When a huge ship overlaps a Gas Cloud, it gains a jam token.

Can we get that for non-epic ships, too? I mean, the Milky Way does taste like raspberries, apparently.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/apr/21/space-raspberries-amino-acids-astrobiology

To that end, that'd be a nice drink. Muddle some raspberries and mint and sugar in a glass. Add rum, lime juice, and ice, then stir. Top off with club soda. A Milky Way Mojito.

We already have that for regular ships - when they overlap a gas cloud, they skip their perform action step.

Y'know, I was all for changing Gas Clouds to be more punishing... but then FFG went and printed bloody Ensnare, so now I'm thinking I'd like to keep my last safe haven from that pile of NPE trash, thanks.

15 minutes ago, DR4CO said:

Y'know, I was all for changing Gas Clouds to be more punishing... but then FFG went and printed bloody Ensnare, so now I'm thinking I'd like to keep my last safe haven from that pile of NPE trash, thanks.

Well, according to a certain Oli Pocknell, large asteroids were the best way to deal with the nantex

11 hours ago, gadwag said:

We already have that for regular ships - when they overlap a gas cloud, they skip their perform action step.

Yeah... I want more of a lasting penalty for flying over gas, but it mostly slipped my mind that, if a ship skips the perform action step, it probably won't have any tokens to jam away.

Still, it'd be an increase in the penalty. Stuff like Full Throttle for Evades or Pattern Analyzer for tokens won't work, it's less effective to coordinate the ship, and locks grabbed earlier could poof.

14 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

To that end, that'd be a nice drink. Muddle some raspberries and mint and sugar in a glass. Add rum, lime juice, and ice, then stir. Top off with club soda. A Milky Way Mojito

I have yet to read the rest of this thread because I had to immediately comment on this idea. That sounds fantastic and is now on the list of drinks to make at home asap.

Edit: Now for the actual commentary - probably should have realised there were less comments to get through first - I've only had limited experience of gas clouds, and I'll admit the idea of better 'line of fire' blocking terrain has never been a concern for me, adding jam as a consequence for flying through or landing on would be quite thematically interesting, even if it's only on a die roll of a hit or crit.

Why? What about the game said to you that the environment you battle in has to be the same in punishment equivalencies? Why just have different tokens and damage rolls? What variance of dimension does that bring to the game?

Would a ground combat game make much sense if light brush and tall grass offered the same penalties and benefits equivalence as hardened reinforced concrete fortifications? Would a seas combat game make much sense if being behind a fog bank gave as much as boon or bane as being on the other side of a tall island that could block salvos and sighting entirely?

Should flying through a thunderstorm with golf ball size hail in an aerial combat game be just as 'punishing' as a bit of turbulence on an otherwise clear to lightly cloudy day?

How do you get things that are different, when they are the same?

I for my part would like the game environment to have as much variation as possible. Wouldn't that just be lovely?

4 minutes ago, ForceSensitive said:

Why? What about the game said to you that the environment you battle in has to be the same in punishment equivalencies? Why just have different tokens and damage rolls? What variance of dimension does that bring to the game?

Would a ground combat game make much sense if light brush and talk grass u offered the same penalties and benefits equivalence as hardened reinforced concrete fortifications? Would a seas combat game make much sense if being behind a fog bank gave as much as boon or bane as being on the other side of a tall island that could block salvos and sighting entirely?

Should flying through a thunderstorm with golf ball size hail in an aerial combat game be just as 'punishing' as a bit of turbulence on an otherwise clear to lightly cloudy day?

How do you get things that are different, when they are the same?

I for my part would like the game environment to have as much variation as possible. Wouldn't that just be lovely?

I feel like the game is mostly balanced around obstacles having consequences. Players have to weigh the risk of flying over an obstacle with the benefits the position they'd gain. Gas Clouds upend that. It's not quite the same as just having open space to fly through, but a heck of a lot closer to it.

As to wanting variation, isn't it also good if terrain has impacts on the game, variation from an empty board? Low-stakes fogbanks are probably going to be fine, if there are enough islands and reefs and half-sunken hulks to play around with. Having 6 of the 6 obstacles on a board being low-stakes fogbanks is kind of silly, and leads to very little variation. If each player couldn't bring more than [2 Asteroids] [2 Debris] [1 Gas Cloud] you'd probably see a lot fewer complaints about Gas Clouds.

@theBitterFig

You still make a choice though right? Clearly if your on the run you now have to weigh the choice between standing in the open or risking it in the clouds. So you still have a risk reward system in place. The only thing that's upended is the player perception isn't it? We've trained so long to avoid it because it's an obstacle. But now the game has the depth to say being in open space is also a risk, as it should be right? The gain is just on the other end of the equation and the cost is where the benefit used to be. You haven't lost a choice, it's just not the one your used to.

Nothing about the game was balanced around the obstacles themselves. They are intended to break up monotony and prevent the core balance of the game from taking precedent. In short, they allow the maneuvering system to matter more than the raw numbers listed on the components.

They also add flavor and theatrical deviation. They are not a balance point, they are quite intentionally designed to offer you a scramble on the balance itself. Since this is their intended function, it also allows them to add and remove obstacles with effects like Seismic Charges and Rigged Cargo Chute. An example that would otherwise contradict then being a balance point. You might say that it offers the imperfection to the imperfect balance goal. And it's on the player to choose what skews they bring to break up the game.

As an answer roundabout to your question, wouldn't the empty space on the board, according to the logic we're applying now, also then need to be a penalty space? If your not in cover, should I not get a bonus to shooting you? Since I can clearly see you should you not have a penalty to your evade if I catch you in the open?

To the last item I would then ask who's fault is it that there's 6 gas clouds? If that gas was part of your strategy, indeed part of your build, then why complain that the opponent helped by bringing even more? If you wanted to be sure that your attacks had a better chance to hit through an obstacle, then that is your meta choice to make. You had options. You could have brought the mix you suggest which may be a very good idea as a list builder. Each player has control of picking HALF the battlefield. I'd your worried about sinking shots, well, as DJ says: Don't Join! 😄

But say you are a Vulture Droid player and you kinda rely on having your rocks for your ship ability, which was tied into your first assumption of balance. Then wouldn't you have to reevaluate the whole of the Vulture, knowing there's a good chance the Vulture player may only get to place one of their two rocks? What about abilities that rely on stress, now the Debris limit requires those to be reevaluated right? So on and so on?

We've been so long with only a difference of flavor and none of magnitude, that I feel the bulk of the community that is against the current rules on Gas really is just in a case of shell Schick that the evening doesn't have to be the only thing that changes, and that severity is also an option.

52 minutes ago, ForceSensitive said:

You still make a choice though right? Clearly if your on the run you now have to weigh the choice between standing in the open or risking it in the clouds. So you still have a risk reward system in place.

But one with trivial risks, undercutting the entire thing.

When costs are minuscule compared to benefits, there isn't a cost-benefit analysis. Maybe technically, but not really.

1 hour ago, ForceSensitive said:

Nothing about the game was balanced around the obstacles themselves. They are intended to break up monotony and prevent the core balance of the game from taking precedent. In short, they allow the maneuvering system to matter more than the raw numbers listed on the components.

That's pretty much what I'd meant by the game being balanced around obstacles, but certainly better phrased. "Designed" might have been a better term for me to have used.

But it should be clear to anyone that Gas Clouds have significantly less of an impact on decision making in the maneuvering system.

52 minutes ago, ForceSensitive said:

To the last item I would then ask who's fault is it that there's 6 gas clouds?

FFG .

I know you were trying to elicit a different answer, but it's absolutely FFG. They made the penalty for flying over them too low.

A huge number of players will simply do what's best for them. For a lot of ships, the triviality of flying over Gas Clouds is too strong to pass up, compared to the drawbacks of non-Gas obstacles. The options you get in positioning, while being able to use "after fully executing a maneuver" abilities, are very much worth it.

56 minutes ago, ForceSensitive said:

As an answer roundabout to your question, wouldn't the empty space on the board, according to the logic we're applying now, also then need to be a penalty space?

Here's what I was trying to get at: leaving aside Gas Clouds for a second, X-Wing Miniatures is more interesting with 6 obstacles on board, rather than 0. It's more interesting with 6 than with 3. Most tabletop games need some critical mass of terrain or obstacles or such to make the game more interesting than a bare table. There's probably an upper limit of how many obstacles is fun, but having some number of objects on a board which interfere with how you have to fly your ship makes the game more interesting. Guessing where an opponent will go is a lot more interesting if there are obstacles in the way. But there's next to zero impact on how you have to dial in moves due to Gas Clouds.

There's often something really cool in the choice between Debris and Asteroids. Back when Veteran Turret Gunner Y-Wings was a thing, they'd view Debris with more risk than Asteroids. A higher chance of damage is easier to cope with than stress. Expensive large base ships might really like Debris, because the risk of missing an attack is too large. That's a great example of different obstacles having different levels of penalties, depending on what ships you're flying. That's the kind of stuff that makes the obstacles interesting, real actual choices and real actual consequences.

But Gas Clouds? Just fly your swarm through there, since you'd rather not bust up your formation. Or fly a Jedi through and FTC to safety. It doesn't matter.

Should the penalties be different? Sure. I think it'd be cool for players to choose the kinds of obstacles because of which kind of risk lines up best with their squad, but there need to be real risks for that to be an interesting choice. A frequently suggest option would be for Gas Clouds to give out Strain tokens. Now a player flying a swarm has to decide whether they want to give half their ships a Strain in order to plow through, or take a different angle without strain.

Finally, a choice that matters!

1 hour ago, ForceSensitive said:

But say you are a Vulture Droid player and you kinda rely on having your rocks for your ship ability, which was tied into your first assumption of balance. Then wouldn't you have to reevaluate the whole of the Vulture, knowing there's a good chance the Vulture player may only get to place one of their two rocks? What about abilities that rely on stress, now the Debris limit requires those to be reevaluated right? So on and so on?

I don't think the differences of an up-to-[2A, 2D, 1G] scheme would be large enough to warrant reevaluation of prices.

I mean, c'mon.

Vultures can land on Debris, too. Stress-tricks haven't relied much on Debris vs Asteroids. Like, there's no ****ing way we'd need to reevaluate the cost of Braylen Stramm or Admiral Sloane because their players could only bring two debris now.

I've read your argument, but I still nothing stopping a change. If only because when playing, even when my opponent brings gas since I never do (I almost always go for debris, I prefer my opponent risk a crit and be stressed) I still see people trying to avoid them. Which is the critical foil I think to the situation. There's still enough of a risk-reward system that most of the time folks still go around them. Turns out, actions are kinda important. And if they're so bad and you expect them to be a problem, just bring something else and the most that'll be on the board is three. Which clearly is not FFG's fault in the squad build stage. That's it's own meta game, which is now really cool I think.

Not to mention that at the highest levels in worlds competition, as we all know debris played a critical role right? So when the best players are mixing it up, it's a good question to ask why isn't everyone else doing the same? If it's causing you issues in the game to have all gas clouds on table, then stop bringing half of them yourself right? That is decidedly NOT, FFG at fault. If we bring gas thinking it's the best for our squad, then the opponent does as well and runs over us with that as part of their game plan, then it only follows that it was in fact not the best choice for our squad. That's a strategically bad decision when it comes to picking the battlefield.

Why do I keep forgetting that droids can land on debris? Lol my bad 🤨 😝 Moving on. That side I think you'd still have to reevaluate them. My decision to take say Ten Numb would alter slightly if I knew I could also not take a third debris that generates a free action for me while letting me shoot. Same for any large ship choice, if I couldn't take all gas that would alter my thinking on them as well. As Brooks on the design team even said, nothing in this games exists in a vacuum. So definitively yes, the values of many ships would need be altered in response. Might take a while to see how, but it will end up happening. Besides which the player blowback for a new limitation on a choice is not ideal.

Now FTC is a whole other matter, worthy of it's own thread as it has many already, and it totally does need fixed. But I see that as a fault with FTC, not gas. In fact I think the Delta was poorly designed as a whole, but again that's another thing. And swarms aren't suddenly everywhere either. So that too I see as a non factor. Let them fly through it, I get free evades against a swarm in return, and they lose a pile of focus actions. I see no problem here.

At this point my friend I don't think either one of us is going to convince the other. Guess we'll just have to see what the future holds for now. If in the mean time it's causing you trouble I'd say just throw 3 debris at the table and challenge the folks who are bringing gas. It's been working out for me.