In the spirit of my Worlds meta-analysis, here are a few more tidbits I got from a little more deep-diving. This time, we're looking at upgrade slots. As before, we're looking only at lists that made the cut. All the raw list data can be found here .

TALENTS

Ships in the cut had a total of 179 talent slots. The most common choices for those slots were:

None (empty): 57
Crack Shot: 48
Heroic: 22
Ensnare: 13
Predator: 12
Intimidation: 5
All other choices: 22

I bet you, clever reader you, can figure out how many Nantex fighters were in the cut!

The major offenders for leaving slots unfilled were shuttles (Lambda/Ups/HWK), turret ships (which get no mileage out of Crack or Predator), and aces in high-bid lists. Most other ships, if they could, grabbed Crack Shot-- unless they were Resistance, in which case they grabbed Heroic and *then*, points permitting, Crack Shot. Predator was concentrated almost solely on Duchess and Soontir. Eleven other talents were chosen four times or fewer.

FORCE

There were 64 force-sensitive pilots in the cut. Their most common choices for the Force slot were:

None (empty): 38
Sense: 15
Foresight: 6 (3 in one list)
Hate: 3
All other choices: 2

This is remarkable. Keep in mind that Sense and Foresight can have utility without spending Force points to use, and that Hate is a Force generator . This is sending a very clear message: ship/pilot abilities and passive mods are overwhelmingly more popular than any other use of Force. I was hesitant, when the Aethersprite was released, to get fully on board with it because I worried that Jedi would be super Force-starved trying to do all the things. Well, turns out that if you eliminate entirely one category of Force expenditure, things get easier!

WEAPONS

I'm not counting slots here; that would get tedious.

Jamming Beam: 23
Ion Cannon: 1
All other cannons: 0

I wonder if there were 23 Jamming Beam *shots* in the cut. I doubt it.

Ion Cannon Turret: 6
Dorsal Turret: 1
Veteran Turret Gunner: 1

Remember when Y-Wing spam was a thing? It wasn't long ago! It's mostly Republic Y-wings in this sample, and only Matchstick makes much use of VTG.

Pro Torps: 2
Advanced Pro Torps: 2
Other torpedoes: 0

Torpedo alpha strikes? Not as much of a thing, apparently. Echo appears to have eclipsed Vynder in the Vader-Shuttle-Thing archetype.

Concussion Missiles: 10 (all on Inquisitors or Grand Inquisitors)
Homing Missiles: 5 (all in one list)
Diamond-Boron Missiles: 1
Proton Rockets: 1
Other missiles: 0

So, if you have someone (*cough* Jendon *cough*) to help you get locks, and a means of getting passive mods, Concussion Missiles are swell!

Proximity Mines: 6
Proton Bombs: 2
Seismic Charges: 2

Boba Fett and Decimators are making solid use of Prox Mines, while Decimators and the HWK (!!) bring Proton Bombs. Seismic Charges, oddly, were brought only on Duchess-- perhaps as anti-Nantex tech.

OTHER SLOTS

Passive Sensors: 12
Fire Control System: 12
Collision Detector: 2
Advanced Sensors: 2
Trajectory Simulator: 0

It's perverse that Passive Sensors have seen more use by aces than by lowbies, but they have, by 11-1 in this sample.

Cloaking Device: 1
All other Illicits: 0

Scum loyalists lost a lot of latitude to complain about the faction's competitiveness after three very different Scum lists stormed the top 8. That said, prepare to hear them continue to whine about the "Illicit tax"-- an issue on which they might have a point.

R2 Astromech: 32
BB Astromech: 4
R4 Astromech: 3
R2-A6: 2
Other droids: 2

Empty slots: 50

That's right, there were more R2 Astromechs than missiles, bombs, and torpedoes combined. Pretty good considering the chassis restrictions. The chassis restrictions were even tighter voluntarily: no ARCs or Y-Wings had droids, nor any Rebel ships at all.

Advanced Optics: 16
Pattern Analyzer: 5
None (empty): 38

Tech slot? More like nyet slot. The number is somewhat inflated by the Upsilon having two tech slots that typically stay empty. Kylo lists care more for a 1-point bid than Biohexacrypt nonsense.

Nice analysis.

Don't you have any information on mod slots?

Other than that, I think it is nice that it seems to make sense to think about which upgrades are necessary and which are not when building your list. On the other hand, it is kind of sad that many slots have a single option seemingly being greatly superior to others.

Soooo. R2 and passive each go up one point?

Definitely recommend looking at cut rates together with usage rates. Tells at least part of the rest of the story.

Confirms a few things I've always believed:

• Missiles are too expensive (Including Concussion; see next item)

• Cannons are way too expensive (1 in the whole cut, and I'd bet anything it was for a 2-primary ship to get an extra die)

• Ways of getting locks are too cheap (Passive Sensors and Jendon)

• Talents are almost all too expensive, especially faction and force talents

• Illicit slot tax is stupid and illicits are still useless.

I'd like to see missiles on Z-95s, Kimogilas, A-Wings, and Torrents. They're just too expensive. Jendon makes things too easy, as do Passive Sensors, but that just cheats everyone who doesn't have access to those and shouldn't be used as an excuse for missiles to stay overpriced. If anything they need to go up and missiles should still come down.

I'd also like to see cannons on B-Wings but at 5 points for something that only works if you get extremely lucky anyway, who would bother? Ion Cannon and HLC are worth maybe 3 points. The others should be one or two.

@ClassicalMoser You talk about things being too expensive. That implies a certain ideal value for how many upgrades should be taken. What's that number?

Except in 1.0's most egregious extremes, ships have always had upgrade slots go unfilled. 2.0 has driven us further in that direction. Another way to look at the Talent slot, for example, is to say that 122 out of 179 ships used the slot. That's a huge rate compared to, say, the torpedo slot. That would seem to imply talents are UNDERcosted compared to other upgrade types.

Is there an ideal ratio of upgrades taken to slots? If so, what is it? I don't think we want people taking as many torpedoes as talents, but if not what is the goal?

17 minutes ago, ChahDresh said:

@ClassicalMoser You talk about things being too expensive. That implies a certain ideal value for how many upgrades should be taken. What's that number?

Except in 1.0's most egregious extremes, ships have always had upgrade slots go unfilled. 2.0 has driven us further in that direction. Another way to look at the Talent slot, for example, is to say that 122 out of 179 ships used the slot. That's a huge rate compared to, say, the torpedo slot. That would seem to imply talents are UNDERcosted compared to other upgrade types.

Is there an ideal ratio of upgrades taken to slots? If so, what is it? I don't think we want people taking as many torpedoes as talents, but if not what is the goal?

Very good questions! My answer would basically be "Whatever leads to the most diversity." In other words, empty slots are perfectly valid if it means people will be playing with different ship combos than they would if they filled the slots. Empty talents are good if it means they're using astromechs or taking ships they otherwise wouldn't, etc. It's not good if it means they're just cramming in more of the same stuff everyone's using.

The problem occurs when there are specific upgrades or, more so, full types of upgrades or even ships that go completely unused. The three upgrades that are used the least of all are illicits, cannons, and missiles (with few exceptions as noted above). I do not count modifications, which should be rare due to their near-universal availability. For some other slots, the question is not which upgrade to take or to leave the slot empty, it is instead whether or not to take x upgrade, which is the only viable option of its type (such as Advanced Optics, Crack Shot, or Jamming Beam).

Ideally, I'd like to see a world where every card has viable uses; you can take Saturation Salvo, Trajectory Simulator, a Heavy Laser Cannon, or Ion Missiles, and not feel like you're shooting yourself in the foot for doing it. And the same goes for every ship card: The named Torrents or generic Interceptors are basically just wasted points, even in a build optimized for them. Certain cards just aren't pulling their weight.

I actually have a statistical-algorithmic model for determining how ships and upgrades should be priced, based on tournament data. It's somewhat more reserved than I would be in some cases, and there are cases where a strictly data-driven model can be fooled, so it should be taken as benchmark numbers that a human can look at and make judgment calls. You can see more about it in its thread here:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/296299-new-points-costs-–-a-statistical-model-updated-for-s2-2019/page/2/

15 minutes ago, ChahDresh said:

@ClassicalMoser You talk about things being too expensive. That implies a certain ideal value for how many upgrades should be taken. What's that number?

Except in 1.0's most egregious extremes, ships have always had upgrade slots go unfilled. 2.0 has driven us further in that direction. Another way to look at the Talent slot, for example, is to say that 122 out of 179 ships used the slot. That's a huge rate compared to, say, the torpedo slot. That would seem to imply talents are UNDERcosted compared to other upgrade types.

Is there an ideal ratio of upgrades taken to slots? If so, what is it? I don't think we want people taking as many torpedoes as talents, but if not what is the goal?

The number of used talent slots may be a good percentage compared to other upgrades, but I think that is mostly due to the slot having a couple decent cheap upgrades. A lot of the talents are unused and I doubt you will see many crack shots if its price goes up

2 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Confirms a few things I've always believed:

• Missiles are too expensive (Including Concussion; see next item)

• Cannons are way too expensive (1 in the whole cut, and I'd bet anything it was for a 2-primary ship to get an extra die)

• Ways of getting locks are too cheap (Passive Sensors and Jendon)

• Talents are almost all too expensive, especially faction and force talents

• Illicit slot tax is stupid and illicits are still useless.

I'd like to see missiles on Z-95s, Kimogilas, A-Wings, and Torrents. They're just too expensive. Jendon makes things too easy, as do Passive Sensors, but that just cheats everyone who doesn't have access to those and shouldn't be used as an excuse for missiles to stay overpriced. If anything they need to go up and missiles should still come down.

I'd also like to see cannons on B-Wings but at 5 points for something that only works if you get extremely lucky anyway, who would bother? Ion Cannon and HLC are worth maybe 3 points. The others should be one or two.

@ ClassicalMoser

I was using the Ion Cannon on Nien Numb, together with Outmaneuver to take on Jedi and Inquisitors.

Also, for when I needed to do a roll with Nien to reach at range 1 of something, but I was not able to have an enemy ship on bullseye, to still roll 4 red dice.

Here you can see a game in which it had a devastating effect (Quite lucky on the roll)

1 minute ago, Mikhs said:

I was using the Ion Cannon on Nien Numb, together with Outmaneuver to take on Jedi and Inquisitors.

Also, for when I needed to do a roll with Nien to reach at range 1 of something, but I was not able to have an enemy ship on bullseye, to still roll 4 red dice.

Here you can see a game in which it had a devastating effect (Quite lucky on the roll)

I don't doubt that it's quite effective when used well. But wouldn't you agree that it's overpriced?

1 minute ago, ClassicalMoser said:

I don't doubt that it's quite effective when used well. But wouldn't you agree that it's overpriced?

Yes, it is.

So, what about Energy Shell Charges and Discord Missiles? they are technically missile slots and probably beat all other missiles.

58 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

So, what about Energy Shell Charges and Discord Missiles? they are technically missile slots and probably beat all other missiles.

I was referring specifically to lock-based missiles. Barrage and Prockets are okay-ish. Maybe a point over but definitely more versatile than the others. ESC and Discord are probably about right; the Vultures might be a point under. FFG simultaneously buffed the platform and every single upgrade. Struts at 1, ESC at 5, Discord at 4, and Vultures at 19 put it a little over the top.

Bump up the TFD and maybe 1 or two other vulture pilots (but not all) by 1 and we're just about back to equilibrium. Also maybe bump Sear a tad.

But when you look at Concussions and APTs next to each other and realize they're the same price , it just makes me kind of sad. And concussions are the best missiles we have anyway...

They're great with Passive Sensors or Jendon/FCS builds. But that's mostly because all three of those are underpriced.

Leaving all the missile-based platforms out in the cold.

I'm afraid that what FFG will do is just give us more lock-granting special tools, most of which will also be underpriced to compete with Jendon and PS. Maybe those would be nice to have, but that's not what we need. All we need is a cost drop on the missiles. If this makes Jendon swarms or PS TIE/sfs too strong, then fix the real problem . Don't punish the many for the sins of the few.

Quote

5 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

My answer would basically be "Whatever leads to the most diversity." In other words, empty slots are perfectly valid if it means people will be playing with different ship combos than they would if they filled the slots...

The problem occurs when there are specific upgrades or, more so, full types of upgrades or even ships that go completely unused. The three upgrades that are used the least of all are illicits, cannons, and missiles...

Ideally, I'd like to see a world where every card has viable uses; you can take Saturation Salvo, Trajectory Simulator, a Heavy Laser Cannon, or Ion Missiles, and not feel like you're shooting yourself in the foot for doing it. And the same goes for every ship card: The named Torrents or generic Interceptors are basically just wasted points, even in a build optimized for them.

There is great danger in attempting to balance ships by affecting upgrades: you're using a very blunt instrument.

The most common ships for Empire, by hull count and list presence, were the TIE V1 and X1 respectively. For Separatists, say hi to the Vulture. For Scum, it was the Khiraxz by both list presence and hull count; for Resistance, the RZ-2 and T-70; for the First Order, the TIE/sf. These are all ships that can natively carry missiles. Improving missiles would not, in itself, increase list diversity; it could very well do the reverse, by strengthening these ships. And I know the response you'd make is, "well, then nerf those things"... but that has dangers, too. Not only is it difficult to change multiple variables at once and have confidence in the result, but if you take that approach, you've recreated the illicit tax . It is inherently true that ships pay a price for their upgrade slots, but trying to fix that price is chancy.

Cannons? The lack of good cannons hasn't stopped B-Wings, Lambdas, Upsilons, T-70s, or Firesprays from being huge parts of the cut for their respective factions. Boost cannons, and you do nothing to narrow the gap between those platforms and their faction inferiors-- you've merely further strengthened them.

There are ships defined by their ability to take certain upgrades, such as the TIE Aggressor being defined by its ability to take turrets. In its case, the shortage of good turrets is a contributing factor to the ship's absence from competitive tables. Yet even there it's not the only thing: after all, the BTL-B has made a splash for Republic using the available turrets. Matchstick and Broadside are really good. Give them a better turret, and you start introducing secondary distortions.

Making stronger, less-janky illicits is like trying to use a tuning switch on an entire faction . That's playing with fire.

The idea of every card being useful is utopian in every sense of the word: an ideal to be strived for, but an unrealistic one. And that's okay. Trying to balance individual pilots or upgrades is a far more ambitious goal than trying to balance factions and ships. If we're in a position that such a degree of granularity is what there is to complain about, we are indirectly praising the devs.

Let's be clear: I'm not saying I wouldn't like some neat cannons. I would love a reason to take cannons other than maybe an HLC because Defenders move in straight lines. But I want cannons in the game because I think using cannons would be cool-- not because I want them to somehow redeem the Scyk (and accidentally make Braylen better).

I don't get the want for cannons

You're never going to get one that's better than a 3 die primary

If you do, you'll just see more of the 2-die cannoniers en masse

Only thing imo you could safely advocate for are 2-point HLCs, because gl ever getting anything in a range 2-3 bullseye

Now, stuff like Sat Salvo? That's something FFG has strangely struggled with: making **** REALLY expensive when it needs other **** to work. Sat Salvo, requiring both ordnance AND an extra charge, is a two point talent at the utmost.

Scum and Resistance dedicated bombers also suffer from some hefty overcosting

48 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

I don't get the want for cannons

You're never going to get one that's better than a 3 die primary

If you do, you'll just see more of the 2-die cannoniers en masse

Only thing imo you could safely advocate for are 2-point HLCs, because gl ever getting anything in a range 2-3 bullseye

This is EXACTLY what I’ve been asking for; I love our current array of missiles and cannons. They’re just overpriced to the point of unusability. The same goes for most talents and some crew/gunners.

All I can think of that really needs more options is turrets. How about a 2-die R3 turret? A double-arced R1 turret? Maybe a 3-dice tractor turret? Even a form of Autoblaster turret seems cool.

No, we don’t need better things — that’s what you call power creep. All we need is to balance the things we have a tad better. More options just add to the fun.

Almost every time you start looking at adding ordnance/cannons to ships, you'd be better off getting a different, slightly more expensive ship instead. The exception might be mines, and to a lesser extent bombs, but only on ships that are already good without them, the dedicated platforms are rarely if ever worth the points.

It's very interesting data, but it must be kept in mind that this reflects the top echelon of competitive play. There are quite fine margins for the squads that are going to do the business here.

Upgrades that introduce variance- nope.

Upgrades that bring redundancy/insurance- nope.

If at the top level of the game, you're often boiling a squad down to raw frames and empty slots, that is a good sign imo. Upgrades should not be defining, they are the icing on the cake. Flavour and fun for the casuals and, used sparingly, that extra 5% push for a competitive squad.

Clearly we aren't in a state of perfect balance and probably never will be, but there are many signs of the game being in a good place, I think this is one of them.

worlds force stats
includes any ship with force, such as 5th brother whisper

Total lists: 414
Lists with force: 228
Total pilots: 1655
Pilots with force: 378

Number of lists with [X] pilots with force:
Zero: 186
One: 117
Two: 80
Three: 25
Four: 4
Five: 2

Average overall shipcount: 4.00
Average number of ships per table: 8.00
Average number of force-using ships per list: 0.91
Average number of force-using ships per table: 1.83

For reference, back in 2018 when Proton Torpedoes were everywhere, there was an average of 1.06 copies of Proton Torpedoes per table. Crack Shot, which was seemingly everywhere at worlds, showed up 183 times, for an average of 0.88 Crack Shots per table.

59 minutes ago, svelok said:

For reference, back in 2018 when Proton Torpedoes were everywhere, there was an average of 1.06 copies of Proton Torpedoes per table. Crack Shot, which was seemingly everywhere at worlds, showed up 183 times, for an average of 0.88 Crack Shots per table.

I don't know the answer to this at all, but is it worth considering the number of ship builds that have access to force, in relation to ProTorps?

I think it may be far easier to bring force to the table incidentally, as it were. Not that Worlds players would have just turned up like, oh, I appear to have brought some force....

I know that just in terms of game mechanics, it is basically an upgrade and therefore comparable to Pro Torps in that way. But it is an intrinsic part of the lore. Since it is now a game mechanic, it's not outlandish for it to be very prevalent. I would possibly have expected more.

I'm perfectly OK that it's up there. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the Galaxy together.....

I'd be quite happy for it to feel fair and usable and be just as commonly seen.

20 hours ago, Mikhs said:

Yes, it is.

21 hours ago, Mikhs said:

@ ClassicalMoser

I was using the Ion Cannon on Nien Numb, together with Outmaneuver to take on Jedi and Inquisitors.

Also, for when I needed to do a roll with Nien to reach at range 1 of something, but I was not able to have an enemy ship on bullseye, to still roll 4 red dice.

Here you can see a game in which it had a devastating effect (Quite lucky on the roll)

21 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

I don't doubt that it's quite effective when used well. But wouldn't you agree that it's overpriced?

20 hours ago, Mikhs said:

Yes, it is.

I disagree that Ion is overpriced. Do you really want a weapon to be cheap when it can remove all agency from your oppoent by getting behind them and then ion walking a ship off the board. I thought we did away with that in 1.0. A cheaper ion cannon could allow this to be a thing again. Sooo ion cannon should stay at 5 pts.

Eh, dunno about ion cannon

Again, it'll never replace a 3-die primary and should only be considered in context of the 2-die carriers it'll find itself on

So, mainly the xg-1, scyk, and resistance transport

Unless these guys popped up en masse, the ion cannon could prob get a point chipped without setting the world ablaze

Now the turret? The turret's coverage + vtg potential makes it pretty dang good

On 11/3/2019 at 2:19 PM, ChahDresh said:

TALENTS

Ships in the cut had a total of 179 talent slots. The most common choices for those slots were:

None (empty): 57
Crack Shot: 48
Heroic: 22
Ensnare: 13
Predator: 12
Intimidation: 5
All other choices: 22

I bet you, clever reader you, can figure out how many Nantex fighters were in the cut!

The major offenders for leaving slots unfilled were shuttles (Lambda/Ups/HWK),

I can think of one very good reason why Lambdas and Upsilons didn't run any talents...

I think ideally we’d like an empty slot to be about as common as any of the upgrades for that slot.

34 minutes ago, TasteTheRainbow said:

I think ideally we’d like an empty slot to be about as common as any of the upgrades for that slot.

Probably a bit more common. A naked ship should be okay and that has plenty of empty slots.