14 minutes ago, nikk whyte said:

Asking for 5 full conversions means you need 5 full damage decks, my dude.

If a damage deck is part of a full conversion then why aren’t there two damage decks in the kit my dude?

Damage decks were not part of my concern or original post. Damage decks can be shared among ships. Five bases were my concern.

1 hour ago, drail14me said:

If a damage deck is part of a full conversion then why aren’t there two damage decks in the kit my dude?

Damage decks were not part of my concern or original post. Damage decks can be shared among ships. Five bases were my concern.

Just for curiosity, how many ships did the standard conversion kit convert? Seems there were way, I mean WAY, more base tokens than plastic bases. This is a product that is intended to get you up and running with huge ships you bought in 1.0. Full stop. This is not a conversion for every ship you own, I personally need three yet only have one each of the larger huge ships. For what you get it’s an excellent value. If you, like me bought multiple huge ships in 1.0, why would you expect full conversions with bases and all when that’s not what we got in the original conversion kits. Maybe I could see the point if these were an exception to the rule, but they are the exact same as the last conversion kits.

TLDR: they are a good will measure to keep 1.0 huge ships from being worthless and customers from having to rebuy each one. Exactly like every conversion kit we have gotten before. Plus as an added bonus they are an exceptional value.

2 hours ago, nikk whyte said:

Asking for 5 full conversions means you need 5 full damage decks, my dude.

You planning on playing with 5 players? Or do you have a damage deck for each of your small ships? Because in 2.0 there's only one huge ship damage deck, and it's standard for all current and future huge ships. You can share it, or if you have more than one you can do one per player. One per ship is just silly (it always was, tbh, which is why they've gotten rid of it).

15 hours ago, Vykk Draygo said:

Just for curiosity, how many ships did the standard conversion kit convert? Seems there were way, I mean WAY, more base tokens than plastic bases. This is a product that is intended to get you up and running with huge ships you bought in 1.0.

The standard conversion kit fully converted at least one of EVERY type ship.

You actually make my point with this post. If you had ONE of each first edition small ship and bought a conversion kit then you had everything you needed in that kit to put every one of those ships on the table at the same time.

if you want to put one of every huge ship on the table at the same time, you have to buy three kits.

7 minutes ago, drail14me said:

You actually make my point with this post. If you had ONE of each first edition small ship and bought a conversion kit then you had everything you needed in that kit to put every one of those ships on the table at the same time.

if you want to put one of every huge ship on the table at the same time, you have to buy three kits.

And you can convert most ships twice from the conversion kits and some even 3 times, but are there enough components in it to convert them all 2/3 times?

So why should it be different for this conversion kit?

1 hour ago, drail14me said:

The standard conversion kit fully converted at least one of EVERY type ship.

You actually make my point with this post. If you had ONE of each first edition small ship and bought a conversion kit then you had everything you needed in that kit to put every one of those ships on the table at the same time.

if you want to put one of every huge ship on the table at the same time, you have to buy three kits.

Well, guess I need to contact FFG then, because mine definitely had a shortage of plastic bases.

13 minutes ago, Vykk Draygo said:

Well, guess I need to contact FFG then, because mine definitely had a shortage of plastic bases.

Didn't the conversion kits only include Medium bases?

2 hours ago, drail14me said:

if you want to put one of every huge ship on the table at the same time, you have to buy three kits.

Yes. Was it ever promised, or even suggested, anywhere that you'd be able to do it with one?

No offense, but it sounds like it really comes down to you jumping the gun a bit on organizing an event that relied on the contents of the kit, without first making sure the contents of the kit would be sufficient. Fortunately, you can still have a fun game with one Huge ship per side, and hopefully there have been lessons learned for next time.

1 hour ago, JJ48 said:

Didn't the conversion kits only include Medium bases?

Yes, and poor quality medium bases. I could be remembering wrong, but I think there was only a pair included. It could have been more but I know a buddy who only bought one kit had to borrow a plastic base for a squad he wanted to run.

3 hours ago, Revanur said:

And you can convert most ships twice from the conversion kits and some even 3 times, but are there enough components in it to convert them all 2/3 times?

So why should it be different for this conversion kit?

That’s what I’m asking! The small ship conversion kit converted ONE of EVERY ship fully. The Huge Ship only converts TWO of the five fully!!

18 hours ago, drail14me said:

That’s what I’m asking! The small ship conversion kit converted ONE of EVERY ship fully. The Huge Ship only converts TWO of the five fully!!

It converts them all fully. It doesn't convert them all fully at the same time , because less than 1% of players will ever put more than two on the board at the same time.

Unless you're trying to cover for two teams, in which case you should get two conversion kits.

As I said before: If they wanted to make it convert 4 at the same time, it would have to include twice as much content and then it would cost twice as much, which ends up looking exactly the same as just buying two kits. The way they did it is strictly more flexible.

And supposing they did make it cover enough for 4 ships (twice as much as it covers now). If for some crazy reason you wanted to get all five on the table at once (which makes nearly no sense; why would you have three factions using huge ships at the same time?), you would have to buy a second kit. And with the kits costing twice as much, you're talking about $120, whereas the way they did it, you can buy three kits for 90 and cover 6 ships at a time.

2 hours ago, Vykk Draygo said:

Well, guess I need to contact FFG then, because mine definitely had a shortage of plastic bases.

2 hours ago, JJ48 said:

Didn't the conversion kits only include Medium bases?

Yes, they only included medium bases and you got at least one for EVERY ship type that had a change of base. The Rebel pack had four medium bases, one for each medium base ship type, U-Wing, Arc and K-Wing and one extra.

9 minutes ago, drail14me said:

Yes, they only included medium bases and you got at least one for EVERY ship type that had a change of base. The Rebel pack had four medium bases, one for each medium base ship type, U-Wing, Arc and K-Wing and one extra.

Scum didn't:

Scurrg, Kimogila, IG, G1-A, Firespray. That's five. There were only 4 medium bases.

FFG does this things on a reasonability basis. Including even three huge ship bases would be far beyond reasonable, let alone five. I really don't understand why this is still going on. One would be too few, 2 is plenty.

Here's the other thing: There are only two ship cards per faction anyway . The only possible way to put more than two ships in a list is to get more than one conversion kit, and it's not just the bases that limit this.

1 hour ago, ClassicalMoser said:

... If for some crazy reason you wanted to get all five on the table at once (which makes nearly no sense; why would you have three factions using huge ships at the same time?), ...

Cough. Umm. Well. Last time (and, sadly, the only time all year we used the huge ships), we had: 3 Imperial Transports, 2 Raiders, 2 Gozantis plus 8 Interceptors vs 2 CR90s, 2 C-ROCs, and a pile of rebel and scum fighters. 1000pts per side.

This was using home-brew rules for the huge ships and 2nd ed rules for the others. It was a great day's playing.

9 minutes ago, Gilarius said:

Cough. Umm. Well. Last time (and, sadly, the only time all year we used the huge ships), we had: 3 Imperial Transports, 2 Raiders, 2 Gozantis plus 8 Interceptors vs 2 CR90s, 2 C-ROCs, and a pile of rebel and scum fighters. 1000pts per side.

This was using home-brew rules for the huge ships and 2nd ed rules for the others. It was a great day's playing.

Again, you were always going to be buying more than one conversion kit anyway. How many people in the whole world have 3 imperial transports?

And you didn't finish that game, did you? It's awfully hard to have an enjoyable game at that size, which is why Armada exists. Still, I would argue that the way they've done it is no worse for you anyway. That's 11 huge ships. If each kit had enough for four or five ships, it would cost around $60, and you'd have to buy three of them, so $180.

On the other hand, at $30 for two, you can get just as much as you need. Six kits runs you the exact same price at $180, assuming full MSRP.

1 minute ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Again, you were always going to be buying more than one conversion kit anyway. How many people in the whole world have 3 imperial transports?

And you didn't finish that game, did you? It's awfully hard to have an enjoyable game at that size, which is why Armada exists. Still, I would argue that the way they've done it is no worse for you anyway. That's 11 huge ships. If each kit had enough for four or five ships, it would cost around $60, and you'd have to buy three of them, so $180.

On the other hand, at $30 for two, you can get just as much as you need. Six kits runs you the exact same price at $180, assuming full MSRP.

I am indeed going to be buying 2 kits (I'm not the OP, by the way). I think these kits are pretty much the best combination FFG could have made, I'm not complaining about them - just pointing out that there are those of us who can and will field piles of huge ships. They weren't all mine either - we had 4 players.

And we did finish. It took all day, but that was expected. As a once-per-year event, it was fine. Next time we'll have the proper rules and we'll use smaller fleets to get the hang of the new builds.

Earlier this week I had some trouble figuring out if the conversion kit included new ship bases, and how many are included. Thanks to this thread (and I say this without any sarcasm), I know exactly what to expect!

On 11/4/2019 at 8:06 PM, Kehl_Aecea said:

The conversion kit is designed for a single player in mind.

haha no, its a practice called "profitable deception" designed to exploit the customers assumption of goodwill on the part of the manufacturer. the shady practice entails luring customers with a low "buy in" to get them invested in the product, then bilk them with additional required components to maximize profit. FFG is known for this practice, for example in 1.0 placing upgrades beneficial to one faction in another factions expansion. in this case the acrylic base costs ffg 20 cents per piece... so why should you need to buy 3 of the expansion to get the advertised number? because it makes more money to be shady

Why would you need 5 Huge ship bases if you're only likely to be fielding one or 2 at a time? That would be like me complaining about getting *only* 8 bases (I don't know how many there are) total in a faction conversion kit even though I have 30+ ships for that faction. I can't field 30+ ships in any given game, so why should I expect to get that many extra bases in the conversion kit?

1 hour ago, Vontoothskie said:

haha no, its a practice called "profitable deception" designed to exploit the customers assumption of goodwill on the part of the manufacturer. the shady practice entails luring customers with a low "buy in" to get them invested in the product, then bilk them with additional required components to maximize profit. FFG is known for this practice, for example in 1.0 placing upgrades beneficial to one faction in another factions expansion. in this case the acrylic base costs ffg 20 cents per piece... so why should you need to buy 3 of the expansion to get the advertised number? because it makes more money to be shady

O no!!! The commercial company is trying to make money out of there products...

What a surprise. There is nothing shady about this case, they announced the amount included in the kit way in advance.

Besides that it's not the 20 cents for the plastic that makes most of the cost. Putting in more of them will likely decrease the number they sell of the product. Meaning each piece will need to carry more of the overhead costs like employees salaries and transportation. Adding the 3 extra bases would for sure up the costs per set. Making the op happy, but making many others less happy about the high(er) price to get there 1 or 2 ships converted.

9 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

haha no, its a practice called "profitable deception" designed to exploit the customers assumption of goodwill on the part of the manufacturer. the shady practice entails luring customers with a low "buy in" to get them invested in the product, then bilk them with additional required components to maximize profit. FFG is known for this practice, for example in 1.0 placing upgrades beneficial to one faction in another factions expansion. in this case the acrylic base costs ffg 20 cents per piece... so why should you need to buy 3 of the expansion to get the advertised number? because it makes more money to be shady

This would be much more convincing had there been any actual deception.

Are we talking the cardboard with firing arcs and such or are we talking about the ACTUAL clear plastic base. 1 is a big deal, the latter is a nuisance but not a deal breaker.

12 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

haha no, its a practice called "profitable deception" designed to exploit the customers assumption of goodwill on the part of the manufacturer. the shady practice entails luring customers with a low "buy in" to get them invested in the product, then bilk them with additional required components to maximize profit. FFG is known for this practice, for example in 1.0 placing upgrades beneficial to one faction in another factions expansion. in this case the acrylic base costs ffg 20 cents per piece... so why should you need to buy 3 of the expansion to get the advertised number? because it makes more money to be shady

Quote

haha no, its a practice called "profitable deception" designed to exploit the customers assumption of goodwill on the part of the manufacturer.

They literally posted the full contents online shortly after announcing the product. If anyone was actually concerned about what would be included, they could simply look it up. Where is the deception?

Quote

the shady practice entails luring customers with a low "buy in" to get them invested in the product, then bilk them with additional required components to maximize profit.

It's true that they don't make much money if any on the core sets, and they are sold with the expectation that the customer will be so happy with the product that they will continue to buy what they have to sell. Regardless, FFG charges no more than industry standard on their products (something in the range of MSRP = 5x production costs, which is exactly how everyone else charges; it must cover the cost of the game's design, development, distribution, and licensing as well). They're not rolling in dough, and neither are their shareholders. They have significant limitations to their staff and development options, and while they certainly do have a huge volume of sales, a lot of the profit gets eaten up by logistics. Come on, this isn't EA, this is FFG.

Quote

FFG is known for this practice, for example in 1.0 placing upgrades beneficial to one faction in another factions expansion.

A practice that they promised would not be continued in 2.0, and they've done a pretty reasonable job of executing on that promise (card packs have been delayed, which is disappointing, but we all hope they'll pick up the pace with those in the future). An example you didn't cite: Power creep also makes for larger profits since it keeps the new stuff selling, yet FFG deliberately and specifically rebalances old stuff to keep it viable. They couldn't do this in 1.0, but now that they have the capacity to do it, they're doing a very good job.

Quote

in this case the acrylic base costs ffg 20 cents per piece... so why should you need to buy 3 of the expansion to get the advertised number?

"The Advertised Number" is 2. No more, no less. Once again, the number of players who actually have more than 2 ships in one faction, that they want to get on the board, at the same time is less than 1% of buyers. For the sake of argument, let's suppose FFG specifically wanted to cater to those players with this kit. If they included 2 more bases, they would also have to include:

• 2 more resource trackers (or else it would be shady because they're actually not "fully converting" those 4 ships)

• Double the number of ship cards (there's only 2 per faction anyway; if they're accommodating for duplicates, you'll need those cards)

• Double the number of ship bases for the same reason

• Double the Hardpoints, Illicits, Cargo, and Crew (otherwise you're too limited in how you can equip them and you have to buy a second kit anyway)

• Two Huge ship Damage Decks (With 4 ships on the table at once, you'll probably run out with just one; besides, you're probably trying to accomodate 2 players)

If they didn't include all of the above, it actually would be shady for them to include extra plastic bases that you then can't use; they'd just go to waste.

And do you know what? That content list is almost exactly identical to the content list of 2 conversion kits.

If they had gone with that content list, it would have doubled the production cost, or at least nearly doubled it, so after you apply the industry standard markup of 5x, you end up with a price of $50-60. For the average buyer, that means we're paying fully twice as much as we need to, mostly for content that we'll never use . We'd end up buying conversion kits and then splitting them, but then we'd be shortchanged because there would only be one of each unique card and we'd have to decide who ends up with it, which is a losing scenario. For you, it means you get everything in one kit, for basically the same price as you'd get everything in two kits anyway. The only difference is that smaller kits are inherently more flexible. Bigger kits mean everybody loses because there's a lot less versatility in how many you buy.

Case in point: If they had done everything outlined above, that still just converts 4 ships. If you want to fly five at a time (or six, or seven), you then have to buy two kits for $50-60 each . Now instead of spending $60-90 you're spending $100-120, and ending up with a ton of stuff you don't need anyway. Smaller kits let you buy just as much as you need, and the price point they're charging for them is extremely reasonable.

Quote

because it makes more money to be shady

This is outdated and untrue. It can make money in the very short term to be shady. But in the 21st century it's more true than ever that treating your fan base well is the absolute #1 most important priority for any business. It's about 10 times harder/more expensive to get a new buyer than to get a repeat buyer to buy again. People know how companies do business. There's tons of transparency out there, notably these forums, the subreddit, and boardgamegeek. Businesses that use shady practices to make money in the short term lose a lot of customers in the mid-to-long term.

FFG knows this, and they're improving their communications with the player base every month. More Tabletop producers should follow their example.

@ClassicalMoser A good post, but mostly I would like to congratulate you on using that Luke line properly. It’s not suppose to be an answer unto itself, but a thesis to be explained, as both you and Luke did.

14 hours ago, JJ48 said:

This would be much more convincing had there been any actual deception.

look up the term "profitable deception".