Been mulling how a simile for some of the older unguided torpedoes (so WW1 and WW2 style) might work. This is what I came up with.

Unguided Torpedoes

Slot: Torpedo

Dice and arc: 5

Range: 2-3 <Ordinance>

Charges: 2

Text: " Attack ( ) : Spend 1 . While you perform this attack, before the Neutralize Results step, change all results to blank results. You cannot use rerolls to modify the attack dice of this attack."

Narrow arc that requires some work to line up, increased miss chance compared to straight 5 dice with Focus. Limited modability.

Edit: An adjustment that captures the spirit of what I was going for while addressing the concerns involving the Crit to Blank modification (courtesy of @Wazat , and further adjusted by me to roll in another suggestion they had) :

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. If this attack is obstructed by at least one ship or obstacle, the defender rolls an additional defense die."

Might be a bit on the wordy side still for some, but I like it. 😄

Hmmmm.....

I like the idea, what would be the starting price-point?

25 minutes ago, Gupa-nupa said:

Hmmmm.....

I like the idea, what would be the starting price-point?

Ordinance (forgot the symbol, will add it in after this reply welp, my usual source, the XWTMG 2.0 wiki, doesn't have a little symbol of ordinance I can copy over so I just typed it out), same damage top end as proton rockets (not counting proton rockets getting a lucky crit draw if it crits), has a harder time hitting than proton rockets (no rerolls on the attack dice by the attacking ship, crits changed to blanks pre Neutralize Results), can engage targets farther out than proton rockets, can't crit directly (can trigger face up damage cards though), narrow arc, 2 charges... I think 5 points probably.

1 hour ago, Hiemfire said:

Been mulling how a simile for some of the older unguided torpedoes (so WW1 and WW2 style) might work. This is what I came up with.

Unguided Torpedoes

Slot: Torpedo

Dice and arc: 5

Range: 2-3 <Ordinance>

Charges: 2

Text: " Attack ( ) : Spend 1 . While you perform this attack, before the Neutralize Results step, change all results to blank results. You cannot use rerolls to modify the attack dice of this attack."

Narrow arc that requires some work to line up, increased miss chance compared to straight 5 dice with Focus. Limited modability.

Sounds like something T-70s, Silencers, and Little Ani would love

1 hour ago, Hiemfire said:

Been mulling how a simile for some of the older unguided torpedoes (so WW1 and WW2 style) might work. This is what I came up with.

Unguided Torpedoes

Slot: Torpedo

Dice and arc: 5

Range: 2-3 <Ordinance>

Charges: 2

Text: " Attack ( ) : Spend 1 . While you perform this attack, before the Neutralize Results step, change all results to blank results. You cannot use rerolls to modify the attack dice of this attack."

Narrow arc that requires some work to line up, increased miss chance compared to straight 5 dice with Focus. Limited modability.

Interesting idea. I have one sort of red flag going up about it, though...

Critical hits are almost always a “good thing” for an attacker; having them come up as a “bad thing” might make these feel upside-down and really unfairly bad when used with certain pilots or upgrades (and if not something that’s in print now, perhaps something that will be printed later... they might end up being a, “well, they can never make a card that does X because they made a card that does Y” sort of thing).

Now, I’m just throwing that out there without having thought for more than five seconds about which weird interactions might already be present, but something like the TIE Advanced x1’s “Advanced Targeting Computer” is what I’m concerned about, where changing a hit to a crit would actually be a negative (and yes, I know the TIE/Adx1 can’t use this weapon as written, but you get how it might complicate the design space).

If you’re looking for a somewhat less accurate weapon, maybe try something like limiting the number of dice the attacker may reroll/modify? Might get at what you’re going for without so much potential for strange interactions.

28 minutes ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Interesting idea. I have one sort of red flag going up about it, though...

Critical hits are almost always a “good thing” for an attacker; having them come up as a “bad thing” might make these feel upside-down and really unfairly bad when used with certain pilots or upgrades (and if not something that’s in print now, perhaps something that will be printed later... they might end up being a, “well, they can never make a card that does X because they made a card that does Y” sort of thing).

Now, I’m just throwing that out there without having thought for more than five seconds about which weird interactions might already be present, but something like the TIE Advanced x1’s “Advanced Targeting Computer” is what I’m concerned about, where changing a hit to a crit would actually be a negative (and yes, I know the TIE/Adx1 can’t use this weapon as written, but you get how it might complicate the design space).

If you’re looking for a somewhat less accurate weapon, maybe try something like limiting the number of dice the attacker may reroll/modify? Might get at what you’re going for without so much potential for strange interactions.

Erm… Crits being a negative for the attacker has already been entered into as a design space by FFG.

As for complicating the design space. Have you delved into Separatists yet?

FFG also has Legion where Surge results can be good or bad, its just a way to help with statistics when rolling dice.

Heck X-wing already has a few other things that can make rolling crit's feel like a bad thing. Zeb pilot lets you cancel crit results before hit results. Heavy Laser Cannon changes all crit's to hits. Like Hiem mentioned there is also Plasma Torps.

On a side note I have been thinking of Kylo with these and advanced optics.

...dunno if I am in love or terrified.

9 minutes ago, KiraYamatoSF said:

On a side note I have been thinking of Kylo with these and advanced optics.

Just so you know, the crit to blank change happens after you'd be able to use Advanced Optics.

So this effect is a +2 dice, -1 to defense, that requires range 2 and focus and can't be combined with a TL, and which only has a 5/8 chance to land a hit assuming you will spend the focus offensively, resulting in an average damage of 3.15 before defense dice are rolled. A normal shot at range 2 from a 3 dice attacker that you would expect to carry a torp is going to do an average of 2.25, meaning this is an increase of around .85 damage for a highly specific situation compared to a general attack that you can't usually combine with reposition (anyone who plays a lot of Corran knows even with reposition a range 2 or 3 bullseye is pretty rare).

Crack shot has 1 less charge, but can occur at any range and can be combined with a TL, or be taken without a focus, and guarentees 1 extra damage if used correctly in a similar situation, and doesn't reduce your crits down, meaning a 3 dice focused crack shot does an average of 3.25. Predator meanwhile double mods one dice, but its always a miss dice, and so you gain around .35 damage every predator shot you can make, again at any range.

This means this mod is only better than crack shot if you get a range 2-3 bullseye while focused twice a game, but it is only better than predator if you get it less than three times a game.

My point being this competes too much with existing bullseye bonus damage effects. This isn't even getting into proton rockets, it feels weird that a mirrored torp is categorically worse, and weird set up effects or limitations are sorta missile's things, while torps are deluxe upgrades that always have an extreme level of power. It basically doesn't feel like a torp, and it is hard to imagine when I would ever take this as opposed to crack shot if I figured I couldn't maintain bullseye constantly, or predator if I could. I just don't think this fits in the torpeedo design space at all, and as a missile it is just a funky proton rocket. It is telling that also that the missile equivalent is less strange than the torp variant, which again generally isn't the case.

As for 'crits feeling negative' and existing effects, none of those effects make crits actively bad like this. I don't think its a huge problem though in terms of positive abilities because, you know, you just wouldn't take them together, so much as negative ones where you are more crit vulnerable. That would be fixed by being careful with wording I think of any 'vulnerability' effects. (Ex: When your opponent resolves critical damage if the effect makes taking a crit worse somehow).

7 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Just so you know, the crit to blank change happens after you'd be able to use Advanced Optics.

Yeah not as powerful as it possibly could be but say if you roll crit hit focus focus blank you can still end up with 4 hit results, with Kylo having two force charges on hand and doesn't have to worry about defense.

@dezzmont I take it you didn't bother to read the first couple of lines and just jumped right into the stats.

17 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

@dezzmont I take it you didn't bother to read the first couple of lines and just jumped right into the stats.

I get these are intended to emulate an unguided WW2 torpedo if that is what you are referencing. That is the only line in the OP that isn't the weapon's stats.

If this was just a thought experiment where you don't care about how the stats fit in with the rest of the game (and I am not saying that is what you think, I just am struggling to see the point of your retort other than that, clearly you think I missed something and that is likely to continue!) then I would ask what is the point of the thought experiment at all of giving it stats? That said I feel like I am missing something more fundemental if talking about its interactions with specific scifi pilots is ok but talking about its interaction with other things in a very similar design space isn't.

If the real point is merely to try to emulate a historical weapon, I would suppose note despite torpedo bombers were a historical thing and behaved very much like an A-wing with a proton torpedo rather than say... an X-wing or Y-wing with a proton torpedo, so despite the name literally including torpedo it may make sense to make it a missile? This runs into the problem that in scifi space torpedoes don't make much sense even in the 'spaceships as war-boats' metaphor. Proton rockets are already essentially what this is: something used by extremely fast and nimble craft to line up straight along an enemy and loose something that is going to cause serious damage. Also, the idea of a WW2 torpedo not having an auto-crit effect is actually kinda weird considering their main purpose was to inflict a very nasty crit so to speak, rather than physically destroying the boat.

1 hour ago, Hiemfire said:

Erm… Crits being a negative for the attacker has already been entered into as a design space by FFG.

As for complicating the design space. Have you delved into Separatists yet?

Even with something like this, though, it’s not a “negative” thing when you roll (or modify into) a critical.

As an example: If I attack say, an undamaged A-Wing with Plasma Torpedoes, and I roll three natural hits, and your A-Wing comes up with one Evade, you lose a shield from the attack hitting, and then take 2 more damage from the attack (leaving you shieldless, with a facedown damage card). If I instead roll three natural criticals, and you roll one Evade, you lose a shield, then take two critical damage, leaving you shieldless, with a face UP card. Rolling criticals with a Plasma Torpedo attack isn’t *bad*, it’s just not *as good* as it could otherwise be... to continue the example, if I roll one critical and two hits, and your A-Wing gets one Evade, the total damage is still the same as if I had rolled three hits. The “downside” of the automatic shield damage on hit is that it’s just harder to push crit damage through. But criticals still aren’t actively bad. They’re just usually reduced to regular hits.

The weapon you outlined above actually makes rolling criticals an undesirable thing, and I know why you want that in there; you want these to have less accuracy. I just think it does potentially weird stuff to the game when you take a thing that is almost always a positive and turn it into a negative. It’s one thing when designs deny some part of the reward of doing a good thing for balance purposes. It’s quite another when they actively punish you for doing what is a good thing in every other circumstance.

7 minutes ago, dezzmont said:

I get these are intended to emulate an unguided WW2 torpedo if that is what you are referencing. That is the only line in the OP that isn't the weapon's stats.

If this was just a thought experiment where you don't care about how the stats fit in with the rest of the game (and I am not saying that is what you think, I just am struggling to see the point of your retort other than that, clearly you think I missed something and that is likely to continue!) then I would ask what is the point of the thought experiment at all of giving it stats? That said I feel like I am missing something more fundemental if talking about its interactions with specific scifi pilots is ok but talking about its interaction with other things in a very similar design space isn't.

If the real point is merely to try to emulate a historical weapon, I would suppose note despite torpedo bombers were a historical thing and behaved very much like an A-wing with a proton torpedo rather than say... an X-wing or Y-wing with a proton torpedo, so despite the name literally including torpedo it may make sense to make it a missile? This runs into the problem that in scifi space torpedoes don't make much sense even in the 'spaceships as war-boats' metaphor. Proton rockets are already essentially what this is: something used by extremely fast and nimble craft to line up straight along an enemy and loose something that is going to cause serious damage. Also, the idea of a WW2 torpedo not having an auto-crit effect is actually kinda weird considering their main purpose was to inflict a very nasty crit so to speak, rather than physically destroying the boat.

Okay. You did then. Have you compared a 3 die with pred to HLC?

39 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Okay. You did then. Have you compared a 3 die with pred to HLC?

It is about .15 damage better than an HLC with a more strict requirement and charges. I compared it to predator because HLC is so infrequently seen in the meta (its basically a T-70 exclusive atm) that I honest to god forgot about it! Pred always sees a bit of play, which is why my mind went to it first. Resistance isn't very popular in my local area and I haven't braved online play because I am secretly mega terrible in terms of spatial thinking and would embarrass myself haven't had the time, so it isn't really fresh in my mind!

I don't think a .15 average damage increase for requiring a focus rather than repo is going to make this more attractive to an HLC to the very limited set of ships that want the HLC. Like would Poe run a HLC with a 1 point cost reduction if it required a focus? I don't think so, and I think .15 damage is worse than 1 point. I also still think it is a bit of a weird flavoring/themeing because I associate damage torps so heavily with positive damage effects rather than negative ones like missiles (and the torps you are basing this off of basically inflicted 'console fire' so to speak), though the idea of a 'torpedo rocket' is actually cool and may be a great way to make a 'fair' range 2-3 damage torp. I just think this literally doesn't need one of the two downsides (probably the dice modding) and could maybe even trade 1 dice for the auto-crit to resemble that hull busting 'below the waterline' property WW2 torps had.

Of course there is the wild card of a ship that would take an HLC if it could but it only has a torp slot existing. I can't think of any of the top of my head (bullseye is rough for a lot of torp but no laser ships) but I might be missing something completely obvious.

4 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

Been mulling how a simile for some of the older unguided torpedoes (so WW1 and WW2 style) might work. This is what I came up with.

It kinda feels like Proton Rockets already fits that description, but since you already thought of that and :

4 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

Narrow arc that requires some work to line up, increased miss chance compared to straight 5 dice with Focus. Limited modability.

My main question is, what is the reason behind your line of thinking? Because you want it to be cheaper? or you wanted more range or more charges?


I also like the idea of a "long-range" unguided cheap torpedo you have to line up to make serious use for, something like:

Attack(focus): Spend 1 charge.

Bulls-eye: 4 dice

Range: 2-3

Charges: 5

Card-text: After the Neutralize Results step, you may spend 1 critical hit result to add 2 normal hit results.

This card is meant to be in the design-space inbetween proton rockes, and barrage rockets (and borrowing from Bossk's ability) but as a torpedo.

1 hour ago, Sciencius said:

I also like the idea of a "long-range" unguided cheap torpedo you have to line up to make serious use for, something like:

Attack(focus): Spend 1 charge.

Bulls-eye: 4 dice

Range: 2-3

Charges: 5

Card-text: After the Neutralize Results step, you may spend 1 critical hit result to add 2 normal hit results.

This card is meant to be in the design-space inbetween proton rockes, and barrage rockets (and borrowing from Bossk's ability) but as a torpedo.

How about making it R3 only (Long Range), and as its unguided, no modification, but up the attack dice.

Long Range Torpedos

Attack: Spend 1 charge.

Bulls-eye: 5 dice

Range: 3

Charges: 3

Card Text: Attack dice may not be modified

Neither of those two seem to really retain the spirit of the OG upgrade, which seems less like hurling tons of missiles whenever you get in arc, and was intended more to be a few choice big chunky hits but be a bit finicky.

Furthermore, the value of a 5 or even 3 charge range 3 bullseye arc weapon that has anti-synergy with reposition is somewhat questionable due to how unlikely it is to even get 2 shots off.

I don't think the Op weapon was too off the mark, I just was trying to imply that a raw damage effect that didn't just not do anything special, but couldn't even do certain things as a bullseye was questionable in my opinion. I actually think the reason a lot of people liked it at first blush is because it feels like what proton torps should be in a sense (something that rewards getting right on target and firing away to blow up the deathstar rather than an extremely safe high damage auto-crit 4 dice ranged 3 'just shoot it' weapon).

1 hour ago, Scum4Life said:

How about making it R3 only (Long Range), and as its unguided, no modification, but up the attack dice.

Long Range Torpedos

Attack: Spend 1 charge.

Bulls-eye: 5 dice

Range: 3

Charges: 3

Card Text: Attack dice may not be modified

I also thought about the R3 only which would be fun and a novel design space, but also perhaps a bit too limited so I extended mine to 2-3.

On another note, Id really enjoy the device mechanic being used for a seeking missile/torpedo.

Something along the lines of.

Attack: Launch the Seeking Missile Template using any straight or bank.

During Systems phase, If no enemies within R3 remove the device, Otherwise move it using a basic manuever via the front guides.

If device or manevuer overlap a ship, remove the device and ship suffers 2 hits.

As a device i feel like it should be able to be shot down. Maybe 4/5 agility and 1 Hull.

Also i felt if no enemies within R3 it shoukd be removed to prevent it being launched and flown as a flanker, also it means ships could outfly it.

Accelerating Torpedos

R2-3 Bullseye Only.

4 Attack Dice

Add 1 Attack Dice At Range 3

2 Charges

Too complicated, too high-rolly.

It'd be better to just have a 4 dice bullseye/focus attack without all the extra twists and twists to make a 5-dice attack worse. If you really want to lean into absolute highroll, just do "cannot be modified" period.

Granted, I don't really like the design of super-high-roll weapons. I don't think it's that fun for anyone.

7 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Even with something like this, though, it’s not a “negative” thing when you roll (or modify into) a critical.

This.

Having crits go away feels totally fine, or cancelled first so that Plasmas aren't extra strong. Turning crits to blanks feels really awkward. Back in the 1e days when that was one of the "fix" suggestions for TLT always seemed really bad and really counter-intuitive.

On 5/26/2020 at 9:10 PM, Hiemfire said:

forgot the symbol, will add it in after this reply welp, my usual source, the XWTMG 2.0 wiki, doesn't have a little symbol of ordinance I can copy over so I just typed it out

Your words wound me!

Here ya go! Also see Range Bonus (which you can reach by clicking the munition icon on any munitions page) for any future times you may need it.

In terms of the weapon idea, I applaud the attempt to add another high-powered bullseye weapon to the game, something that rewards lining up a great shot. I love me some prockets and I feel HLC is tragically under-utilized. But HLC's story should give us our first serious reservations: For what it's able to do, and for all its restrictions (bullseye, never crits, etc), HLC is usually just not worth it.

Thus an even more finicky munition that requires a focus or lock to fire and has limited charges, and restrictions on mods... is kinda doomed out of the gate. It's failing to compete with HLC, which itself fails to compete in general. But that's a far cry from saying the idea is bad and cannot be rescued; I wouldn't be commenting if that were true.

My first inclination is to simplify: Keep the bullseye arc + focus requirement + 2 charges + range 2-3 munition icon, those seem fine to me. However, pick one for dice count and mods:

1) make it a 4-dice weapon with no mod restrictions and no crit penalty (balanced by its two charges and focus requirement), or

2) make it a 5-dice weapon that cannot reroll blanks (it can reroll focuses or focus them, and can mod those blanks by other means too; and it keeps crits). or

3) make it a 5-dice weapon that cannot modify blanks at all (as above, but also blocks out blank->hit modification options like Advanced Optics and Rey, if we feel they'll be a problem)

Example:

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."

Price: ...4? (Do we dare price a torpedo that low or does that enrage the FFG gods? And is this too pricey for what this does? @dezzmont can probably help a lot here)

We drop the penalty to crits because it straight-up feels bad and also harms the odds too much. We either apply no mod restriction, or a very simple restriction on blanks. This is both easier to immediately process for someone reading it, and more appealing. But we still have either just the 4 dice, or 5 dice and the blanks restriction so that double-modded attacks don't explode quite so much. This leaves us with a (hopefully) decently-priced weapon that greatly rewards lining up a bullseye shot and taking it, while requiring a focus (unlike HLC). And it can deal crit damage (unlike HLC).

If we want to keep it out of the hands of most pilots for balance concerns, we could make it a Torpedo-Missile or Torpedo-Torpedo, but that usually feels terrible for the 90% of pilots that would have been excited to use it. IMO there are cleaner ways to handle certain ships or pilots being excessively good with it (e.g. vs reposition ships "If you have boosted or barrel rolled this round [including from being tractored], roll 1 fewer attack dice" or even just price it by initiative, depending on who would abuse it and ruin it for everyone else).

Will this weapon help the Kimogila? Who can say. Am I biased in favor of Kimogilas? You shut your mouth, of course I am.

Honestly when I thought about kimogilas with a powerful bullseye-only long-range torp, I got a very warm feeling in the bullseye arc of my heart. I forget which artery that is but I can feel it burning.

A final thought: 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." Or even give them a gas cloud mod if you want to be really cruel. This means shooting past an ally or enemy or obstacle now tends to deny you that dead-on center-of-mass shot you were hoping for, so you might not deal full damage even if you hit. Is this a good idea? I'm afraid not. It does complicate the weapon a bit more, and I very much fear the harm it does to its viability (it might already be too weak to compete with HLC's existing role except for the odd ship like the Kimogila), but I feel like it plays nicely to the "unguided" principle. Unfortunately, lots of stuff could play to that theme but not fit the game's mechanical and balance needs very well.

Some more notes:

• Munitions Failsafe is significantly better for Focus munitions than Lock munitions, since with a focus token you know right from the raw roll whether you want to keep it. As with Prockets, this is an opportunity for them to see use.
• Assuming 5 points for cost, Anakin (Y-Wing) + Unguided Torpedoes + Ion Cannon Turret (pointed to side) + R4 Astromech + Munitions Failsafe is 73 points (I'd consider Instinctive Aim, but I suspect Anakin prefers to focus)
• Torani Kulda with Snap Shot + Unguided Torpedoes + Contraband Cybernetics + Munitions Failsafe is 64 points
• Cartel Executioner with Unguided Torps + Munitions Failsafe + Contraband + Marksmanship is 50 points even.
• Kylo would be pricey (81, 85 with Advanced Optics), not sure if it's worth his time since he generally doesn't take Prockets anyway... he likes to fly naked pretty often. But silencers in general are great at securing a focus and reposition to put this sort of weapon to the best use, and Kylo's & Blackout are the right init for it (and to some extent, Rush).
• A generic Resistance Transport with Unguided Rockets is 37 points, but they may still prefer HLC + Advanced Optics, if at all...
• When rolling 5 dice I'm not sure how valuable Advanced Optics is, but AO does help with all other attacks so it's an option. So Poe and other T-70s might like this combo?
• Scyk swarms are interesting since you can fit 6 in a list (including serissu), but they're really delicate and will tend to spend that focus on defense, so I assume they'll prefer HLC if anything.

I'm still most drawn to Torani, Anakin, and Kylo/Blackout. No, I'm still mostly drawn to Torani. I know where my allegiances lie.

5 hours ago, Wazat said:

Price: ...4? (Do we dare price a torpedo that low or does that enrage the FFG gods? And is this too pricey for what this does?

I would't exactly call myself a pricing expert but I could take a crack at it. More of a crack pot than a crack shot really though.

5 dice without the anti-crit bonus comes out to an average focused damage of 3.75. This is a beefier shot than a double modded proton torp, which makes sense as its conditions are overall much harder and in a more limited window. Range 2-3 is probably worse than 1-2, but I would still say the double shot combined with the fact that torp capable ships tend to be 'stronger' on a base line mean you can't put it under what a proton rocket is. If this was a highly limited 3-4 dice attack with a wide cone you could figure you would get consistently and it had a strong passive effect you want to land at least once in the game (say... an Electro Proton Torp or some nonsense) you might failsafe, but in general even if you only roll 1 hit vs a 2-3 agility ship due to bad luck on anything with more than one charge and a condition to fire you aren't guarenteed to get again enough times to run out before dying, you probably wouldn't failsafe if it was free and part of the base rules, forget about paying a point for the right. I would rather take my chances on them blanking out than to pay a cost to guarentee I don't do damage this turn and potentially lose the charge anyway just by it not getting a time to get its shot off. Even with an 'easy' to hit charge weapon like the proton torp you don't generally have every ship using it in a multi-torp list firing every torp they got. The reload action isn't generally valuable enough to retroactively use it in scenarios where you didn't position to reload, which is essentially what the failsafe is, you disarm yourself to reload a torp and positioned offensively instead of defensively to boot.

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.

At that point its niche for a torp would be really clear: you are saying you can get a bullseye on someone at least once at range 2-3 without repo for a total whammy. This is as about a difficult feat as getting a high value ship in range 1 of an APT: Its a bit harder vs nimble ships but is really easy vs plodding larges and you have two shots so you don't feel as bad if you don't hit a high value target, getting even one shot off is value and two shots off is extreme value. In essence, it sorta takes what we learned about the APT not really being NPE but the Proton torp having the capability of getting unfun if totally spammed, and makes the proton torp niche of a long range 'take that' but it forces you to earn it at some point.

This makes it sorta a natural 'counter' to large ships, which is problematic to some extent in X-wing, but it gets meta'd hard enough by non-swarmy smalls where it is really unrealistic to get the condition more than once or twice even spamming these that it sorta evens out as a 'fair' tech option (It isn't a total blowout, it isn't so unsubtle as to only work vs larges, but it clearly leans towards that side, as rolling is extremely strong vs this if you have initiative on it).

As for other musings:

I would never run munitions failsafe with a condition that is hard to achieve once, let alone twice, that has two charges. Failsafe is just a bad design in the same way Instinctive Aim is, in that you are planning not so much for things to go wrong as to actively have sub-optimal turns and paying points to make them not even neutral but still pretty bad, but just slightly less bad right now. If choosing to failsafe gave you a calculate for defensive purposes after retracting the shot I STILL think it wouldn't see much play.

I don't see this being popular on the Rebel Y-wing, forget the republic one, as it far harder towards turrets, and doubly so on Annie who REALLY wants to be in close. Anything trying to get a bullseye wants the option to boost and roll frequently and make as many speed 1 and 2 bank and turn maneuvers it can freely. Annie's ability 'synergizes' with this to some extent in that if a 3 turn specifically is what you need to land the bullseye you still get a shot in that chasis, but honestly just use your ion turret you goober, spend your action to TL, and utilize the force to double mod some shots in that chasis.

The more dice your rolling, the less value AO has. On 5 dice, your odds of not rolling a single focus result is only 25%. Advanced optics are strongest on ships rolling few dice to minimize variance from blanking out, on two dice it guarentees 1 hit and ensures you get your max of around 90% of the time. This means on a 2 dice attack AO is almost always helping, and when it isn't its because your getting hot rolls anyway. So it is like an amped up heroic where it doesn't improve your upper end result that much but ensures you don't bottom out as hard. Like Heroic, the more dice your tossing the lower value it gets, and you can't toss more than 5. So any ship you would be questioning running AO on with 3 dice is almost certainly not going to take it to synergize with 5 dice unless some really wacky space nonsense is going down.

Cartel Executioner is a super interesting possibility but I suspect they would prefer the rockets and reloading unless by some freak miracle these cost less than rockets, which they shouldn't. That said you could mix a squad with these for some intense range control games.

The transport might make a good carrier. Having flown some of the TRASHMAN I know for a fact that it is much easier to land a bullseye if you can do subtle stuff with backing up banks. Gives you a lot more control over where the bullseye lands if that is exactly what you want.

In my mind's eye this may see use in a less ace heavy meta in the same way X-65s often used torps: You were just on the border of flying 5 but if you used a single named pilot that was out the window, meaning rebels have, if anything, space to hand out munitions. On something that can also focus-boost like the 65 suddenly it becomes a bit more realistic to fire this bad boy off at range 2-3, and the X-65 has the advantage of not NEEDING this thing to get value, or giving up a highly valuable slot to strap one on just in case you go up against a deci or get lucky and catch out Boba. It seems like it would be best as one of those things on a ship that doesn't need an extra edge so your opponent can't totally devalue it by flying in close and just going blow for blow, as this upgrade probably doesn't change the fact most ships able to control range on these things aren't going to win a range 1 fist fight with it.

It is obviously less powerful than guaranteeing 2 different 4 dice shots with an auto crit, but it lets the torps be priced at a point you can just fill the slot and still do fine even if you only fire 2-3 shots across the entire list, and prevents you from just having no good way to get past torp rebels doing the good old standard 1, because now all you gotta do if your opponent is trying to just lame you out and keep you at range 2-3 is move a bit to the side or roll out.