Basically, I’m just curious about people’s thoughts on the questions in the title. I can see deplete affecting primary laser cannons because the ship has diverted energy from weapons to thrusters (in the case of “Fine-Tuned Thrusters“), or it has had power “drained” of it (in the case of being in Vonreg’s bullseye arc... yeah, that’s stretching to make sense of that). Wouldn’t missiles and torps be more of a mechanical firing than an energy-/power-based laser? It’s not like the ship is depleted of ALL power after the action and pressing a button that triggers a missile launch is that much more of a drain.

I was wondering: if deplete only affected primary attacks and beam weapons, would that be bad for the game? Would it make more sense thematically? Would it actually give missiles another niche design space that’s actually competitive?

I think it's more about the pilot's ability to fire their weapons right.

1 hour ago, Synel said:

I was wondering: if deplete only affected primary attacks and beam weapons, would that be bad for the game?

Yes. One of the few easy sources of Deplete is Fine-Tuned Thrusters, and giving a TIE/ba easy Focus/Lock with full 3-dice or more missiles would be bad.

1 hour ago, KCDodger said:

I think it's more about the pilot's ability to fire their weapons right.

Exactly.

Think of the scene in Top Gun where Iceman is wasting time trying to get a shot and ultimately can't. That's Iceman with a Deplete token.

Game design wise, being able to assign penalties prevents the one-up-manship of power creep.

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

Yes. One of the few easy sources of Deplete is Fine-Tuned Thrusters, and giving a TIE/ba easy Focus/Lock with full 3-dice or more missiles would be bad.

I mean you can just take the one that reduces your agility instead.

3 hours ago, KCDodger said:

I mean you can just take the one that reduces your agility instead.

But then you've reduced your agility. Overall, I think it's meaningful enough to have to take a Strain as a penalty.

Deplete with full-dice missiles is essentially free double mods, and we will not have it. I say, we will not have it, oh.

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

But then you've reduced your agility. Overall, I think it's meaningful enough to have to take a Strain as a penalty.

Deplete with full-dice missiles is essentially free double mods, and we will not have it. I say, we will not have it, oh.

Reducing your agility is worth it if in an advantageous position. There's a reason Vonreg is a maniac.

8 hours ago, KCDodger said:

Reducing your agility is worth it if in an advantageous position. There's a reason Vonreg is a maniac.

Don't get me wrong: it's great. But it's at least enough of a theoretical disadvantage that it doesn't really feel "free." Mess up, strain at the wrong time when you're not in a position quite as safe as you thought, and you can get bit hard.

Deplete tokens you could just ignore has too few potential consequences.

11 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Don't get me wrong: it's great. But it's at least enough of a theoretical disadvantage that it doesn't really feel "free." Mess up, strain at the wrong time when you're not in a position quite as safe as you thought, and you can get bit hard.

Deplete tokens you could just ignore has too few potential consequences.

Who said it was free?

Gamewise? Easy, the designers wanted to make something with more choices and interest than stress, a new mechanic with new choices.

Fluff? Well, since stress effects the pilot in limiting their flying (b-rolls and boost), movement (next turn) and even attack (no focus or target-lock), they kind of split it int two types: overly aggressive and hesitant. One allows a hard hit, but you're not watching your 6, the other makes you timid and reluctant to attack. Deplete is obviously be the mental pressure that causes second guessing, over-thinking, and a bit of lack of mental focus during the attack, like @Darth Meanie illustrated so well, but still allows you to evade with all your ability since you're already a bit overly-cautious and unsure. Maybe a better title would have been hesitant, haha.

3 hours ago, KCDodger said:

Who said it was free?

Me? You? I don't even know anymore.

Mostly, I just think that, even though you can get Focus/Lock easily with Strain, it'd still be bad to have Focus/Lock from Deplete with no-penalty Missiles. I guess it felt like you were arguing against that, but I could easily have been wrong. All good.

Space Magic,

When it comes to Star Wars, it’s the only viable fallback reason 😄

Bombs, seismic charges and sounds in space. That is all.

Thanks, everyone! I was more speculating than arguing against the current design. I fully receive and understand the side of deplete affecting all attacks - it would make the ship ability consistently powerful and deplete the obvious choice for at least 2-3 turns.

I like the expectation that it was taxing the pilot‘a ability to make a good shot/avoid a shot after they used the thrusters to maneuver/acquire a lock.

On 4/25/2020 at 5:53 AM, KCDodger said:

Who said it was free?

I think you guys are basically arguing the same point: if Deplete only affected primary attacks, then it would be a no-penalty choice for Vonreg's missile attacks. You would take the Deplete token, fire your full-strength missiles, and then clear the Deplete on a blue maneuver next round.

By having it affect all attacks, it forces a choice between penalizing your attack or your defense.

I always thought the deplete was a more ship-mechanical thing. The ship was depleted for energy diversion or whatever or is over heated or some such. I just figured the jump to ordinance, which we'd think might be on its own power supply and internals for game related strength, might have actually required a 'Kickstart' from the ship or some other SciFi tech reason. So when the ships energy was depleted it either affected that priming, or was just a consequence of the targeting systems being weaker to account for the missing die. Depleted isn't a adjective you'd commonly apply to a person. Fatigue, maybe.