already reposition without losing agility by giving the tractor away. Only now, the opponent isn't punished for it.

Yeah, I just don't think it's a good idea.

Again, I think this misses two things. The first is that Gravitic Deflection is essentially removing the agility loss. Not exactly, but close enough. I guess Nantex prices could all go up by 5 easily under such a tractor scheme. Also, GravDev becomes literally the most pointless card ever.

Second, status-quo-Nantex have to bear a risk when tractoring themselves at longer ranges. If you aren't close enough to an enemy to tractor them with Ensnare, if you want to reposition, it means opening yourself up to anyone who wants to snipe from a distance. It this regard, they remind me of Fang fighters. They're really evade-tanky at Range 1, but getting caught at Range 2 can be brutal. A Nantex who boosts and gets caught unaware should get swatted. I don't want to remove that, since that's one of the better parts of Nantex design.

I dunno. While it does nerf how Ensnare works (being able to only do one of [move self] [move opponent] [reduce agility] would be a nice choice for Ensnare), it would be a massive buff to non-Ensnare Nantex (which they probably don't need), and a massive nerf to anything else Tractor. I'm not sold that Tractor in general needs a massive nerf. Maybe a light touch on some things, but not massive stuff.

Sun Fac can be absolutely nasty at range 1 against other small ships, but there's counterplay just as much as there's counterplay against other high initiative aces who have the bid. While he can't really be blocked, wide arcs and few good range 2-3 shots should do him in reasonably well. He only has 4 hull.