IMO what we need to fill design space is a decent Range 1-2 torpedo. I could maybe see the concept of a partially eye-guided torpedo with 3 dice and 3 charges working something like this?

Attack (Focus/Calculate): Spend 1 charge to perform this attack. During the Modify Attack Dice step, you may change 1 Hit result to a Crit result.

Attack (TL): Spend 2 charges to perform this attack. During the Roll Attack Dice step, you may roll 1 additional attack die. During the Modify Attack Dice step, you may change 1 Blank result to a Focus result.

I dunno. I feel like Torpedoes are generally in a good and useful place for the most part right now, though they’re pricey enough that you have to have a plan if you’re using them. It’s really more the R1-2 band that feels like there’s an absence. It’s hard to use APTs sometimes, and you only get 1 charge besides. But that R1-2 band is where a lot of action ends up happening.

4 hours ago, dezzmont said:

The more dice your rolling, the less value AO has.

Yup, that's what I figured but I worried I was missing something since AO was discussed above... AO offers this very little, but 2-dice a ship packing it might also have the torps equipped for a hail mary shot. But at the price point... probably never.

4 hours ago, dezzmont said:

This puts it in a weird spot, and I would say the fix is to slap on an auto-crit and call it a day, putting it somewhere between proton torps and proton rockets, probably at 7 or 8. A lot of the time landing the bullseye is forcing your opponent to roll, so it could go down to 6, but this thing would just crush lists that spam mediums or have a large, so instead of lowering the price to the point this is an auto-include just in case I would just move up the power of the thing if it fires.

My concern is at 7 or 8 it may not be worth the price point at all, given how hard it is to use. Requiring both a bullseye and a focus at range 2-3 is very challenging.

Maybe price it at 6 but Limit it to 2 or 3 in a list to address spam lists. Or maybe adjust its range.

3 hours ago, CoffeeMinion said:

IMO what we need to fill design space is a decent Range 1-2 torpedo.

I wonder if this is deliberate on FFG's part. You can cover range 1, or you can cover ranges 2-3, but there's no range 1-2 torpedo. They're either long-range blasts or the ultra-short-range APT.

So LOL 😝 Don’t know if this has been said but would be hilarious to fire the OPs idea at Republic Ys 🤣 🤣 🤣

11 hours ago, Wazat said:

Unguided Torpedoes

Slot: Torpedo

Dice and arc: 5

Range: 2-3

Charges: 2

Text: " Attack ( ) : Spend 1 . While you perform this attack, blank results cannot be rerolled."

11 hours ago, Wazat said:

One other penalty that we could apply to play to the "unguided" aspect would be when the attack is obstructed, it becomes much harder to make it land. "If this attack is obstructed by at least one ship or obstacle, the defender rolls an additional defense die."

Okay, these two combined do capture the feel I was going for and address @Cpt ObVus 's concern about the feels bad part of the crit to blank conversion (crit to hit conversions and canceling crits first are negatives because they dangle that "rare occurance of a more effective hit and go "Nope, **** you." Just not as clearly) and it makes sense that most devices won't obstruct the attack (Thus the ships and obstacles only, nice 😄 ) . To be honest I was almost tempted to not include the ordinance restriction (so that the range 3 bonus die would apply) but then there is this gent who would turn this hypothetical upgrade into a "**** naw!!" level of broken:

1 hour ago, Hiemfire said:

(crit to hit conversions and canceling crits first are negatives because they dangle that "rare occurance of a more effective hit and go "Nope, **** you." Just not as clearly)

They are negatives to the weapon, but do not turn rolling a crit into a negative compared to rolling a hit, which is the point being made, and is a big distinction. I don't think it is a dealbreaker but such a 'crits are not just merely damage, but actively negative' would probably need something really special going on to justify how weird it would be compared to just removing a dice and letting you set a blank to a hit or something, as the fractional difference in average damage on a focused shot is probably not worth changing the dice rules to the point you actively don't want crits rather than merely valuing them identically to hits (which are still good).

3 hours ago, Wazat said:

My concern is at 7 or 8 it may not be worth the price point at all, given how hard it is to use. Requiring both a bullseye and a focus at range 2-3 is very challenging.

It heavily depends on target, but the reward is almost 4 damage, 3.75 at range 2-3, compared to the 2.25 you get from a regular long ranged focused attack, which is an upgrade of about 1.5. That is gunna be merely ok if you land one, and great if you land two, and I think the huge frustration with big chunky normal torps is that it doesn't feel like you worked to get that extra 1.5 damage a regular torp gives if you don't double mod it, and didn't work especially hard if you get to double mod both shots (maybe you had force or a combo) and land an extra 2.7 damage with 2 crits.

So a good way to think about it is, (especially if you add an auto-crit) that landing one of these bad boys has the value of landing two proton torps. A big reason why the Proton rocket doesn't do great is that the ships that can use it generally don't get double mod combos and 1.5 damage is merely a little better than crack-shot, while this if you get the occurrence twice probably wins you the game: Imagine hitting 3 proton bombs in a game on a single ship, that is what landing the 2 missiles kinda does. While crackshot is 1 auto damage it is a general rule that the more damage an upgrade 'forces' the more it needs to cost because bundling really matters here.

But yes, it is challenging. That is why I think the 'reward' should be slightly higher without being a damage boost, rather than the price being low and suddenly you just slap this on any X-wing without a torp slot in use. While I am a fan of upgrade slots generally being used vs not, and this is a super interesting effect, I don't think most people would like any ship that generally leaves a torp slot open suddenly getting these whammy shots all the time even on a limited number of ships, unless the design moves to the point kitchen sink lists never come back, at which point the entire game has a more core problem than this upgrade.

2 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

(crit to hit conversions and canceling crits first are negatives because they dangle that "rare occurance of a more effective hit and go "Nope, **** you." Just not as clearly)

@dezzmont is right that this is about how beneficial a crit is compared to a hit.

HLC means Crits are exactly the same as Hits.

Plasma Torpedoes have Crits *STILL BETTER* than Hits. Consider: a roll of Hit/Hit/Crit is better than Hit/Hit/Hit, since if an opponent rolls 0 evades, they'll take that crit like normal.

With these "crits are bad" weapons, crits are never worse than hits. Often not better than hits, but never worse, and that's an important thing. Making a crit worse than a hit is wicked conter-intuitive, and super FeelsBadMan.

*edit*

Having a Dungeons and Dragons attack or ability where your natural 20s became automatic misses instead of automatic hits would be terrible, not because the math would necessarily work out badly (should be about the same as a -1 to the roll), but because it screws with what players are conditioned to consider good. The basic premise of "higher rolls are better" should be adhered to as much as possible.

It's a lot easier to tweak the probabilities in D&D with +1 and -1 to rolls, and X-Wing has trouble doing that. I'm not unsympathetic, but making a crit into a miss is just a really bad plan.

5 hours ago, Wazat said:

I wonder if this is deliberate on FFG's part. You can cover range 1, or you can cover ranges 2-3, but there's no range 1-2 torpedo. They're either long-range blasts or the ultra-short-range APT.

I acknowledge that’s a possibility, but I feel like it would be shortsighted of FFG to wall-off this chunk of design space forever. Consider Mag-Pulses, which go full R1-R3; that could’ve been risky, but there are mitigating factors that keep these from being OP. Though I guess the difference is that Mags aren’t a pure damage play.

I dunno. I still say the right R1-2 torpedo could find its way into a lot of empty tubes. I lean toward wanting direct damage, but there are probably utility functions that could work as well.

(Jam plus 1 damage torp??)

(ignore the # of dice, website had no "-" option)

4 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

@dezzmont is right that this is about how beneficial a crit is compared to a hit.

HLC means Crits are exactly the same as Hits.

Plasma Torpedoes have Crits *STILL BETTER* than Hits. Consider: a roll of Hit/Hit/Crit is better than Hit/Hit/Hit, since if an opponent rolls 0 evades, they'll take that crit like normal.

With these "crits are bad" weapons, crits are never worse than hits. Often not better than hits, but never worse, and that's an important thing. Making a crit worse than a hit is wicked conter-intuitive, and super FeelsBadMan.

*edit*

Having a Dungeons and Dragons attack or ability where your natural 20s became automatic misses instead of automatic hits would be terrible, not because the math would necessarily work out badly (should be about the same as a -1 to the roll), but because it screws with what players are conditioned to consider good. The basic premise of "higher rolls are better" should be adhered to as much as possible.

It's a lot easier to tweak the probabilities in D&D with +1 and -1 to rolls, and X-Wing has trouble doing that. I'm not unsympathetic, but making a crit into a miss is just a really bad plan.

5 hours ago, dezzmont said:

They are negatives to the weapon, but do not turn rolling a crit into a negative compared to rolling a hit, which is the point being made, and is a big distinction. I don't think it is a dealbreaker but such a 'crits are not just merely damage, but actively negative' would probably need something really special going on to justify how weird it would be compared to just removing a dice and letting you set a blank to a hit or something, as the fractional difference in average damage on a focused shot is probably not worth changing the dice rules to the point you actively don't want crits rather than merely valuing them identically to hits (which are still good).

Yes, thanks for helping me put that more clearly, guys. It’s not that I dislike the general aim of the OP’s idea; indeed, options are generally good, and this sounds like an interesting take on unguided torpedoes. I only have an issue with turning crits into something worse than a hit, just because it subverts the dice in a way that not only “Feels Bad,” but it might also have some really problematic interactions.

Basically, the effect of that would mean something on the order of a 12.5% increase in miss chance per die, right? So... one of you amazing math guys can figure out how to apply that sort of effect, I’m sure. 🙂

6 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

The basic premise of "higher rolls are better" should be adhered to as much as possible.

The exception is obviously when there is a clear 'break' between the normal conditions and what is happening, and even then you should try to evoke the normal situation.

Hitting rocks is a good example, because it is clearly NOT an attack so your already expecting something totally different, and the effects of the rolls generally emulate the effect of a damage dice except on yourself instead of your opponent so it is immediately intuitive.

A good example of a 'bad crit' effect would be a weird Trek style technobabble attack with a chance of backfiring, where you roll a dice to see if you get a crit or a hit seperate from normal resolution, because it doesn't mess with how you normally emotionally interpret results on attack resolution.

9 hours ago, dezzmont said:

The exception is obviously when there is a clear 'break' between the normal conditions and what is happening, and even then you should try to evoke the normal situation.

Hitting rocks is a good example, because it is clearly NOT an attack so your already expecting something totally different, and the effects of the rolls generally emulate the effect of a damage dice except on yourself instead of your opponent so it is immediately intuitive.

A good example of a 'bad crit' effect would be a weird Trek style technobabble attack with a chance of backfiring, where you roll a dice to see if you get a crit or a hit seperate from normal resolution, because it doesn't mess with how you normally emotionally interpret results on attack resolution.

Fair. At least, higher-roll-equals- bigger -effect tends to be the standard, even if bigger isn't necessarily ideal.