Squadrons in a Star Wars capitol ship game should never be a simple dice modifier. A big part of the unique qualities of space combat in Star Wars has always been that a squadron of fighters/bombers aren't just gnats that are ignored like in other universes. They are not the 1-hit tokens of other fleet combat games, which are usually so slight in game effects that they barely ever warrant models by anyone other than the most dedicated player.

It sounds like you have a player problem, not a squadron rules problem.

You're going to need to be confrontational and address this directly. If you don't, your group will likely fragment and die off. Coming up with house rules will only hurt your group even more as that's not welcoming to new players coming into your community and will mess the rest of you up if you go to play people who aren't using your homebrew rules.

It should not take a player that long to move all their squadrons. Even in tournament play with two squadron heavy lists going at it, they usually finish on time. It might take the whole round, but they get it done.

You could try to play with a game time limit like in tournaments. You could also encourage them to use washers or other markets to make movement quicker and easier.

In the end it comes down to policing your own. Don't discourage them from playing squadrons but let them know that their slow play has become a problem.

What do you see when you 're watching a space battle in a star wars movie ? You see big ships and fighter squadrons. So star wars armada is about that : big ships and fighters swarms.

I think people suggesting to get rid of fighter squadrons in armada totally miss what space battles are in these movies. I would certainly not play a game about big ships only because it would not truely depict what I saw on the screen when I was a little boy.

On 8/22/2020 at 2:54 AM, M_Krakatoa said:

I think the issue came down to the fact that most of our group understood why someone would want to min max their squadrons engagement interactions if the move was within their range. One extra tied down squadron could impact what damage a ship took.

All of that min maxing just took soooo much time. Armada was (in our minds) about the ships, not squadron focused like x wing. But often more time was spent in our games moving squadrons than ships.

I do like the idea mentioned above to limit engagement to touching bases. I will take that as a possible smaller scope fix 👍

Star Wars space battles have ALWAYS been primarily driven by the small fighters; they are the real workhorses in ALL of the combat engagements in universe; canon or Legends or video games or TV or comics or movies. I do agree the current system is a little wonky, but I also think it is not anywhere near as horrible as people like to make it out to be. If you don't like fighters in your games, just rule no fighters up front for a match. Of course, this also screws with ship balance, but it does eliminate the immediate concern. However, rules lawyers will just shift to the ultra-fiddliness with the movement and range rulers and arcs and whatnot. Finicky busybody types are always going to find a thing to glom onto...

On 8/25/2020 at 12:56 AM, Green Knight said:

This is a game I would not want to play.

We have this in other systems, notably BFG, DFC, etc, where fighters and bombers are highly abstracted. But they aren't Star Wars, which is very much about the interactions of fighters and capital ships, and just how dangerous fighters are to them.

I think some reworks to the squadron game have some merit, but this mostly strips the flavour out.

I think the squadron game as it stands is fine, but if we are talking modifications to it, then my hot-take from a game design perspective is to definitely tie the squadrons to ships more. You activate squadrons either associated with a ship (per squadron values with normal ranges or Relay boosts), and move with them, or fire with them, or both if Squadron command is used. Squadrons can act independently as usual, but if they do not activate with a ship they are limited to only operating in the Squadron phase as per usual. Escort squadrons can always move and fire with their ship as long as they stay within range 1 of it; makes their ability more tangible, rather than just a flying pariah. So your screen moves with you, but can't perform offensive operations unless you specifically activate them to do so. Makes Xwings more viable (and Tie Advanced) and competitive. Alternately Escort may just be able to blip and intercept, so can move to engage if a ship or squadron they are Escorting is brought into range 1 (they rush to intercept and engage). May make for some hackey abuses around movement, but makes Escorts more important and viable, and makes ship screening an actual thing.

Rogues can do the same as a normal squadron and hang out with a ship and partial or full activate with it, or can operate normally in Squadron Phase. I thought about just stacking them in as their own activation in pairs, but that makes the activation stacking game even more absurd and Rogues overbalanced.

I also had thought about ships always being able to fire at squadrons in any arc at range 1 without eating up arc activations for normal fire; you get right up on them, then they can engage at will, rather than having to focus with longer range anti-squadron armaments. It ends up not actually boosting ships as much as you would think, but lends a little more realism to ships having all around point defense.

13 hours ago, Chemosh667 said:

We have this in other systems, notably BFG, DFC, etc, where fighters and bombers are highly abstracted. But they aren't Star Wars, which is very much about the interactions of fighters and capital ships, and just how dangerous fighters are to them.

I think some reworks to the squadron game have some merit, but this mostly strips the flavour out.

Indeed.

And BFG is quite playable and enjoyable, but the whole system is quite different from Armada's.

It's also a flavor thing: in SW, you see snubfighters blowing up mighty warships. I'd like to keep that flavor.

On 8/22/2020 at 1:43 AM, M_Krakatoa said:

Hey everyone,

...

I kinda get where you're coming from; min-maxing with squadrons can get more than a little time consuming & tedious.

However I don't necessarily like just tieing the squadrons to the ship as you propose.

What I might do instead (were I in your shoes) would be to assign squads to ships, just like you propose, but then to allow each ship with attached squadrons to place a marker in the play area & assign some/all of it's squadrons to that marker.

This would be the ship's "squadron attack marker" and would be used as the measuring point when the ship makes squadron attacks. You'd probably be placing this marker at deployment, and repositioning it every squadron phase (always keeping it within the parent ship's activation range) (also allows correct use of boosted comms & relay by extending that range)

Any ships not assigned to the squadron marker would be in defense of the parent ship; just as you had it.

Might end up being a nice middle ground by removing some of the min-maxing, but still allowing squadrons to function somewhat as originally intended. (There's possibly some other knock-on changes to the rules you've come up with that this would cause, but without sitting down and combing through it I couldn't tell you what).

Isn't what slows squadron play down trying to make a squadron that needs to be in range of things at the perfect range of all things it wants to effect and also out of range of "bad" things the issue?

If the goal is speeding up squadron play, wouldn't just limiting or eliminating how many range checks a squadron can make sort this out? Check if where the squadron wants to go is within the movement allowance, move it, and then no more checks until any range dependent abilities need resolved.

One of the things overall that slows the game down is all the checking distances a player is allowed before moving things.

That crazy long list of rules leading off the thread doesn't seem to cut to the chase as it were.

I'd say go the reverse from that, @Frimmel . Measure everything possible you can before you move the squad so you all have a stated understanding of the squads position, then move it. Then don't RE-check it. All that measuring is a feature of squadron play to me that represents the squads maneuverability. Though in truth when you think about it, one of the rules suggested here was base to base combat. Which would itself solve the issue of at least measuring combat range one all the time. And if applied to Aura abilities as well would eliminate those measurements too

10 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

I'd say go the reverse from that, @Frimmel . Measure everything possible you can before you move the squad so you all have a stated understanding of the squads position, then move it. Then don't RE-check it. All that measuring is a feature of squadron play to me that represents the squads maneuverability. Though in truth when you think about it, one of the rules suggested here was base to base combat. Which would itself solve the issue of at least measuring combat range one all the time. And if applied to Aura abilities as well would eliminate those measurements too

I personally like the idea of base-to-base contact for engagement. There are a ton of naval war games in which squadrons "dogfighting" need to be in base contact.

14 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

I'd say go the reverse from that, @Frimmel . Measure everything possible you can before you move the squad so you all have a stated understanding of the squads position, then move it. Then don't RE-check it. All that measuring is a feature of squadron play to me that represents the squads maneuverability. Though in truth when you think about it, one of the rules suggested here was base to base combat. Which would itself solve the issue of at least measuring combat range one all the time. And if applied to Aura abilities as well would eliminate those measurements too

All that measuring is what is slowing things down. What is the primary thing base to base does? It removes measuring. All that measuring is what makes aces over-efficient. Less measuring would reduce some of the efficiency of aces without points changes. Especially aces with halo abilities. You have to eyeball it and live with the choice. Maybe being less assured of perfect placement would make generics a bit more attractive. If Jendon can not be perfectly placed maybe that would be a reasonable nerf.

I suppose the measuring could represent maneuverability. Another way to look at it is all that measuring is not in time with things. It is easy to be perfectly maneuverable if you already know where something is. What is being represented in the game is meant to be a bit more concurrent than moving the pieces around permits isn't it?

The pre-measuring is one of the things that makes Armada accessible. But with squadron play it is being overdone. It is trying to put spaces back on the map which someone suggested as a way to speed things up. What would spaces do? Remove measuring.

I see lots of complaints about squadron play being to fiddly. Remove the fiddling.

I could see a benefit to squadrons being engaged if they are in base-to-base, while still needing to measure Distance 1 to a ship to attack it. Then Snipe could be the one time squadrons could be out of physical contact to attack squadrons, because it's not as prevalent of a situation.

That would speed up a lot of fiddly play while still retaining the feel of squadrons attacking ships.

@Frimmel I strongly disagree that ability to measure accurately and utilize that info is the key to over* efficient game pieces, anymore for squads then I would logically also have to apply to ships who also get a great degree of the same measuring. And as I've just as often seen players go to great lengths to perfectly measure out a ship move and fiddle with the tool and ruler until they get the move they think is ideal, it bears itself out in the evidence. If I were to say it was a problem of measurement for squads, I'd also have to say the same for any ship even with the tool occasionally getting in the way. E.G. Demolisher. Some may hate it when I place my squad just right, but I have every right to be just as annoyed that you could try almost every four speed configuration of the tool and switch back and forth instruments and use 'navigating by the stars' with a range ruler to find the perfect spot to rush your demo to and get it just right after three minutes of fiddling around.

I do however strongly believe that it's a play feature of the game. When you measure out and position a squad(or indeed a ship) in just the right spot, it feels good as a player, and yes bad as an opponent at times. Like you just gave an brilliant order of "engage those fighters but steer clear of the enemy point defense guns! Keep close to your support unit and watch out for the enemy squad at bearing...". That's darn good immersion to me. Something that Armada has captured with more strength with it's more 'freeform with constraints' systems then almost any other space combat game I've seen. It's not as 'sterile' or 'robotic' an experience as a game thanks to these elements. It also gives you a skill element that has little to do with the statistics of the game and well more to do with how you use and see the board as a puzzle of pieces and how they fit together. Which gets back to the first point: a *skilled* player with measuring can *maximize* their game pieces. And I wouldn't want to lose that.

Now were you to put a grid or spaces back in to the game like some had suggested, you wouldn't solve the issue of time consumption. I'd still be sitting there counting out spaces on the board trying to come up with the perfect spot on the board. Just instead of a ruler I'd be counting hexes or something. Like, well if I'm here I'm within 3 of that, 2 away from there, and engaged there, but if I go here I'm 4 from that and still engaged, oh wait I won't have a spot to put this squad, hmmm, let's see if I try this one I'm still too close to that... etc etc. I'd still have the player drive to 'solve the puzzle' of the perfect space to be. Just differently. Even B2B would still have some elements of this, arguably more since you could play the 'I'm not touching you' shenanigans.

On the bit about concurrency of in game movement, apologies but I'm not sure I understand your point so far? Are you trying to get at the underlying how much time passes in a round, and therefore how much time would the units in game have to effect change on the board question? Like in the way dungeons and dragons had it defined as a combat round is 6 seconds type deal? If so we get into all kinds of minutiae of what sensors, do what ships have, that can sense what range, and on down the rabbit hole we go. The fact that with a bit of work a large capital ship can pull a 90° turn in one round and a squad can flip and go the other way tell me that there's a good bit of time to play with. It's pretty abstract to even try to guess really.

Sometimes the fiddly bits are good. I've just as often seen people like the squads as not.

14 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

@Frimmel I strongly disagree that ability to measure accurately and utilize that info is the key to over* efficient game pieces, anymore for squads then I would logically also have to apply to ships who also get a great degree of the same measuring. And as I've just as often seen players go to great lengths to perfectly measure out a ship move and fiddle with the tool and ruler until they get the move they think is ideal, it bears itself out in the evidence. If I were to say it was a problem of measurement for squads, I'd also have to say the same for any ship even with the tool occasionally getting in the way. E.G. Demolisher. Some may hate it when I place my squad just right, but I have every right to be just as annoyed that you could try almost every four speed configuration of the tool and switch back and forth instruments and use 'navigating by the stars' with a range ruler to find the perfect spot to rush your demo to and get it just right after three minutes of fiddling around.

I do however strongly believe that it's a play feature of the game. When you measure out and position a squad(or indeed a ship) in just the right spot, it feels good as a player, and yes bad as an opponent at times. Like you just gave an brilliant order of "engage those fighters but steer clear of the enemy point defense guns! Keep close to your support unit and watch out for the enemy squad at bearing...". That's darn good immersion to me. Something that Armada has captured with more strength with it's more 'freeform with constraints' systems then almost any other space combat game I've seen. It's not as 'sterile' or 'robotic' an experience as a game thanks to these elements. It also gives you a skill element that has little to do with the statistics of the game and well more to do with how you use and see the board as a puzzle of pieces and how they fit together. Which gets back to the first point: a *skilled* player with measuring can *maximize* their game pieces. And I wouldn't want to lose that.

Now were you to put a grid or spaces back in to the game like some had suggested, you wouldn't solve the issue of time consumption. I'd still be sitting there counting out spaces on the board trying to come up with the perfect spot on the board. Just instead of a ruler I'd be counting hexes or something. Like, well if I'm here I'm within 3 of that, 2 away from there, and engaged there, but if I go here I'm 4 from that and still engaged, oh wait I won't have a spot to put this squad, hmmm, let's see if I try this one I'm still too close to that... etc etc. I'd still have the player drive to 'solve the puzzle' of the perfect space to be. Just differently. Even B2B would still have some elements of this, arguably more since you could play the 'I'm not touching you' shenanigans.

I think part of the forthcoming ace cap is related to what I'm suggesting. Reduce the number of aces and maybe reduce the number of halo abilities that need perfectly placed and maybe speed up squadron play. Because that's the issue with squadrons. Needing to manage and perfectly place all those halos. But if fiddling with all those halos is a feature of the game...

14 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

On the bit about concurrency of in game movement, apologies but I'm not sure I understand your point so far? Are you trying to get at the underlying how much time passes in a round, and therefore how much time would the units in game have to effect change on the board question? Like in the way dungeons and dragons had it defined as a combat round is 6 seconds type deal? If so we get into all kinds of minutiae of what sensors, do what ships have, that can sense what range, and on down the rabbit hole we go. The fact that with a bit of work a large capital ship can pull a 90° turn in one round and a squad can flip and go the other way tell me that there's a good bit of time to play with. It's pretty abstract to even try to guess really.

Sometimes the fiddly bits are good. I've just as often seen people like the squads as not.

Yes, I am trying to get at how much time passes in a round. I'm trying to not go down a rabbit hole of minutiae as I am saying with squadrons we have too much minutiae when we consider how much time units have to react to things. We have to move squadrons individually but conceptually there is some overlap in "when" all this stuff happens. It is the same round afterall.

In my version of immersion I don't get to order my squadron with perfect knowledge of where the enemy is. I know where he's going and have an idea of what he wants to do there and I'm reacting to that. But that order doesn't get to be formed and executed with perfect knowledge while under-fire. In that sense squadrons getting perfectly placed doesn't quite fit with what is supposed to be going on. To me it should be a little sloppier already even besides my opinion that the fiddling is where the squadron time bog lies.

Aces bring too much efficiency and an orchestra of halos.

23 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

Aces bring too much efficiency and an orchestra of halos.

I always preferred Single Ladies or Bills Bills Bills, personally, but you do you

On 8/31/2020 at 9:47 AM, Frimmel said:

Y es, I am trying to get at how much time passes in a round.... We have to move squadrons individually but conceptually there is some overlap in "when" all this stuff happens. It is the same round afterall.

In my version of immersion I don't get to order my squadron with perfect knowledge of where the enemy is. I know where he's going and have an idea of what he wants to do there and I'm reacting to that. But that order doesn't get to be formed and executed with perfect knowledge while under-fire. In that sense squadrons getting perfectly placed doesn't quite fit with what is supposed to be going on. To me it should be a little sloppier already even besides my opinion that the fiddling is where the squadron time bog lies.

Much of that Ace cap is indeed aimed at the Aura problem. But I'd say it's more about the problem of the games natural development backing itself into a corner with how many of the Aura effects can stack force multipliers incestuously. At some point there'd be enough to fill a list with nothing but auras. Like you said, an orchestra, something that becomes greater than it's component parts. The measurement time factors in to it sure, but I'd wager much less so then the exponential powering of squads as the real problem. Setting up the halos is still a feature, but one with a feedback loop that needs addressed. So the cap puts a limit on the exponent, and side effect things go a bit quicker. That will fall apart with injections of more things like Snipe that just have a second range they predominately interact with by themselves. Sadly I think the cap will just introduce a different problem: the draft. But that's another discussion itself.

For the knowledge/time part of things I think it can be well argued that you have plenty of abstract time to have the knowledge as a player that you have for the squads. You've got nearby ships monitoring the area and feeding you info from command centers, squads communicating back and forth, and the squads themselves have their own imaginable small ability to monitor things on their own too. All together and considering we still have to yield to what at it's core an IGYG structure, I don't see any issue. Like I said, time is super abstract on Armada to the point where we could reasonably assume the events of a round were *not* concurrent. Certainly not to even the level X-wing gets with a double blind and split move and fire phases. But rather just a long running stream of individual events. Even DnD has the issue of later activations having more knowledge of what happens in the 6 seconds then the first activation.

Armada, and many tabletops for that matter, kinda utilize feature from one of my favorite RPGs called Feng Shui. In that game it's assumed that when it's not your turn, time keeps going, and your basically shooting a movie and are just background until the camera comes back. Basically they lean into the idea that a game can't track everything concurrently. All a 'turn' represents is where the camera happens to be looking and it's focusing on the important and cool moments. I see the same thing in Armada where it's like, yeah, those squads and ships are duking it out over there still, but for this activation we're just looking at these few guys when they progress their fronts. Great game, check it out if you get a chance and haven't yet.

Ultimately though, we're just philosophizing on the games time frames. It doesn't have a stated one like DnD, so it's just kinda on each of us to figure out what we see and the how and why of it. I see an Feng Shui style roving camera, you see whatever it is you see. And perfect information plagues the ships just as much anyway over a round, feeding into that holy activation count advantage and all. Again, if I were to hold the point as a problem with one side, is have to hold it to the other just the same since they use the same timing structure.