These are only fan made cards made by me. Wondering what people would think about introducing new upgrades that would alter the role black dice ships have. Launch control center would use a mechanic similar to the ignition attack.

Could potentially be introduced with a wave of new ships including the Broadside cruiser, a medium imperial based ship from Empire at War for Imperials (black dice in front arc, red dice in side arc, poor mobility and defenses), and the DP-20, a small based ship for rebels (cross between CR90 and raider). Note I personally don't like the rebel version of the Broadside cruiser (the Marauder- it looks more star trek-esk to me). The rebels could use the MC-70 as a Broadside cruiser equivalent, and the Empire could use the raider as a DP-20 equivalent.

**EDIT: the artwork is by ffg, not me

48 minutes ago, Divad said:

+ Mc30 + Ackbar = broken

+ Demo = broken

48 minutes ago, Divad said:

+ VSD1 + EL = broken

+ Kuat + Devastator + Vader + EL + HIE = broken

That said:

1. You could fix some unhealthy interactions with some "WHATEVER ONLY" limitations.

2. The Barrage thing is kinda ignition attack but it is not an ignition attack therefore some ignition rules you'd like to keep wouldn't apply.

I don't dislike the idea but I would really limit this kind of thing. First of all I'd rather prefer a discard effect. But even with that the combos out there will be nasty.

Look at how restrictive Sato is and you have an idea of what kinds of things you can already do with long range black dice.

I don't see how the ship's speed would effect a cruise missile's range in space .

If a new upgrade card was created to use black dice at long range, it should have to be discarded after a single use, similar to External Racks. Perhaps it could be used for 2 attacks in the same round, like Disposable Capacitors. I think that's the only way to balance it. It just wouldn't be fair for a Gladiator or MC30 to spam black dice at medium-long range every round.

I played a game this morning where I ran a squadless fleet of 4 GSD1s and Harrow, all with ExRax and Ordnance experts. Killed a SSD in 3 rounds.

I'm not sure I needed any more help by being able to fire black dice at long range.

travelling torpedo rules
Instead of attacking(replacement effect), a black dice ship may launch torpedo tokens only from side arcs, one for each black die in the attack pool. To launch there’s a radial plastic tool to give the angles that each torpedo token launches away from. (Think of it like a spread like the angle of the shield dial. )

the current turn they travel the distance of the short range. They move by sliding along a straight ruler at their radial angle away from the launch point. (Basically the same as attacking normally), but at the start of the next turn they keep going for another short range.

the caveat is that the torpedo token actually has to contact/move through a ship, and due to the radial spread you might not possibly actually get each torpedo into target.
Each torpedo token is worth 1 black die. And you add up all the torpedoes that hit a ship and make the attack like normal. (You May add concentrate fire dial and spend defense tokens as normal)
you could hit multiple ships. You could also accidentally hit a friendly.

upgrade: long range fuel-charge : 4pts ordnance slot : before making an attack this turn, you may spend a concentrate fire dial. Place a concentrate fire token on this upgrade card. When you Launch torpedoes next round, remove the concentrate fire token from this card, and attach the special 3rd turn attachment to the launched torpedo tokens.
(3 turn torpedoes move this round, next round and the round after).
you may not add black dice to any attacks this turn.

might need a check on timings here.

might also be worth seeing if this needs to be torpedo slot to avoid adding too many black dice upgrades or if it can be an offensive retrofit.

I rather prefer a “simpler” solution.

2 ordnance upgrade cards (medium and long range version). They may be inclusive (short-medium and short-long) or exclusive (just medium or long). They would be exhaust effect that force you to choose one hull zone to place as many torpedo tokens as black dice in the battery armament of the chose zone and within the firing arc of the chosen zone. You place them within the give ranges. While they are exhausted you cannot add black dice to your attack pools and they don’t ready as long as you have torpedo tokens on the table.

on the other hand you get a special token, the torpedo token, which I’d suggest to be like the ignition attack (so you can identify which ships they belong to). It doesn’t move or anything complicated. It just explodes, being removing on an specific timing (end of the round, at the start of the ship activation -I really like this one-, or whatever). It ain’t an attack, instead it deals damage to whatever is on top or at some distance (maybe 1). The damage dealt could be fixed or depend on a die roll like mines. If you want them to do especial things you could let their effect “blank” and refer to an effect on the card but I guess the card text is gonna be already crowded. They could have a placement limitation (beyond distance 1 of other torpedo tokens) to avoid stacking them.

no need of fancy tools, or tracking stuff through round after round. Activate, remove, exhaust, place. And you get all you want:

1. You must aim and foresee your opponent movement.

2. Therefore you must fail miserably.

3. The shot gets delayed representing the travel through space of the projectile.

4. Black dice get extra range, kind of.

5. Your battery armament “mirror” the fact that your ordnance have been shot.

6. You must hit the target.

7. You’ve got friendly fire.

7 hours ago, shmitty said:

Look at how restrictive Sato is and you have an idea of what kinds of things you can already do with long range black dice.

To echo Shmitty, long range black dice is Sato's thing. Sure, he can do other dice in a pinch, but the players who have gotten the most out of him have done so with black dice. While he doesn't do all that well competitively because he can be very matchup dependent, he has been known to give people some nightmares. @Alzer can speak to the Minnesota meta absolutely hating Sato.

All of that is really just to say, if you wanna do some long range black dice, give Sato a shot. @ExplosiveTooka @shmitty and myself have all dabbled with Sato and had some level of success. I'd be happy to share my experiences.

We did have a Sato infestation that got some really nasty APTs off (Comms noise on a SPD 1 ship at long with a last-first, GG).

Fortunately we "deported" it to Germany.

The thing to remember is how absolutely devastating black criticals are, as well as the amount of raw damage that can provide.

How about a Dip-Caps mimic, "enhanced torpedo thrust" that you could discard for med-range? I'd say probably 5-6pts for it though because an Ackbar Torpedo Frigate getting 12 dice at Medium sounds like my own personal Kessel.

7 hours ago, Alzer said:

We did have a Sato infestation that got some really nasty APTs off (Comms noise on a SPD 1 ship at long with a last-first, GG).

Oddly enough, I'm pretty sure @Ginkapo @shmitty and I all prefer ACMs over APTs to get damage ramping up quickly. I'm not sure what @ExplosiveTooka prefers.

11 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

Oddly enough, I'm pretty sure @Ginkapo @shmitty and I all prefer ACMs over APTs to get damage ramping up quickly. I'm not sure what @ExplosiveTooka prefers.

APTs is for pansies

38 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

Oddly enough, I'm pretty sure @Ginkapo @shmitty and I all prefer ACMs over APTs to get damage ramping up quickly. I'm not sure what @ExplosiveTooka prefers.

Lol, I'm the only one around that think the same. Always the same conversation when sharing fleets? Why not APT? Cause I can afford better quality upgrades 😎

28 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Lol, I'm the only one around that think the same. Always the same conversation when sharing fleets? Why not APT? Cause I can afford better quality upgrades 😎

Lemmings everywhere

Also look at that other titled card call Insidious on the Glad. Med range but rear arc attacks only.

Defently try out Sato!

I think an interesting mechanic might be an upgrade card that changes the attack range of black dice from short only to long only.

Allow the black dice at long range, but with the same upgrade you disallow their use at short/medium range

3 hours ago, namdoolb said:

I think an interesting mechanic might be an upgrade card that changes the attack range of black dice from short only to long only.

Allow the black dice at long range, but with the same upgrade you disallow their use at short/medium range

This occurred to me while reading this thread. I’m not sure what the balance implications would be, but it sounds interesting enough.