5 hours ago, dezzmont said:

stuff

I overall liked this post, and would summarize it from memory thusly:

• The problem isn't too many upgrades; it's largely the opposite most of the time (also stated by @Cpt ObVus and many others above).
• Efficiency drives the economy of x-wing and naked ships (or specific naked pilots) either pass or fail the efficiency test, which often dooms a ship/pilot to obscurity in the meta.
• Repeating @theBitterFig 's recommendation that each ship type should have some number of "free upgrade" points baked into the cost of the ship, so that fielding them naked is less efficient than customizing them.
  • This removes the efficiency of spam lists, except for ships meant to be fielded largely naked (e.g. Fangs)
  • It gives upgrades more weight in customizing ships
  • These free points could be earmarked for specific upgrade slots, or any slot except specific upgrade slots, based on how FFG needs to adjust the ship.

I personally like the Free Upgrades bundle, kind of like the Kihraxz's 1e Vaksai fix attempt, but IMO better and more targeted. That said, I don't think it'll solve the efficiency war in the meta; that's fundamental to min-maxing and that will always, always be one of the factors driving the meta. The free upgrades options would just be plugged into the formulas for which ships should be fielded and in what configurations. More changes would be needed to address that, and I don't think we could stomach 'em. However, this sort of solution could be very interesting and would certainly alleviate and redirect some of the focus on naked ship efficiency and spam lists. As you said, it would allow FFG to make specific flagging ships much more viable without turning them into spam fodder, and broaden a ship's options in customization and design. And that's going to give FFG the much-needed tools to diversify the meta and address specific problems.

As an aside, it could also be fun to accompany the points updates in a Galactic Market report, thematically framing the points updates in-universe. Put one of the writers to work building narrative and lore into the game. These free points change slightly with each update, as do the ship/pilot prices and upgrade prices. The upgrade slots the free points can apply to may change too per ship, and this is loosely explained as changes in the macro-economics of the galaxy. Certain materials and parts are cheaper or more expensive due to supply; this month Kihraxz and X-Wings are more expensive to manufacture due to a critical interruption in the supply chain, but easier to modify due to a surplus of parts or idle technicians. We have a surplus of Decimator technicians who can perform alterations for cheaper, and the ship's base cost went down slightly too because the Empire wasn't buying them in as high volume as manufacturers projected.

Is this theme stuff necessary? Nope. But I kinda like the idea of narrating the X-Wing meta and expressing X-Wing as a living, breathing world. It doesn't take a ton to narrate the meta like this, and that may be very helpful in getting new and potential players sucked into the game. Also it's just good fun. 😄

Having this as a separate format from Extended & Hyperspace for a while allows FFG to leave them alone for players who just want to play it as-is and keep things simple. But IMO after a trial run to work out the issues, it's better to incorporate this into Extended and Hyperspace, both because it's less stuff to balance separately, and because I think this would make for a richer and more varied meta once things shake out. Ships known for already stacking upgrades don't get free upgrade points (working highly efficient ships into the meta along with previously flagging ones), while ships not seeing action because they're too expensive when upgraded properly are getting a notable bonus that helps without reducing the cost of the base ship.

I think it's a cool idea! And I'm all for tools FFG can use to better balance and diversify the game.

3 hours ago, Wazat said:

That said, I don't think it'll solve the efficiency war in the meta; that's fundamental to min-maxing and that will always, always be one of the factors driving the meta. The free upgrades options would just be plugged into the formulas for which ships should be fielded and in what configurations. More changes would be needed to address that, and I don't think we could stomach 'em.

No I very much agree it wouldn't. All metas bias towards efficient options, and it would just be plugged in. However it helps reduce the disparity between jank and a netdecked tournament list.

It doesn't solve every problem (Boba should permanently exit hyper-space and eat a Dash tier 'not even trying to balance it trying to make sure no one ever plays it' points nerf, please and thank you, turns out a 10 HP ace with defensive modding and 180 degree arc coverage who can fortress 120 points with a bid is toxic to gameplay. Bring in Jango with the ability having a single recurring charge to keep the re-rolling Firespray in the game) but by adding this dimension of balance it makes off efficiency options (which upgrades usually are) less actively terrible. Yes, it would bias to really good upgrades, but with a few exceptions, most upgrades don't really feed into efficiency. Like yeah, Crack Shot is basically 1 free auto-damage per-game, but most upgrades are rewards for flying in specific ways or punishments for flying in specific ways, or encourage a specific attempt to mess with your opponent's plans. You could ban Shield Upgrades or Crack Shot from being taken like this to encourage Ion Missiles, Proton Rockets, APTs, Nets, weird 'fly this way' talents, ect.

Does that mean these will be the 'meta' upgrade? No, but your no longer losing an entire ship to take these, and even the things this WOULD bias towards, like Predator, still are more interesting and dynamic than more stats. Even Cluster A-wings, which is probably what would actually be 'the best' upgrade for them if you got 2 points free on them and couldn't take Crack, would result in the chasis providing an unusual amount of damage for its points cost in an interesting inefficient way that encourages it to take a non-defensive action on a fragile ship. And it solves the 'throw good points after bad' problem.

Ultimately I just think its a good angle because it increases the dimensions a ship can be balanced on. Right now if you want to print an upgrade to push a ship ( *cough* Snap Shot A-wings *cough* ) you basically are pushing every other ship in the game more. But if a given ship was better at using upgrades, and upgrades generally don't affect base stats or efficiency but instead encourage the ship to actively behave in specific ways, suddenly you have this dichotomy between 'generically strong' ships and ships that under-preform in generic situations but over-preform in specific ones. Even the option to cheaply slap a cluster or homing on dramatically changes the A-wing to a more interesting ship (essentially a 'premium trash ship') if you can't realistically put them down in price more without admitting that a lot of their features have no value over a TIE or Headhunter due to the anti-synergy between repo and low initiative, and while it doesn't help them as a swarm, it helps them fit in as splash ships in other lists much better: your no longer sacrificing a full X-wing to nab a A-wing with a missile vs a blank A-wing, so it becomes a little more worth it to run an A-wing with a missile taking upgrades from other ships, than a headhunter with a missile.

On 5/3/2020 at 6:47 AM, dezzmont said:

The other major issue is that upgrades are just not a good way to customize ships or make different ships feel different because of how the points system works. Either the ship is already efficient without upgrades, and thus adding upgrades only increases its value, or the ship isn't, and your throwing good points after bad. This is extremely problematic for ships intended to be upgraded to be functional: with rare exceptions such as the Rebel Y wing you are in a position that making it worth upgrading a ship at all means the ship already has to be so good you could probably just fly a naked swarm and do better, or if its a large ship use it as a points fortress.

This really hurts a lot of cool ship designs and concepts, for example the RZ-1 A wing being a double talent ship is really cool and invites a lot of creativity but the RZ-1 A isn't really worth flying naked (Jake Aside) and thus dumping 5-10 points in it for some wacky EPT combo just... makes no sense, you are paying X-wing prices for an A-wing what are you doing? And if you reduce the cost of the talent you just make them OP on already good ships, so your in a bind.

Most Wargames have variable costs, or bundling discounts for characters, which serves as an extra axis of balance that helps prevent this binary 'is it good without upgrades? If not why would I use it at ALL?' question, and I think this is ultimately the issue in X-wing, the 'resolution' of upgrade costs is too low because upgrading say... Boba Fett is VERY different than upgrading a headhunter, yet because talents can't 'tell' and having talents have unique costs per pilot outside of universal factors such as initiative (which wouldn't hold true to how good the fundamental chasis is) would be onerous.

I think this is the meat of a pretty good post. It speaks to what I was mentioning that sometimes the whole is worth more than the sum of the parts.

The thread’s originator still has not mentioned what problem he has with heavily upgraded ships. I’m still curious about it.

I can't tell you the last time I was happy to see a ship with 7 or more upgrades slapped on it. It's either a useless points sink or some horrific NPE combo and neither is fun to play against. I'd much rather actually play the game.

4 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

The thread’s originator still has not mentioned what problem he has with heavily upgraded ships. I’m still curious about it.

@Boom Owl has come out and said the issue is basically a few select ships and their full combinations of upgrades being issues.

He suggested this as an idea to try and force those ships to have to pick and choose a direction instead of getting all their goodies. Vader and Boba being a couple of his highlighted examples.

About the only thing he failed to really get into was how this improves The fun of those using ships that need or use large numbers of upgrades to perform their basic functions: Starwings Punishers and other similar ships.

7 hours ago, Ronu said:

@Boom Owl has come out and said the issue is basically a few select ships and their full combinations of upgrades being issues.

He suggested this as an idea to try and force those ships to have to pick and choose a direction instead of getting all their goodies. Vader and Boba being a couple of his highlighted examples.

About the only thing he failed to really get into was how this improves The fun of those using ships that need or use large numbers of upgrades to perform their basic functions: Starwings Punishers and other similar ships.

Ah, yeah. I guess he did mention a couple of things he had issues with. I guess they didn’t really register with me as problematic.

And you nailed it in calling out StarWings and Punishers and whatnot as collateral damage in the changes he’s suggesting. I personally feel like I’d rather not see a large number of ships in the game neutered just because he doesn’t like that Boba Fett and Vader are good.

If there’s a problem with a few heavily upgraded guys (who take up 40% or more of a list, mind you), the designers have the tools to fix those with points increases to those frames, or those particular pilots. That should be sufficient. No need to limit the ships that need 4+ upgrades to function. That would only make any perceived balance problems worse by limiting the options for fighting the truly efficient stuff.

8 hours ago, Chumbalaya said:

I can't tell you the last time I was happy to see a ship with 7 or more upgrades slapped on it. It's either a useless points sink or some horrific NPE combo and neither is fun to play against. I'd much rather actually play the game.

I dunno, I kinda like it when I see ships with lots of upgrades. Keeps things interesting.

18 hours ago, Ronu said:

About the only thing he failed to really get into was how this improves The fun of those using ships that need or use large numbers of upgrades to perform their basic functions: Starwings Punishers and other similar ships.

Mostly I don't think ships like that exist. The "Max Upgrades Per Ship" could be set to 2 in a bunch of cases. Would still allow plenty of fun highly functional options/variety, but force a build direction choice. And then FFG doesn't have to get a near infinite variety of Point Combinations tested or priced perfectly. i5/i6 pilots and other lower init pilots I didnt previously list like Boba would be subject to 1 upgrade limits across the board. Big Ships or Ships whose theme are "this is super customized" would get 2 Upgrades out of their available Slots. "Alot of Upgrades" on one ship would mean 2. Zero Point Configs/Titles would not be included in the totals with some of them probably switching to 0 pts.

Gunboat:

• Title + Ion Cannon
• Title + Barrage Rocket
• Title + HLC + APT
• Title + Adv Slam + Selected Ordinance

VCX:

• Saw + Passive Sensors
• Turret + Nien or Ezra

YT1300 Resistance

• Title + Korr + Rose
• Title + Finn + Rose

Punisher

• Passive Sensors + Proton Torps
• Trajectory + Bomb

Starfortress

• Trajectory + Bomb
• Bomb + Paige

Decimator

• Sloane + Dauntless
• GI + Dauntless
• Vader Crew + Dauntless
• Moff JJ + Bombs

I am pretty sure the only ship in the game a 2 upgrade restriction would be genuinely problematic for is the Scum Falcon.

If you bring one of these ships you eat into your upgrade budget for the rest of the squad. Setting the total squad limit to 4 instead of 3 wouldn't matter to me much though I think List Maxes would be helpful to require more compromises and prevent spam without needing to apply Pips retroactively to the card pool. Players would still get to experience the joy of building lists, they would just have to deal with more guard rails. Point Costs can approximate this but I dont think its great to achieve it only by driving the cost of all upgrades or base ship costs up or varying upgrade cost for every ship/pilot.

I realize this suggestion upsets people who are used to just thinking about 200 points total but I genuinely think it would help FFG control Extended and Hyperspace more effectively.

15 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Gunboat:

• Title + Ion Cannon
• Title + Barrage Rocket
• Title + HLC + APT
• Title + Adv Slam + Selected Ordinance

VCX:

• Saw + Passive Sensors
• Turret + Nien or Ezra

YT1300 Resistance

• Title + Korr + Rose
• Title + Finn + Rose

Punisher

• Passive Sensors + Proton Torps
• Trajectory + Bomb

Starfortress

• Trajectory + Bomb
• Bomb + Paige

Decimator

• Sloane + Dauntless
• GI + Dauntless
• Vader Crew + Dauntless
• Moff JJ + Bombs

Seems limiting not to mention none of the offers look at things like EPT’s which are also upgrades.

if someone is going to spend the kind of points from a list for a VXC they are going to want to make it as survivable as possible. Otherwise it’s an easy target that basically burns away.

I’m assuming you’re looking at all of this in a competitive setting. But if that’s the case how does this widen the pool rather than shrink is ultimately?

Honestly I see this as a difference of opinion on it’s effectiveness. You feel it helps and forces more choices. a number of us see it as being further restrictive because players are more likely to take or use the few known good elements. Instead of experimenting with an unusual combo because you just don’t have the ways the put those combos together.

12 minutes ago, Ronu said:

Seems limiting not to mention none of the offers look at things like EPT’s which are also upgrades.

if someone is going to spend the kind of points from a list for a VXC they are going to want to make it as survivable as possible. Otherwise it’s an easy target that basically burns away.

I’m assuming you’re looking at all of this in a competitive setting. But if that’s the case how does this widen the pool rather than shrink is ultimately?

Honestly I see this as a difference of opinion on it’s effectiveness. You feel it helps and forces more choices. a number of us see it as being further restrictive because players are more likely to take or use the few known good elements. Instead of experimenting with an unusual combo because you just don’t have the ways the put those combos together.

I am primarily looking at it from a competitive setting yea definitely. I dont know that it would widen the pool of ship and lists that see play. Thats for sure an unknown in either direction I think.

From my experience I have a long lists of ships that essentially are “band” from competitive play because they cant compete with the jousting/mobility upgrades stacked onto aces. Theres also a long list of pilots and ships that I see unable to compete with the joust/mobility upgrade spam stacked onto swarms.

Main thing is I think its an unknown what would come out of this? I dont think it would suddenly make ships that are already not viable any less viable since the stuff that it cant compete with would lose some of its upgrades used to mitigate matchups against the field.

Could it make Force Users and Passive Mod aces with competitive pilot or ship abilities even better? Probably? But then the point increases needed would become even more clear. It’d probably also be easier to identify which upgrades are outliers for specific ships/builds and need cost adjustments.

20 minutes ago, Ronu said:

if someone is going to spend the kind of points from a list for a VXC they are going to want to make it as survivable as possible. Otherwise it’s an easy target that basically burns away.

One thing to clarify. I have alot of reps with the VCX. Its most effective builds by far have 1-2 upgrades already. It works very well if you put Saw on their or Magva etc. Or nien and turrets for Hera. It becomes an easier target with more upgrades on it. Example of a place where the guard rails would protect a casual player from doing something that makes their matchups worse. And on net removes nothing from the competitive scene.

2 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

I am primarily looking at it from a competitive setting yea definitely. I dont know that it would widen the pool of ship and lists that see play. Thats for sure an unknown in either direction I think.

From my experience I have a long lists of ships that essentially are “band” from competitive play because they cant compete with the jousting/mobility upgrades stacked onto aces. Theres also a long list of named pilots that see unable to compete with the joust/mobility upgrade spam stacked onto swarms.

Main thing is I think its an unknown what would come out of this? I dont think it would suddenly make ships that are already not viable any less viable since the stuff that it cant compete with would lose some of its upgrades used to mitigate matchups against the field.

From a hypothetical POV? I guess I would ask isn’t the point of upgrades to bring better efficiency to a ship by giving them more tools?

Doesn’t this idea empower swarms or at least more swarm like play? Especially in a competitive setting because you start looking for efficiency and a need for fewer upgrades to be really effective?

Sadly any Meta is Risk vs reward. It wants to mitigate it’s overall Risk while getting Maximum rewards. How it does that within it’s overall framework doesn’t matter, but can narrow the gap.

Again perhaps the best way to deal with such a thing is to make the gap a wide as possible. So as I suggested earlier remove/restrict the bidding. Simply mandate that all list be as close to 200 as possible while being no less than a set value such as 198.

10 minutes ago, Ronu said:

Doesn’t this idea empower swarms or at least more swarm like play? Especially in a competitive setting because you start looking for efficiency and a need for fewer upgrades to be really effective?

Yes absolutely this change would probably drive players towards bringing more ships.

It would not cause Aces or 3 ship builds to suddenly be unplayable though. Those pilots/ships are simply to good and to cheap across the board for that to happen. They would still get some upgrades remember.

An intended goal/benefit would be make more generic or high ship count lists workable, since those by far represent the largest portion of essentially unplayable ships/pilots in Extended or Hyper.

At present the "swarm" archetype is nothing more than a reliable strategy for making cut and promptly losing to lower ship count lists with the right combination of mobility and jousting upgrades.

Thats been true for most of 2.0 with very few exceptions besides Ensnare Swarms and maybe Quad Phantoms, which wasnt a swarm.

Again efficiency spam could be addressed further via ship/upgrade cost increases as needed. Its not like that wouldnt still be an available lever.

55 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

I am pretty sure the only ship in the game a 2 upgrade restriction would be genuinely problematic for is the Scum Falcon.

If you bring one of these ships you eat into your upgrade budget for the rest of the squad . Setting the total squad limit to 4 instead of 3 wouldn't matter to me much though I think List Maxes would be helpful to require more compromises and prevent spam without needing to apply Pips retroactively to the card pool.

As time has passed, what irks me more isn't the per-ship limit, but a per-squad limit.

I think I had an earlier tweak: one upgrade on a limited pilot, two on a non-limited one (essentially the pilot ability counts against an upgrade limit), with free configs/titles not counting. But no limit on the total upgrades per-list, only per-ship limits. If some ships like Punishers really need an extra slot, maybe some ships get a bonus slot.

A list I think would be interesting: Imperial Combined Arms. I'm sure it's a bad list, but still.

• An Ace: Soontir Fel (Predator) 55
• A Bruiser: Maarek Stele (Fire Control System) 47
• A Torpedo: Nu Gunboat (Passive Sensors, Proton Torpedo, OS-1) 48
• A Bomber: Scimitar Bomber (Barrage Rockets, Proximity Mine) 41
• Total 191, bid 9.

This meets the "not too many per ship" limit which prevents most nasty combos. However, this would run hard into a "per list" cap, since there are six different upgrades in the list. A cap to how many different upgrades are in a list doesn't prevent spam, it encourages it. I'd have to run two Bombers, or two Nus, if I could only bring 4 different upgrades in a list.

If I can only bring 3 different upgrades per list, I'd probably be stuck with mixed Crack Shot aces, and that's a lot less interesting for list building. I mean, I'd rather see the above list than this one below, which feels a lot more spammy and less creative.

• Soontir Fel (Crack Shot) 54
• Duchess (Crack Shot) 43
• Pure Sabacc (Crack Shot) 45
• Fifth Brother (Homing Missiles) 47
• Total 189, bid 11.

TLDR: Per-List Limits encourage this over this

@Boom Owl If you're trying to improve competitive play, then I suggest a much more targeted approach in your custom play format than "everyone gets x or fewer upgrades total". Pick the problem ships and restrict their upgrade choices by treating them almost like the Hyena pilots -- give them different slot choices that don't give their full upgrade bar, making them choose between different lineups. For example, you felt Vader shouldn't be able to combine certain upgrades, well then give him a few choices of slot pairings that don't go together e.g. they pick from the slot lineup of either Force, Missile + System, or Missile + Modification.

I'm not saying this is a format I'd be excited about -- it seems very subject to your personal views of what's a problem in the meta so you'd have to work to get other players enrolled in that view -- but this is one method that lets you specifically target the ships/pilots that you feel are problematic, and more surgically target the upgrade combinations you feel are gross.

IMO I don't share your view of specifically what's wrong, but maybe this idea will help you design a custom format other players will find compelling and will be interested in playing with ya.

3 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

One thing to clarify. I have alot of reps with the VCX. Its most effective builds by far have 1-2 upgrades already. It works very well if you put Saw on their or Magva etc. Or nien and turrets for Hera. It becomes an easier target with more upgrades on it. Example of a place where the guard rails would protect a casual player from doing something that makes their matchups worse. And on net removes nothing from the competitive scene.

I don't feel the game should have training wheels on every ship with no ability to break past them. If a player makes a bad build, that's a learning opportunity and they get better at more nuanced list design. Taking options away from everyone else to protect a player from loading a ship heavy is the wrong way to go about things.

And if someone has a cool idea for loading it heavy, they should be allowed to do exactly that.

Again, I don't think this improves the meta, it just creates new winners and losers based on what I feel is a shaky principle (more upgrades = always negative play experience) and a very personal view of what's "wrong" with the meta.

10 minutes ago, Wazat said:

it seems very subject to your personal views of what's a problem in the meta

It absolutely is a personal view. True.

I am starting from the opinion that heavily upgraded lists (4+) and more than 1 per "Ace" are a problem in the meta and have been for a very long time.

Includes swarms as well where at 4+ upgrades they end up just packing in matchup mitigation tools that they would be denied with a list total restriction or Pips.

I dont trust that they will ever increase costs of ships/pilots enough to address this and I dont really want them to because that more or less prices pilots/ships entirely out of various archetypes.

6 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

I think I had an earlier tweak: one upgrade on a limited pilot, two on a non-limited one (essentially the pilot ability counts against an upgrade limit), with free configs/titles not counting.

I'm also going to double-down on this: under a system with an upgrade limit, pilot abilities should count towards that upgrade limit, otherwise that drives everyone towards aces, since they effectively get a free "extra words" slot.

8 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

I'm also going to double-down on this: under a system with an upgrade limit, pilot abilities should count towards that upgrade limit, otherwise that drives everyone towards aces, since they effectively get a free "extra words" slot.

True those aces could become a problem but what happens if those aces cant take more than 1 upgrade and joust/dance as effectively anymore?

If force or insane ship/pilot abilites are that much of a problem ( It is that much of a problem ), ffg would have to address those directly.

20 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

TLDR: Per-List Limits encourage this over this

Not sure why this would be the case.

Salad lists could still be built, theyd just have a couple ships without any upgrades.

Vader Duchess Hask Vermiel is a good example from prior metas.

Remeber Upgrades arent band entirely, their just restricted further.

12 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Yes absolutely this change would probably drive players towards bringing more ships.

It would not cause Aces or 3 ship builds to suddenly be unplayable though. Those pilots/ships are simply to good and to cheap across the board for that to happen. They would still get some upgrades remember.

An intended goal/benefit would be make more generic or high ship count lists workable, since those by far represent the largest portion of essentially unplayable ships/pilots in Extended or Hyper.

At present the "swarm" archetype is nothing more than a reliable strategy for making cut and promptly losing to lower ship count lists with the right combination of mobility and jousting upgrades.

Thats been true for most of 2.0 with very few exceptions besides Ensnare Swarms and maybe Quad Phantoms, which wasnt a swarm.

Again efficiency spam could be addressed further via ship/upgrade cost increases as needed. Its not like that wouldnt still be an available lever.

So the highlighted item is something that can be debated and addressed. Thank you for helping give clarity on your reasoning for the changes proposed.

I will disagree with you quite wholeheartedly that they need help. Some specific ships might need help, but the arch type of 5+ ships does not.

Usually those ships use body count to counter play jousting and or arc dodging aces. Are some better than others? Absolutely! Does that mean reducing upgrades is going to help the ones that are not as good at it? I would say no.

Those list make cuts and often against your described decked out aces so they are not lacking in their effectiveness.

As others have stated in other threads many times fatigue can play a factor. By the time you get to a cut with a large count squad you can be mentally worn out if you’re not playing 4-5 games at a time when practicing. This is another factor in more upgrades and fewer ships is preferred. Less overall brain power is needed with 3 Aces vs 6 Ties and a Sloane carrier.

27 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Not sure why [per list limits encouraging spam] would be the case.

Salad lists could still be built, theyd just have a couple ships without any upgrades.

Vader Duchess Hask Vermiel is a good example from prior metas.

Salad gets a lot weaker, however, if everyone can't take that one upgrade useful to their function. You'd need to take no-upgrade components, or repeat components. Per-list limits clearly make it harder to take a wider variety of things.

31 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

True those aces could become a problem but what happens if those aces cant take more than 1 upgrade and joust/dance as effectively anymore?

If force or insane ship/pilot abilites are that much of a problem ( It is that much of a problem ), ffg would have to address those directly.

Isn't the format concept all about making trade-offs? TIE Phantom is probably most seen as Whisper or Echo, with Fifth Brother and Passive Sensors. I'd prefer a format where someone could choose to give up their pilot ability, in order to get both Fifth Brother and Passive Sensors. If you think you can fly just as well with a Sigma as Echo, skip the bendy decloaks and get access to both the Force and the Lock action. If we presume Fifth Brother, the options are (1) defensive Whisper (2) nimble Echo (3) punchy Passive Sensor Sigma. Encouraging folks to take high-Init "generic aces" to get an extra upgrade slot seems like a good thing to me.

//

I guess I just have an aesthetic preference for something like a lot of the oddball Scum lists (Snap Shot Torani + Moldy Torik + stuff) where everyone has a different nasty trick, maybe lots of tricks within the list, but only one per ship, over a format where each of the aces get two toys, so long as you can overlap your toys (a few jedi, each with a config and a droid).

A two-per-ship, no more than 3 different per list format still allows Ollie Pocknell's 2019 WC winning list; that's only 3 different upgrades. "Whisper" + Passive Sensors + Fifth Brother; Grand Inquisitor; Darth Vader + Passive Sensors + Afterburners. I dunno, I thought that kind of list was the enemy?

8 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

A two-per-ship, no more than 3 different per list format still allows Ollie Pocknell's 2019 WC winning list; that's only 3 different upgrades. "Whisper" + Passive Sensors + Fifth Brother; Grand Inquisitor; Darth Vader + Passive Sensors + Afterburners. I dunno, I thought that kind of list was the enemy?

Oli's list could not bring both Passive Sensors & Burners/Bro on Vader or Whisper. It would fundamentally change that lists matchups and jousting ability.

Im gonna disengage now.

Hopefully I have elaborated enough for @Cpt ObVus liking.

1 minute ago, Boom Owl said:

Oli's list could not bring Passive Sensors & Burners/Bro on Vader or Whisper. It would fundamentally change that lists matchups and jousting ability.

Maybe I misread the direction you were heading. I thought you'd generally switched to "ships can take two now."

I guess I'd still be in favor of granting generics a bonus slot, since they're willing to fly generics.