The V-Wing’s Twin Ion Engine ship ability does exactly the same thing that a TIE builder keyword will, except it turns off the ability for FFG to remove it later if they want to for some reason.

It’s not like the Scyk ability, which cannot be replaced by just adding slots.

Not sure I understand the question...

Tie upgrades don't need slots, they need it as a keyword. The V-Wing isn't a tie, but its ship ability lets it take tie only upgrades. It differentiates as it wouldn't apply for 'friendly tie' abilities.

I wondered this myself. You would think with the new keywords, they would have just given the V-Wing the TIE keyword, just in case they needed to rescind it's TIE membership for some broken combo down the line. Right now, it is the only ship that absolutely must be considered when making TIE upgrades, as you can take the TIE keyword off of any actual TIE ship, even the iconic TIE/ln fighter.

It is possible that the concept for keywords was a development of the ideas they had with the V-wing after it was far along enough in development to be printed, and originally the key-word was assumed to be inferred based on the fact a ship had TIE in its name.

It also probably would not be ideal from the perspective of conveyance for a ship to have TIE in its name and not be a TIE, so removing TIE from any of the existing TIE ships is probably not going to fly, hence why they are already committed to TIE upgrades being 'safe' upgrades to print. TIEs are already such a diverse class of ship that they probably just committed to nothing being a TIE card that does anything too wacky or alters a ship's statline too much. TIEs run the gamut from 1 agility to 3, could be ordnance carriers, crew carriers, swarm ships, support ships, or chain repositioning aces after all.

How do you give them the TIE keyword in a noticeable way without making it the ship ability?

It can't just be written into the pdf/squadbuilder, that's too hidden.

I guess the same question could be applied to the Scyk and T-70 X-Wing? In theory they don't need to tell you the functionality is there, but it sure makes it clearer?

8 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

How do you give them the TIE keyword in a noticeable way without making it the ship ability?

It can't just be written into the pdf/squadbuilder, that's too hidden.

Except that's literally what they've said they're going to start doing.

They're going to add key words to the pdfs for things like 'Clone' or 'Droid' that apparently are going to be used in restrictions for list building.

There's no reason they couldn't have done that with the 'TIE' keyword on the V-Wing and used the ship ability for something else.

35 minutes ago, dezzmont said:

It is possible that the concept for keywords was a development of the ideas they had with the V-wing after it was far along enough in development to be printed, and originally the key-word was assumed to be inferred based on the fact a ship had TIE in its name.

It also probably would not be ideal from the perspective of conveyance for a ship to have TIE in its name and not be a TIE, so removing TIE from any of the existing TIE ships is probably not going to fly, hence why they are already committed to TIE upgrades being 'safe' upgrades to print. TIEs are already such a diverse class of ship that they probably just committed to nothing being a TIE card that does anything too wacky or alters a ship's statline too much. TIEs run the gamut from 1 agility to 3, could be ordnance carriers, crew carriers, swarm ships, support ships, or chain repositioning aces after all.

This is probably the most likely reason, yeah.

Classic case of FFG introducing something just after the thing that made them realise it might be a good idea.

12 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

Classic case of FFG introducing something just after the thing that made them realise it might be a good idea.

Hindsight is 20/20. That said, I could also see it being the case that they want thematic keywords more to help make X-wing a more thematic game because, while individual ship or pilot abilities can be reasonably thematic, 'thematic lists' are a thing in collectable games but aren't a huge thing in X-wing for the most part. Sometimes we luck out with Trench Run but there isn't a really great reason to run the Ghost Crew all together. So maybe they did really think it would be confusing for the V-wing to not explicitly spell out its a TIE, but it wouldn't be confusing to infer X pilot is a Jedi or Darksider or Inferno Squad member based on their lore and have the spreadsheet confirm that.

If we ever see the R-22 make it into the game and get an ability saying 'This is an A-wing' we would know for sure that was the case, but alas, we can only guess. It doesn't change too much through, as losing an entire ship class for a tag seems extremely unlikely. Unlike uniqueness dots, I don't think it was a huge mistake for the V-wing to get an explicit mention its a TIE, especially as it seems to fit pretty well what you 'expect' a TIE to be anyway, so it is unlikely to break things compared to say... a TIE Punisher or TIE Reaper breaking stuff.

55 minutes ago, dezzmont said:

It is possible that the concept for keywords was a development of the ideas they had with the V-wing after it was far along enough in development to be printed, and originally the key-word was assumed to be inferred based on the fact a ship had TIE in its name.

I don't think so though. Max mentioned that list-building keywords were in the works since the outset of 2.0, and we saw "Dark Side" very very early on (Wave 2) which was only accessible via keyword and not from any printed text other than Maul's. We had to go to the app to find out who could take it.

Pretty sure un-printed keywords have been in the plans all along. The ship ability irked me as well. Sometimes I wonder if they give ships a ship ability just ... because they want to...

2 hours ago, Transmogrifier said:

I guess the same question could be applied to the Scyk and T-70 X-Wing? In theory they don't need to tell you the functionality is there, but it sure makes it clearer?

Not really. That's not something you could write on the PDF in any way without being super confusing, since it's not exactly a slot. It instead lets you equip things without using a slot.

2 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

How do you give them the TIE keyword in a noticeable way without making it the ship ability?

It can't just be written into the pdf/squadbuilder, that's too hidden.

This.

All of the other builder keywords are going to be incredibly obvious and easy to remember. Of course an Aethersprite pilot counts as "Light Side", of course all the V-19s count as "clones", of course Boba counts as a "Bounty Hunter". They all work as "hidden" information in the builder because they all make perfect sense to anyone with even a tiny bit of lore knowledge.

A V-wing counting as a "TIE" is not obvious, nor will it be easy to remember for your average player. There's nothing about it that screams "this should count as a TIE" -- it doesn't look like one, it's not named like one, and it's in the wrong faction. Making it a ship ability means that players won't be confused when they see a builder list "TIE only" upgrades for this very-much-not-a-TIE ship.

I'm in agreement with @The Penguin UK 's thinking on the matter.

The keywords open up design space that allows cards to target specific ship types or types of pilots which sounds cool to me. These could have lots of impact beyond what upgrades you have access to while list building. Say sometime down the line there's an upgrade that makes a pilot better at shooting down Tie's specifically. Something like "Tie Hunter: when making a primary attack against a ship with the Tie keyword, re-roll one blank result." That theoretical upgrade cannot target the V-wing, but still allows the V-wing to retain it's ability to equip "Tie only" upgrades.

24 minutes ago, Hippie Moosen said:

I'm in agreement with @The Penguin UK 's thinking on the matter.

The keywords open up design space that allows cards to target specific ship types or types of pilots which sounds cool to me. These could have lots of impact beyond what upgrades you have access to while list building. Say sometime down the line there's an upgrade that makes a pilot better at shooting down Tie's specifically. Something like "Tie Hunter: when making a primary attack against at ship with the Tie keyword, re-roll one blank result." That theoretical upgrade cannot target the V-wing, but still allows the V-wing to retain it's ability to equip "Tie only" upgrades.

Now there's an idea that might hold some merit...

I was musing about this the other day and I agree with the others here - it's not necessary to make it a ship ability, but making it a ship ability is a good way to advertise this new game feature to players

1 hour ago, Hippie Moosen said:

These could have lots of impact beyond what upgrades you have access to while list building. Say sometime down the line there's an upgrade that makes a pilot better at shooting down Tie's specifically. Something like "Tie Hunter: when making a primary attack against a ship with the Tie keyword, re-roll one blank result." That theoretical upgrade cannot target the V-wing, but still allows the V-wing to retain it's ability to equip "Tie only" upgrades.

The devs did specifically say they never intend to do this. Of course things could change but that doesn’t explain how the ship ability got there.

Remember it’s a “list-building” keyword, not just a keyword.

1 hour ago, DR4CO said:

A V-wing counting as a "TIE" is not obvious, nor will it be easy to remember for your average player. There's nothing about it that screams "this should count as a TIE" -- it doesn't look like one, it's not named like one, and it's in the wrong faction. Making it a ship ability means that players won't be confused when they see a builder list "TIE only" upgrades for this very-much-not-a-TIE ship.

This is the best explanation I’ve seen. Agree.

I am going to counter point with another question: Who cares?

Yes keywords are a thing. Maybe it makes the V-Wings ability redundant, and that's an issue because.....

Work with me here. I get the curiosity on why, but I am failing to see any sort of problem that might arise from the V-Wing having that ship ability and TIE also being a keyword, which as someone has pointed out are not mutually exclusive things; The V-Wing isn't a TIE Fighter, but it can equip TIE only upgrades. It's not exactly the same but it rings similar to the old saying "all bachelors are men, but not all men are bachelors."

15 minutes ago, ClassicalMoser said:

The devs did specifically say they never intend to do this.

I did not know that. Well I guess that means the ability is only there to keep you from forgetting you can take Tie upgrades.

8 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

Except that's literally what they've said they're going to start doing.

They're going to add key words to the pdfs for things like 'Clone' or 'Droid' that apparently are going to be used in restrictions for list building.

There's no reason they couldn't have done that with the 'TIE' keyword on the V-Wing and used the ship ability for something else.

When it's obvious, yes. Try to think about it from a user experience, which is funny because that's what we all are.

You see an upgrade or ability that requires "TIE". Are you going to check all ships? Of course not, you're going to confirm those with TIE in their name.

What I want to know is why the ETA-2 Actis isn't getting the keyword and ability to take TIE upgrades.

EDIT: I do know, it's game balance, but lol.

19 hours ago, 5050Saint said:

Right now, it is the only ship that absolutely must be considered when making TIE upgrades, as you can take the TIE keyword off of any actual TIE ship, even the iconic TIE/ln fighter.

I literally don't understand this discussion at all.

There's no reason to ever remove the TIE designation/keyword from any TIE just because "something is broken".

There's hundreds of ways to address broken other than making something that's a TIE (like the ubiquitous LN) no longer say what it's supposed to say.

The V-wing always had and always will have Twin Ion Engines... You literally have them featured twice in the same movie just for effect.

If something is broken, keywords are the least of their worries....

1 hour ago, Bucknife said:

I literally don't understand this discussion at all.

There's no reason to ever remove the TIE designation/keyword from any TIE just because "something is broken".

Yes, there is. Because something is broken. Exhaust other means to fix the problem, but if taking the keyword off is the only manner to fix the problem, by all means do it. It makes as much sense lorewise as taking crew off of Leebo, but I'd take a more balanced game over rigid adherence some invisible dogma of "but TIE is in the name".

3 hours ago, CaptainJaguarShark said:

What I want to know is why the ETA-2 Actis isn't getting the keyword and ability to take TIE upgrades.

EDIT: I do know, it's game balance, but lol.

1. It isn't a TIE.

2. We don't know if it is or isn't getting the keyword. (Won't find out till it is released or the Sept pdf release).

3. Other than baby Ani, no force pilots have the nessecary slots for known TIE keyworded upgrades.

2 hours ago, 5050Saint said:

I'd take a more balanced game over rigid adherence

Completely agree.

However, if it ever gets to the point of obvious keyword errata on TIEs, I think X-Wing probably has bigger development problems than my little fan brain can handle.

So far, so good...

2 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

1. It isn't a TIE.

2. We don't know if it is or isn't getting the keyword. (Won't find out till it is released or the Sept pdf release).

3. Other than baby Ani, no force pilots have the nessecary slots for known TIE keyworded upgrades.

V-Wing isn't a TIE, either. The Eta-2 also has TIE engines. They were both built by Kuat.

Whether they both have the keyword is a question we don't know the answer to but if they do, then there seems to be a reason to have the ship ability separate from the keyword. If they both get the keyword, then why bother with the ship ability on the V-Wing?

Also, I was mostly joking because I'm sure they don't want to deal with balancing later TIE-only upgrades around a Jedi fighter. I kind of don't expect it to get it all for that reason, even if it should.

Your Item 3 is very valid.