I noticed something today while answering a question... Ion cannon and turret both use dice modification to deal their damage. You must spend one hit/crit result to deal damage. But if you can't -- e.g. because of Midnight -- then you don't spend a result and thus it's easier to ionize the target.

Blocking dice modification isn't super-common, and Midnight is one of very few ships that can do it. I wonder if that's part of why we rarely see Midnight, aside from being priced kinda high for a 2-dice ship without 1E's free mods (predator and expertise). And ion weapons have been at least somewhat popular throughout 2E's lifespan (Kavil, double-tap Y-wings, etc), so it's something midnight would have to deal with on top of cost. Or is no one aware of this quirk of the wording?

There's also Blinded Pilot, which seems like it could be a godsend to ion users. You get blinded and suddenly you get better at ionizing aces.

18 minutes ago, Wazat said:

Blocking dice modification isn't super-common, and Midnight is one of very few ships that can do it. I wonder if that's part of why we rarely see Midnight, aside from being priced kinda high for a 2-dice ship without 1E's free mods (predator and expertise). And ion weapons have been at least somewhat popular throughout 2E's lifespan (Kavil, double-tap Y-wings, etc), so it's something midnight would have to deal with on top of cost. Or is no one aware of this quirk of the wording?

I would wager most people aren't aware of it, if only because of how niche the situation is. It only matters if:

1) Someone is playing Midnight;

2) This someone plays someone who has fielded ion weapons;

3) Midnight takes a lock on a ship carrying an ion weapon;

4) That ship then shoots at Midnight and dice variance lets it get through.

That's a very specific sequence of events that needs to happen for this to even come up.

18 minutes ago, Wazat said:

There's also Blinded Pilot, which seems like it could be a godsend to ion users. You get blinded and suddenly you get better at ionizing aces.

Not really. You still need to actually roll the hits, and since you can't modify your dice you will often end up sitting there with your hit-focus-blank feeling very sad as the ace dismissively dodges your attack.

Do blinded pilot and midnight actually stop ion weapons from spending the result? The ion effects are all after the attack hits, which is clearly outside of the window for dice modification.

Where do I petition for Z95s to be dropped by a point or two, both sides of the faction divide? I'm relatively ok with the named pilots, but the generics are a point or two overvalued compared to the other filler/swarm ships.

wholeness. A S&V player, I feel that all ships with a Illicit slot should drop a point. Or, drop points on Illicit upgrades. Those upgrades are not used due to over all price. There is already an Illicit slot "tax" on a ship.having that upgrade.

I think S&V hwk190s should drop to. I understand that the abilities are powerful. However, compared to rebel hawks, the Scum hwks have to be at a close range to enemy ships. Not hanging out behind friendly ships like rebels can.

IG2000 title should be free.

1 hour ago, martini74 said:

I think S&V hwk190s should drop to. I understand that the abilities are powerful. However, compared to rebel hawks, the Scum hwks have to be at a close range to enemy ships. Not hanging out behind friendly ships like rebels can.

On the other hand, the Scum hawks only have to keep the enemy ship in arc (like they want to do anyway and get two arcs with the title) compared to the Rebel pilots who need to have arc coverage on a friendly ship which may come at the cost of arc on an enemy. If they sit safely out of combat then they're not contributing directly, and they're just too expensive to be non-combatants.

Scum hwks are way better than the rebel ones. Torkil and palob should probably be closer together in point values, but the scum hwk doesn't need to go down.

Agreed that illicit slot tax is dumb, especially on cheap ships like the Z where the tax is a large percentage of the ship's price and the slot is unlikely to ever be filled. The black sun soldier and named scum Z pilots are also all horrendously expensive for what they are.

15 minutes ago, gadwag said:

Scum hwks are way better than the rebel ones. Torkil and palob should probably be closer together in point values, but the scum hwk doesn't need to go down.

Agreed that illicit slot tax is dumb, especially on cheap ships like the Z where the tax is a large percentage of the ship's price and the slot is unlikely to ever be filled. The black sun soldier and named scum Z pilots are also all horrendously expensive for what they are.

Someone should look to provide a comprehensive list of these. ^^ maybe you can add some suggested values for the hwks and Zs?

I wonder if FFG would consider variable scaling on things like Howl based on # of ships in the squad. Or # of tie Fighters. Then we could get the Academy down to 22.

I wonder if the Z should be 22 or 23 at Init1.

The Rebel Init2 should be +1/24 I think. And the Black Sun Init3 should be +2/25.

I was gonna say the following (very roughly):

Binayre pirate -1 to 23

Black sun soldier -2 to 25

Kaato -3 to 26

Ndru -2 to 29

Torkil +1 to 38

Palob -1 to 39

Rebel Z probably no change, maybe drop the tala 1 to 24 to keep it below the black sun soldier. Tala has access to selfless though so I wouldn't go any lower, whereas scum really has no reason to field the black sun soldier

My shot from the hip (based loosely on statistics but interpreting very freely):

Academy Pilot - 22

Obsidian Squadron Pilot - 23

Black Squadron Ace - 25

Night Beast - 25

Valen Rudor - 28

Wampa - 31 (because Swarm Tactics)

Scourge - 31

Mauler - 31

Iden - 37

Howlrunner - 43 (Sure you can do 8 with Howl – is it worse than 8 ESC Vultures? No Iden)

Alpha Squadron Pilot - 32, Talent slot

Saber Squadron Ace - 38, Two Talents

Turr Phennir - 38, Two Talents

Soontir Fel - 55, Two Talents

Planetary Sentinel - 33

Black Squadron Scout - 36

Countdown - 39

Pure Sabacc - 41

Duchess - 42

Delta Squadron Pilot - 67

Onyx Squadron Ace - 75

Countess Ryad - 78

Colonel Vessery - 79

Rexler Brath - 80

Scimitar Squadron Pilot - 30

Gamma Squadron Ace - 31

Deathfire - 33

Tomax Bren - 36

Major Rhymer - 37

Captain Jonus - 42

Tempest Squadron Pilot - 36

Storm Squadron Ace - 38

Zertik Strom - 40

Ved Foslo - 42

Maarek Steele - 46

Darth Vader - 69

Baron of the Empire - 31

Inquisitor - 37

Seventh Sister - 43

Grand Inquisitor - 53

Sienar Specialist - 27

Onyx Squadron Scout - 28

Double Edge - 30

Lieutenant Kestal - 31

Patrol Leader - 67

Captain Oicunn - 72

Rear Admiral Chireneau - 78

Omicron - 43

Kagi - 46

Sai - 49

Jendon - 49

All others unchanged. Empire only. Others maybe forthcoming if interest is sufficient.

I am not one whonis always a big fan of "point drop Is the solution" fix. I do like how certain things have changed. Crew/gunner slot change, modification/Illicit change.

However, here are my changes. Mainly scum:

Deadmans switch =1 point

Feedback array =3 points

Everything else is good.

Any ships that has Illicit slot drops 1 point.

IG200=free. It is as much a configuration as x-foils are.

K-fighter needs titles. Each one is "free". However each is unique, and changes options.

I think 1pt is too low for feedback array. 2 or 3 points feels about right. At 1pt, the only thing stopping me running feedback z-95s 24/7 would be running Dace Bonearm with feedback and discharge vanes

I was miss interpreted. Edit to what my thought was. I could work for ffg with an error like that.

2 hours ago, gadwag said:

I was gonna say the following (very roughly):

Binayre pirate -1 to 23

Black sun soldier -2 to 25

Kaato -3 to 26

Ndru -2 to 29

Torkil +1 to 38

Palob -1 to 39

Rebel Z probably no change, maybe drop the tala 1 to 24 to keep it below the black sun soldier. Tala has access to selfless though so I wouldn't go any lower, whereas scum really has no reason to field the black sun soldier

Kinda agree, though torkil +1 does kill one of the few viable scum meta lists(honestly probably means replacing Torkil with Drea in it).

Could drop the mining TIE ini 1s by 1-2 too, to 23, yushyn by 1, Ahhav by at least 2, and Proach by at least 3. (Seevor is fine as is).

Scyks could do with a drop of 2 across the board.

The Lancer, Jumpmaster, and stapler all need a point drop in the 2-5 point range.

I can agree with the Sycks. However, I thing Gen.Red needs to be more of a Initiative 5. Or I crease points to add sensor slot. Passive sensors would be a huge help to that pilot ability.

I’ll be very interested in what happens with missiles, regen, and Deltas. Besides that I’ll be watching Anakin in the Delta and Vader in the X1. A lot of similarities between the two yet Vader is 5+ more points

30 minutes ago, Cerebrawl said:

Kinda agree, though torkil +1 does kill one of the few viable scum meta lists(honestly probably means replacing Torkil with Drea in it).

Killing meta lists and making room for new ones is the whole point of points updates, so I'm fine with that.

I'd also like to see a few points shaved off every single HWK pilot and put onto the title, since untitled HWKs are still pretty bad

5 minutes ago, gadwag said:

Killing meta lists and making room for new ones is the whole point of points updates, so I'm fine with that.

I'd also like to see a few points shaved off every single HWK pilot and put onto the title, since untitled HWKs are still pretty bad

Fair point. And with points drops on scum's cheap stuff, we could see some new meta lists emerging. I really want to see scyks break into the meta.

Please help my 2400’s, pretty please...

Note that I too think that when the design shows promise and is fun to play and unique, it should be fixed by points. Points is good for diversifying.

Points can fix things like: Starfortress, ResFalcon, Vader.

There are other cases where points won't really cut it:

Tie Interceptor - this one is borderline. Yes, we could do 32x6, but it seems FFG doesn't want that. This one should likely be fixed with a fix card.

Tie Aggressor

The tie Bomber is here too. Just being a munitions monkey isn't interesting in 2.0 anymore. We're a lot more mature of a player-base than 1.0. Its bomb usage is relatively low-impact, lets be really honest. (And the data from worlds probably also shows very few bombers used for primarily bombing) (Gunboat might need a look too)

The 2400s, imo should have never been printed with 4 dice. ITs just this ill combination of awful things, with some made even worse that got pushed over to 1.0. Should have been 3 dice, and Blindspot should have said, no adding dice at R1. Or some other ability-name that said, no adding dice to 2400's attack ever. And Kanan and stuff still give it plenty of force and double mods. We're ONLY not doing 4 actions a turn anymore. YIKES.

20 hours ago, gadwag said:

Do blinded pilot and midnight actually stop ion weapons from spending the result? The ion effects are all after the attack hits, which is clearly outside of the window for dice modification.

Yes. There are other examples of timing being outside of the dice modification steps but still counting as modification, such as Han Solo, Reinforce, etc. Spending a die result is dice modification even if it's moved outside of those steps. If they didn't mean spend, they'd say "remove" or "cancel".

4 hours ago, martini74 said:

K-fighter needs titles. Each one is "free". However each is unique, and changes options.

I like this. I enjoy how versatile the Firespray and Huge Ships are with their many named titles. Multiple (3+) named, unique titles for a ship can give it a lot of personality, and let specific pilots shine. How I equip Boba is different from how I equip Emon, and the title plays well with that. I'd like to see this for the Kihraxz.

8 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Tie Interceptor - this one is borderline. Yes, we could do 32x6, but it seems FFG doesn't want that. This one should likely be fixed with a fix card.

Adding a talent slot to all pilots would do quite a lot for the poor bugger. Discounted modifications could help too.

I’m not sure it really needs a title, I’m more inclined to think the devs need to get over it. 😛

10 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

The tie Bomber is here too. Just being a munitions monkey isn't interesting in 2.0 anymore. We're a lot more mature of a player-base than 1.0. Its bomb usage is relatively low-impact, lets be really honest. (And the data from worlds probably also shows very few bombers used for primarily bombing) (Gunboat might need a look too)

It had a moment in the spotlight and will again. The main problem isn’t it’s own cost, it’s the cost of all its toys. I’m sure everyone knows how I feel about missiles by now, but it’s possible bombs could fit in that category. I ran 6x Proton bomb Scimitars at the outset of 2.0 and it was awesome (though not competitive; spam lists shouldn’t be anyway). It’s also entirely possible no one’s experimenting with them. I doubt there’s any true deficiency with the whole chassis per se, especially with Jendon in the faction.

15 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

The 2400s, imo should have never been printed with 4 dice. ITs just this ill combination of awful things, with some made even worse that got pushed over to 1.0. Should have been 3 dice, and Blindspot should have said, no adding dice at R1. Or some other ability-name that said, no adding dice to 2400's attack ever. And Kanan and stuff still give it plenty of force and double mods. We're ONLY not doing 4 actions a turn anymore. YIKES.

You have absolutely no idea what the YT-2400 even is. Goodness.

The thing is short on slots, short on health, ALWAYS action-starved and has a “kill me” button called range 1. The attack profile is on par with the already-mediocre falcon and VASTLY inferior to Rebel Han. Upgrading a Sympathizer to Rey doesn’t make the resistance Falcon worth 98 points, and at least she has two charges and can turn blanks...

When three cartel marauders can pretty trivially outgun your 140 point investment by just following closely (which Dash can do LITERALLY nothing to escape), you have a serious problem.

6 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Adding a talent slot to all pilots would do quite a lot for the poor bugger. Discounted modifications could help too.

I’m not sure it really needs a title, I’m more inclined to think the devs need to get over it. 😛

NO IT ABSOLUTELY WOULDNT.

Making them fatter on points is a worse idea, they'll just be even badder. Adding more on top of an already overcosted 24 points? NO. Even if it was crackshot, the BEST talent, I'll tell you now, its not worth 35 points!!!!!

You have to drop the chassis cost.

9 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

I ran 6x Proton bomb Scimitars at the outset of 2.0

Its not competitive. Its not good either. And its in no way easy to play.

No one wants to experiment with them, cuz they're largely explored territory. Yes, theres still creative things, but its like 85-90% explored. Your chances of finding diamonds are much better elsewhere, and more fun too. They're not super fun either.

12 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

You have absolutely no idea what the YT-2400 even is. Goodness.

The thing is short on slots, short on health, ALWAYS action-starved and has a “kill me” button called range 1. The attack profile is on par with the already-mediocre falcon and VASTLY inferior to Rebel Han. Upgrading a Sympathizer to Rey doesn’t make the resistance Falcon worth 98 points, and at least she has two charges and can turn blanks...

When three cartel marauders can pretty trivially outgun your 140 point investment by just following closely (which Dash can do LITERALLY nothing to escape), you have a serious problem.

BOO. Heck no.

I mainly hope they take a cautious approach next point upgrade. Mostly minor tweaks and not over nerfing current lists out of the meta.

Also I would like to see more focus on improving ships that currently see none/very rare play. As increasing price on top ships won't get these in the meta until you nerf every ship above them.