https://fort-hyperspace.blogspot.com/2020/08/ramble-8-1st-engagement-types.html

Brief summary and some GIFs. Everything after the first engage still matters and will be the subject of future post. For now the examples are super contrived to illustrate concepts and establish a common language. All of the engages can be orchestrated by basically any archetype in the game so don’t get to caught up on terminology or the specific examples. As usual this is a ramble about stuff I don’t fully understand, not a book or statement of fact. So don’t take things to seriously and theres always room to get into other details, concepts, and aspects of the game later on.

4 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

https://fort-hyperspace.blogspot.com/2020/08/ramble-8-1st-engagement-types.html

Brief summary and some GIFs. Everything after the first engage still matters and will be the subject of future post. For now the examples are super contrived to illustrate concepts and establish a common language. All of the engages can be orchestrated by basically any archetype in the game so don’t get to caught up on terminology or the specific examples. As usual this is a ramble about stuff I don’t fully understand, not a book or statement of fact. So don’t take things to seriously and theres always room to get into other details, concepts, and aspects of the game later on.

Let me rather ask here, as it's on topic:

I guess I ultimately ask about how to treat an enemy flank.

1) I think a difference between a good flanking element and a good jousting element is their engagement+1. The good flanker can abort the flank and quickly come back. He can also follow up in the +1 turn, but in a relatively safe way. He does not have to move into range 1 of everything and eat shots. The good jouster has ideally a 1 straight to get another joust turn, or a long k-turn to get past everything and keep shooting - even without mods.
2) I also like to think about target priority. I agree that not every game has a clear 1-2-3-4 of targets. So assume for the sake of discussion that it's against a list where you do have such a clear priority. Sometimes, only one or two targets really matter in a list.
3) And to borrow from a third topic, it is generally understood that players could ignore obstacles much more often but instead they treat them as impassable walls. Sometimes, something in the game should be ignored but we don't because it's there.

So, bringing these three together:

Would your gifs lose validity if they would identify the main target and then ignore the rest of the list? When is that a good or bad approach to engagements?

My uncertain answer is that we could do that much more often - when I joust honorably and my opponent does a joust+flank, and one of my ships get focus fired at by 2-3 ships, then it does not immediately matter whether those shots include a flanking ship or only straight jousting ships. The overall direction of the game was not really changed. The flanker might as well have been in the jousting group for all I care. What does matter, however, is whether I turn my entire squad into the flanker to "scare" it off. That changes the rest of the game much more.
At the same time, when I flank with an X-wing and the rest of my Xwings jousts honorably, then it also does not matter immediately whether my opponent shoots at the flanker or focus fires one of the straight jousters. The bottom line of the engagement is that I shot with e.g. 3 ships/elements at the same target, and he shot with his 3 ships/elements at the same target. The split into flanking element and jousting element matters, but for different reasons.

So, how are they distinct?

My own answer is that it matters because of positioning, mainly in two ways:

1) your own: ensuring shot number by a better time on target, and getting high quality shots. For example, k-turns keep guns on target at the cost of a mod. A flanker, as you wrote, can achieve the same while keeping his modification. That's the essential benefit and reason to flank in the first place.
2) your opponent: at the same time decreasing shot number&quality of your opponent through blocks and arcdodges

When I look at the gif with the Ghost (representing at least in my example here a high HP brusier that will survive the initial engagement), what happens if the TIEs decide to turn into the northernmost X-Wing? They recieve the same number of shots while taking on a ship they can remove much sooner - unlike the bruiser. The cost they pay for it is that the Ghost does not have to k-turn behind them and instead can keep firing shots at higher quality.

With all that set up: is it sometimes feasible to just ignore enemy ships to follow your target priority, even if that comes at the cost of higher quality shots? When would or would that not be the case?

16 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

With all that set up: is it sometimes feasible to just ignore enemy ships to follow your target priority, even if that comes at the cost of higher quality shots? When would or would that not be the case?

I somewhat intentionally did not get into target priority with this one just to keep the focus on typical engagement "paths".

I think it mainly depends on how well your target can "points locker" in the late game and if that target priority is correct in the first place. If your running against Boba and you spend all your time early trying to get half on Boba while much less durable Fangs run riot your going to get punished for that 9 times out of 10. Boba won't die, he probably won't give up half points, and he is mobile enough to punish you as parts of your list inevitably get removed from the table. If your up against something like Vader + 3-4 ships you can opt to focus down Vader and give up shots from the rest of the list while still setting yourself up for a decent end game. If Vader survives you can usually switch targets and finish him off later. Its actually something that happens a ton specifically against Vader in Hyperspace. After early/mid game focus fire he falls to below half almost always survives, then gets behind your list, and forces you to switch targets. Main reason thats "ok" as compared to Boba is that you can typically pin Vader down even as your own ship counts decrease. Nearly impossible to do that against Boba or Kylo. Extreme mobility + durability is the key. Kylo directly abuses this as well, which is part of why I have been running him less and less even though its the ship I have the most reps with in 2.0 and still enjoy playing.

One different example is Luke with Regen + Han + 1. Against that list you genuinely should burn down the things around Luke first even though he is not terribly mobile. Luke is an offensive threat but the bigger problem is getting tricked into a chase that enables Han/Braylen to operate freely for to many rounds. Starting into Luke and then getting baited into chasing him as he regens can be a losing strategy even if he isn't anywhere near the points locker that Boba or Kylo represent.

So long story short...yes sometimes chasing your Target Priority matters but my experience is that most of the time when you ignore other enemy ships your "ignoring" a single points locker ship and dealing with its friends to craft an achievable win condition. Ignoring is maybe to strong a word its really "threatening" but not "targeting". There are some exceptions but its very rare that a list can focus fire on an undercosted mobile points locker early and not get badly punished for it.

Other aspects of target priority matter, like core support ships that need to get removed early, or pieces of a list that are hyper-offensive. Those situations are usually pretty easy to deal with and evaluate though allowing the board state to dictate the target priority. I find the Target Priority sacrifice you described usually only gets genuinely "risky" when your opponents ships are mobile and defensive enough to consistently and re-actively manipulate win conditions based on your choices. Choosing to chase a flanker and get punished by the rest of a list can be just as dangerous, its just less dangerous than creating a points locker trap for yourself.

16 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Would your gifs lose validity if they would identify the main target and then ignore the rest of the list? When is that a good or bad approach to engagements?

Its super relevant. Likely will do exactly that with more specific matchup examples once the rest of the basics of "pathing" are covered.

I am a huge fan of the "get guns off the board" strategy. While Boba has a great gun, he's likely doing 1-2 damage per turn against a focused target. That can let him win eventually, but it takes time. Throw in a couple more attacks, even mediocre ones, and the damage goes way up. Targeting little supporting guys, as long as you do it well, gets followup attacks and blocking off the table and goes a long way toward beating Boba.

12 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

goes a long way toward beating Boba.

Its part of why I have learned to "accept" the Boba matchup in Hyperspace at least.

Puzzle can still get a little strange if you do not make fast enough progress through the rest of his list. Same thing plays out with Kylo + 4 regularly.

Overall the goal is to get as many of your ships as possible to the end game against a likely full Boba that is ideally on his own, maybe with a couple shields chipped off if opportunity allows.

Vary's by list but the breaking point is typically in the 3-4 ship range depending on how many well modified guns you have moving first.