13 hours ago, SabineKey said:

Since you have taken up this mantle, may I ask you some direct questions?

1) If Weapon Hardpoints work as you say, why has it not been talked about or shown on any live stream or article? If this was a new feature of the ship ability, why didn’t they talk it up during that big live stream going through the contents of the Conversation kits? If you can find an example of them doing it, I would love to see it.

Please do! I'll split these responses up since I might start to ramble...

1. Frankly, I chalk this up to the massive blindspot known as "1.0 hangover" where many people (myself included) are incapable of fully grasping (or sometimes even seeing) the implications of small changes between 1e and 2e. A perfect example is in fact the change from 1e "Heavy Scyk" to the 2e Weapon Hardpoint . Why was this changed from "upgrade bar gains that icon" to "can equip that upgrade"? I mages for comparison reference:

(Edit: I see this point was looked at later in the thread! I'll try to reply to that later today)

1e "Heavy Scyk"

Rando Scyk with Weapon Hardpoint :

I think many of these types of questions are coming up now, a year in, because new players unhindered by that blindspot are questioning the old vets, "why can't I do this thing?" And the vet says, "we've never done it that way..." To which the new player says, "where in the rules does it say that?" At this point a Rules As Written vet will reply, "huh, I guess that was a 1e thing. You should be able to do the thing." While a RAI vet will reply, "the intent is obvious, this is how it has been done since 2e released and we haven't been told otherwise, so that must be correct."

In some cases the RAI vet has a point, mostly when the 'As Written' way of doing it has a cascade effect of changes to other combos or when the 'As Written' is non-functional. In cases like the current argument though, switching from the traditional 'as intended' to the proper 'as written' preserves other combos that are just as old. (In this case changing to Yes-Scyk-Barrage preserves Jonus barrage and reload barrage, to keep one without the others is to encourage inconsistent use of the same wording)

15 hours ago, SabineKey said:

2) As my conclusion is that what we are dealing with is an error in wording rather than intent, can you prove that this conclusion is non-viable?

2) I have alluded to, if not outright started my stance on this argument. I generally do not care what the intent was if the card is functional as written. Arguing what the intent was is not always clear cut and there are often multiple interpretations of intent.

I think the silence on the subject can be due to a variety of hypotheticals: What if the devs are testing the community to see how long it takes to find this "very creative combo"? There's also a lot of people who work on this game and not all of them speak directly to media, what if the person who rewrote Barrage Rockets neglected to mention this idea to anyone up top, but did intend it to be different from its 1e counterpart?

15 hours ago, SabineKey said:

Considering FFGs track record and their silence on the subject, it seems like the simpler conclusion to me. What do you see to make you think otherwise?

Considering FFGs track record is exactly what I'm doing when I do all in my miniscule power to hold them accountable to sloppy writing.

Anyone else remember the Paige/Deathfire ruling? Deathfire was on tables and getting shot down on forums from day one of 2e, but FFG did not deign to address the combo until some time after Paige was released with a similar (but even more powerful) ability. At that point FFG gave us a "clarification" that directly contradicted Rules As Written. No beating around the bush: the intention was not made clear until well after release when it was finally revealed to be a contradiction! Eventually they did alter the Rules Reference to match the apparent intent, but that is not something we can decide with any rules based reasoning.

To ̶d̶o̶ ̶s̶o̶{make rulings based on intent} is to invite fracturing of the player base along geographic lines as different local groups come to different conclusions. Holding everything to the highest, clearest, written standard keeps the game most similar for the largest number of players.

59 minutes ago, nitrobenz said:

Please do! I'll split these responses up since I might start to ramble...

1. Frankly, I chalk this up to the massive blindspot known as "1.0 hangover" where many people (myself included) are incapable of fully grasping (or sometimes even seeing) the implications of small changes between 1e and 2e. A perfect example is in fact the change from 1e "Heavy Scyk" to the 2e Weapon Hardpoint . Why was this changed from "upgrade bar gains that icon" to "can equip that upgrade"? I mages for comparison reference:

(Edit: I see this point was looked at later in the thread! I'll try to reply to that later today)

1e "Heavy Scyk"

Rando Scyk with Weapon Hardpoint :

I think many of these types of questions are coming up now, a year in, because new players unhindered by that blindspot are questioning the old vets, "why can't I do this thing?" And the vet says, "we've never done it that way..." To which the new player says, "where in the rules does it say that?" At this point a Rules As Written vet will reply, "huh, I guess that was a 1e thing. You should be able to do the thing." While a RAI vet will reply, "the intent is obvious, this is how it has been done since 2e released and we haven't been told otherwise, so that must be correct."

In some cases the RAI vet has a point, mostly when the 'As Written' way of doing it has a cascade effect of changes to other combos or when the 'As Written' is non-functional. In cases like the current argument though, switching from the traditional 'as intended' to the proper 'as written' preserves other combos that are just as old. (In this case changing to Yes-Scyk-Barrage preserves Jonus barrage and reload barrage, to keep one without the others is to encourage inconsistent use of the same wording)

That gives an answers why veterans might have missed it. But what I asked were the devs. Why haven’t the devs mentioned this changes? Them being able to equip double missile slots is a large upgrade to Scyks. Why didn’t they advertise it?

45 minutes ago, nitrobenz said:

2) I have alluded to, if not outright started my stance on this argument. I generally do not care what the intent was if the card is functional as written. Arguing what the intent was is not always clear cut and there are often multiple interpretations of intent.

Okay. I, however, do rather see this as clear cut. Either they intended all this and have not mentioned this once in the entire time 2E has been talked about, or they didn’t and people have just found a logical hole in their wording and definitions. Again, I see a lot more ifs in the first scenario, and much less in the second.

You may not care about it, but that doesn’t mean it has no barring.

49 minutes ago, nitrobenz said:

Considering FFGs track record is exactly what I'm doing when I do all in my miniscule power to hold them accountable to sloppy writing.

Anyone else remember the Paige/Deathfire ruling? Deathfire was on tables and getting shot down on forums from day one of 2e, but FFG did not deign to address the combo until some time after Paige was released with a similar (but even more powerful) ability. At that point FFG gave us a "clarification" that directly contradicted Rules As Written. No beating around the bush: the intention was not made clear until well after release when it was finally revealed to be a contradiction! Eventually they did alter the Rules Reference to match the apparent intent, but that is not something we can decide with any rules based reasoning.

To do so is to invite fracturing of the player base along geographic lines as different local groups come to different conclusions. Holding everything to the highest, clearest, written standard keeps the game most similar for the largest number of players.

Which is why I’m hoping for an actual answer. As far as I can see, neither side has enough actual evidence to convince the other. So, we need something concrete.

2 hours ago, SabineKey said:

That gives an answers why veterans might have missed it. But what I asked were the devs. Why haven’t the devs mentioned this changes? Them being able to equip double missile slots is a large upgrade to Scyks. Why didn’t they advertise it?

I've got a couple hypotheticals, but that's conjecture not reason:

3 hours ago, nitrobenz said:

I think the silence on the subject can be due to a variety of hypotheticals: What if the devs are testing the community to see how long it takes to find this "very creative combo"? There's also a lot of people who work on this game and not all of them speak directly to media, what if the person who rewrote Barrage Rockets neglected to mention this idea to anyone up top, but did intend it to be different from its 1e counterpart?

2 hours ago, SabineKey said:

Which is why I’m hoping for an actual answer. As far as I can see, neither side has enough actual evidence to convince the other. So, we need something concrete.

Agreed, hopefully a Rules Reference update. It looks like both camps are entrenched, but I'll probably keep making my case to the silent majority who may not have a concrete opinion one way or the other. I have a tendency of arguing for RAW even after reaching stalemate (or RAI becomes consensus 😕 )

Exercising one's opinion can reveal both it's flaws and strengths to both observers and the participants themselves. Thank you @SabineKey (and also @GreenDragoon ) for engaging civilly in this disagreement.

Anyone else who might have read 5 pages of discussion feel free to chime in on either side of the debate! 😀

7 minutes ago, nitrobenz said:

Anyone else who might have read 5 pages of discussion feel free to chime in on either side of the debate! 😀

I would just want an FFG statement at this point. Reading arguments gets boring quick.

20 minutes ago, Npmartian said:

I would just want an FFG statement at this point. Reading arguments gets boring quick.

I think those involved (me included) have a masochistic tendency and enjoy it. But I fully agree, a clarification is anyway necessary.

43 minutes ago, nitrobenz said:

I've got a couple hypotheticals, but that's conjecture not reason:

First one sounds uncharacteristic for FFG. And the other implies that there are maverick forces inside the design team. Considering this is a licensed product they have to answer for, it seems unlikely that one person could make this kind of change and not have that changed approved.

4 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

First one sounds uncharacteristic for FFG. And the other implies that there are maverick forces inside the design team. Considering this is a licensed product they have to answer for, it seems unlikely that one person could make this kind of change and not have that changed approved.

The change itself from "Heavy Scyk" to Weapon Hardpoint is an uncharacteristic deviation from how most of the conversion happened. Take the Havoc title as an example of how the conversation typically happened:

This is more typical of the conversion equivalent cards dealing with slots: 'gains X upgrade icon' becomes 'add X slot' and 'loses Z icon' becomes 'remove Z slot' it's easy to track and makes clear sense. (also see:OS-1, Andrasta, etc.) Weapon Hardpoint is the sole outlier I can identify with 'you may equip X upgrade' which as you say would have had to make it through multiple layers of bureaucracy to get into the final product.

Maybe not Maverick forces, but just one forgotten detail, put in by an overworked designer, that eventually got rubber-stamped through is not a stretch to imagine.

I might not have a good hypothesis for why they never mentioned BRockets on Scyks or DBM Poe, but I can't think of a better one than "because it's supposed to be different" for why it is different.

26 minutes ago, nitrobenz said:

This is more typical of the conversion equivalent cards dealing with slots: 'gains X upgrade icon' becomes 'add X slot' and 'loses Z icon' becomes 'remove Z slot' it's easy to track and makes clear sense. (also see:OS-1, Andrasta, etc.) Weapon Hardpoint is the sole outlier I can identify with 'you may equip X upgrade' which as you say would have had to make it through multiple layers of bureaucracy to get into the final product.

What about this then?

10 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

I don't know where in the RR slots are explicitly mentioned. I don't get any results when ctrl+f for "slot" in the RR while there are 113 "upgrade" mentions. I guess that means for you pure RAW guys that Slave I doesn't do anything now 😄 . Instead the RR uses upgrade icons. Under squad building:
Each ship has an upgrade bar which is a list of upgrade icons that limit the number of upgrades and types of upgrades that the ship can equip. The X-Wing Squad Builder will enforce these rules. Additionally, a list of all ships’ upgrade bars is also available at X-Wing.com. [page 19. Also, note the "type of upgrades". And note that the squad builder "will enforce these rules"]
And there is the entry "upgrade icons" on p20

45 minutes ago, nitrobenz said:

I might not have a good hypothesis for why they never mentioned BRockets on Scyks or DBM Poe, but I can't think of a better one than "because it's supposed to be different" for why it is different.

But if it were intended, why has it never been allowed in the app? The app has previously been the sole authority on the legal equippage of certain upgrades (most notably Hate). The app is intended to be an authority at least at some level, and the fact that it precludes double-slot missiles on the platform leads me to believe that the bizarre wording is rather an oversight than an intentional departure from first edition. Their absolute silence on the matter seems to confirm this.

I would propose that it's pretty confusing to think of a way to write: "Add one slot of only one of the following types: [Missile], [Torpedo], or [Cannon]" or else "Add one [Missile], [Torpedo], or [Cannon] slot." They probably just thought the wording they used was less ambiguous than the second and less cumbersome than the first. Overlooking the existence of double-slot upgrades doesn't seem far outside the norm for FFG, unfortunately.

As the conclusion that was reached long ago was in fact, we don't really know , but clearly it's a topic people like discussing....

How about a 'do you actually want Brockets on your Scyk?' sidetrack for those of you that just brought popcorn. Like an ad break.

Personally, not fussed. Cannons are way cheaper and Scyks seem to me to be at a price point where they hit good value and fit with other good value things, before they get enough Brockets.

They would be fun to try though. Inaldra, I reckon. Try to spend her last HP on her last charge.

More importantly...

By a show of hands... who’s going to try to sneak a Brocket Scyk into a league night just for fun???

Not a swarm... just one..... slowly, innocently, like boiling a frog in water. UNTIL I HAVE A SWARM ONE DAY!!!

Because, I definitely am... 🥳 😜

10 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

How about a 'do you actually want Brockets on your Scyk?' sidetrack for those of you that just brought popcorn. Like an ad break.

Would be ok. Heck, clearly less problematic than DBM Poe, and he's not that good anyway. The actual result is of no importance to me either way (and I think I'm not biased in either direction).

5 Scyks leave 20points. But I doubt that spamming them would be a good idea. Quinn Jast and Genesis Red might be ok-ish. Genesis Red can lock somone with a focus and double modify. That might be ok at 42 points? But then again, I'd rather have a 44pt Fang (or Finn...) for those points. Think of an interceptor with a shield but no repositioning, 34 for i1 TIE/in and 40 for the i4, so 36 is inbetween. Then again, I'm comparing to underused ships.

Quinn is able to reload them, which is not too bad if you burn through the charges with rerolls. Certainly enables you to spend them more freely.

1 minute ago, JBFancourt said:

More importantly...

By a show of hands... who’s going to try to sneak a Brocket Scyk into a league night just for fun???

Not a swarm... just one..... slowly, innocently, like boiling a frog in water. UNTIL I HAVE A SWARM ONE DAY!!!

Because, I definitely am... 🥳 😜

Hm I wonder if anyone would notice... and it's not like there's not an argument to be made for it... I know I know, oh oh oh.

14 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

I don't know where in the RR slots are explicitly mentioned. I don't get any results when ctrl+f for "slot" in the RR while there are 113 "upgrade" mentions. I guess that means for you pure RAW guys that Slave I doesn't do anything now 😄 . Instead the RR uses upgrade icons. Under squad building: ...

Sorry I missed this point in my consolidated ramblings when I jumped in! I address this with my policy of 'follow RAW unless it makes the card non-functional' otherwise Grappling Struts would also be DOA. More broadly, the fact that the terms Slot and Upgrade Type are treated as keywords by card effects without ever being defined in game terms is related to my general gripe about how 2e uses a lot of terms, and casual jargon, from 1e without actually defining it in any 2e reference material. I have said it before: I wish there was a glossary of game terms 🙄

To that point though, following the strictest RAW in regards to equipping upgrades, Weapons Hardpoint would appear to be the only card effect in the entire game that allows any upgrade to be equipped to any ship!

4 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

But if it were intended, why has it never been allowed in the app? The app has previously been the sole authority on the legal equippage of certain upgrades (most notably Hate). The app is intended to be an authority at least at some level, and the fact that it precludes double-slot missiles on the platform leads me to believe that the bizarre wording is rather an oversight than an intentional departure from first edition. Their absolute silence on the matter seems to confirm this.

Originally the app didn't allow the Hardpoint to work at all. If the app is to be trusted then at that time the ability was functionally blank I am repeating myself here: Given the overall level of attention to detail I wouldn't put it past then to take the easy way out and just code an optional single slot for the Weapon Hardpoint without asking the devs directly whether it should accept the two dual-missile upgrades. I do not believe the coders have any interaction with the game developers beyond doing what they're told and may not even play the game at all. 😣

4 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

I would propose that it's pretty confusing to think of a way to write: "Add one slot of only one of the following types: [Missile], [Torpedo], or [Cannon]" or else "Add one [Missile], [Torpedo], or [Cannon] slot." They probably just thought the wording they used was less ambiguous than the second and less cumbersome than the first.

I would disagree. I think "Add one [Missile], [Torpedo], or [Cannon] slot." Is perfectly clear and is in line with all other upgrades in that vein.

4 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

Overlooking the existence of double-slot upgrades doesn't seem far outside the norm for FFG, unfortunately.

On this I absolutely agree, somewhere along the line the existence of Barrage Rockets was overlooked. This is a hugely complex game with vast potential for hidden interactions and I remember in the later days of 1e there was a missed super combo in almost every wave that could only be curbed by hard errata to either the rules or cards. Every one of those combos snuck past who knows how many designers and several months of play testing, then usually laid dormant for a while after release into the wild too before rearing its ugly head.

I don't know how long FFG spent working on the 2e conversion but it doesn't matter, it was such a massive undertaking that some errors were bound to slip through unnoticed.

The root of my argument in favor of BRockets/DBMs on the Weapon Hardpoint is simply that it is functional, not game breaking, and consistent with other combos when following RAW.

Quote from earlier :

In cases like the current argument though, switching from the traditional 'as intended' to the proper 'as written' preserves other combos that are just as old. (In this case changing to Yes-Scyk-Barrage preserves Jonus barrage and reload barrage, to keep one without the others is to encourage inconsistent use of the same wording)

1 hour ago, Cuz05 said:

How about a 'do you actually want Brockets on your Scyk?' sidetrack for those of you that just brought popcorn. Like an ad break.

Don't forget to ask, "who wants to fly DBM Poe?"

1 hour ago, JBFancourt said:

More importantly...

By a show of hands... who’s going to try to sneak a Brocket Scyk into a league night just for fun???

Not a swarm... just one..... slowly, innocently, like boiling a frog in water. UNTIL I HAVE A SWARM ONE DAY!!!

Because, I definitely am... 🥳 😜

I was thinking of taking it to some level of tournament and just... run it by the judge.

(with a super tryhard list like Regen Jedi aces as my backup of course)

But can we all agree on whether the Scyks can carry Diamond Boron Missiles?

😁

On 12/6/2019 at 7:29 AM, Ccwebb said:

This seems like an easy argument to fix. Go equip BR on Scyk in any app. Cannot be done. Period.

Now the argument can be continued about Jonas, though I don’t believe it is anywhere a correct argument. Many fine points am have been proven, using the rules and symbology on the card.

You actually can in Launch Bay lol

22 minutes ago, Quack Shot said:

You actually can in Launch Bay lol

Well, Launch Bay is particularly bad when it comes to the expansion slots. On any ship if you have a title or something that changes/adds slots it doesn't do well.

Just to prove a point I made Boba Fett with Seismic charges + Proton Bombs from Andrasta, then added Greedo by changing title to marauder and then added a torpedo by changing title to Slave I, and then trash the title. App is perfectly happy with my ship.

Bottom line, I won't be trusting Launch Bay for any validity or proof.

3 hours ago, Bort said:

Well, Launch Bay is particularly bad when it comes to the expansion slots. On any ship if you have a title or something that changes/adds slots it doesn't do well.

Just to prove a point I made Boba Fett with Seismic charges + Proton Bombs from Andrasta, then added Greedo by changing title to marauder and then added a torpedo by changing title to Slave I, and then trash the title. App is perfectly happy with my ship.

Bottom line, I won't be trusting Launch Bay for any validity or proof.

Well the statement was any app wouldn’t. The two major builders are YASB and LBN, one of them allows it. As far as the FFG app, I wouldn’t be surprised if their third party company was supposed to include the upgrade, but didn’t. So ffg said who cares and left it.

5 hours ago, Quack Shot said:

You actually can in Launch Bay lol

You can create a Extended squad in LaunchBay and then switch it to Hyperspace and nothing changes. It’s a nice 3rd party app, but still a 3rd party app.

The official website/app does not allow shenanigans like this.

22 hours ago, nitrobenz said:

The change itself from "Heavy Scyk" to Weapon Hardpoint is an uncharacteristic deviation from how most of the conversion happened. Take the Havoc title as an example of how the conversation typically happened:

This is more typical of the conversion equivalent cards dealing with slots: 'gains X upgrade icon' becomes 'add X slot' and 'loses Z icon' becomes 'remove Z slot' it's easy to track and makes clear sense. (also see:OS-1, Andrasta, etc.) Weapon Hardpoint is the sole outlier I can identify with 'you may equip X upgrade' which as you say would have had to make it through multiple layers of bureaucracy to get into the final product.

Maybe not Maverick forces, but just one forgotten detail, put in by an overworked designer, that eventually got rubber-stamped through is not a stretch to imagine.

I might not have a good hypothesis for why they never mentioned BRockets on Scyks or DBM Poe, but I can't think of a better one than "because it's supposed to be different" for why it is different.

Fair. However, I also think the “Weapon Hardpoint is different” can also be explained by error or a change that didn’t get fully implemented.

Take a look at the 2E cards in the Saw’s Renegades and the Reaper. Faction restricted cards are denoted by symbols rather than text, and the tactical officer has extra text in the requires field. So, a formatting decision was made, then reworked after the cross edition expansions were packaged.

Also, if you look at the Havoc title across the two editions, the wording has been streamlined. Perhaps Weapon Hardpoint was an earlier attempt at this, using a much simpler syntax then was later decided on? It’s conjecture, but seems to fit what we have.

Another example of seemingly not remembering previous decisions is found in the Tournament Regulations. Under “Multiple Faction Ships”, it says that a player can use any version of the dial as long as it has the full ship name on it. A good way to keep the different YT-13s from swapping dials around. But, did you know that the Rebel ARC dial doesn’t have the full ship name on it? Meaning, if you take the regulation literally, the Rebel ARC dial could be considered illegal. HWK-290 as well, if I remember correctly. But, you can use the actual maneuver part of the dial in an official plastic dial back and it’s now legal. Now, I’ve never seen this enforced and I think there is an argument to be made that the actual important name to match up is the abbreviation on the “inside of the dial”. But, to me at least, it’s an example of FFG having a plan to removal loopholes that didn’t take everything into account.

19 hours ago, Cuz05 said:

As the conclusion that was reached long ago was in fact, we don't really know , but clearly it's a topic people like discussing....

How about a 'do you actually want Brockets on your Scyk?' sidetrack for those of you that just brought popcorn. Like an ad break.

Personally, not fussed. Cannons are way cheaper and Scyks seem to me to be at a price point where they hit good value and fit with other good value things, before they get enough Brockets.

They would be fun to try though. Inaldra, I reckon. Try to spend her last HP on her last charge.

Fussed? No. Would probably even enjoy it.

7 hours ago, Bort said:

Well, Launch Bay is particularly bad when it comes to the expansion slots. On any ship if you have a title or something that changes/adds slots it doesn't do well.

Just to prove a point I made Boba Fett with Seismic charges + Proton Bombs from Andrasta, then added Greedo by changing title to marauder and then added a torpedo by changing title to Slave I, and then trash the title. App is perfectly happy with my ship.

Bottom line, I won't be trusting Launch Bay for any validity or proof.

2 hours ago, Ccwebb said:

You can create a Extended squad in LaunchBay and then switch it to Hyperspace and nothing changes. It’s a nice 3rd party app, but still a 3rd party app.

The official website/app does not allow shenanigans like this.

The “LaunchBay App” point of argumentation is based NOT on it being official (everyone understands it’s not official), nor is it based on programming flaws or shenanigans (there is no “trick” to getting the Brockets equipped).

It’s a very minor point that only illustrates there is legitimate confusion on the interpretation of the Hard Point Ship Ability. The YASB creators do NOT allow it, while the LaunchBay creators DO allow it.

The point is made not as proof that it’s legal, but rather that there’s legitimate confusion that needs FFG clarification.